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Jan 05
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Palm Digital Media reports that the STAR TREK NEMESIS novelization was the #3 selling e-book in December 2002.
Jan 05
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Wigglefish has reviewed DS9: Rising Son and The Brave and the Bold, both 4/5 stars.
Jan 05
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The L.A. Times analyzes William Shatner's acting career.
Jan 04
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TREK novelist Peter David sounds off on the state of the franchise at his web site.
Jan 03
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Australia's TV1 will air a MAKING OF STAR TREK NEMESIS special on January 11th during its SCI-FI SECTOR @ 8p. (Thanks to 'Joe' for this)
Jan 03
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Cinescape has reviewed Pocket Books' THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, giving it an A- in its full review.
Jan 02
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FilkJerk and BattlestarGalactica.com have ripped into Ronald D. Moore's BATTLESTAR GALACTICA script. (Thanks to 'Beth' for the tip)
Jan 01
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Dean Valentine, former UPN exec, has purchased a 49.9% stake in the Jim Henson Company with his investment group, according to Reuters.
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Dec 31, 2002: TNG Season 7 DVD Box Set U.S. Release
Jan 3, 2003: STAR TREK NEMESIS hits UK theaters
Jan 16, 2003: STAR TREK NEMESIS debuts in Germany
Feb 6, 2003: STAR TREK NEMESIS debuts in Australia
Feb 13, 2003: STAR TREK NEMESIS debuts in the Netherlands
Feb 14, 2003: STAR TREK NEMESIS debuts in Brazil
Feb 26, 2003: STAR TREK NEMESIS debuts in Hungary
Feb 25, 2003: ST: DS9 Season One DVD Set U.S. Release
Mar 4, 2003: STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME Collector's Edition DVD Arrives
Mar 21, 2003: STAR TREK NEMESIS debuts in Norway
Mar 26, 2003: STAR TREK NEMSIS debuts in Belgium and France
Mar 28, 2003: STAR TREK NEMESIS debuts in Sweden
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Copyright © 1996-2003 Steve Krutzler and TrekWeb.com. All Rights Reserved.
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Does "Oasis" Reveal the Ultimate STAR TREK Plateau? |
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the Iconian Digs, and are on the first warning route of the original
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Posted:
18:17:44 on April 04 2002
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: ENTERPRISE Reviews | www.stenterprise.com
Written by Steve Krutzler
“Oasis” represents somewhat of an impasse for ENTERPRISE and STAR TREK in general. Sharing much with the second season DEEP SPACE NINE episode “Shadowplay” – a holographic revelation about a community of mysterious people and a prominent performance by Rene Auberjonois – this new installment does very little to improve upon the tale. But there may be a far more important insight gained from watching “Oasis” than the usual criticism that ENTERPRISE lacks creative fire.
There is no doubt in this reviewer’s mind that “Oasis” is wonderfully representative of the first season of a series caring little to find something unique to say and doing a pretty good job of it at that. The usual complaints are almost written into the script without nary and effort to deflect criticism: there is no real motivation given for why the aliens felt they had to conceal their secret, the revelation has been done before, the romantic thread attempts little at innovation, and of course exposing the NX-01 crew to the intimate workings of advanced holography flies in the face of every hardcore fan utterly sick of holodeck episodes.
It could hardly be argued that the episode wasn’t enormously derivative of not only DS9’s “Shadowplay,” which literally capitalized on the exact same last-act denoument, but countless TREK episodes about holographic misadventures—a fact toyed with by the writers in their nod to VOYAGER’s Doctor. But while Picardo’s character represented something of a logical progression from years of holography-centric episodes on TNG and even DS9, the device’s usage here attempts to throw back its depiction by expecting the amazement of the prequel crew to create a similar feeling in the audience.
Years of criticism leveled at STAR TREK: VOYAGER for being merely “TNG REDUX” seems almost laughable here, as ENTERPRISE makes little or no effort to conceal such a direct retread of previous material. Undoubtedly, the hype dubbing the fifth TREK series as “groundbreaking” and a “radical departure” from the past has fallen completely flat, with scripts that don’t even pretend to be doing something different—unless you count the expansion of Trip’s Twentieth Century cliché vocabulary as a significant departure.
But all of the above is much too easy and predictable a discussion to bother with at this point. More interesting is the realization that ENTERPRISE is clearly aiming to amaze those who haven’t watched STAR TREK over the last five years (at least) and judging these installments against the best and worst of the franchise is surely a waste of breath. I am resolutely certain that someone who hasn’t seen “Shadowplay” or most of VOYAGER was appropriately intrigued by the concept revealed in “Oasis.” This is a reality of commercial entertainment production and we shouldn’t be surprised by the willingness to turn to the countless hours of previous TREK to find ideas that can be reworked.
Far more productive, in my opinion, is the criticism of what the series does well entirely on its own. That is, the unique capabilities it brings to the table and how well it carries them out. Admittedly, these are few and far between, but we can certainly pick out characterization as a central aim for this first season. Last week’s “Acquisition” made excellent use of ellipsis by focusing squarely on the Archer, Trip, T’Pol dynamic in what had to be one of the best attempts at recapturing the Kirk, Spock, McCoy feeling thusfar in ENTERPRISE. This time around, the script haphazardly omits characters like Hoshi, reducing her duty to a line of dialogue explaining that she translated some data, and Mayweather, who in his first appearance in weeks fills a decidedly “token” and useless role. Characterization tries to take place between Trip and T’Pol but instead Jolene Blalock returns to her deadpan performance pre-“Acquisition” and the character of T’Pol sucks the life out of every scene she joins. It is, however, a credit to the actress that she manages such a transformation from her notoriously un-Vulcan offscreen persona.
The action adventure quotient is also notably absent again, with a somewhat illogical progression that has Archer & co. thwarted by instantaneously-appearing holograms and then returning with the exact same strategy that amazingly works the second time. After the visual climax, the script spends several minutes in talking-heads fashion until Auberjonois is finally given the opportunity to embarrass Scott Bakula with a scene-stealing performance that has to leave you seriously considering whether Archer’s seat was being filled by a mannequin during filming.
In an episode that certainly doesn’t commit many, if any, overt wrongs, the thunderous presence of actor Rene Auberjonois brightens the screen minute by minute. This brilliant thespian plays a character who’s name he didn’t even know at near Shakespearean levels and invokes a surprisingly effective bit of pathos from an otherwise blandly penned individual with the most genuine of motives.
If the content must be the same then it may be time for the form to change. Innovation in visual style as well as storytelling can easily spruce up recycled plotlines, something proven by the STAR WARS trilogy or innumerous others. But from makeup more invested in the episode’s teaser and scoring utterly trying to avoid being heard, to costuming decisions that seem to involve little more than a trip to the spandex aisle on the way to work, the form hasn’t changed and the muted presentation acts like transparent wrapping paper that shamelessly reveals a really cheap gift.
The real fault of the episode is that it’s been done before, but is that really a flaw? We’re told that just about every story ever told was invented by the Greeks and after four series perhaps it is too much to ask for innovation and creativity week after week. We could go into the details of such a burnout and label specific individuals but maybe the real rub is that at least in its present form, many of us may simply have outgrown STAR TREK. At the risk of invoking a nerdism, like V’Ger, many of us have learned everything that is learnable and until an evolution opens up a new frontier of material we are left to answer the question ‘is there nothing more?’ with a resigned ‘apparently not’.
About the Authors
O. Deus has been a TrekWeb visitor since the site's 1996 inception. Along with being an ardent poster, he is a freelance journalist based in New York City. Deus has written reviews and columns for TrekWeb for over two years.
Steve Perry is not the former lead singer of Journey. He is, however, a long time fan of all Trek, yes, even Voyager. He is currently in law school and contributes reviews when his busy schedule permits.
TrekWeb Reviews
"The Catwalk"
"Precious Cargo"
"Vanishing Point"
"Singularity"
"The Communicator"
"The Seventh"
"Marauders"
"A Night In Sickbay"
"Dead Stop"
"Minefield"
"Carbon Creek"
"Shockwave, Part II"
Season One Re-cap (Deus)
"Shockwave" (Deus)
"Two Days and Two Nights"
"Fallen Hero" & "Desert Crossing" (Deus)
"Vox Sola" (Deus)
"Detained" (Deus)
"Oasis" (Krutzler)
"Acquisition" (Williams)
"Rogue Planet" (Deus)
"Fusion" (Deus)
"Shuttlepod One" (Deus)
"Shadows of P'Jem" (Deus)
"Sleeping Dogs" (Deus)
"Dear Doctor" (Deus)
STENTERPRISE.com Mission Logs
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TREKWEB TALKBACK
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How would you rate the latest ENT episode, THE CATWALK, on a scale from 1 (bad) to 10 (excellent) in comparison to the best and the worst episodes of all previous Star Trek episodes?
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