Tuvok's goodbye was super sweet. Love him or hate him, Neelix was an important member of Voyager's crew. This was a fitting ending for his journey with them.
Stupid episode.
I mean, the idea maybe wasn't bad but it was clear the moment the Captain returned that it wasn't her. And they went too far with the Doctor almost replacing everyone. Plus, those ****head aliens weren't interesting when the appeared for the first time.
It is absolutely moronic that the Doctor choose this course of action and disobeying a direct order by the captain. Even the Doctor would understand that without a warp core ultimately they all die. That's just the author forcing his idea down our throats like so many times on this show. And, of course, no consequences at the end.
And, I have to get this of my chest, althought it pains me to say it. The Doctor referring to humans as "organics" could be percieved as racist. He even states his own superiority over humans. It is not intentional but it is disturbing nonetheless.
Not off to a good start for the series finale. It seems like the writers didn't know how to get the crew home, so they came up with some garbage future solution with lots of hacks.
Seeing the future versions of the characters was fun, but it just didn't fit with the series.
Also, introducing new plot elements like Seven and Chakotay doesn't make sense. It feels rushed. Instead, they should have been working on resolution to the character stories.
Loved this episode! Had the same energy as Thor Ragnarok which is easily the funniest Marvel movie
So... It looks like by the comments several of you dont understand its a spoof of the movie called Out Cold.... Regardless -- great shit!
Overall very enjoyable, but what idiot thinks there is any gravity on a comet? There is no possible way to fall and injure yourself. The real danger is launching yourself into orbit with a sneeze...
[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.
Worth watching
Themes: first contact, Reed development, Enterprise development
Enterprise is making way for future human space exploration by deploying subspace amplifiers, which apparently draws attention from a ship that even T'Pol doesn't recognize. They don't respond at all and just go away after taking a look. They return later, causing ship wide power failure, docking their shuttle, getting all old school alien with probing incapacitated crewmen and escaping before the crew can do anything. This makes Archer realise they are ill equipped for dealing with something as alien as this and turns them around to Jupiter station so they can get their phase cannons mounted. Reed and Tucker are certain they can do it themselves but Archer is too shaken to approve their request. That doesn't stop them from giving their all to do it themselves, which is the decision that ultimately saves them as they encounter aliens one more time, where it's finally clear their intention is to capture Enterprise. Aliens themselves have a part in their own defeat as their monitoring device causes power surge that boosts power of the cannons at the expense of other systems, which is something they use to defeat aliens and once more reverse course and go further into space.
Now this is really good. We get character development with having a character in question barely in that storyline at all, which is actually brilliant way to show just how much of a private person Reed is. We get truly alien looking aliens, not just humans with a little prosthetic detail to make them different (and also some slick looking ships). This goes a long way to show us there are other warp capable species in the universe whose motives and intentions can't be understood by usual human logic. Mystery surrounding them really brings a dose of scariness that isn't that usual in ST universe, as they genuinely seem as a threat, which really brings home the point of Enterprise and its crew not really being prepared for anything galaxy throws at them. Moreover, it also gives an opportunity to show us what the crew is made of, as they work relentlessly to mount those cannons themselves. It's everything one would hope for out of a Star Trek episode.
Fun fact: we get to learn there are 81 humans, 1 denobulan and 1 vulcan onboard.
So, I'm watching this series in chronological order. By far, this is one of the best episodes in the 1st season so far. This episode is so thought provoking for the sci fi dreamers, an incredibly well written character focused episode, with massive implications. If you are not a Trekkie or don't have the time to check out all the episodes, check this one out for sure, you won't be disappointed.
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?
[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.
I think this episode suffered from trying to include too many subplots. In the end none of the stories got any real closure.
Perhaps it was intentional that all of the plot lines were so superficial, but I don't have to like it.
What does it say about this episode that its only real effect was to make me like Hoshi even more? (For that matter, what does it say about me?) None of these little vignettes had any real character insight to offer. We already knew that Trip and Reed are perhaps a bit incautious when it comes to booze and women. (I'll leave aside the contradictions I see with their previously established backstories.) We already knew that Archer is inclined to distrust anyone who talks too much about the Suliban. We also already knew that Hoshi is amazing at learning languages—it's literally the reason Archer wanted her on his ship in the first place. (Doesn't make it any less interesting to "see" the character "learn" new languages.) I guess we didn't know that Phlox gets silly when he's woken up mid-hibernation, but that felt more like a shoehorned-in comic relief plot than anything.
To sum up: Hoshi is adorable. Phlox gets a chance to be supremely silly, though it doesn't really work with the tone of the show for me. Trip and Malcolm don't really have any presence, just a one-off gag (of sorts) scene that just gets left. Archer meets a mysterious woman who can only be a hint at things to come. (For that reason, his is the most fulfilling subplot—though it is fulfilling only in that it promises more intrigue next season and beyond.)
Don't get discouraged by the storm of negative reviews. Just give it a honest chance for yourself. I went in without any expectations and came out satisfied and entertained.
Still loving some of the parallels to HIMYM. Sophie pulls a Ted Mosby in this episode as she adapts a party, just so she can hang out with her love interest. Also Haaave you met Ellen?
Great episode, the fights are really well filmed. Not over the top but just done right.
That was a great plan. Such a shame though that Leif has now lost all his friends
So, wanted to do a comment at the end of the second season but I'm gonna do it now.
The serie improved a lot by the end of the first season and keeps improving: Lots of great dialogues, moments and action. It also build an interesting world that makes sense.
What I'm really against is the "comedy" that tries to be funny but failing very bad, ruining some serious/dramatics moments; doesn't happen much after a bit, but it's just annoying and on top of that are really unfunny and retarded jokes.
That is also what made me hate Callum a lot, cause he is very much about doing this unfunny jokes, and I hate hating main characters for these kinda stupid reasons.
But I'm glad the serie takes time to give the main character some growth and develop and serious moments about themselves.
Animation and character design is great, I just wish they'd put some more attentions to backgrounds too.
I also enjoy the multiple references to Sailor Moon, creator/s must have been really into it, lol.
Turns out an enjoyable serie and I'm kinda hooked up.
Man, this time I thought I was keeping perfect track of everything and had some theories lined up, surely they couldn't pull the rug from under us again... most of what I thought ended up being just dead wrong, I'm a fool, can't believe it haha. They pulled the "different timelines" trick of Season 1 mixed with the "fidelity time jump" trick of Season 2, and I definitely need to watch this one again.
So basically, everything we've seen with Caleb and Maeve (including the past stuff shown in this episode) happened in the few years following Season 3, but then they "died". Hale then dominates the world, and over two decades later, I guess there's only a faction of humans that remain, including Caleb's daughter, and that's when Bernard begins doing his stuff / Dolores begins realizing things are strange. The twist makes a lot of sense... knowing this, I'm super excited to see what the show becomes now.
What I'm most curious about is finding out exactly what Hale is doing, because it seems like the hosts aren't really aware of what went down and just "live life" normally in the world - so rather than just being a "human vs hosts" situation, at least it looks like Hale is also playing god even among the hosts, plus, humans are being made into hosts, such as Caleb. I wonder why, and also wonder if William is still being kept alive.
The biggest question though... was Stubbs just sitting down waiting for 30 years for Bernard to be back? lol
meh. i genuinely think the writers have no idea what they're doing. there's a lot of "big moments" but i have no emotional attachment to them at this point. how do all the hosts feel about hale telling them to transcend? we haven't gotten nearly enough insight into how the hosts view this world, hell we don't even have a single host character to relate to in that aspect besides maybe william. everything happens because bernard magically saw it happen in his supersim. there's no explanation for why the world can't be saved, we just know it can't. we were wondering what was going on with christina, knowing this show would give some kind of twist, and there it is, she's "not real"... uh... okay? was i supposed to drop my jaw in awe? so what's the explanation for the people she interacted with earlier? why was hale visiting her? i guess that's a remaining mystery for the finale. i really don't care anymore...
I really enjoyed the first half of this season, but the second half forgot to give me reasons to care. In the end I didn't care who lived or who died, I just wondered what the point of any of it is.
the worst part was the way christinia and william just straightforwardly monologued to explain their entire story arc over the situation. it's such bad writing. they couldn't find a way to organically explain it. william's thing didn't even need to explained, it was obvious what had happened to him. they don't trust their own viewers so they spell everything out and have zero subtext.
I'm mostly annoyed that this still wasn't even the actual conclusion. What the hell do we need another season for? I also don't see why humanity in the real world is apparently guaranteed to go instinct after all of this (according to Christina aka "Dolores" during her final dialogue).
Hell, while we're talking about that, how can she speak of having seen the best and worst of humanity and not acknowledge that the hosts did the exact same thing to humanity when the humans were basically hosts themselves with narratives written for them?
Considering that the hosts knew humans were intelligent, sentient, beings, where in the original park pretty much none of the humans knew that the hosts weren't simply robots without actual feelings one could argue that what the hosts did was actually far worse (at least, the hosts in the real world).
Lastly, why does she need one "final" test? As a test for what? The good that can be found in humanity? Weren't we just talking about seeing the beauty in this world? The ancient order in the chaos? What does she need another test/game for?
How do you spend an entire season showing hosts are just as flawed as humans (hell, this was one of the main reasons Hale wanted the hosts to transcend and not waste their time around humans in the city) and then not acknowledge it at the end and instead focus on the humans being the ones that need to face a final test? At least during her dialogue with Ted. It just makes no sense to me.
Maybe I completely misunderstood as she does mention "maybe this time we'll set ourselves free" and it's not so much a test for humanity but for all sentient beings (and would any human she created from memory in her virtual park actually still be a human to begin with?).
This series could have ended with season 2
at best. At worst if this is their projection they should have never made the series. It feels very cynical of human kind without much nuisance beyond humans=bad. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the writing and analogies of the series from the get go but it's run beyond its date. I very much doubt I'll return to watch this considering I only watched this season thinking the horse finally was put out of its misery but alas season 5 :rolling_eyes: nty
This is a perfect example of how stupid they write Archer to be. Archer never should have taken Porthos down to the planet. And if he really has diplomatic training, he sure doesn't show it. Archer is doesn't prioritize anything properly in this episode, whether it be his dog vs. ship, or getting sleep in his quarters vs. hiding behind a curtain in sick-bay where he and Porthos can't even see each other.
The interaction between Archer and T'Pol was just childishly written. So dumb.
Archer is just a complete tool in this episode.
This episode is about 40 minutes too long...
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.
