Randomness

[Kotik]

Obama is a Vulcan Agent, I knew it


Leise pieselt das Reh, gelbe Spurn in den Schnee,
und die vielen kleinen Engels,
und die vielen kleinen Engels,
Tun sich Rum in ihren Tee

[Kotik]

The people over at Starfleet Minutiae have done a hillarious mocking tale :

The Adventures of Berman and Braga

[Alelou]

Meh. Must we mock real people who were just doing their jobs, at least occasionally brilliantly enough to keep us obsessing about their creation years later?

I probably should not talk, though. I once wrote a post-"Fight Club" X-Files fic about a much-needed therapy session for Chris Carter.

[Kotik]

I think the guys are spot-on. Other than a deliberate decision to wreck Star Trek would never explain B'nB's shockingly bad writing. A whole genre of fanfic is out there trying to fill the pot-holes in that pile of mental diarrhea.

[Alelou]

That's just absurd.

[putaro]

Did they go back in time and write Spock's Brain and Specter of the Gun, too?

[Alelou]

If "Spock's Brain" didn't destroy Star Trek, nothing could. There was nothing that bad on Enterprise, ever. The worst Ent did was muddle around. It never really horrified you, it just disappointed you.

In a world that was just like the one in which we saw Star Trek blossom in popularity during syndication, especially if it hadn't come at the tail end of years and years of Trek, Enterprise might have been a cult hit, too. With four seasons, it could have done very well in syndication. I'm not certain, though. A lot of it comes down to the characters. Kirk and Spock were compelling figures and probably always will be. Archer's character doesn't become compelling for me until third season and even then he never had the pizzazz of a Kirk or a Picard or a Sisko.

Trip's character would have been more fun to watch as captain. But then we wouldn't have the Trip we know and love at all, because Trinneer would never have gotten that role at that age. And if he were captain, while we might have had some wonderful chemistry with T'Pol, but they never would have done anything but torture us with hints of attraction and maybe some reset-button flings.

So on the whole, I think we're better off with a dead show but a favorite couple that really had a chance to develop a relationship, however angsty and ultimately screwed it turned out to be.

[Kotik]

I can't really agree with that. I think they started the show serving every bad cliché from day one. Casting T'Pol as the designated tittilation tool was a horrible idea as it went against all ideas we had about Vulcans before. Except for some of Quarks sick Holo thingies in DS9, Vulcans were never really portraited as "sexy". The only reason why I 'ship TnT is Connor and Jolene's acting rather than the looks. Both were top-notch in terms of chemistry and acting. They should have casted Kara Zediker for the role of T'Pol. She's attractive but doesn't scream "BOOBIES" at you, which is why she has a more "Vulcan-ish" appearance (not counting the fact that all hair-dressers were on holliday when they filmed the Vulcan trilogy). Human/Vulcan relationships in fanfiction, like Malcolm/T'Jala in BnB's "Road once travelled" or Thomas/T'Ana in Bluetiger's "Hostage" work just as well, if not better, than TnT, because you can imagine the Vulcan female with a more "humble beauty" instead of a Playmate reject with pointy ears bolted on. Casting a major character with someone, who had so obviously used the services of a plastic surgeon, was cringeworthy from the start. Making her a Vulcan on top of that was just ridiculous. Jolene Blalock made up a lot of that deficit by brilliant acting, but it doesn't change the fact that a Vulcan with a boob-job and rubber-boat lips just doesn't work.

If tittilation is really a must these days they could have casted Hoshi with Hsung Hi Lee or Hsu Qi and give her more than three lines of text once in a while, but I really think that people, who think that boobs are neccessary, have no idea about reality. Do they seriously think, I'm goping to be excited about a vague side-boob shot, when all it takes is a stop-over at google to get the express-ticket to a busload of nekkid bimbo pictures on some sleazy website? That's not even counting the fact that nudity is one of the most normal things in the world. We're all born that way. I spent most of my summer hollidays in child/teen-hood in nudist resorts. I can't remember walking around with a perpetual erection or jumping the bones of everyone with a set of nice boobies. A show works, if the acting and the writing is top-notch, not the actresses' bust size.

Next thing is the Captain. The Captain was always the main character in Star Trek. That's why Voyager and ENT did not work. Janeway was stark raving mad and Archer was way too often written as incompetent. No Navy with common sense would entrust a vessel with 85 souls on board to someone, who doesn't listen to his officers and goes on suicide missions at the drop of a hat. The fact that Scott Bakula's repertoire seems to be limited to about 3 facial expressions didn't really help.

The writing throughout the show's first 2 seasons was horrible. Trip was used way too often for comic relief. Before Connor could shine in episodes like "Cease Fire" or the Vulcan trilogy, he had to go through some cringeworthy ones like his time in command in "The Seventh" and I don't even want to think about that male pregnancy thing.

All the episodes that I really remember usually featured Shran or Soval in major roles with notable exceptions like Connor and Jolene's brilliant acting in "The Forgotten". A show that bashes its own major characters is bound to fail. Whether it is useless-Archer in ANIS, drugged-up-T'Pol in the Xindi arc or Space-Hick-Trip in "The Seventh", the writers worked really hard to make their major characters look like complete tools. Seriously, I fail to see any reason for that kind of awful writing

The real insult however were the shameless tittilation scenes, like that god-awful decon groping session in "Broken Bow", T'Mir's striptease behind the bed-sheets in "Carbon Creek" or the first neuro-pressure scene in "The Xindi". That's insulting the intelligence of everyone, who doesn't start to dribble or make animal noises at the sight of a female breast.

[Alelou]

Hmm. So are you a butt guy?

My gorgeous stepdaughter has beautiful big lips and men have always turned to look at her. Maybe you don't like that typically African/Latin look of what you call "rubber boat lips," but many people do.

And perhaps because I was blessed (or afflicted) with an ample bosom myself, I find it a little annoying that you believe Vulcans are somehow all supposed to be flat-chested. Women fall all over the spectrum with these things. Why should Vulcan be any different? Blalock did get hers enlarged surgically, but I thought they looked more natural after that than they did when they were stuffing her bra. (I grant you, it would have been nice if they'd just let her be her.)

I agree about the cringe-worthy decon scene in Broken Bow. It looked like it belonged in a different show altogether. I think that's a sign these guys aren't actually that good at being titillating and weren't very comfortable with it, even though they knew that was part of the marching orders (capture the all-important male 18-34 demographic!). In any case, the idea that two men who had worked on the Star Trek franchise for years actually set out to systematically destroy it is just ridiculous on the face of it. What possible motivation would they have for conspiring together to do that? Who WANTS to be out of a job and associated a failed project? Nobody does.

[WarpGirl]

I think that the guest stars in ST don't get enough credit. Look at this... http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,2058501 ... l#21143270

[Kotik]

We seem to have a little misunderstanding there, Alelou. I didn't say that T'Pol was unattractive or that all Vulcans had to be flat-chested, but I think you can agree that the cliché is that all men like big boobs, on a slender girl with big lips, so seeing T'Pol played by an actress, who fits those criteria so perfectly just makes it too obvious and annoying. The whole tittilation idea fell flat anyways. If you want to appeal to those, who are hormone driven enough to get excited by nudity, you wont score many points with the vage shape of a breast behind a bed sheet. They obviously did it vaguely to keep a rating that let them show it pre-watershed, which makes those scenes look utterly ridiculous. In that case they should have done it properly, like omitting the croseed arms in the neuropressure scene or leave it out completely.

I don't think they set out to destroy the franchise deliberately, but you have to agree that the spoof works quite well, because the writing was bad enough, especially in mid season 2. When it comes to *the_abomination*, I'm not so sure anymore. If you write an episode so bad that the cast is unhappy with and still go ahead with it, you certainly don't give much aof a damn about a possible future for the fanchise.

[Distracted]

Kotik, the nudity standards on prime time TV in the US do not allow the changes you're suggesting. You obviously have been exposed to a lot of nudity on television. We in the US have not, and Enterprise was a US TV show written for prime time in the US. With those guidelines in mind, IMO your complaints make no sense. What you suggest was impossible at the time Enterprise was aired and still is impossible unless the show is on a channel like HBO. The producers of Enterprise, IMO, did the best they could do to attract the young male demographic within the constraints of US prime time TV, and dare I say for many of us, within the constraints of good taste, as some of us do not care to watch porn with dinner, either the soft or the hard core variety. Some of us also are of the opinion that most human beings are more attractive when clothed.

[WarpGirl]

My issue with the writing on ENT was the simple fact that the B's are capable of brilliant writing, yet some of the absolute half-shod episodes with badly rehashed plots and rediculous dialogue were written by them, not the writing staff.

I'm sorry, but to me that's comparable to Shakespeare re-hashing Hamlet badly and calling it his "fresh new approach." I think that whatever they intended to make ENT into, they couldn't execute it. Why? Who knows, maybe money, maybe studio conflicts, maybe office conflicts. We'll certainly never know the answers. Whatever happened, it's obvious that the TPTB couldn't form a unified vison for the show. The B's eventually lost control because Manny Coto, and Mike Sussman took over.

Say what you like about all the other Treks, (yes they had some real stinkers) but the casts really melded together into a seemless blend of chemistry and functioned as a single unit. I don't think the cast of ENT to have a chance to do that, and for me personally it's part of the reason ENT didn't truly capture the Trek Magic I have loved since I was a baby. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be an actor on that set.

By the time they got to *the_abomination* I don't think they cared anymore. They knew the movie was coming out.

[Kotik]

The producers of Enterprise, IMO, did the best they could do to attract the young male demographic within the constraints of US prime time TV, and dare I say for many of us, within the constraints of good taste, as some of us do not care to watch porn with dinner, either the soft or the hard core variety. Some of us also are of the opinion that most human beings are more attractive when clothed.

That's what I meant. I know that it isn't possible in the US, so why even try? Most of the vague scenes do nothing to add anything to the plot. The neuropressure was nothing but a contrived idea to show two attractive people fondling each other, which they then couldn't show properly anyways if they wanted to keep their rating. So why even include something like that? Other scenes were even more gratuitious and made the show worse by being included. I agree that most people look better with clothes, so why add gratuitious semi-nudity? It makes sense in scenes, where it is realistic, like shower or beach scenes, but adding it in everyday situations to appeal to a few people, who are excited by vague shots usually makes the respective show worse. That's one of the advantages of the relatively liberal rules over here - show producers know that they won't score any teenage-male-points with that, so they don't even try. The quality of plots in the shows usually profits from that.

My opinion boils down to this. If you want to show nudity, do it properly and in realistic settings, otherwise forget it. This half-baked attempt to excite a few youths is ridiculous, like those L-shaped bed sheets in american movies, where the on the male's side it is too short, so his upper body is exposed, while the female's side of the bed sheet seems to have enough material to reach up to her neck.

[CX]

I think that by the time they got to VOY that B&B were pretty well spent on the "brilliant writing".

As for T'Pol, mostly I'm more upset by the skin-tight "uniform" and by the way she ended up being characterized than anything else. Yeah, her looks had a lot to do with her casting, but she still did a good job, and frankly I can't imagine anyone else in that role, so for me, JB is T'Pol. I just wished that she (and the show) had been written better, and that they'd toned down the fan service to more appropriate times and places instead of having it be a constant thing.