Posted:
08:31:49 on November 28 2001
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: Enterprise | www.stenterprise.com
Cinescape has reviewed tonight's mythology episode "Cold Front," calling it a refreshing change from what fans have perceived as bland stories of late. The review says the episode is mostly gold, with the exception of some hand-to-hand fight scenes that seem haphazardly directed:
"The episode, entitled “Cold Front” (which turns out to be a delicious little pun), opens with a teaser featuring the mysterious blur-faced silhouette of the villain from “Broken Bow” who is punishing his Suliban servant, Silik, for having been defeated by Archer. It’s a bit funny to think that it took the villain all these weeks to get around to disciplining his underlings; but hey, being a superpowered bad guy from the distant future probably doesn’t leave a lot of holes in your schedule. That aside, the scene is well played and interesting. It sets up the fact that Silik will soon be sent on another mission to face Archer… and those eerie visual-echo effects always look cool."
[...]
"The creators of ENTERPRISE seem to have it in mind to create a kind of X-FILES-like “mythology” that they can go back to and build off of occasionally during the course of the series—which is an excellent idea. Both DEEP SPACE NINE and VOYAGER were at their best when they were involved in evolving story arcs. In fact, it was “mythology”-style arcs that made the last half of DS9’s final season among the most riveting television ever created. Also, think of how much less rambling and pointless VOYAGER’s middle seasons would have been if only they had a more continuous core storyline at their backbone. Kudos to the ENTERPRISE writing staff for learning from the past and employing the technique early on."
[...]
"So if the plot’s the good news, what’s the bad news? Well, it’s not too bad… Awkward action choreography makes the hand-to-hand combat scenes, of which there are many, seem stilted and a little silly. This choreography isn’t helped by bad screen choices. It’s difficult to say what those bad choices were. It could be that the camera movement isn’t intense enough, or that the editing isn’t crisp enough, or even that something in the director’s pacing isn’t up to snuff—but no matter what it is, something is wrong. When you watch those scenes you just feel that something’s missing. All the fighting feels a little too slow, or amateurish, like the actor’s were just rehearsing and got filmed by accident. But please! Bad choreography isn’t the worst thing that could happen to a TREK episode, so we’re clearly getting off lightly."
For the full review, check out this page.
See Also: STENTERPRISE.com
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