episode #1: "Broken Bow"
 

New Series Resolutions
1.  I will not dwell excessively on clothes or hair.  Or shoes.  Except, you know, when they're really interesting.
2.  I will not reject characters on the grounds of skanky photo shoots.
3.  I will not blame everything on Brannon Braga.  Some things are Rick Berman's fault, too.
4.  I will not get caught up in a single relationshipper movement, to the exclusion of other elements and the detriment of my overall fun quotient.
5.  I will not allow any of these resolutions to get in the way of cheap laughs.
 

First Impressions
Well, it's Star Trek.  Strange new worlds, blah blah blah.  Mucho macho captain dude, yadda yadda yadda.  Hot chick in catsuit, etc etc etc.

Second Impressions
It's not quite Star Trek.  New style of opening.  Widescreen.  Unconcealed xenophobia.  Puppies.  Nipples.

Quick Summary
Primitive, emotional humans are being held back by primitive, emotional Vulcans.  Primitive, emotional humans decide to escort a primitive, emotional Klingon back to the homeworld.  Complications ensue: Rigel X, strippers, Suliban, time travel.  Various people run around in their underwear.  Primitive, emotional humans overcome inherent weaknesses to complete mission and be insulted by primitive, emotional Klingons.

I never said I was Jim Wright.

Oh Captain, My Captain?
Archer.  Hmm…

The flashbacks to his childhood were well handled, although I had an "Equinox 2" moment when T'Pol appeared on the beach.  As Michelle Erica Green has pointed out, we have yet another motherless Trek hero.

He's certainly no politician.  (This may be a good thing.)  He never conceals his dislike for Vulcans, and he insults T'Pol within seconds of her first drawing breath.  (And then Trekkers complain about *her* attitude … but more on T'7 later.)  He does, however, get the job done (as if that was ever in doubt).

The Suliban chick kissed him, rather unnecessarily, but I liked his response when she shifted into her natural form ("That's never happened before.")  I couldn't help thinking, though, that if anyone -- anyone -- had tried that with Janeway, he/she/it would have spent the rest of the episode repenting under the heat of the Death Glare.  I guess this is the foreshadowing of Archer's role as the new Trek manslut.

It's a little soon to say whether I'd follow Archer into the heart of a sun.  Janeway earned that within about four minutes of her first scene, but I was thirteen then.  Picard took a couple of years, and it was a gradual process.  Kirk and Sisko never got it.

This is my first encounter with Scott Bakula, so I can't really judge his performance by comparison with Quantum Leap.  He seemed okay, not outstanding, but watchable.  He was good, but I think there was room for improvement.

Neephlox
Yeah, so far Doc Phlox has been a combination of Neelix and the Doctor.  But I liked both of those characters, and I've liked John Billingsley since I saw his guest appearance in The West Wing.  He has a nice voice and a charming manner, and I've heard that he has some Garak-ish moments in the second ep.

There were a couple of moments, though ("Optimism, Captain!") where he sounded dreadfully reminiscent of the aliens from Galaxy Quest.

And that sfx smile … yikes!  "Like no smile ever seen before," the script said.  I like it -- it's about time the Trek budget was put to some use other than great big space battles.

Charles "Trip" Tucker III
The chief engineer/good ole Southern boy doesn't get a punned heading, partially because I like his name, but mostly because I can't think of anything.

Tucker is apparently the 3rd member of the Trek Trinity, but his personality hasn't quite been fleshed out yet.  He seems mostly likable, but his hostility to T'Pol wasn't the best way to make a first impression.  It's not yet clear what he's like as an engineer, but we've already seen that he's about Chakotay-standard as a pilot ("You scratched the paint.")

"Captain, I'm frightened…"
Hoshi Sato has so far emerged as the least popular character (in the TrekBBS, at least).  Her fear of space travel and tendency to scream are proving irritating to some, and the fact that the non-catsuited female character is a near-stereotypical, weak girly-girl is disturbing to many.  These are valid concerns, but … I like her.

Look at it this way: there's no Starfleet Academy in this universe.  These people aren't necessarily being trained extensively in space, and Hoshi got this job because she's a brilliant linguist, not because she's good in space.  So far, she's functioned under pressure, which is the most important thing.

Anyway.  Allowing curiosity to overcome fear is a major Trek theme.  You could argue that Hoshi's presumed character development is a metaphor for something profound and Trekkian.  Or you could say she's one of several Everyhuman characters in the cast.

And the Rest of the Non-Vulcans
Mayweather and Reed weren't as fleshed out as I would have liked.  It's always the way with Trek pilots -- it takes a while to get around to everyone.  Both are incredibly cute, if that's a valid substitute for meaningful character development.

Mayweather has extensive space experience, has visited a planet where the women have 3 … well, I'm guessing they weren't discussing nostrils.  He likes to go very, very fast.

Reed is British (therefore, of course, he drinks tea and is shy around women … I've watched Buffy, I know the score) and likes making things go boom.  (I like him already.)  And he does a mean Tucker impression.  He's been compared with first season Bashir, which I assume is a euphemism for "irritating little git", but I see more similarities with late-first season Wesley (the Wesley in Angel, not TNG.)

"Like a Baby Barbarella, with the Stars as her Umbrella"
I saved T'Pol 'til last, because I have the most to say.

It's no secret that I'm not a big Jolene Blalock fan.  I think I've expended more humour at her expense the last few months than at any other celebrity.  She does dodgy photoshoots in men's magazines, she wore a really awful outfit to the launch party and, well, where the hell are her hips?  Plus, an old copy of Starbust magazine singled her out for criticism in a review of Jason and the Argonauts telemovie.

However…

Against my better judgement, I could become a T'Pol fan.

You don't need to be Olivier to play a Vulcan.  In fact, it's well nigh impossible to underplay a Vulcan.  But the Enterprise Vulcans are, apparently, still experiencing some bumps on the road to the Kolinahr.  Blalock plays T'Pol with a spark in her eye and an occasional small smirk, but compared with T'Pol's superiors, she's positively restrained.

It didn't take long before it became obvious that, despite superficial similarities, T'Pol isn't quite a Seven of Nine retread.  Seven was reserved, but she could become enraged, or grieved, or (eventually) happy.  T'Pol is harder to read, which is just as it should be.

I've wanted to see a female Vulcan as a regular for a long time, and while I would have involved the adjectives "serene, elegant and cerebral", I guess I'll have to make do with "austere and sensual".

Braga has promised that T'Pol will become interested in humans, experiencing an emotional journey of her own.  I'm a little mixed about this concept.  On the one hand, I like the idea of exploring whatever it is that makes a Vulcan tick, and the possibility that pure logic doesn't do it for all Vulcans.  (I mean, if logic without emotion was universally embraced, wouldn't we have more Vulcans attempting the Kolinahr?)  On the other hand, it could well be a cheap ploy to get her out of that restrictive catsuit and into something more comfortable.  Or maybe Brannon just wants to write more Seven-esque learning-about-humanity scripts.

(And on that note -- is it just me, or does Jolene look more like Jeri Ryan with every appearance?  Her hair gets blonder and her lips get poutier every time I see her.  Has someone at Paramount been watching Vertigo?  Since, in my never-humble opinion, Jolene was prettier with brown hair and her own mouth, it's becoming irritating.)

One of the major complaints that I've seen about T'Pol is her attitude.  Frankly, the chick's pissy.  She has an unhealthy sense of her own superiority.  And she has awful hair.

I can't really do anything about the hair (is it true that the style was changed mid-shoot, and that scenes had to be re-shot?  I know, I promised not to obsess…) but I can account for the attitude.

Vulcan indoctrination, man.

She's lived on Earth, but rarely left the Vulcan compound.  She knows about humans, but not as much as she evidently thinks (she calls us carnivores, when we're omnivores -- pedantic, me?  Never -- and she mistakes Hoshi's friendly overture for a threat to her … position?  Authority?  Resolve to make the best of the situation?)

The Vulcans we've seen are pretty arrogant.  Archer accuses them of holding humans back, and T'Pol accepts this.

She never left the compound.

I cannot stress this enough.  She never left the Vulcan compound.

Isn't it possible that her superiors have been misinforming or distorting her information about humans?  Intentionally?  Unintentionally?  It's not hard to make mistakes in areas like anthropology, and Vulcans are insular enough that they probably don't have much experience in assessing and understanding other species, especially emotional and illogical species like humans.

Or … is it intentional?  Is earth open to Vulcans, or do you have to hold a particular rank or position to visit?  Why, exactly, were they holding us back?

My other theory about her attitude is a little more prosaic.  It's a gender thing.  In her first scene, she was, I believe, the only woman in the Vulcan party.  Archer insulted her without even considering what she had to say.  And when she reported to Archer on the Enterprise, he and Tucker behaved like two boys who, having been told that the loud-mouthed, know-it-all girl from next door is to play with them, are determined to pick on her until she either gives up and goes home, or becomes a surrogate boy (human) in order to be accepted.  Hell, under those circumstances, I'd have an attitude, too.  Their behaviour would earn censure in the modern workforce -- it's probably more racist than sexist, but it's not fun to watch.

So … I find T'Pol rather interesting so far.  As performances go, Blalock's fell into that special category, Less Irritating Than Jessica Alba, Chase Masterton Or Julie Benz.  Still more irritating than Jeri Ryan, Sarah Michelle Gellar and the entire cast of Buffy, but it's the first episode.  It took a whole season before I liked Buffy.

Mmm … nudity
Well, attempted nudity.  Dubious sexual references.

I found the decontamination scene far less sexual than I'd been warned, although I actually found the dialogue rather compelling.  Still, if they're trying for sensuality, TPTB aren't going particularly well.  The only sensual moment was when Tucker was putting gel on T'Pol's ears (I rather liked this).

Was it completely gratuitous?  Yup.  Was it more interesting than Voyager's corridor-cam?  Well, it's a week later and people are *still* talking about it, aren't they?

Butterfly strippers.  Really pretty tame.  Poor, poor butterflies -- I hope they were holographic, or illusions of *some* sort.  I did get an idea for a fanfic, but this was another gratuitous attempt at sexuality.  I say attempt, because there's more erotic content in the average Nikki Webster video.

Infinitely more disturbing than either nipple-cam or the butterfly strippers, though, was Archer in his underwear.  Um, well, yeah.  Did Bakula stuff a sock down his pants?  Those shorts were more revealing than Seven's catsuit, and in all honesty, I didn't want to know.

"Lemme tell y'all what it's like, being male, middle class and white…"
More than Voyager, Enterprise is a boy's series.  The early scenes, with Archer and Tucker flying over the ship, reminded me of two guys checking out a sports car.  The slightly adolescent sex talk (so, how long until Mayweather's low-g "sweet spot" shows up in fanfic?), the butterfly strippers, the decontamination chamber.

It's almost like Trek does a boys' own adventure, complete with trusty canine companion.

This is either a good thing, or a Very Bad Thing.

On the upside, the series is Jeri Taylor free.  Considering that Taylor was responsible for some of the very worst characterisations of Janeway (I found the Earth Mother incarnation particularly hard to stomach), not to mention Mosaic.

A Chick Trek series would probably involve the characters' personal lives, and Trek rarely ever does that well.  When it comes to Star Trek, I almost prefer having romances confined to fanfic.

On the downside … well, it's very exclusive.  If it's set up as a show for boys, then female audiences become alienated.  The 'shippers become restive.

My personal feeling is that if they keep the strippers to a minimum and the sex talk to an adult level of maturity (if not content), then I'm fine with it.  I'll whinge about catsuits and objectification, but I'd much rather have a series like Enterprise than Dark Angel, where the main character (supposedly created as a role model for James Cameron's daughter) ends up pandering to the male demographic.  Dark Angel is science fiction for the Britney Spears generation.  Enterprise, dodgy theme song aside, is a little closer to the rock end of the scale.

Ah.  The theme song…

"So.  Joss.  Buddy, mate, friend.  Can I borrow your CD collection?"
Fandom seems pretty much divided about this one.  It's a song from my parent's generation song covered by an opera singer.

I can live with the vocalist, but I'm not a big fan of the power ballad.  "Faith of the Heart" suffers the same problem as similar songs: it's very stirring and all, but the lyrics are, if not meaningless, then lightweight.  It's easy listening.  It's unchallenging.  In short, it's almost like the musical form of the Trek of recent years.  I can only hope it's not an omen.

They could have done a lot better.

I liked the graphics, though -- the opening sequence was quite beautiful.  Maybe I'll watch it with the sound turned down.

Good bits
· That first chase through the cornfields, and the explosion in the silo -- gorgeous.
· The set designs.  Enterprise itself, the Suliban base, the temporal chamber, Rigel X -- all fantastic.  I'd like to have seen more of the temporal chamber -- that room was just funky.
· The nods to continuity -- Trillius Prime, Tholia, the Rigel system, T'Pol's viewer on the bridge (but wouldn't a tool like that give her a backache?  I've thought the same about Spock's, too)
· The Suliban -- they're interesting.  I've yet to see how they're based on the Taliban, if this is really the case at all, but they're interesting.  They've made a deal with the devil, and some of them regret it.  They care for their friends.
· The sfx shots of the Suliban base -- it's funky.
· Likewise, the sfx shot of the Klingon Homeworld.
· Showing, not telling -- zooming in on the Klingon's DNA, and T'Pol's Vulcan "thankyou" to Hoshi -- character development and the foundations of friendship -- I hope -- without clumsiness.
· The backlighting in Padd screens.
· No computer voice -- although T'Pol occasionally sounded just like Majel.  Are they setting something up here?
* The look on Archer's face when he realises that he's just gone through the transporter.

Not so good bits
· Archer and Tucker picking on T'Pol.
· The gratuitous sexuality -- I wouldn't mind, except that it was badly done!
· Cringeworthy dialogue moments: "You shouldn't be afraid of the wind."  That's wonderful, captain.  But those ion storms can be dangerous, even in the 24th century.  Go around it, okay?  Archer insulting T'Pol -- threatening to knock her on her ass, commenting that Vulcans don't think that humans can flush a toilet without pointy eared assistance.  Yeah, they're Realistic People.  That doesn't excuse the apparent burgeoning anal fixation.
· The phaser fight on Rigel -- it went on far too long.
· The lighting.  The sets are beautiful, but we couldn't actually see them very well.  In the latter Rigel scenes, I could barely see the people at all -- just shadows and lasers.

Overall
I'm gonna give it a B+.  The plot was fun, but not very complicated (except in the last act, where I had to work to keep up with it), and it lacked the grandeur of other Trek pilots, and there wasn't quite enough character development to give it an A-.

I'd recommend it.  It has bad points, but more good points, and it gave me six pages of thinking to do.  That's longer than most of my fanfics.

I've always thought that DS9 was the best Trek, and I'm going to give Broken Bow the highest praise I've ever given DS9:

It would have been fantastic if Janeway had been in it.
 
 

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Copyright © 2001 Liz Barr