If there’s one thing Enterprise has going for it, it’s the special effects budget. Â Some episodes are so packed with gratuitous space-ey CGI that it’s almost like watching a Hollywood blockbuster. Â And while Star Trek has always been about pushing the syndicated television special effects envelope, sometimes I’d rather have an interesting plot with cardboard walls and paper mache rocks than a contrived lesson that doubles as a sci-fi plot, even though supernovae are intricately rendered in glorious pixel-perfect detail.
Enterprise: The Breach (S02E21)
July 7, 2009 by
This was an episode that had high ambitions, but fell short more than a few times of actually attaining them. One of the two plots involves a team of three cavers (Tripp and Malcolm, led by Travis, who is apparently really darn good at spelunking. He must have learned it during all those years aboard a cargo ship…or something) who are sent to rescue a team of Denobulans who have been basically living underground on a foreign planet in order to collect rocks. Turns out the planet is being taken over by some really nasty people who don’t want these three aliens exploring their caves, so who better to go get them than the crew of the Enterprise? Yeah, I was wondering that myself. Meanwhile, back on the ship, Doc is having a culture crisis as one of his patients, who is from a freighter orbiting the planet, is an Antaran, and just as three horns don’t play with longnecks, everyone knows that Denobulans don’t like Antarans, and vice versa. He kind of wants to treat the patient, but the patient would rather die than be treated by a Denobulan.
Do I sense a lesson in understanding coming? Yah, you betcha.
Firefly: The Train Job (S01E02)
July 1, 2009 by
Mal: Now, this is all the money Niska gave us in advance. You bring it back to him. Tell him the job didn’t work out. We’re not thieves. But we are thieves. Point is, we’re not takin’ what’s his. Now we’ll stay out of his way as best we can from here on in. You explain that’s best for everyone, okay?
Crow: Keep the money. Use it to buy a funeral. It doesn’t matter where you go or how far you fly. I will hunt you down, and the last thing you see will be my blade.
Mal: Darn.
This is one of the quintessential episodes of the short-lived but brilliant show Firefly, and one of the best episodes of any science fiction show in recent memory. While the premise of the show (an old-fashioned train robbery) is engaging in and of itself, it’s the way that Joss Wheedon, the TV show’s creator and the director of this episode, introduces his characters and lets them play within the tapestry he has imagined, that truly hook the viewer and set the tone for the series as a whole.  I often tell people that Firefly is sort of like what would happen if there was a TV show about the adventures of Han Solo–the Solo who shoots first, that is.  And the above dialog between the show’s hero, Malcolm, and one very nasty henchman, perfectly capture the mix of determination, heroism, and (provided you have seen the episode) humor that has eluded so many TV protagonists in recent memory.
Firely is also often described as a western in outer space, and with the backdrop of a train heist, and a cast of ragtag scoundrels living life by their own rules, it’s easy to see how one would arrive at this sort of conclusion after watching The Train Job. Interestingly, Wheedon had originally intended to use this as the true pilot episode, and the character introductions feel much more natural and organic than in the substitute pilot demanded by FOX. So much characterization is packed into the 40 short minutes of The Train Job that I think Aaron Sorkin would even be jealous. But far from just introducing the characters, they each find a way to contribute to the show (save for River, the young girl whose past is hinted at and spends most of the episode practicing emo stares in the corner). We get hints that “shepherd” Book is more than he claims to be, see many sides of the illustrious Jayne, and even get a peek at a budding romance between the ship’s mechanic and doctor. But it’s the final minutes of the show, when the fearless take-no-prisoners Captain Mal demonstrates what Faramir in Lord of the Rings would call his true quality that we see how special these characters, and the who show, really are.
Enterprise: Horizon (S02E20)
June 21, 2009 by
Recently I was discussing Enterprise with one of my friends. I told her that the show felt too stilted, and often uninteresting, as if the creators had some sort of list for qualities a show should have and would check them off one by one as they completed an episode. This episode more or less typifies my thoughts about the show in general, partially because its focus on Travis Mayweather’s home life/background story seems a bit too forced and contrived, and also because the subplot about T’pol and horror movies back on the Enterprise felt a little too tacked on. It seems as though Berman and Braga were sitting in a room one day and thought to themselves, “Hey, we don’t know much about our navigation fella. Let’s do a show on his family, or something.” And thus was the genesis of “Horizon.” Mayweather gets notified that his father, captain of the cargo transport vessel Horizon, is on his way to that big shipyard in the sky, and fortunately the Enterprise is heading in a direction that just so happens to take them near the ship. As soon as they arrive we find out that Travis’ dad has already passed away, his brother is now captain of the ship, and his mom, who acts just like the Oracle from the Matrix, keeps the ship running while passing out nuggets of wisdom and advice like a human PEZ dispenser.
Meanwhile, Tucker invites T’pol to watch the original black-and-white Frankenstein because he wants her to experience a horror movie. She resists at first, but once again we have the non-human character make all kinds of observations about human behavior while growing more human herself. Again, this subplot just doesn’t feel natural. It’s kind of interesting, but at the end of the day it seems like it arose out of the need for a subplot, not the desire to truly explore human emotions. Travis, as anyone could have predicted, is having trouble dealing with his father’s death. His brother doesn’t like his Starfleet sibling to come back and act like he knows what it’s like to be on a cargo ship again. Their mom plays the middle, they all get in a bad scrape, and by the end of the show we’ve all learned a valuable lesson about overcoming differences, putting aside old conflicts, and working together as a team. Awww.
It’s not that the episode was bad, it just wasn’t as good as it could have been. And that all stems from a lack of true characterization–most of the cast seems like they are merely inhabiting a role rather than playing true characters who live and work together on a starship. But we’ll keep plugging away and see how the rest of Season 2 plays out.
