I started watching Star Trek: Enterprise last night

"TheHondaBro" (wwaveform) 01/31/2016 at 22:51 • Filed to: None

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I’m not sure if I like Captain Archer, but it seems like a cool series so far.

Chariotoflove > TheHondaBro 01/31/2016 at 22:55

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Spoiler: the captain’s dog, Porthos, is the best character in the series.

Honestly, I really like Scott Bakula. He did the best you could expect with the writing and direction they had.

TheHondaBro > Chariotoflove 01/31/2016 at 22:56

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I like it in the sense that it gives insight to the early days of the Federation.

BornSwedeDriveSwede > TheHondaBro 01/31/2016 at 23:02

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Haters will be haters but there's some fun stuff in this series. I like that the federation is the new kid on the block with little power or respect.

Agrajag > TheHondaBro 01/31/2016 at 23:03

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I watched this series for the second time since its release pretty recently. I hated it originally, but after the second viewing it’s only my least favorite Trek. Really good episodes were too few, but I liked each character.

Archer actually ended up being my least favorite character on the show. And I had such high hopes for Dr. Sam Beckett.

Chariotoflove > TheHondaBro 01/31/2016 at 23:04

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Yeah, that’s cool, but you have to prepare yourself for the fact that the people who wrote and guided Enterprise are not the same people they inherited the Star Trek universe from. So, for instance, there are episodes that portray Vulcans as racists who look upon telepaths among them like people with HIV were treated in the 90s, which makes no sense if you know Old Trek.

But with those caveats, enjoy. There are some decent stories there. I watched them all.

Frank Grimes > TheHondaBro 01/31/2016 at 23:07

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currently working my way through DS9 I started with the first series and its been great!

TheHondaBro > Agrajag 01/31/2016 at 23:08

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If Archer weren’t such a petulant individual, I would really like him.

Agrajag > Chariotoflove 01/31/2016 at 23:13

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That storyline annoyed the shit out of me. I could accept it as something that they struggled with centuries ago, but for mind melding to be so quickly integrated into their culture and widespread that within 80 years, half vulcan/humans become experts at it?

Agrajag > TheHondaBro 01/31/2016 at 23:15

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Even though he’s an actor and it’s implied in the profession, it’s like he’s pretending to be petulant. Might be because Scott Bakula doesn’t have an angry or ill-tempered bone in his body.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > TheHondaBro 01/31/2016 at 23:17

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I liked it, yeah it’s not as great as earlier series were, but it’s good enough. That theme song though, it gets old really quick when binge watching.

Chariotoflove > Agrajag 01/31/2016 at 23:18

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Well, and we had always been led to believe that mind melds, etc. we're an ancient and revered part of Vulcan cultural identity (e.g: Amok Time, or The Search for Spock). It's like you want to phone up the producers and ask them if they even bothered to watch Star Trek first.

Chariotoflove > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 01/31/2016 at 23:21

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Oh yeah. I watched every episode, but that title tune is why God invented the mute button.

Chariotoflove > Frank Grimes 01/31/2016 at 23:24

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Enjoy! DS9 was well done. I’m told by some they poached the idea from Babylon 5, but I think it was a fresh look at the Star Trek universe.

Chariotoflove > Agrajag 01/31/2016 at 23:25

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Quantum Leap is why I became a Bakula fan. He did the character so well that he carried that one-man show for years. Impressive.

Frank Grimes > Chariotoflove 01/31/2016 at 23:26

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I think the first season of DS9 was pretty boring until maybe half way through and I remember hoping the whole show doesnt stay on this boring gray space station, but I have really liked it and how the characters were developed through the seasons.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > Frank Grimes 01/31/2016 at 23:27

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Having seen them all, DS9 is one of the best. It’s different, but in a great way.

TheHondaBro > Chariotoflove 01/31/2016 at 23:30

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Truer words have never been spoken.

Steve in Manhattan > TheHondaBro 01/31/2016 at 23:38

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The one Star Trek series I have not seen ... can anyone really recommend it?

TheHondaBro > Steve in Manhattan 01/31/2016 at 23:39

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Seemingly not.

Chariotoflove > Frank Grimes 01/31/2016 at 23:42

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I agree. It developed momentum.

Agrajag > Chariotoflove 01/31/2016 at 23:43

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Also led to believe that Vulcans weren’t complete dicks.

Agrajag > Chariotoflove 01/31/2016 at 23:47

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Same here. I remember being so excited for a new Trek series and with Scott Bakula as captain to boot. For a science fiction fan alive in the 80's and 90's it seemed too good to be true.

yep...

Agrajag > Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch 01/31/2016 at 23:55

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I love DS9. The only downside is it’s difficult to just sit down and watch a random episode since it was mostly one fantastic storyline. TNG or TOS you could really pick up almost anywhere and it wouldn’t matter.

Agrajag > Steve in Manhattan 01/31/2016 at 23:58

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Just watch the last episode. It caused a shit storm among the cast and crew, but it was cool episode that elaborated on trek lore and catered to fans.

Nick Has an Exocet > TheHondaBro 01/31/2016 at 23:59

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I enjoyed it. It’s not the best Star Trek (it sits just above the new movies for me, which, in my opinion - are not Star Trek). Phlox is the best. Katherine Pulaski can suck my grits.

Also, I named my car T’Pol.

Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch > Agrajag 01/31/2016 at 23:59

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TNG is so good, it’s where I started watching.

Steve in Manhattan > Agrajag 02/01/2016 at 00:41

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Damn - I am one of those completists ... like to watch it all. Am I signing myself up for something dumb?

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > TheHondaBro 02/01/2016 at 07:31

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I ‘watched’ some of these in college. My girlfriend at the time would get them as video CDs from her dad. We usually just made out with it playing in the background; she also let me touch her boobs, so yeah.

I recall liking the Doctor character, and the Vulcan girl is very pretty. I tried watching the whole series later and it got really weird sometimes. Not just because I was remembering my previous viewings either.

Agrajag > Steve in Manhattan 02/01/2016 at 08:31

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I wouldn't say dumb. Mostly uninteresting would be a better way to put it.

Chariotoflove > Agrajag 02/01/2016 at 09:04

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Or vain enough to get fake boobs.

Chariotoflove > Agrajag 02/01/2016 at 09:06

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Could have been worse, I suppose. And the ship was cool. I have the die cast Christmas ornament.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > TheHondaBro 02/01/2016 at 09:46

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I’m a big fan actually. Archer’s a bit of a wooden character, but the rest are excellent. They do a lot of interesting things with the characters, and they all seem real and relatable.

I also love how low-tech things are. No shields, no tractor beams. They've got 'polarise the hull plating' and a little grappling hook on a long cable. Excellent :)

Agrajag > Chariotoflove 02/01/2016 at 09:49

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Since we hadn’t seen that much Vulcan boob before, I just accepted that was the way they were.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Chariotoflove 02/01/2016 at 09:51

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The way I like to reconcile things like that is propaganda.

Would the Vulcan high command like to admit they were persecuting a whole subset of their population a short time ago? I sincerely doubt it.

Also, 80 years for cultural change isn't that short of a time. Mobile phones have only been around since 1973, but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone in a developed country today who doesn't have one.

Chariotoflove > Agrajag 02/01/2016 at 10:14

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Okay, I guess I can work with that.

Chariotoflove > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 02/01/2016 at 10:23

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I admire your flexibility to roll with what you’re given. Me, I get mental whiplash when what I was presented for so many years is turned on its ear. I was able to make the shift to accepting that the Klingons were the honorable warriors and the Romulans were the conniving sneaky ones by telling myself that we had not gotten inside their cultures in the old series enough to really understand them. But the Vulcans we felt we knew from inside through the Spock character. It was too hard to throw all that out.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > TheHondaBro 02/01/2016 at 10:54

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10/10 would watch again just to see Tupal go all pon far.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Chariotoflove 02/01/2016 at 10:57

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Hmmm, I find it trickier to reconcile the Klingon/Romulan flip than the Vulcan thing (perhaps because I came into Trek inbetween the two generations I haven’t got as clear of a picture built up of Vulcans from the original series).

I wonder if you could explain the Klingon/Romulan thing as cultural evolution or simply differing heads of state. Not sure about that though as they’d have to completely rewrite the martial code of each culture, both of which forms the basis of their respective cultures.

Thinking about it, it does seem a little messy...

Chariotoflove > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 02/01/2016 at 11:51

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Warning: full-on nerd episode approaching.

The biggest exposure we had to Romulans in Classic Trek was Mark Lenard’s character in Balance of Terror , wherein he portrayed the honorable warrior from a militaristic culture holding his duty above all else and respecting his adversary. Also, the association of this race by name with the Roman Empire brings to us westerners cultural overtones of strength, order, and a warrior honor code. The portrayal of Romulans in The Enterprise Incident kind of damps that image somewhat because the Romulan commander presents a more crafty and manipulative persona.

The Klingons were from the beginning portrayed as a brutal, mongol-like culture whose conquest-bent hordes would sweep aside a mercilessly crush all in their path. Even their makeup reinforced this “Ghengis Khan” like image (see Errand of Mercy ). Then, in The Trouble With Tribbles, we were presented with them as sneaky bastards who used sabotage and subterfuge to get ahead. The image was one of a people who had no moral code other than to win at all costs. But even in Errand of Mercy , you could see from the Klingon commander/governor a glimmer of the idea that the object of war was to gain glory and honor in battle, and he respected the infamous Captain Kirk from his reputation.

So, when New Trek came along, and we were presented with Klingon and Roman cultures that seemed to “flip” from what we understood before, we could justify it by realizing that we had only had glimpses of these races before through specific individuals. Maybe we had misinterpreted? It worked because the series went on to delve into these races much more deeply than the old series.

But with the Vulcans, we spent so much time with Spock, and then we had Amok Time and Journey to Babel , and then the movies. We got close to them through Spock, and they were firmly established as a proud people, but a people whose adherence to logic and reason overrode all else. Irrational bigotry just can’t fit with the image they spent so many years building up. We are also presented with many instances of telepathy as an integral part of their makeup, dating back to ancient times (see the Star Trek movies I and III as examples). You can’t credibly throw that all away just because you think it makes a good story line in an episode.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Chariotoflove 02/01/2016 at 12:01

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Gotcha. It’s the same sort of thing as landing on one specific place on an alien planet and using that particular area as a representative of the whole planet.

For instance, if an alien landed in cold-war US and cold-war USSR they’d get a very different idea of what Earth was like...

I think the way I can justify the Vulcan thing is by thinking that Vulcans like to think they are creatures of pure logic, but time and again during all of the iterations of Star Trek that’s been shown to be not exactly true.

Judged in the light of a culture that strives towards logic, despite their less that purely logical nature, a lot of the more odd events make sense.

Saying that, I do get that that whole train of thought is a patch-up for the writers taking a whole different tack towards a well established character, culture and species...

Chariotoflove > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 02/01/2016 at 12:56

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Yeah, you can just say “people are complicated”, and ultimately you kind of have to roll with it if you want to enjoy the show.

NJAnon > TheHondaBro 02/01/2016 at 23:22

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Just now HondaBro?

I hope you enjoy it. I’m no insane diehard fan (don’t overthink it everyone!) but I liked Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise; they were new enough to have good visuals for a space sci fi show and they were going to temper certain things so people wouldn’t be rolling their eyes:

(ie., the next generation having some character show up called Q, wtf?)

greasemonkey235097 > TheHondaBro 02/04/2016 at 15:38

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Season 1 and season 4 are worth a complete watch and few episodes in between.