(Note: The following review was written while under the influence of India Pale Ale. It has not been altered from the original notes.)
Season 1, Episodes 1 & 2 Broken Bow
… It begins looking like an episode of Smallville with Duck from Mad Men in the trailer, then there’s a Klingon running though a cornfield and I’m hoping I’ll see Malachi and the rest of Children of the Corn gang but no such luck. A redneck human shoots the Klingon and then cuts to opening credits with a theme song that sounds like a cross between a Michael McDonald moaner and of those over the top Trey Parker and Matt Stone parody tunes …
“It’s been a long road / getting from there to here / It’s been a long time / but my time is finally here.”
Wait, did they just rhyme here with here? Snap. They did, indeed.
OK, so we find there’s a Klingon named Klang. How Dr. Seuss … and ta da Scott Bakula, now there’s a captain you can imagine having a drink with. Kirk’d be fun at first and then turn into a dick. He’d want to fight you, and take a swing at you to make sure he got what he wanted and then he’d either kill you or just drink you under the table. Picard, too stiff and stuffy and all about the Earl Grey. Sisco, well Sisco likes baseball so…
– T’Pol the ball-busting Vulcan beauty appears for the first time … Hey, Winona Ryder was a Vulcan, too, right, and so was the second chick from Cheers, Rebecca … Jolene Blalock, where are you now? Anyway, T’Pol instantly becomes my favourite female Vulcan, hands down. Oh damn, wait. Spock’s betrothed lover who spurns him in the Pon Far episode… She’d be up there, too. Blurg, as Liz Lemon would say. Blurg, indeed.
Wouldn’t it have been awesome if Frank Miller had written Trek? Any one of them. It’d be so badass no Star Wars geek’d ever dare to draw comparisons…
30 million km per second, speed o’ the Enterprise … Oh shit, power outage and an angry Klingon. How awesome would an Alien / Star Trek crossover be? Aliens loose on the Enterprise! C’mon!
Almost as good, aliens who look like they’re from Hellraiser … sexual tension between Archer and T’Pol. Awesome, almost as smokin’ as the sexual tension between Spock and Kirk. Time for another beer.
Alright, trippy club scene … reminds me of Fifth Element and Natalie Portman in Closer. And Sin City in Space and again, what if Frank Miller wrote/directed a Trek??? End of pt One of Pilot.
And crap, yes, the theme makes it into episode 2. Archer captured, is brought into an industrial area and left to be interrogated by a dark figure named Sarin who turns out to be an exotic hottie who proceeds to get busy with Archer.
Yowza.
Oh, crap, hot Sarin turns into preProactiv treatment Sarin. Bad writing decision. I thought T’Pol and Sarin could have … never mind. ZAP! Shoot out with laser guns gets underway. Trek folk make their escape.
Jesus, I hope I never have to hear that theme again. Sometimes they shake things up after a pilot airs. You know, like they brought in Shatner after the first TOS pilot.
DAMN! Sarin is shot dead so no chance of her hooking up with T’Pol now. Shoot up continues. Snowy exteriors. Is this a Christmas special? Will there be more crappy songs? Is this the Star Wars Holiday Special of the Star Trek franchise? I hope so.
What the hell? T’Pol and the southern dude space cowboy Travis return to the enterprise and have a Red Shoes Diary moment when they take turns rubbing baby oil (“decon gel”, wink wink ) on each other… this absolutely makes up for the crappy theme.
Question: Why are humans always such dicks to Vulcans? McCoy’s constantly douchy to Spock, and in Enterprise Travis is a dick to T’Pol. Humans talk more shit about Vulcans than Republicans do about Barack Obama. Considering how PC the Federation is supposed to be humans seem pretty fucked up when it comes to Vulcans. Someone should call Federation HR and lodge a complaint.
… Archer goes into a trippy chamber for a Kirkian slugfest before being beamed up by the redneck hater, Travis. Then what are we in Stovokor with Klingons?
Time for another beer.
So a suitable pilot. Tone established, characters introduced, the viewer is left wanting to come back for more T’Pol and more decon gel.
“IN A MIRROR, DARKLY” Season 4, Episode 18 & 19
Every fanboy loves an alternate reality tale. In Mirror Universe stories Trek good guys become the bad guys and vice versa. That’s what we get in this one. The mild mannered Archer is transformed into an over the top villain. And oh yeah, in the old days of the Enterprise show phasors look like mini hotel hairdryers and in this evil mirror universe T’Pol is dressed in a variation of the classic Sexy Policewoman outfir that is so popular at Halloween and in Adult Novelty Stores.
… kick ass Federation logo of a sword through the earth… oh, a Pon Farr reference! Yeah, Baby. This one really is a fanboy’s wet dream… actually this one kinda feels like fan fiction… T’Pol looking like a delicious blend of Trish Stratus and Angelina Jolie… Oh crap, yes, THE ORIGINAL MUTHAFUGGIN’ USS ENTERPRISE! NC 1764!
And o’ course T’Pol in the short blue dress thingy of the original series. It’s good.
Oh, I forgot this one has an alternate theme, too, and it kicks ass.
Thinking about Aliens / Star Trek mash up again. The aliens take out all of the red shirts first of all then they start working their way through the hierarchy – Checov, Sulu, Uhuru, McCoy until Kirk is the last (illegible scribbling here) and maybe Spock returns from the dead and gives the alien the Vulcan nerve pinch. The End. No, wait, somehow they need to wormhole T’Pol into the movie too. OK. The End.
The Buzz Terminal 