Tag Archives: review

Star Trek: Enterprise – Season 4 (PWTVR00017)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
November 11 2020

Overview

This is the best of the four seasons, as the show found its footing just in time to be cancelled. I really enjoyed the season, and while I wouldn’t say the Riker storyline from the finale was my favorite, it was still well done. A great season overall, back to regular trek storylines and getting to know different species better.

Episodes That I Liked

There were seven separate episodes that I rated 5/5, which suggests a really good season, right? Well, yes and no. First, the “yes” side. Three episodes dealt with the Vulcans (E07, 08, and 09) with an Embassy bombing, mind-melds, and ancient artifacts. A little uneven within an episode, but a great trio together. Episodes 13, 14, and 17 dealt with Romulans, Andorians, and the Orion Syndicate quite well — good, solid episodes. And then EP21, setting up the series finale with saving “Terra Prime” to save “Starfleet” was again, quite good.  » Read the rest

Star Trek: Enterprise – Season 3 (PWTVR00016)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
November 11 2020

Overview

The third season picks up a bit from the second season low. Whereas Season 2 was mostly depressing, with very few notches in the Enterprise’s “win” column, this season had not only a few more wins but also some allies. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still at war, but they aren’t generally about to die every week just from the Expanse.

Episodes That I Liked

There were four episodes that I rated 5/5 and another seven that I rated 4/4. For the top ones, they were mostly about time travel including dealing with space/time parasites (E08); the Enterprise J (E18); the Enterprise itself (E21); and the conclusion of the general Xindi storyline (E24 – finally!).

For the remaining seven, we learned more about the Xindi species (E01); dealt with an interesting moon (E02); rescued some slave girls (E04); fell in love with a clone (E10); and shouldn’t have trusted monks (E12), marauders (E19) or reptilian Xindi (E23).  » Read the rest

Star Trek: Enterprise – Season 2 (PWTVR00015)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
October 26 2020

Overview

The second season has hints of temporal stuff throughout, but it starts to get a little grittier with the alien races they encounter. Almost all of them are duplicitous, false friends to the naive and well-being humans.

Episodes That I Liked

The two best episodes of the season are the third and third-last. In EP03, Minefield, the ship is trapped in a Romulan minefield, and Reed has to demonstrate his leadership skills while other ships are closing in. Meanwhile, in EP24, it’s a retrospective episode back to the first ship to break the Warp 2 barrier, and the story of Archer’s chief rival, A.G. Robinson. I rated them both 5/5.

I rated six more EPs as 4/5: EP01 which is the second part of the giant temporal storyline from Season 01’s cliffhanger; EP02 which relates the story of T’Pol’s grandmother having visited Earth years before; EP04 showed that cheap repairs are not always worth their price; EP09 shows weird gravity messing with humans, reminiscent of Naked Now; EP12 has a radioactive storm driving everyone into the center of the ship onto catwalks to survive, despite intruders; and EP16 has another time travel storyline with time machines that have poor timing.  » Read the rest

Star Trek: Enterprise – Season 1 (PWTVR00014)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
October 25 2020

Overview

Most of Season 1 is about the first Warp 5-capable Earth vessel venturing out into uncharted space. The Vulcans have been taking very cautious steps in helping humans expand, and Archer has been pushing for Earth to take a more aggressive, risky approach. The season shows early attempts, selecting a crew, venturing out, and a series of bloody noses as they meet both friendly and less-than-friendly allies. The Vulcans give them T’Pol, which helps and hurts with the Andorians, Klingons, and a host of other smaller races. But throughout it all, there is a hint that something bigger is going on, as Crewman Daniels teaches Archer about the Temporal Prime Directive.

Episodes That I Liked

The two best episodes of the season are about time travel, including EP11 Cold Front where the Time War becomes more apparent and answers a few questions while opening a host more. EP26 ShockWave Pt 1 brings time travel back to the fore as well and serves as the cliffhanger for the season.  » Read the rest

Star Trek: Picard – Season 1 (PWTVR00013)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
September 27 2020

Overview

The new show takes place after the movies and the end of the Next Generation timeline. There has been what appeared to be an AI uprising and a catastrophic attack that led the Federation to ban all cybernetic organisms (like Data or more inferior copies) and to withdraw from helping the Romulans as their planetary system collapsed. Picard fought for both communities and lost, and he resigned from Starfleet. Now he sits in his vineyard estate and watches his body and mind slowly stagnate.

The first episode sets up the premise of the show with a bang. A young couple are hanging out, getting to know each other in an apartment, and suddenly shock troopers enter the room, kill the boy, and are targeting the girl. She goes into super combat mode, takes them out, escapes, and while she doesn’t know how she did any of it, she knows she has to find a man she has never met — Jean-Luc Picard.  » Read the rest