DS9 - "Captive Pursuit"

When a distressed alien comes through the wormhole, the crew of DS9 aids him. O'Brien develops a friendship with the simple-minded alien, known only as "Tosk." When it is revealed that Tosk is the prey in the hunting game of his people, O'Brien helps him to escape.

This is a decent premise, if not terribly exciting. There's definitely some interesting ideas here, with the concept of different cultural values placed upon life. O'Brien has a form of crisis of conscience, unsure whether to trust his sense of personal rights and morality or understand that it's an alien culture and it's not for him to interfere with. In the end, of course, he basically says "screw it, I'm gonna do what I think is right." This is why O'Brien was one of my favorite TNG characters; he broke the mold of politically-correct, detached morality that permeated the senior staff of the Enterprise-D. He's recognizably human, relatable, and understandable. When O'Brien makes his decision, the audience cheers him on.

Unfortunately, however, this episode doesn't really do anything amazing. There's a few nice points here and there, but it mostly continues DS9's trend of being "okay, but not great."

DS9 - "Babel"

While O'Brien struggles to keep DS9's systems running, the station becomes the victim of a virus that makes its inhabitants unable to understand each other. Just as the virus becomes lethal, a cure is found.

Here we've got a classic viral epidemic story (a la "The Naked Time," "The Naked Now," "Angel One," etc.). It's nothing we haven't seen before, really. It follows the generic plotline of "Virus infects entire cast one by one; characters initiate quarantine; a cure is found at the last possible moment." The good news is that this story is done decently well. Unlike in "The Naked Now," there's no weird character absurdities going on, and the virus is genuinely interesting. The problem is that even a well-done generic epidemic story is still generic.

The most remarkable things about this story are actually the little bits we get with O'Brien trying to fix the station; it establishes the ongoing idea, basically, that DS9 is a giant broken hunk of Cardassian crap. It'll be interesting to see how the station progresses over the show's lifetime.

Ultimately, there just isn't a lot to talk about here. It's a plot that's only moderately interesting at best, and boring at worst.

ENT - "Breaking the Ice"

This episode has two plots: the discovery of a giant comet and T'Pol's personal choices.

The comet plot is the same scientific nothingness that we've seen over and over again from Enterprise thus far. It's moderately interesting, but not going to blow anyone away.

The T'Pol drama is the real meat of the story. For the first time, we're seeing T'Pol turn slightly more towards humanity, choosing to make her own decisions separate from her strict Vulcan culture. With Trip—who, more than any other crewmember, represents the emotional and comparatively rural nature of humanity—slightly involved in this specific situation, everything is that much more interesting.

This isn't a very important episode, nor is it all that highly entertaining, but it's nice.

ENT - "The Andorian Incident"

This was a fun episode. It's certainly cool to see a classic alien race like the Andorians back again (with brilliant new makeup and animatronic antennae!), and the chance to delve into Vulcan religious lore is always enjoyable.

This, like many other episodes this season, still feels relatively low-key considering what should be high stakes, which seems to be a continuing problem with Enterprise. Still, however, the final moments of the episode makes it all worth it.

The ongoing tension between Humans and Vulcans—with T'Pol stuck in the middle—is only getting thicker, and that can only mean good drama ahead.

ENT - "Strange New World"

In this episode, we see the NX-01's legendary first away mission to a "strange new world." As is nearly always the case in Star Trek, the planet is far more dangerous than it originally seems. Does the crew encounter bizarre and malevolent alien life forms? No. They hallucinate and imagine that they are being attacked by aliens.
(You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes)

In all honesty, this does provide for some interesting storytelling, as the crew begins to become increasingly paranoid towards T'Pol. There's some interesting internal drama here, both with T'Pol and the rest of the crew, notably Trip. We also get some clever use of the Vulcan language, something previously rarely heard in Trek.

The Vulcan language is just the tip of the geek-service iceberg, as we also get to see a transporter malfunction!

I always wondered what would happen to someone if they were integrated with a tree. Apparently the damage is only skin-deep. (pun completely intended) Once again, the makeup department proved themselves to be the best in their field. Unfortunately, the CG effects weren't up to that same standard.

It's a valid point to say that the "rock people" were a mere hallucination, and therefore their visual effect did not need to look amazing. However, the effect was more than a little cheesy-looking in the end, and was actually a slight tip-off to the audience that the creatures were not real. If that was intended, then it was a bad idea. Why not keep the audience in the dark as to whether or not the crew is actually paranoid?

Once again, Enterprise proves to be the master of non-essential blather, as we get plenty of scenes that ultimately don't matter. Travis's technobabble ghost story was pretty funny, though, as it practically made fun of the ridiculousness of Trek's everyday dialogue. If it was an intended joke, then I applaud the writers. If it was unintentional, then I am deeply ashamed to be watching this show.

Overall, this episode is interesting, but ultimately not that great. If it had been a half-hour shorter, it might have been truly remarkable. Unfortunately, the first half of the episode is a complete waste of screen time. I personally love to see the normal day-to-day (and admittedly boring) operations of the crew, but I also know that I'll probably never watch this episode again.

ENT - "Fight or Flight"

"Fight or Flight" introduces a number of "firsts" for Enterprise: their first contact with a new race (the Axanar, a species first mentioned in TOS but never seen until now), their first test of the Enterprise's weapons systems, and the first Hoshi-centric story.  Unfortunately, none of these are done well.

The sci-fi/horror element of this episode is done in classic style, but with no impact.  The audience cannot share in Hoshi's horror at the murdered Axanar because the scene is shot in the most bland way possible.  We see her scream in terror before we actually see the bodies, thus eliminating any surprise we might have had.

This episode exemplifies one of Enterprise's biggest flaws: its tendency to focus on unimportant minutiae.  One of the primary plot points is the testing of the new spatial torpedoes, but in the end those scenes only add up to technobabble.  I love technobabble as much as anyone else (I know what happens when you fire an inverse tachyon beam at a temporal anomaly), but there's no reason to have a scene that's not actually interesting beyond the science geek factor.  There are ways to integrate technobabble, character development, and plot progression.  Unfortunately, this episode doesn't do that.  It's tolerable and even somewhat interesting for me (I love finding out about the ship's inner workings), but I can imagine that other (less geeky) people would get bored to tears.

"Fight or Flight" begins and end with Hoshi's pet slug.  While this makes perfect thematic sense, as the slug's away-from-home position is meant to mirror Hoshi's situation (an analogy the viewer is practically beaten over the head with), it isn't done in a very dramatic way.  Hoshi's internal conflict is something that could have been resolved in a much better fashion than devoting an entire episode to it; we don't need to spend an hour on a story that could have been told alongside a much more interesting tale.  It's no doubt that the Axanar ship and the unnamed attacking vessel were meant to be that "interesting" tale, providing the action and tension.  Unfortunately, the action is perhaps the worst part of the episode.

The enemy ship is extremely well-designed, and acts as a great threat for the Enterprise to deal with.  However, the action is only marginally exciting.  While it's entirely unfair to judge Enterprise in comparison to the 2009 Trek film that would come eight years later, the new film does illustrate the fact that space battles in Trek can be exciting.  It's true that the two are entirely different productions, but it's also true that the battle in "Fight or Flight" doesn't "feel" like action; it feels like a run-of-the-mill everyday type of occurence; perhaps more of an annoyance to the Enterprise's crew than anything else.  Greater music or directing would have fixed this problem, but unfortunately the viewer is left without an essential sense of tension.
It's almost a certain fact that the creative minds behind Enterprise wanted this battle to be more about Hoshi's internal conflict and personal development rather than a "real" battle, but that aspect of the episode doesn't satisfy, either.

Fortunately, the visual effects, sets, makeup, and props are all at the peak of TV Trek quality, making the episode more than tolerable.

This is not a "bad" episode; it's just boring.

ENT - "Broken Bow"

The most striking thing about Enterprise is just how different of a show it is from the other Trek series. In truth, Enterprise really isn't "Star Trek;" it's a hybrid of NASA and Star Trek. Heck, the first two seasons of the series didn't even have "Star Trek" in the title. I find that the best way to watch Enterprise is to think of it as a generic sci-fi series with tons of Star Trek references.

Enterprise is about the exploration aspect of Star Trek more than anything else. As the highly controversial opening credits sequence shows, this series is more about the "we will prevail" nature of the human spirit than it is about TNG-style sociology or TOS-style action. "Broken Bow" establishes this point very well, showing how the human race has come along since Zefram Cochrane's warp flight in 2063. Approached from that angle, this episode is quite intriguing, illustrating that humankind is literally taking its baby steps into space.

Another very nice thing about this episode (as well as the series in general) is that it is visually wonderful. This was the first episode of Star Trek to be filmed in HD widescreen, and it makes a huge difference. Additionally, every set and prop looks perfectly believable. The special effects aren't lacking here, either, as we see (mostly) great CG effects. The Suliban shape-shifting could have used some more realism, but other than that the effects are without any major flaw.

The character introductions are all very well-done; we get just enough background on every member of the bridge crew. However, there is an inherent problem in that we never grow to love the crew in this episode. Even the oft-groaned-over pilot of TNG made us love Data with his quirky whistling; we don't get anything like that here. When you don't care about the characters, it's hard to care about the show at all. At the same time, however, Enterprise does present the only realistic-seeming characters in all of Star Trek; they're far from the silly and simple archetypes of TNG and TOS. It's just too bad that they aren't interesting.

The biggest problem with "Broken Bow" is that it's intrguing, but never really exciting. The main focus of the episode is more intellectual and symbolic in nature, rather than emotional. While that's fine if the narrative is meant to be a masterpiece of intelligence, "Broken Bow" pretends to be a much more action-oriented story. While the phaser fights are all well and good, they feel somewhat forced into the narrative. Additionally, there's one scene that is very obviously only there for sex appeal. It makes no sense, and only furthers the idea that Enterprise was just trying too hard to be something it wasn't.


All in all, "Broken Bow" is a great introduction to the series, but isn't very fun. It's more intriguing than entertaining.

TOS - "The Man Trap"

This is a great episode. It's a genuinely suspenseful story that surpasses the show's limited budget as well as the technological limitations of the time.

In this episode we really get a sense of the crew's comfortableness with each other. They really do seem like a family rather than a group of co-workers, as The Next Generation would do later.

On that note, however, an early scene in this episode has Uhura openly flirting with Spock, and attempting to get him to flirt back. I'm not sure if she was sarcastically mocking his emotionless manner or seriously trying to start up a relationship with her commanding officer. Either way, the scene was a bit uncomfortable. However, it did a very good job of establishing the fact that Spock has literally no interest in women.

One thing that bothers me about many of the TOS episodes is that many of the plots involve family or close friends of the bridge crew. It seems more than a little unlikely that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy would encounter close personal friends and family so frequently on their mission to uncharted space. However, that does not diminish the dramatic power of this individual episode, as McCoy is forced to "kill" his former lover.
Something that is notable about the "villain" in this episode is that it is no mere monster; the creature from M113 is an intelligent being, yet is also lonely and psychotic, being the last of its kind. Although pained by constant hunger, the creature can, in fact, suppress its hunger if it is given the love and attention is so desperately wants.
At the same time, it is a salt-sucking alien vampire, which is awesome.

"The Man Trap" is genuinely captivating the whole way through. This is undoubtedly one of the must-see classic episodes of Star Trek.