Enterprise Review – “Precious Cargo”

Well, at the very least it killed an hour of waiting for Friday.

Enterprise LogoPrecious
Cargo

 

Cast & Crew

Director: David Livingston
Story By: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
Teleplay By: David A. Goodman

Starring
Scott Bakula as Captain
Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Chief
Engineer Charles 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
Padma Lakshmi as Kaitaama
Leland Crooke as Firek Plinn
Scott Klace as Firek Goff

Airdate Information

Originally Aired: Dec. 11, 2002
Season: Two
Episode: Eleven
Production: 037

Precious CargoWhat
Happened

When Trip rescues an exotic alien woman from her kidnappers, they find themselves
on the run from her captors and, in the process, on an unexpected romantic adventure.
Meanwhile, Archer holds one of the alien kidnappers captive on Enterprise and
devises a scheme with T’Pol’s help to pressure the reluctant prisoner to help
them locate Trip.

Review

Chant with me people: "Nemesis premiers tomorrow. Nemesis premiers
tomorrow. Nemesis premiers tomorrow.
" Feeling better? Good.

It was funny, but not that funny. It was never tense, and certainly never surprised
you. I’m not sure what they were trying to pull off here. I wonder if all the
non-B&B episodes are being held till the end of the season, when we can
forget this trash at the beginning. Just a thought.

High Point

"We started off with 83 crew members…we’re down to 76." Sick, just
sick.

Low Point

Princess pouting. Leia was cool, sexy, and tough when she did it. Take lessons
lady!

The Scores

Originality: Good lord no! Berman and Braga need to be sued for plagurism.
Just once. 1 out 6.

Effects: Pretty good stuff. New ship, escape pod and various stuff. 5 out of
6.

Story: It was fun, but a bit obvious in a lot of places. 3 out of 6.

Acting: Trineer is good, but the guest cast doesn’t help out a whole lot. 4
out of 6.

Emotional Response: It’s funny in a few places, there’s no tension or anticipation
with the outcome. 3 out of 6.

Production: Good makeup and sets. 4 out of 6.

Overall: It’s a funny attempt at an episode, but it doesn’t hold up. 3 out
of 6.

Total: 23 out of 42

Episode Media

From StarTrek.com

Next Time on Enterprise (Dec. 18, 2002)

Next Time on EnterpriseThe
Catwalk

When a deadly radioactive storm threatens Enterprise, the entire crew must
take refuge for eight days in a small maintenance shaft. As they weather the
storm, the crew discovers that alien intruders are trying to steal Enterprise
— and may turn the crew’s save haven into a death trap in the process.
In order to stop the aliens and save the ship, Archer and his officers must
battle against time … and the deadly storm.

(I could have sworn I saw a different preview last night, but I can’t remember
what it entailed. At any rate, StarTrek.com says "The Catwalk" is
the next episode.)

TheAngrymob

7 replies on “Enterprise Review – “Precious Cargo””

  1. Plagerism
    B&B should be nailed – the entire time Trip and the “Princess” were in the escape pod, heck, the entire time they were interacting, all I could think of was Han and Leia. Granted, it has been awhile since I have watched any Star Wars (Phantom Menace hurt too much) but most of that dialogue seemed like it could have been ripped from Han and Leia’s interactions during ‘A New Hope’ and ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. The only thing that was missing was C-3PO. Jeez… even that opening scene, if you replaced the Harmonica with the Star Wars theme, could have been right from ‘A New Hope’.

    I know it’s not plagiarism per se, but I really think that B&B need to up the originality content of Enterprise – I’m getting tired of them just recycling plots from other sources. It seems kind of sad to me that Enterprise has to resort to stealing all their plots for this season from elsewhere, after having had a much better first season than the other Star Treks. They really need to do something that draws on the established Star Trek history, like start the Earth – Romulan war (which if I remember my trek lore correctly triggered the creation of the Federation). I do realize that it would be messing with the ‘established’ time line again, but at least it would be better than what they are giving us now.

    Of course, even if it descends into complete crap, it will still go on for a few more seasons (we all remember Voyager, now don’t we?).

  2. Low points
    This is definitely another “Voyager” — watchable (just), but not great. For me, the low point was when Her High Mightiness ripped off the bottom part of her dress so she could get into the escape pod, only to slide into it butt first without having to spread her legs so she didn’t need to rip it off at all. As she’d “tried” to do before ripping it off. I guess bare skin slides easier through doors? Or bare skin improves ratings maybe? And I always love it when people wake up with their clothes on after presumably having had sex the night before (guess we can’t have too *much* skin). Not that I minded Tripp’s shirt getting pulled down to make it all better when he was injured ;-) but Enterprise needs better stories, not T&A.

  3. Great review
    terrible episode.

    For once I just wanna be suprised by an episode.. that would be neat. Trip is a good character/actor, and the newer aliens were interesting at best but this one really was lame in nine out of ten ways

  4. Heh. I love your intro.
    The intro of killing an hour before friday is just classic

    The instant I recognized what was going to happen I asked my wife if this was 7 days and 7 nights again. Can’t wait to watch firefly tonight and redeem myself.

  5. Dull with the odd amusing moment… and…
    Did we really see T’Pol wearing something that’s not skintight, or was it my imagination?

    But really, something needs to be done about this. As the season drags on with no real progression and continual naive blunders by Archer and the rest of the crew, one wonders why one bothers to watch it in the first place.

    If we could have some plot, some sense of purpose, that would be good. Sure, you can’t have every episode relevant to the overall arc (assuming there is one), but you’ve got to have references to it! It’s like the Suliban have ceased to exist, the whole thing with the temporal cold war is gone right out of the window. Maybe the whole thing in Shockwave wiped it from the timeline. That’s how they’re going to end it you know, just wipe all of Enterprise from the timeline so that it never happened.

  6. So was she a Trill?
    I know she had some other Name for her planet, but we have a doezen names for Earth and Humans. If I know B&B by now, there will be an episode later in the season, where the people of her planet declare war on Earth for dishonering thier Queen or something.

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