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Jul 25 | According to TrekMovie.com, Dr. Randy Pausch, the inspirational professor and Star Trek fan who has a cameo in the J.J. Abrams upcoming Star Trek film, has passed away.
Jul 22 | Comicmix posted the second part of their extensive interview with Star Trek The Next Generation actor Wil Wheaton.
:
ENTERPRISE's "Countdown." Rate the episode on a scale of 1 to 10:
By O. Deus / 08:46, 28 November 2003 / ENTERPRISE Reviews
Synopsis: Archer and T'Pol do Starsky and Hutch going back in time to the
21st century to stop an attempt by the Insectoid Xindi on earth's past.
Review: It's odd for ENTERPRISE producers to schedule two retro episodes like "North
Star" and "Carpenter Street" so close together, and indeed the two episodes do
have a lot of similarities. Both borrow the visual style of an action genre,
the western and the 70's cop show. Both
are fun to look at with strong direction but aside from the occasional comic
moment, take themselves far too seriously in stories that don't add up to
very much. But "Carpenter Street" isn't nearly as visually adventurous as
"North Star" and it takes itself even more seriously. Where "North Star" committed itself completely to the
material it was paying homage too, "Carpenter Street" picks and chooses a few
elements with no real enthusiasm or vigor.
Time travel episodes on STAR TREK and elsewhere in Sci-Fi usually provide
plenty of comic material. From Kirk claiming that Spock's ears were crushed
in a cotton picker, to Picard doing Shakespeare to dodge paying the rent, to militia goons capturing Torres and Chakotay. "Carpenter Street" has some
comic moments, but not nearly enough, and its only real high
points are T'Pol recovering her strength this season in her tough,
no-nonesense treatment of Loomis; and Archer offering to untie Loomis so he
can hit him again. Most of the remaining comic moments come from Loomis but
instead of being played broadly for laughs, Loomis is played by an actor who
tends to play disturbed characters and his performance isn't really broad
comedy but nervous and fidgety; a lot like his guest role on NYPD Blue.
For whatever reason, "Carpenter Street" is set in the present day even though
if the car Archer drives had been removed, the episode could just as easily
have been set in the 70's or the 80's which would have been more adventurous
and in keeping with the visual theme. A theme into which Loomis' apartment,
haircut and fashion choices would have fit in perfectly. Also it would be
more credible than having the Xindi pick our time out of all the other
points in Earth's history they could have gone to. After all, what are the
odds of that anyway? Presumably Braga and Berman thought that a present day
setting would be simpler to do and make the threat more relevant to the
audience; but it's not like the audience was sitting on pins and needles
anyway worried about the Xindi virus being released. "Carpenter Street" could
at least have had some fun with the 70's.
In some ways, the idea of integrating "Carpenter Street" into the Xindi arc
rather than having the characters take a vacation from dealing with the
superweapon due to obliterate the human race as in "North Star" was smart. But on the other hand, if the Xindi could travel back to Earth's past,
then why bother with the entire process of designing a weapon and flying it
to Earth. All they really had to do was go back a few thousand years and
wipe out a handful of nomadic proto-humans. The Borg in FIRST CONTACT
behaved logically since they didn't want to wipe out humanity, just
assimilate it. The Xindi though want to wipe out humanity and instead they
tinker around with a bio-weapon in recent human history when there are much
easier ways to accomplish their goals if they can travel through time.
"Rajiin" too starts to make very little sense if the Xindi had all of Earth's
past at their disposal. So does sending the weapon prototype to attack Earth
in the 22nd century instead of the 19th when Earth would have had no
defense against it. And so the integration with the Xindi arc rather than
being a strong point begins to raise questions the episode can't answer but
that just cast doubt about the credibility of the Xindi arc.
The actual use of the Reptilian Xindi in the realistic 20th century set
designs also pointed up how fake and shiny and plastic the Xindi Reptilian
costumes look. On ENTERPRISE or another spaceship, Sci-Fi designs don't stand
out nearly as much, but put up against textured natural materials like wood
and brick, the costumes look like something off the discount post-Halloween
sale rack. Having the Xindi alter their appearance, or using humanoid Xindi,
might have expanded our knowledge of them, saved money on makeup and
been creepier than the latex. ENTERPRISE often uses humanoid-looking
aliens with just a dab of latex here or there when it shouldn't, but this
was one case where the producers should have gone for a humanoid look. There
might have been a scene where one of the Xindi would peel off the human mask
to reveal the Reptilian inside that would again have been more disturbing
than having Reptilian Xindi running around the city.
The oddest part of "Carpenter Street" might be the episode's decision
to hang most of it around the character of Loomis, a low grade sleazeball
without much in the way of interesting or redeeming qualities. The episode
begins with him and ends with him, even though aside from occasional bits of
comic relief, he contributes nothing to the episode. At one point the rumor
regarding "Carpenter Street" was that the producers were looking for a 'name
star' to play the part of Loomis and that may explain why Loomis 'looms' so
large in this episode. But since at the end of the day the producers ended
up a casting a capable but generally unknown actor who's played a number of
roles on STAR TREK over the years, it's unclear why the Loomis character
continued to play such a large role in the episode.
In order to accommodate the Loomis character, the episode had to have
Archer do some pretty stupid things. First his plan to sneak in alone using
Loomis and then take on the Reptilian Xindi is nothing short of
foolish. Loomis is not trustworthy, as we find out later, and when your team
only has two people on it and the enemy outnumbers it, splitting up
is just senseless. In "Rajiin" and "Twilight," we've seen that the Reptilian
Xindi are very tough and very formidable and easily defeated the MACO's even
when the numbers were even. Archer taking them on alone is nothing short of
insane and his being able to do it so easily discredits the Xindi as a
capable enemy.
And why keep Loomis around anyway once Archer was inside? There is no real
reason except that the plot calls for a bit of suspense that has Loomis
attacking T'Pol. Like most of what happens in the episode, Archer's
decisions make no sense except as setups for action scenes borrowed from TV
shows with even worse writing. All in all Loomis is the single biggest
weakness because the plot warps around him. If an actual big name had been
cast in the part, centering the episode around him might have made some
sense. But lacking any depth, complexity or redeeming qualities, Loomis is
nothing more than 30 seconds of comic relief stretched out to 15 minutes.
T'Pol at one point suggests that Loomis encapsulates the worst qualities of
the 21th century, which we might take as the writer's view of Loomis. Except
of course the worst qualities of the 21st century would involve mass murder,
brutal dictatorships and theocracies and the eugenics war, which STAR TREK
once again forgets about. Loomis is just a petty slimeball. He doesn't represent the moral failings of
the 21st century, just the failings of this episode.
| Recent Reviews | ||
| Nov 20 | Similitude | 95 |
| Nov 13 | North Star | 35 |
| Nov 6 | Twilight | 41 |
| Oct 30 | The Shipment | 37 |
| Oct 16 | Exile | 60 |
| More Reviews... | ||
| Season Three (2003-2004) | ||
| Prod # | Title | Airdate |
| 153 | The Xindi | 09/10/03 |
| 154 | Anomaly | 09/17/03 |
| 155 | Extinction | 09/24/03 |
| 156 | Rajiin | 10/01/03 |
| 157 | Impulse | 10/08/03 |
| 158 | Exile | 10/15/03 |
| 159 | The Shipment | 10/22/03 |
| 160 | Twilight | 11/05/03 |
| 161 | North Star | 11/12/03 |
| 162 | Similitude | 11/19/03 |
| 163 | Carpenter Street | 11/26/03 |
| 164 | Chosen Realm | 01/14/03 |
| 165 | Proving Ground | 01/21/04 |
| 166 | Stratagem | 02/04/04 |
| 167 | [Untitled Romance/Time Travel] | 02/11/04 |
| Season Two (2002-2003) | ||
| Season One (2001-2002) | ||
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