Darren

Star Trek: Enterprise – Divergence (Review)

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

Given the general directions and interests of the fourth season, an episode like Divergence was inevitable.

Before Affliction and Divergence aired, the subject of “Klingon foreheads” was of great interest to a fandom that had noted the change in Klingon make-up between the broadcast of The Time Trap in November 1973 and the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in December 1979. In the years following the debut of the “forehead ridges” during the introductory sequence of The Motion Picture, the ridges became a source of curiousity and fascination for the fandom.

Things come to a forehead…

This curiousity was stoked by the franchise itself, most notably Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Perhaps owing to the show’s engagement with its franchise roots, the production team teased out the dilemma on a number of occasions. Three classic Klingons – Kor, Koloth and Kang – actually gained ridges between their appearances on the original Star Trek and their reappearance in Blood Oath. Encountering flat-headed Klingons during Trials and Tribble-ations, the crew pushed Worf for an explanation. “We do not discuss it with outsiders,” he responded.

Given that the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise has been so fixated upon issues of continuity and history, it seems like it was only a matter of time before one of the season’s multi-episode arcs would be devoted to explaining what had originally been a quirk of make-up design and had evolved into one of the franchise’s most fun (and admittedly trivial) riddles.

Food for thought…

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Arsenal of Freedom, Benedict Cumberbatch, Denise Crosby, Heart of Glory, J Abrams, Neutral Zone, RNA, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the original series, StarTrek, USS Enterprise | 12 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Affliction (Review)

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

The shift from episodic storytelling to a more serialised format poses all manner of challenges for the Star Trek production team.

By the time that Star Trek: Enterprise embraced long-form storytelling with The Expanse at the end of its second season, the franchise was dangerous behind the curve. During the nineties, genre shows like The X-Files, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Babylon 5 had demonstrated the potential of serialisation as a narrative tool. Even within this particular franchise, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had managed to strike a reasonable balance between standalone stories and the larger narrative framework.

Nothin’ but Trip…

This is say nothing of the revolution taking place on a wider scale. HBO had allowed its production team to embrace the potential of long-form storytelling on late nineties shows like Oz or The Sopranos. Within a few years, the cable broadcaster had attracted considerable mainstream attention by embracing serialisation on shows like The Wire, Deadwood and Rome. In the meantime, Star Trek: Voyager had steadfastly refused to move beyond the episodic model. When Ronald D. Moore left the franchise, any experience with serialisation left with him.

As such, it is no surprise that the franchise struggled with some of the challenges posed by a serialised storytelling model. In particular, Enterprise struggled a little bit with integrating its entire ensemble into its new serialised storytelling model. Affliction and Divergence feel like an attempt to rectify this issue, with mixed results.

It’s all coming together…

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Alice Eve, Bird of Prey, empire, High Council, J. J. Abrams, jean-luc picard, Klingon, List of Star Trek characters (G–M), List of Star Trek races, Royal Navy, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: the original series, Starfleet, StarTrek | 11 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – The Aenar (Review)

Posted on May 23, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

The United trilogy does not flow as well as the Kir’Shara trilogy did.

In fact, it is debatable whether these three episodes are best described as a single three-parter or instead as a two-parter with a coda tacked on. After all, the bulk of the action and drama unfolds in Babel One and United, with the penultimate scene of United finding Archer sitting down with the Andorians and Tellarites to begin laying the groundwork for the United Federation of Planets. Even the subplots are neatly tidied up between those two episodes; Trip and Reed get stranded on the Romulan drone in Babel One and rescued by Enterprise in United.

This blue world.

It would be perfectly reasonable to close off the story at that point. The Romulans had been scared off, and Senator Vrax had already made it clear that an embarrassing failure would mean the end of his career and that of Valdour. Even the closing scene of United, revealing an albino Andorian operating the drone ship from Romulus, feels almost tacked on after the previous sequence that had memorably pulled out from the meeting room on Enterprise to emphasise the union of Starfleet, the Vulcans, the Andorians and the Tellarites.

Using that cliffhanger at the end of United, The Aenar pivots away from that to focus on a trip to Andoria. It affords Archer (and Star Trek: Enterprise) one last opportunity to visit Shran’s homeworld.

A cold reception.

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: andoria, andorians, canon, continuity, Jeffrey Combs, romulans, star trek, star trek: enterprise, the aenar | 12 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – United (Review)

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

The Romulans are a very curious species.

They have a long history within the Star Trek franchise. They were introduced less than half-way through the first season of the show, in Balance of Terror. The Klingons would not show up until Errand of Mercy, towards the end of that first year. The Romulans have appeared in just about every iteration of the franchise, their reappearance in the final episode of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation serving to connect the show to its legacy. Appearing in both Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek, they appeared on both sides of the film franchise reboot.

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship…

Still, the Romulans have never truly been defined. Unlike the Klingons or the Cardassians, the Romulans have never been developed into a fully-formed culture. There are great episodes built around the Romulans, from Balance of Terror and The Enterprise Incident to Face of the Enemy and In the Pale Moonlight. However, there has never been recurring Romulan character afforded the depth of Worf, Martok, Quark, Dukat, Damar or Garak; if populating that list with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine characters feels like cheating, no Romulan measures up to Soval or Shran.

Although they only appear in four episodes of the season, exerting influence over another two, it feels like the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise affords more attention to the Romulans than they have received in a long time.

“All right, who arranged the bridge power display to form a smiley face?”

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Andorian, Archer, Benedict Cumberbatch, J. J. Abrams, james t. kirk, Jeffrey Combs, Jonathan Archer, Phlox, Romulan, star trek, star trek: enterprise, Starfleet, StarTrek, Television program, Tellarite, vulcan, Zachary Quinto | 19 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Babel One (Review)

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

It seems entirely appropriate that the United trilogy sits in the middle of the fourth season.

The three-parter is not the strongest of the season’s multi-episode epics, abandoning the clean three-act structure that made the Kir’Shara trilogy so successful in favour of a disjointed two-parter-and-coda format that prevents the story from feeling as cohesive as it might. It jolts and starts, never really finding the proper flow for the story that it wants to tell. There is a sense that the production team’s desire to do both a “birth of the Federation” story and a “visit to Andoria” story within the same three-part narrative ultimately hinders the storytelling.

“What do you mean I’m not in the third part?!”

However, there is something satisfying in watching Star Trek: Enterprise commit to the idea of the birth of the Federation. It could be argued that this is an example of the fourth season’s continuity pandering, but the Federation is far more fundamental to the fabric of the franchise than something like Klingon foreheads or that ghost ship from that third season episode. If Enterprise is to be a prequel, it should devote some attention to building the fabric of the shared universe. The Federation is an essential part of the idealistic future of Star Trek.

However, the most compelling aspect of the United has nothing to do with continuity and history. Instead, it is simply reassuring to see Enterprise embracing the franchise’s utopianism and hope for the future, particularly in the context of January 2004.

Shran, Shran, he’s our Andorian…

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Alice Eve, anton yelchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Earth, Federation, J. J. Abrams, james t. kirk, John Cho, Minefield, Romulan, spock, star trek, star trek: enterprise, Tellarite, Zachary Quinto | 33 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Observer Effect (Review)

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

Much as with Daedalus, there is a weirdly mournful tone to Observer Effect.

The basic plot of the episode follows two Organian characters hopping from body to body while watching Archer and his crew confront a deadly virus that infected Trip and Hoshi during a routine planetary investigation. The closing line of the teaser even features organian!Reed promising “somebody always dies.” Sure enough, that turns out to be true. Both Trip and Hoshi “die” over the course of the episode, while Archer himself is sentenced to certain death. These deaths are ultimately reversed, but they set a tone for the episode.

Trip gets it in the neck.

Observer Effect seems to be a tacit acknowledgement that Star Trek: Enterprise is effectively dead in the water, that the show is now limping towards the end of the fourth season where it might be retired permanently. Two weeks after Observer Effect aired, UPN would announce that Enterprise was cancelled. There would be no last-minute reprieve for the show. Although Observer Effect had been written months before the decision was made, the production team knew that the writing was on the wall.

However, what is most interesting about Observer Effect is not so much the fascination with the inevitable death of Enterprise, but the episode’s fascination with those watching (and commentating upon) the spectacle from the sidelines.

They like to watch.

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: garfield reeve-stevens, judith reeve-stevens, Observer Effect, organians, Prime Directive, star trek, star trek: enterprise | 9 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Money Monster

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Darren

Money Monster works better as a heightened thriller than as righteous social commentary.

There is a lot to recommend Money Monster, beginning with the basic premise. Lee Gates is the fast-talking abrasive host of a hyper-masculine financial television show, who finds one Friday afternoon broadcast hijacked by a disgruntled investor who followed his advice. Tensions quickly escalate, as Gates finds himself trying to stay alive while also unravelling a thread of conspiracy and deceit that seems to tie the financial markets together. Gates and his assailant find themselves part of an unlikely team-up to blow this corruption wide open.

Money talks.
It can also dance.

Money Monster hinges on the combination of Jodie Foster’s direction and the cast’s charm. George Clooney remains one of the most charismatic performers on the planet, and there is a reason that Julia Roberts was one of the most successful lead actors of the nineties. While Clooney and Roberts add star power to the film, Foster benefits from casting Jack O’Connell as the irate-investor-turned-would-be-suicide-bomber. While performers like Dominic West and Giancarlo Esposito are horribly underused, they do add gravity to the film.

Jodie Foster is smart enough to keep the film moving. Even as a high-concept thriller, Money Monster is absurd. The characters frequently act irrationally. The plot never feels like an organic series of rippling consequences, with the author’s hand consistently visible. It is a movie that hinges on contrivance, with Foster working very hard to prevent the audience from catching their breath long enough to question the logic of what is unfolding on-screen. In some respects then, it has more in common with the world of high finance than it would care to admit.

Taking stock.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, george clooney, jodie foster, money monster, Movie, non-review review, review | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Daedalus (Review)

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

Discussions of the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise tend to focus on the multi-part episodes.

That makes a great deal of sense. After all, no Star Trek show had ever built a season around a collection of multi-part arcs. While Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had embraced serialisation in the second half of its run and Star Trek: Voyager had embraced an aesthetic that supported two-part “event” episodes, there had never been a season of the franchise constructed around a string of two- or three-part adventures. Even the third season of Enterprise had really been on long form story with the occasional episodic diversion.

Padding it out.

These multi-part stories dominate the fourth season. Of the twenty-two episodes of the fourth season, seventeen are part of seven multi-part stories. Of the five episodes that nominally stand alone, Home is very much a thematic introduction to the season that sets up all manner of ideas to pay off later in the run and These Are the Voyages… is effectively an attempt at a coda for the eighteen years (and twenty-five television seasons) of the Berman era as a whole. Discounting these two “bookends”, that leaves only three standalone episodes.

Two of those episodes, Daedalus and Observer Effect aired back to back in the middle of the season. However, although each episode is self-contained in terms of plot, they do feel like spiritual companion pieces.

Turn the lights off on the way out…

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Conditions and Diseases, Crete, Daedalus, David Gerrold, first contact, Health, icarus, Project Icarus, Sleep disorder, star trek, star trek: first contact, United States, World of Star Trek, Zefram Cochrane | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: X-Men – Apocalypse

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Darren

X-Men: Apocalypse is a retro superhero blockbuster, and not just because it happens to be set in the eighties.

At this stage, the X-Men franchise is practically a warhorse of superhero cinema. Although Blade tends to get overlooked in discussions of the current superhero boom, it is fair to trace the current deluge of superhero films back to the twin releases of Bryan Singer’s X-Men and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Without those two films, released more than a decade-and-a-half ago, the current blockbuster landscape would look a lot different. Those films changed audience expectations and demonstrated what could be done with the format.

“Shoot me from a low angle to make me seem huge. I’m talking real ‘Triumph of the Will’, here.” (Special Guest Caption by Ed Azad.)

There have two big screen reboots of Spider-Man in the intervening years, with both Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland stepping into the red booties vacated by Tobey Maguire. In contrast, the Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart are still playing the iconic roles they established more than fifteen years ago, with X-Men: Days of Future Past straining to reconcile the original cast with the replacements who appeared in X-Men: First Class. However, in the intervening years, superhero cinema has changed dramatically.

In many respects, Apocalypse feels like the X-Men is playing catch-up with the generation of superhero blockbusters that arrived it its wake, taking the opportunity to do its own big “rock ’em, sock ’em” apocalyptic superhero team-up showdown of the kind that has never really featured in the franchise. Apocalypse finds the X-Men franchise embracing a particular style of superhero brawler typified by The Avengers back in 2012. Ironically, the genre itself has moved on, leaving the entire exercise feeling a little quaint.

“It was acceptable in the eighties.” (Special Guest Caption by Ed Azad.)

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, Movie, non-review review, review, x-men, x-men: apocalypse | 25 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Kir’Shara (Review)

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Darren

This May, we’re taking a look at the fourth (and final) season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Check back daily for the latest review.

The fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise is renowned for its focus upon continuity.

That is as true of the Kir’Shara trilogy as of any other episode. The script is saturated with references and nods to the rest of the franchise, tying together thirty-eight years of Vulcan continuity into a cohesive narrative structure. The Kir’Shara trilogy ties together everything from the Romulan schism in Balance of Terror to the symbolic importance of Mount Seleya in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock to the story behind the IDIC symbol that had first appeared in Is There in Truth No Beauty?

A short and not-so-prosperous future.

However, what is most striking the Kir’Shara trilogy is that the episode’s continuity really doesn’t fit in a very rigid way. Although the Kir’Shara trilogy is nominally about explaining how the secretive and distrustful Vulcans of Enterprise became the iconic and well-loved aliens associated with the rest of the franchise, offering an epic three-part story about Archer and T’Pol singlehandedly saving Vulcan society by putting them back in touch with the values espoused by the legendary Vulcan philosopher Surak. (Surak had appeared in The Savage Curtain.)

This makes for a very satisfying story within the larger narrative arc of Enterprise, demonstrating that Earth and Vulcan might be more compatable than Ambassador Soval would ever admit. It paves the way for stories like Babel One, United, Demons and Terra Prime. However, it also stands quite at odds with the larger continuity of the franchise, where the Vulcans have consistently been portrayed as secretive and superior. There is nothing wrong with that continuity contradiction, but it is interesting in the larger context of the fourth season.