Enterprise - First Impressions.

Well, it could have been worse. And it was just the pilot, after all. If the other Trek series' are anything to go by, the quality will have improved dramatically by about the second series or so.

However, there are a few disturbing aspects showing up already. Mainly that Vulcan chick (T'par? T'pal? T'paal? T'pa'al?). I'm sure she's a plus if you happen to like girls, but I found her boring and annoying, even with the gratuitous nipples. She didn't even have proper Vulcan eyebrows.

Captain Archer, was... well, a Trek captain, really. He did get off with an alien bird, which I approve of, but he wasn't very enthusiastic about it (Mind you, the ship's doctor had warned them about shagging aliens before they left). The unnecessary flashbacks to him and his dad were annoying. Especially as he's got cooler toys than me.

There's also a posh English bloke (I think his name was Reed. He was the weapons officer, or something) and he's not even as pretty as Alexander Siddig, which at least helped with his annoyingness facotor. He (Reed) didn't get much to do except briefly shoot things and ogle at some dancing aliens, but my hopes for improvement aren't high.

As for the linguist woman (whose name I've forgotton), Nurse Chapel kicked more arse than her, for god's sake. It was a nice idea to have a character who was less than confident about the whole process of being in space, but she just came across as a wuss.

The other two members of the bridge crew (a chirpy black guy and a chirpy white guy. Can't remember their names or what they did. Sorry) kinda blended together. I predict they will take over the bubby-buddy role (Sulu/Chekov, Geordie/Data, O'Brien/Bashir, Paris/Kim). They may be reasonably bearable.

The doctor guy needs killing. I like his little healing insects and fish and stuff (interplanetary leeches!) but, no matter what anyone says, he is a Neelix clone.

Personally (aside from Scott Bakula, obviously. Who wandered around without his trousers for a while, which was nice. Kirk would have taken his shirt off, but the thought was there) I didn't think there were any particularly attractive men in it. Maybe they'll grow on me.

As far as technology goes, yes it does all look a bit too modern (modern by TNG, DS9 and Voyager standards, that is). In style it felt closer to Voyager than it did to TNG, let alone TOS. They have kept the little periscopey scanner thing (the thing Spock always used to look into. It got a round of applause, by the way, although I can't help but feel they must have stuck it in to help shut up the TOS fans. It'll be interesting to see how often it shows up in later episodes). The cabins look a lot more cramped, giving it the feel of a military vessel, which made Captain Archer's puppy seem a little out of place (Mmm, Kirk, Janeway, Archer... all dog people...). Enterprise herself would have looked a lot better if she didn't have the TNG-style glowy nacelles. And maybe been a bit less streamlined.

Blatant oiling-up scenes aside, the Vulcans are portrayed as being snotty patronising gits, which I found a bit annoying (that is, the Vulcans themselves were annoying, but it also annoyed me that they were depicted that way) especially T'Pal being sooooo damn preachy. And attempting to prove her species' superiority by eating a breadstick with a knife and fork - Vulcans don't touch food, apparently. They must not have oranges on Vulcan. Or bread. Or cooks. (The same scene included a load of vegetarian propaganda. Demonstrate by example, loves, and shut the hell up about it) The Klingons should surely still be in their gay folk singer stage of evolution, rather than the huge hairy knobbly phlegmy stage. Mind you, if they'd done that, nobody would have recognised them... (sigh)

The lumpy, multi-coloured time-travely aliens were kinda cool. I wonder what happened to them? (I also wonder when the Klingon War's going to start... I hope it turns out to be Archer's fault)

What annoyed me most - it was all a bit too neutral. Fair enough, none of the spin-offs have actually pushed any barriers the way TOS did, but they did make a vague effort. TNG had the captain being old and French (not your traditional American hero type), a disabled guy running engineering and a woman running security (even if she did get eaten by the blob fairly early on). DS9 had the Federation working closely with a whole other culture, had a black guy in charge, the doctor was of Middle-Eastern descent, even if he was English and posh, and the show had a huge religious subtext. Voyager had a woman in charge, a Native American first officer, Federation personnel having to work with a load of rebels and various assorted aliens along the way. Enterprise had a mixed-race crew (one black guy, one Japanese woman, a load of white folks besides) but the captain is back to the Kirk model - (fairly) young American white guy. The Vulcan chick took over when he wasn't around, but she's not actually part of the crew so doesn't count for first officer (she tells someone who objects that her Vulcan rank is higher than his Starfleet one. Vulcan rank? Since when did Vulcan have a military force? They're all peaceful and shit... Still, Starfleet's not supposed to be military either...) There's the alien doctor, but I got the impression he wasn't part of the offical crew either... I know this is set before all the other series, so I shouldn't expect grand leaps in the field of inter-species harmony, but why not try pushing a few envelopes amoungst the human population? A genuinely international crew would be a good start. They could have a gay crew member or two (Buffy can get away with it), and a transvestite helmsman would be fun. TNG had blokes in miniskirts (early TNG, anyway) so there's even precedent.

I'm only going to touch on the theme tune briefly. It really is kack. The opening titles are a bit dull, too. I've only seen them once, but I'm fairly sure they skipped straight over the first man in space...

I'm still not sure what the thinking was behind this series. Rick Berman has been quoted as saying that he doesn't consider TOS really relevant to 'his' shows. I agree that, after setting three spin-off series in the same time frame, it was about time for a change, but I thought the logical way to go about it was to skip on another hundred years or so (Star Trek: The Generation After That), maybe show the Federation making peace with the Dominion. Federation technology could have improved, they could have had hours of fun playing around with CGIed three-dimentional holographic control panels, they could have invented 4D chess... that would have been interesting. Going backwards isn't as interesting - you know what's going to happen. In this instance, the Klingons are going to get pissed off about something, I expect the Romulans are going to show up sooner or later (although not actually show up), the Federation'll probably be invented and so on. I was getting into DS9's political machinations. I'd quite like to know what happened next...