Enterprise Review: “The Expanse” (Season Finale)

Somebody’s ghost writing for B&B. Nothing else makes sense.

Enterprise LogoThe Expanse (Season Finale)

 

Cast & Crew

Director: Allan Kroeker
Written By: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

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
Vaughn Armstrong as Admiral Forrest
Gary Bullock as Klingon Council Member
David Figlioli as Klingon Crewman
Gary Graham as Soval
Daniel Riordan as Duras
John Fleck as Silik
L. Sidney as Klingon Crewman #2
Bruce Wright as Dr. Fer’at
Dan Desmond as Klingon Chancellor
James Horan as Humanoid Figure
Josh Cruze as Captain Ramirez

Airdate Information

Originally Aired: May 21, 2003
Season: Two
Episode: Twenty-Seven (Season Finale)
Production: 052

This Week on EnterpriseWhat Happened

A probe from an unknown alien source unleashes a devastating assault upon Earth. Enterprise is recalled, and along the way home Captain Archer acquires information that the perpetrators come from a region of space known as the Delphic Expanse — a place where very bizarre things happen, and from which few ships that enter ever return. Starfleet must now decide whether to risk sending the NX-01 into the Delphic Expanse to prevent a possible second attack. [Video Teaser]

Review

Well, that wraps up season two. I think we’d all like to put it behind us. That being said, “Expanse” stands out as a second pilot. The ship has a whole new mission. Several characters have been (or will be) dramatically altered. We’re even adding several new members to the crew by way of marines assigned to the ship.

I must confess to being a little excited about the third season. The show found a purpose, a very dramatic purpose and are running with it full tilt. There’s some questionable material with the brand new race, temporal interference, and so forth, which cannot just be brushed aside. With such a massive library of alien cultures, why reinvent the wheel?

On a final note, I wish they hadn’t gotten rid of Duras. A vengeance hungry Klingon stalking them through the Delphic Expanse would have added some real flavor. But hey, this is Star Trek. Death is never final.

High Point

The final fight was awesome, but I have to give kudos to Trip’s dramatic scenes, even his confession that he’d like to see T’Pol stick around.

Low Point

Quantum dating? Negative age? No wonder hard Sci-Fi authors and enthusiasts hate Star Trek.

The Scores

Originality: Fiziko pointed out to me the similarities between the expanse and Voyager’s wastelands. That’s undeniable, but the countdown to oblivion aspect certainly adds a bit of drama. 4 out of 6.

Effects: Eat photon torpedoes Klingon scum! The various fight scenes were very cool. 5 out of 6.

Story: Xindi who? Outside of that, the story does push Enterprise forward like a second pilot. 4 out of 6.

Acting: Everyone turns it up a notch this time out. I wish they’d get Kroeker to direct episodes other than finales and pilots. He brings out the best in these guys. 5 out of 6.

Emotional Response: There’s actually a sense of dread and foreboding this time out. You feel Trip’s pain and loss. 4 out of 6.

Production: Not much to speak of. Very little action takes place outside of Enterprise or Star Fleet HQ. 4 out of 6

Overall: This is more like it. It leaves us hungry for the next season. Guys, don’t screw this up. 5 out of 6.

Total: 31 out of 42

Episode Media

From StarTrek.com

Next Time on Enterprise (May 28, 2003)

Next Time on EnterpriseMinefield (Originally aired 10/2/2002) Read our Review

After unwittingly wandering into a minefield in Romulan territory, Enterprise becomes trapped when struck by an undetonated mine. When Reed takes a space walk to try to defuse the mine, he inadvertently gets pinned to the outer hull and Archer must choose between saving Reed or abiding by the Romulans’ orders to depart immediately. [Video Teaser]

Additional Notes and Comments

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

TheAngrymob

41 replies on “Enterprise Review: “The Expanse” (Season Finale)”

  1. Reminds me of…
    the premise for the B5 spinoff: Crusade. Earth gets attacked by a mysterious and powerful alien race, and is put on the brink of extinction. The flagship is sent on a mission to fix that. I never actually got to watch Crusade, so I can’t comment beyond that.

    My question is why didn’t Evil-Mastermind-from-the-Future(tm) just send the Suliban to take out the Xindi?

    • Re: Reminds me of…

      the premise for the B5 spinoff: Crusade. Earth gets attacked by a mysterious and powerful alien race, and is put on the brink of extinction. The flagship is sent on a mission to fix that. I never actually got to watch Crusade, so I can’t comment beyond that.

      My question is why didn’t Evil-Mastermind-from-the-Future(tm) just send the Suliban to take out the Xindi?

      Crusade has potential, but unfortunately wasn’t allowed to find it. It’s too bad, it was growing on me.

      It wasn’t B5 by a long shot, and the music was odd. But it was getting good. Wish they’d have done a movie wrap up 4.5 years later or something.

  2. Admission of guilt
    This reminds me of DS9, when the added the Reliant.

    That, to me, was their way of not saying “ok, so it turns out that a star
    trek show based in a small run down alien spacestation where people
    don’t get along wasn’t such a good idea after all”, so they added a
    stupid warship to conpensate.
    I stopped watching DS9 shortly after that. The show was never good to
    start with (except for the occasional good ep), and turning Star Trek into
    Star Wars Lite only worsened it.

    Now, there is the underwhelming Enterprise, and lo and behold, they
    pull the same exact stunt! Wow, what originality.

    • Re: Admission of guilt

      This reminds me of DS9, when the added the Reliant.

      That, to me, was their way of not saying “ok, so it turns out that a star
      trek show based in a small run down alien spacestation where people
      don’t get along wasn’t such a good idea after all”, so they added a
      stupid warship to conpensate.
      I stopped watching DS9 shortly after that.

      Had you stuck around for a couple of seasons after the Defiant showed up, you’d have seen the war start in earnest. It got off to a very slow start, but the last three seasons (especially season seven) make Deep Space Nine the best Star Trek series yet, in my opinion.

      • Re: Admission of guilt

        Had you stuck around for a couple of seasons after the Defiant showed up, you’d have seen the war start in earnest. It got off to a very slow start, but the last three seasons (especially season seven) make Deep Space Nine the best Star Trek series yet, in my opinion.

        Indeed. I didn’t care for a lot of DS9 (and didn’t watch regularly) until the last few seasons. In hindsight, many of the early episodes are vindicated by the Dominion War and the events swirling around it. You really see how things were always (or at least from around the second season on) moving forward to show the confrontation with the Founders/Dominion, Gul Dukat’s obsession with getting DS9 and Bajor back under his control, Cisco’s fulfillment of his destiny (a plot point that almost lost me several times but managed to stay interesting and conclude that way) and Kai Winn’s hunger for personal power.

        This episode of Enterprise sounds interesting enough for me to take a look at this Sunday. I’ll just have to hope that it goes the direction of DS9 in terms of getting me interested again, and not the direction of Voyager where it kept trying to lose me.

      • Re: Admission of guilt

        Had you stuck around for a couple of seasons after the Defiant showed
        up, you’d have seen the war start in earnest. It got off to a
        very slow start, but the last three seasons (especially season seven)
        make Deep Space Nine the best Star Trek
        series yet, in my opinion.

        Bleah, wars are not what made Star Trek good.

        Question: Did they ever tie the Tusk in with the Jem Hadar? Tusk’s
        episode was the one good ep of the first season, and when the Jem
        Hadar showed up I figured they would remember Tusk and follow up on
        that…so I waited, and endured a seemingly endless stream of craptastic
        shows with lame ass religious story lines, but the connection was never
        made (AFAIK).

        • Re: Admission of guilt

          Question: Did they ever tie the Tusk in with the Jem Hadar?

          Correction, the Tosk.
          From the DS9 episode #406 Captive Pursuit.

          The Tosk are physically similar to the Jem Hadar, both in appearance and
          in SFX physiology. Both races were created through genetic engineering,
          they both can turn invisible, they can both go a long while without
          eating…

          And Sisco never even thought of invetigating the Tosk once the Jem
          Hadar showed up?

      • Re: Admission of guilt

        Had you stuck around for a couple of seasons after the Defiant showed up, you’d have seen the war start in earnest. It got off to a very slow start, but the last three seasons (especially season seven) make Deep Space Nine the best Star Trek series yet, in my opinion.

        The Dominion war nearly put me off DS9. For the most part, the only good episodes were the ones focused around Gul Dukat or Garak, though one of my favorites was the one with Nog dealing with a lost leg in the holodeck.

  3. There are 22 other episodes in a season.

    Berman and Braga did a good job this week, I have to admit. The season finales and (to a lesser degree) season premieres they come up with are generally pretty good. Where is this energy the rest of the year? There are 24 episodes in most Star Trek seasons, right? They have 22 other episodes to work with, but they end up just drifting from one week to another. These guys need to work this hard all year, not just the endpoints. They could start by dropping the story credit episodes on every other episode and worrying about only four or five episodes a year themselves, allowing the writers they hire to fill in the gaps (within mutually chosen borders.) Few people can do everything on a show like this (*cough* Whedon *cough*), so most should learn how to farm it out to competant workers.

  4. Bonus Points

    I think we need to give the show more credit for emotional response and bonus points for going way back to one of the Great Bird’s original ideas which was to have Star Trek reflect what’s going on in society. Hunting down the people who carved a hole in our planet surely rings true to the current mindset of many in the US.

    It’s not my intention to start a debate here, please don’t take it in that way.

    I look forward to seeing this plot develop, the show will be able to address more accurately the conflicting feelings of people in my country (US). This was a very good turn for the show to take, it will bring it to the center of our society and will allow many viewers to see themselves from the outside.

  5. Not bad but..

    I like this episode but I thought the Klingon scenes where
    just a device to show how lousy the Enterprise weapon
    systems were before and how great they were after the
    refit.

    The other thing that got me was Archer’s reaction after he
    sent the first low yield volley into the Bird of Prey and it didn’t
    stop them. At that point, the idea of scaring Duras off was out,
    so max the stupid thing and end it there. Let’s put a “3km hole”
    in the Bird of Prey before they figure out how to stop the
    torps.

    Actually, I was looking the other day and noticed that
    some of the better TNG eps from season 5 and 6 where written
    by Braga. (Of course, now I’m at work and can’t look to see
    exactly which ones. I want to say “Cause and Effect” was one
    of them.) Shows like those and this one show that they can
    write a decent episode when they work at it. It’s all the
    more frustrating when you see the garbage they’ve produced
    lately.

    • Re: Not bad but..

      I like this episode but I thought the Klingon scenes where just a device to show how lousy the Enterprise weapon systems were before and how great they were after the refit.

      Yeah, that’s about the long and short of it (which is fine in my opinion.) That the Klingons (who are supposed to be much more advanced at this stage) could reinforce their shields and shrug off even the new weapons is reasonable. Archer’s "solution" was rather clever. (Why has the deliberate-overload phaser never made a second appearance? For that matter, where are all the nuclear bombs in the torpedos? One of their current torpedos can make a 3km crater? Let’s at least get some real, 20th century firepower in there, please.)

      Archer’s real error was in not ramping up the yield to max in the first place. "Let’s take our time experimenting just how much it takes to stop our attackers" is rather silly when you could die at any second.

      I am so glad the Klingon ship won’t be chasing them around the way Mr. McGee chased around Doc Banner in the Hulk TV series, episode after episode. Good lord, that would have been…bad.

      • Re: Not bad but..

        I am so glad the Klingon ship won’t be chasing them around the way Mr. McGee chased around Doc Banner in the Hulk TV series, episode after episode. Good lord, that would have been…bad.

        Yes, and to paraphrase from a previous TV series; “we wouldn’t want to see viewers when their angry.” Hehehe

    • Re: Not bad but..

      The other thing that got me was Archer’s reaction after he
      sent the first low yield volley into the Bird of Prey and it didn’t
      stop them. At that point, the idea of scaring Duras off was out,
      so max the stupid thing and end it there. Let’s put a “3km hole”
      in the Bird of Prey before they figure out how to stop the
      torps.

      Right. Don’t run off after disabling the ship in combat. Finish it off. Archer doesn’t even have to be a cold-blooded killer here.

      We don’t have the luxury to continue fighting this idiot while trying to save Earth. We gave him a warning shot, and he ignored it. Prepare another volley of photon torpedoes, maximum power. This ends here.

      Or let him give the Klingons a chance to surrender Duras and return to base. They’ll refuse, but they’re choosing death. Or hell, let them decide to blow themselves up rather than to lose in combat to such a low race!

    • Re: Not bad but..

      I like this episode but I thought the Klingon scenes where
      just a device to show how lousy the Enterprise weapon
      systems were before and how great they were after the
      refit.

      What gets me is the whole “Klingon Bird of Prey” thing. The Bird of Prey
      class ships were a result of the Klingon/Romulan technology exchange
      during TOS, where the Romulans provided the Klingons with cloaking
      technology.
      Romulans had the Bird of Preys while the Klingons had D3s, D4s, D5s,
      and
      so on. We didn’t see a Klingon Bird of Prey until Star Trek III, many years
      after TOS.

      It’s a good thing that I can view Enterprise on its own merits – I
      enjoy it that way, and only start to freak when the inconsistencies with
      Star Trek canon are
      really rubbed in my face.

      • Re: Not bad but..

        What gets me is the whole “Klingon Bird of Prey” thing. The Bird of Prey
        class ships were a result of the Klingon/Romulan technology exchange
        during TOS, where the Romulans provided the Klingons with cloaking
        technology.
        Romulans had the Bird of Preys while the Klingons had D3s, D4s, D5s,
        and
        so on. We didn’t see a Klingon Bird of Prey until Star Trek III, many years
        after TOS.

        The Romulan bird of preys were NOT even warp driven. If you recall the ‘balance of terror’ (which BTW was a good remake of the ‘enemy below’) Kirk noted that the Enterprise had an advantage over the Romulans because they had Warp drive and the Romulans didn’t.

        The Klingon Bird of Prey was a smaller version of the Battle Crusier. Interresting that we don’t see the BC anymore after STTMP.

  6. I did enjoy this episode
    But I think it scored a little high in the originality category. The beginning had shades of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and ST IV:The Voyage Home, and the end was quite reminiscent of ST II:Wrath of Khan (I was waiting for Archer to raise his fist in the air and yell “DURAAAAASSS!!” when the Enterprise was attacked by the Klingons in the nebula). The episode was enjoyable (it left me looking forward to next season), but it was hardly as original as it could have been (I think I would have preferred a ship attacking Earth to the probe, as that would have differed from anything done in the other series). They have, however, started to go in a direction that could conceivably lead to the formation of the Federation, and it looks like the Klingon war is on its way.

  7. I enjoyed it …
    This series might go somewhere yet. The Suliban as antiheroes? Quite possibly, cool. :)

    I thought the Carribean would be turned into a smoking hole and everyone who lived near it would have been killed. It wasn’t anything like that. The way B & B presented this weapon, 7 million deaths and a few mile wide scar from Florida to Venezuela being left out of the plot of future (past) series might even make sense.

    Amazingly enough this episode kept with the show’s premise without violating the future (past) series. Even though the temporal cold war has apprently resurfaced, this is interesting, it’s an unexpected turn, and by damnit at least it finally gives the ship and its crew something to do in their own time. :)

    -Joe G.

    • Re: I enjoyed it …

      This series might go somewhere yet. The Suliban as antiheroes? Quite possibly, cool. :)

      I haven’t seen the episode, yet, only the comments here, so take this with a grain of salt.
      This sounds suspiciously like they’re actually trying to bring continuity in here… No, wait! I mean it. If you watched Voyager you remember they had quite a few shows, including the finale, that dealt with a “temporal prime directive.” Think what happens if this confrontation leads to a alliance between the future Suliban and the Future Federation… Federation get’s all this cool trime travel tech, and the Suliban start helping sort out Earth’s past problems. And everybody starts giving Voayger a hard time… Maybe I’m working to much into this, but it could work…

  8. Seven Million?
    I must begin this by admitting that I didn’t hear how wide the beam was, if they stated it in the show. However, if looked to me to not be mutch wider than a kilometer when they did the camera pan with trip. Now, at 400km long (which is what I thought they said during the show), that would be 17500 people per km^2. Then consider the fact that a large portion of that 400 km was in the water. Using this to estimate population density, there’s no way seven million people could have died in this attack, especially since the footage of the beam seemed to have it cutting through farmland. Am I missing something?

    • Re: Seven Million?

      Am I missing something?

      They might have hit part of Miami or Orlando, which could account for the high casualties, but they didn’t show any dense urban areas getting hit. My question is; If this is such an advanced and powerful weapon, why did they waste half of the shot in the Gulf Of Mexico? Did the ship not have any sensors, or a window for the pilot? Could they not see what they were shooting at? Great episode otherwise, I can’t wait for next season.

  9. Casulties
    Couple things, first the word casulties. It is often used poorly, this
    episode is not an exception. Many people think that casulties equal
    number of dead when in fact it means the number of people injured. So
    while seven million dead might be hard to do seven million injured is a
    lot easer to acomplish. But inspite of that I dont think it would have
    been to hard to kill a lot more people with an attack like that then the
    number you hit with the beam. I mean all that blasted rock has to go
    some where, and it did appear to be a great deal of rock. The blast zone
    may not have been wide but it was really deep.

    Also why does trek insist on breaking things that are hard to replace.
    They blew out 3 anti-matter injectors before they even got to the
    exspanse. These did not sound like they where something you could
    fabricate on the fly. B&B lack a good understanding of logistics(among
    other things).

    -Jack

    • Re: Casulties

      Couple things, first the word casulties. It is often used poorly, this

      episode is not an exception. Many people think that casulties
      equal
      number of dead when in fact it means the number of people
      injured.

      Uh, not really. Yes, it means the sum of the number injured but that’s
      including the number dead. Given the way things looked just
      outside the wake of destruction, I doubt many people only received
      contusions from that beam. When you’re talking about a single energy
      destructo-beam from space (and that’s really the level of logic
      Enterprise is using), it’s reasonable to conclude that all or almost all of
      the casualties are fatalities. The word “casualties” is simply kinder.

  10. a good finale
    Not pefect, but good.
    I’m still trying to figure out what the point is to having a variable yield weapon. Since you’re gonna lose it once you shoot it, why not just have it set to max and let it go? seems stupid since the weapon always costs the same. It would make sense maybe to have seperate low yield or dummy torpedoes because they’d inherently cost less. If you’re gona chuck a million bucks out the window you might as well get the best bank for your buck… right?

    That’s picky, but it really stood out to me.

    I liked the Klingon fights, and the ending really did leave me waiting for the next season. I hope they can keep this up.

    • Re: a good finale

      Not pefect, but good.
      I’m still trying to figure out what the point is to having a variable yield weapon.

      It’s the same reason phasers have stun and kill settings. Sometimes you just want to disable them, not destroy them.

      • Re: a good finale

        Not pefect, but good.
        I’m still trying to figure out what the point is to having a variable yield weapon.

        It’s the same reason phasers have stun and kill settings. Sometimes you just want to disable them, not destroy them.

        I guess that makes sense… interesting how The world’s modern militaries don’t follow that line of thought. Every bomb is shoot to kill. Maybe it would be different if we were flying around in space.

        • Re: a good finale

          Not pefect, but good.
          I’m still trying to figure out what the point is to having a variable yield weapon.

          It’s the same reason phasers have stun and kill settings. Sometimes you just want to disable them, not destroy them.

          I guess that makes sense… interesting how The world’s modern militaries don’t follow that line of thought. Every bomb is shoot to kill. Maybe it would be different if we were flying around in space.

          Modern militaries do try to follow that line of thought. The problem is that weapons that don’t totally destroy are pretty hard to make. They’re working on them.

          • Re: a good finale

            Modern militaries do try to follow that line of thought. The problem is that weapons that don’t totally destroy are pretty hard to make. They’re working on them.

            Speaking as someone who actually *was* in the military (’76-80) and trained as such I can definitively tell you that when you are engaged in a conflict with an enemy you ALWAYS fire for maximum effect. You (pretty much) *never* fire to to just disable or to warn.

            To paraphrase Patton, the idea is NOT to give your life up for your country but rather to get your opponent to give up his life for his country.

            War sucks….it’s (usually) evil (where are the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq)….but it is what it is….

            • Re: a good finale

              Modern militaries do try to follow that line of thought. The problem is that weapons that don’t totally destroy are pretty hard to make. They’re working on them.

              Speaking as someone who actually *was* in the military (’76-80) and trained as such I can definitively tell you that when you are engaged in a conflict with an enemy you ALWAYS fire for maximum effect. You (pretty much) *never* fire to to just disable or to warn.

              To paraphrase Patton, the idea is NOT to give your life up for your country but rather to get your opponent to give up his life for his country.

              Um, last time I checked excessive force was frowned upon in the military. By your logic, we should have just dropped a nuke on Iraq and been done with it.

              And quotes from Patton aren’t military policy, not by a longshot.

              • Re: a good finale
                The only time excessive force [against the enemy] is frowned upon is when it’s considered wasteful (you shouldn’t need to send a B-52 squadron to destroy one tank), when it would kill civilians (don’t drop a 2,000-lb bomb on a weapons cache near a school when a 500-lb will do) or when you’re trying keep on the “down low” (send in “special” forces when not at war).

                At any other time, the US military policy at least is to use as much force as available so as to minimize US casualties. We don’t do the “trade soldiers for victory” anymore (see Chinese military policy) and in order to avoid that we use steel, electronics and other inanimate materials so that we have as few casualties as possible. Whatever you think about the recent war in Iraq, we took over a country with fewer than 200 (!!) of our people killed. That should make clear where our military priorities lie.

                Is it just me, or are we WAY off-topic now? Methinks there’s a long Bureau 42 summer ahead. It may be time to have SG1 reviews starting next month. :)

                • Re: a good finale

                  The only time excessive force [against the enemy] is frowned upon is when it’s considered wasteful

                  Isn’t that the definition of excessive?

                  • Re: a good finale

                    The only time excessive force [against the enemy] is frowned upon is when it’s considered wasteful

                    Isn’t that the definition of excessive?

                    Actually, it’s about the definition of “wasteful.” It would be wasteful to drop a 500-lb bomb to kill one private soldier but it wouldn’t be wasteful to drop two 2,000-lb bombs to kill one dictator. Further, it wouldn’t be wasteful to carpet bomb a competent artillery regiment that’s threatening a large formation, even if you end up with “overkill” in the process.

                    The proper force is determined as that necessary to 1) complete the mission, 2) protect friendly forces and 3) limit civilian casualties as much as possible. Because of #2, we tend to use more weapons than some other countries might because some don’t believe protecting their human resources is a high priority – in other words, they may conserve supplies and let soldiers die because they consider the latter more expendable.

                    All that being said, the idea of Enterprise reducing the yield on their torpedoes was indeed stupid. Everyone on board that Klingon ship was military and Archer knew it, so using their biggest guns and taking them out ASAP should have been the priority. The whole process seemed to be aimed at making humans out to look caring and civilized but it really only made them – or, more accurately, Captain Archer – look stupid.

                    • Re: a good finale

                      All that being said, the idea of Enterprise reducing the yield on their torpedoes was indeed stupid. Everyone on board that Klingon ship was military and Archer knew it, so using their biggest guns and taking them out ASAP should have been the priority. The whole process seemed to be aimed at making humans out to look caring and civilized but it really only made them – or, more accurately, Captain Archer – look stupid.

                      Wow. I think this actually getting back on topic. ;)

                      What about the diplomatic issue? Archer knew he was already in trouble with the Klingons. He knew they were powerful. He knew that if he destroyed a Klingon vessel, then they would hate them even more. And they didn’t need any more enemies with the Xindi coming.

                    • Re: a good finale

                      What about the diplomatic issue? Archer knew he was already in trouble with the Klingons. He knew they were powerful. He knew that if he destroyed a Klingon vessel, then they would hate them even more. And they didn’t need any more enemies with the Xindi coming.

                      What is goofy about Archer and the Klingons is that they already hate him and are hunting him. He’s already in hot water. I would think that killing Duras and ship would result in looking better (tougher) in the eyes of the Klingons and maybe giving them a reason to reconsider trying to catch him. We all know that Klingons look at what Archer did as weakness, not “caring”. Shooting to mame a Klingon only hurts his honor and leaves him with a good reason for revenge. Killing him ensures that He dies and can’t come after you. Maybe this situation is what will start the Klingon – Human war?… I don’t know the history well enough. Regardless, mame-and-run is a bad bad bad policy with a race like the Klingons. Maybe it would work with the Vulcans… who knows.

                      I would have just killed everyone in sight and left. After all, there is a good chance that they’re not coming out of the blah-blah region… It’s sooooo scary… heh

                      Maybe we’ll get to see Hoshi inside out… I’ve always thought she was cute… hmmmm, wonder what her spleen looks like.

              • Re: a good finale

                Um, last time I checked excessive force was frowned upon in the military.

                You haven’t a clue. Not only is excessive force *not* “frowned upon”… it is entirely glorified….

                What the general public is spoon fed through CNN and talkingheads and what *actually* goes on are very much two different things.

                Soliders are trained to kill … not “hurt”.

                There is a general atmosphere which both promotes and glorifies violence (towards the enemy). Ever wonder why so many Veterans go crazy and end up in the streets after a major conflict? You have no idea…..

                • Re: a good finale

                  Um, last time I checked excessive force was frowned upon in the military.

                  You haven’t a clue. Not only is excessive force *not* “frowned upon”… it is entirely glorified….

                  What the general public is spoon fed through CNN and talkingheads and what *actually* goes on are very much two different things.

                  Soliders are trained to kill … not “hurt”.
                  There is a general atmosphere which both promotes and glorifies violence (towards the enemy). Ever wonder why so many Veterans go crazy and end up in the streets after a major conflict? You have no idea…..

                  Actually, I would say that the reason we have “crazy veterans” is for a couple reasons, neither of which have to do with the “culture of violence” you talk about.

                  1. Vietnam. It was bad, really bad. And then on top of that, they came home to a country that hated them. I think America has learned its lesson from Vietam.

                  2. Basic trauma. War is no fun. War is about killing people. I never said it wasn’t. Traumatic things happen in war and vets come home having to deal with that.

                  Now the whole reason that we got into this in the first place was when I mentioned non-lethal weaponry. Something that I said the military was working on. The point is that it is a *work in progress*. There are very few real usable non-lethal weapons. Kill, kill, kill still has to the mantra of *any* military like it has been since the dawn of time, since “killing” is still easier that “hurting”.

  11. Plausibility? We don’t need no stinkin’ plausibility…
    What can I say that hasn’t already been pointed out?

    Why would anyone shoot to *disable* an enemy who attacked you rather then blowing them to hell and high water other then for making a convenient, if not predictable, way to piss away plot minutes??

    The Time traveller people didn’t tell Earth about the attack beforehand because they thought that Earth **wouldn’t believe them***?? WTF ??!! Ohh…gee thanks guys…now that seven million are dead we really find you credible now….yeah, right.

    And let’s not even talk about the nuclear winter that would result if a strip of 400 km of landmass suddenly went up in smoke, OK?

    Plausibility?? Basic sensibility?? Uhhh…uh.
    B&B turned Star Trek from Science fiction into pure Fantasy years ago when they discovered they could substitute scientific sounding techno-babble for even the most basic of facts, physical laws or even common sense.

    Face it…Enterprise is a cheat. It cheats science, it cheats common sense and it will cheat *YOU* next season when everything wraps up nicely (with nothing really having changed) with a cheesy plot device made up of techno babble rabbits pulled out of implausible hats. You’ve SEEN Voyager…you KNOW what they will do. Come on now…you know. Yeah, I’m talking to you.

    BAD writers will INEVITABLY make BAD science fiction (let alone bad television) – and B&B have proven themselves time and again to be the cheesiest of the bad writers out there.

    My advice: Smallville will be running in the time slot next to Enterprise next year, nice acting, good writing – intriguing plot lines. Stick with that and give a big middle finger salute to the B&B abortion now called (shudder) Star Trek.

    • Re: Plausibility? We don’t need no stinkin’ plausibility…
      OK, Repeat after me.

      It’s just TV.

      It’s not good TV, I mean, it’s not Farscape. But if you have something else better to do on a wednesday night at 8 – 9pm (7 – 8 central and mountain) do that. Otherwise, compared with what else is on, this is worth killing an hour with so far.

      Unlike others.

    • Re: Plausibility? We don’t need no stinkin’ plausibility…

      ***And let’s not even talk about the nuclear winter that would result if a strip of 400 km of landmass suddenly went up in smoke, OK
      ***

      Actually I think it was 4,000KM in length, from Central Florida to Venezuela. Perhaps it was a sort of disintegration beam that didn’t leave a large pall of dust to screw up the global weather?

      • Re: Plausibility? We don’t need no stinkin’ plausibility…

        Perhaps it was a sort of disintegration beam that didn’t leave a large pall of dust to screw up the global weather?

        Oh don’t *even* get me started ….

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