Sorry this is late again gang!
The Forgotten
Cast & Crew
Director: LeVar Burton
Written By: Chris Black & David A. Goodman
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
Randy Oglesby as Degra
Rick Worthy as Xindi-Arboreal
Bob Morrisey as Reptilian Captain
Seth MacFarlane as Engineer
Kipleigh Brown as Crewman Taylor
Episode Information
Originally Aired: April 28, 2004
Season: Three
Episode: Twenty
Production: 072
What Happened
After arriving at one of the mysterious, metallic spheres for a clandestine meeting with Xindi weapon designer Degra, Archer attempts to convince the skeptical scientist and another Xindi council member that humanity isn’t their enemy. Meanwhile, as the crew struggles to repair the extensive damage to Enterprise, Trip must deal with the recent death of a member of his engineering team, forcing him to also come to terms with the loss of his sister in the original Xindi attack on Earth. Also, T’Pol must confront the implications of her emotion-provoking substance addiction.
Review
A solid episode for the second week in a row. See what happens when you take the keyboard away from total morons and let some people with heart and passion write an episode? The drug subplot’s been relegated to just that, a subplot. It doesn’t need to be at the forefront. Trip is finally coping with his sister’s death and the crew is coming to understand just how dangerous this mission is. This is what the show needs: A real sense of danger and suspense.
High Point
I don’t mind dream sequences, especially when they’re handled like that. Good dialogue and genuine emotion.
Low Point
Trip’s confrontation with Degra. Seemed a little pouty to me.
The Scores
Originality: Nothing stunningly original, but that doesn’t mean it’s not well done. 4 out of 6.
Effects: Pretty green fire. 5 out of 6.
Story: The story allows for some interaction and some deeper character development. 4 out of 6.
Acting: Once again, everyone’s in prime form, though I’d like to see more of the cast in each episode. 5 out of 6.
Emotional Response: There’s plenty of heart-felt moments that don’t get too overdone. 5 out of 6.
Production: Messy and unpleasant. Got slivers of DS9 on a few shots. 5 out of 6
Overall: This is good stuff. Finally! 5 out of 6.
Total: 33 out of 42
Next Week on Enterprise (May 5, 2004)
E2
While on their way to face the Xindi Council, Archer and crew encounter a twin NX-01 manned by their own descendants, who warn that the subspace shortcut they intend to take will throw them 100 years into the past, ensuring Earth’s destruction.
The Final Episodes of Season Three
The remainder of the third season goes like this:
- The Council (05.12.2004)
- Countdown (05.19.2004)
- Zero Hour (05.26.2004)
Additional Notes and Comments
If you’re interested in what’s in TheAngryMob’s review queue, check out my What’s Coming page.
Decent episode, really.
I actually felt for Tucker, and Jolene Blalock did (does) a GREAT job expressing T’Pol’s conflict. Her eyes are amazingly expressive, even though her voice remains flat. For that matter, the acting from most of the cast was excellent.
The cast have finally fallen into their characters, and the show seems to be hitting its stride. My worry: where in the hell do we go from this story arc? Back to the Suliban and the Temporal Cold War? :(
-Joe
Re: Decent episode, really.
Really liked this episode too. I hope that it takes them at least 3-4 episodes
to get back home or something. It took them a while to get where they where
at, and now there ship is beat all to hell.
They also need to deal with repercussions from other episodes. Like finding
those people that they stole the warp drive from, returning the warp coil, and
maybe finding out that half of them are dead from space pirates. That’s right
SPACE PIRATES! mwaahahaahaa. Or even better, they are considered space
pirates and they find that there is a bounty on their head, and the bounty is
by what we would call good guys, so they can’t just shoot there way out.
but please, no more suliban. and I really hope they stop abusing time travel in
episodes. (I’m looking at you Next week on enterprise). They need to just stop
with time travel. no more. Ideally they should have never even done any of
them for enterprise. But then again, ideally they should be dealing with the
Romulan war. Hey, that sounds like a good season, season and a half arc….
Re: This week’s episode (E^2)
I doubt if time travel is finished. The writers threw in the comment at the episode’s end: “if they never existed, why do we remember them?” At least to me it was too obvious for there to not be a connection to Something Forthcoming, although I’m still not confident enough in the show’s writers to think they’re really starting to regularly hint at future events more than one episode away.
(OK, T’Pol is probably pregnant … What was my point? :) )
– Joe
Re: This week’s episode (E^2)
NO. NO. NO. NO. Repeat after me, with emphasis ‘Human and Vulcans are not compatible and require doctor intervention for it to work’. This is so heavily canon that it has to be held to. This was said a few times in relation to Spock. Having an ‘oops’ pregnancy is not possible. Of course that won’t stop them from some kind of ‘trellium-D’ causing it.
Re: This week’s episode (E^2)
I so seriously hope you’re right. :) I really do. :) This has always been my major point of contention with Trek’s many hybrids, that human-alien hybrids have less chance of occuring than, for example, human-sheep hybrids. (TNG episode aside, where a message from a founding species is located in the DNA of humans, Klingons, Romulans, et al.) If life evolves independently on an alien world, chances are very high that it will have less in common with terrestrial life than two disparate terrestrial species. We’d be more likely to hybridize humans with hydrangeas than we would be to create a human Klingon hybrid.
We would most likely see analogous molecules between Terrestrial and alien species, a hemoglobin analog, etc., but I’d wager that it would be next to impossible (as you point out), without a complete sequence of replicating molecules from both species, and some serious medical wizardry to make the resultant fetus compatible with the “mother” gender to have anything other than (at best) an allergic reaction of one species to another species’ reproductive, um, particles. :)
From the perspective of lame writing, that Trellium-D link you mention is quite possible … :/
-Joe
Re: Decent episode, really.
How about the grand old Enterprise returns to Earth to find the middle of the Romulan and/or Klingon Wars? No more time for time travel silliness, just long distance mind games on one hand, and big growling guys on the other. Good thing the Andorians and Vulcans have some nice ships. Let’s we and them sign some paper about all for one and one for all.
Then we talk to those three gendered folks that Trip pissed off. He says he is really really sorry.
If any of them still don’t want to sign the paper. We take them in the back room and tell them the part about transdimensional space reconfiguration that will hit our/their space in a few centuries.
Maybe there should be an organization to deal with these threats to the survival of the species that sign the paper together. They just need a cover for all the diverting of resources to this end. Make it the large, out of the way numbered section to a big-named front organization, like section 31 of “The United blah blah blah”. Something long enough to dazzel the eyes of the voters.
Oh and I did liked this episode. Archer is no longer anyone’s best pal. He is the Captain that will use and drop anything and anyone to get his task done. New catch phrase for him, “I’m not debating it. I’ve made my decision.”
Re: Decent episode, really.
And let’s hope that if they do involve the Romulans…NOBODY gets to see them face-to-face. I’m sure we all remember the TOS episode when the Romulans were first revealed and everyone spun around to stare at Spock. Of course that would assume that B&B follow cannon….ROTFAL!
[Sigh] But it’s all still moot to me: we’ve only ever seen the first, lame, series in NZ. :-(
Bad news for next season?
According to the venerable IMDB.com, there is a possibility of a writers strike coming up on hollywood. Badly remebered hearsy (here’s some backup: here and and here)
has both Star Trek V, and some of the worst of Next Generation being directly caused by the writer’s strike of their eras.
If there is a writers strike, I expect the next season of Enterprise to be horribly, horribly bad.
Re: Bad news for next season?
With the networks being so heavily loaded with reality shows, I doubt the writers will have much of a leg to stand on. Their reduced workforce (from reality TV) is one of the primary reasons for the strike.
Re: Bad news for next season?
Yep, and them going on strike makes about as much sense as Southwestern Bell workers going on strike because health care costs are high. But they’ll probably do it anyway.