Star Trek | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: Enterprise – Cold Station 12 (Review)

Posted on May 10, 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 like everybody loves Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. At the very least, Star Trek fans love the movie. Dearly.

The film has featured on several AFI ballots, even if it rarely placed. The film was included in The Guardian‘s 2011 “my favourite film” cycle. It placed second in a Rolling Stone readers’ poll of the best movies adapted from television series. A 2013 fan poll placed it as the best loved of all the Star Trek movies, the same poll that (ridiculously) ranked Into Darkness as the worst film in the franchise. In 2016, the film’s final conversation between Kirk and Spock topped a fandom poll of the duo’s best moments.

“The Wrath of Khan had a LOT of influence.”

As such, The Wrath of Khan casts a long shadow. Four of the ten Star Trek films that followed borrow its structure and tone. Star Trek: First Contact swaps Khan for the Borg as the returning television antagonist. Star Trek: Nemesis casts Tom Hardy in the villainous role, complete with super weapon and nebula battle. Star Trek finds Eric Bana doing his best Ricardo Montalban impression. It is practically a relief (and a surprise to absolutely no one) when Benedict Cumberbatch finally announces, “My name is Khan.” At least he’s being candid.

Star Trek: Enterprise paved the way for all of this with its Borderland trilogy, which amounts to one gigantic nostalgic tribute to that second Star Trek film. Although the episodes bookending the trilogy are hardly subtle, the middle instalment of that trilogy is perhaps the most egregious example. There are points at which Cold Station 12 plays like a forty-minute deleted scene from The Wrath of Khan.

“I’m in command! And there’s no Timothy Carhart to stop me now!”

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Genetic engineering, J Abrams, jean-luc picard, Phlox, Science and Technology, Star Trek Next Generation, StarTrek, Where No One Has Gone Before | 31 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Borderland (Review)

Posted on May 9, 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.

Borderland establishes the format that will come to define the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise; the mini-arc, a single story told over two or three episodes before moving along to the next adventure.

Technically speaking, Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II established the format for the season. However, the franchise had done multi-part season premieres before. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was particularly fond of the format, seguing from a status quo altering season finale into a multi-part season opener; The Homecoming, The Circle, The Siege, The Search, Part I, The Search, Part II, The Way of the Warrior, Image in the Sand, Shadows and Symbols. This is to say nothing of the massive six episode arc that opened the sixth season.

Put your hands together for Mister Brent Spiner.

Borderland represents a departure because it signals that the fourth season of Enterprise will be comprised entirely of multi-episode stories. Historically, Star Trek shows had typically done one or two multi-part stories in a season, give or take a cliffhanger to bridge two years of the show. The fourth season of Enterprise would tell seven multi-part stories eating up seventeen episodes of the twenty-two episode season order. It was certainly a bold departure for the series and the franchise.

In fact, Borderland begins the franchise’s first three-part episode since the second season of Deep Space Nine. (Although determined fans could likely stretch logic a little to suggest that Tears of the Prophets or Zero Hour were season finales that formed a three-parter when tied into the two-part premieres that followed.) It is a curious departure, and one that immediately helps to establish the fourth season of Enterprise as something quite distinct.

A slave to continuity…

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Benedict Cumberbatch, chris pine, Genetic engineering, J Abrams, james t. kirk, Phlox, pragmatism, star trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, star trek: enterprise, Teaser campaign | 10 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Home (Review)

Posted on May 6, 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.

If Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II represented a transition between Brannon Braga and Manny Coto, then Home marks the point at which Manny Coto assumes full control of Star Trek: Enterprise.

As befits a season so steeped in Star Trek nostalgia, Home fits a familiar template. Each of three live action spin-offs took a brief timeout after an epic fourth season opener to tell a smaller character-driven story about the response to life-altering trauma. Jean-Luc Picard processed the trauma of The Best of Both Worlds, Part I and The Best of Both Worlds, Part II through the quieter moments of Family. Jake Sisko confronted the loss of his father in The Visitor. Even Seven of Nine faced her disconnection from the Borg Collective in The Gift.

Marriage of inconvenience.

Home is clearly intended to allow the characters (and the show) to work through the issues generated by the epic third season arc, while also dutifully setting up plot threads that will play out across the rest of the season. Home might be a stand-alone episode in many ways, but it does serve to dovetail the third and fourth seasons of the show, working through character points that are hanging over from the show’s third year while also helping to establish elements that will become more important in the season ahead.

Home works rather well as a connecting structure, even if it lacks the raw emotional power of something like Family or The Visitor. It is well worth taking the time to focus upon (and flesh out) this cast. The biggest problem with Home is that so many of these characters feel underdeveloped, particularly compared to the casts of Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is hard for those characters to carry an entire episode when they haven’t been properly developed.

“Go climb a rock!”

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Archer, Earth, Impulse, J. J. Abrams, jean-luc picard, Phlox, picard, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: enterprise, vulcan, Vulcans, Xindi | 21 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Storm Front, Part II (Review)

Posted on May 5, 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.

Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II arrive at a transitory time for Star Trek: Enterprise.

The fourth season was almost certain to be the end of the show, with Brannon Braga stepping back from the writers’ room to allow Manny Coto the chance to the take the reins. Coto would use the opportunity to more firmly connect the show to its franchise roots, constructing a final season that would serve as something of a bridge between this prequel series and the rest of the canon. However, there was just one problem. Coto inherited a cliffhanger from Zero Hour, the third season finale that stranded Archer in the past with some evil!alien!space!Nazis.

Into the sunset…

Although the fourth season of Enterprise is widely praised by the few fans who remained watching until the bitter end, Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II are often overlooked in discussions of the season. Much like These Are the Voyages… at the very end of the season, the opening two-parter is largely treated as a story foisted upon an incoming executive producer that does not reflect his own plans or desires for the season ahead. There is typically a sense of obligation to discussions of the two-parter as little more than a speed bump into the season.

This is a shame. Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II were both written by Manny Coto. Although the producer inherited the basic premise and the brief from his direct predecessors, how Coto chose to approach the material is quite insightful and informative. In that respect, Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II might be seen as an introduction to the Manny Coto era before it properly begins in Home.

“It’s been a long road, gettin’ from there to here…
It’s been a long time, but my time is finally near…”

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: alternate history, hitler, Manny Coto, nazis, pulp, racism, star trek, star trek: enterprise | 6 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Storm Front, Part I (Review)

Posted on May 4, 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.

Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II arrive at a transitory time for Star Trek: Enterprise.

The third season of the show had wrapped on a somewhat unexpected cliffhanger, finding Archer confronted by an evil!alien!space!Nazi in the midst of what looked to be the Second World War. Given that the third season had been written as a single extended dramatic arc about Archer and his crew saving Earth from an alien threat, the twist seemed to come out of nowhere. Instead of allowing Archer and his crew to return home, Zero Hour threw out one final hurdle for the characters; a bump in the road home.

Ship shape.

However, the episodes also marked a transition behind the scenes. This particular iteration of the Star Trek franchise was on borrowed time. There had been warning signs as early as the first season, but the massive reworking of the show in The Expanse suggested that the network had adopted a “do or die” approach to the future of this lucrative science-fiction franchise. The fact that the third season had its episode order cut and there were suggestions that a fourth season was unlikely suggested that the show had not “done.”

Even aside from all that, the start of the fourth season saw Rick Berman and Brannon Braga taking a step back from the franchise and handing the reins to executive producer Manny Coto. In that respect, Storm Front, Part I and Storm Front, Part II might be seen as the collective last gasp of the Berman and Braga era. Give or take These Are The Voyages…

Back to the future.

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Brannon Braga, MACOs, Manny Coto, nazis, Rick Berman, star trek, star trek: enterprise, Temporal Cold War, upn, wb, world war 2 | 7 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – Season 2 (Review)

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Darren

This February and March (and a little bit of April), we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily for the latest review.

The second season of Star Trek: Voyager was a disaster.

There is no other way to describe it. The second season of Voyager is a messy run populated with malformed episodes and terrible creative decisions, compounded by the sense that the production team has turned upon itself and the network is feeling more and more uncomfortable with its flagship show. The first season of Voyager had debuted at the franchise’s cultural zenith, as the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation transitioned to the big screen with Star Trek: Generations and as Paramount chose the franchise to be the cornerstone of its new network.

However, there was very clearly trouble in paradise. It could be argued that Voyager was in a large part the victim of the franchise’s success. Frustration over how Paramount chose to assign the writing duties for Generations led Michael Piller to divorce himself from the franchise to develop other ideas.While UPN was very lucky to have a show like Voyager, the network consciously pushed the production team away from narrative experimentation in favour of cookie-cutter plotting.

The basic premise of “Starfleet and Maquis find themselves roughing it in the Delta Quadrant” was eroded surprisingly quickly over the course of that first year. All the Maquis crew members were in Starfleet uniforms by the start of Parallax. Any hint of conflict between the two was downplayed with a joint Starfleet and Maquis mutiny in Prime Factors. Luxury items like the holodeck were able to run in episodes like Heroes and Demons and Cathexis. A Romulan guest starred in Eye of the Needle. So the first season betrayed a lot of what made the initial idea interesting.

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: Michael Piller, star trek, star trek: voyager | 38 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – Sacred Ground (Review)

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Darren

Sacred Ground is a rather strange episode.

In a way, this is where the second season of Star Trek: Voyager dies. This is certainly true in a literal sense; it is the last of the four episodes held over from the end of the second season, buried between a quarter and a third of the way into the show’s third year. However, the episode also closes out some of themes that were bubbling through the first two years of the show. Michael Piller had imbued the first two seasons of the show with a new age spirituality, mostly through the character of Chakotay. Sacred Ground closes that out.

Holy plot.

There is a sense that the show is uncomfortable with Sacred Ground. Although it was the first of those four carryover episodes to be produced, Sacred Ground was the last of the four to be broadcast. While the decision to air Basics, Part II at the start of the season makes logical sense, it is strange that the production team would choose to bury the episode as far into the season as possible. Of those four episodes, the production team were ready to air False Profits before Sacred Ground. That is a frightening thought.

It is understandable. Voyager‘s previous attempts at new age mysticism had not gone well, reducing Chakotay to a Native American cliché in episodes like The Cloud and Tattoo. However, it is also quite frustrating, as Sacred Ground comes closer to working than any of Piller’s earlier attempts.

Burying the consequences.

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: lisa kling, new age, religion, robert duncan mcneill, sacred ground, spirituality, star trek: voyager, voyager | 7 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – Remember (Review)

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Darren

Much like The Chute before it, Remember is very much an attempt to do classic archetypal Star Trek.

Remember is an allegorical piece of social commentary that is as firmly rooted in the nineties as the prison politics that underpinned The Chute. As the name implies, Remember is a story fascinated with the idea of memory and legacy. In particular, it reflects the idea of cultural memory as construct that is shared from person to person and passed down from generation to generation. Touching on themes of Holocaust denial, Remember is a very potent piece of science-fiction allegory, one that treats cultural memory as something to be cultivated and maintained.

Whose (geno)cide are you on?

Remember is a good illustration of what the production team is trying to do as Star Trek: Voyager enters its third season. After a disastrous (and exhausting) sophomore year, it seems like the writing staff have opted against trying to give the show its own unique voice. Instead, the plan seems to be to craft the most archetypal approach to the franchise imaginable. From this point onwards, it becomes increasingly rare for the show to do episodes unique to its setting and premise, instead telling stories that would work with most iterations of the franchise.

This approach has its limitations, of course. By the time that the second season of Star Trek: Enterprise rolls around, even the most die-hard fans have had their fill of broadly-drawn mass-produced factory-setting Star Trek. While this approach could be argued to be a waste of an interesting premise and the betrayal of the show’s original promise, Remember makes a convincing argument that an archetypal Star Trek allegory can still work on its own terms. Remember is a powerful and effective piece of commentary in the classic Star Trek tradition.

Burning guilt…

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: holocaust, lisa klink, living memory, memory, star trek, star trek: voyager, torres, Winrich Kolbe | 16 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – False Profits (Review)

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Darren

If ever there was an argument against the importance of continuity, False Profits would appear to be it.

The Price was not a good episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In fact, it was quite a bad episode of television. There is a credible argument to be made that The Price was the worst episode of the third season of The Next Generation. Another contender is Ménage à Troi, another third season episode of The Next Generation that coincidentally (or not) happens to feature the Ferengi. By all accounts, The Price is an episode of television that should be forgotten about, consigned to reference books and ill-considered classic television marathons.

“Now, I know fans don’t like the Ferengi episodes, but this is too much!”

Unfortunately, continuity intervenes. The climax of The Price ends with two Ferengi stranded in the Delta Quadrant after the Barzan wormhole collapses. In most stories, that would be the last time that those two characters appeared; they had served their dramatic purpose, demonstrating that the Barzan wormhole was effectively useless. However, once it became clear that Star Trek: Voyager was heading to the Delta Quadrant, that ending became a plot thread. It became a piece of continuity that could be employed by the production team, a storytelling opportunity.

That explains how False Profits came to be, a terrible sequel to a terrible episode that seems to exist purely to satisfy some dangling continuity.

Proxy war…

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: continuity, Ferengi, Joe Menosky, review, star trek: voyager, third world, voyager | 20 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – The Swarm (Review)

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Darren

The Swarm helps to solidify the Jeri Taylor era, even as it is shuffled in among relics of Michael Piller’s tenure.

Much like The Chute before it, The Swarm has a great central premise built around the classic model of using the franchise to tell allegorical stories. The episode has a great hook and a great central performance, along with a strong sense of theme that makes it easier to relate to the whole thing. In The Chute, Kenneth Biller touched on issues of punishment and incarceration. In The Swarm, Mike Sussman tells a sweet story about caring for a loved one whose mental faculties are degrading. (This was a theme to which Sussman would return tangentially with Twilight.)

Talking to himself…

However, that strong central premise is also betrayed by several severe structural problems that hold the episode back from greatness. The Chute was a few rewrites away from greatness, its final act existing primarily to close out an hour of broadcasting rather than to tie together the preceding forty minutes of television. The Swarm grafts its emotionally compelling story of mental collapse onto a fairly generic “evil alien” narrative that somehow challenges to become the episode’s primary plot thread.

As with The Chute, there is a sense that The Swarm is codifying what will become standard practice for the series from this point forward. The biggest issue with The Swarm is the decision to undercut the episode’s emotional arc by having the series reset the EMH’s reset. In what arguably makes it the perfect example of the issues that will plague Star Trek: Voyager from here until Endgame, the show literally presses a reset button on a reset button. The Swarm is a meta-reset, if you will.