What do you think of the new series "Enterprise"?

I personaly am an avid scifi fan - this does not mean I like everything. But I must say I have always loved Scott Bacula from his "Quantum Leap" days. That said I absolutley love it.

I saw the first episode and it was pretty good. I never cared for Scott Bakula in anything else, and wasn't expecting much,but have to admit it was better than I expected. I'll watch it again. Do you watch Farscape? That's my favorite scfi show.

Scott Backula.......drool drool drool........
Guess you can gather that I am enjoying the show so far.

I thought it was surprisingly good. It will be interesting to see what they do with the series. My husband is a real fanatic about Star Trek and realized that the Tupak (is that the right name) is the same person as the top woman in the original Star Trek TV show when Spock went back to Vulcan because he was in heat. In the original series, she was the one who got the Earthlings and Vulcans to work together. I look forward to seeing what they do with her character.

Now for a petty comment: The vulcan woman's lips are irritating...she needs to stop the colligen injections! And, what was with the scene where they were rubbing lotion on their bodies....what a waste of 60 seconds!

I am an avid fan of the first Star Trek series. I never liked any of the others, just the first. I loved the campyness and humor and camraderie (spelling?) of the characters. The charm of the show.

William Shattner....drool....drool.....

I wanted to watch "Enterprise" but I did not know when it was on, and forgot to look for it. I hope to see it soon.

Vjoy:

It's on Channel 9 @ 8PM on Wednesdays. Try it is quite different from the recent series - I think you might enjoy it.

Being a forever Trek fan, I will naturally be watching this, as well. It's always hard to judge the first few episodes. You don't know the characters yet. But, so far, so good.

As to the Vulcan character, I had the exact same thought. The one on original Trek was T'Pau. I can't quite tell if they call the present one T'Pau or T'Pal. Knowing Rick Berman, he'd find a way to connect the whole thing.

I agree, Bakula was a favorite from Quantum Leap.

Like the show, like the cast, can't stand the theme song.

On the other shows, the music is a sort of fanfare, but this sounds like something written by a defunct 70's rock band that got turned down for the soundtrack for Highlander.

T'Pau was the matriarch in Spock's family. I think the current Vulcan is T'Pal, so she is related but not necessarily a direct ancestor. His betrothed was named T'Pring. The Vulcan women in the family are all T'P names, one syllable; the men are all 5 letters, starting with S, ending with K. Why? Gene Roddenberry wanted it that way. The episode you are talking about is called Amok Time and it was written by Theodore Sturgeon, quite a respected author. They had some writers doing those early shows, I mean real authors not just tv writers, and it certainly helped to make it so timeless.

But I think Gene Roddenberry is perhaps one of the great unrecognized thinkers of the 20th Century . . .

Frankly, if it wasn't for the female Vulcan's lips and the heterosexual rub-downs I'd have fallen asleep. Okay, the program's all right — but to me it's retrograde in more ways than one. The best television "space" series I'd seen was the non-Star Trek Babylon Five; and the idiots in charge moved it to cable transmission. I also liked Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but that got the heave-ho as well. Star Trek: Voyager had some potential, but they've axed that one too.



Now we've got this Star Trek: Enterprise thing, with Mr. Two-Fisted Macho Man a la Captain Kirk, which I find has as much cerebral attraction as a Saturday-morning cartoon show. Like, can't they name a star ship something other than "Enterprise"? It sounds like a ship full of used-car salesmen. Besides, it's been done already! But maybe I was just in a bad mood when I watched the series premiere. I forgot to watch it the other night (telltale sign) but I'll try to catch it next week. I'd love to like it, 'cause all the other Star Trek stuff is off the air — except for edited-down re-runs with twice as many local-yokel commercials.



I miss Data and Picard and Troi and Odo and Jadzea and Sisko (but not that anal jerk Kira) and the Doctor and Neelix and Seven of Nine! But that Vulcan gal on Star Trek: Enterprise has a good attitude, so maybe. . . .



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Sunlion:

From my sources, I think I gotta take issue with some of your Trek trivia. T'Pau was not a member of Spock's family. She was simply an important Vulcan matriarch. The whole T'P thing for females and names beginning with S for males was a planet wide thing in the beginning. Doesn't apply to Spock's family alone. If you remember, the guy T'Pring jilted Spock for was Stonn, not a member of his family.

The first real departure from the established pattern was when Lt. Saavik emerged. Female, yet S name. It was written off as her being part Romulan. Now that Tuvok has been around, I think Roddenberry's whole plan is out the window.

Oh, Joe, give the thing a chance! I vividly remember cringing through the entire first half season of The Next Generation, thinking "This has got to get better! We've waited so long!"

Trek series usually always take awhile to get comfortable with themselves. Then they create their own identities.

You're right: I need to give that program a chance. Those remarks of mine were just my initial impressions. No doubt the producers are raking in all manner of feedback from those mysterious "focus groups" they're always going on about. So, yeah, it'll probably take most of the first season for them to fine tune the production. These days, though, programs don't get any slack at the front-office level: If ratings are down just once, out the window goes the program!



If it was me, I'd create a program called Star Trek: Whimsy. The actors, characters and script writers would change every week. A panel of political-correctness experts would censor each and every episode. The theme would change according to the latest news from Washington, District of Columbia. And nobody in a managerial position would be more than 25 years of age. Oh, wait! That's how it's done now! Never mind.

:tounge2:

Hey, Deb, I like it that you're a Trekky! I'm not much of one myself, but I do like that genre on television. I really liked Lieutenant Saavik! Oh, well: She's dead now, right? Wrong time frame too, I guess, for this new series.



Maybe they could have an episode akin to the Old Timers' Game in baseball: Have all the past (living) cast members show up on some strange planet apart from our own and figure out how to survive and eventually get rescued — or something. My money's on Mr. Scott. Data and the Doctor need too much fixing if something magnetic goes wrong; and the same holds for that visor LaForge has to wear. Odo's "sleeping" mode allows for easy accidents. Captain Kirk and Major Kira, who both like to lead with the chin, would end up having everybody mad at them. Actually, I'd love to see Jadzeea (sp?) and Troi team up: Lots of smarts there. And the list goes on. . . . But I think Scotty would muddle through, bottle in one hand and Vise Grip in the other. What do you think?



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Hiya.

Well, everything is different once Roddenberry died, I'm afraid. Berman and Pillar (or whatever their names are) that bought the Star Trek name have come up with some things that are not necessarily in line Roddenberry's plan.

I could easily recall the names inaccurately, but I read about them in a book by Mr. Roddenberry about his adventures in television. I know the whole fan fiction thing has taken on a life of its own which changed some things, and some of his ideas have sort of mutated over time. I'd forgotten Saavik, actually . . . But I specifically recall a section with a list of names they were considering for Spock and his family, all of them S---k. What was his brother's name in that movie, the name escapes me, "The Undiscovered Country" or something like? Tuvok is back to 5 letters and ending in k, but he is not a part of Spock's family.

But it's been a while since I was a big Trekker - close to 20 years, now that I think of it - so I'm sure I've gotten some bits of trivia muddled.

I bow to your superior knowledge, I hate to spread misinformation, even accidentally.

Spock's half brother was Sybok. Honestly, I'm not sure about the S---k connection for Spock's family. That may well be true. But I am sure about the whole S deal for males in general. I do remember reading copy about Saavik having an S name, even though she was a female at the time that The Wrath of Khan was released.

I've been watching this show since I was a kid at my father's knee. I have numerous books on the subject, the best being "Trek World" by David Gerrold (writer of The Trouble with Tribbles). He pointed out many of the flaws with the original series in a humorous, yet respectful manner, that were eventually corrected with The Next Generation.

Being a good parent, I have passed the love of Trek onto my 13 year old son, who has even more of the books on the series than I do. He devours them all, and can identify classes of ships and other trivia.

I realize that Berman (I think Pillar is pretty much out of the picture at this point) has taken some liberties, but knows there is too big of a legion of fans to dangle too far over the edge.

Trek remains my favorite sci-fi because of its optimistic view of the future and the dream that somehow we will make something good out of this mess we call the world.

Deb,
Very well said..I've been an Trekkie since the first showing of Star Trek...I'll never forget how much admiration I had for the crew. Nichelle Nichols .. Communications Officer Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
my heroine..."Gosh, I thought as I hung off the sides of the couch, I want to be just like her!" :laughing2...

Yes, Star Trek made the evils of the universe crumble. What a fantasy I created reading your post as I put them in the situation of our world today. The ultimate crusade for justice pulled off in an hour.