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Nov 23 | Chuck returns to NBC with a special two-hour show on Sunday, Jan 10, 2010, before returning to its regular time slot, Mondays at 8pm on the following night. It's return to prime time television can be attributed to a successful fan renewnal campaign last year. CHUCK is a one-hour, action-comedy series that follows Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi, "Less Than Perfect") -- a computer geek who is catapulted into a new career as the government's most vital secret agent. This upcoming season will include some special guest stars, including Brandon Routh of "Superman Returns" who will play CIA agent Daniel Shaw in an episode, and the addition of SUBWAY restaurant as a major advertiser to the show. Chuck averaged a 4.0/6 rating last season, about eight percent better than the recently cancelled "Trauma". Ratings-challenged Heroes moves back an hour when Chuck returns on Monday nights. STAR TREK VOYAGER's Robert Duncan McNeill serves Chuck as a supervising producer and director.
Nov 17 | Originally hired as co-executive producer to help with the second half of the show's first season, Kevin Murphy has now taken the reins of Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel on Syfy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He now serves as an executive producer along with Ronald D. Moore, David Eick and Jane Espenson and oversees the day-to-day functions of the show.
Nov 12 | Star Trek star Zachary Quinto is loosely attached to star in the romantic dramedy Whirligig, reports Risky Business.Quinto would play the lead role in the independent Canadian film, which is aiming to shoot early next year. The movie centers on a man who, in a misguided attempt to woo an older woman, befriends the woman's adopted son.Chaz Thorne is directing the pic, based on a screenplay by Michael Amo, creator of the Canadian supernatural series "The Listener."
Nov 11 | The CNS Foundation, is hosting an on-line charity auction at www.charitybuzz.com. One of the items they are auctioning is a signed movie poster of the new Star Trek movie which has all the cast members and writers. The president of our organization is Carol Abrams, JJ's mother, and she arranged for the donation from Bad Robot Production Company. J.J. Abrams is also a major donor to their organization. The funds raised will go to help find a cure to neurological disorders in children. The auction link is here.
Nov 10 | Candice Bergen, Charles Lisanby, Don Pardo, Gene Roddenberry, Tom and Dick Smothers and Bob Stewart have been selected as the next inductees into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame. They will be honored at a Jan. 20 ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "This year's inductees have challenged and shaped popular culture, changed television for the better and entertained us royally while doing so," TV Academy Chairman-CEO John Shaffner said. More info at the Hollywood Reporter
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By O. Deus / 15:16, 7 February 2005 / ENTERPRISE Reviews
Synopsis: Enterprise forms an alliance of Andorians, Tellarites, Vulcans and humans to pursue the Romulan marauder.
Review: "United" is a serviceable episode, though significantly weaker than "Babel One", in no small part because the story of the alliance gets reduced to a feud between Shran and a Tellarite. This is unfortunate since it pushes away the greatest strengths of the storyline in favor of a rather familiar STAR TREK cliche and a pointless action scene.
Jeffrey Combs once again does his best as Shran but the material that he's given teeters on the absurd and that does little to help matters. Meanwhile, the Romulan drone has proven to be a rather weak threat and quite unimpressive in comparison to its appearance in "Babel One" and only manages to survive by chance and lots of system redundancies.
The alliance, the early stirrings of the Federation, which was supposed to take center stage, instead occurs on the periphery. We never even see an actual Vulcan, aside from T'Pol, which would have been a nice touch, and we never get any of the sense of drama and momentum that, for example, underlaid the Xindi alliance with Enterprise. Instead it seems as if somewhere out there are ships, all hunting down a drone, which seems like overkill. Especially as the drone proves to be little match for even Enterprise, let alone Andorian or Vulcan ships which are supposed to be more powerful, and its only ability to cloak itself is quickly neutralized.
Still, "United"'s strongest moments are its character interactions. Trip and Reed's friendship is nicely renewed in scenes that echo "Two Days and Two Nights" and "Shuttlepod One." Archer and Shran have some strong scenes together and even Hoshi and Ensign Mayweather have a scene that's oddly more lively than a lot of the rest of the episode.
Overall, though, Shran's romance and tragic lost love was a poor idea, poorly executed, and when it becomes the main preoccupation of "United" it really becomes an awful one. The actual duel looks silly, the weapons they fight with look silly and the conclusion, which is sillier still, only make things worse. Archer defeating Shran is simply not credible. Shran giving up after losing an antenna is not credible either. From everything we've seen he's determined to the point of madness, he is hardly going to give up avenging the woman he loves because Archer briefly outmaneuvered him.
Finally, if the theme of this episode is unity, then there is a distinct shortage of it. If the theme is building the Federation, there's a distinct shortage of that too. The alliance we have here seems no more enduring thusfar than the one Janeway formed in "The Void," less so actually, since no one involved seems to be doing very much interacting.
"United" needed to show a lot more and tell less. It needed to sustain the momentum of "Babel One" but sadly it didn't. It needed to be well-paced, insightful and funny. It wasn't. ENTERPRISE needed to survive past this season but it didn't. Sic transit and all the rest.
Next week: Andorians with really pale eyes.
| Recent Reviews | ||
| Jan 31 | Babel One | 36 |
| Jan 24 | Observer Effect | 26 |
| Jan 16 | Daedalus | 23 |
| Dec 7 | Kir'Shara | 73 |
| Nov 29 | Awakening | 46 |
| More Reviews... | ||
| ENTERPRISE Mission Schedule | Logs by Season: 1 2 3 4 | ||
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United was a decent episode, though nowhere near as strong as Babel One. Part of the problem, I think, is that its a "middle episode". It doesn't start anything, it doesn't finish anything, and it just serves to push the action along to the conclusion.
That being said, there are some great parts here, and once again I'm impressed with the special effects. That scene of the Enterprise coming into view above Trip and Reed was awesome, and I thought the "flitty" movements of the drone were pretty cool.
Not a bad episode, but not groundbreaking.
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