Maybe not a classic episode but a good ending to what has overall being a excellent trilogy. Mentions of other things in TREK fokelore like the BRIAR PATCH and KHAN to link it in with what has gone before. The ending I supose some people would think is a little corny but I thought it was quite good.

It is also obvious that Trip and Tpol still have feelings for each other despite her marriage and I suspect more of that will happen in the forthcoming Vulcan mini arc.

I suspect some people will criticise this and the previous two episodes for being too gimicky or for being unoriginal but I for one have enjoyed them and think they are worthy editions to STAR TREK and have continued what, for me, has been a very excellent season.

Fanwank. Complete and utter fanwank. From the Briar patch to the completely unnecessary 'Soong starts to design Data' ending, this episode was a complete disappointment. Continuity is nice, but when it goes this far it starts to turn into a competition to see how many references they could add in.

I was also disappointed with the ending - perhaps it's watching various other shows, but this 'saving the world in the nick of time' is getting boring. I'd much prefer the missile detonating and destroying the Klingon colony populace. They could have talked their way out of the war by convincing them the Augments did it on their own accord, but it would have heightened tension between the Klingons and humans.

Star Trek stopped doing consequence about 5 years ago.

I watched TWOK this afternoon, that and Space Seed are how to do the 'genetics' story right, this isn't :(

you and others wanted them to do stories that appealed to the fans, surely the correct thing to do, and now they have done it you call it fanwank.

Lets face it even if they came up with the greatest piece of television EVER you would not be satisfied, you and others would still find something to criticise because it has become the NORMAL thing to do. Instead of just enjoying it for what it is and because it might be the last new trek for a while if not forever.

No, its not brillent, no its not a NEXT GEN beater but it is still good entertainment and better then 99% of the other stuff that is on tv at the moment.

<Sorry rant over - apologies>

Ken, pleasing the fans is when you use continuity well. For example, the mention of the Botany Bay was a nice touch, since it references the whole Eugenics War, which this story had been based on. Adding references to tings like Briar patch is just gratuitous and unnecessary.

And it's interesting to note while you complain about how I've not been nice about the series, the only comments of mine you ignore are those referring to Cold Station 12 - which was the only episode of the 4 I gave a positive review of. Telling, wouldn't you say?

I'm sorry that I don't love Enterprise like I used to - but you can't just say 'enjoy if for what it is', as personally I think it's crap, and I treat crap like crap. It sounds to me that you're just annoyed I'm not considering it the best series ever, but to say it's 99% better than aything else on TV is just laughable! There is so much on TV that prefer to Enterprise.

For example, when I got the latest Enterprise videos, I got episodes of Lost, CSI, Law & Order and Stargate Atlantis at the same time. I was more inclined to watch all of those before I went on to Enterprise, and that's because they're all much better television. Perhaps you should expand your horizons a little more, as worryingly comments like these make it look like you share a Trek-only mentality with a certain Mr Rylander, which I'm sure isn't true, and I'm sure something you don't want yourself tarnished with! :)

Perhaps you should relax and loosen up. You know as well as I do that unless a miracle happens, Enterprise - and Trek - is dead. Maybe you should go looking for other TV programs to enjoy....

Sorry this is rushed (and no doubt mis-spelled) - I only had a 15 minute break from w**k and now I need to get back :)

sorry if I went a little over the top with my rant.

I know what you mean honestly I do, I just think you and Angel are a little harsh with it. (I didnt mean to ignore your positive review, I havent read it yet).

I do like other shows, Dr Who, Stargate, Family Guy, Babylon 5, Quantum Leap to mention 5. It is just that STAR TREK is my favourite of all and ENTERPRISE is second only to NEXT GEN in my opinion. (Didnt like Ds9, voyager is ok in places and although I love classic TREK sometimes all I can see is the poor stunt doubles when I watch it.)

Sorry again.

There's no need to apologise Ken :)

If anything I applaud you for still staying by Trek - and it's almost comforting to see you still supporting it (even if I completely disagree with you :))

The thing is I want to like Enterprise. It has potential - its first and third season were very good, and the second had various high points (although several lows as well). It's just sad to see a disappointing fourth season, where one's not sure just where TPTB want to go. While as a Trek fan it saddens me to say so, I thik it should have ended on a high with season 3. At the moment, this fourth season has shown falling ratings, and despite an objective few showing support, on the whole it's pitiful compared to where Trek was 5-10 years ago.

Thank you.

It would be a very dull and poor board (And world) if we all agreed on everything

I think the important thing to remember here is that different people are going to have different opinons. I have absolutely no problem with you liking Enterprise Ken, nor anyone else. Personally, I empathise with those that have become disenchanted with the franchise. For me Star Trek reached it's absolute pinnacle with the culmination of DS9. In certain regards they'd have been better leaving things right there, going out on a high. With Trek being the money-spinner that it was though that was never going to happen, and deep down, even then, I didn't want it to end myself.

What came after that (DS9) could come as nothing but a disappointment. To that end, Voyager more than obliged.

The thing with Enterprise, is that after Voyager, I really, really, wanted a return to form. Further to that, when the premise for the series was first announced it sounded like it couldn't fail. The cast was announced and it looked pretty good, but things didn't start well. The first year was far too inconsistent. No fear, no Trek show starts well (bar TOS). Season improved, but was still patchy. Season three bought about Enterprise's and Star Trek's best year since the end of DS9. The frustrating thing this year though is that they've gone about undoing all that hard w**k that they put into things last year and suddenly, just when the show needs to excel, it's finding itself back where it was two years ago. Far too inconsistent, and turning off far more viewers than it's bringing back to the franchise.

Star Trek's what got me into SF, TOS when I was a nipper, and later TNG to cement my love for the genre. Too see it now, a pale imitation of it's former great self is hard to take sometimes. Unsurprisingly that frustration often finds an outlet with my view of Enterprise.

I don't apologise for it, neither do I expect an apology from yourself for loving the show. We just have different opinions. If it satisfies you, good for you, may it long meet your expectations. Personally, whilst there's stuff out there like Galactica, I find Trek too often goes onto the backburner nowadays :(

Very well put.

I havent watched Galactica so I cannot comment on that. I bought the mini series on dvd and now 3 months on still havent got around to watching it.

I think the real hay day of Trek ended when NEXT GEN ended but that is because for some reason I could never get into ds9, wether it was because it never truely felt like TREK or because of my instant dislike of Sisko I dont know.

I like ENTERPRISE and I think this season they are doing their upmost, at least some people are, to do the episodes they believe the fans want to see while at the same time w**king towards the creation of the federation.

I dont apologise for my love of TREK, nor will I apologise for my love of DR WHO, when the new series of that starts (providing it is not a bitter disapointment) - they are my two favourite shows of all time and I make no excuses for that.

At the same time I do not feel that you need to apologise for how you feel, like I have said before we all need to be different, how boring would it be if we were not.

Having pre conceptions of a show, especially a Trek show can be quite counter productive, so I've found. I resisted TNG when it first came out. How on earth did they expect to live up to the standards set by Kirk and the gang ?? They eventually did. Similarly, I loved TNG and couldn't imagine for a second that DS9 would ever reach such artistic heights. Eventually, it did. With Voyager, I gave it all the time in the world and it was the first series that didn't deliver for me. Similarly, I've given Enterprise a full three years, and despite showing signs of improvement last year, I really can't get over the disappointment that this season's so far been :(

Watched 'The Augments' before I left for w**k this morning, and I actually enjoyed it.

I wasn't really looking forward to this story... I felt that calling in Brent Spiner to play Dr Soong's ancestor was a gimmick, and it could fall flat on it's face. Thankfully, for me anyway, it didn't.

Fortunately, I felt the guy playing Malik was slightly less wooden this week, but none of the Augments were likeable still. All the best villains have something likeable in them, a touch of humanity or familiarity for the viewer to identify with (or be totally evil and totally alien, like the Borg, say) but Malik had none of that. To say he was a poor man's Khan would be too complimentary.

But Brent Spiner was excellent. It was a measure of his skills that he managed to create a character totally different to those we've seen in the past. I was a bit disappointed with the Data references, feeling them unnecessary. I think Phillip was a bit (OK, very) harsh ;) in calling it fanwank, as I'd say it was just a nod at continuity that missed the mark.

Even now, and we are what, a quarter of the way through season 4, I still don't like Archer. I know Bakula was excellent in QL, and I accept that he doesn't have the greatest of material to play with, but I am not convinced by him at all. I don't like Archer's character and I don't like his portrayal. I expected so much more from him when I heard he was going to be the captain.

The little references to the Tucker/T'Pol relationship were intriguing too. I'm in no way a shipper, but that relationship has been handled pretty well IMO. I've liked T'Pol much more than Tuvok. Vulcans must be very difficult to portray, but JB has been excellent. Not as good as Spock as a character, and if you can include Sarek as a main character, behind him too. But way ahead of Tuvok. All credit should be given to JB for giving us an excellent portrayal. I havn't always liked the way the character has developed, but that's not her fault.

Tucker is my favourite character on Enterprise, by a long way, so I hope we see more of him in the last few episodes. Connor Trinneer has been excellent, and it will be a disappointment at the end of the season to know there'll be no more to learn about CT3.

Shame Enterprise has fallen into the Voyager trap of concentrating too heavily on the major characters at the expense of the others. I like Reed, Hoshi and Phlox and would love to have seen more of them and learnt more about them. As for Mayweather though... is it Harry Mayweather? Travis Kim? Who he?

I'm still waiting for season 4 to become as bad as everyone says it is. But there is plenty of time left! Up to now, I'm with Ken on this season!

Andrew (HM) :upside:

To be fair though, the Data reference, while unnecessary, was almost obligatory with a 'Soong ancestor' story.

What got me was the point of referencing as many Trek minutae as possible; an example for one forcing in the Briar Patch :)

Sadly it seems to be a trend for this season - several episodes (both those which have been bradcast and those which are yet to come) seem to be going under the principle of 'someone sees an episode of TOS, and decide to practically remake it for Enterprise'.

I've only seen the episodes Sky has shown so far, so I can't comment on the others.

You are right, a Data reference was obligatory really. I guess if nothing had have been mentioned, in my post earlier, I'd have been commenting on an opportunity missed for a bit of continuity, so I guess (and don't tell anyone I said this ;) ) B & B were in a no-win situation with that one!

I can see your point at the almost obsessional need to get in as many references as possible. As you (I think it was you anyway!) said on an earlier post, it's good to point to continuity, but it needs to have a purpose. Just what was the point of the Briar Patch reference, for example?

I'm with Ken though, generally. Most of the fans asked for continuity. (I wasn't with them... I was with James in that I'd have liked to see Romulan War/Founding of the Federation stuff.) Now that we are getting these references, we are still complaining! :lol:

All I'm after is good storytelling, a bit of action and some good character-based drama. I feel I'm getting that, although of course I'm disappointed the show isn't building on season 3's improvements. Give me Enterprise ahead of anything else that's on at the moment, apart from Doctor Who. The only other thing I'm watching regularly right now is Desperate Housewives, and not even I'm stupid enough to compare Ent and DH!

Last week, Number Six made the excellent point about you downloaders watching season 4 really close to season 3, and that may illustrate why mine and his views at any rate are different to yours. I'd like to add that for much of that time, you were watching Ent and Battlestar Galactica side by side. BSG in terms of quality is far ahead. No contest. Of course Ent is going to look bad next to BSG. I'm lucky, I have Ent, and programmes I can't possibly compare against it.

I wonder if I'd have a different view had I been downloading?

Excuse the waffle! Time to do some w**k!

Take care,

Andrew (HM) :upside:

I think the problem I have with this season of Enterprise isn't due to downloading (I've been watching Enterprise from episode 1 at a US pace, so I still had a 4 month gap between S3's Zero Hour and S4's Storm Front :)), it's more to the fact that there's a lot of other sci-fi and the like I watch, all of which do the same kind of thing as Enterprise, except they do it so much better!

For example, they finally cottoned to the idea of story arcs for Season 3 (although as far as I'm aware they're the last major sci-fi show to finally do it), however when they finally did it, while it had the intentions of an arc, it still had the feeling they were making it up as they go along. For example, in S3 there was no mention of the Sphere builders at all until they were suddenly elevant to the plot. Compared this to DS9, where the Dominion were hinted at throughout Season 2 as a 'major force in the Gamme Quadrant', so that when they finally appeared in 'The Jem'Hadar' the anticipation was at a pique. Had Enterprise mentioned these Sphere Builders in passing prior to their on-screen appearance, I feel it would have helped cement the arc.

Also, with S4 they told us that rather than go for an all-encompassing season-long arc, they would go with several smaller arcs, which sounded really good. Sadly in the end they've gone with giving us 3-part stories (most of which really didn't have the plot for 3 episodes). Come the end of these stories, it'a all happily wrapped up. I can't say for anyone else, but I was hoping for for proper story arcs as done in the likes of Battlestar Galactica and Stargate, where there is an ongoing story in the background, however these are always played in conjunction with standalone episodes.

Of couse, what we'd all like is for another B5-esque arc, but we all know there's not a hope in hell of getting that now! :)

I thought it was a good ending to a mini arc,but the very end where Soong was talking about creating artificial life drew a cheesy shiver down my spine.I didnt think this was necessary as most fans already know what happens in the future. :(

Spot on Steve. And for anyone who didn't know, I'd have guessed it would have been a moment that meant nothing to them. So it was a completely wasted 30 seconds or so.

Cheese? A very mature stilton moment I think.

Andrew (HM) :upside:

Must be me. Everyone seems to be slating s4 but, thus far, I'm quite enjoying it. I know people said that bringing Brent Spiner in was a fanwank (to use Phillip's wonderful expression) but to be fair Trek has been doing this since, well, since day one. Enterprise D hadn't even left space dock and there was McCoy on board. So far, Picard's bumped into Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty, Janeway's seen Sulu and Sisko even got Kirk's autograph. Poor Chekov and Uhura must be feeling quite left out. At least this was a much better story than the woeful Unification, or the bland Relics.

I didn't have a problem with the final scene either, but I did wonder what the Briar Patch was doing there.