13 replies on “Enterprise Review: “North Star””

1. ah well
   I’ve never been a fan of putting the wild-west theme or setting in a futurist sci-fi show. It’s a bit too absurd for my tastes. It’s a problem that I also had with Firefly though other aspects of the show made up for this. I’m biased though since with few exceptions I’ve never been a fan of wild-west shows to begin with. Same holds for future-medieval ones though those are rarer.

   On the other hand, I’ll admit this was done a bit better than some other Trek wild-west episodes. And I agree, it’s a good thing they don’t have a holodeck invented yet.

2. Special Effects

   I have to mention that I loved the image of Archer’s shoulder exploding when he was shot. Too often, especially in Star Trek, getting shot means a small hole and a blood stain. I’m glad to see they didn’t do that (although they did sorta minimize the effect of the wound during the obligitory fistfight that followed.)
   

   One other comment… The reviewer mentions the teacher being 1/4 Skagarian. I agree that this wasn’t needed and I think it was even detrimental to the character. I know they were going for an easy motivation (My grandma was a Skag!) but that makes the character less noble. There were plenty of people who fought the law to end slavery in the US on purely moral grounds. The idea that she was simply a human who saw a wrong and tried to right has a much more “Star Trek” feel to it. I would have rather seen that.

   • Re: Special Effects

     The idea that she was simply a human who saw a wrong and tried to
     right has a much more “Star Trek” feel to it. I would have rather seen
     that.

     Not according to Rick Berman…what you want to see, see, is conflict,
     and boobs.

     • Re: Special Effects

       The idea that she was simply a human who saw a wrong and tried to
       right has a much more “Star Trek” feel to it. I would have rather seen
       that.

       Not according to Rick Berman…what you want to see, see, is conflict,
       and boobs.

       Who doesn’t like conflict and T’its? heh… B&B suck.

3. The premise sucked
   I’ve never been a fan of the ‘aliens come to earth for slaves’ story device. I mean, if you can freely move from one planet to another why do you need slaves? Especially messy biological slaves that need lots of resources and tend to have disruptive uprisings. Robots are so much better. Unless you build Skynet, of course.

   So, as a gesture of kindness, let’s go with the involuntary abduction plot. Okay, so why did the Skagarians take horses too? Did they not have draft animals of their own? Was the planet they wanted to take the humans to somehow dangerous to mechanized transport? Just how friggin big was their ship that they had room for colonists, slaves and horses?

   Then we have to believe that over 200 years of settlment on this planet, with exposure to Skagarian high-tech devices, these people develop just enough industry to replicate the old west and then just stick there. M’kay. Or maybe the Skagarians, with their absolute disregard for the limits of mass and the volume of their ship, decided to cart up not only horses but pots, pans, lanterns, coffee pots, a few coffee fields, textile mill, etc. etc.

   Then they bring out the Human/Skagarian hybrid girl. By Thor’s hairy sack, the odds of two species that evolved on two different planets being able to breed successfully is astronomical and even if they could manage it the birth defects would be horrific without major genetic surgery. The whole concept is preposterous and I really wish writers would stop using it.

   In the end, it’s a damn shame that Archer didn’t kick the deputy into an intake manifold, at least then something would have been cool about this episode.

   • Re: The premise sucked

     I’ve never been a fan of the ‘aliens come to earth for slaves’ story device. I mean, if you can freely move from one planet to another why do you need slaves? Especially messy biological slaves that need lots of resources and tend to have disruptive uprisings. Robots are so much better. Unless you build Skynet, of course.

     Probably the unions on their planet hold back automation. They would let biological things from other planets to be slaves in order to maintain a workforce.

   • Re: The premise sucked

     Then they bring out the Human/Skagarian hybrid girl. By Thor’s hairy sack, the odds of two species that evolved on two different planets being able to breed successfully is astronomical and even if they could manage it the birth defects would be horrific without major genetic surgery. The whole concept is preposterous and I really wish writers would stop using it.

     True enough, but Trek has established, through at least one episode that I can remember, that humanoid life in our galaxy is a result of a “seeding” by an ancient race. They sent their genetic blueprint out to new planets where life was just getting started in the hope that their material would be incorporated into the new planet’s blossoming of life. Thus, humans with bumpy heads.

     Now we can talk about what’s wrong with that scenario. :)

4. How The Ep Shoulda Ended
   …is by Archer taking the deputies onward with Enterprise and leaving the MACOs. Those guys did better with black powder six-shooters than our guys did with 22nd century pulse rifles and supposed shock-troop military training. WTF? Haven’t these guys heard of the concept of “cover” or “protect the captain”? It would be better to have NO shock troops on E than these jokes.

   And don’t even get me started on the Firefly vs. E angle / comparisons. The only thing keeping me from making such scathing comments that even B&B would give up on the series is the realization that a certain DVD is coming out on Dec 9 and it has 3 eps on it I haven’t seen yet.

5. My thoughts on this one.
   I thought it was the worst of the season. The western in space isn’t my idea of good Sci-Fi. It reminded me of the episode where Kirk and the boys showed up on a planet run by the mob. Take something from our own history and put on a different planet, then have our crew show up and “deal with it”. But next week’s episode sounds interesting.

   • Re: My thoughts on this one.

     I thought it was the worst of the season. The western in space isn’t my idea of good Sci-Fi. It reminded me of the episode where Kirk and the boys showed up on a planet run by the mob. It is amusing that you mention this episode though, because during the “shootout”, my first thought was “where’s the blockwide stun when you need it?”

     Blasphemy! That’s one of my favorite Old Series episodes! Sure, it was a little far fetched, but I don’t think it was *that* unbelievable and it was a fun episode.

     One of the things I liked about this one was that at least they had a believable excuse for it being an Old West town, unlike all the others. Yes, they had an example of “modern technology”, but in their revolt, they destroyed it, and with only 6000 people, you don’t have enough to sustain R&D. I don’t think it would be possible to advance significantly: the first skagorans certainly weren’t going to help, and by keeping them ignorant, it wouldn’t take long for what knowledge they may have had to die out.

     True, the MACO’s are pretty piss-poor shots, but then so were the cowboys, in true western fashion (though even that is believable once the fire-fight gets going, but the first shots should have had people down). And yeah, going interstellar to get slaves is probably not economic, and now that you mention it, it *would* have been better for the teacher to be pure human, but even so, I thought it was a decent episode. The problem is it could have been much better if they hadn’t blown things like these.

6. You missed the real high point…
   … which was Reed’s “whatever” look after he stunned T’pol.

   I totally agree that the teacher should have been full human.

   As for robots vs biological slaves. You have to develop, build, and repair robots. Slaves are already right there, so no expensive research, development, and manufacture. They come equipped to make more of themselves, take care of their own injuries, and solve novel problems. They don’t work for as long without downtime and don’t have as much potential for strength, but the startup costs are much lower.

   Oh and as an aside, Archer seems to have been through the transporter more than anyone. They should have him forced into retirement someday because of transporter psychosis.

   • Re: You missed the real high point…

     … which was Reed’s “whatever” look after he stunned T’pol.

     My bad. That was funny!

7. why the low point
   I think they snuck that “Bethany is 1/4 skagaran” comment in as a comment on modern racism, just about everyone who’s family has been in the U.S for more then three generations is related to a black person because of “Passing” where a black person who is close enough to pass as white, will leave their family completely, and assume a new identity in order to avoid discrimination, im a sociology major and i remember reading somewhere taht 1 in six Americans living in cities have african American ancestry, on the other hand id bet half the people in the city are distant relatives period, but anyway, maybe the writers started a thread but forgot to finish it.