Enterprise thoughts - what you expected something else?

Okay, so this isn't your grandmother's Trek. In 120 minutes, I saw more flesh yesterday than I have in the three previous incarnations of Trek. And yeah, that includes "Let He Who Is Without Sin..." and Voyager's "Season of the Tank Top." More on that later. In sum, Paramount spared no expense on special effects - there were some really nice FX sequences which kind of made up for the fact that the crew itself, with the exception of T'Pol and the chief engineering guy (someone help me out with his name - Tucker?), had very little personality in general. Yes, I do mean Archer too (question - who wears turquoise blue briefs *that* tight and *that* short anyway? Nothing left to the imagination, let me tell you).

Here's the premise: "Enterprise" is set on delivering a wounded Klingon back to Qo'Nos, but gets side-tracked by a nifty alien species called the Saublian - I think you can figure out how this one ends, btw. The aliens remind me of some creatures I once saw on "The X-Files" - they have the ability to change appearance or disappear entirely. They can also crawl around on ceilings and up walls. I hope we haven't seen the last of these guys because they were kind of cool. Anyway, so Archer is determined to return the Klingon *alive* (we all know what kind of cultural boo boo that is) to Qo'Nos despite the Vulcans' advice to do otherwise. BTW, the Vulcans in this episode all possess a chip on their shoulder. Not that they haven't always, but their superiority complex is at an all time high here. Like Archer and the some of his other crew members (why do none of their names stick in my head?), there were occasions when I wanted to knock T'Pol into the next star system, but then the show would have been a lot less exciting.

As for the crew - well, one thing I did like about them is that not everyone knew *everything* about what was going on. There was a case of space sickness, general fear of transporters, and while a curiousity about alien cultures existed, these guys aren't necessarily PC. It's definitely a case of "Um, do we really want to be here?" So in that sense, "Enterprise" is pretty refreshing. The scene where Merriweather is teaching Archer & Tucker how to fly a shuttle was one of my favorites - usually Starfleet personnel can look at alien technology and figure out how it works in about 30 seconds; so nice to see this.

Romantic prediction? Forget Archer and T'Pol. It's T'Pol and the engineering guy (what *is* his name?). If there is *any* doubt whatsoever, watch the shower scene again. Trust me. I predict many, many PWPs set in the shower.

We didn't really learn much about the crew, but as this is a B&B enterprise (sorry), that's to be expected. We got a little fleshing out of Archer, a lot (literally) of T'Pol and the engineering guy, and everyone else is pretty much as bland as peanut butter and jelly. Hopefully, this will change. In general though, I was pleasantly surprised though, first by the opening credits - which were a welcome departure from the usual Trek "starship flying through space" theme, instead it was a montage of explorers exploring. Also, the opening song was quite lovely. A friend called me around 10:30 pm last night to find out my quick thoughts (ep was still airing here, as we have a strange viewing schedule) and we both decided, without much discussion, that "Enterprise" was worth tuning into again next week.