Terra Nova: Enterprise Retrospective

Ah, I miss this show. It was such a breath of fresh air after twenty-one seasons of far-future, super-advanced Federation technology, fighting the Borg and the Dominion and running around the galaxy like a futuristic delegation from the United Nations. In this episode, we see the Enterprise doing something more prosaic: solving one of the early mysteries of deep space exploration and colonization, the lost colony of Terra Nova.

Terra Nova is described as one of the first attempts by humans to settle another world. Using early-stage warp engines that can take years to go from one star system to the next, the colonists successfully landed on a planet and named it 'Terra Nova', or 'New Earth'. Quite the ambitious declaration. When Earth sought to send another batch of colonists to the same world, the original group protested, and it devolved into a nasty war of words that culminated in TN cutting off all contact with Earth. No one had been there since, until the Enterprise, fast enough to make the trip in a much shorter time, dropped by for a visit.

They discover a race of underground people who speak a primitive form of English, who take Lt. Reed captive and demand that the Enterprise and its crew of 'humans' leave them alone. It doesn't take a degree in anthropology to figure out that these people are the descendants of the Terra Nova colonists, driven underground by a radioactive meteor that poisoned the surface and killed most of the adults; the only survivors were the children, who demonstrated true colonial spirit in figuring out how to survive without any adults to guide them.

In the end, one of the oldest Novans is identified as a young girl from the original colony, and Archer works with the Novan leader to rescue one of the trapped Novans from drowning. The Enterprise leaves Terra Nova without bringing any of its people back to Earth, since they have no memory of the planet anyway and are adapted to survive here. And thus, the mystery of Terra Nova is solved.

This isn't one of the episodes I look back on with fondness. The background is, frankly, weak. The original colonists (of which there were about eighty or so) complain that Earth is sending more people? It's a planet, not an isolated valley. You're going to need some genetic variation to sustain a tiny population like this anyway. You don't want to see the newcomers? They can land on the other side of the world and never have anything to do with you! Threatening a state of war with your home planet when you have zero space capability (having used the colony ship as building materials to get the colony started)? And then blaming Earth for 'sending' a radioactive asteroid to kill you all? Come on. There is so much wrong with that premise to begin with, that it makes the whole episode fall flat.

As for the Novans themselves, the idea is interesting and executed fairly well. The Novans, who were all children and their descendants after the adults all died in the radiation poisoning (why the kids didn't die isn't fully explained), grew up believing that Earth had killed their parents and abandoned them to their fate. Of course they don't consider themselves humans, and treat the Enterprise crew as enemies.

There are some nice character moments; Mayweather is the most excited crewmember, having learned about the lost colony as a child and wanting to solve the mystery. Archer frustrated that he is supposed to be making first contact with alien species, and he can't even do it right with a colony of humans. It's an episode that showcases just how comparatively primitive this show's setting and technology are compared to the original series, let alone the TNG/DS9/VOY era.

Overall, though, this is the weakest episode thus far, and that's two poor ones in a row. This one is getting a 2 out of 10; the interesting initial premise is overshadowed by the terribly thought-out backstory. Very disappointing.

Next time, though...we meet the Andorians. Oh, yes.

Manly Men Doing Manly Things

Growing up, I was always a 'brain-work' kind of person, not a 'physical labor' type. Now that I'm on a farm, that has changed a bit. But even after we moved here, we relied on our oldest to help with a lot of that sort of work, because he likes it a lot, and because I don't. But he's been unavailable for the past little while thanks to working two jobs and spending lots of time with his girlfriend, so it's fallen to me.

And dear Lord, does it ever hurt. Fifty-one years old is not the time to start doing construction projects and working with power tools. But, you do what you have to do. And I had to do it, so I did it.

Yes, it's a chicken tractor. With twenty chickens moved into it last night. We were extremely fortunate that we still had the old tractor that we built last year, or at least its frame, mostly together. It took about fifteen hours of work to complete the frame, attach the wire mesh, and get it ready for its occupants.

I learned quite a bit from our first attempt last year; instead of just stapling the mesh, I used 1x3 strapping for a much more secure setup. Ain't nothing getting through that. And we didn't mesh the bottom this time, to give the chickens the opportunity to scratch at the ground and dig for bugs. So there's always the possibility that a predator could dig underneath, but it's a chance we'll have to take. I added the birch log to give them a place to roost as well. It's still small for the number of chickens in there, but it's just a temporary home, and much bigger than the small crate they spent the past few weeks in.

Kudos to our middle son, Tanner, for helping out; he's learning how to use the tools as well. It's important to learn to be as self-sufficient as possible, especially with the economy going as it is. The more we can do on our own, the better off we'll be. Gardening, raising chickens and rabbits, doing our own repairs and farm projects...it all adds up to free-range living.

This project didn't cost us anything more; the frame was already there, the mesh was reused from the old tractor, and my wife picked up the strapping on the side of the road for free. We had the tools and screws, as well as the framing wood, so all this cost was time. And my sedentary nature. And a lot of Advil. Because dear Lord, this really hurt.

But seeing the happiness on my wife's face when she came out to see it? Worth every ache and pain.

Alternate History

The most asked question in history is, "What if?"

"What if the South had won the Civil War?"

"What if Hitler had won?"

"What if the Spanish Armada conquered England?"

"What if the Soviets kept missiles in Cuba?"

"What if the American Revolution had failed?"

"What if France defeated England in North America?"

There are literally millions of possible questions of this sort; what if this particular historical event had gone a different way? What would be the result?

This is the field of alternate history, a sub-set of science fiction. Basically, there is a PoD, a Point of Departure, where one, possibly very small, event turns out differently than it did in our actual history. One of the most well-known examples of this is Harry Turtledove's 'American Empire' series, where the Union never gets hold of Lee's plans for Gettysburg thanks to a sharp-eyed Confederate soldier who rescues the dropped orders. Not able to anticipate Lee's intentions, the Union is hopelessly outclassed at the battle, and the American Civil War is effectively over, with two countries now occupying the land where one once stood united. Turtledove wrote a lengthy series of eleven books in which he explores the aftermath of this single action, with the action beginning with another war between the North and South in 1881 and ending with the end of World War II in 1944. It's justly known as one of the most intricate and detailed alternate history stories out there, and Turtledove himself is the acknowledged master of the genre. So much so, in fact, that there is an award named after him on the Alternate History forums.

Yes, that's a thing; a web forum where people toss out ideas and write lengthy timelines exploring various facets of 'what if' in history. There are pre-Christian timelines, Fall of Rome stories, medieval alternates, and of course, Civil War and World War II explorations; those two are the most popular topics for alternate history speculations.

Right now, I'm reading a very lengthy and detailed timeline about what might have happened at the beginning of World War I, if the Germans had a couple of cruisers near the Canadian west coast at the time war was declared. Due to political wrangling and a focus on the east coast, Canada had but one functioning warship on the west coast at that time, the Rainbow, which would have been outclassed by either of the likely German cruisers in the region. It's a fantastic read, very well-researched, and while it only covers a brief span of time (the writer stated that it would only cover roughly the month of August, 1914), it's filled with incredible possibilities for a future in which Canada almost certainly develops a strong Navy in the aftermath of what would devastating coastal raids in British Columbia.

Alternate history has subgenres as well. There's fantastic alternate history, where magic makes an appearance in some historical period, such as the Crusades or the Roman Empire; there's sci-fi alternate history, such as an alien invasion in World War II (another Turtledove series). One recent addition to the alternate history genre is 'steampunk'. This is a genre in which fantastic technologies imagined by 19th-century writers such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells become a reality; a particularly popular point is Charles Babbage's attempt to build a functioning computer (The Difference Engine), which could do complex calculations. His designs were recovered decades later, and a working model of the Difference Engine has been built. Imagine Victorian England with computers. Where would we be today?

Some alternate history focuses on the actual PoD, where the immediate aftereffects of the change are explored. Others look further into the future, looking at how society would have developed differently in the intervening years between the PoD and the setting of the story. Both provide interesting and exciting possibilities. And there's another branch of this genre in which our timeline is somehow mixed with an alternate one, usually through time travel or some other such device, where people from our familiar history are transported to a different world with a parallel history.

While Turtledove is the master of the genre, he wasn't its originator. The oldest known example of alternate history comes from Ancient Rome; the historian Livy speculated on what would have happened had Alexander the Great lived to invade Europe as he had planned, and how Rome would have fared against his forces. That was written in the late 1st century BC.

I'm going to recommend a few alternate history books that deal with a variety of historical periods and how history could have been changed with just a twist of fate. All of these are rightly regarded as classic works of the genre.

L. Sprague de Camp, Lest Darkness Fall (a time traveler goes to Classical Rome and tries to prevent the fall of the Empire)

Eric Flint, 1632 (West Virginian miners are transplanted to the Thirty Years' War in Germany)

Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle (The Nazis won World War II, splitting North America with Japan)

Keith Roberts, Pavane (Spanish conquer England, no Industrial Revolution but there are fairies)

William Gibson & Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine (Babbage succeeds in building the first computer in Victorian England)

Harry Turtledove, pretty much anything

These are a good start for the reader interested that most mysterious of questions, "What if?" Enjoy, and learn some history.

Mixing Genres

One of the most interesting things one learns when reading pulp stories is that 'genre' is just a word. The notion of splitting stories up based on a particular theme was common enough in the early days of the pulps; there were fiction magazines devoted to railroads, for example, or westerns, or scientific topics such as electronics. But the biggest sellers didn't bother with these distinctions. They contained stories that would appeal to a wide range of readers, which is why they sold the most.

For example, the first part of Edgar Rice Burroughs' first published novel, A Princess of Mars, shared space in the February All-Story Magazine with romance stories, western stories, comedies, poetry, and adventures on the high seas. It was a grab-bag, and it was one of the most popular selling magazines in North America. Two hundred pages of variety, fun for everyone. All for the low price of a dime.

Later, the idea of 'genre' came out of the science fiction camp of fans; they wanted to define what a 'science fiction' story was allowed to be. It had to be plausible, scientific, and 'realistic' in terms of if it 'could' happen in our own future. Stories such as Princess of Mars, or Abraham Merritt's Moon Pool, were suddenly disqualified from the ranks of science fiction despite their scientific basis, which was based on scientific knowledge of their time. Instead, they were 'relegated' to the realm of fantasy fiction.

Horror is another genre that gradually became separated from its fantastic cousins; while Weird Tales Magazine, as well as some issues of Amazing Stories, contained stories with horror elements, the idea of separating horror from other genres didn't come until much later. But during the twenties and thirties, in magazines such as Weird Tales, writers such as Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft were published right alongside Robert E. Howard and Seabury Quinn. It was a time when the writer's mind could truly roam free, using whatever story elements fit the author's vision.

Burroughs' Pellucidar envisioned a hollow Earth, with an entire world on the underside of the Earth's crust inhabited by dinosaurs, ape-men, and enormous creatures from Earth's dim past, as well as humans. H.P. Lovecraft's horror contained science fiction elements such as the Mi-Go, fungi from the ninth planet of our solar system (written around the time Pluto was discovered). And Robert E. Howard's Conan, the quintessential fantasy hero, fought eldritch horrors that wouldn't have seemed out of place in a Lovecraft story.

Unfortunately, that sense of 'anything goes' was lost for a long time. Go to a modern bookstore and look at all the genre sections. There's mystery, there's fantasy, there's sci-fi (sometimes the latter two are combined), there's horror, there's romance, there's westerns...it's all neatly categorized, and you can generally have a pretty good idea of what you're going to get when you pick a book out of one of those sections. And that, frankly, gets to be boring. There are only so many ways you can pastiche or deconstruct Tolkien before the stories are predictable. And who reads for predictable?

Today, indy writers are mixing genres the way it used to be done. Brian Niemeier, for example, has written the Nethereal series, which combines far-future science fiction with cosmic horror. Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International mixed modern military-style fiction with fantastic creatures such as werewolves. The genre lines are blurring again, and that's a good thing.

The best compliment a pulp-style writer of fantasy or science fiction can get is that his story can't be categorized in any particular genre. Mix it up! Who cares if your swashbuckling hero in 17th-century France runs into a Roswell alien? That's a cool story! Or a dragon taking on an F-18 in an aerial dogfight? Bring it on! Stories like that expand the imagination and get the reader thinking outside of a particular box. And who knows? That might lead them to a whole new pack of stories that they would never have read had they stuck to a genre.

The old pulps had it right; appeal to multiple audiences, and sell more copies. It's time to get back to that mindset, and ditch the rigid compartmentalization of writing.

Consistency

One of the things I learned when I started writing seriously was that the key to success isn't brilliance or creativity; it's consistency. Consistently writing something daily, whether it be a quick short story or a chapter of a novel, was the only way to succeed. And for over a year, I did that. Unfortunately, since we moved, I have not been anywhere close to consistent. In fact, I've gone months without even posting on this blog. So it very much feels like I'm starting over.

The good news is that I have started writing again; another Cameron Vail mystery. It's only just started, and time pressures mean I don't have the luxury of having a couple of hours uninterrupted every night to work on it. But that doesn't mean I can't put in some effort every day, even if it's only fifteen or twenty minutes. Again, consistency is the key.

The idea of 'waiting for inspiration' has killed more writing careers than anything else. I know it; I've read words to that effect dozens of times. But it's still a matter of planting your butt in the seat and typing, without all the distractions that are so easy to find today. Put on a YouTube video for background music? Before long you're watching other things, and jumping around to whatever distracts you from doing the actual writing.

So, how to maintain consistency? Again, it's just a matter of committing to do something every day. Even if it's just a few minutes. Eventually, more time will be available, and there will be some days where hours will open up for uninterrupted writing. But in the meantime, being consistent in the little things will make a big difference. Writing a thousand words a day means a novel can be finished in two months or less. Two thousand words? A book a month. That's consistency, and that's the goal.

Let's see if I can get back on track.

Tombstone (1993) Review

Well, I've written science fiction, fantasy, mystery, steampunk superheroes, pulp heroes...but not a western. Not yet, at least. Maybe I will at some point. My son and I have been delving into the old Lone Ranger TV series lately, but tonight I wanted something a bit more...grandiose. For research for future writing. That's the ticket.

So, I put on one of the all-time greats, Tombstone. A movie absolutely loaded with stars, past, present and future, based on real history and full of quotable lines that still resonate nearly thirty years later. And yes, I called it an all-time great, because it is exactly that. Action, romance, comedy...this movie has it all and then some. And, much like Desmond Doss of Hacksaw Ridge fame, the reality overshadows the movie, because some of the stuff these men did was too much even for Hollywood to believe.

I'm not going to recap the whole movie in detail; basically, Wyatt Earp and his brothers and their wives move to the silver mining hub called Tombstone, Arizona. There they encounter the Cowboys, a semi-organized crime gang of red-sashed riders who terrorize the civilians and threaten the lawmen. Wyatt just wants to settle down and live a normal life, but things keep piling up until he and his brothers are sworn in as sheriff and deputies. There's this famous gunfight you might have heard of, but in the aftermath, Wyatt's brothers are taken out. Wyatt and his friend, Doc Holliday, lead a small band of Marshals who go after the Cowboys, breaking their control over the region and restoring law and order.

That's the short version; now go watch the movie yourself, because it's fantastic.

So, the cast. As I mentioned, it's full of stars. The leads are Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp, Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, Sam Elliott as Virgil Earp, and Bill Paxton as Morgan Earp. Dana Delany plays the love interest, and Charlton Heston has a brief cameo as well. The bag guys include Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo, Powers Boothe as Curly Bill and Stephen Lang as Ike Clanton. Thomas Haden Church plays Billy Claiborne, and Billy Bob Thornton shows up as a cowardly bully who gets manhandled by an unarmed Wyatt in one of the movie's juiciest scenes. And there are plenty of others as well; this cast was stacked.

Favorite scenes (and everyone who has seen this movie has them) include the aforementioned bully take-down, the arrest of Curly Bill for murdering the sheriff (while high on some kind of opiates), the gunfight at the OK Corral, and the final showdown between Holliday and Ringo. Actually, any scene with Doc Holliday can be considered a favorite scene; Val Kilmer was absolutely spectacular in this role. Every time I look at a clip from the movie on YouTube, I see the same comment over and over: Kilmer should have won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this movie. To the Academy's eternal shame, he wasn't even nominated. In fact, Tombstone got a grand total of zero Oscar nominations that year, which is a crime against entertainment.

So, what is that makes this such a great movie? Well, it's a very masculine movie. These are men. They have a moral code (or, in the case of the Cowboys, the antithesis of one), they take action when necessary, and they aren't afraid to stand and fight when needed. But they don't go looking for fights; Wyatt's admonishment to his younger brother Morgan that killing a man 'changes you inside' rings true; Wyatt spends the first half of the movie trying to keep a low profile. It's only when Virgil has had enough and enlists Morgan to join him as a town deputy that Wyatt finally accepts the inevitable. And when bad men are doing bad things, it takes good men to stop them, and sometimes there is a price to pay. These men do what has to be done.

Is it 100% historically accurate? Of course not; it's a Hollywood movie. But the OK Corral gunfight did happen. Wyatt did try to stay out of law enforcement in Arizona until circumstances forced him to do so. Doc Holliday really did have the reputation of being one of the deadliest gunfighters in the West. And yes, Wyatt really did shoot Curly Bill at near-point-blank range while somehow managing to not get hit by a single bullet.

The Old West has been mythologized for decades, but it was a real time and place, and there were real men like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday who blazed a trail and wrote their names in the history books. And the Western is the American genre, more than any other. Aside from romance, the western was probably the most popular genre of fiction in America for decades. The first real movie (with a plot, beginning, middle and end) was a western, The Great Train Robbery. Hollywood made thousands of westerns; TV and radio shows like the Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and dozens of others were the most popular of their time. And even when the western began to die off during the Space Age, the most popular science fiction shows were basically westerns in space. Even Star Trek was originally pitched as a 'Wagon Train to the Stars' to get the green light from the studios.

So, I have to give this movie the highest recommendation; it's that good. Check it out, and see what I mean.

Bunnies Gonna Bunny

It's farming season, and there's always lots to do on a farm, even a small one like ours. We're going to start building another chicken coop this weekend to accommodate the thirty young birds that are growing up in the garage right now, and we picked up a couple of female bunnies to give Bugs some companions. They're too young to be in the same hutch as him, though, so they're in a small, separate house while Bugs lives with the chickens in the coop. Hey, he's happy in there.

Here they are: the brown one is Jellybean, and the gray one is Artemis. That's the box we brought them home in back in April. Feel free to make 'Awww!' noises.

Anyway, as we were doing the farm chores last night, feeding and watering all the animals, we found an unusual amount of dirt in the rabbit hutch. And we couldn't find Artemis. Turns out, she was doing what bunnies do: she was digging. We moved the hutch to some fresh grass and I snapped these pictures.

I didn't realize at first just how far she had dug down. But she had disappeared down the hole, and it wasn't until she backed out that I was able to even see her, let alone grab her and put her back in the hutch.

Like I said, bunnies gonna bunny. We're going to have to move the hutch more often if she's going to keep doing that. Or put them on a much stronger ground, like concrete. I don't like to do that, because I know they like the grass, but we don't need holes like that all over the property.

We'll see what happens; for now, we'll continue to make do and figure it out as we go.

Desecration

I've been struggling with things to write about for my blog, which is why I keep taking these long breaks in between posts. But tonight, I got me a topic, and I'm going to rant.

Now, understand that I no longer watch TV. Nothing current, anyway, unless it's a documentary about history or farming or something like that. TV shows these days? They're largely garbage. I know, there are people who disagree with me, and that's fine; everyone is entitled to their opinion, even when they're wrong.

My wife and son watch Survivor, which I've never been able to understand. I mean, people act shocked when they get stabbed in the back by someone they trusted. Why is anyone surprised by backstabbing in Survivor? These are people fighting to win a million dollars. I've seen people do worse to each other to get a corner office.

Anyway, tonight they were watching a show called 'Bel-Air.' Here, I'll quote from Wikipedia:

"Bel-Air is an American drama streaming television series developed by Morgan Cooper, Malcolm Spellman, TJ Brady, and Rasheed Newson. It is a reimagined version of the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and is based on Cooper's short fan film of the same name."

Fresh Prince, reimagined into a drama. Again, I don't watch TV, so while I had heard my son talk about the show, I had no clue what it was about. I do remember the sitcom; I wasn't a regular watcher of Fresh Prince back in the day, although I did see it once in a while, and there are some very good episodes that mix drama and comedy very, very well. The show was never really that edgy, certainly not by today's standards, but it touched on important themes, including the importance of family.

As I'm walking through the living room, I catch sight of the scene they're watching. I see a young black man snorting cocaine off a desk and cursing at the other young black man about some girl. Okay...? That's really not appropriate material for my son to be watching, so why is my wife all--THAT WAS CARLTON?!?!?!?!!!!

CARLTON?!

Carlton is a coke-snorting headcase in this version of Fresh Prince?

This Carlton?

What in the actual bloody hell?

Is this what passes for entertainment today? I realize I'm getting older, but that has nothing to do with the fact that this is a horrible concept. And what makes it worse is that Will Smith loves this 'reconceptualization' of his break-out series. I wonder what Alfonso Ribiero (the original Carlton) thinks of what's been done to his character. I can't imagine he's too thrilled that he's become a cliché, and a pretty awful one, at that.

Maybe I'm way off-base here, but when I see this sort of thing, I weep for society. This is pure garbage. I'm picking my words carefully, because I would rather not start using the same words new-Carlton uses. Call me old-fashioned or whatever, but I would much rather see a more wholesome form of entertainment than what I just saw. I'm not going to post a clip of the new show, because it really isn't appropriate for kids. I don't care that it's 'relevant,' or 'updated.' I care that the show's creator, and the star of the original, just took a massive leak on his legacy.

Fresh Prince was a show that showed positive role-models for young people of any race; sure, Carlton was a rich dweeb, but he had a lot of depth. Uncle Phil was a great father, tough and stern when he needed to be with the kids (including Will), but an absolute bear when he was standing up for them. There was a real sense of family in the show, which is what made it a classic.

Reading the Bel-Air episode descriptions on Wikipedia, the pilot episode manages to include drug dealers, guns, racism, drug use, innuendo and fighting. And I'll bet no one was laughing. And this is what passes for entertainment today?

Maybe I'm just yelling at kids to get off my lawn, but this is what our 'entertainment' has ben reduced to. And I want nothing to do with it. I'll stick to the classics, the shows with a positive message, the stuff that is actually entertaining. In the meantime, I'll keep the cable cut and the networks off.

Freedom Convoy 2022 PEI

There comes a time when a man has to stand up and decide what he is standing for. It's one thing to talk about what we're going to do; it's another to actually get up and do something. Today was one of those days, and while we didn't do a lot of standing, we definitely did our part to join in the freedom movement.

Tanner and I joined the slow-rolling convoy (which wasn't going that slow on the highway) near our church. Unfortunately, the Honeybunny was working, or she would have joined us. The oldest boy was at home, watching the youngest. So, it was just the two of us. I was going to crank some Meat Loaf in honor of the drive, but he wanted Weird Al instead. Well, it's father-son bonding time, and that's what matters.

The convoy grew in stages; there were about five gathering points up west before ours. There were about a dozen vehicles at our gathering point, which may not seem like a lot, but Western PEI is not exactly an urban metropolis. The largest towns (both of them) have about a thousand people each. Still, it was exciting to be a part of this, and once the convoy arrived, we followed along and headed for Charlottetown.

The drive to Charlottetown was about an hour and a half, but once we got there, it was a forty-five minute drive to get downtown. According to the people who were watching the convoy, it ended up being ten kilometers long by the time everyone had joined it. Again, tiny island with a population of about 165,000 people. A 10km convoy driving into Charlottetown? That's massive. And that doesn't include all the people who were cheering roadside along the way.

We didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked, but there were plenty of people waving flags and cheering as the convoy rolled by. It was quite the feeling to be a part of that, and Tanner was loving it, waving and holding up his sign out the window as we waited at traffic lights and other delays, getting more cheers from people who were recording the convoy themselves.

It was quite the time. But the best part was when we got downtown, where the bulk of the bystanders were. There were a few hundred people down there, cheering like crazy. It's not Ottawa, but it was fantastic.

What a day to be a Canadian in PEI. Make no mistake: This is no 'fringe minority' movement; we are the majority. I can remember each and every person we saw today who was opposed to the convoy; there were only a dozen or so of them.

Will convoys like this have any real impact on the politicians? I believe it will, because the people are speaking loud and clear. We want the mandates to end; we want our lives and our freedom back, and even the vaccinated people are tired of being cooped up at home.

As I mentioned before, I don't really like talking about politics on the blog. But history? That's my jam. And this is history in the making.

Unexpected: Enterprise Retrospective

And now for something completely...unexpected. Frankly, this isn't a great episode, not only because of the main plot being over-the-top even by Star Trek standards, but because they couldn't get past the fourth episode without bringing in the holodeck. Sigh. At least there's Klingons. Oh, spoiler alert...

So, this episode start out with the Enterprise going through some malfunctions; Archer's floating in the shower, T'Pol's tea turns out to be brown sludge, and so on and so forth. Nothing ship-threatening, but annoying as heck. It turns out that the problems are being caused by a fluctuation in the warp field or something, thanks to a small, cloaked ship that's dragging along behind them. After exposing the passenger ship, they learn that the aliens, called the Xyrillians, have a malfunction in their warp drive and are barnacling their way back home using other ships. Trip volunteers to help them out, and we get the best part of the episode, and something that really should have been done more often in Star Trek.

See, the Xyrillians have a very, very alien ship. So alien that Trip can't just beam across, or even just take a shuttlepod and do a meet-and-greet. No, he has to go through something similar to what deep-sea divers have to do when they surface: He has to stay in their airlock for three hours to give his body a chance to attune to the atmosphere and pressure. This is completely believable; why should all the aliens live under the same atmospheric conditions as Earth? Aside from makeup and budget constraints, that is.

So, Trip gets to fixing the ship, and hangs out with the Xyrllian engineer, a female named Ah'Len. She's attracted to Trip, despite her lizard-like features and his very non-lizardlike features. Looks like Trip gets to be Kirk before Kirk is even born; the alien ladies all want a piece of Trip. The best Kirk ever did was Batgirl in green makeup; Trip's got the lizard-brain working overtime. They spend time in a fully-functional holodeck which runs on 'resequenced photons.' Trekbabble is always fun.

Anyway, Trip finishes his three-day stay and returns to Enterprise. A couple of days later, he has a strange growth on his wrist. He goes to Dr. Phlox to get it checked out, and he finds out that he's...well, pregnant. With, presumably, Ah'Len's kid. Yay?

T'Pol gets to do some first-class snarking, and the whole crew watches as Trip starts acting like an expectant father--er, mother. Yeah, it's cringeworthy at times. The humor just doesn't work all that well, although Connor Trinneer does his level best to make it work. Resolving to find the Xyrillians to get the fetus out of Trip, they find them doing the barnacle thing again, only this time it's on a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. The Klingons are much less agreeable about a parasite ship on their warp field, and before they can destroy them, T'Pol reminds the Klingon commander of Archer's role in the rescue and return of Klaang a couple of months back.

The Klingons graciously agree to not blow up the Xyrillians (or Enterprise), on condition that they get to commandeer the holodeck technology for themselves. Since the Xyrillians are peaceful and don't feel like being blown up, they agree. Trip goes with them, and gets to spend the decompression time in an airlock with two smelly Klingons. Space travel can be rough. The Klingons are suitably impressed with the holodeck, and Ah'Len takes the baby from Trip, and all ends well. Except the Klingons inform Archer that he's used up his one 'Get Out of Sto'vokor Free' card, and next time they meet, things won't go so pleasantly.

So, this episode is one that has been panned over and over by Trek experts and Trekkers of all sorts. And I can't argue with them; the plot is silly, frankly, and the humor falls flat. The Xyrillians themselves are the highlight of the episode, being truly alien beings; they eat food that grows on the walls of the ship, and their atmosphere is very tough to deal with for humans (and Klingons).

But the Xyrillians aren't enough to save the episode. I won't go so far as to say it's the worst episode of the series, but it's definitely the first misstep in the series. I'm giving it a 3 out of 10 because of the alienness of the Xyrillians, and that's it.

Next time, the Enterprise tries to solve the mystery of one of the oldest attempts at interstellar colonialism at Terra Nova.