[6.7/10] I hate to complain about Star Trek being formulaic. There’s certain beats the franchise likes to hit or tropes it likes to deploy, but that’s part of the charm. The series has never been a procedural exactly, but even with the vast reaches of space at their disposal, there’s certain types of stories that are familiar, but pleasantly so. Star Trek has always had a certain sensibility, with repeated elements particularly recognizable for fans who’ve been following it for decades, that make the execution of the idea more important than how fresh or well-worn it may be.
But “Oasis” feels like paint-by-numbers Star Trek to me. It is not bad by any stretch of the imagination. It is a sturdy, tidily-constructed episode that parcels out its mysteries and reveals nicely, features from able performances, and bakes in a little of that moral thought experiment material that usually elevates the franchise. It’s all just very familiar, and never transcends being “pretty good” instead of “great”, without anything that could truly surprise or pull the rug out from under a longtime viewer.
The episode starts with a dinner engagement between the Enterprise’s main trio and Harry Mudd-esque alien who tells them of a ship containing precious materials in exchange for some bags of coffee. But he warns them -- it’s haunted! It’s a cute way to start the episode that diverts from the usual “Captain, we’re getting a strange reading from that sector” kick-off that so many installments begin with. Granted, there is a strange reading here -- the fact that scanners reveal no life signs on the ship, but the away team discovers any entire crew of humanoids living in secret there -- but it’s at least a fun way to dive into that material.
From there, “Oasis” plays into the usual mystery angle. Once the Enterprise crew discovers the ship’s secret inhabitants, we learn the story that they were attacked by some aliens and standed, putting up a dampening field in case the aggressors returned and building a new life on the ship after it was too damaged to make the flight home or even contact help. Naturally, Archer and company want to do everything they can to help these people, which mostly means fixing their computer systems and upgrading some others, while the locals are surprisingly resistant to notions that the Enterprise would help them make the year’s journey back to their home planet.
All of this material is perfectly fine, in the usual “local community has a jam, and the spacemen try to help them out of it” sort of way. But things quickly proceed into the usual “this seemingly normal group has a dark secret” rigamarole. Reed and others discover that the ship has been stranded for much longer than its residents admitted, and the ship itself shows no sign of being attacked. When they take in an escape pod with a dead body in it, it becomes doubly fishy. Again, there’s nothing wrong with any of this. It’s just the standard beats for Trek, where you discovery some new group, things seem fine if a little odd, then the oddness starts escalating, until some terrible secret is revealed that forces the crew into a difficult moral choice.
I have nothing against that structure, but without an intriguing idea or a crackerjack performance or some really sharp writing, it becomes replacement-level Star Trek, without much objectionable but also not much to recommend it either.
The two things Enterprise does to try to spice up the proceedings are also familiar ones. The first is that Trip falls in love with one of the locals, Lyana, with a dynamic that feels strikingly like Pike’s and Vina’s in “The Menagerie” from The Original Series. Their chemistry is cute (with a particularly amusing exchange about rocky road ice cream), and T’Pol’s references to the last time Trip got involved with an engineer on another ship are well-taken, but there’s not much novel to it. It’s meant to give the Enterprise crew, and the audience, a more personal stake in what happens to these stranded humanoids, but if you have romantic entanglements on a nigh-weekly basis that are quickly forgotten, both on this show and Star Trek in general, it’s hard to get too invested in the relationship without some extra spark.
Some of that spark is supposed to come from Rene Auberjonois (who played Odo on Deep Space 9) guest-starring as Lyana’s father (getting the “And” credit to boot!), who is more than meets the eye. After the locals try to take T’Pol and Trip hostage to make the repairs, Lyana intervenes, pulling some circuits in the control room and making almost all of her compatriots disappear. Her father then confesses that they’re all holograms he created after their ship crashed, meant to give his daughter some companions and a normal life to grow up with, and assuage his guilt for being part of the reason the ship crashed after he left his post to try to rescue her.
(As an aside, it’s fun for fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender to see Auberjonois playing a character who lives in an isolated community where he engineers all kinds of wild inventions in order to give his child a better life.)
As reveals go, it’s not bad. There’s a personal reason behind the exposition and explanation, and Auberjonois gets a good monologue about being afraid of change but pushing past it for the good of his daughter. It all just never really rises above that. It leads to the Enterprise crew helping make the ship fly again, so that Lyana can see the world, and she and Trip have a sweet little goodbye. It’s a pat, but serviceable ending, that doesn't really challenge the characters or the viewers. It’s satisfying enough, but not much more than that.
Friends who watched the series in real time have told me that Enterprise was, at least in part, an effort to expand the reach and popularity of the franchise beyond the die-hards. If you’re new to Star Trek, and chose to start with Enterprise for some reason, maybe there would be more novelty to all of this. And it’s probably unfair to judge these episodes from the perspective of someone who’s seen these tropes and story beats deployed across decades of shows. But alas, it’s the only perspective I have to give. From that vantage point “Oasis” is an ably-done version of several things Star Trek has done and done better elsewhere, which never rankles, but never soars either.
Simplistic at best on the political side, more of a character episode for Archer and Trip than anything else. Honestly the bulk of my rating comes from Zobral, because Clancy Brown is such a joy to watch. It's not much of a political episode, and not really much of a character episode either, sadly. The dramatic chops are pretty weak.
Some years ago I attended a convention with Scott Bakula as one of the guests and I watched his panel where he was asked what his favorite episode of Enterprise was. His answer was "definitely A Night in Sickbay". I remembered that answer and so I was looking forward to this episode. And now I just can't understand how this mess could be anyone's favorite.
Just dumb to take the dog with you, unfunny slapstick, terrible dialogues (with the exception of Phlox story about his family) and absolutely unbelievable "sexual friction". Archer and T'Pol have about as much sexual chemistry as two rocks on a field.
So whatever Bakula loves about this episode, I don't get it. Maybe it was exceptionally fun to shoot or whatever but for me it was a big disappointment.
Apparently the stun setting is hard to use in this episode. Shooting first and asking questions later would have solved several problems. Why be reluctant to stun someone? It makes no sense.
Archer is such a dick in this episode.
Sure, ok, make the first non-corporeal species Enterprise encounters evil, because two legs good, no legs bad, right. The xenophobic undertone of this episode is hilariously ironic when you consider the whole point of Star Trek is to examine and embrace other cultures and ways of life.
Also, I've come to the conclusion that the theme of Enterprise is "Star Trek, yes, but make it sexy."
It fired all its shot i feel and ultimately sits far far below the Vikings standard. This was a decent episode but he climax and realisation that you worked 6 episodes towards it is concerning. That’s it. Would take a bombshell of a finale to set up a third. Almost see it cancelled.
"You know what the new season needs to start off strong? A worse version of the already infamous opening song!"
At least T'Pol's clothes have shapes other than "skintight catsuit" now. I mean, they're still skintight catsuits, just more interesting ones.
Overall pretty entertaining, which is more than can be said for some late season two episodes.
Wow, this episode really just gave us :sparkles:nothing:sparkles:
“I’ve never been fed a pile of crap like that since truth or dare night at farm camp” - wow, that’s actually hilarious. Sometimes this show has a moment of brilliance so quick you may miss it :rofl::rofl:
YIP YIP!! I love that!
Ridiculous plot and Archer is as useless as a leader as always.
this episode was the most annoying piece of sh*t i ever had to endure.
I found it unbelievably irritating that the older brother was blamed for something the younger one did by himself. Older brother pranking his younger brother by playing dead is in no logical way related to younger brother being an idiot and eating the fruit. Younger brother could've eaten the fruit at any time. The person who made it so easily reachable for uneducated kids is to blame, and I'm willing to bet it wasn't his older brother...
Very intriguing episode! I'm excited to see the conclusion.
Is it just me or does the cave that Picard and Data are lead to by the Romulan guards look at lot like the cave from 3 episodes ago (Silicon Avatar), where Riker and co. where hiding from the Crystalline Entity?
Shame, what this show became...soap f*ing opera
More entertainng than part 1, but a lot more stupid. Data's change is nonsensical and Lore is reduced to a James Bond villain. Picard and Geordi's method of re-enabling Data's ethics is a giant WTF moment. And while the return of Hugh is welcome, he isn't given anything interesting to do. I don't understand why the writers didn't team him back up with Geordi given their past friendship.
I really enjoy the stuff on board the Enterprise with Beverly in charge though, it just makes a pleasant change, and similarly it's great to see an untested bridge crew. But Lore deserved a better send off.
Correct order: Episode 5
Have fun!
Someone is trying to start a war and it isn't Mars. Is it just the Belt? Or is someone on earth vying for control of it all?
Avarsarala is my favorite so far. Even while using her friend to get around the rules, she is not made out to be cold hearted, but rather determined and with strong convictions. These characteristics are usually placed with men, but it's so refreshing to see a clearly morally gray female character that isn't automatically demonized. Here we see her use her friend and ambassador to confirm if Mars is behind the attack, which ultimate leads to him being collateral damage in her search for evidence against the Red Planet. What she does find instead is that Mars isn't at fault. But the ambadassor does give us insight into her: she's a smart, cunning and bold woman who always gets what she wants and usually she wants to "win", even if that means she has to make up her own rules. (Note: out of all the cast so far, she is by far my fav. So much under the surface that I want to see more. Is she a good? a bad? or forever in the vastness of the gray?)
After beeing arrested by the Mars Federation, our small crew from the water carrier/Canterbury is placed under interrigation and everyone's secrets come out (Former Mars Military, a Possible OPA Member, and a privilged Earther). This crew is much more than they seem. No one really knows anyone and they might just turn on each other as they feel the flames of power. The crew survived space, but can they survive each other?
Loved the interrogation scenes. These remind me of what care the showrunner/directors take in showing us the differences in physiology between the three groups. Here we see the enhaced/altered abilities of the Mars people as the interrogator has enhanced vision, camera focusing on his eyes as he interrogates and notices nuances or small movements in the prisoners, almost as a lie detector. They use this to create the tension in the interrogation, having the viewer watch him what the prisoner, looking to see if he catches a lie or false info, revealing a possible culprit.
Back on Ceres things are getting really interesting. The shipment of water is VERY LATE, due to the destroyed Canterbury, which has everyone on high alert, tensions palpable. With Holden's "Mars Attacked Us" message, the OPA is ready to revolt and now they have a martyr for their cause.
Miller has finally connected Mao's disapperance to the Scopuli, and to the destroyed water carrier, but he has also connected her to the OPA, but they are dangerous territory.
The Martians do give us another piece of the puzzle. Now we have Phoebe research station, a restricted station. What was going on on Phoebe that had the Martians so interested in what the Canterbury crew could know?
The pace of the show is still slow. Revealing small pieces of the puzzle, just like a book. Feels more like a mini series than traditional series.
Solid all around. Rate the ep a 7.5.
Never liked this episode, and doubt I ever will. It's dull and treats Odo's character in a peculiar way. Honestly, I kind of switched off and had it on in the background. I was also heavily distracted by the fact that Odo has nipples... why would he bother? Arissa is an incredibly arrogant character, too ("the only thing I've ever been admired for is my looks").
All of the scenes that don't involve Odo/Arissa are pretty great. I love Kira and Jadzia gossiping, Julian's holosuite adventure and I can't help but think that O'Brien's line about always playing the bad guy is a reference to Colm Meaney's movie career at this time (he played a lot of evil henchmen).
[7.8/10] A very fun episode that has the sort of solipsism and insane twists that are endemic to The Gang and lead to plenty of comedy. I particularly appreciated the fact that, as Dennis predicted, Dee (and by extension Mac) are legitimately in a Dinner for Schmucks/Pig Party situation, where Trevor Taft is in a competition with his frat brothers to find the biggest loser, but in the end, it’s Charlie who’s pulling a Dangerous Liaisons/Cruel Intentions on Ruby Taft and not the other way around.
Maybe it’s just me speaking as someone who naively thought Cruel Intentions was sexy and brilliant when I was 14, but Charlie using (I think) exact quotes from that movie got a luagh out of me. And the way he seemed to get over The Waitress, move on to Ruby, and then just when you think his heart’s going to get broken, he’s not only the same old Waitress-obsessed guy he always was, but he even semi-successfully pulls off this insane scheme! It’s a superb comic reversal.
The other half of the episode is more run-of-the-mill IASIP insanity, with Dee doing a ridiculous striptease, Mac continuing his propensity to interrupt Reynolds family relations and being really into wrestling, Dennis taking his physical appearance so seriously that a comment about him being pale sends him to the tanning salon, and Frank sneaking into the Waitress’s apartment to put rat poison in her shampoo. It’s the sort of deranged antics that the show regularly wrings comedy out of.
Overall, a very nice episode that plays on things we already know about the characters, but doesn’t just regurgitate past hits. Breath of fresh air.
[8.4/10] Far and away my favorite of the season so far. Just the premise of Mr. Deadly, a polite, sentient doomsday device that wants nothing more than to explode, is hilarious. Matt Berry does a great job giving the character a dry affect, and his constant efforts to get people to say the phrase “please detonate” is great. Even better are Lana’s efforts to convince him that life is worth living, because (1.) he’s a sentient creature who deserves the joys of life (2.) that way he won’t explode and kill millions of people and (3.) to prove Archer wrong.
As I’ve said in prior write-ups, we’ve gotten a lot of good Lana/Archer material in this one, and Archer criticizing her need to fix things as the cause of their break-up, while she turns it around and blames it on his constant extramarital schtupping, is more digging into the pair’s relationship, past and present.
It’s also an episode with great setups and payoffs galore. Lana’s quest to prove that life is worthwhile to Mr. Deadly culminates in her taking a bullet for him, which is a nice place to build to after butterflies and whiskey. All of Krieger’s demented Q-style gadgets come into play in fun ways. And Archer’s fear of black holes comes back a cool, character-worthy fashion as well.
Plus the stuff on the margins is great too. It’s nice to have Thomas Lennon back as Rudy (this time in steel-nosed, Tycho Brahe-esque bounty hunter form). The gags about Mallory trying to sell Mr. Deadly on the black market are fun (and Pam and Krieger’s mix tape cracked me the hell up). Cheryl’s death wish/sexual fixation on dying went to the usual insane but amusing places. And Pam’s pastafication/pasta vacation gags are the kind of dumb but sublty brilliant humor that I love from Archer.
There’s also the part of me that loves how this one riffs on well-worn sci-fi tropes, like doomsday devices in general, and semi-sentient defense mechanisms from long-defunct alien civilizations in particular. The original Star Trek went to that well all the time, and it’s fun to see this spoof of the idea.
Overall, this is a clever, well-written, and above all else very funny episode of the show.
What prime directive? Nothing to see here
Maybe the dullest episode of the series. This does absolutely nothing interesting with the concept - finally addressing why Harry Kim is still an ensign but forcing him to stay that way just because. The usually wonderful Ron Glass gives a very lifeless and uncharismatic performance.
:asterisk_symbol:erases rant about the doctor not feeling like part of the crew after that last double feature:asterisk_symbol:
I liked this episode even tho it doesn’t push us home. Liked seeing the old faces to remind us where we came from. Predictable seska and the kazon causing problems
A rare Voyager episode that not only focuses on characters, but also has good writing for them! The result is rather fantastic. This is proper dive into B'Elanna's past and an exploration of what makes her the way she is. Add to that the massive change brought on by the news that she and Tom are expecting (something that the notorious reset button can't ignore from now on) and we end up with a really emotional story.
Roxann Dawson gives a very strong performance, and the ever reliable Robert Picardo matches her beat for beat. I also enjoyed the very frank discussions between B'Elanna and Tom which came across as far more natural than the usual depiction of relationships on Star Trek. One small moment that really worked for me was Tom awkwardly asking Tuvok for parenting advice, and his very honest answer which still managed to be Vulcan-esque.
I also have to give credit to the episode for managing to surprise me: B'Elanna modifying the Doctor so he will perform the operation was a genuinely shocking development, while also not being so out-of-character that it was unbelievable.
So... It looks like by the comments several of you dont understand its a spoof of the movie called Out Cold.... Regardless -- great shit!
[4.4/10] If there were two things that consistently drove me nuts about The Original Series, it was the “Kirk knows best” attitude, and the parade of disposable love interests. With the former, it didn’t matter how reasonably Spock’s points were, or how fragile the ecosystem of the community that this flaxen-haired spaceman was visiting. Kirk had his ideas, and he was going to jump in and execute them no matter what anyone else said. With the latter, to borrow a line from Community, Kirk (and plenty of other characters, to be fair), would often have passionate, instant chemistry with some random woman whom we’d never see again. Both of these problems dragged down more than a few of the 79 episodes that started this whole Trek shebang.
So it’s disheartening, to say the least, to see Enterprise repeating those mistakes. In fairness, there’s less of the “Captain is always right” thing here. I’d like to think that part of what this series is doing is showing the audience adventures from before there was a prime directive, or standard away team protocols, in order to have things come this close to going entirely pear-shaped and demonstrating why those rules were created in the first place. (Not that those rules did much to keep Kirk in line.)
That means that, while I find it annoying, I’m willing to tolerate Archer being dismissive of T’Pol’s concerns about screwing around in a pre-warp civilization if it’s a prelude to Archer running into real trouble and being a little chastened about the whole experience. But we don’t get that here. Instead, we get the old “some mysterious thing is making everyone of these mostly-human aliens sick, and we’ve got to save them” razmataz, replete with firefights in the streets and an attractive younger woman who’s paired up with the captain, and a chance for Archer to prove he was right to want to go down to the surface given how he manages to save the day.
It’s all just tiresome. Archer is kind of a supercilious dick through the whole thing, and I am increasingly skeptical of Scott Bakula’s ability to do the Kirk thing in 2001. (Hell, I’m still somewhat skeptical of Shatner’s ability to do the Kirk thing in 1966!). He’s not really convincing as a mystery solver or as a confidence man, but the show wants you to think he is, which makes his efforts to uncover the source of the illness meh at best. He’s also not great at the moral indignation thing, which is a good chunk of the episode.
It’s also just not that interesting of a mystery, and “Civilization” really belabors it. We barely get to know the native aliens before we’re introduced to the illness, mostly via exposition. It’s instantly clear that the concerned apothecary is the good guy and that the smug shopkeep is the bad guy, which takes a lot of the intrigue away. And the reveal that this is an Erin Brockovich/A Civil Action-esque story about mining runoff making people sick is a pretty boring reveal.
Ideally, the show wants to spruce up that fairly standard “Starfleet infiltrates pre-warp civilization and discovers mortal threat” template with the Archer/Riann romance, but that’s dull as dishwater, which brings things down considerably. I’m willing to give some leeway to episodic television to have single-serving romances to add a little excitement to these individual stories. But the show telegraphs the romance so heavily, hits such predictable beats, and finds absolutely no chemistry between its actors to the point that it’s a chore to get through their scenes.
Riann’s character is barely sketched beyond generic “something must be done!” And Archer’s interest in her isn’t sketched beyond him randomly kissing her when the universal translator stops working. It’s the usual “Here’s two people. We hope our focus on them will paper over the fact that we’ve done little-to-nothing to account for why they should be together” routine. That approach is particularly galling when you just know that Riann isn’t going to join them on the ship, and this is inevitably a dull, fleeting thing.
The episode is also just sloppy. Again, it’s immediately clear who the bad guys and good guys are. Archer and Riann escape the bunker where the mining is being done despite being theoretically trapped and held at gunpoint because...reasons? It’s never really made clear. They’re just suddenly out and running from the bad guy.
The one minor saving grace here is that it’s a good episode for T’Pol, who after some initial skepticism from yours truly, has settled into the Spock role nicely. Trip’s mini-freakout when she says to prepare to leave, only for her to slap him down (figuratively of course) and note that she had no intention of leaving the captain behind, is a great character moment. And while it’s a little convenient, her beaming the energy core that the bad guys were using into space, and then blasting to disable the ship, was pretty damn badass. Her lineread of “fire” when she had Reed then disable the enemy ship’s weapon systems was downright Picard-esque.
But at the end of the day, this is an Archer episode, and it’s just boring. The romance is predictable. The mystery is predictable. And the non-Enterprise part of the escape is done by fiat. I’m not one to poo poo the minor thrill of our heroes dressing like the natives and trying to learn a little more about an alien society. But in trying to give us the first such story in Starfleet history (at least chronologically in-universe), Enterprise delivers something generic at best, and eye-roll worthy at worst.
That comes down to an undercooked, underwhelming romance, and a heap of Archer ignoring everyone else’s advice because he just has a feeling about how to do and save everything. Rather than punishing our protagonist for the hubris or developing a romance worth rooting for, “Civilization” just gives the audience some reheated Kirk-esque leftovers, that were barely worth chowing down on when they came from the later (but earlier) Enterprise’s replicators.
Skip
Themes: character degradation
Trip and Reed are making their way back to rendezvous point near asteroid field in shuttle, only to find what appears to be Enterprise plastered on the side of the asteroid. They immediately start to panic and argue, as one would expect from some of the best Starfleet has to offer.
In the very next scene we learn that Enterprise is just fine, transporting Tesninans to their home world after their ship was destroyed in a docking attempt, taking away part of docking bay door with it.
And approximately 3 minutes in episode that's it for the plot. We know they'll rescue them so there's no real tension so we are left with almost 40 minutes of them bickering, Reed sending endless letters and T'Pol trying to convince Archer that micro singularities exist.
Now this is absolute garbagefest. There's no real plot, almost no character development (and what there is doesn't flatter anyone), no new information, only endless stupidity, bad acting and bad dialogue.
We get such memorable scenes as Reed sealing a hole in a shuttle plating from micro black whole with mashed potatoes and Reed having fantasy about T'Pol complete with him staring at her boobs and Reed and Trip overacting during drinking scene. Ok, we get to know that Reed is a melancholic ladies man, something we really didn't need to know.
And it's funny that even though Archer appears for a minute, they still manage to make his character even more unlikable. As if he didn't come across as ignorant enough, he literally laughs off the idea of micro singularities. Oh stupid vulcans and their scientific theories, what do they know, right?
Also, it occurred to me that this was supposed to be a comedy episode. If so, its failure is even bigger. They very effectively degraded 3 characters and gained absolutely nothing in the process. And for this to come just after Shadows of P'jem, one of the best episodes of the season that had so much going on!
And only thing left to think about: shuttle was supposed to move away from Enterprise at least 20000km so they can adjust targeting. If we give it a benefit of a doubt that there is some reason why they were supposed to move away, why wouldn't Enterprise just hop near the shuttle, warn them they had an accident and that they'll return in 3 days (or you know, cancel the shuttlepod mission). It would take them a split second to cover that distance. Yep, this episode literally shouldn't have happened.
> Jeffrey Combs
> and Ethan Phillips
I heard Phillips' voice immediately. Yes, I was a bit excited. Yes, I was later disappointed.
It's so fun seeing recognizable real-life products disguised as futuristic sci-fi props. In this episode, it was two bottles in Sickbay that were clearly SIGG brand (and only very slightly touched up by the props crew). Nothing compared to Quark using my family's picnicware glasses every day in his bar on DS9, but still fun.
So there are only 173 Rules of Acquisition at this point in time? A lot changes in a century.
"There are fourteen weapons lockers on this ship." — And none of them should be accessible without any authentication at all. The key word is locker. They're supposed to be locked. Sigh.
Nice touch that they threw in "Do I look like a Menk to you?" as a reference to "Dear Doctor".
So Porthos wasn't affected by the gas? Does it only work on humanoids?
