I bet the writers forgot that mindmelds were a thing rather than 'forbidden' (cos it seems fairly clear that T'Pol is not running her life by the books anymore)
I've seen this episode several times, and still get moved by the relationship between T'pol and Archer. Not only is it a loving tribute to caregivers, it's a sweet testament to the friendship, loyalty and dare I say a love that could have been
I never noticed before, but Memento Archer has a Vulcan haircut. No doubt this is a result of T'Pol cutting his hair for 12 years, but I like that little touch. i also like the fact that Archer doesn't return to the past with crucial knowledge about the future to avoid, since that always seems to happen. The only difference between success or failiure is who is in command of the Enterprise.
My favorite thing about this episode is how they show the bad guys doing what it always made sense for bad guys to do: take advantage of the Federation's inevitable design flaw of putting the bridge on the top of the ship instead of deep inside engineering, and pop it like a zit
It makes a degree of sense to have a *navigation* bridge up there, because having observation posts at extreme ends of the ship makes sense, but its role in a starship would be quite reduced from what it is on naval vessels. It would likely just be a "confirmation and reporting of automated observation" station, and there would be at least a few of them, because if you want to know about anything time critical happening, you don't want some lone sensor intercept officer working trough a queue. It'd be like a damn call center in there, depending on how far out you're looking, because you'd have to cut the observation arcs up smaller as you go, but also overlap them for a predetermined desired amount of redundancy, as with overlapping fields of fire.
I'm so glad you mentioned the transition from Earth's destruction to the theme song. It's one of my favorite moments in Trek and definitely a 10 out of 10 on the unintentional comedy scale.
I love that the screen grab you used as the thumbnail looks like it's straight out of quantum leap Like Sam leap into Jonathan Archer it's freaking great.
I remember watching this when it premiered. Being young and impressionable, it lives rent free on my head. The solution at the end is actually one of my favorite solutions to a time problem
This is one of those stories that could have benefited from being a 2 episode outing. I've always felt that it's story was rushed. One thing I'd say though is that T'Pol's dedication to Archer wasn't a personal thing (although it became one). When Archer was no longer capable of carrying out the mission the burden fell to her. She failed to complete the mission, she failed to defend earth and she failed to save humanity. I've always seen her care of him as T'Pol still trying to continue the mission. She's unable to let go and helping Archer is in some small way her trying to still save a small part of what's left. Her feelings towards him are more a by-product rather than the driving factor in her actions.
I absolutely agree, it should have been a 2 or 3 part. They could have spent more time like Steve said on the relationship and reactions to the circumstances. Sadly they had to fit some 8-10 minutes of commercial time in.
One thing that's interesting. Unlike most Hollywood Amnesia, this episode is actually a very accurate depiction of anterograde amnesia, which is something that can really happen.
The opening transition in this episode isn't even the most jarring this season in my opinion lol. The episode "North Star" opens with a lynching and immediately cuts to the new upbeat theme. There is another episode I forget the name of, it opens with someone getting hit with a flamethrower and of course cue the iconic theme lol. It's happened enough that I have to believe it's intentional or just a hell of an oversight.
The opening song of Enterprise is also earworm for some reason. And it's such a horrible song. Another reason why I did not watch much of the series. The last episode I remember watching was when Hoshi lost her shirt and running around the ship topless while they are in danger. I felt it was cheap fan service. If I wanted to see breasts, Internet porn was available back then.
Now I like to imagine an editor who had it with listening to that theme every time they cut together an episode, and this was their subtle way of expressing some resistance to that torture LOL
Despite having knocked the idea of episodes that reset and nothing that happened...happened. This one I quite like. Unlike Timeless, we do get insight into T'Pol, and some burried feelings, as well as the depth of her compassion, that clearly are a part of normal T'Pol, even if they are untapped. We also get to see the depth of the threat humanity faces, that the Xindi are not just going to be satisfied with blowing Earth up, so this episode does raise the season's stakes. On top of that, as others have commented, we get (a limited) look at and appreciation of the trials and impact on the mental health a carer has to go through.
I think this one works to, because it's more of a "what if" story, or even, "there but for the grace of God go I". It actually heightens the stakes of the xindi arc because it is telling you what could happen still. Unlike year of hell, which dumps the krenim immediately, the individual are still a threat
This one also seems to be raiding the first scenario in "Future Imperfect," where a lonely alien convinces Riker that it's 16 years later and he's forgotten all that time. It turns out it was all a simulation, but he spends most of the episode convinced that it's real.
The selection of the colony as being on Ceti Alpha V wasn't the only reference to Wrath of Khan. Soval mentions the Mutara Nebula as being where a human colony ship was destroyed, and the control system for the technobabble pulse at the end of the episode is very similar in design to the one for the Genesis Device. I remember the episode being advertised as a deliberate celebration of something, but I'm not sure if it was meant as a belated 20-year anniversary celebration of the Wrath of Khan, or just the 35 year anniversary of the end of TOS.
well my takeaway from the Ceti Alpha V reference was that it just meant that we knew that as bad as thing were for the last of humanity, they were going to get even more doubly F'd in a few years when Ceti Alpha VI blows up and renders V a wasteland. So yeah, the audience knows that as bad as things are in this timeline, it's gonna get worse.
Another thing I like about the ethical/moral implications of Twilight v. Timeless: Harry and Chakotay purposely take a number of decisions actively working to mess with the timeline while Phlox/Archer/T'Pol just do the same thing they were planning to do anyway, they just learn that it is going to have an unexpected and awesome side effect. The Xindi trying to kill everyone complicates this analysis somewhat, but it's also true that blowing up the ship would also have been a perfectly reasonable response to the Xindi take-over. If they hadn't known about the erasing-from-history effect of killing the brain worms, they might have done exactly the same things and gotten the same benefit. That's cool, and certainly a whole lot more defensible ethically and morally, even without the Earth getting all blowed up.
I’m surprised you didn’t include DS9’s “The Visitor” in this series. The future timeline presented is actually a fairly positive one and Jake’s motivation is entirely just so he has his father back. Also, I think you’ve said before rewatching it is awesome because the episode is fucking amazing.
@@deanthemachine8879 fair enough. He could just frame it as a time loop series of reviews - where he summarizes the same episode again, but every time slightly differently
This really highlights how changes to the timeline are morally neutral in and of themselves, regardless of what circumstances one might use to justify their actions. Any interaction with this naturally occurring organism has retrocausal effects on the timeline. The laws of physics are amoral, they can't be bad or good. In Trek, those laws mean that the timeline can be altered, and not just by individual entities taking individual actions. And since changing the timeline is just reshuffling the deck, neither causing harm or preventing it, it's morally neutral. If it wasn't, you could make an argument that anyone who learns to change the timeline has a duty to keep changing it until the ideal timeline is found, which is also logically impossible.
So I wonder how many people said "THIS IS CETI ALPHA V!" when watching this (I have not seen the episode). One might also compare this to The Visitor in DS9 where an accident creates a bad timeline and undoing the accident erases the bad timeline. The Visitor obviously knocks the execution out of the park by comparison.
to be fair to the writers, I don't think the Ceti Alpha V reference was only meant as an easter egg. We also know that this particular planet becomes quite an inhospitable place in the near future. This was basically a subtle way of telling us: yeah even if the Xindi don't find them, humanity would still be in for even more pretty bad times in this timeline.
My absolute favourite episode of Star Trek (not objectively the best episode, sure, but a personal standout from the early days of my Trek love), so I was intrigued to see what your take on it would be. Very fair comment on not showing enough of certain aspects - so I wonder if this would have worked better as a two-parter, so it could fit more of that stuff in. Then again, I think they do a pretty good job at hinting towards those things: TPol's glances at Archer, and also the reveal that humanity is down to around 6000 people when Archer walks outside. Also a big fan of how they ramp up the tension later on in the episode. Always loved the shot of the bridge being destroyed from outside
Here’s a comment to boost you cause your wit is awesome. Hope to run into you some where in MD to say hi. Still think you’re over analyzing all this, but you do you.
This episode was, I thought, a great reminder that Archer and T'pol had *way* better chemistry than Trip and T'pol. Not to say that *anyone* should have had a romantic relationship with T'pol (probably it would have been better if no one did), but at least Archer and T'pol felt more real than where the show actually went.
But the Voyager episode shows nothing changes. This episode shows us the true threat of the Xindi! It shows us the villian winning and how brutal they are. Also backward times wasn't the whole plan. It only comes up for the shows reset button, it wasn't the plan all along
I completely understand why you're not including any "new Trek" in this series (they are *Retro* Reviews, after all) but the Strange New Worlds episode "A Quality Of Mercy" would've fit in perfectly with this set. A great take on the alternate timeline trope, and one of the best episodes of probably the best new Trek series.
I think positioning the show on Archer let's us as the audience use our imagination just as he has too. This is a good episode for letting the audience imagine how bad things are instead of show it.
I have to push back a little regarding your comments as to the lack of showing what life was like for the 6000 remaining humans after earth was blown up and the ending where everything is suddenly back to normal, with only the audience knowing. It reminds me of the ending of yesterday‘s Enterprise where nobody knew that the timeline was altered/restored (except Guinan, of course) either, they just went on their merry way. Also, we never saw what life was like outside of the Enterprise during that alternate timeline of a war. We only base it off of what Picard said to Captain Garrett, that they are going to have to surrender soon.There’s only so much they can squeeze into an episode, but overall, I thought the writing on this one was pretty good.
Yeah, The T'Pol/Archer relationship could give the episode the emotional core it's missing. The decision is between saving their relationship and saving humanity. That episode is focused on their life, kids, friends, etc. But the plot doesn't allow for it. Given Archer's memory problem, the relationship can only be one-sided, so there's no relationship to lose. A reset would give them more of a chance for a relationship. This is an action plot. The key is in achieving a _Mission: Impossible_ timeline reset. But it's a typical VOY/ENT action set-piece, and we can envision the ending before it happens.
I think another aspect, that is not directly stated in this episode, is just how important one single person can be to both the short term and and long term. The here and now as well as the grand scheme. The loss of archer being able to function normally, single-handedly changes the course of humanity. Considering that change was prosperity of the future federation vs human extinction (and the time traveling future beings taking over later), its a pretty big difference. Considering how many, if not most, ppl these days will utter that phrase 'im only one person' at some point in there life, its an interesting reminder how much difference one person can make. A second example would be Dr. Phlox. He dedicated 12 years of his life to trying to help this one single person. And his work can also be a main credit as to why humanity can avoid extinction. Without his work, humanity is gone. - Considering how many episodes of star trek in general are about the team effort, and rightfully so, for them to change it up in a way to truly emphasize the importance of one individual is worth noting; also the fact that they did that without ever directly stating it.
Not a big fan of the opening theme, but it did align with poignant charm at the moment in the montage when Alan Shepard gives that little toss of his head. With the “exciting” new theme, that moment is no more.
Between this and A Night in Sickbay, Archer and T'Pol clearly need Phlox around to discover they have feelings for each other. Kinda fitting for a man with 3 wives.
T'pol is in love with Archer because Archer is the main character, and T'pol is the female character, and in Rick Berman's mind, that's called _chemistry._
13:46 Daniels also implicitly tells Archer that humanity was an important part of history, defeating the Sphere Builders, so at least it isn't just a Voyager-Esque "consequences are for other people, not for me" sort of story.
Something tragic happens, we fast forward through the timeline to arrive at a point when the protagonists change the past to change the future/present the are living in - and again DS9 created the gold standard when it comes to well told drama in this subsection of stories with "The Visitor".
I see what you mean by the desperate situation of Humanity doesn't come through. I kind of felt that the colony on Ceti Alpha 5 seemed more like an upscale retirement community in Arizona with eco-friendly architecture. It would seem the last humans would want to stay out of sight, subterranean or something like that.
Reminds me of the movie reviews in a particularly crunchy granola local newspaper in Berkeley CA. After consulting their reviews for a couple of years, I figured out that if this newspaper panned it, I would likely enjoy it. The review was useful to me, just not in the way they had intended. 😂 So now you know that if Steve hates it, you’ll probably like it. It would also give you insight into which reviews of Steve’s you might want to skip. 😅
Twilight & Timeless are longtime favourites. I wouldn't expect T'pol to show any emotions publicly, and Archer expresses enough for the both of them. The Zindi's destruction was at least a lot more vivid than that of the vogons!😅
Steve, have you thought about contrasting the season long story telling kf modern trek to entreprise season 3? Lots of people disliked Entreprise in general. But season 3, in my memory, really delivered on the premise of the season and on telling a story across a season.
I like how you tell your opening joke, then do the intro, and then another opening joke. I guess you can never decide so you stopped limiting yourself to one.
Now that I think of it, the reference to Seti Alpha V is certainly fan service, but also adds a little more dramatic irony for those who know what happens to that planet. This colony is doomed regardless. However, if this is the intent of its inclusion, that could have been better called out by the story.
You should do more of these because selfishly I have watch the Enterprise but I only watched it once. I never went back and watched it again even though I meant to because I didn't think it was that great. But there are some really interesting things about Enterprise that I actually liked and I hated that the very last episode kind of turned me off from Enterprise and made me really really pissed off about it. But I'm glad you do these because it makes me want to go back and watch it from the beginning which I definitely intend to do. Thank you for this. Thank you for giving us information about Enterprise and it was not as bad as a lot of people thought and the actual theme song. I totally love and I realize I am in the minority but I love it!!
The obvious fatal flaw in this episode is, of course, that Phlox should not have noticed that the destroyed parasites no longer showed up in his previous scans. They would never have shown up in those scans to begin with, and everyone's memories would have been correspondingly altered to fit their "never have existed" status.
Enterprise blows up, starting with the part not by the Nacelles, and archer wakes up. Seriously what is with the last part of the self destructing ship to go always the one full of antimatter? Must has some insane safety features, even when you're trying to blow it up.
In fairness to the Ceti Alpha V reference, it actually kinda works subtextually since we veteran fans know that planet is going to be doomed in a century - meaning that no matter what, humanity is fucked in this timeline.
Just from this summary, it seems to me that this could've been a terrific [in the oldest sense of the word] horror episode. Being unable to form new memories is pretty much the closest someone can get to a time loop. Nightmarish, yet so many stories don't examine the implications, or, worse, frame it as romantic [50 First Dates is an unintentional horror movie and I will steadfastly stand on that hill].
The reason they keep doing the same themed episodes is that the creators have themselves caught the brain worms and are not able to form long term memories, so thusly keep making the best episode that no one has ever seen before!
Hey, I got here early! This video is very promising, and Enterprise seems to be vindicated lately, which it richly deserves. (only, delete Cogenitor, can't even think of it without crying).
I haven't watched the episode so maybe this is explained, but it seems like eventually (without intervention) the worms would die from *something* and thus prevent their own existence, no?
Well, either I need to turn in my combadge and phaser, or I'm just old and tired...I damn near questioned how Ceti Alpha V could be a barren wasteland a century later in Wrath of Khan.
The only thing I was always curious about is that they erased the first set of worms from history and still remember them being there. Was that just an oversight in the writing or was it intentional?
Thinking about it, if the worms dying now kills them in the past, wouldn't they have died when Archer dies, whether because the ship is blown up or just from old age, removing the timeline anyway?
It's maybe understandable why this ep didn't go deep into Archer's life with daily amnesia like Steve would have liked to see (aside from it not being inportant to the main plot, that is). Steve likens Archer's amnesia to Memento, but it remonds me of 50 First Dates more. And that movie DID go deep into tge victim's experiece of life with that condition, so much so that any other contenporary attenpt to do the same would just seem a copy.
Do you think this would've worked better as a two-parter, giving enough time to build the milieu? This may be why I find the _Voyager_ episode "Timeless" more emotionally impactful: You very much _do_ see the loss and the grief front-and-centre in that episode. I'm also not too persuaded that the question of who had the better excuse for violating the Temporal Prime Directive has any bearing on which is the better episode. The motivations are perfectly understandable in both episodes, and I've never found unwavering adherence to moral rectitude to be a particularly emotionally engaging quality in a fictional character.
Steve, so you think this episode and even the voyager timeless episode would have been better as 2 partners? Maybe they would have had a chance to build out the story arcs a bit more?
No. I just think they should have used the hour they had better than they did. For me, the solution to a bad episode/movie is almost never to make it longer.
What? No Beneath the Planet of the Apes reference for Archer's final Charlton Heston pull of the levers??? "For this is all a dream we dreamed \ One afternoon long ago" ...
Bad news: a strange space blob has left you with space worms, and you can't form new memories. Good news: You're now now a key member of the government!
When when I watched this episode as a kid I did wonder if the parasites belonged existed how did he know they'd disappeared from old scans as they never existed
Life goes by fast. One moment you've just been infected with brain worms, and the next you wake up to find you've been nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
Of course! They got their prisoners nice little homes, and then even acquainted them with their new pets: cute little eels native to this nice planet! Rumor has it - if that colony and its timeline would still exist to have rumors - that they got so attached to their eel pets, they couldn't get them out of their heads again!
"How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth?" Blasphemy! Steve. Blasphemy! It's "Redemption part I"... I mean they had a big ceremony on the TNG bridge with everyone including Gene Roddenberry himself....they had a cake and everything... *pouts*
If mind melds weren't taboo during that time period, T'pol cold have saved hundreds of hours explaining things to Archer every morning.
She could have saved even more time by just recording a video
I bet the writers forgot that mindmelds were a thing rather than 'forbidden' (cos it seems fairly clear that T'Pol is not running her life by the books anymore)
@@erf3176 unfortunately that would probably leave him too capable for the plot, but it would be a funny explanation for why she's in love with him.
"As far as I can tell, this is a typical human marriage." 🤣🤣🤣 So true, Steve, so true.
I've seen this episode several times, and still get moved by the relationship between T'pol and Archer. Not only is it a loving tribute to caregivers, it's a sweet testament to the friendship, loyalty and dare I say a love that could have been
I never noticed before, but Memento Archer has a Vulcan haircut. No doubt this is a result of T'Pol cutting his hair for 12 years, but I like that little touch. i also like the fact that Archer doesn't return to the past with crucial knowledge about the future to avoid, since that always seems to happen. The only difference between success or failiure is who is in command of the Enterprise.
Real world fact….one of the hairpieces for Gary’s Soval is what the alternate future Archer has on
LMAO…deworming Archer
My favorite thing about this episode is how they show the bad guys doing what it always made sense for bad guys to do: take advantage of the Federation's inevitable design flaw of putting the bridge on the top of the ship instead of deep inside engineering, and pop it like a zit
It makes a degree of sense to have a *navigation* bridge up there, because having observation posts at extreme ends of the ship makes sense, but its role in a starship would be quite reduced from what it is on naval vessels. It would likely just be a "confirmation and reporting of automated observation" station, and there would be at least a few of them, because if you want to know about anything time critical happening, you don't want some lone sensor intercept officer working trough a queue. It'd be like a damn call center in there, depending on how far out you're looking, because you'd have to cut the observation arcs up smaller as you go, but also overlap them for a predetermined desired amount of redundancy, as with overlapping fields of fire.
I'm so glad you mentioned the transition from Earth's destruction to the theme song. It's one of my favorite moments in Trek and definitely a 10 out of 10 on the unintentional comedy scale.
It almost compensates for the song itself.
I love that the screen grab you used as the thumbnail looks like it's straight out of quantum leap
Like Sam leap into Jonathan Archer it's freaking great.
"Oh, boy..."
Ziggy says odds are 78% chance that’s correct.
I remember watching this when it premiered. Being young and impressionable, it lives rent free on my head. The solution at the end is actually one of my favorite solutions to a time problem
Really? I always found it to be the laziest way. Much like "Year of Hell" it just undoes everything and no one remembers. It's like what is the point?
@SupremeFenix274 In my defense I was seven, but I still think the worms being separate from time is neat
@@SupremeFenix274 Have I got some bad news for you about life....
This is one of those stories that could have benefited from being a 2 episode outing. I've always felt that it's story was rushed. One thing I'd say though is that T'Pol's dedication to Archer wasn't a personal thing (although it became one). When Archer was no longer capable of carrying out the mission the burden fell to her. She failed to complete the mission, she failed to defend earth and she failed to save humanity. I've always seen her care of him as T'Pol still trying to continue the mission. She's unable to let go and helping Archer is in some small way her trying to still save a small part of what's left. Her feelings towards him are more a by-product rather than the driving factor in her actions.
I absolutely agree, it should have been a 2 or 3 part. They could have spent more time like Steve said on the relationship and reactions to the circumstances. Sadly they had to fit some 8-10 minutes of commercial time in.
1:54 Producer Guy voice: Aw, sudden jarring shifts in tone are tight!
Making Ryan George references is Super Easy, Barely an Inconvenience!
Ewww, hijackingotheryoutubers'commentssectiontomakeinsidejokes is tight!
One thing that's interesting. Unlike most Hollywood Amnesia, this episode is actually a very accurate depiction of anterograde amnesia, which is something that can really happen.
Same thing in 50 First Dates, I believe. Always loved that movie.
The opening transition in this episode isn't even the most jarring this season in my opinion lol. The episode "North Star" opens with a lynching and immediately cuts to the new upbeat theme. There is another episode I forget the name of, it opens with someone getting hit with a flamethrower and of course cue the iconic theme lol. It's happened enough that I have to believe it's intentional or just a hell of an oversight.
The opening song of Enterprise is also earworm for some reason. And it's such a horrible song. Another reason why I did not watch much of the series. The last episode I remember watching was when Hoshi lost her shirt and running around the ship topless while they are in danger.
I felt it was cheap fan service. If I wanted to see breasts, Internet porn was available back then.
Now I like to imagine an editor who had it with listening to that theme every time they cut together an episode, and this was their subtle way of expressing some resistance to that torture LOL
Despite having knocked the idea of episodes that reset and nothing that happened...happened. This one I quite like. Unlike Timeless, we do get insight into T'Pol, and some burried feelings, as well as the depth of her compassion, that clearly are a part of normal T'Pol, even if they are untapped. We also get to see the depth of the threat humanity faces, that the Xindi are not just going to be satisfied with blowing Earth up, so this episode does raise the season's stakes. On top of that, as others have commented, we get (a limited) look at and appreciation of the trials and impact on the mental health a carer has to go through.
For all the shit ENT gets, it didnt use the reset button very much
I think this one works to, because it's more of a "what if" story, or even, "there but for the grace of God go I". It actually heightens the stakes of the xindi arc because it is telling you what could happen still. Unlike year of hell, which dumps the krenim immediately, the individual are still a threat
This one also seems to be raiding the first scenario in "Future Imperfect," where a lonely alien convinces Riker that it's 16 years later and he's forgotten all that time. It turns out it was all a simulation, but he spends most of the episode convinced that it's real.
Yes! Thank goodness it's not just me who felt more reminded of that one than of "Timeless"...
I loved this episode….you knew everything was doomed to fail, especially once you learned where they were
The selection of the colony as being on Ceti Alpha V wasn't the only reference to Wrath of Khan. Soval mentions the Mutara Nebula as being where a human colony ship was destroyed, and the control system for the technobabble pulse at the end of the episode is very similar in design to the one for the Genesis Device. I remember the episode being advertised as a deliberate celebration of something, but I'm not sure if it was meant as a belated 20-year anniversary celebration of the Wrath of Khan, or just the 35 year anniversary of the end of TOS.
well my takeaway from the Ceti Alpha V reference was that it just meant that we knew that as bad as thing were for the last of humanity, they were going to get even more doubly F'd in a few years when Ceti Alpha VI blows up and renders V a wasteland. So yeah, the audience knows that as bad as things are in this timeline, it's gonna get worse.
Another thing I like about the ethical/moral implications of Twilight v. Timeless: Harry and Chakotay purposely take a number of decisions actively working to mess with the timeline while Phlox/Archer/T'Pol just do the same thing they were planning to do anyway, they just learn that it is going to have an unexpected and awesome side effect. The Xindi trying to kill everyone complicates this analysis somewhat, but it's also true that blowing up the ship would also have been a perfectly reasonable response to the Xindi take-over. If they hadn't known about the erasing-from-history effect of killing the brain worms, they might have done exactly the same things and gotten the same benefit. That's cool, and certainly a whole lot more defensible ethically and morally, even without the Earth getting all blowed up.
I’m surprised you didn’t include DS9’s “The Visitor” in this series. The future timeline presented is actually a fairly positive one and Jake’s motivation is entirely just so he has his father back. Also, I think you’ve said before rewatching it is awesome because the episode is fucking amazing.
he already did a retro review on "the visitor" a year ago or so, in his favorite episodes series.
@ I know, but it’s such a good episode, who could blame him from watching and reviewing it again 🤷🏻♂️
@@deanthemachine8879 fair enough. He could just frame it as a time loop series of reviews - where he summarizes the same episode again, but every time slightly differently
@@Hugh_I hahaha. Very meta! 😂
Ah damn. The moment you mentioned brain worms I thought of RFK Jr and it completely ruined my day.
Thanks Trump.
But doesn’t TNG’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise“ have the same weaknesses? Yet you (justifiably) love that one. Why so critical here?
Funny and sad those brain worms are probably going to end humanity as we know it.
😂😂😂
(God, i hate that for us)
...Guys, I just had a crazy idea about how to fix this timeline.
Thanks!
I have always liked this episode for what it is, partly because it was nice to see T'Pol with long hair rather than the usual Vulcan bowl cut.
This really highlights how changes to the timeline are morally neutral in and of themselves, regardless of what circumstances one might use to justify their actions. Any interaction with this naturally occurring organism has retrocausal effects on the timeline. The laws of physics are amoral, they can't be bad or good. In Trek, those laws mean that the timeline can be altered, and not just by individual entities taking individual actions. And since changing the timeline is just reshuffling the deck, neither causing harm or preventing it, it's morally neutral. If it wasn't, you could make an argument that anyone who learns to change the timeline has a duty to keep changing it until the ideal timeline is found, which is also logically impossible.
So I wonder how many people said "THIS IS CETI ALPHA V!" when watching this (I have not seen the episode).
One might also compare this to The Visitor in DS9 where an accident creates a bad timeline and undoing the accident erases the bad timeline. The Visitor obviously knocks the execution out of the park by comparison.
to be fair to the writers, I don't think the Ceti Alpha V reference was only meant as an easter egg. We also know that this particular planet becomes quite an inhospitable place in the near future. This was basically a subtle way of telling us: yeah even if the Xindi don't find them, humanity would still be in for even more pretty bad times in this timeline.
@@Hugh_Iright. Humanity is borked either way, providing more impetus to try the crazy thing.
My absolute favourite episode of Star Trek (not objectively the best episode, sure, but a personal standout from the early days of my Trek love), so I was intrigued to see what your take on it would be.
Very fair comment on not showing enough of certain aspects - so I wonder if this would have worked better as a two-parter, so it could fit more of that stuff in.
Then again, I think they do a pretty good job at hinting towards those things: TPol's glances at Archer, and also the reveal that humanity is down to around 6000 people when Archer walks outside.
Also a big fan of how they ramp up the tension later on in the episode. Always loved the shot of the bridge being destroyed from outside
"They look like they're having fun": also the reason Paramount didn't cancel the production of Carpenter Street
"Enterprise" is now retro? Wow, suddenly being old school seems a lot older.
As this was the only classic Trek i was old enough to follow along with in first run, i dont like this 😢
Here’s a comment to boost you cause your wit is awesome. Hope to run into you some where in MD to say hi. Still think you’re over analyzing all this, but you do you.
This episode was, I thought, a great reminder that Archer and T'pol had *way* better chemistry than Trip and T'pol.
Not to say that *anyone* should have had a romantic relationship with T'pol (probably it would have been better if no one did), but at least Archer and T'pol felt more real than where the show actually went.
1. "Earth go boom" is one of Steve's best lines.
2. I think the hypothetical "sparkly vampire" episode should be called "50 First Dates".
But the Voyager episode shows nothing changes. This episode shows us the true threat of the Xindi! It shows us the villian winning and how brutal they are.
Also backward times wasn't the whole plan. It only comes up for the shows reset button, it wasn't the plan all along
"These are my thoughts on Twilight" are not words I ever expected to hear from Steve
I completely understand why you're not including any "new Trek" in this series (they are *Retro* Reviews, after all) but the Strange New Worlds episode "A Quality Of Mercy" would've fit in perfectly with this set. A great take on the alternate timeline trope, and one of the best episodes of probably the best new Trek series.
I think positioning the show on Archer let's us as the audience use our imagination just as he has too. This is a good episode for letting the audience imagine how bad things are instead of show it.
I have to push back a little regarding your comments as to the lack of showing what life was like for the 6000 remaining humans after earth was blown up and the ending where everything is suddenly back to normal, with only the audience knowing.
It reminds me of the ending of yesterday‘s Enterprise where nobody knew that the timeline was altered/restored (except Guinan, of course) either, they just went on their merry way. Also, we never saw what life was like outside of the Enterprise during that alternate timeline of a war. We only base it off of what Picard said to Captain Garrett, that they are going to have to surrender soon.There’s only so much they can squeeze into an episode, but overall, I thought the writing on this one was pretty good.
Yeah, The T'Pol/Archer relationship could give the episode the emotional core it's missing. The decision is between saving their relationship and saving humanity. That episode is focused on their life, kids, friends, etc. But the plot doesn't allow for it. Given Archer's memory problem, the relationship can only be one-sided, so there's no relationship to lose. A reset would give them more of a chance for a relationship. This is an action plot. The key is in achieving a _Mission: Impossible_ timeline reset. But it's a typical VOY/ENT action set-piece, and we can envision the ending before it happens.
I think another aspect, that is not directly stated in this episode, is just how important one single person can be to both the short term and and long term. The here and now as well as the grand scheme. The loss of archer being able to function normally, single-handedly changes the course of humanity. Considering that change was prosperity of the future federation vs human extinction (and the time traveling future beings taking over later), its a pretty big difference. Considering how many, if not most, ppl these days will utter that phrase 'im only one person' at some point in there life, its an interesting reminder how much difference one person can make. A second example would be Dr. Phlox. He dedicated 12 years of his life to trying to help this one single person. And his work can also be a main credit as to why humanity can avoid extinction. Without his work, humanity is gone. - Considering how many episodes of star trek in general are about the team effort, and rightfully so, for them to change it up in a way to truly emphasize the importance of one individual is worth noting; also the fact that they did that without ever directly stating it.
Not a big fan of the opening theme, but it did align with poignant charm at the moment in the montage when Alan Shepard gives that little toss of his head. With the “exciting” new theme, that moment is no more.
Yeah, I was so sad when they changed the theme. I actually liked the original, a lot.
If I did a list of a dozen outstanding ENT episodes, this would definitely be on it.
your trek content is nice thanks for keeping it going
Opening scene to opening credits is perfect
Between this and A Night in Sickbay, Archer and T'Pol clearly need Phlox around to discover they have feelings for each other. Kinda fitting for a man with 3 wives.
The still you picked had the thumbnail had Quantim Leap "Oh boy" vibes
T'pol is in love with Archer because Archer is the main character, and T'pol is the female character, and in Rick Berman's mind, that's called _chemistry._
Hadn’t they already hooked her up with Trip at this point?
Damn you Steve, i nearly had my breakfast flying across the monitor because of that Reed joke. 😂
13:46
Daniels also implicitly tells Archer that humanity was an important part of history, defeating the Sphere Builders, so at least it isn't just a Voyager-Esque "consequences are for other people, not for me" sort of story.
Something tragic happens, we fast forward through the timeline to arrive at a point when the protagonists change the past to change the future/present the are living in - and again DS9 created the gold standard when it comes to well told drama in this subsection of stories with "The Visitor".
I see what you mean by the desperate situation of Humanity doesn't come through. I kind of felt that the colony on Ceti Alpha 5 seemed more like an upscale retirement community in Arizona with eco-friendly architecture. It would seem the last humans would want to stay out of sight, subterranean or something like that.
If SNW made an episode about Pike falling in love with a sparkly vampire I’d watch the heck out of it.
This was one of my favourite episodes of Enterprise, so it's no surprise that you had criticisms of it. I believe I'm seeing a pattern here.
Reminds me of the movie reviews in a particularly crunchy granola local newspaper in Berkeley CA. After consulting their reviews for a couple of years, I figured out that if this newspaper panned it, I would likely enjoy it. The review was useful to me, just not in the way they had intended. 😂
So now you know that if Steve hates it, you’ll probably like it. It would also give you insight into which reviews of Steve’s you might want to skip. 😅
You could also say that the Enterprise episode Sim is a rewrite of the Voyager episode Tuvix but with much better ethics.
Twilight & Timeless are longtime favourites. I wouldn't expect T'pol to show any emotions publicly, and Archer expresses enough for the both of them. The Zindi's destruction was at least a lot more vivid than that of the vogons!😅
Steve, have you thought about contrasting the season long story telling kf modern trek to entreprise season 3?
Lots of people disliked Entreprise in general. But season 3, in my memory, really delivered on the premise of the season and on telling a story across a season.
I like how you tell your opening joke, then do the intro, and then another opening joke. I guess you can never decide so you stopped limiting yourself to one.
Now that I think of it, the reference to Seti Alpha V is certainly fan service, but also adds a little more dramatic irony for those who know what happens to that planet. This colony is doomed regardless. However, if this is the intent of its inclusion, that could have been better called out by the story.
I feel like this episode should've been a two parter. That would've given the story time to explore the dynamics it tried to present.
You should do more of these because selfishly I have watch the Enterprise but I only watched it once. I never went back and watched it again even though I meant to because I didn't think it was that great. But there are some really interesting things about Enterprise that I actually liked and I hated that the very last episode kind of turned me off from Enterprise and made me really really pissed off about it. But I'm glad you do these because it makes me want to go back and watch it from the beginning which I definitely intend to do. Thank you for this. Thank you for giving us information about Enterprise and it was not as bad as a lot of people thought and the actual theme song. I totally love and I realize I am in the minority but I love it!!
Sorry Steve, if you wanted a space vampire, you'd have to watch the Buck Rodgers episode 'Space Vampire'. It was called a Vorvon, though.
There's a chronological fan edit of _Memento_ which is kind of mind-blowing to watch.
“THIS is SETI Alpha five!!!”
I just always wish that before they went to the opening they would have cut to Archer and he says, “Oh boy.”
This ends with the same handwave as "Year of Hell". Hmm, Steve?
Ah yes, Star Trek: Ear, Nose and Throat. A classic.
I imagine there’s an alternate timeline where Star Trek writers didn’t write any alternate timeline episodes.
I think I read somewhere that the battlestar galactica pilot script was going around and this episode is partially inspired by it.
The obvious fatal flaw in this episode is, of course, that Phlox should not have noticed that the destroyed parasites no longer showed up in his previous scans. They would never have shown up in those scans to begin with, and everyone's memories would have been correspondingly altered to fit their "never have existed" status.
Enterprise blows up, starting with the part not by the Nacelles, and archer wakes up.
Seriously what is with the last part of the self destructing ship to go always the one full of antimatter? Must has some insane safety features, even when you're trying to blow it up.
I didn't watch the "Timeless" review first. I'll watch it now, and see if it has the effect of going back in time and watching it first.
In fairness to the Ceti Alpha V reference, it actually kinda works subtextually since we veteran fans know that planet is going to be doomed in a century - meaning that no matter what, humanity is fucked in this timeline.
Just from this summary, it seems to me that this could've been a terrific [in the oldest sense of the word] horror episode. Being unable to form new memories is pretty much the closest someone can get to a time loop. Nightmarish, yet so many stories don't examine the implications, or, worse, frame it as romantic [50 First Dates is an unintentional horror movie and I will steadfastly stand on that hill].
The reason they keep doing the same themed episodes is that the creators have themselves caught the brain worms and are not able to form long term memories, so thusly keep making the best episode that no one has ever seen before!
The wild thing is, allegedly the destruction of Earth was done by the VFX team on a whim and the rest of the episode was spawned from there 😂
OMG I got an ad by the real Paul Stamets on this video
This one's very Yesterday's Enterprise, which I didn't realise until I watched this.
Hey, I got here early! This video is very promising, and Enterprise seems to be vindicated lately, which it richly deserves.
(only, delete Cogenitor, can't even think of it without crying).
I think we got a shot of a ragtag fleet and just assumed everybody had seen BSG.
"it was all a dream" kind of closure
I after with you, Steve. There is enough going on here that it could/should have been a 2 parter.
I haven't watched the episode so maybe this is explained, but it seems like eventually (without intervention) the worms would die from *something* and thus prevent their own existence, no?
Would the story work better as maybe a two part episode?
Well, either I need to turn in my combadge and phaser, or I'm just old and tired...I damn near questioned how Ceti Alpha V could be a barren wasteland a century later in Wrath of Khan.
The only thing I was always curious about is that they erased the first set of worms from history and still remember them being there. Was that just an oversight in the writing or was it intentional?
No boom Today.
Boom tomorrow, there's always a boom tomorrow.
I wish Steve'd do more Babylon 5 stuff. It's soo much better than DS9.
:P Shots fired
I’ve never liked the whole Xindi arc, but this was a good episode.
It would have been a great two part episode
Thinking about it, if the worms dying now kills them in the past, wouldn't they have died when Archer dies, whether because the ship is blown up or just from old age, removing the timeline anyway?
It's maybe understandable why this ep didn't go deep into Archer's life with daily amnesia like Steve would have liked to see (aside from it not being inportant to the main plot, that is). Steve likens Archer's amnesia to Memento, but it remonds me of 50 First Dates more. And that movie DID go deep into tge victim's experiece of life with that condition, so much so that any other contenporary attenpt to do the same would just seem a copy.
Do you think this would've worked better as a two-parter, giving enough time to build the milieu?
This may be why I find the _Voyager_ episode "Timeless" more emotionally impactful: You very much _do_ see the loss and the grief front-and-centre in that episode. I'm also not too persuaded that the question of who had the better excuse for violating the Temporal Prime Directive has any bearing on which is the better episode. The motivations are perfectly understandable in both episodes, and I've never found unwavering adherence to moral rectitude to be a particularly emotionally engaging quality in a fictional character.
"After Earth was destroyed, humans settled on the planet Ceti Alpha V where we knew everyone would be safe all the time forever."
Steve, so you think this episode and even the voyager timeless episode would have been better as 2 partners? Maybe they would have had a chance to build out the story arcs a bit more?
No. I just think they should have used the hour they had better than they did. For me, the solution to a bad episode/movie is almost never to make it longer.
Oh yeah, 'that' theme song. Every time a season 3 episode started, I just knew it was Berman thumbing his nose at the fans... ;)
Could we get Phlox to treat RFK, Jr.?
What? No Beneath the Planet of the Apes reference for Archer's final Charlton Heston pull of the levers??? "For this is all a dream we dreamed \ One afternoon long ago" ...
The next moment, you find out you have your FIL's heart.
Bad news:
a strange space blob has left you with space worms, and you can't form new memories.
Good news:
You're now now a key member of the government!
When when I watched this episode as a kid I did wonder if the parasites belonged existed how did he know they'd disappeared from old scans as they never existed
Life goes by fast. One moment you've just been infected with brain worms, and the next you wake up to find you've been nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
I submit this idea for an Enterprise based RomCom, titled... No Time for Hoshi"
If the xindi hadn't found the last surviving humans in that time line, what would have happened when ceti alpha 6 exploded?🤔😳
No mention of the Xindi prisoners they took... did they get their own houses in Ceti Alpha 5?
Of course! They got their prisoners nice little homes, and then even acquainted them with their new pets: cute little eels native to this nice planet! Rumor has it - if that colony and its timeline would still exist to have rumors - that they got so attached to their eel pets, they couldn't get them out of their heads again!
"How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth?" Blasphemy! Steve. Blasphemy! It's "Redemption part I"... I mean they had a big ceremony on the TNG bridge with everyone including Gene Roddenberry himself....they had a cake and everything... *pouts*