Enterprise Flashback: Unexpected

\Star Trek has a history of occasionally taking a silly premise and trying to build a "not entirely silly" episode around it -- turning crew members into children, shrinking them to microscopic size, and more. But Enterprise made the bold decision to try something like this in one of their earliest episodes, "Unexpected."

When Enterprise is plagued by a series of malfunctions, the crew traces the cause to an alien ship traveling in their wake as it conducts repairs. Trip boards the ship to help them, slowly adjusting to the strange environment and ultimately growing close to an alien woman. Closer than he realizes, in fact -- because after the two ships have parted ways, Trip discovers: he's pregnant!

A much shorter episode summary than the one I just gave would get right to the point: Trip discovers he's pregnant! But I feel that wouldn't capture the tonal whiplash of the episode overall. For almost half the runtime, "Unexpected" is a completely serious episode that actually explores how weird it might be to board an alien ship, in a way that Star Trek honestly never has before.

Trip has nerves about going, has to go through something like "decompression" to travel between ships, and still gets something like "the bends" when he arrives. The production pulls out all the stops to make the alien ship feel weird: running the film back slow and shooting in tight closeups to convey Trip's disorientation, showing odd food and different customs, and having the aliens express as much curiosity over humans as we feel toward them. It all feels a bit more realistic than the norm for Star Trek. It could even have been played for horror (or at least a sense of danger) had the episode not had another destination in mind.

Still, it's not like the episode telegraphs the hard turn into comedy that it's going to take. Or, should I say, "comedy." Because to me, none of it works. All the jokes feel like they're accompanied by an audible slide whistle trying to sell the laugh. First, there's all the tired TV tropes about pregnancy in general: shaming the pregnant person for their state, laughing at their emotional sensitivity, poking fun at their food cravings and anxieties. Then there's the weird alien details the writers seem to think are funny, but feel like the writers weirdly telling on themselves. Trip sprouts nipples on his wrists! None of his DNA is actually incorporated into the child (conveniently letting him off the parental hook).

Plus, 20+ years of evolution on gender norms (since the time the episode was made) makes some of the attempts at humor play in a mean-spirited way -- surely not intended at the time, but they clang extra hard now. Trip isn't going to be a "single parent," he's going to be a "working mother." He's going to have to feed the baby, isn't that hilarious?! And of course, the episode and its characters can't even conceive of a transgender pregnancy (though I personally would say that's much more a result of "trans-ignorance" than "transphobia").

Fortunately, things get a bit more serious again with the arrival of some Klingons in the final act, just in time to keep the episode from going completely off the rails. We get to see a Klingon battle cruiser of classic design, and get a rough interaction with them that begins to explain later Klingon/human animosity. And we do get one ridiculous joke that kind of does work. (When a Klingon notes of a holographic simulation: "I can see my house from here!")

Other observations:

• Enterprise continues to establish itself as the horniest Star Trek ever. A gratuitous teaser centers on Archer taking a shower (and gives us an eyeful of side butt). Trip spends a whole scene in a tank top and underwear, and the choice of camera placement is quite prurient.

• This is the first time I'm noticing how weirdly T'Pol sits in the captain's chair. She's perched on like the outermost two inches of it, as if she would get an electric shock if she sat back any farther.

• Now it's time for my lame joke: this makes two episodes in a row where Trip trips hard -- last time on planetary spores and this time on alien atmosphere.

• Of course Trip's attempt at repair doesn't work. Honestly, what's he going to know about fixing an alien starship engine?

I'm giving "Unexpected" a C+. That may seem a bit high, but I really do think there's a lot to like here about "meeting new aliens," before they get to the pregnancy reveal. By any measure, though, it's the weakest Enterprise episode so far.

Heaven's -- Yes

It's been about a year since I finished the Bobiverse trilogy by author Dennis E. Taylor -- the tale of an expanding society of cloned brain scans of a 21st-century man, exploring the cosmos centuries in the future. Except that while the three books do tell a complete and satisfying story, Taylor apparently never planned to end the series as a trilogy. He's said he might have as many as 10 Bobiverse books in him, give or take. And with the fifth arriving soon, it seemed like the right time to enjoy the fourth, Heaven's River.

This book sees the first Bob replicant on an interstellar search for a fellow clone who disappeared decades earlier. The search leads him to discover a new alien race living in a massive artificial structure... and then working to infiltrate that structure. Meanwhile, things are changing in the Bobiverse itself. So many clones of clones of Bob have now been created, with younger Bobs "drifting" so far from the brain scan of the original, that subfactions are emerging within the whole. The Bobiverse must deal with internal conflict for the first time, with the "Skippies" (who have an intense focus on artificial intelligence) and "Starfleet" (who think the Bobiverse should withdraw from all interactions with biological lifeforms).

I think because the first three books of the Bobiverse series really did tell a seemingly complete story, I imagined that this fourth book would be kicking off a new trilogy. Instead, Taylor now seems to be thinking about his series over the long haul, approaching it as a writers room might approach a season of television. Heaven's River is an "episode" in the model, with some stand-alone parts and some threads woven in for future storytelling.

The self-contained aspects feel most satisfying to me. This book spends a lot of time with a new alien race, the Quinlans. Their oddly stagnant society, inside a massive spaceborne superstructure, is an intriguing mix of interesting characters, larger mysteries, and quirky alien ideas blended with more human-resonant behavior. And much of this story involves going into this society undercover, which I think really works for this book. It's not just that I love a heist (though longtime readers of the blog know I do)... it's that it makes for a nice departure of the often galactic stakes of the first three Bobiverse books to move to a smaller, personal scale for much of this book.

Other elements of the book get much less word count, and are accordingly less satisfying to me. But then, Taylor clearly wasn't aiming to wrap up everything in this book if he's planned some half a dozen more. The idea of this "drift" as cloned Bob copies become ever less like the first? That's fertile ground for future books -- not only for stories involving the major factions introduced here, but for other future factions that may yet show up in later books.

Still, I maybe could have wished for a bit more of a tease about where things are heading? One chapter of the book really sticks out in my mind, a prolonged role-playing session with a group called the "Gamers." It takes a LOT of time, ultimately for no other clear purpose than for one older "Bob" to realize that these "Bobs" are different -- a point being made abundantly clear already elsewhere in the book. I can only surmise that so much ink is spilled for the "Gamers" because they have a big story yet to come... but it feels like an unnecessary diversion here. (Or maybe Taylor just found it fun to write one chapter of a fantasy novel? In which case, it's kind of even more of a diversion?)

No matter how much track is being laid here for the future, though, there's still plenty enough here to satisfy. If you liked the other Bobiverse books, it's impossible you won't enjoy this one. You still spend time with the same pithy protagonists, on similar quirky light sci-fi adventures. And if you're listening to the audiobook, it's still all read perfectly by Ray Porter, who manages to put a wonderfully subtle spin on the different Bob clones.

I give Heaven's River a B+. And while part of me will be sad to be "fully caught up" once I've read the fifth Bobiverse book that releases in a few weeks, I won't likely be able to delay the gratification for long.

Enterprise Flashback: Strange New World

Before there was Strange New Worlds the Star Trek series (but of course, well after there was "strange new worlds," the phrase from Star Trek's opening narration), there was "Strange New World," the episode of Enterprise. (Got all that?)

Enterprise explores a habitable world that's seemingly without intelligent life. But when the crew becomes stranded overnight in a massive storm and takes shelter in a cave, it appears there may be life on the planet after all. And Trip is convinced they're conspiring with T'Pol, who is aware of and helping to hide them.

With this episode, the series continues to pursue its core concept of showing the characters "learning how to do Star Trek." And that continues to be something of a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, you can naturally revisit episode ideas from previous Trek and give them something of a new spin. (Here, an away team hallucinating dangers that aren't there after being exposed to a real medical danger they're unaware of.) On the other hand, the characters really put themselves into deep jeopardy simply by being stupid -- and then, of course, the pathogen they're exposed to only magnifies their stupidity.

Right out of the gate, you have to question why the crew is even stopping to explore this planet. As T'Pol points out (and is, of course, ignored), there doesn't seem to be much scientific value here. Moreover, the humans in the away team don't seem to be doing anything worthwhile; instead, they're spending their time taking photos, letting their dogs crap on the lawn (hopefully Archer cleans up, though I somehow doubt it), and telling ghost stories at the campfire. If the vibe is supposed to be "we've hardly explored any alien planets before," then it seems to me like everyone should be way into the specifics of that rather than treating it as an overnight camping trip.

So no, I don't love how weird the crew is behaving even before the "airborne toxin" Macguffin makes them start acting strange. However, I do like that the writers quickly seize upon the way to tell this story differently than it would have been told on previous Star Trek. These characters are allowed to clash more with each other than even Deep Space Nine allowed, so we get a heaping helping of distrust, raised voices, arguments, and deceptions among the away team.

As a result, the episode does effectively tap into some suspense/horror vibes. The darkly lit cave sets add to the feeling that something might spring from the shadows without warning. And the beamup of Novakovich is delightfully gruesome: he arrives with sticks and leaves halfway embedded in his skin (and later, we see the marks where Phlox had to physically cut them all out)!

A couple of character moments do stand out to me. Hoshi speaking Vulcan to T'Pol, to communicate the ruse that the captain would like to play out, is a nice moment for both characters. When Novakovich takes a bad turn in Sickbay, John Billingsley really crushes a scene where Phlox is ashamed of his own hubris. Unfortunately, this kind of subtle craft is lacking elsewhere in the episode, where Connor Trinneer is coming at T'Pol with "10 out of 10" anger, and Jolene Blalock doesn't have enough experience playing a Vulcan to convincingly give us an "out of sorts" Vulcan affected by the toxin.

This new Star Trek series continues to spend a lot of money in each episode, and trying to make sure you see that on screen. The away mission is shot on a real location, CG fireflies are inserted into the campfire scene for the sake of a minor plot point, and while the rock monsters don't look the most convincing, they are at least trying.

Other observations:

• This almost starts out like a Lower Decks episode: we're in the mess hall with two ensigns we don't know, watching the ship pull up on a planet without having any context.

• For long-time Star Trek fans: we learn that "M-class" planets are named for a Vulcan word defining them. We also see T'Pol deliver her first Vulcan nerve pinch.

• Apparently, the original script called for Ensign Novakovich to die of his injuries, and Scott Bakula objected. He felt that the first death of an Enterprise crewmember should be more of a moment for Archer and the crew. The writers agreed with that instinct (and so do I), and so rewrote a few lines to say that Novakovich recovered from his transporter mishap. (On the other hand, though, it would actually be a long time before an Enterprise crewmember actually died in an episode. Shouldn't this early era of exploration be more dangerous than the Treks we've seen before?)

"Strange New World" does a good job taking advantage of the interpersonal conflict now possible on this new Star Trek show. On the other hand, our heroes continue to look foolish for blindly stumbling into danger. And the performances in the episode are a decidedly mixed bag of good and bad. I give the episode a B-.

Enterprise Flashback: Fight or Flight

With the traditional two-hour premiere complete, Enterprise settled into its regular one-hour episodes with "Fight or Flight."

Ensign Hoshi Sato is not sure if life aboard the Enterprise is right for her. But even as she struggles to settle in, her skills are needed aboard an alien ship that's been attacked by an unknown enemy. Someone or something is harvesting aliens for a chemical in their bodies... and the crew of the Enterprise might be their next target!

I noted of the Enterprise premiere that Hoshi struck me right away as one of the most likeable characters on the show. So I'm pleased to see the first regular episode focus more on her (even if, objectively, her character was probably least in need of it). While there's plenty of "external plot" to this story, the spine of it is Hoshi's character arc. She goes from being nervous, uncertain of her own skills, and contemplating that she might leave the ship, to scoring a crucial win, beginning to grow at ease with her new surroundings, and recognizing her own strengths. I love it.

Except... you have to look past the fact that the episode also kinda-sorta paints Hoshi as a self-centered brat. She wants to move quarters aboard the ship, and decides to make this the captain's problem. (Isn't this a "first officer" kind of problem?) She's swiped an alien lifeform from its home planet and can't understand why it now seems to be hovering near death. And the "happy ending" she reaches involves leaving that lifeform as a potentially invasive species on some other planet, with unknown environmental consequences.

It's not just Hoshi giving such chaotic vibes, though -- this is very much a core element of Enterprise as a series. The writers want to show that this is an earlier time, where humanity is still learning how to do Star Trek. And while that does sound like a smart choice for injecting a new tone into the franchise, it makes for jarring storytelling: to show that these characters are still learning how to be great, they have to make a lot of dumb decisions.

Reed can't get the ship's weapons to fire right, even at a stationary target; he also wants to blow up a door before even checking to see if it's locked. Phlox has no concept of "doctor/patient confidentiality," gossiping about the crew to anyone who will share a meal with him. When first meeting an alien species, Archer broadcasts every detail about Earth short of their PIN number and mother's maiden name without questioning whether that's a good idea. And we're already repeating what is going to become Enterprise's most enduring trope -- T'Pol knows the right thing to do, but we're not going to listen to her because she's a Vulcan.

Fortunately, not all the departures from "Star Trek procedure" look so foolish. It's refreshing to see the crew briefly debate whether boarding an alien ship uninvited might be an invasion of privacy. (No Star Trek before this would have bothered to ask.) Trip and Mayweather seem eager and excited for adventure, in a way all past Star Trek characters just take for granted. And as chaotic as Phlox and Hoshi each seem to be separately, I really like their interactions with each other -- Phlox is really supportive of her throughout the episode, giving Hoshi just the right amount of "tough love" when she needs it.

It still looks like a lot more money is being thrown at this Star Trek than ever before. We get a new spacesuit design (that's not handed down from a Star Trek movie to a Star Trek show). CG now lets us always see the use of shuttlecraft. Great care is taken with the lighting inside the alien ship, really emphasizing the horror elements of the story. And the production is still working hard to differentiate itself from past Star Trek: there's a lot more handheld camera in this episode than on, say, Voyager; and the musical score incorporates more overt (but interesting) synthesizer than any Trek composer since Ron Jones was fired from The Next Generation.

Other observations:

• I've said it before, and will certainly say it again, but Porthos is about the cutest animal ever on television. Him pacing along with Archer as the captain records his log is adorable.

• As much as I love the musical score generally, I don't love the orchestral take on "Faith of the Heart" that we get right at the end of the episode. (This probably won't be a common thing, though.)

I’m torn about this episode. I want to praise them for telling a very character-driven story for the first regular episode. But the message really lacks subtlety, and the foolish choices that the characters make throughout are often hard to take. (Sure, they don't know they're on Star Trek... but are they really this stupid?) So overall, I'm going to give "Fight or Flight" a B-.

Prodigy: Imposter Syndrome

I'm back to Star Trek: Prodigy with season two, episode 6: "Imposter Syndrome."

The Protostar cadets have come up with a secret plan to steal a shuttle (that's about to be destroyed anyway) and use it to go after Chakotay. But once they're gone, they fear, their absence will be noticed. To cover for this, they decide to create holographic duplicates to take their places. But when the duplicates are programmed so well that they think themselves to be the "real deal," a struggle ensues.

Sometimes, the fact that the main characters of Prodigy are children has been a hurdle for the writers to jump over. Here, it's actually an asset. There are any number of points in this episode where the sensible thing to do would be to "tell someone else what's going on." Tell Janeway that you've found a clue that may lead to Chakotay. Get someone else (Maj'el, perhaps) to help you with your "escaped holograms" problem. But no, kids are gonna kid here -- they can't see any other option but to pursue the plan they've come up with. They've decided they have to hide what they're doing, and that's just the end of it.

And so the stage is set for some fun hijinks with a double dose of each character. Two Dals are as toxic as you'd expect, two Jankom Pogs as boisterous, two Rok-Tahks as brilliant, and so forth -- it's a fun format to deliver a lot of great little moments. Plus, the half hour format of Prodigy is ideal here for a story that arguably has limited potential beyond these little moments.

Yeah, I've said before that I'm tired of the "24 hours earlier" trope. But I suppose allowance must be made for the fact that this series' core young audience has probably never seen that trope before. Is the Doctor still unbelievably clueless, and Admiral Janeway downright lazy about keeping up with what's going on aboard her ship? Sure, but as always, the animated format makes this lighter Star Trek easier to swallow.

I give "Imposter Syndrome" a B. It's savvy about playing to Star Trek: Prodigy's strengths, and a fun watch for it.

A Familiar Hug

This past weekend, I went to see the new Alien: Romulus, widely billed as a proper return to form for a franchise that had strayed too far from its horror/slasher roots.

This sequel, set sometime between the first two films, follows a scrappy group looking for an escape from the dystopian mining planet where they live. Their plan is to board a derelict station to steal a set of hibernation pods, which they'll then use to travel to a new planet and better life. But of course, they don't know why the station is derelict, and quickly find themselves hunted by nightmarish monsters.

Coming off of the deeply boring Alien: Covenant, it's easy to like this new movie. Probably too easy. It absolutely feels like it's far and away the best Alien movie in a long time -- a really long time if you hated Prometheus (or if you think it barely counts as an Alien movie). But then, the bar on "best Alien movie in a long time" is awfully low, and while Romulus clears it better than a French pole vaulter, it doesn't feel like it will be remembered for as long.

There are several effectively suspenseful sequences in the movie. The better ones revolve around genuinely new set pieces that feel different from anything presented previously in the franchise. Without getting too spoilery, I hope, I'll just say that many of the Alien sequels skip past the threat of the "face huggers" to go straight to slasher scenes with the xenomorph itself. Romulus works in more than one clever sequence that makes the skittering face huggers a true menace unto themselves.

The movie also takes a pretty big swing for its ending. From what I see online, not everyone has been accepting of it. I myself see it as a Checkov's Gun displayed so prominently in act one that it simply has to be fired in act three. And it certainly feels new for the franchise.

I also quite like the musical score by Benjamin Wallfisch. Early queues are very clearly and directly inspired by Jerry Goldsmith's work for the original Alien. But by the end of the first act, the sound is already evolving, incorporating an eerie choir with almost ecclesiastic intensity. It grows into a unique thing of its own.

Which is really what I wish the rest of the movie did. I have to lead off praising the new elements of Alien: Romulus forcefully, because it doesn't have nearly enough of them. For the most part, the movie is such a slavish remix of "the best parts" of Alien and Aliens that it sort of leaves me wondering who it's for? It feels like the writers plotted out dozens of their favorite lines, images, and set pieces from those first two films, and then wrote a script to connect those dots and restage every single one of them. Is this for the audience who has seen and loved those movies? If so, what then of the fact that every one of these remixed elements is just an imitation of something that was great the first time? Is this for people who haven't seen those movies, because they are (sad, but true) quite old? Then what's with the overwrought efforts to make sure that characters are framed in exactly the same poses, saying exactly the same lines from Alien or Aliens?

Another part of Alien: Romulus that I found quite off-putting can't be talked about without spoilers. I'll avoid getting super-specific, but you should still skip this paragraph if you want to be careful. Romulus uses CG to "bring back" an actor from an earlier film, looking as they did at the time. My issue is that this use of CG still doesn't look good. It has stalled out for years at the same point: these CG recreations look fairly convincing... right up until they speak. The moving mouth always looks awkward, almost like cartoon animation drawn over a still photograph. And while this movie provides some context for why the character might not "look quite right," it still doesn't look good.

In a charitable moment, where I'm focused on the effective sequences in Alien: Romulus that feel truly new, I might give it a B-. But taking a step back to see how little that content features in the whole, I think the movie feels more like a C+. Alien fans will likely feel more rewarded by this than other recent films in the franchise, but it's hardly a film you need to rush out to see.

Enterprise Flashback: Broken Bow

After a prologue blog post discussing the much-maligned opening theme of Star Trek: Enterprise (and in my view, rightfully so), it's time to kick off my rewatch of the series itself with the pilot episode, "Broken Bow."

When a Klingon crash-lands on Earth, Captain Jonathan Archer convinces his superiors that it's time to launch the experimental starship Enterprise to take the alien home to his people. Along for the voyage is a crew mostly of people with limited experience in space, along with a Vulcan advisor whose "advice" Archer is quite reluctant to take. And looming over the entire mission are an alien race called the Suliban, who are receiving instructions from a mysterious figure somewhere in the far future.

Before I get into this episode specifically, I should start by acknowledging my own history with Enterprise. While I'm trying to watch it again with an open mind, I definitely have a couple of big "issues" here that are difficult to set aside. One is simply as a TV viewer. Quantum Leap was one of my very favorite TV series when it ran on television from 1989 to 1993. I should probably rewatch that show to see if it holds up at all, but my memory both now and when Enterprise was brand new was that Scott Bakula was an incredible actor, capable of doing just about anything you'd throw at him -- and Quantum Leap was a formula allowing writers to do exactly that. A show like Enterprise, which restrained him to essentially a single character in a way Quantum Leap did not, was always going to seem like a letdown to me. (And it didn't help that I didn't particularly like his new Enterprise character. But we'll be getting into that along the way.)

The larger issue underpinning my entire experience with Enterprise is that it was (and remains to this day) the one Star Trek series that was never recreational for me. It was always "work." In 1999, I was hired to work at Decipher, an absolutely pivotal moment that set me on my career path and literally changed my life. In short order, I was working as a designer on the Star Trek: Customizable Card Game, having effectively made my hobby my job. I am not complaining about that -- not even a little. But the fact remains that I'd watched Star Trek and The Next Generation purely as a fan, and Deep Space Nine almost entirely as a fan (in part while I playtested for Decipher). Voyager was in its first run while I worked at Decipher, but it began while I was still outside the industry and watching it solely for my own enjoyment.

Enterprise began in 2001 and ran through 2005. From the moment it hit the air, watching it was -- on at least some level -- work. Research. This lasted for almost the entire run of the series for me, until the beginning of 2005, when I was laid off from Decipher and the last half of the last season of Enterprise became something worse to me personally -- a reminder of a job I'd really loved and no longer had. It was a weekly twist of the knife or something, but one I kind of felt compelled to stick with, because the show had actually gotten pretty good in that last season!

But enough about me. Let's talk about the episode.

From top to bottom, you feel how the Powers That Be were trying to make Enterprise -- and "Broken Bow" in particular -- feel different from the 14 consecutive years of running Star Trek leading up to it. It's filmed with different lenses that give a more intimate look generally, and with a few conspicious highlights: an infrared sequence, and multiple instances of split diopter (to keep two different things in focus in the same frame). The sets are smaller and claustrophobic to engender a submarine-like, more "primitive" feeling compared to other Trek sets. Officers dress in astronaut jumpsuits, and admirals wear suits; neither feels entirely like a "uniform," nor does the "active wear" jackets they don when going on an away mission.

To get even more separation from past Star Trek, the show embraces tools that hadn't really been available to this point. Enterprise is the first Star Trek presented in a widescreen aspect ratio (with television beginning to embrace this at right about this time). And while CG had been used for visuals on Star Trek before, Enterprise uses them extensively, from shape-shifting Suliban to an inhumanely smiling alien doctor to the Enterprise itself (which unlike every featured Star Trek ship before it, never actually existed in production model form).

The writing strives to be different, and to depict the characters differently. Our heroes aren't "good at this" yet, with personal issues from travel anxiety to open racial prejudice (that we sense they'll have to learn to set aside). The doctor feels part "mad scientist" with his unconventional methods. Characters curse -- at a TV friendly level, but still, Janeway would never threaten to "knock you on your ass." And this is certainly going to be the horniest Star Trek since the original series; we get talk of three-breasted aliens, see long-tongued alien dancers, have a woman kiss the captain to gauge his trustworthiness, and double down on the cat-suited appeal to straight men that was Seven of Nine (in the new form of T'Pol). Plus, we get the most lascivious scene in the entire Trek franchise, the decontamination chamber sequence that sees two of this "hottest-to-date Star Trek cast" stripping down to their underwear to lube each other up under the leering eye of a camera that lingers on all the naughtiest areas.

And yet, for all these efforts to make Enterprise feel different, there are other ways in which the series seems to be undermining itself right out of the gate. Many guest stars are repeat Star Trek actors, and though all are giving fine performances, the "I know them from somewhere" qualities they bring erodes some of the sense of freshness. (And I don't just mean the cameo from James Cromwell.) Some "differences" about the show mean nothing at all -- like the ship with "polarized hull plating" instead of "shields," or a grappler instead of a tractor beam. There's the musical score (by Star Trek veteran Dennis McCarthy), which feels like more of the same "beige wallpaper" that has come to define nearly all Star Trek scores since Ron Jones was unceremoniously fired halfway through the run of The Next Generation.

Then there's the story, which shows that this attempt at something new is really only going to be skin deep. We're immediately dealing with Vulcans and Klingons. Right away, they're introducing a Star Trek staple, the transporter, and using it to solve a problem at the climax of the episode. And after going to all the trouble of setting up a prequel that in theory lets you leave recent Star Trek behind? They add a mysterious "Big Bad" who's from the future, trying to have it both ways by hinting to Trekkers that someone/something from 24th century Star Trek might be involved at the heart of all this.

But that said, this is often a compelling episode. It's certainly eye-catching. An enormous rooftop shootout in the middle of a snowstorm feels like one of the biggest action sequences in Star Trek television or film. When the episode reaches "peak submarine movie" in a sort of inverted depth-charging sequence inside a gas giant planet, the tension is palpable. The weirdness of the time chamber, with its audio and visual "echoes," is an effectively bizarre setting.

And I do find myself immediately liking some of the characters. It helps that this cast of seven characters is smaller than any of the recent Trek series before it; there should be more time to focus on and develop each one. Hoshi feels like the most rounded already, simultaneously "good at what she does" and full of relatable neuroses. And it feels like they've actually managed to find a new lane for an alien (Phlox) that isn't "striving to be human" (Data) or "not wanting to be human" (Spock): he just finds humans to be a source of fascination. Plus: come on, Porthos is one of the cutest dogs ever on television.

Other observations:

• Guest star Tommy "Tiny" Lister, Jr. isn't very good at speaking the made-up Klingon language. He sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher slowed down to like .75x speed. ("Wah wah wah.")

• T'Pol gets a "look-in" scanner just like Spock had!

• The villain Silik warns Archer not to try to fire a weapon inside the temporal chamber. And then barely two minutes later, tries to fire a weapon inside the temporal chamber. What an idiot.

• When we reach the Klingon audience hall near the end of the episode, and hear the pounding on the door, I swear that the spoken Klingon response sounds exactly like someone saying "I hear door" in English.

"Broken Bow" looks like a million bucks. (Multiple millions.) Parts of it work very well, and it certainly sets the stage for interesting adventures. But it also feels like many of the creative forces involved, despite wanting to "turn the page" and make new Star Trek, can't quite bring themselves to do that. I give this pilot a B.

Prodigy: Observer's Paradox

Episode five of Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 was "Observer's Paradox."

Our gang of cadets is under close supervision when they return to Voyager, but they're determined to decode the strange secret message sent to Murf. This proves to be a challenge, as no one can fully understand Murf.

Prodigy usually does a pretty credible job at entertaining the kids at the core of its audience while still being enjoyable for adults. But this episode was an uncommon misstep in this regard. It wasn't that the childlike antics of the young characters were dialed up any higher than normal; rather, it was that the episode basically relied on the ignorance of a young audience when it comes to "basic story structure."

Essentially, I feel like this episode didn't really get us anywhere. At the beginning of the episode, we know that we have to find Chakotay, and that Murf is drawing pictures of spirals. By the end of episode, we've "learned" that the spiral is a galactic map leading to Chakotay. Uh.... yeah, did we not already know that? I feel like the episode comes so close to spelling this out early as to render the rest of the episode quite dull. I suppose it's possible I've just seen too much television (and Star Trek in particular) to be surprised by such a common plot twist; maybe this plays better to a younger audience? In any case, it sort of felt like a waste of an episode to me.

It also didn't feel great to me to put so much focus on the inability of understanding Murf. When you get right down to it, it shouldn't actually be that hard to understand Murf. Setting aside questions of why the standard Macguffin, the universal translator, can't make sense of Murf's language, there's still the fact that Murf is to some extent a shapeshifter. It really seems like "charades" ought to be an easy option here.

Then add in other small disappointments. The younger, more interesting version of "the Diviner" isn't around at all. The Doctor seems especially buffoonish this episode (though Star Trek: Voyager routinely "regressed" his personality whenever it suited the story they wanted to tell, so I guess that's nothing new).

There were at least a few delights to keep the episode from being a total slog. I love that Cetacean Ops, first appearing for comedy on Lower Decks, gets a more serious presentation here. (And speaking of Lower Decks, the reference to the Cerritos was great fun.) Gwyn's sense of personal stakes in all this, as the person who has "failed her people," felt honest and tragic. And it was good to see the cadets actually get a punishment (if only a mild one) for their hijinks thus far this season.

Still, "Observer's Paradox" ultimately felt to me like 30 seconds of plot stretched to 22-or-so minutes. I give it a C. Here's hoping the story gets back on track with the next episode.

Planet of the Japes

There are countless social media platforms out there, attracting a wide range of audiences. But chances are that no matter which ones you frequent, you've come across the internet comics of Nathan W. Pyle. You know -- those cartoons with the blue aliens, who talk about everyday things using non-everyday terminology? In a way, it's kind of a one-note joke. But if you're anything like me, it's a joke that regularly makes you at least smile.

In that spirit, I was receptive to a television adaptation of Pyle's work. Strange Planet is a 10-episode animated sitcom on Apple TV+. Co-created by Pyle and sitcom/animation veteran Dan Harmon, the show is exactly what you'd expect it to be: Pyle's comics extended to a 20-minute-ish format.

To build out the mundane backbone of the comics, Strange Planet draws fun inspiration from the well of "sitcom plots that sound cliche." One episode centers on a someone trying to get in with a potential love interest by caring for their "vibrating creature" (cat). Another episode follows a child who doesn't want to grow up to take over their life-givers' ink stain business (parents' tattoo parlor). Of course, peppered throughout these charmingly simple plots are loads of the weird turns-of-phrase that characterize Pyle's work.

The voice cast is an eclectic mix of comedians and past collaborators of Dan Harmon. The regular cast is Tunde Adebimpe, Demi Adejuyigbe, Lori Tan Chinn, Danny Pudi, and Hannah Einbinder -- but the show only "mostly" stays focused on a group of central characters. Plenty of guest actors swing in for one episode to feature in a big subplot; the list makes for a sprawling and surprising IMDb page.

I have written so often about "reasons you should subscribe to Apple TV+" that by now, you've probably either done that, or you're past annoyed with me. In this instance, I can't claim that Strange Planet is a reason to subscribe. Rather, it's an entertaining add-on once you're there. In the era of "prestige television," everybody seems to have a list of multiple hour-long appointment series that feel like work -- shows that may be great, but leave you feeling wrung out after you watch them (or, heaven forbid, if you watch several in one sitting). Strange Planet is a lovely sorbet after the heavy meal, an easy watch to put you in a calmer headspace before bed.

I'd say Strange Planet rates a B. If any of Pyle's internet comics have ever made you smile, certainly his TV series will too.

Glenwood Getaway

Sometimes, it's fun to be a tourist in your own state. And Colorado is a particularly beautiful state for it. This past weekend, my husband and I drove to Glenwood Springs, around three hours west of Denver, for a wonderful little getaway.

On the drive up on Friday afternoon, we stopped at 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirits, a place we came to know through their tasting room in Vail. But this stop was at their actual distillery in Gypsum, where I enjoyed a delicious praline Old Fashioned before the last leg of our journey to Glenwood Springs.

After breakfast Saturday morning, we went to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. It's essentially a small theme park built high on the mountainside overlooking the city; in fact, you have to ride a tram just to get to it. We rode several of the rides (including a dizzying swing that put you out in the open air overlooking the Colorado River). But we also cooled off underground with two different cave tours on site.

King's Row is more or less a large single chamber where you make your way down a long staircase, dropping a couple hundred feet (and about 10 degrees Fahrenheit), looking at all sorts of neat cave features along the way. The Fairy Cave tour is a guided tour through over a quarter mile of tunnels and rooms sprawling throughout the mountain. Highlights there included an outdoor exit to a natural terrace on the mountainside, a demonstration of the natural phosphorescent properties of the rock, and the comedy stylings of our tour guide (who clearly had done the same routine hundreds and hundreds of times, and was past giving it a full effort).

Glenwood Springs is known for its hot springs, which was the star of our afternoon stop: Iron Mountain Hot Springs. An outdoor spa resort with over 30 pools of varying temperatures, you can amble from place to place, relaxing. The clouds came out just as we arrived, which turned what otherwise might have been a too-hot afternoon into a perfect time to relax. We stuck mostly to the "adults only" side of the resort, which was not only more sedate, but also served adult beverages. A frozen drink to accompany a hot soak was a perfect way to unwind.

We were especially glad not to have planned the spa later in the evening when a torrential rain opened up to drown the city at just before sunset. We were dry inside at dinner and got to enjoy the sound through the propped-open restaurant entrance.

Sunday morning brought one more excursion before our drive home: we hiked the trail at the nearby Hanging Lake. It's a steep 1.2 miles up a mountain, but your reward is a cliffside lake so beautiful it feels like it came out of a fantasy novel. And a short walk up and behind the lake takes you to Spouting Rock, a tall waterfall that both pours over and leaks through the mountainside, in an equally fantastical display. The hike back definitely left my feet and knees aching, but it was a wonderful cap on a wonderful weekend.

Even for those Coloradans who at least occasionally travel around the state, Glenwood Springs is often just a "place on the way to Aspen." But it's very much a worthwhile destination of its own, and I really enjoyed our visit.

What's the Matter?

Last month, I blogged about an alternate-reality sci-fi show on Apple TV+, Constellation. I mentioned at the time that it was actually one of two such shows, the other being Dark Matter -- which I'm now back to discuss in "round two."

Dark Matter is a show created by Blake Crouch, based on his own novel. It's the story of Jason Dessen, a family man who years ago gave up a career in quantum physics. One day, he is ambushed and drugged by a mysterious figure who turns out to be his own doppelganger from a parallel reality. "Jason 2" switches places with Jason, stranding him in another world in order to steal Jason's quiet family life. Jason must struggle to return home.

Black Crouch seems to be a quite prolific author with many books to his name. This isn't the first time he's been adapted for television either; the Wayward Pines television show is based on his trilogy. I've never read or viewed any of his other work, though. With only Dark Matter -- and the knowledge of his popularity -- informing my opinion, it seems to me like he's an author full of intriguing ideas... who is perhaps less capable with execution.

Dark Matter is a 9-episode, one-season-and-done adaptation of the book, and it feels a bit slow getting started. It's one of those awkward stories that early on is angling toward a "big reveal" that you already know, by virtue of having to know enough about the story to engage with it in the first place. What I mean is: episode 1 is all about the "shocking revelation" that Jason has been abducted by a duplicate of himself. Even if that hadn't already been given away (by me and every trailer made for the show), you'd probably deduce it from the splash screen art for the show, depicting a sea of Jasons.

But once the stage is set, there's room for Blake Crouch to bring in more clever ideas. By episode 3, the scope of the story is revealed to be far greater than the opening episodes suggested. And the separate story lines of Jason and Jason 2 become more interesting: there's a real juxtaposition of scale and scope, and a fun exploration of the old adage that "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." And just when it seems like the show is winding down, a late-season twist brings another interesting new idea into the mix.

As I said, though, the execution isn't always top notch. In particular, the dialogue of Dark Matter is often rough, with ham-fisted exposition and a bit too much "telling, not showing." The actors here sometimes have to work extra hard to sell it all. Joel Edgerton, as Jason (and Jason 2, of course), has the most work, being in almost every scene of the series. And he does a good job with the subtle differences between his characters. Alice Braga and Oakes Fegley are effective parts of the supporting cast, and omnipresent actor Jimmi Simpson is fun to see too.

To me, Jennifer Connelly is the real standout, as Jason's wife Daniela. She stands mostly outside the sci-fi trappings of the story, but her character is arguably the one going through the most "horror," and she gives a very honest and effective performance.

Ultimately, I think the entire cast is a bit stronger across the board in Constellation -- and so that leads me to say that if you were only going to watch one of these two similar-in-concept series, I'd probably pick that one. That said, Dark Matter has a more definitive ending (it is the retelling of the novel), and it has more interesting twists and turns along the way. Both series have their selling points, though neither is a clearly "great" show.

I give Dark Matter a B. You'd be forgiven if you didn't check it out... but if you do give it a try, you probably need to give it until at least episode 3 to decide if it's for you.

Heartless

I'm about to embark on my re-watch of Star Trek: Enterprise. Well... actually, I've already begun. (My blogging needs to catch up with my viewing.) But before I get into recaps of specific episodes, I feel like one aspect of the show deserves a post all its own -- the series' opening credits, and the notorious decision to use the song "Faith of the Heart."

It's abundantly clear that many of the creative choices for Enterprise originated from a desire to be different than the other Star Trek series which at that point had been running continuously for 14 years. Undoubtedly, the desire to have an opening credits backed by something other than a Jerry Goldsmith (or Goldsmith-inspired) orchestral piece sprang from this impulse. But I think this was a bad decision right out of the gate, no matter what song they'd selected.

I have watched a metric crap-ton of television in my lifetime, and I am hard-pressed to think of many other one-hour dramas that use a song with lyrics for the opening credits. Songs with lyrics are the stuff sitcoms -- of jaunty lightweight fare, sometimes cloyingly sentimental. Off the top of my head, the only one-hour drama I can think of that used a song was CSI -- and even then, they edited together a version of "Who Are You" that's more screams and falsetto hooting than any intelligible English. (The spin-offs then just kept using songs by The Who because that was their "thing.") A theme song with lyrics feels like it's for a show you're not meant to take seriously. And boy, do Star Trek fans hate it (Hate! It!) when the rest of the world doesn't take them seriously. So basically, my assumption is that there is no pop song that would have worked for Star Trek: Enterprise (and Star Trek fans).

Yet "Faith of the Heart" in particular seems an especially terrible choice. I'd posit that almost no one actually knew where the song had come from when they first watched the pilot episode "Broken Bow," but when they did a little digging and found out? They'd find only reasons to reflexively get mad. The song was written by for the movie Patch Adams -- a film that, while only three years old at the time -- was considered (on the charitable side) "forgettable" or (on the other end of the spectrum) "one of the worst things Robin Williams ever made."

The song was written by Diane Warren, aka the Most Wronged Person in the History of the Academy Awards. She specializes in sentimental songs from movies (most of which become hit singles). She has been nominated a whopping 15 times for Best Song without winning once. "Because You Loved Me," "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" -- just a few of the more egregious Diane Warren snubs over the years. None of these may be your favorite song, but you can't deny that they're really good versions of that kind of song.

But let's just say that the Academy did get it right when they failed to even nominate "Faith of the Heart" -- it's sappy instead of stirring, tacky instead of touching. And I think the content of the song itself demonstrates its own inappropriateness for Star Trek. There are a lot of words you could use to describe drive and determination, hopefulness, optimism... undeniably "Star Trek tenets." But faith? To me, the religious connotations are too prominent to ignore. Too often throughout history (and in the modern day), religion has staked out a position in opposition to science. So I don't think it feels great to lead off a science fiction show with an anthem about "faith."

Sure, there's nothing explicitly religious about the lyrics in the Enterprise credits. But in part, that's because they cherry-picked the song's original lyrics. The version used by the show blends pieces of two different verses from the original as recorded by Rod Stewart. And then they pretend the song is actually called "Where My Heart Will Take Me" -- on at least a subconscious level, they seem to know that "Faith of the Heart" isn't the right tone to be setting. And I feel like there's just a certain "dog whistle" quality to the lyrics that breaks through, regardless of context. (The one notable cover version released between Rod Stewart's and the Enterprise opening title was by a Christian musician trying to break through in Country music. She claimed to have considered over 800 songs for her album, and out of all those, "Faith of the Heart" somehow was the one chosen. Hmm.)

The bad choices continue in the actual production of the song. They didn't have to get a Rod Stewart sound-alike to perform it for Enterprise. They didn't have to be so melodramatic. (The backup singers echoing "I've got -- I've got -- I've got" in panning stereo is especially cheesy.) They didn't have to end the officially released version of the song with the warp speed "whoosh" sound. But yeah, they did all that.

I even groan at the visuals that play on screen during the credits. Well, one in particular: the space shuttle Enterprise rolling out of its hangar. That's the one space shuttle that never actually flew in space -- so much for your lineage of exploration. Also, it was actually named for the fictitious Enterprise of the original Star Trek, making its inclusion here a fantasy-puncturing ouroboros.

There's a lot about Star Trek: Enterprise that's probably unfairly maligned. I may unfairly malign it myself as I review it in many posts to come. But I think that one aspect of the show that simply cannot be scorned and ridiculed enough is the opening credits, with that awful song. Thank goodness we now have the "Skip Intro" button.