I watch too much TV

It's true. I'll start on Enterprise, because I've been watching a lot of it since being back at uni.

I had watched them all in order up until episode 17 of season 2, starting sometime when I was in Boston. It had some great episodes, that really set up future Star Trek, but it wasn't easy to watch. I mean that in the sense that watching one episode doesn't really inspire you to watch the next 10, and with most other Star Trek, I can easily end up watching 10 episodes accidentally. I've been known to do a season of DS9 in 3-4 days. Enterprise has a lot of random adventure episodes, as me and my sister usually call them, and not so many story arc episodes. I know this is how Star Trek usually works, with the exception of DS9, but when you've already seen all the other Star Trek series doing the same thing, it's not so exciting. When I got to episode 17, I decided to start skipping some episodes to get to some I expected to be better. Relying on the Wikipedia episode guide, as I do with everything, of course. Doing that, I came across some really fantastic episodes. "Judgement", the one with the Klingon trial, was great. It really felt like it was a similar trial to that in Undiscovered Country, only over 100 years earlier. They did escape a bit easily from Rura Penthe, for saying Archer was supposed to be the first person to ever do that, but I can forgive that because it was a great episode. One thing I really didn't like though, was the reusing of an actor who'd had a main part in another Star Trek. I know bit part actors are reused, and you'll find some people who had random alien parts before getting a main role, but seeing JG Hertzler playing another Klingon? I thought he was great in that role, but I still don't like it.

Another great episode I discovered was "Regeneration". Yes, that one I wanted to thoroughly hate. Everyone knows that Starfleet didn't encounter the Borg until TNG! However, it wasn't badly done at all. Enterprise didn't find out too much about the Borg, so it's not like they could have been prepared by TNG. The Borg did manage to send a message home, but it would take over 200 years. That's how long it took before they started entering the Alpha Quadrant in TNG, so it does fit together. The one thing that doesn't make sense is that in TNG, they acted like they'd never encountered them at all before. Did no one read Archer's logs?

On to season 3. I loved the ending to season 2. 7 million deaths on Earth is definitely something to stir things up. However, I'm not sure what I think of season 3. The theme song, which I initially hated since Star Trek doesn't have theme songs but have now grown to like, is a lot more poppy. Don't like. The characters are noticeably darker at times. Trip calls the Xindi "bastards" and I didn't like that. Bastards don't belong in Star Trek, especially not with Trip. Archer stuck someone in an airlock and nearly killed them. I don't like an otherwise good captain resorting to torture. And then there's T'Pol. The earlier stories with her mind melding and Panaar syndrome and then her warming to the humans were all pretty good. Now, it's almost like they got bored of having an emotionless Vulcan, and they keep finding ways for her to have emotions. The episode with the Pon Far was pretty ridiculous, and mostly just an excuse to have her running about half naked throwing herself at men. It's like they've decide to make it sexier, realised they have two attractive female characters, Hoshi is boring, so let's try and get T'Pol naked as often as possible. Don't like.

I'm only 5 into season 3, but the story seems good. This one is more of a continuous story arc. The only thing I don't like about that is that it seems like an obvious attempt to rescue the show. I enjoyed seasons 1 and 2, but understand why they might not have done so well. Changing so much to save it...don't like. The Xindi story is an interesting one though, so hopefully it will get better. One thing I don't like is all this time travel stuff. Changing events in the past DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. Once it's changed, you don't know to go back and get it changed, so it doesn't get changed etc etc. I didn't like how they ended Voyager with something like that, and while the odd time travelling episode is a bit of fun, whole story arcs based on it isn't good. Oh well, it has seasons 3 and 4 to convince me.

Wow, I've written a lot on Enterprise. The other thing I've been watching is Farscape. I really like it, but I think the lack of a continuous story is what's stopping me from watching more of it. It's great though, because it's so different from any of the other sci-fi shows I watch.

Only two more shows to talk about now, have patience. Next is Atlantis. Atlantis has been a bit weird the last couple of weeks. 2 episodes where most of the cast weren't a part of it. Last week only Sheppard and McKay were featured. This week, although others had minor appearances at the beginning, it was all Sheppard and Ronan. I hope this second half of season 4 starts focussing more on the Atlantis base, or at least the Atlantis crew, in the next few episodes. Those last 2 were still great episodes though. Interesting to see Bates back working for the IOA. It's still my favourite thing currently showing on TV.

Finally, Lost is back! Yep, the beginning of season 4 was definitely exciting. Oceanic 6? So only 6 survived? Or at least escaped, seeing as future Jack and Hurley seem to know something about the others. Both of them, at different times, have no said they should go back. This season will be awesome.

Haha, massive TV essay. The thing is, seeing as the only things I have a lot of and haven't seen before are Enterprise and Farscape, I could do with something else. I'm not inspired to watch loads of either of those in a row. It's almost tempting to get the DS9 out again, but then I did that first half of last year. SG1...again too recent. Oh well, I'll probably stick to what I've got for now.


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