I finally get my TV and watched "The Council" tape last night. I definitely agree with everything Deus has to say, this is by far an outstanding episode. I thought the dialogue re: principal's office was OK, and although I agree that obviously it was meant to prime us for Hoshi's capture, I think it made logical sense for Archer to try and give the young Hoshi some comfort before going into an admittedly tense room.
Degra's death scene was absolutely excellent and the revelation of the Council chambers being on the lost Avian world was very cool. The CG of the location was very STAR WARS prequel-esque, that is, excellently conceived. The death scene was very well written and Dolan's final words to Degra were just plain cold. Imagine dying thinking your entire race is about to be conquered and your family is going to be murdered. "at the tip of my blade" was an excellent clincher!
My only gripe is that they sort of fell into the obvious "ugly Xindi = bad Xindi." All the "good" Xindi are the normal or otherwise cute and cuddly-looking Xindi while the insectoids and reptilians are stereotypically the baddies. This was driven home with Degra's story about Dolan... "the villain is a child killer so he's really a bad muthah..." was just a bit cliche and I would've liked something unexpected in their characterization. Maybe have the Acquatics call Degra to a meeting in that fishbowl chamber and then drown him, revealing that they're really on their own agenda, and then have that turn the Reptilians to the Humanoid/Arboreal's cause.
The final battle was spectacular, ENTERPRISE continues to set the bar for visual effects. This was almost like a DS9-style battle at moments, from the visual standpoint, and it was great.
Trip coming to terms with Degra was a little too sugary for my taste, I would've preferred Trip say something along the lines of "I respect that you're doing and I understand that you may feel remorse for killing 7m earthlings, and I'll work with you, but don't ever expect me to forgive you." That would've been far more believeable from Trip's perspective.
Anyway, on to "Countdown" and "Zero Hour" tapes over the weekend!!
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It's a rip-off. / We're stepped on, and cheated! / We're flat, stone-cold lied to / But we're not defeated / No!
Halen. "The Dream is Over."
Do the reptilians remind anyone else of the bad guy race from Galaxy Quest?
Not a very convincing villian... more like Dr. Evil if you ask me.
Quite entertaining.
Now I have TiVo, so falling asleep in these episodes is no longer a problem.
Bakula must still go, however. He is just not up to it. And the camp English guy is a bad actor too. Both were outplayed by the Dead Xindi skull.
(SPOIILER ALERT)
...we already know the ending. Earth will not be destroyed.
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"Dammit, I'm a doctor, not a... oh, yeah, right..."
--Phil Hartman as McCoy, Saturday Night Live
Simply superb, some of the best Trek I've seen since DS9 ended.
I commented to those that I watched the episode with that not only is Enterprise so much better now, it just isn't the show it was a year ago. It's just so good now.
I theorised that maybe it's Manny Coto's influence, not knowing Manny wrote the episode. It doesn't surprising me finding this out.
It'd be wrong to not give Berman and Braga some credit, they did launch this new direction before Manny was on board. But it certainly feels like the best has come since his arrival.
Having seen his brilliant yet short-lived Odyssey 5, again I am not surprised.
I just so hope that season four happens so that Manny can continue to build the show.
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Lydia: "I've never lost at mortal combat yet."
Diana: "Idiot. If you had, you'd be dead." -- V, "The Champion"
I quite found that comparison a bit misplaced, and its certainly not a good thing to go so lighthearted on unfounded assumptions in the discussion of an tv episode. id rather say that the five parts of the council almost perfectly represent the veto-forces of the UN with the US being the reptiles and the british being the insectoids and of course the sphere builders being the industrial military complex.it all comes together. the preemptive strike etc. but then, it could be judged as unfair as well, as unfair as i at least consider comparing them to jihadis or the other way round.
i certainly think that 'either with us or against us' line was a well placed comment which isnt easy to be mistaken.
but then, the situation in ds9 way of the warrior fits the us course of action even better.
bush bashing aside. id prefer if deus or anyone would not mix probably own political thoughts into what should be a detailed synopsis of the episode, so i frankly thought that short undiscussed nod to the jihad came odd in an otherwise well written review.
PS: im hell sure the xindi wont find weapons of mass destruction on earth.
...with almost everything save the negative criticism of Connor Trineer's work over the course of the show (if not this episode), but I've always vehemently disagreed with that assessment.
This was a taut, well-directed (Allan Kroeker and James L. Conway may be the producers' favorites, and they are excellent, but I always am impressed by David Livingston, and he seems to be making excellent use of the creative latitude season 3 is giving its directors) and exciting episode. I liked the characterizations of the Xindi, predictable as some of them may have been, but I agree this fleshing out should have occured so much earlier.
The climactic Xindi Council scenes were a bit of a letdown IMO, with Randy Oglesby's constant shouting being confused by many for great acting. He's been a solid performer, but the combination of character and actor doesn't hold a candle to say, Damar on DS9.
Nice use of the doomed MACO, some exquisitely tight editing on the action sequences, very seamless and expensive-looking sets and FX everywhere, and even a nice gung-ho moment for Travis of all people. And a killer cliffhanger. I suspect the momentum of these last few episodes will be enough to secure a renewal.
"No one dies except the best friend," is an old rule in movies that dates back to the silent films in the early part of the last century. While this adage has been tweaked through the decades (obviously in drama, a lot of times more than one person dies), Enterprise delivers on this mantra with two resounding stabs to the gut. If the Enterprise were a person, Degra would be its best friend. This man has been utterly (and believably) selfless when it comes to our brave little ship and its crew. He has been the proverbial crutch for our heroes, their link, the key to "mission accomplished..." His death raises the level of drama in this epic season. Anyone reading my posts knows I really like Randy O. and what he's done with this character. I will miss Degra a lot, but it's because I miss him so much that this episode really shines. But that's not the only reason.
I've never been one to complain about how T'Pol is being portrayed, but I did feel that last night she was finally back in her role of second in command. Not only was she (competently) commanding an important mission, she had to work through the other aspects of command besides heading up the mission, namely having to counsel Reed. I love how she let the others on the shuttle believe that they were going to ram into the hull of the sphere. That seemed a lot like something Tuvok or Spock would have done.
The battle between the various Xindi races and Enterprise was, as stated many times, very Star Wars-esque... not a bad thing at all, as space battles have always been something that Star Wars has done right. It's all about the camera angles and the fact that there were multiple layers of ships in very three dimensional arrangements, instead of just having two or three ships battling on basically the same plane in space. We've seen the Xindi superweapon before; watching it launch this time flanked by Insectoid escorts was no less ominous than it has been in the past. I was very "Oh s#it, what are they going to do now?!"
I like Hoshi and loved seeing her interplay with Archer. It does seem kind of too little too late to be re-introducing her to us at this point in the season, but we'll see how her abduction is written over the next two weeks. It dawned on me during the "principal's office" exchanges; Hoshi and Archer used to be friends. In "Broken Bow," he sought her out, and it was clear that their was a past (I don't think a romantic one) there between the two of them. Maybe there's something there to follow in season 4.
The MACO (redshirt) death... priceless. It was graphic, disturbing, but not in bad taste. The conflict with the sphere's "arms" was very tense. Quite original for Star Trek. We've seen automated defense systems before, but nothing like this.
I found Trip's "C-Plot" (A-Plot being convincing the council, B-Plot being the T'Pol/Reed mission) to be compelling. Connor conveyed to me the feeling of a man at conflict with himself, a state in which humans rarely act "as usual" on the outside. Degra's plight for support from him seemed to end that conflict, or at least shift it in some sort of direction. I liked watching him resign his hatred, swallow his pride, and take the first step, something we can all relate to.
It would be a shame to lose this show. As I always say, I love Enterprise. I've always liked it, but this season I fell in love with the show. Does that make my thoughts about it a little biased? Maybe, but I find it hard to believe that anyone could say that it hasn't improved drastically from a year ago. C'mon, not even a little? Now you're the one who sounds biased!
-Lem
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"The Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one!" -Shran (ENT "Proving Ground")
"The Council" was, by far, one of the best episodes of Enterprise ever. Dare I say that it just might be one of the best Star Trek episodes ever? Let's hit the highlights:
- Degra - a character we have grown to love, brutally murdered. I thought that he was turning out to be one of the best characters in the Star Trek universe. He had all of the emotion, honor, and willingness to stand for what is right and just - attributes I would have expected from the Starfleet crew. He was more akin to Starfleet captains 100 years into the future. I really wish the character wasn't killed off. It did make for compelling television, though.
- How about that brief battle scene? Just when Archer & Co. think that they can finally get some comfortable rest, here we go again. You can almost hear the Enterprise groan when Archer went to Tactical Alert again. The scene with the Xindi ship and the Enterprise was beautiful. All of the different color phaser beams. It just struck me as a really good looking scene.
- The special effects were better than some movies! The sphere had a lot of V'Ger-look to it. And, did I detect a hint of ST:TMP music during the sphere scenes?
- Degra's shuttle looked very Star Wars:TPM to me - which is good, even though I am not too much of a fan of that movie.
- Did anyone see Hoshi's kidnap coming? It'll be interesting to see who makes it out of this mess.
- Finally, I think the parallels between our current world affairs and Enterprise's affairs are finally colliding. When Archer said "A lot could happen in a day", the connection to 9/11 struck me pretty hard. For all of us in the real world, a lot did happen that day. The Enterprise crew and our own trials and tribbulations of today are pretty obvious. It's comforting.
I mean, I'm from New Jersey, living in a suburb not far from New York City, and with all of the experiences that day (wondering where friends were - all accounted for with God's good graces- , seeing the smoke from the WTC, etc.) when Eneterprise came out just weeks after 9/11, I found a lot of solace in it. Here was an old friend. Three years later, it is finally reflecting the realities of today. I'm glad it's around. If it is cancelled, I will miss it.
Glad u enjoyed it. After watching it on TV I downoladed off of the net and watched it again.
Do you really believe that Paramount is going to let someone else handle ENT and move B&B to another project???
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"I can't be President. I mean, I've abused cocaine and I've been arrested. Besides, its completely stupid to believe somebody can be President just because his father was."
--Charlie Sheen (Saturday Night Live 2000)
Its been brewing all season but there is no more doubt...coto should be handed the keys.
I was hoping you would give props to this episode Deus. I voted it a 10 on the poll.
It was a quality episode with quality acting and quality writing.
Its interesting to note to that when I saw Manny Cotos name on the credits at the start of the episode I thought to myself they should replace RB and BB with him. David Livingston also does a great job directing the episode.
One thing you didn't touch on was the music. Normally I dont pay much attention to it, but I found myself thinking a couple of times how well it was done for this episode.
I hope that the final 2 episodes can be done as well as this one.
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"This man thinks like me"
-- Rico the Columbian Drug Lord, in "Crocodile Dundee II"
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