Thought that the special effects looked like cheap plastic models?
Some notes:
1) Amazing that Vosk *didn't* kill the scientist character for failing to get the Temporal Conduit working first time. Never seen that on a sci fi show.
2) Have any of the actors been on 'Sliders'? They reminded me of the Cro-Mags at times.
3) The afore-mentioned plastic-y model look of the special efffects. Particularly in the close up scene of Enterprise's phase cannons and the close up shot of the ship at the end.
4) Did anyone else find Silik's voice much creepier when coming from a 'Human'?
5) "You've changed, Captain." - "Not all for the better." 'Nuff said.
6) How many deep space ships does Starfleet have? A lot of those in the fleet at the end looked Warp capable.
7) If Daniels is still alive does that mean Silik is, as well? It would be nice to have him come back.
I'd probably give both parts of 'Storm Front' an overall 7/10 ...
--------
"Silence, you pedantic drone!" - Captain Braxton - "Relativity"
If you call Trek fastfood for the mind, what do you call other series? I would call them junkfood at best, poison at worst.
I didn't notice the similarity between this particular Archer / Alisia scene, and Picard / what-was-her-name scene in First Contact... And even if I did, I don't think it would matter!
[edit: I have no idea why this reply came up as a new post]
I enjoyed the ep for what it was. I'm really looking forward to see what Coto is going to give us for the rest of the season.
Some points:
1. How can ENT fly so low in Earth's atmosphere? Kirk's Enterprise couldn't do it ... how can this ship do it? Why not just send a torpedo and avoid the continuity difficulty?
2. So the TCW is over. Am I alone is asking this: What the hell was it all about??? Who was fighting it? Who is future guy? How could it simply end like that? What were "their" goals? It's all bizarre to me. I've watched every ep (almost) of ENT but still have no idea what the hell is going on with the TCW, and this ep. was supposed to wrap everything up! Am I alone in asking, WTF?
Timmer33
EDIT: My topic heading should be;
"Boring and forgettable except...."
the classic opening news-reel and the great FX of Enterprise engaing in a dog-fight over manhattan.
Other than that we can forget the episode like it never really happened and hit our reset button(B&B would love this sentence).
Can enteprise live long & prosper?..that's the question which preoccupies us....
alicia TRAVIS, is she the grand-grand-gran (etc.) ma of travis the pilot on enterprise? am i getting first and last names mixed up?
the 'news on the march' reference is the first time any star trek show has ever dared to be different in the opening sequence. meaning if you watched any other SF shows like the x-files they do it all the time, they show a montage of things not from the show but show you the motif of the show they are about to broadcast. i thought it was very daring. a throwback to citizen kane-days. i think this is where i felt that this season will be different. there has never been (as far as i know) any star trek episode in the past that has ever done this sort of montage. anybody care to correct me?
--------
"LET THEM DIE!!!"
I don't know about the rest of you but I was literally bored to tears watching this episode. But all in all, I am grateful this TCW has finally been laid to rest and I do hope they nail that coffin tightly shut.
I'm surprised that no one, not even Deus, noticed the most obvious flaw in Storm Front, that it came accross as a most obvious comparison to the Lilly and Picard characters in First Contact. In both stories you have a captain of the Enterprise travelling back in time, much against their will, to stop a villain from wreaking havoc in earth's past to guarantee their evil future. In both stories, a white male captain from the future with knowledge of superior technology and earth's rightful history encounters a brave black female who serves as foot soldier to some greater historic cause. In both stories she gets beamed up to the Enterprise and in both stories she plays a pivotal role in winning the war against the aliens. I'm deeply surprised no one caught on to this.
The biggest difference between the two stories however, is that Lilly and Picard were both FIRST RATE actors working from a FIRST CLASS script. Archer and Alisia pale horribly in comparison, for example, to Picard and Lilly's famous Moby Dick scene in Picard's waiting room, and Lilly's reaction to finding herself on a 24th century spaceship was much more believable. I know if I found myself suddenly beamed onto a starship from the future, I'd react with far more amazement and wonder than Alisia did; for her, it was a regular walk through the park.
I also found the resetting of the time line after Vosk's death to be somewhat simplistic and anti-climatic. It reminded me of one giant, big ass red reset button. It makes no sense that killing Vosk suddenly puts everything back to normal, and although I very much share Coto's urgent need to desperately put this TCW arch out of its misery once and for all, I felt it could have been done with a bit more grace and credibility. That entire scene with the time line resetting itself came accross to me as cheap and patronizing. It looked no more impressive than two people standing in front of a projection film screen throwing out dialog to the audience in order to quickly bring a badly thought out story to a hurried end. It smacked of desperation.
All in all, I'm deeply grateful this embarassing chapter in Trek history has been brought to a close, however clumsily they ended it. I got the distinct impression that Coto just wanted to get the thing over with so that we could all start breathing a sigh of relief. Despite its past disappointments however, I'm willing to give the new producer a chance to take the franchise into a new direction. I don't at all envy Coto, he's laboring under the giant burden of Herculean expectations. I only hope he can deliver.
I must say, I loved Stormfront II for several reasons. It's hard to overlook the supreme FX and I relished in the final scene when time was resetting itself. I loved the music and graphics of that scene; the whole feeling of it!
Now onto the meat. I noted some interesting pieces of dialogue that points in a new direction for the show. Stormfront (both parts) was written by Manny Coto and I tried to find some noticable changes. Well, for one thing it was nice to have a villian (Vosk) with a philosophy. He briefly explained his belief about the use of time-machines, and he believed in destiny. He didn't even have to shout. I find such people are worth listening to. The tone is more serious than the yelling and bickering in the Xindi counsil.
Alisia's personality was also a surprise. She was not overly shocked by the sight of aliens, getting beamed up, and she was relatively calm being on a starship for the first time. Is this behaviour realistic for people in the 1940'es? I don't know, but I always imagined they would panic.
I also did not fully comprehend why the Temporal Cold War ends with Vosk. It came out of the blue. The episode itself does not require an explanation but I have followed the TCW all the way since season 1 and there were many species involved. However, it was clear to me from the beginning that Daniels used Archer was a tool, probably among many other "tools", so it has never been Archers battle. It may be that stopping Vosk is the ultimate reset-button; the key to wipe out all the people who participated in the TCW - all in one stroke.
I really look forward to see how season 4 turns out, and I'm trying to stay optimistic about the ratings. I have always liked Enterprise but I realise that many people feel, Star Trek needs to develop itself further; to evolve. I think they're right that we can't prolong the life of Star Trek much further within the same parameters. But it will take time to change things. Hopefully, ENT will have at least one full season.
Another review without a rating?
And the Temporal Cold War is over, finally! I really didn't really have a problem with the TCW arc, in concept it's a neat idea, but in its execution, TPTB ran head first into so many brick walls that I'm glad they've put it to rest. The sad thing is that ENT finally got an original "villain race" of its own that was interesting and worth fighting against, and then, it seems, gets rid of them for good. (I am speaking about Vosk's people [whose name I don't think was mentioned or I can't remember]. Compared with the rather benign Suliban and the sometimes clichéd Xindi, I was kind of creeped out by Vosk and his ideas of using time travel to achieve perfection.) I think the writers of this one did a good job of taking a WTF alien of the week in a Nazi uniform WHO LOOKED WAY TOO MUCH LIKE A REMAN, and turning him into a real nemesis that had a reasonable amount of character depth.
The members of the mafia, while a nice alternate-period touch, were pretty much filler as far as I'm concerned. The best served their purpose in Part I where Archer needed someone to come to his aid, and we needed someone to fill us in on what was going on in this timeline. Alicia had some neat moments in Part I, but in Part II she came off as a little too Lily-esque (ala First Contact) and kinda looked awkward carrying around that huge gun all the time.
The ending was VERY rushed and WAY too simple. Daniels basically just says, "Ok, all better now, bye bye." But this is a relief. B&B have been overcooking the TCW for way too long, and I got the feeling that Manny wanted nothing more than to stick a fork into this one. By far, my favorite part of the episode (yes, even more-so than watching the Enterprise buzz NYC) was the warm feeling of relief and closure I got when they returned home escorted by a welcome home fleet... the feeling I should have gotten five months or so ago at the end of Zero Hour! But alas, it wouldn't have been the same without the cliffhanger.
--------
"The Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one!" -Shran (ENT "Proving Ground")
"Slotted spoons don't hold much soup." - Jack's Mother, Into the Woods
This episode was like finding a live dog buried in the rubble of the Twin Towers.
So after three seasons, the ID of Future Guy is hardly more than Norm's wife on Cheers. How sad.
Surely, if the series survives, they will find a way to re-introduce this 'nemesis' of Archer. I think that background element alone kept me watching -- you never know when you'll find out who this creep is. Personally, I would've liked to have seen it be someone shocking and unexpected. Perhaps a nice twist would've been to have had someone from the MIRROR universe Federation cross over, knowing that events in our timeline dominated their's, and by interfering with time on our side, it would've change their history as well. It would also explain why the otherwise innocuous Xindi of our universe were re-engineered, perhaps to match the Xindi of the Mirror universe. As for that Future Guy: I'd've gone all out, paid the bucks, and had a Mirror Picard tampering with our history -- Patrick Sterwart and all.
That's one cliche that really I can stand to never hear again. Of course, I do work at a company where some managers do nothing but speak Dilbert-esque clichespeak, so I'm biased.
Great review though. I actually also thought the episode was Chinese Food Entertainment: good at the time, wanting more an hour later. Which is a pretty cliche comparison. ;)
--------
-----
"Who are you, and how did you get in here??"
"I'm a locksmith, and... I'm a locksmith".
- "Police Squad"
While it appears that the whole TCW subplot of the series has now been apparently resolved, there's still one plot thread that's not been further addressed since the second season: Future Guy's identity, his involvement with the Suliban, and his quest for corrupting the timeline. In getting Archer and co. back home to the 22nd century, Manny Coto has overlooked this particular plot thread that needs to be resolved once and for all.
Deus did seem to like this week's ep more than Part I (much more than the AICN review anyway), but I personally thought they did a decent job wrapping up last year's threads and gave us a relatively exciting double-episode. I'm encouraged by Manny Coto's handling of it and look more forward to this season than the past ones.
Having said that, I do agree that (a) this weeks ep was better than last, and (b) that the big "reset" button at the end, aka the Archer-Daniels discussion, seemed a bit too neat-and-tidy, and made season 3 appear even more convoluted and pointless in retrospect:
Daniels: You fixed history!
Archer: Don't bother us anymore!
Daniels: Oh, alright......
(At which point Daniels sulks, then twitches his nose like Samantha from Bewitched, and everything goes almost back to normal...)
The effects were definitely better than usual, too. Not only was it cool seeing the Enterprise maneuver around the Chrysler building as it fired at the planes, but the big "welcome home" armada was a nice touch.
(1)
| 
