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Nah, I’m currently re-watching Babylon 5 and then planning to re-watch Battlestar Galactica after that.
I don’t think ENT is going to get a fouth attempt. I’m kind of impressed it never stuck. I don’t think I find any of the characters likeable enough.
Hoshi and Trip are the most likeable, but they’re very American. In fact they’re all very American. Even Malcolm feels like an American idea of a stuffy British guy. I could picture any of them in a frat house.
I might even go as far as to say, ENT is a Star Trek that makes no effort towards internationalism… And that the declining quality of Star Trek comes from a similar drift being repeated.
I don’t like his eyes or his voice, or that he gets more stretchy as the show goes on. I also don’t like that he’s the only heavily made up (make up wise) crew member. I don’t find him particularly likeable.
I get that it’s part of the premise though, that ENT is trying to be a more coarse, and under developed Trek, so of course most aliens aren’t going to be signing up.
Speaking of which, I’m not really a fan of the Xindi as the bad guys… it’s almost like, it’s all a Holodeck program Riker or someone is writing.
Seems like every time Phlox does something related to medicine it’s also extremely unethical, like creating Sim or unilaterally condemning a sapient species to death.
Don’t you know in the future, everyone is American? C’mon.
i’m with Umthatguy, though. Phlox is my favorite.
“<creepy smile> OPTIMISM, Captain!”
I thoroughly enjoy sublte critques of humanity through the lense of “aliens trying to figure us out”. Like the bab5 scene where Londo sings the Hokey Pokey and gets irate because it’s a totally mid-tier song that 'everybody" knows.
70’s BSG is an acquired taste. You have to be on board with the Buck Rogers style cheese, and the heavy handed Mormon influence (including the rampant amount of old white men in charge). Once you get past that, its light hearted fun in the face of extinction.
There are some interesting seeds in general, but I feel like the series would have done a lot better if they kept Romulans as the original villain. It would have even worked after Florida 9/11 had humanity try to find out who attacked them.
The whole timey whimey with the people manipulating the Xindi only muddied things further. A cautious Romulan senate executing a preemptive strike, if somewhat bold, still works within what we know of them.
If I were to give sci-fi writers or anyone in that creative space some advice, it’d be this: Don’t fuck with time. Just stay away. There’s very few shows/books/whatever that can pull it off without “going back and fixing it” becoming like literally every episode. or like Voyager’s Year of Hell arc, where that entire arc literally does not matter to the overall story, it didn’t really develop the characters, and everything at the start of it was reset.
Quantum Leap and Dr. Who are the only two examples I can think of where it works.
In Star Trek, though, it became a form of lazy writing.
I think the only time I didn’t hate it so much was in the whale movie and then the DS9 episode with the bell riots.
But for everyone of those, there’s the arc or movie or episode that’s like “yeah we went back in time and fixed it and… uh…. What was I talking about? Hello nice alien, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
It even works with how the Enterprise was acting pre-Xindi attack. Humanity was actively interfering in the Vulcan-Andorian Cold War in ways that the Romulans couldn’t predict and even acted far above their power in brokering various peace deals. It isn’t that far out of line to attribute most forms of chaos happening in the area to be the Romulans trying to sow chaos as a way to control the region of space.
Eventually humanity becomes too disruptive that the Romulans have to actively attack humanity in order to regain control of the region, sparking the Earth-Romulan War. Hell, the human assistance in the revelation of Surak’s teachings and the subsequent Vulcan revolution be both the trigger that gets the Romulans to go to war and the reason why they don’t reveal themselves, since they were hoping to use a Vulcan-Andorian War to weaken Vulcan and open them up to annexation/incorporation with their cousin species’s empire.
Season 4 has a lot of fun multi part stories and maybe 2 or 3 bottle episodes… there is no finale.
Nah, I’m currently re-watching Babylon 5 and then planning to re-watch Battlestar Galactica after that.
I don’t think ENT is going to get a fouth attempt. I’m kind of impressed it never stuck. I don’t think I find any of the characters likeable enough.
Hoshi and Trip are the most likeable, but they’re very American. In fact they’re all very American. Even Malcolm feels like an American idea of a stuffy British guy. I could picture any of them in a frat house.
I might even go as far as to say, ENT is a Star Trek that makes no effort towards internationalism… And that the declining quality of Star Trek comes from a similar drift being repeated.
Dr. Phlox is the real standout. Open to exploring human cultures, but stands up for his own morals/priciples.
I don’t like his eyes or his voice, or that he gets more stretchy as the show goes on. I also don’t like that he’s the only heavily made up (make up wise) crew member. I don’t find him particularly likeable.
I get that it’s part of the premise though, that ENT is trying to be a more coarse, and under developed Trek, so of course most aliens aren’t going to be signing up.
Speaking of which, I’m not really a fan of the Xindi as the bad guys… it’s almost like, it’s all a Holodeck program Riker or someone is writing.
/cough cough /
Seems like every time Phlox does something related to medicine it’s also extremely unethical, like creating Sim or unilaterally condemning a sapient species to death.
Don’t you know in the future, everyone is American? C’mon.
i’m with Umthatguy, though. Phlox is my favorite.
“<creepy smile> OPTIMISM, Captain!”
I thoroughly enjoy sublte critques of humanity through the lense of “aliens trying to figure us out”. Like the bab5 scene where Londo sings the Hokey Pokey and gets irate because it’s a totally mid-tier song that 'everybody" knows.
“…and then they put their left hand out! They’ve undone their previous progress! It makes no sense!”
It’s a great rant. Now I need a Babylon 5 rewatch. Thanks!
“I quite enjoyed it.”
“don’t tell him.”
I have to ask, which Battlestar Galactica?
I tried to watch the 70’s version, but I just couldn’t get into it. I’ve heard that others prefer it, so maybe it comes down to what you saw first.
I’ve never tried the original Battlestar Galactica, so I’ll definitely be watching the newer one.
70’s BSG is an acquired taste. You have to be on board with the Buck Rogers style cheese, and the heavy handed Mormon influence (including the rampant amount of old white men in charge). Once you get past that, its light hearted fun in the face of extinction.
The first episode of the 70s BSG had me hooked. Humanity all alone in the universe facing extinction.
And…in the second (third?) epsiode they put their feet up in a space pub full of thriving sentient aliens.
The tone whiplash was strong.
I might have to give it another shot, just letting some of it slide to enjoy the whole.
BSG was so bad. It just wanted to be some teen drama in space ooh sexy woman edgy show, it’s everything wrong with early 2000s media.
There are some interesting seeds in general, but I feel like the series would have done a lot better if they kept Romulans as the original villain. It would have even worked after Florida 9/11 had humanity try to find out who attacked them.
The whole timey whimey with the people manipulating the Xindi only muddied things further. A cautious Romulan senate executing a preemptive strike, if somewhat bold, still works within what we know of them.
It’s funny.
If I were to give sci-fi writers or anyone in that creative space some advice, it’d be this: Don’t fuck with time. Just stay away. There’s very few shows/books/whatever that can pull it off without “going back and fixing it” becoming like literally every episode. or like Voyager’s Year of Hell arc, where that entire arc literally does not matter to the overall story, it didn’t really develop the characters, and everything at the start of it was reset.
Quantum Leap and Dr. Who are the only two examples I can think of where it works.
Perhaps they work because time travel is the core of the story
That’s definitely part of it.
In Star Trek, though, it became a form of lazy writing.
I think the only time I didn’t hate it so much was in the whale movie and then the DS9 episode with the bell riots.
But for everyone of those, there’s the arc or movie or episode that’s like “yeah we went back in time and fixed it and… uh…. What was I talking about? Hello nice alien, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
It even works with how the Enterprise was acting pre-Xindi attack. Humanity was actively interfering in the Vulcan-Andorian Cold War in ways that the Romulans couldn’t predict and even acted far above their power in brokering various peace deals. It isn’t that far out of line to attribute most forms of chaos happening in the area to be the Romulans trying to sow chaos as a way to control the region of space.
Eventually humanity becomes too disruptive that the Romulans have to actively attack humanity in order to regain control of the region, sparking the Earth-Romulan War. Hell, the human assistance in the revelation of Surak’s teachings and the subsequent Vulcan revolution be both the trigger that gets the Romulans to go to war and the reason why they don’t reveal themselves, since they were hoping to use a Vulcan-Andorian War to weaken Vulcan and open them up to annexation/incorporation with their cousin species’s empire.