Enterprise DVDs Planned For May 2005
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Al dat gekwijl over je toetsenbord..!¿!Mats!¿! schreef::9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~:9~
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Albi
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www.darkhorizons.com schreef:Review: How the mighty have fallen. I am happy to admit that as a teenager I was a Trekkie. Not the kind that went to conventions or dressed up and quoted crap, no sir but "Star Trek: The Next Generation" went to air on Australian television here right as my age hit the big double figures. Thus throughout my formative very early teenage years when I wasn't studying or indulging myself in assorted vices way above my age (the stuff I got up between the ages 10-15 would put Colin Farrell to shame), I was looking for inspiration for my adult life. With little in the way of role models (my high school sucked, I love my family but they can be kind of emotionally cold), the adventures of Captain Picard enthralled me far more than a certain George Lucas saga or the assorted adventures of four whinging New Yorkers and their sitcom 'about nothing'.
Throughout the 90's I remained a huge fan. "Deep Space Nine" was a little awkward at first but got great as it went on and when it stuck to the Dominion War storyline it remains to this day some of the best sci-fi television ever created thanks to its darker edge and interesting array of murkily motivated characters (Garak is one of my favourite TV characters of all time). Whilst I wasn't into "The Original Series" much I could appreciate the effort made and the quality considering the time they came from, and I did love the first six movies a lot more than the four Next Gen ones (of which only "First Contact" stands tall). "Voyager" got off to a clunky start too but showed promise and by about the third or fourth series, had a couple of great episodes under its belt.
Then the wind changed. It's hard to pinpoint the time really. Some say its when Gene Roddenberry died back in 1991 but I disagree, it seemed more to happen around the end of the 90's. Whilst I still enjoyed "Trek", the gloss had definitely come off - most of that though was to be expected. Any franchise that runs this long is bound to repeat itself and essentially end up just doing poor man's versions of episodes it had already done. Shows like "The X-Files" & "Buffy" all had strong loyal initial followings, blossomed for a couple of years, and then faded out and ended with a whimper - barely a shade of what they once were. The same has happened for "Trek". The original series had its strong and loyal cult followings, Next Gen & DS9 blossomed into mainstream success and compelling TV drama, and then "Voyager" and "Enterprise" took it on the steady decline.
"Voyager" was the show that displayed the problems better than any other form of Trek. Here was a series that when it got good it was entertaining. Then it turned clunky, repetitive and ultimately ended on a sour note - it was in the end a poor man's version of The Next Generation. Thus came along "Enterprise", a series that was supposed to shake up the franchise and take it in a bold new direction. In that aspect it ultimately failed and became the poor man's version of The Original Series. Oh sure they changed the window dressing around but ultimately the core problems of the format were still there - namely that the stories and the characters were pale clones of earlier shows and more importantly the writing was simply terrible.
At its best Trek worked when the producers and writers were at their freshest, when exploring this universe and its characters seemed like a fun time. The trouble is much of the staff never really changed behind the scenes from one show to another and the standard problems of burn out and fatigue settled in. Post-Roddenberry the weight of the franchise was left ultimately on three shoulders - Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & Ron Moore. Of the three it was Moore who seemed to understand the danger back towards the end of "The Next Generation" days. He was a driving force behind "Deep Space Nine" which to this day remains the most 'different' and arguably best of the Trek shows thanks to its complex character arcs, plotting and rich mythology. He is also a key man behind HBO's superb "Carnivale" and the new "Battlestar Galactica" which, whilst nowhere near as smart or genre altering show as most of Next Gen or DS9, is far superior to "Enterprise" in so many ways it's laughable.
So what did "Enterprise" ultimately offer? Not much. Seeing aliens from the original series was a good idea but it proved the only hand the show had to play aside from changing the tone that familiar aliens were portrayed with (the Vulcans became a lot more arrogant and the Klingons a little darker). The producers decided to try a return to the format of the original series with stand alone episodes that offered simple single storylines (practically no sub-plots) that revolved around situations that were new in this universe. They may have been new for the time they were set in, but to Trekkies they were old hat. Worse still with other cult shows out there offering far richer mythologies and snappier writing such as "Buffy" and "Angel", and more mainstream shows offering a lot more effective thrills and entertainment like "Alias" and "24", "Enterprise" seemed like a slow old relic struggling to pull along tired old plots.
Not helping is that of the new crew only two stood out - Jolene Blalock as the sexy Vulcan T'Pol and Connor Trinneer as the hunky strongly-accented engineer essentially taking on the show's Spock & McCoy roles. Both are very good looking (her ample rack and his HUGE underwear bulge making regular appearances on the show) and surprisingly strong actors who deserve better material than they had to work with, but made the most with what they could. After four series they remained the only two characters that actually seem to have development and personality, something even Scott Bakula's eternally bland Captain Archer never ended up doing. The rest of the cast did passable efforts, but all were stuck in roles that were pale imitations of far more memorable characters from other Trek series.
That's not to say the show was all bad. The feature-length pilot "Broken Bow" is as good as if not better than any of the other Trek pilots made. The central plot about a Temporal Cold War was a little trite but episodes revolving around it were far better than those that didn't and the Suliban were a great idea for a new enemy. Assorted episodes throughout this first season had their moments and few such as "The Andorian Incident", "Fusion", "Breaking the Ice", "Unexpected" and "Two Days, Two Nights" offered interesting stories and strong guest performances from Trek regular Jeffery Combs and "Without a Trace" hunk Enrique Murciano. Still the bad easily outweighed the good with shows like "Fortunate Son", "Sleeping Dogs", "Oasis", "Detained", "Vox Sola" and "Fallen Hero" all proving worse than a bad "Voyager" episode.
"Enterprise" eventually picked up with the last two seasons being big improvements on the first two (Season 3 and parts of Season 4 are a solid pieces of "Star Trek"), but it was too little too late. The producers had made some good changes but they were all too surface. More than anything now the "Star Trek" franchise needs a rest. I will always have a special place for it in my heart but right now a couple of years off is a good thing and when it is to come back, it needs to be something very different and exciting. The Trek franchise was always made for television and when it was at its peak, rivaled any other show on the major networks. Nowadays though with the quality in general for original dramatic series so much higher than it used to be (especially this past season), "Trek" must offer something not only as good but better if it hopes to win back the affections of those who once loved it. Even the die-hard fans have for the most part rejected "Enterprise" and whilst some of it is worth seeing (esp. the early and/or Trip & T'pol-centric episodes), this season ain't it.
One of the most consistent things about "Star Trek" on DVD has been the packaging differences. Almost always, US DVD packaging for American films and shows is better than the assorted overseas versions with a few key exceptions (eg. the UK "Buffy"/"Angel" sets) and nothing has been more representative of this than "Star Trek". Whereas the US got cheap and gharishly coloured plastic jobs that regularly fell apart, we overseas got some awesome looking hard plastic boxes that to this day remain some of the coolest looking boxes in my ever expanding DVD collection (at present the count is somewhere around 1400 discs).
Now at last Paramount has done the right thing and used this box idea for its releases of both "The Original Series" and "Enterprise" worldwide. It's the kind of packaging that almost makes the extra money worth it. Inside you'll find the discs containing all 25 episodes of the first season. The transfer is fine, no grain, solid blacks and good colour representation . Unfortunately the show suffers from a problem it's always had - softness. For some reason "Enterprise" has always looked blurrier than any of the other Trek spin-offs which is a shame considering the effects are the most polished. Better is the audio with decent surround effects and a good range.
Brannon Braga and Rick Berman provide an audio commentary about the show and whilst a little dull there's some good stuff in it even if they avoid some much needed topical talk. Michael and Denise Okuda provide a text-based commentary on several presentations that are much more fun and informative. There are moderate quality and relatively useless deleted scenes for several episodes, a CG guided tour of the ship, a 12 minute featurette with the cast looking back at the first season and more specifically the "Shuttlepod One" episode, and a bio of Scott Bakula that includes comments from Next Gen star Levar Burton.
There's also vignettes on the creation of the show, the time war aspect of the first season, some funky little bit about warp core technology, and a fun piece with Vaughn Armstrong talking about his recurring Admiral Forrest character. Capping it off is something rare to Trek - nine minutes of outtakes including some good laughs. Trek is famous for never letting out much in the way of outtakes from its series so something like this is great to see. For fans of Trek, especially the Original Series, this may be worth your time but otherwise unfortunately there ain't much on here to justify the exorbitant price. Season 3 & 4 are definitely worth looking into but otherwise, this is one voyage to skip. - Garth Franklin
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Tpol
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uss defiant
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Tpol
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Tpol
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