Enterprise Review: “Regeneration”

If Star Trek Continuity was a person, I’d be getting it to a rape victim support group.

Read more, if you care.

Enterprise LogoRegeneration

 

Cast & Crew

Director: David Livingston
Written By: Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong

Starring
Scott Bakula as Captain
Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Chief
Engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as Sub-commander
T’Pol
Dominic Keating as Lt.
Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery
as Ensign Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Ensign Hoshi
Sato
John Billingsley
as Dr. Phlox

Guest Cast
Chris Wynne as Dr. Moninger
Bonita Friedericy as Rooney
John Short as Drake
Adam Harrington as Researcher
Vaughn Armstrong as Admiral Forrest
Jim Fitzpatrick as Commander Williams
Mark Chadwick as Male Tarkalean
Nicole Randal as Female Tarkalean
Paul Scott as Foster

Airdate Information

Originally Aired: May 7, 2003
Season: Two
Episode: Twenty-Four
Production: 049

This Week on EnterpriseWhat Happened

An arctic research team on Earth discovers debris from an alien vessel, nearly a century old, buried in a glacier along with the bodies of two cybernetically enhanced humanoids. Once those beings are thawed for investigation, they come to life and abduct the scientists and their transport vessel. Enterprise is called to intercept, but Captain Archer and his crew find these cyborgs to be an intractable, insidious enemy. [Video Teaser]

Review

And to think, I passed on the chance to have someone else review this one.

On one hand, by itself, this episode was fun to watch. At least until yet another continuity error comes up. Then it just becomes an insult to Star Trek and its fans. To make matters worse, B&B don’t even have writing credits on this one. Someone else is to blame, and Sussman and Strong should know better!

Starfleet gets way too much information about the Borg. The nannites, the assimilation, even the time period on when they’d return. Don’t you think they’d plan a little better for their arrival?

High Point

A tie between Phlox’s dismay at underestimating the Borg and Archer’s remorse at having to suck two infected aliens into deep space.

Low Point

Anything and everything having to do with continuity with the Star Trek timeline.

The Scores

Originality: It’s the Borg. While thrilling to see, they are still just the Borg. 3 out of 6.

Effects: As always it looks great. 5 out of 6.

Story: Complete disregard for continuity spoils this outing from the beginning. 1 out of 6.

Acting: Phlox and Archer are both very good. 5 out of 6.

Emotional Response: You mean other than raw frustration? 2 out of 6.

Production: The interior shots of the arctic transport were suitably eerie. 4 out of 6

Overall: An obvious attempt to get the fans back by using a popular villain. Can’t you guys come up with something more original? 1 out of 6.

Total: 21 out of 42

Episode Media

Fun Links

Can’t get enough of those assimilating aliens? StarTrek.com has a complete Borg Culture dossier for your reading pleasure.

From StarTrek.com

Next Time on Enterprise (May 14, 2003) *Double Feature*

Next Time on EnterpriseFirst Flight

While Enterprise is investigating what appears to be a dark matter nebula, Archer receives news that A.G. Robinson, his old rival in the early days of the NX test program, has died. During a shuttlepod mission into the dark matter phenomenon, Archer reminisces to T’Pol about the time he and Robinson were pilots competing for the honor of being the first to break the Warp 2 barrier.

Next Time on EnterpriseBounty

A Tellarite bounty hunter captures Archer intending to turn him over to the Klingons for a substantial reward. Meanwhile, T’Pol is infected with an alien pathogen that unleashes her primal Vulcan urges.

Additional Notes and Comments

If you’re interested in what’s in TheAngryMob’s review queue, check out my What’s Coming page.

TheAngrymob

37 replies on “Enterprise Review: “Regeneration””

  1. Continutiy?
    I’m not really getting the continuity error? I mean, when Picard first encountered the Borg, at the very least we know that the Borg had not gone back in time at that point, so the timeline for Picard and the Federation wouldn’t have included the Borg (and we can be sure the Warp flight would’ve occured anyway had the Borg NOT gone back in time).

    I think that Borg going back in time changed the timeline. In fact, the timeline of Enterprise may not be the same as the other ST shows at all. Remember that ep. when Work was jumping between parallel universes, where they confirmed the theory that each decision point spawns an alternate universe? Well, that’s what’s happening here. ANd it doesn’t require any invention or assumption. All from what we know about the ST universe.

    Now, if you don’t subscribe to all that mumbo-jumbo, there’s the R2D2/C3PO Theory, which states that some time in the future, this information will be “forgotten”, and you can’t call foul until you’ve seen everything play out.

    And finally, there’s no reason to believe that any historical record, or recollection of events from the ST shows we’ve already seen is 100% accurate WRT what actually happened.

    • Re: Continutiy?

      In fact, the timeline of Enterprise may not be the same as the other ST shows at all.

      If that’s what we get to, what’s the point of watching this show at all? The appeal to the fans was supposed to be that we get to see the formation of the Federation and all that good stuff. You may be right, and if so, they will lose what few fans they have left.

      They are missing all the good stuff. Details of some cool history. Several relationships have to be established before TOS. Klingon, Gorn, Romulan and so forth. Why bother with the Borg at all?

      • Re: Continutiy?

        In fact, the timeline of Enterprise may not be the same as the other ST shows at all.

        If that’s what we get to, what’s the point of watching this show at all? The appeal to the fans was supposed to be that we get to see the formation of the Federation and all that good stuff. You may be right, and if so, they will lose what few fans they have left.

        They are missing all the good stuff. Details of some cool history. Several relationships have to be established before TOS. Klingon, Gorn, Romulan and so forth. Why bother with the Borg at all?

        yep. that’s what I was looking forward to. and that’s what is missing. which is why I’m not watching. Over the years I’ve become less and less enamored of Star Trek. This is putting the final nails in its coffin.

      • Re: Continutiy?

        Several relationships have to be established before TOS. Klingon, Gorn, Romulan and so forth. Why bother with the Borg at all?

        Right on! I think that the writers should try and think of Enterprise as historical fiction. There are lots of movies/tv shows/books that are close to historically accurate, and believable. Enterprise needs to do the same.

        And I want to see the Romulan War!

        –Andrew

        • Re: Continutiy?

          Several relationships have to be established before TOS. Klingon, Gorn, Romulan and so forth. Why bother with the Borg at all?

          Right on! I think that the writers should try and think of Enterprise as historical fiction. There are lots of movies/tv shows/books that are close to historically accurate, and believable. Enterprise needs to do the same

          This is what is angering me the most about Enterprise – they already knew the basic timeline that it takes place in, and they definitely know where they have to be by the end of the series. Every time they introduce a new alien species or do something in the line of “Regeneration”, they are spitting on the memory of Gene Roddenberry. What’s next? Will Archer and Company encounter a Changeling?

          • Re: Continutiy?
            Next thing you know, you’ll see an interracial kiss 100 years before it first happened!

        • Re: Continutiy?
          Right on! I think that the writers should try and think of Enterprise as historical fiction. There are lots of movies/tv shows/books that are close to historically accurate, and believable. Enterprise needs to do the same.

          now im wondering eny one know if theres Books of StarTrek flooting true the web?… well i whould like too get my hands on that book… whould be better too read… i think u miss damn mutch in lots of series things that u understand better if u read

      • Re: Continutiy?

        The appeal to the fans was supposed to be
        that we get to see the formation of the Federation and all
        that

        Wouldn’t a portrayal of the creation of the Federation span so many
        years that a series centered on the travels of the first starship couldn’t
        hope to encompass the entire timeframe?

        And, frankly, it’s debatable that Trek fans alone can sustain a TV
        series, regardless of quality. In any case, the need to draw viewers from
        outside the realm of Trek faithful is real.

        And that’s where continuity raises it’s ugly head. Trek is carrying around
        more the 30 years of continuity baggage. That’s important to people who
        think continuity is sacred; it’s a pain in the ass to writers trying to inject
        tension, conflict, character, and drama into their plots: “No, you can’t do
        that, because Spock used his other hand to wave at Kirk in episode 12 of
        TOS”.

        What Enterprise needs more than anythig else,
        including adherence to continuity, is Good Stories. Alas, this is really hard
        to do when you’re working with half-a-dozen or so bland characters stuck
        inside a big bus going nowhere in particular. You’d think someone would
        have learned the lessons of Voyager and DS-9 by now.

      • Re: Continutiy?
        <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE="cite">
        <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE="cite">In fact, the timeline of Enterprise may not be the same as the other ST shows at all.</blockquote>
        <p>Worf’s universe-swapping in "Parallels" is a poor example because he didn’t change anything in those universes. He just kept getting shifted around. Bad continuity is the fault of the show’s directors, not a reason to try to correct it by saying it’s an alternate universe.
        </BLOCKQUOTE>

    • Re: Continutiy?

      I’m not really getting the continuity error? I mean, when Picard first encountered the Borg, at the very least we know that the Borg had not gone back in time at that point, so the timeline for Picard and the Federation wouldn’t have included the Borg (and we can be sure the Warp flight would’ve occured anyway had the Borg NOT gone back in time).

      Theoretically you are correct. Picard initiated that loop. So the Borg come in the 24th century because of a signal that was sent in the 22nd, which doesn’t happen until the Borg go back in time in the 24th. Technically, it is correct, but then most causeality loops are messy. So I can’t fault your logic where this is concerned. But it shouldn’t have been brought up in the series. There far are to many interesting “historical” events to delve into without getting into the whole Borg thing. Hey, maybe this could have come up in some future season, but who knows if there will ever be another chance. It really seems as though they are trying to get ratings up with stuff like this instead of making they “history” compelling. Lets face it, wars are interesting. During this time there is the Romulan and Klingon war. Plus the formation of the Federation. If B&B can’t see the interest in that I don’t know what they are planning. Some more wacky aliens to teach us lessons about how Humans are nosy?

      • Re: Continutiy?
        The point at the end of the episode was meant to make you think, "Gee, once the signal gets there and they respond, they’ll start advancing out of the delta quadrant towards the Federation. Hence by the time Q takes Picard on his ‘The Klingons, the Romulans, they’re nothing’ tour, the Borg are only about 2 years away from the edges of the Federation at high warp, not all the way in the delta quadrant."

        And thus the Borg were where Q took Picard not because they were just there, but because they were actively expanding the Borg empire Earthward.

        Is the continuity stretched? Yes, I have a tough time believing the Federation couldn’t put two and two together and realize they were, in Picard’s time, seeing a return of the Borg.

        Secondly, the Borg-intertwined continuity was already goofed up by Generations — Guinan was on a ship fleeing from Borg destruction of their homeworld, and, after being kindly rescued by Kirk, they declined to tell their saviors about the diabolic Borg? Nobody bothered to ask them and nobody from Guinan’s planet thought it important enough to tell without being asked? (Or worse, thought it important to HIDE the info!?)

        The Borg, the Ferenghi. Good lord. Everything is returning except the lesbian saliva-string kiss.

        And why do I have to check "SuperTags" just to see normal carriage returns in my posts? What dorky 00berdorks are programming this system? Remind me not to hire such people with a ferocious lack of anticipating customer problems.

        • Wouldn’t it have been neat for fans, if not for new viewers?
          A wannabee’s story arc:

          • Season 1, introduction of the new cast and series premise: Terrans trying to find their place among spacefaring races. The dark side of Vulcan and human relations is explored.
          • Season 2, Vulcan/human tensions reach their peak, just in time to be sidelined by a human colony being attacked by Klingons.
          • Season 3, as the Klingons press the advantage of surprise, a Vulcan colony is attacked. Vulcans and humans learn to rely on and trust eachother because they need eachother to survive a powerful common enemy.
          • Season 4, Klingon War story arc continues, humans and Vulcans begin to get upper hand.
          • Season 5, Klingons suddenly demonstrate new technology, mention of Romulans from spies. Romulans revealed.
          • Season 6, we battle both the Klingons and the Romulans, and bring some of the other races on board.

          Throughout the story arc we have the interactions of the cast with eachother and with their respective commands. Around season three the Enterprise NX unexpectedly becomes a model for multispecies crew in the common Vulcan/Human defense force. As exploration continues as we meet and gain alliances with future Federation members, who begin to appear as NX crew. The Federation is forged in the hot crucible of interstellar war.

          We could have done this using no Suliban, no Borg, no Ferengi, no Xindi, and no time travel. T’Pol could still wear a cat suit and have blond hair, Tucker could be impregnated somewhere along the line, we could have an inane episode where Porthos is accidentally served as dinner by an alien ambassador who mistakes him as livestock … We could have had an overall arc that brought viewers back.

          I have a feeling B & B have nothing like long term story arc. They’re just cranking out episodes to satisfy a UPN contract. UPN must have Trek, ho hum, UPN must have Trek, ho hum, ad nauseum.

          Look at me, I’m an armchair sci-fi script writer. I know, I know, this and two cents nets me exactly two cents. Everyone has their own ideas, but I think most fans agree this series could have been so much better. :/

          -Joe

          • Re: Wouldn’t it have been neat for fans, if not for new viewers?
            I like your story arc idea.

            • Thank you.

              I like your story arc idea.

              It doesn’t take much thought to produce something that would have appealed to fans, if not to the general public. We didn’t need “phase pistols” from the get-go. We didn’t need transporters. There’s plenty of time to work with, thirty years or so until we get into Kirk’s time? Those Klingons use a different kind of weapon, a coherent high energy particle beam, a “phaser”? Somewhere along the line we run into a government think tank that is developing human matter transmission as a tool of espionnage, or, “how did those Romulans appear on our bridge, Captain?”

              *sigh*

              Oh well, I have flogged this decomposing pony long enough, time to think about something else. :)

              Peace,

              -Joe G.

  2. Continuity…shmontinuity
    With all due respect this franchise perfected continuity tweakage. I was far less outraged. Sick of episodes where the major glitch is a protein replicator malfunction or some minor distraction and to hell with ST history. Bring on 40 minutes of death and mayhem. There is no alternative pending.

    Did a group of Borg beam out before the ship exploded?

    • Re: Continuity…shmontinuity

      Did a group of Borg beam out before the ship exploded?

      We’ll find out next season if ratings stay down.

    • Re: Continuity?shmontinuity

      to hell with ST history. Bring on 40 minutes of death and mayhem.
      There is no alternative pending.

      Berman? Is that you?

    • Re: Continuity�shmontinuity

      There is no alternative pending.

      Isn’t that why Star Trek fans are disappointed? If the only new Star Trek alternative available is garbage – and based on the original premise and hopes, Enterprise is indeed garbage – then it doesn’t need to be watched.

      My recommendation would be for everyone who is disappointed with Enterprise to pick up one of the DVD season sets of ST:TNG or DS9 every year (if you don’t have them already), or two if you’re usually the type to watch reruns of good shows in the summer, and simply stick that in every week when Enterprise is going to be on. For the more serious Trek fans, the extra 20 minutes (where commercials would normally go) can be spent drafting a letter to Berman (cc UPN, Paramount, etc.) explaining that until this show either dies or fulfills its promise, you’re simply going to watch episodes of the other Star Trek shows in its place.

      It probably won’t affect anything (either Rick Berman has compromising photos or they’re giving him plenty of rope for his eventual hanging), but it’s another way to show your disdain for the evil this show is perpetrating against the core audience.

      • Re: Continuity�shmontinuity

        There is no alternative pending.

        My recommendation would be for everyone who is disappointed with Enterprise to pick up one of the DVD season sets of ST:TNG or DS9 every year (if you don’t have them already),

        Well, first off, wait with DS9, I am having a look at the first 2 seasons (for the first time) and they are horrible. They are the worst Trek Episodes I’ve ever seen and it may be called a small miracle that Trek survived this disaster. But luckily the Trek franchise was largely supported by the TNG series at that time AFAIK.,

        Luckily DS9 picked up with the entrance of the Dominion, but the Bajoran episodes were still huge depth points in an otherwise bearable series. let’s just hope that ENT never encounters these aliens.

        As far as the Enterprise episode at hand is concerned, I agree with the logic of one of the above posters, it’s a different timeline, but one that is supposed to be close to that one of TOS/TNG I hope. However, though it was nice to see the borg storywise (and how they were quickly upgrading the ship to 24th century technology as one would expect, I guess it was just a matter of days before thay had transwarp capabilities, in which case earth would still have been defenseless, but no Picard to save them this time. Well, I guess they would have come with a Cube anyway, so one enterprise or not would make little difference), it is just cheap scavaging off past successes. In a whole, it not worthed Star Trek.

        Unfortunately, I must say that the more I see ENT, the more I miss Farscape, …

      • Re: Continuity�shmontinuity

        For the more serious Trek fans, the extra 20 minutes (where commercials would normally go) can be spent drafting a letter to Berman (cc UPN, Paramount, etc.) explaining that until this show either dies or fulfills its promise, you’re simply going to watch episodes of the other Star Trek shows in its place.pending.

        Well let’s see what the flaw of THIS action is… You won’t watch the show until it gets better. But you can’t tell if it’s getting better or worse if you don’t watch the show.

        My parents would say this that in this situation “you can’t win for losing”. My sister would say “it’s a Catch-22”. I think you’ve proposed a “Kobiashi Maru”. Talk about flaws in logic.

        Actually I think the time-line was originally messed up when the Borg went back in time to stop Zephram Cochran. This was a nice bit of senedipity, using a past flaw to make something decent.

        TigerScans

  3. Temporal Cold war?
    You’ll have to forgive me if I’m talking crap here as I’m a little behind with the goings on in Enterprise, but I’ve got this awful feeling that they’re goint to use this temporal cold war thingy as a cop out.

    I can see it now:
    The Suliban (or whoever) attempt to fire off a time gun (or something), Archer stops them… almost. The result is the federation forgetting all the breaches of star trek canon and continuity.

    Yep. I can see that one working.

  4. Re: Continuity (or lack of)
    I agree with all the other posts citing how bad this ep is. Not only did they screw up the basic Trek continuity by putting the Borg in Enterprise, they even screwed up several points of Borg continuity.

    Go back and watch the scene where the two Tarkeleans are assimilating the corridor. The female sticks her tubules into a panel and it’s completely assimilated in the span of about three or four seconds! It just sort of grows in, which I don’t think happens in circuitry like it does in humanoids. I don’t recall the Borg ever being THAT fast.

    A lot of people have mentioned this other major mistake, but I’ll post here anyway. The redshirts were only able to kill two drones (out of six) with upgraded phase pistols before the rest adapted, yet Archer and Reed managed to kill at least eight drones on the Borg ship itself before adaptation set in. Talk about a significant continuity flaw.

    Some things that could have worked are misplaced. Archer’s desire to restore the assimilated characters is a nice touch, but it doesn’t have much emotional impact because the audience already knows it’s impossible.

    The last scene is garbage. T’Pol’s measurement of 200 years can’t be judged as accurate or inaccurate because she’s basing it on long it would take using Earth technology. The Borg ship probably had a more advanced system so the response time would be less. The rest of the dialogue is just a vague reference to "Q Who?"

    All in all, the episode isn’t horrible but is still one of the worst yet.

    • Re: Continuity (or lack of)

      The redshirts were only able to kill two drones (out of six) with upgraded phase pistols before the rest adapted, yet Archer and Reed managed to kill at least eight drones on the Borg ship itslf before adaptation set in.

      Its hard to speculate on how fast we should expect those adaptations to propagate across the Borg network. We know that the Borg were locally connected because the doc was starting to hear them, so its reasonable to assume that the Borg were aware of Archers weapons capabilities, and what needed to be done do to protect the collectives members. The difference in adaption rate may have had something to do with the priorities the Borg gave to defense, perhaps the two Borg on Enterprise devoted resources to shields more quickly because with fewer individuals it was more important to protect them. Whereas on their own ship, with many individuals available, a few going down (and most likely easily repairable) wasn’t a big concern.

      T’Pol’s measurement of 200 years can’t be judged as accurate or inaccurate because she’s basing it on long it would take using Earth technology. The Borg ship probably had a more advanced system so the response time would be less.

      Even worse, how does she know its for someplace ‘deep in the delta quadrant’? For all she knows, it was sent to their home world a hop, skip and jump away that just happens to be on the line of sight between them and the delta quadrant.

      Why is the doc, with the technology available to him, able to determine that simple radiation thearapy will cure an infection, while the crew of the Enterprise D can’t figure that out? Wouldn’t they have configured the main deflector as a massive omicron (or whatever) radiation beam to attack cubes with? Or configured a torpedo as a radiation bomb?

  5. Re: Continuity (or lack of)
    I agree with all the other posts citing how bad this ep is. Not only did they screw up the basic Trek continuity by putting the Borg in Enterprise, they even screwed up several points of Borg continuity.

    Go back and watch the scene where the two Tarkeleans are assimilating the corridor. The female sticks her tubules into a panel and it’s completely assimilated in the span of about three or four seconds! It just sort of grows in, which I don’t think happens in circuitry like it does in humanoids. I don’t recall the Borg ever being THAT fast.

    A lot of people have mentioned this other major mistake, but I’ll post here anyway. The redshirts were only able to kill two drones (out of six) with upgraded phase pistols before the rest adapted, yet Archer and Reed managed to kill at least eight drones on the Borg ship itself before adaptation set in. If that’s not a significant continuity flaw, I don’t know what is.

    Some things that could have worked are misplaced. Archer’s desire to restore the assimilated characters is a nice touch, but it doesn’t have much emotional impact because the audience already knows it’s impossible.

    The last scene is garbage. T’Pol’s measurement of 200 years can’t be judged as accurate or inaccurate because she’s basing it on long it would take using Earth technology. The Borg ship probably had a more advanced system so the response time would be less. The rest of the dialogue is just a vague reference to "Q Who?"

    All in all, the episode isn’t horrible but is still one of the worst yet.

    • Re: Continuity (or lack of)
      The panel assimilation speed would be believable if the nanoprobes hadn’t taken such an absurdly long time to assimilate the people who got infected. In First Contact, which dealt with the same breed of Borg as these ones (as we’re all aware), when humans got injected with nanoprobes they went grey almost immediately, and started sprouting implants shortly afterwards, within minutes. I find it hard to believe the Borg would have had trouble assimilating the Tarkelians and Phlox – they’ve assimilated human vessels from the future, they will have had access to medical data on those two species.

      In short, there’s absolutely no way Enterprise should have survived that. The entire episode was a mistake, and how in the name of everything good and continuity-respecting does the debris from a ship blown up in orbit by a load of quantum torpedoes all land in the same place?

      • Re: Continuity (or lack of)
        I agree wholeheartedly with you. The assimilation did take too long, and I noticed that even with the fully assimilated Borg, only the one found at the beginning had a special Borg arm. I think the Phlox thing was a poor ripoff of Voyager’s "Scorpion," which was much better.

        As for the debris thing, we see that sphere get blown into tiny chunks in FC, so there shouldn’t have been any pieces large enough to land anyway. Even if a partial hull had survived and drifted over the Arctic (the sphere was destroyed over Montana, after all), it probably would have disintegrated in the atmosphere. Also, we’ll never know how many Borg sneak onto the Enterprise in the beginning of FC, but I doubt it was very many. So even the crashed chunks should’nt have any survivors.

        • Re: Continuity (or lack of)
          Actually, in ToS, their hulls were "duranium" or some such technobabble. In any case, a large chunk would probably survive re-entry.

          And our usual visuals of flaming re-entry assume a near-orbital speed at re-entry. If the sphere was just hovering in place, not in orbit, it’s speed of re-entry may have been very small indeed.

    • Re: Continuity (or lack of)
      When my friends and I sat down to watch the premier, I told them that a big problem for this series was going to be continuity.

        “Trekkies are rabid, cranky, sleep-deprived, continuity hounds… That have really bad hemoroids!”

      Okay, I the last part is revisionist history, but the first part is almost exactly what I told them. Anyway, between bending Continuity over a table and doing something that should not be discussed polite company, Berman has also made this show into something that fans don’t like. He’s changed the whole mood of the show. Unless Rodenberry had a contract the Paramount that says “in the event of my death, whoever takes over Star Trek must stay true to my vision of the future, blahblahblah,” Berman has the right to do that. He’s the boss.

      Now if he’s smart, he’ll try something new.

      IIRC, DS9 was really our first taste of Berman’s less idealized future. Tension and conflict among the crew, characters with morality ranging from questionable to down right bad and all that.

      If you’ll allow me to put on rubber parka before the fruit flys.

      This is what made DS9 really interesting for me. To have the main plot of a story going was good, and then you have Jake and Nog trying to outwit Odo, or some such thing in the background. I’m, not saying that TNG din’t have that, but just that DS9 seemed like a more 3-dimensional world.

      DS9 also provides a jumping-off point for the arc of a new series. Picture this, in the Post-Dominion War Fedaration, Starfleet has become very powerful, as have military arms of other races. This is Berman’s world, not Roddenberry’s. You could structure an entire series around the conflict of the two ideals. Half the cast wants to return Starfleet and the Federation to what it once was, a la TNG. The other half would like to maintain the current arrangement, or some variation.

      This would be a much larger cast than we are used to, possibly a shifting one, similar to Law and Order. There would have to be characters at high level Starfleet/UFP HQ(I mean characters, not just talking heads at the start of the hour that give orders), lower level characters, also at Starfleet/UFP HQ(Lt’s and ensigns, mostly), as well as a one or more ships(possibly a science or medical ship, with a Defiant for an escort or something). This way we would see the ideological conflict at several different powerlevels. We could see people ordered to compromise their beliefs, as well as people coming to new realizations.

        Examples might be a pacifist might be captured and tortured and we could watch him struggle to resolve his previous beliefs with new ones born out of his trauma.

        Or we could see some jarhead Marine experience something that brings him more in line with some of his less-military colleagues.

      We could also see each faction being forced to rely on eachother for survival.

      Okay I’m going to stop talking now.

      • Re: Continuity (or lack of)

        Okay I’m going to stop talking now.

        Don’t. I quite like the idea. All the more so because it doesn’t require any continuity rape. I liked DS9 better than any Trek before or since. It was interesting, it had depth, and I was more involved in the plot than any others. On most other star treks you have a feeling that, at the end of the ep, nothing much has changed and they fly off again to somewhere else. with DS9, they were stuck there. DEAL with the situations you create. it forces longer story arcs on you. This is not a bad thing. anyway, I think they could have done BOTH of these things with Enterprise. i.e., show the formation of Starfleet based on things going on back on earth as well as things happening out in space. could have been really good. who knows. we never will.

      • Re: Continuity (or lack of)
        Very nice idea. I like this far better than any of the ideas I’ve come up with (although I have said to several people that there is the potential for a very good new franchise set after Voyager’s return, but not immediately afterwards, perhaps thirty or forty years later, which would probably fit quite well with what you propose actually).

        Now why aren’t you employed by Paramount?

        • Re: Continuity (or lack of)
          Although there were some flaws in the episode (mostly dealing with technical issues concerning the Borg) I did enjoy it. The time line of the Federation’s relationship with the Borg was first established when Q transported NCC1701D into the Delta quadrant and Humans and Borgs first met. That time line was shattered in FC when the Borg time travelled back to the late 21 century in an attempt to stop mankinds first contact with the Vulcans. (Although Guian actually was the very first of the Enterprise crew to meet the Borg, and she survived it by disappearing into the Nexus).
          It might be streaching things a bit to have had two of the Borg crew survive and end up in the Antartic, but assuming they DID, there goes the time line AGAIN, because they WILL be discovered by 22nd century earth. Lets just assume that starfleet was so horrified by the Borg, their existance was kept a secret from most starfleet personal and was a “for eyes only” top secret. Perhaps T’Pol was able to track the direction that the sub-space message was sent, and assumed it was toward the Delta quadrant because there were not any known systems between the Enterprise and the Delta quadrant in the direction the signal was sent. She assumed a startfleet signal would take 200 years to get there, but with their 24th century technology the Borg signal could get there much faster. EXCEPT that it was beamed to 22nd century Borgs. So maybe the Borg didn’t get the message, and the timeline wasn’t broken after all.

          I doubt we will see the Borg again on Enterprise.

          • Re: Continuity (or lack of)
            Bah, it was goofed up before TNG left the air. Remember Guinan’s admonition to Picard that the Borg don’t "do anything piecemiel. When they come, they’ll come in force."?

            That never happens to the Federation because then the Federation would lose. So re-write, I say! Have some fun with it.

          • Re: Continuity (or lack of)

            mankinds first contact with the Vulcans. (Although Guian actually was the very first of the Enterprise crew to meet the Borg, and she survived it by disappearing into the Nexus).

            I think she states in Generations that part of her personality got trapped in the Nexus, not her. Guinan never left that transport vessel, the Enterprise B was saving. That was the reason she could not go back with Picard because whe was not actually there, but she knew someone that could: Kirk.

  6. Silver Lining
    Since everyone else is covering the problems with the episode, I thought I would cover the two points that I thought were nice. First, I loved Phlox’s reference to the Binars. In an episode riddled with questionable continuity, it was nice to have an obscure reference to an unimportant species from a sub-par episode of a different series. It reminds me why I love the continuity when it is there.

    The other part I enjoyed was quite possibly in my head. It was just that when Archer figured out that the cyborgs were from the future, he had this look on his face like he was piecing everything together with the temporal cold war, which is wrong. I just think that, when the writer once again bring back Daniels (you know they will), they’re going to have a brief discussion along the lines of:

    Archer: “Why didn’t you warn us about the cyborgs?”

    Daniels: “Who?”

    Archer: “The cyborgs from the future!”

    Daniels: “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

    Alright, I would hope that it would be a better written than I have, but I still think it would make a nice touch.

    • Re: Silver Lining

      The other part I enjoyed was quite possibly in my head. It was just that when Archer figured out that the cyborgs were from the future, he had this look on his face like he was piecing everything together with the temporal cold war, which is wrong. I just think that, when the writer once again bring back Daniels (you know they will), they’re going to have a brief discussion along the lines of:

      Archer: “Why didn’t you warn us about the cyborgs?”

      Daniels: “Who?”

      Archer: “The cyborgs from the future!”

      Daniels: “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

      Alright, I would hope that it would be a better written than I have, but I still think it would make a nice touch.

      the “nice touch” would be “I have no idea what you’re talking about. we have no records to indicate you ever encountered any such thing.”

  7. Resistance. is. Futile. Borged. again.
    Very well, someone came up with a story about borg that has some plausibility if you connect the dots through 4th or 5th dimension physics (Calling Mr. Mxlplyx!)and watched Trek Movie & TV events.

    There were points I did like. Dr Flox’s reactions. Captain Archers reluctance to destroy before determining if any could be saved showed compassion. Yoshi’s helping out Dr. Flox. Good story points for characterization. I was entertained by this.

    Once again, though, I had moments saying “what tha?!” that dulled my enjoyment; Archer’s quick connection to Zephram Conchran’s tales, the slooooow assimilation of Dr. Flox, the quick identification and extermination of those pesky nanites, Tripps understanding of alien technology 2 centuries ahead of its time, the miracle enhancement that allowed hyped up weapons to not be readily adapted by 25th century technology until that fateful moment.

    I thought we would see some challenge that would leave Enterprise sorely crippled. Borg were supposed to be adaptive and deadly to the 25th century Federation. Captain Archer’s vessel, however, proved that 23rd Century technology kicks borg backsides much better. Ack!

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