RE: [scifinoir2] Enterprise finale was horrible! (Spoilers)

Sun, 15 May 2005 08:37:34 -0700

Speak for yourself, Tracey.

"Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Maybe he is a egomaniac talentless writer wannabe hack who is afraid to let those with talent write the scripts.
 
I'm not bitter
 
Tracey
-----Original Message-----
From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Keith Johnson
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 10:16 AM
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [scifinoir2] Enterprise finale was horrible! (Spoilers)

Sure, thanks. Give me today to clean it up a bit. My posts here tend to be a bit stream-of-consciousness.  It definitely had the weak feeling of B&B stuff from the first season. That's why I'm stunned they ran with it. What did he do, give up? Run out of steam? It deserved better than some half-ass script fetched from a drawer whose tone completely jarred with the recent excellence.
-----Original Message-----
From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor)
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 08:47
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [scifinoir2] Enterprise finale was horrible! (Spoilers)

Can we post this review on the new site? It is right on point.  But you should not be surprised.  The actress that plays T'Pol said she hated it and Berman said he wrote it a few years ago.It was very Bermanesque.  How they can keep him in charge of the franchise is beyond me.
 
Tracey
-----Original Message-----
From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Keith Johnson
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 1:32 AM
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [scifinoir2] Enterprise finale was horrible! (Spoilers)

First an intro statement, then on to specific impresions. No spoilers yet...
 
I expected to come to the end of the Star Trek universe on TV with sadness and grief. For three decades I've watched everything Trek. I have the movies on DVD, several novels (including of the animated series), Tech Manuals and Klingon language labs on CD.  I've never gone a year since the '70s without enjoying some Trek, whether reruns or first runs of the four latest series. I have seen every movie on opening weekend, and have supported all of them--even dreck like "The Final Frontier"--in light of the greater need to keep The Franchise running.  Even when I left for a while when Voyager failed to hold my attention, I came back, like a son too long gone from his family.  And now, even now, I have supported this last show, "Enterprise", when millions of fans have abandoned it in disgust and disappointment.  But, fool that I am, I stayed the course.  I am in all ways and definitions of the word, a "Trekkie" (*NEVER*  a trying-to-appeal-to-the-mainstream "Trekker"!)  It's good to say that after three-and-a-half years of mostly sub-par episodes, my patience and loyalty were rewarded with very good episodes in this last season. All that is, except for tonight...
 
Now the spoilers and the rant...
 
WTF? I really, really, *REALLY* thought I was looking at a joke show tonight. Whose freakin' idea was it to use Riker and Troi in this final show? They wasted time that would have been better spent on plot development.  What was the logic in Riker having to participate in a holo recreation of Enterprise's last mission. What, he had to go back two hundred years to get inspiration for how to tell some deep, dark secret to Picard? i thought everything to be known about the Pegasus Incident had been revealed back on the TNG? Even if not, again I say, why did he have to relive Enterprise history in order to 'fess up?  That was so weak it was laughable. I kept expecting a more compelling justification for Riker and Troi to be there, but nope.  No offense against the actors, but the show was so weak I actually had time to notice that Marina Sirtis' British accent was way more pronounced than it was on TNG. I guess she hasn't had much experience hiding it in recent years. Examining Riker, note he's still a first officer on Enterprise, and, from the way he and Troi acted, they're not married yet. As the movies clearly established Riker and Troi are married and Will has his own command. That means they went back in time (in terms of TNG)  to craft this tale?? Again, why? Why bring up a relatively obscure time like the Pegasus incident as a way to say farewell to Enterprise? I like Frakes and Sirtis, but there appearance added nothing here. Crap!  Q would have been more welcome.
 
Now, on to Archer and company. Speaking of weak, how lame was it to bring back Shran for this contrived rescue mission? He just happens to show up while Archer's on the way to Earth, and needs help with a certain-death rescue of his daughter? If I weren't so dismayed at the horrible writing I'd have been laughing my ass off at the ludicrous plot. Further, it seems to me a bunch of folks were sitting around one day and said, "Hey, let's kill someone. let's throw a dart to see who dies. It's Trip!" What was up with that suicide? Ten years of defeating Xindi, Romulans, and other menaces, and for some reason all Trip can come up with is to blow himself up along with Shran's enemies? That was totally unbelievable. And then, after all that, we get about two minutes of sadness from T'Pol and Archer, and then Trip is *forgotten*! The very next scene and we're back to Riker/Troi, and Archer getting ready for the ceremony. No memorial services, no reactions from the crew, no meeting of Trip's parents.  That was a tossaway bit if ever I saw one. They then complicate (read: screw up) things by giving us bulls*&% about T'Pol and Trip breaking up, and all the "will you miss me" scenes from earlier.  They bore us for years with a sexual tete-a-tete between those two, then move it into a more interesting, mature realm in the last year, now say "they broke up, but still are fond of each other, but too bad 'cause Trip's dead"?  Crap! 
 
We knew this was the last show, we knew the charter was going to be signed that sets the stage for the Federation's creation.  We knew there was interstellar interest in this momentous event. So why not give us a show that dealt with that and the feelings surrounding it? We should have been treated to more involved conversations between the crew about their futures. We should have been privy to debates and interactions among the delegates as they struggled to make this meeting a success. Perhaps we could have had Vulcans and Andorians and humans talk about their long history to this point, to give us a type of reminiscence that underscored the importance of Archer, Enterprise, and Earth to the future of the races.  Basically I would have settled for a tribute show to this foundation of all the Trek that was to come, a one hour memorial service, as it were.  If nothing else I'd liked to have seen the ceremony. Instead we end with Archer walking into the chamber. And that ending--wha' happened? As I heard the men proclaim the words of the famous "Space, the final frontier..." speech, heard the Trek music, and saw some of the starships fly across the screen, I finally felt some emotion. "Okay", I thought, "the show sucks but maybe the ending will be poignant".  But nooo!  The scene was much too quick. On top of that, they completely dissed Janeway and my man Sisko! If you're gonna do a tribute folks, don't just limit it to the ships named "Enterprise". Given that no one knows when Trek will be back, you should have found a way to add something from all the shows, Voyager and DS9 included.  Crap!
 
All in all, extremely disappointing. An effort that seemed like nothing so much as a thrown-together script pieced together by uncaring hacks with little time and less skills.   They managed to rob the finale of any emotional impact, give us short shrift in that most important gathering, kill off Trip for no reason, and give credence to all those people who've said Trek needed to die for now. I still don't agree, but crap like this makes it hard to argue my case.  Not even worthy of B&B's usually mediocre work, this was trully a shameful way to say goodbye (for now) to Roddenberry's creation. 
 
I plan to write a tribute to Trek, a hopefully moving and revealing story of what is for me a thirty-year love affair with one of the greatest scifi creations ever. I fully expect to be sad when I think back on all that's come and what we've lost.  But tonight?  I feel nothing but anger and disgust. 
 
 
 
 


"Excuse me while I whip this out."
Cleavon Little , "Blazing Saddles"

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