h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*waits*

So, what do you want to know? Full plot and suchlike? Spoilers galore?

Nah, I'm just trying to work out if I have seen it yet so a basic outline that doesn't give TOO much away would be great!

Okay, simple summary:

Enterprise arrives at Terra Nova, the first human colony to be established outside the solar system. Contact with the colony had been lost something like sixty years earlier, and Enterprise has been sent to find out why (seems a bit late, don't you agree they should have asked the Vulcans to find out what had happened? I understand the whole thing about standing on their own two feet, but surely humans aren't stupid enough to not ask for help when it's really needed? Actually, I take that back. They are).

On the surface they find the colony long abandoned, but then they find people living below ground and eventually work out what happened, after much wrangling, cultural discovery and incredulous exclamation on my part that they could establish the colony so soon after First Contact.

Sounds full of holes but still very good!

Are you into DS9 too?

Yes, there are some holes. I think some of the problem is that they've set it too soon after the Vulcans came along to make everything entirely plausible, like the colonisation attempts etc. etc. They also don't make enough distinction between Enterprise and other ships which are vaguely referred to, like the cargo ships Mayweather grew up on. Yes, Enterprise has a warp 5-capable engine in it, it's the fastest human ship in existence, but what else is special? Is it the first of the many ships to come after which potter about the galaxy fixing things, or are there already others?

Not everything appears to have been 100% thought out, especially the whole thing with the 29th-century Suliban. Why did they have to have time travel in it right from the start? I mean come on!!

Most Star Trek is full of holes or lack of continuity, but enterprise seems even worse. Perhaps as the series develops they will fill in the blanks a little and find their way around their errs.

The time travel thing is interesting. I'm dying to know more about this temporal war. I don't even know if the suliban are even the bad guys yet. I suppose time travel can be a problematic story line as it is always so flawed and no matter what happens you could just go back a little further and fix it.

Yup, time travel always causes problems. I'm just upset that they've introduced it so soon, I know it's been an occasional part of all series of Star Trek, but never in the pilot, and in some ways it's them saying "Oh, well we wanted to set it in the 22nd century but we put some time travel in it in case people get bored with the setting and want to see, say, the 26th centery". Which is a load of tripe really because if they write it well, people won't _get_ bored.

Yeah. I know what you mean.

I've heard a lot of people slag off broken bow, I thought it was pretty good for a pilot.

Yeah, it was. Better than the TNG pilot, that's for sure! That was awful.

Got to agree their. It was awful. In fact most of the first season was a bit dire.

Have you ever seen the DS9 pilot? I haven't and I wondered what it is like.

I've got it on video somewhere back home. It's okay, but not stunning. They established the Emissary thing straight off though (that's why it's called 'Emissary' ), discovered the wormhole, moved the station (Kira did that bit, very clever of her) to the entrance of it.

Nice performance by Kai Opaka (she was so good), gratuitous shape-shifting by Odo when someone threw a morningstar at his head (went straight through).