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Deus: "United" Expends Momentum of Preceding Episode with Average Script

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By O. Deus / 15:16, 7 February 2005 / ENTERPRISE Reviews

Reviews Ex Deus

Title: ""United""

Overall: 7.5
Performances: 8.5
Writing: 6.5
Direction: 7.5
FX & Prod Value: 7.5


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.



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RE: Congratulations, Deus! | Report this post to moderator
By: Chronic Harlot (Odo's file, contact, web site) @ 14:03:39 on Feb 08, 2005

Freak.

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Image
The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on
my skin. But as the embers of the summer lost their
breath and disappeared, my heart went cold, and
only hollow rhythms resounded from within.


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Deus just uses the entire scale. 7.5 is still great. | Report this post to moderator
By: Three of Nineteen (Odo's file, contact, web site) @ 11:00:55 on Feb 09, 2005

Geez, 7.5 is still a very good score.
It's not like every episode can score 10.
The problem is that many reviews don't actually use the entire scale, but give even mediocre games/movies seven or eights, so the scales get watered out and when a reviewer actually does use the entire scale, everybody starts moaning...

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"Ich habe es satt allein aufzustehn // als Erster zu sehn // Dass ich noch leb"
"I'm fed up with getting up alone // To be the first to see // That I'm still alive"
- Rosenstolz, "Ich will mich verlieben"

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I'm deeply and truly sorry for killing Star Trek | Report this post to moderator
By: O. Deus (Odo's file, contact) @ 21:50:43 on Feb 08, 2005

I know when the president of UPN called me last week I probably shouldn't have told him to go ahead and cancel Star Trek. But well I felt he deserved my honest opinion. I also probably should not have told Harry Truman to nuke Hiroshima but what's done is done. I do apologize for whatever impact these actions of mine have had on you and hope someday when your skin grows back you can forgive me.

I i know you have thought of me as a god and rightly so...you have bowed to me in submission and subserviantly shown homage to me as a man far greater than yourself...and that is good of you to do... but I really don't have the power to cancel Star Trek, nor do UPN executives make decisions based on my episode reviews. The ratings for the series which were in the basement I suspect might have had more to do with it than my reviews.

We're all upset about Enterprise bring cancelled but there's no reason to be a jerk about it, okay?





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RE: I'm deeply and truly sorry for killing Star Trek by timmer33 @ 20:35:02 on Feb 09
    RE: I'm deeply and truly sorry for killing Star Trek by O. Deus @ 23:04:13 on Feb 09

dude..... | Report this post to moderator
By: Merlinus Ambrosius (Odo's file, contact) @ 11:33:18 on Feb 08, 2005

He's a reviewer. The whole point of a review is to critique whatever it is the person is reviewing. Deus is merely providing an analysis of the episode. If all reviewers did was gush, then there wouldn't really be a point.

Besides, nitpicking on things is what sci-fi fans tend to do best.

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ImageImage
Scientists discover the world that exists;
engineers create the world that never was.
-Theodore von Kármán

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Chill Out | Report this post to moderator
By: Jean-Luc (Odo's file, contact) @ 11:23:19 on Feb 08, 2005

I think you're going a little over the top here. While some execs have been heard to visit sites from time to time, I doubt Les Moonves checked it every week to see what Deus thought of the episode. And even if he did, he wouldn't cancel a series based on some fan sites scathing reviews.

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"Outer Space: The Last Frontier.
These are the trips of the Star Trek Enterprise. Its five year plan calls for us to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly fly where no man has gone in space. Live long, and be happy."


Patrick Stewart--SNL, Stardate 9402.05

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