aaron_woodin

Other reviewers were right on the mark - it had promise and atmosphere, but really went nowhere. I recall one genre reviewer dismissing one Full Moon release as "another talkfest" and I have to agree - their scripts and sometimes the direction just weren't well paced and seem padded out. However, you have to at least watch the end credits for an in-joke that you'll get if you didn't fall asleep. It was the best laugh I had that day.

I was initially encouraged by the stripped-down feeling of the Enterprise. The titular ship shares some of the rudimentary feel of the Kirk-era vessel, with some 21st century touches (LCD screens, moody halogen lighting). The show is clearly set at a time when interstellar travel for humans is just beginning, and starship crews are still acclimating to the attendant rigors. Witness the vibrations incurred as the Enterprise approaches Warp five, and the nervous reaction of one particular officer. It's also a bit novel to see the crew at a point where they're still getting to know each other. They aren't the seasoned, well-oiled teams found on the Enterprise of Kirk and Picard. Perhaps we'll have some fun watching Captain Archer's people get to that point. And unlike most Trek series of yesteryear, I found the technobabble to be more muted. I actually thought I was watching a different kind of Star Trek until Vulcan Science Officer T'Pol helps reconfigure a sensor array in order to follow the plasma signature of a starship they had never seen, let alone scanned before. It happened again when another officer invents a magnetic decoupler on the spot that works perfectly on alien technology. Make no mistake, I sighed to myself, this is still Star Trek.

Attention to detail helps to sell science fiction. It's a bit lacking in this new iteration of Star Trek. For example, in the opening sequence on Earth, a farmer defends his turf with a weapon that shoots plasma bolts, but looks like an ancient over-under shotgun. Why? And unlike other Trek ships, (and even current NASA ones), the vessels depicted have dim levels of interior light. I know Warp engines are fairly new, but isn't there enough surplus juice that the place doesn't have to look like a trendy bar in SOHO? How about this inconistency - the ship's doctor, himself an alien, is a treasure chest of xeno-knowledge, and shares the information readily, unlike the reticent Vulcans who apparently are all but sabotaging humankind's efforts to branch out among the stars. Pieces of technology work spectacularly well at some points, miserably bad at others, but always to advance the plot. Once again, just like the Trek we've gotten to know over the last fourteen years.

What makes any work of genre fiction gel is a consistent set of rules by which the plot and characters must play. Dramatic tension is created when those rules are followed to the letter, and writers write and the characters act within and strive to overcome those limitations. It is an unfortunate hallmark of post-Kirk Star Trek to have those rules cast aside or bent flagrantly with the application of malleable technology. Quite simply, this is lazy writing. The frisson of pleasure we get from seeing characters wiggle out of difficult situations diminishes each time the writers use these convenient escape hatches. As the science we see today in real life begins to surpass the wonders posited in the speculative fiction of days gone by, it becomes clearer and clearer that we deserve better.

Even as Star Trek is refreshed and presented anew every few years, the fabric of the whole mythos comes undone a little more. With each additional series, what was once canon is rewritten and reconfigured each time, which alienates the core Trek loyalists, and also risks confusing the more casual fans.

I fear that Star Trek as a whole may be running on borrowed time. Every series must come to an end - what will they do when Enterprise finishes its run? We already have the classic Kirk era, the successor shows, and a newly arrived precursor. What's next? Recycled Voyager and DS9 scripts? God help us...

I wish Captain Archer and the creative team behind this latest Trek long life and prosperity. But I know that somewhere out there, someone will sweat and labor over a word processor, typewriter, or a humble notebook, carefully mapping out and crafting the next great science fiction show, with characters that will join our great pantheon of mythic heroes, a la Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Chekov. (Sorry Picard, Cisko, Janeway - you guys aren't quite there yet). A show in which consistent rules help define a persistent universe rich with history, conflict and intrigue that maintains its integrity no matter how many new incarnations it goes through. And it may very well be that we'll find intelligent life on another world before such a thing comes to pass...