Date: July 19, 2022

Season 2, Episodes:

• 7, “The Seventh”
• 8, “The Communicator”
• 9, “Singularity”
• 10, “Vanishing Point”
• 11, “Precious Cargo”

Music Video of the Day:

Interstellar News: I can’t believe how long it’s been since I wrote in here. Life has been absolutely bonkers and I haven’t had the bandwidth, or spoons, to do much writing. I have watched a lot and have on backlog – so here are 5 more episodes with my apologies.

Episode 7 – “The Seventh”

“When you don’t have the ability to repress emotions, you learn to deal with them and move on..”: T’Pol goes after a renegade Vulcan named Menos. On the ship, Tucker is acting captain while Archer and Mayweather go off with T’Pol. Menos claims to be innocent, T’Pol’s memories were tampered with, and in the end Menos winds up in Vulcan custody.

I couldn’t quite get into this episode. There was a lot of trying to figure out what actually happened, and I hate that T’Pol had her mind messed with. I did like how supportive and compassionate Archer was, as it was really T’Pol’s mission and episode. Otherwise, not much to say. Four goldfish crackers for Porthos, crunch crunch.

Episode 8 – “The Communicator”

“You don’t have to leave technology behind to contaminate a culture.”: Reed’s communicator goes missing on a pre-warp planet. Archer and Reed get caught when trying to retrieve it and are thought to be spies. Tucker and Mayweather fix the Suliban ship, while Tucker becomes partially cloaked, in order to rescue the boys.

Archer isn’t the best at improv, but he does try his best. I love that it’s their red blood that terrifies the locals and a doctor is brought in to examine the strange organs. Not often enough are the biological differences talked about. I also loved the sub-plot where Tucker’s arm is cloaked, it was entirely goofy. T’Pol makes a good point about the society already being “contaminated” even though all of the technology was retrieved. I’m not sure why they didn’t try to either beam it back up, or just leave it because a communicator wasn’t that big of a deal. The story they came up with did more harm, in my opinion. 5 de-cloaked chew toys for Porthos!

Episode 9 – “Singularity”

“It would be irresponsible to dispense medication without examining you first.“: A flashback of the last few days shows everyone on the crew with some odd side effects as they pass through some harmful radiation. Archer can’t write, Sato gets obsessed with cooking from scratch, Phlox thinks there’s something wrong with Mayweather, Reed becomes even more paranoid about safety, and Tucker is snippy with everyone. T’Pol throws Archer into a cold shower in order to knock some sense into him and they get the ship to safety.

WHY DOES NO ONE ASK WHERE MAYWEATHER IS? He goes to sickbay for a headache and he’s supposed to be piloting the ship. Even with everything else going on, I can’t imagine they just forget about THE PILOT. Sigh. I mean, poor Mayweather… he gets roofied by Dr. Phlox and almost had an unwanted surgery because of space drama. Once again, this episode demonstrates that T’Pol is the only adult on Enterprise and Archer knows it. It was fun to see the crew kind of ramp up to 11, everything seeming okay but just a little off until it was just off the spectrum. 5 barks for Porthos, who was very confused and just wanted some love and attention.

Episode 10 – “Vanishing Point”

“You’re in perfect health. You’re neither transparent nor porous.”: Sato and Tucker are exploring some caved when a storm approaches and they have to use the transporter. Tucker goes first, as Sato is nervous. When she arrives on Enterprise, she starts to feel strange. She eventually disappears but everyone thinks she’s dead. After finding aliens on board trying to destroy the ship, she goes after them and wakes up on Enterprise. She dreamed the whole episode and was stuck in the pattern buffer for 8 seconds.

I liked that I didn’t know she was dreaming and stuck in the pattern buffer, because the story sort of made sense. Transporter accidents have been known to happen and maybe she could become transparent or something. Maybe I should have known better, or maybe I gave into Sato’s anxiety about using the transporter. My two favorite parts, though, were when she decided to be brave and go after the aliens who were going to blow up Enterprise and then her whole interaction with Dr. Phlox at the end. I’m not sure why I liked this episode so much, but I did – so there! 8 days in the sun for Porthos.

Episode 11 – “Precious Cargo”

“Come visit me. Perhaps you’ll find out.”: Enterprise is helping a cargo ship with a life support system when there’s a problem and they escape with Tucker but leave one of their own behind. Tucker and the First Monarch get on each other’s nerves but eventually work together to escape. Archer tricks the pirate in order to get information and everyone goes home happy.

So Tucker is definitely the “Kirk” or “Riker” character of this crew, as he keeps getting into sticky situations with female aliens. On one hand I’m glad they made it the engineering, but on the other hand he’s a bit misogynistic at times – sigh. He does give good banter and I love how he interacts with a strong character like Kaitaama, especially since she was obviously living a very sheltered life. I also loved how Archer lies about a tribunal and T’Pol even plays along, it was a lot of fun to watch. Another episode that I liked a lot and I’m not really sure why. Porthos barks along as we take a 7 mile walk around a beautiful lake.

TA Out!

Date: April 6, 2022

Season 2, Episodes:

• 2, “Carbon Creek”
• 3, “Minefield”
• 4, “Dead Stop”
• 5, “A Night in Sickbay”
• 6, “Marauders”

Music Video of the Day:

Interstellar News: My students may be the death of me – but not before I finish Trek. Here’s a new style I’m trying out, a round up of the last 5 episodes I watched.

Episode 2 – “Carbon Creek”

“Vulcans don’t take vacations.”: T’Pol tells Archer a story about the “real” first contact during the launch of Sputnik with her great-great grandmother. There are some shenanigans about helping a smart kid in a mining town get to college, a Vulcan staying for love, another lying to High Command, saving some men trapped in a mine, and introducing Velcro to the humans.

I actually quite enjoyed this one as it’s a flashback that allows T’Pol to play someone else. It also leaves you wondering if the story is true, has some true elements, or why T’Pol’s ancestor would hand down a physical object. This gets 8 “indulgences” for Porthos, as long as they’re all cheese.

Episode 3 – “Minefield”

“All we have to depend on is each other.”: Reed and Archer have a super awkward breakfast, Enterprise is hit by a cloaked mine, we “meet” the Romulans, and Reed gets impaled by a bomb. He walks Archer through defusing it and the get the hell out of dodge.

My goodness this was a SLOW and BORING episode. Reed assists Archer like they’re putting something together from Ikea and talks about how he has a fear of water and it’s why he joined Starfleet instead of the Navy. Reed keeps trying to be all noble and go down with the ship and he’s just so fucking morose the entire episode, well more so than usual. There are some interesting scenes and some good out-of-the-box thinking from Archer, but otherwise Porthos poops 3 times in this episode’s general direction.

Episode 4 – “Dead Stop”

“It’s unethical to harm a patient. I can inflict as much pain as I like.”: 4 days after the events of the last episode, Enterprise is in desperate need of repairs. They find a completely automated repair station that’s incredibly advanced and required very little in payment – to which Archer is super skeptical. The ship gets repaired but Mayweather is killed. It’s later revealed his body was a duplicate, they eventually find his original, they also blow up the station and again skedaddle right on out of that part of space. Right before the credits roll, THE STATION STARTS REPAIRING ITSELF.

I absolutely adore this episode. It reminds me of all the TOS episodes where a computer system went “nutty” and Kirk and company put an end to it – except this time the damn thing is smart enough to engineer itself back to life. I was about to stop watching when I thought they killed the one Black actor on set and was super satisfied with Dr. Phlox being his usual attentive self. It’s a complete mystery who built the station, when the station started snatching one crew member per ship to add to its consciousness, or what happened to all of the other bodies when everything blew up. They didn’t know at the time all those people were brain dead but decided to grab Mayweather and peace out – not cool kids. I also really liked how Archer wanted to “speak to a manager” and Tucker was trying to sneak past everything because he was curious, not suspicious like Archer. I also almost died laughing at the damn air filter they took out – BECAUSE I HAVE ONE JUST LIKE IT AT HOME!!! This episode gets 9 hours of belly rubs for Porthos, with 1 point being taken away for our “heroes” killing everyone else in the facility.

Episode 5 – “A Night in Sickbay”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me you have a degree in psychiatry, too.”: Archer and crew are decontaminating after visiting the Kreetassans, trying to get a plasma injector, but Porthos peed on an important tree and they were offended (again). Porthos, unfortunately, picks up a pathogen and almost dies. Dr. Phlox suggests Archer needs to get laid, Archer tries to get some sleep, Porthos receives a transplant, and T’Pol tells Archer they should just be friends. Oh, and they get the injector.

I was ready to throw all kinds of things at the TV and stop watching this damn show if they killed Porthos – that’s two episodes in a row where they tried to raise my damn blood pressure. Dr. Phlox is a medical badass, Archer is a whiny man, and T’Pol remains the only adult on board. This was a silly episode in parts (like when Phlox is going through his nightly routine, when they’re cornering the bat, or when it’s a very obviously stuffed animal version of Porthos), a good episode in parts (when Archer finally puts his pride aside or when Phlox demonstrates the other sides of a ship’s doctor), and a very awful episode (why all the damn whining? also, the dream? come on!) in other parts. I think it deserves 4 tiny pieces of cheese for Porthos, but something common like cheddar.

Episode 6 – “Marauders”

“Shooting at a lizard is a whole lot different than shooting at a person, and lizards don’t shoot back.”: On Tattooine, wait – wrong planet – the team visits a deuterium facility that’s under siege from a small Klingon ship. After Archer delivers the “fish speech” (sort of like the one about a gazelle), Enterprise helps the settlement defend themselves against the Klingons.

So this episode is not terrible, but it’s also not unique. There’s a plan that requires nothing to go wrong, and I don’t understand how it even works because I’m sure the coordinates would have been the same 3 days later and someone would have noticed. I am appreciative of the fact that someone thought about the future when Enterprise wouldn’t be there to protect the folks on the planet and I truly enjoyed watching T’Pol take down a Klingon or three. This is almost the same plot as A Bug’s Life in some ways, so I’m just not that impressed. 5 days of running around in the desert for Porthos.

TA Out!