Beam Us Back, Scotty! The Nation explains what's wrong with Enterprise, the latest Star Trek TV series, with dead-on accuracy. There are a few things I like about the show-- I'm in love with the premise and how it plays in the Star Trek universe, foreshadowing trouble by showing characters that don't yet know what we know from the "future" shows. Enterprise is set 100 years before the original Trek series, and seeks to demonstrate this by turning back the clock on ideologies present in the other shows-- but in many respects, they've turned back the clock a little too far. (Thanks Matt.)
March 18, 2002
comments...
I was especially annoyed at a recent episode where they run across a planet with a pre-space-flight civilization, and Captain Archer's first instinct is, "Cool! Let's go down there and look around!" Even without a Prime Directive, does that sound like a good idea to anybody? If 20th-century science fiction writers know it's a bad idea, how could a 22nd-century military starship captain be so ignorant? I don't care about plausibility when it comes to most parts of the show, but this is just poor storytelling-- unless we're actually to believe that the captain and crew are incompetent, and I don't think we are.
Minkowitz's article makes more relevant points, but still. :)
I think the foreshadowing is a little too blantant sometimes, and always too "clever."