Sunday, May 15, 2005

After the horror that was the final episode of Enterprise (and yes, I'm still pissed off about it)... Actually, I'm gonna talk about it some more. Just before the final episode, they aired the 2nd half of the final two-parter of the season, which was not written by B&B, and which featured Hoshi in command of Enterprise, Mayweather with an actual plotline, Archer giving a rousing speech, Phlox making me cry when he admitted that he came onboard Enterprise as a kind of distraction & not expecting to form another family - and Trip weeping over the loss of his daughter Elizabeth, whom T'Pol named after Trip's sister, who was killed 2 seasons ago. All of that rocked. We also had Section 31 along for the ride, which was nice.

And then we had "These Are The Voyages...", which is a heartbreaking title for a final episode of Trek, only the episode fucks up so horribly; it's not an episode of Enterprise; that's for sure. And I could have forgiven much of the plot, if the Enterprise characters were allowed to exist within the episode as more than holographic representations of the characters. The drama of Riker & Troi has no weight, because this drama is set within an episode that aired 11 years ago, so we know the outcome, before the dilemma is even introduced here. If Riker & Troi had been serving on the Titan (Riker's ship from the end of the final Trek Feature), or even the Enterprise-E (the enterprise featured in the final 3 Features), then their change in appearance due to their having aged, would not have been an issue. And if, instead of the holodeck, they went back in time, and just remained unseen, but actually saw how things played out, that would have made all the difference; or better yet, if they had just talked about what history recorded, and then had flashbacks to actual events, perhaps showing how history doesn't always get it right, that would have been amazing.

But that's not how it happened. My problems with the episode, aren't about it being a Next Gen episode; it's about it NOT in any way being allowed to be an Enterprise episode as well. Many of the things that happen within the holodeck scenario, couldn't have possibly happened in the actual events that they are supposed to be reliving in the holodeck's environment. Riker asks people questions, that spark a romantic reunion of sorts between Trip/T'pol, who have supposedly never pursued a relationship in the 6 years between the amazing ending of the previously aired episode, and the events depicted here for Riker's inspiration!?! Riker interacts with the crew as the ship's Chef, who we know exists, but has never actually appeared on the show - but he's obviously asking questions of his own, which changes the way things play out, though he's interacting with holographic representations of the Enterprise NX-01 crew. Also, many of the situations, such as Trip's meaningless death, feature Trip saying something cool, when there were no surviving witnesses, and obviously not holographic recorders at hand to get that dialogue right, which means, even if we buy the circumstances that are being played out, we can't trust anything these mockeries are saying - WHICH MEANS, that the events as depicted here, that are supposed to make me feel sad or happy or hopeful - just piss me off, because I'm being robbed (just as the cast of this series were robbed) of the proper goodbye that every Trek series since Classic Trek has enjoyed. Next Gen already had a fantastic final episode, and a so-so final film, Classic Trek had a wonderful finale in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Deep Space Nine (easily the best Trek of the bunch) ended it's character rich development with a fitting 10-part finale, that still couldn't wrap up every last story thread, but made every effort, and let you know that the writers CARED about the show, and the people who watched it. Voyager's final Episode "Endgame" wasn't perfect, but it was the perfect ending for that series, in that the flaws therein, were representative of the series that spawned it. Enterprise had a 4 year run, with the first 2 seasons floundering, the 3rd season bringing a season long arc, and some great character development, and the 4th season came along and really linked the series to the later (earlier) Treks, and fixed many of the problems that B&B had set into place. The new guy in charge, Manny Coto, was a Trek fan, and his season long run of the show featured some of the best Trek stories every devised; he wasn't allowed to write the finale, and this is the result. I do not consider the finale an episode of Enterprise; at best, it is a horribly off kilter, lost episode of Next Generation - and even that is stretching it a bit. The whole thing just disgusts me, and it reeks of unrealized potential; it just feels like B&B were pissed that Manny Coto was getting the show right, and wanted to fuck it up.

It actually hurt me to watch it.

And I'm going to try to not think about it now, because it pisses me off so much; no episode of Trek has ever pissed me off like this. Some have been stupid (voyager's "Threshold" springs to mind), written by one of the B's of course, but even then I could just kind of laugh that one off... But this was a Season Ender, and THE SERIES FINALE, the last word on the show; and I try to say, well, they wanted there to be evidence that later generations remembered the exploits of Archer & his crew, but the story they chose just seems so not the way to go... And I'm still talking about this aren't I?

Fuck. FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!

Ok. I'm gonna take a breather.

   posted by Bald Jason at 11:50 AM
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