Enterprise: Kir'Shara
As the final installment of the Vulcan arc wound down, I found myself wishing that perhaps they could carry on this plotline for another episode or two. As great as this arc was, I have to admit the final fifteen or so minutes felt a bit rushed, but looking back at the episode as a whole, there wasn't anything that came before it that I felt like you could cut or abbreviate. The only thing I can think of is that maybe they should have introduced the entire plotline of Vulcan gearing up to go to war with Andoria more in the second leg of the trilogy rather than just having the Vulcan high command attempting to destroy the Syranites.
This episode demonstrated the strength of
Enterprise this year. It's returned to being stories that could only be told in the Star Trek universe. It's bringing up continuity, it's doing it well and it's tying together a lot of things from the TOS era. In short, it's living up to it's promise. It's almost as if Manny Coto has said, "If we get cancelled, we get cancelled, but I'm not going to let fear of failure keep us from telling the stories we need to tell." And I love it. I find myself actually looking forward to Trek again, in a way I haven't really since DS9's final season. And I think part of that is the supporting cast
Enterprise is building. You've got Shran, Soval, Admiral Forrest (sadly departed), etc. You've got storylines that are interesting and compelling. I just don't know how
Enterprise missed the boat until now on this--though last year's Xindi arc certainly was successful, especially in the later stages of the season.
I'll even go so far as to say I didn't mind the out of left field cliffhanger ending. In fact, I was kind of juiced that it was the Romulans who were helping the plot on Vulcan. First of all, unlike last year's "pull a cliffhanger out of left field" ending with evil Nazi alien, this cliffhanger involved an alien we've seen before and we know a bit about. Also, it deals with an issue we've seen before in
Trek--the re-unification of Romulan and Vulcan heritages. Thirdly, as we all know, Archer and company cannot see a Romulan. I've suddenly got enough faith in the show that they can work with this issue and do it cleverly and entertainly enough that I won't have to throw things at my TV.
Veronica Mars: An Echolls Family Xmas
As much as I love the on-going plotline about discovering the truth about Veronica's past, I think they could have left all that on the backburner this week. All Veronica does is confront the man who was taking pictures of her to send to her mother. Yes, it's interesting and I'm sure it will all have some bearing on future episodes, but with so many other plotlines swirling around, it was a bit too much. Weevel joins the "rich boy" poker game, wins the money and then sees it stolen. Veronica is called in to find out who took it because Weevel takes Duncan's laptop which has his journal on it--including sordid details about his relationship with Veronica. Meanwhile, Veronica struggles with wanting to get a perfect holiday gift for her father and Keith is hired by the Echolls to look into a stalker. Of the three plotlines, one ends up getting the short end of the stick with no resolution--the whole Veronica tries to find a way to get Keith the perfect gift. As the story ended ,Veronica had solved who took the money (cleverly done, too) and was at the Echoll's Christmas party taking a break from winning the pot in a the poker game. But stalker plotline shows up, is resolved and the story ends. We have no idea if Veronica won. Which I guess we can get to that in a future story--such as if we see Keith headed out to the fantasy baseball camp that Veronica refers to in the story. But I was still a bit bummed we didn't wrap it all up here.
House: Damned If You Do
I've taped several episodes of
House but haven't yet had time to see one--until this week. I've heard some good things about this show and Hugh Laurie's portrayal of House and was intrigued. I have to admit after one episode I'm intrigued. This episode examines the nature of faith and belief in an interesting, compelling manner. A nun checks into the hospital with allergic reactions and House tries to find out what is wrong. I like that the episode allowed House to be wrong and to go down wrong paths as he searched for the cause of the her illness. I also liked that not everyone agrees with House and his rather uncoventional style. This was an intriguing, entertaining hour of TV that brought up some great issues and didn't back away with easy answers. It reminded me a lot of Scully's journey of faith in
The X-Files, espeically season three's "Obulette".
posted by Michael Hickerson at 12/16/2004 09:03:00 AM |
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