RE: Germans arn't evil | Report this post to moderator
By: Polly_Scy (Odo's file, contact) @ 03:16:58 on Oct 15, 2004

OK, I've watched this off and on all day, and decided it's time to weigh in.

First, since I rarely post any more, let me introduce myself. I'm a pedandic pain in the ass. I say that because I find very hard to take seriously the arguments of someone who can't manage to spell even when he has multiple tries. Try to get a handle on that double post thing, okay? Since I'm a professor of political science (and occasionally wander over to the History department to teach Russian and East Europeaqn History) it goes with the territory. And since I have on occasion, also taught a seminar on ethics, I have been interested in the evolution of this discussion.

You complain about Odie's generalizations, but you seem to have made more than a few yourself. ZB, Americans did NOT invent racism, thank you very much. In fact, having spent months at a stretch in Europe, and in Germany in particular, working on my doktor arbeit, I can say with a good deal of confidence that bigotry is alive and flourishing on that Continent. Asia has it. Japanese prison camps were notorious for their treatment of westerners, as well as "inferior" Asians. Unlike Germany (sorry about this one, Odie) which does indeed teach the history of the war, Japan refuses even today to acknowledge its part in atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking, the Korean comfort women, the medical "experimentation" on live (sort of) POWs, und so weiter. Africa has it. Latin American has it. I detect just the tiniest whiff of anti-American bigotry from your own direction. Gee, is there a pattern emerging here? Could it be that wherever you go, there are bound to be a few jerks? The difference is whether or not you let the jerks get the upper hand and how far you are willing to go to prevent it.

Your grandfather's resume sounds most impressive, which in my mind only makes it worse. Why? Because he knew (or shold have known) better. He made a deal with the devil (metaphorically, don't jump down my throat) and believed he could keep his hands clean by selective participation. I imagine that his experiences in the war were a formative factor in his later development, and his determination to lead a productive and ethical life is informed in part by his understanding that he, and most of his countrymen, must share Germany's guilt.

My mother's family descended from the Lees and Taylors, including General Robert E Lee. I've never understood why the General gets a pass. The whole "America's most beloved General" thing mystifies me. He did the wrong thing (fighting to advance an immoral cause) for the right reason (loyalty to his family and his home.) That makes his actions even worse because he knew better. It was the classic no win scenario. Few of us are confronted with such troubling choices. Here in the US and Canada, it's often because the choice was made by our ancestors. They left their homelands for a variety of reasons, incuding a refusal to lend passive or active support to causes and ideas they deemed wrong.

There are two kinds of ethical obligations: utilitarian and affirmative. The affirmative obligation says it's not just enough to refuse to do wrong; one must actively (affirmatively) do what it right. And yes, that is indeed the source of the phrase affirmative action. Your grandfather fell into the trap of making tiny compromises with his conscience (I'll follow this order, but not that one; I'll be less responsible for the bad things happening if I don't become an officer). Refusing to engage in immoral acts while employed in an immoral enterprise doesn't get you off the ethical hook. Imagine making that argument for a criminal! "I didn't shoor the guard ot help in the bank robbery, I just drove the getaway car. And I stopped at all the red lights and never went over the speed limit and the way back to our hideout."

How much sacrifice do we expect of "ordinary" people? Should your grandfather have risked his life? His family? Deserted? Defected? That's not for me to say. But it can't be denied that he was navigating an ethical minefield, as were all the German citizens who shut their eyes and did nothing to stop evil even if they didn't actively participate in it.

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Cancellation Strom-front is approaching | Report this post to moderator
By: Terminator (Odo's file, contact) @ 18:00:43 on Oct 14, 2004

This better not be 'the shape of things to come'..or S5 is not happening IMHO.
Mediocre episode at best. Not worthy of the kind of 'do or die' season opener we were expecting.

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Greetings To The Critic | Report this post to moderator
By: Klytus (Odo's file, contact) @ 21:17:42 on Oct 12, 2004

It's good to have you critiquing at least. The entire cast of Storm Front seemed drained of emotional expression, save T'Pol and as usual Tripp. T'Pol managed to give a solid performance amongst the statues. She is easily the best actor on the show. The cast performace as a whole could almost be described as wooden.

Argh! And the storyline is the classic reset button with Nazi's no less. Season 3 started strong and stayed that way through the entire season. I expected more of the same for Season 4.

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

John Milton (1608–74), English poet. Satan, in Paradise Lost, bk. 1.

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Alert: run-on sentence attack! | Report this post to moderator
By: motionblur (Odo's file, contact) @ 16:29:12 on Oct 12, 2004

"That is not to say that Storm Front isn't entertaining, indeed it often is though as with the season finale it increasingly moves over the weight of the material to Archer actually confronting the aliens in the thick of the crisis while much of the Enterprise crew stay on or around the ship and do foolish things such as running around in the middle of a war zone to blow up a shuttlecraft they could easily blow up from orbit or surrendering to troops with primitive weapons without stunning them all."

That made my head explode! ;-)

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Storm Front | Report this post to moderator
By: Jodeo (Odo's file, contact) @ 11:23:36 on Oct 12, 2004

Cowbell.
This episode DEFINITELY needed more cowbell.

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Germans arn't evil | Report this post to moderator
By: DarExc (Odo's file, contact) @ 23:48:48 on Oct 11, 2004 | (1)

WE musn't get confused with Germans and Nazis, they are seperate people, there were many Dutch, French, Austrian, Russian, Ukranian, Romanian, British, American, Canadian, Australian, Indian, Japanese and many other Nazi's. Hitler himself wasn't even a German. The stupid thing about the talk of death camps in this is he talked about ti to a German army general, the German army didn't know about the camps as it was a SS thing so that people wouldn't find out and get disgusted. The Nazi's had no interest in blacks either, some even surved in the German army and had the swastika on their tunics in Africa and in Germany as flak gunners. Racism against blacks is America's problem. My grandfather faught for Germany in the army during WW2 and did a lot of good things, he is less of a Nazi than most people I know. This episode was full of inaccuracies towards the Germans and Nazis but they didn't care because they only wanted to make a bunch of heartless villans, this wasn't Star Trek at all...

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Salvagable? | Report this post to moderator
By: Paul K (Odo's file, contact) @ 18:06:43 on Oct 11, 2004

I agree that this episode was mediocre, but I've come not to expect more lately. It would be a lot more interesting to me if they fulfulled more of the promise of the first season and explored how the ST universe we know came to be. For example, he Vulcans portayed as not entirely saints was an interesting intital take, but then exagerated to meaningless distortions of Vulcan character after the first season.

The only thing that would salvage this episode would be a non trite & predictable outcome -- for example, if the ones who wind up restoring the timeline are the evil aliens themselves, because they found in the future a Nazi Earth was a far more dangerous & efficient war machine than a Federation Earth -- or even what if it turned out, the natural course of history really was a Nazi victory, and our version is the RESULT of the "evil aliens" changing history to help the allies to victory, for that same reason.

I don't really expect to see anything like that, though. However, it would be nice with some more story & development, and less "Save the earth!" melodrama. That's just not sustainable in the long run.

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My thoughts on the ep ... | Report this post to moderator
By: timmer33 (Odo's file, contact) @ 17:21:08 on Oct 11, 2004

Okay, here goes:

Interesting directing. Did the director get free license to experiment a little more? To tinker a little bit with the "formula" set down by B&B? The reason I say this is that during the action sequences I enjoyed the new style ... rapid zooms and so forth (ala Lucas in Ep. II).

Interesting storyline. I like alternate histories. The White House with Nazi flags on it was killer! I also loved the bomb damage on the roof and corner of the building. Nice touch. An interesting bit of detail.

The F/X? Enterprise in space is nice, but the scene of the shuttlepod being hit by flak was TERRIBLE. I'm not sure what happened there.

The writing? Passable. Nothing special. Like many have said, there's a lot to be tied up in only 2 storylines, and Coto was handed this arc by B&B. That being said, it isn't too terrible. In fact, I actually enjoyed it. When you're dealing with a "temporal war" with many fronts, what better theater of action than WW2 and the nazis? ENT has taken a hit from people for using Nazis after Voyager did it, but face it, Nazis are the best villains and are always a nice touch in a movie or a show (i.e. Hellboy, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Rocketman, etc.). I'm not complaining like others are. I like the alien nazis and I'm not afraid to admit it. Hell, I wouldn't care if Coto carried this storyline a little farther. That being said, I know Coto wants to finish it off fast and move on to other things this season.

In short, this ep. is about as good as anything in Season 3. Bakula is still portraying Archer as a tough no-nonsense Captain, and that's a nice change from Seasons 1 and 2. Good Job, Scott.

I like that Merriweather was used a bit more ... let's hope we see him more often this season.

I'd give the ep. an 8 out of 10.

Timmer33

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on the episode | Report this post to moderator
By: MarkMat (Odo's file, contact) @ 11:22:48 on Oct 11, 2004

I think we probably need to give Coto and Co. a mulligan on these 2 opening episodes. He was handed a lemon by B&B and told "Go ahead and fix it." Coto, I firmly believe, will do much better in the long run. Let's not worry about this, and save any real criticism (or gasp! PRAISE) for the upcoming mini-arcs.

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Hey O. Deus: | Report this post to moderator
By: timmer33 (Odo's file, contact) @ 11:11:11 on Oct 11, 2004

You didn't give this ep a rating. The fields at the top of your review are blank ... or is it just my browser?

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TERRIBLE | Report this post to moderator
By: NAFF (Odo's file, contact) @ 09:24:54 on Oct 11, 2004

Simply TERRIBLE television.

Lousy script. No excitement.

Another uncharismatic performance from Bakula.

It's over.

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A couple of things... | Report this post to moderator
By: falcon (Odo's file, contact) @ 09:08:46 on Oct 11, 2004

...first of all, it seems as though O. Deus's comma key on his computer is either stuck or broken. This review seemed rather disjointed. (Much like most of Season 3.)

But on to the important stuff...

For once, this feels like an episode that not only screams for a reset button, but it might actually be fun to push it. Sort of like VOY "Year of Hell Pt. II," where Janeway rams Voyager into the Krenim timeship and changes history. Granted, time travel stories have pretty much worn out their welcome, but you gotta admit, the scene in the trailer of Enterprise flying over the Empire State Building with phase cannons blazing was kind of cool.

(How do they get the ship to fly in the atmosphere, anyway? I guess they figure it's so beat up, not much more can hurt it...and if they succeed, it won't matter anyway.)

The rest of Deus' points are well-taken, though. Let's hope that, in subsequent episodes, we're all treated to more thought-provoking drama with well thought-out characters who mean something to the audience, rather than cardboard cut-out villains of the week who don't give "Our Heroes" a chance to grow and learn, even in defeat. And a few more episodes where the lesson learned comes with a cost. Happy endings shouldn't always be the norm.

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"Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever." - Lance Armstrong



"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

--Robert Heinlein



"The Rangers are gonna win....The Rangers...have won it!!!"

- Josh Lewin, Rangers broadcaster, as the Rangers sweep the Oakland A's to move to within 2 games of the AL West lead



falcon

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Reset Button ad nauseum | Report this post to moderator
By: Kirk Archer (Odo's file, contact) @ 08:47:30 on Oct 11, 2004

Granted, Coto was handed his plate late in the game and had to write himself out of an odd situation in the ninth inning. I'm certain that had he more time to focus on his story, he could have come up with something a bit more distrubing or realistic.

My biggest problem lies with the continual, overused time travel device. Since TOS we've been dealt this card way too many times. I can remember in "The Naked Time," how Sulu is amazed to see his chronometer(sp?) running backwards, and the look of awe on Kirk's face when realizes that time travel is possible. The continuing overuse of time travel episodes over the years has simply worn out its welcome. Like O Deus says, we don't feel real danger in "Stormfront" for the very reason that it plays out like a holodeck episode with the reset button waiting to be pushed. His explaination that the 7 million people killed on earth can't be undone is unfortunately an incorrect assertion. Since time travel is being used now in almost every other episode, why not just go back in time and prevent the initial Xindi attack? To use time travel so often undermines its effectiveness.

I think if anything, perhaps something should permanently change when Archer finally completes this inane mission. Even something simple, like a uniform variation or perhaps a couple of missiing crewman to show that time should never be tampered with.

Enterprise needs to return to its primary mission of exploring the unknown. I applaud Coto for wanting to integrate some TOS aliens and concepts, but PLEASE let's do it without any further time travel.

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well... | Report this post to moderator
By: StarFleet Captain (Odo's file, contact, web site) @ 07:34:25 on Oct 11, 2004

this is what happens when you get a late renewal and everybody's rushed back in for writing, production, and filming.

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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)

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