Very, VERY late…
Daedalus
Cast & Crew
Director: David Straiton
Written By: Ken LaZebnik & Michael Bryant
Starring
Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as T’Pol
Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox
Guest Cast
Bill Cobbs as Emory Erickson
Leslie Silva as Danica Erickson
Donovan Knowles as Quinn Erickson
Noel Manzano as Ensign Burrows
Episode Information
Originally Aired: January 14, 2004
Season: Four
Episode: Ten
Production: 086
What Happened
The crew welcomes aboard Emory Erickson, the inventor of the transporter device, set to conduct a series of experiments to test a radical upgrade to the technology. However, once Enterprise reaches the test site, Archer realizes that his old family friend has lied and is using the ship to search for his son, lost years before in a transporter mishap.
Review
It wouldn’t have been so bad if they weren’t trying to go up against a much better Battlestar Galactica. Reviewed on its own, it’s merely mediochre with the plot simply dressing for some strong dialogue.
High Point
Trip coming to terms with his idol. Not edgy stuff, but satisfying.
Low Point
So Starfleet just hands over their flagship without any tested proof this thing works?
The Scores
Originality: This has been done before. A lot. 2 out of 6.
Effects: Nothing that interesting. The “manifestations” were pretty lame. 4 out of 6.
Story: Banal shell for “morality” dialogue. Great title. 4 out of 6.
Acting: Not a bad delivery. 5 out of 6.
Emotional Response: You know what’s coming. 2 out of 6.
Production: Same old, same old. 4 out of 6
Overall: A dry, but not lifeless episode. I know the arcs are a lot of work, but can we stick to those? 3 out of 6.
Total: 24 out of 42
Next Week on Enterprise (January 21, 2004)
Observer Effect
After Hoshi and Trip contract a deadly virus while exploring a planet, two ghostly aliens possess the bodies of various Enterprise crew members to observe humanity’s reaction to imminent tragedy. As the aliens secretly jump bodies to observe, Phlox strives to cure the stricken pair, but with his efforts failing, Archer must make a difficult decision in order to shield the rest of the crew from this growing biohazard.
Additional Notes and Comments
If you’re interested in what’s in TheAngryMob’s review queue, check out my What’s Coming page.
by the way
Hopefully, this means the site’s operational again. Yay me. Now to go back to the office and make up all the stuff I slacked on whilst getting everything migrated in the middle of the day. :-)
Glad the site is up, too bad about the episode
The episode was really weak considering what they could have done with it, but the low point for me was getting back something recognizably human. The issue of a balky transporter was handled much better in the first movie (“what came back didn’t live long…fortunately”). I can’t believe that first generation transporters would be any better about such things.
Re: Glad the site is up, too bad about the episode
No tested proof, nor any idea of what he was actually going to do, no monitoring of the operation, and only two people working on this major breakthrough. We’re back to Season One-level writing here.
Re: Glad the site is up, too bad about the episode
Yah, the guy’s signal was a muddled cloud. When it began to fade I kinda of expected, at best, a splash of red goo on the transporter pad, maybe à la “Galaxy Quest”, “it exploded.” At worst I thought we’d just have a *poof*.
I didn’t expect a whole, not too worse for the wear, sweaty-but-still-an-open-casket-burial human who was capable of gasping “Dad, is that you? I’m sorry. Not your fault. Gaaaaah.”
If he’d exploded then, that might have been worth a few extra points on the review, don’t you think? :)
I’m too tired, getting goofy. Anyways, congrads on the site move, and tonight’s BG was great. :)
-Joe G.
P.S. I just noticed in the preview view this comment is posted on 00000000000000. Now *that’s* a date to remember. :)
Re: Glad the site is up, too bad about the episode
Heh. Okay, that one needs to be looked at by me. :-)
Which Battlestar?
Which episode of Battlestar are you guys comparing this to? I didn’t think much of Kobol’s Last Gleaming Pt.1, maybe because its a two parter?
Anyway, back on topic.
I didn’t like this episode of Enterprise, it seemed completely different from recent episodes where I’ve actually found myself looking forward to the next.
And the blurb for the next episode ‘observer effect’ doesn’t give me much hope either… :-(
Re: Which Battlestar?
You should have seen the trailer on the end of the episode last week – it made the blurb sound good in comparison. But, at this point I should have learned to ignore all the UPN promo stuff – as it usually makes my eyes bleed. :)
Re: Which Battlestar?
You didn’t like it? Sheesh! There’s no pleasing some people. It’s only about the best episode of sci-fi TV ever made!
And for those of you on the US schedule, we’re talking about the penultimate episode of season one.
Re: Which Battlestar?
Careful… many Americans think that “penultimate” means “really really good!”
(Put down that keyboard, I’m an American)
Re: Which Battlestar?
Actually, I thought it turned out quite well, with an amusing twist at the end, but after doing a little TOS research, I decided that it couldn’t really be them, unless they underwent a major shift of ethics in a short period of time (for them).
And last night’s Battlestar was incredibly good. I think my high point was "He’s your son! He’s your advisor!" ;-)
In fact, last night was just an amazingly good night for Scifi TV… Another high point: "He’s the little dot taking out the other little dots", though I’m not sure why the doctor was piloting instead of Ford, who’s been flying around with Shephard ever since they got to Atlantis. Maybe I missed something explaining the different flying skills…
And I’m sure all you straight guys will be happy with your new galactic overlord, but I can’t imagine that Fifth sent his only copy on a risky mission.
Re: Which Battlestar?
I think the Doctor has a stronger expression of the gene that allows one to control the Ancients’ technology.
Re: Which Battlestar?
Some more insite to the Battlestar religon thing. Seems the God’s of Kobol are GREEK. As in Zeus.
Re: Which Battlestar?
“Bastille Day” just aired in the US. It’s still early days for us…
I’m Almost Alone
Don’t ask me why, but I actually enjoyed this episode. I enjoyed the characters at the very least, even if the plot was "borrowed" from TOS and made little sense.
My main fault was not Quinn’s rather good condition, although he should have been transporter-paste. It was actually the handling of the dead crew member.
Interesting how trying to get Quinn back involved the death of another person. Archer’s lecture should have gone something like this:
"You’ve been hurting because you lost your son. How do you think Ensign Nobody’s family feels? Was Quinn’s life more valuable than his? What if his family had cost Quinn his life? How would you feel then?"
Instead, it was just, "I have a dead crewman."
Blah.
But over all, I’d watch it again. Better than B&B’s Sex-Trek of prior seasons.
With blue decontamination gel in hand ,,,
You mean you wouldn’t want to slather blue goo all over T’Pol? What kind of a male aged 18 – 37 are you? You, you sociological focus group heretic! :)
-Joe G.
P.S. You know, during seasons one and two I was a Nielson household. Every new episode night my TV was tuned to UPN, even if I wasn’t around to watch the ep. When Neilson removed me from the study Trek’s ratings went down several tenths of a point (1 monitored set equals roughly 140,000 viewers.) :/
Re: With blue decontamination gel in hand ,,,
honestly those scenes pissed me off big time. I knew what they were attempting to do market segment wise and it really made me mad.