I Heard It Through The Dan Vine: Sci-Fi

I’ve used lockdown to rewatch season 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise, and it occurred to me how good this season could have been if it was a 13 part story. Unfortunately for Enterprise it came out at a time when 24 part seasons were the norm for American network television, but it was trying to do the season long story-arcs that modern TV has got so good at. As a result there’s a great story here if you look for it. Enterprise was on the edge of cancellation and were surprised to get a third series. It’s remembered as being ok, better than the first two, a sensible change of direction, but there’s also some padding, a handful of forgettable episodes, a handful of irrelevant episodes all diluting the impact of Season 3. I believe if it was a 13 or 15 episode season, as is common now, it could have been brilliant. That in mind, here’s my cut of the series. I’ve used a traffic light system: Green episodes stay. Red episodes go. Yellow episodes are good but not essential (pick 1 or 2 of your favourite yellow episodes). If you’ve not seen season 3 of Enterprise there’s spoilers ahead.

Of course you must also include The Expanse which is the finale to Season 2 and gets a lot of the set-up out of the way.

The Xindi
KEEPER: It’s a pretty solid season opening. Some typical Star Trek fayre. Reminds us what Star Trek is all about, but sets up how this series will be a little different. At it’s heart this is a classic adventure story. But also we meet a Xindi for the first time, we see the council for the first time, albeit briefly, but it sets up a lot for future episodes plus the twist at the end is interesting.

Anomaly
KEPPER: This one sets up the Expanse and the spheres. It also develops things for the characters with Archer being told he will need to bend his morals to survive in the Expanse, and we see the first glimpses of that.

Extinction
LOSE IT: It’s a pretty rubbish mid-season episode. It would be weak in any season but it adds nothing to the overall plot of The Xindi/Expanse story line. It’s definitely a filler episode. The alien city isn't fleshed out or interesting enough to justify it's inclusion, the threat isn't strong enough to sell this episode in a season that's dominated by the Xindi who are a proper threat. It's all just a bit 'meh.'

Rajiin
LOSE IT: Archer picks up a prostitute with special abilities. It’s basically a Star Trek porn parody but without the porn or the parody. It’s a shame to lose the last 10 minutes which are the first time Enterprise has a battle with the Xindi and it’s a real step up for the series’ action scenes. But it’s fairly pointless in plot terms.

Impulse
LOSE IT: I almost kept this one. It’s a good Halloween watch. Zombie Vulcans! It’s overall importance relates to how Trellium D, the substance the crew needs to help them through the anomalies, will send T’Pol mad. You could lose all references to Trellium D and not affect the plot of the season too much. Aside from the fact that later in the series T’Pol gets addicted to using Trellium as a drug, which wasn’t all that exciting as a plot twist anyway.

Exile
KEEPER: This is the one I chose to keep at the expense of Impulse. Mainly because it’s a Hoshi story and Travis and Hoshi are criminally underused in Enterprise. I think they may be the most interesting characters if they were ever given something to do. The main plot is basically Beauty and the Beast but it leads us to some information that gets us to The Shipment and gives us some more details about the spheres.

The Shipment
KEEPER: Wait? Not all of the Xindi are bastards! This episode is crucial in setting up the Xindi relationships between the five species. It forces Archer to confront his prejudice and forces us to think outside the heroes/monsters dynamic it’s too easy to fall into. Also crucially it gives them a lead on where the weapon is being built.

Twilight
MAYBE: This episode sure has an exciting opening sequence with the Earth being destroyed. I am a sucker for an alternative future story. I think there’s great drama in Archer’s inability to remember anything after his injury. There’s a nice dementia parallel here. But really alternative future is why I kept this story yellow instead of condemning it to the red pile.

North Star
LOSE IT: Every other episode of this series keeps telling us how Earth is going to be destroyed and we’re in a race against time to save the world. So let’s stop for a week to dick around in a cowboy western planet. Nope. Any other series this episode would be ok (Basically the exact same plot happens in the original Star Trek anyway) but here it’s just a boring story at the wrong time.

Similitude
KEEPER: This is a very good story. It’s kinda irrelevant in terms of the Xindi/Expanse story, but the point is that Archer is once again forced to make an unethical decision, a decision that would outright be unacceptable and dismissed in a series where Earth wasn’t at stake so if you want to tell this story it has to be part of series 3.

Carpenter Street
LOSE IT: Daniels sends Archer and T’Pol back in time to 2004 where the Xindi are making a biological weapon to attack humanity. It’s kind of a spare weapon I guess, in case the one that blows up the whole planet doesn’t work. The bio-weapon plot is a bit pointless and just padding, and the time travel element is not interesting enough. Also Daniels’s excuse for not going back in time himself is “it would take too much time to do the paperwork” which is bollocks on every level.

Chosen Realm

KEEPER: On the surface this episode might seem a bit tangential to the main plot. A group of religious zealots who worship the spheres take over Enterprise. But it’s worth including because this whole Weapons-Of-Mass-Destruction thing was Star Trek’s way of addressing 9/11. The religious dogma and suicide bombings in this episode are the most on-the-nose this series got to the issues and its worth including for that alone.

Proving Ground
MAYBE: We see a trial run of the Xindi weapon. Which is kinda exciting. This episode is not hugely necessary, but Shran is in it, and therefore I can’t justify getting rid of it. Shran! Despite only appearing in a handful of episodes Shran was one of the best characters in Enterprise, rumour is if they had got a fifth season they would have given him a bigger role.

Stratagem
KEEPER: Well this is the one where we find out the location of the Xindi weapon so it’s kind of essential. It also builds a relationship between Archer and Degra, the designer of the weapon, that will be important later. It’s a pretty good episode.

Harbinger
LOSE IT: I feel bad losing this one. It’s a Malcolm story and he’s almost as wasted as Travis and Hoshi. The conflict between Malcolm and the MACOs is interesting. It’s also the first time we meet one of the Sphere-makers and learn that they are creating the Expanse to make it habitable for their species. BUT that basically just confirms the beliefs of the guys from Chosen Realm and we learn this again from Daniels in Azati Prime, so get rid. It’s slowing things down.

Doctor’s Orders
LOSE IT: This is just a remake of the Voyager episode ‘One’ with the names changed. They probably just got that script and did a ‘Find and Replace’ function. The plot twists are the same and even if you haven’t seen the Voyager episode, the plot twists are blatantly obvious.

Hatchery
LOSE IT: Lose it fast. This one is a mess. The crew find a Hatchery full of Xindi eggs. Captain Archer gets sprayed with some Xindi goop. Captain Archer wants to protect the eggs putting the crew and ship at risk. He claims that the Xindi eggs are unborn innocents and need protecting. The crew all discuss whether he’s making the right decision. “How long are we going to be here?” “Wasting our time.” “I doubt the Xindi would care for human babies if the situation was reversed.” The crew even mutiny and it turns out the goop affected the captain’s brain and that’s fine. Problem is Captain Archer is right and the crew are wrong. The episode doesn’t act like that. But the crew are basically being racist (Archer even asks if the crew would be so happy to let the Xindi die if they looked like humans). The Xindi attacked Earth because they were told humans were savages, saving their children might have been the best way to save Earth. Archer does get a bit psychotic as the episode goes on, but it’s just all wrong. It’s annoying because it’s Star Trek using alien goop to dodge a big issue that caused interesting conflict between the main characters*
*Side note: Gene Roddenberry was always against conflict between the main characters, I understand that, but meh, I still like it, and we aint in TNG anymore. I'll take character development over alien goop any day.

Azati Prime
KEEPER: It all kicks off! Enterprise finds the Xindi weapon and Archer pilots a mission to go get it. Daniels reveals that the Xindi are being played by the Sphere Builders and that ultimately humanity and the Xindi would work together in the future to destroy the Sphere Builders. Crucial information for the plot. And lets talk about that battle scene at the end of the episode. One of Star Trek’s most impressive. Explosions left right and centre. The ship torn up. Loads of crewmembers killed. It is actually epic.

Damage
KEEPER: And the aftermath of Azati Prime. Damaged Enterprise in tatters with lots of deaths. The Captain comes back with a message, they must get to a meeting with Degra with their proof that the Sphere-Builders are behind all this. With morale at an all time low and Enterprise broken with no engines, Archer is forced to break his moral code again to raid an innocent ship and steal the warp technology he needs to make his meeting on time.

The Forgotten
MAYBE: This one is worth keeping for Trip’s dealing with grief, but that stuff is neatly addressed in ‘Home’ from Season 4 which is like the debrief after the mission, and can be fitted in elsewhere. In terms of the Xindi it’s the admin episode: Archer convinces Degra and the Arboreals to help him, but since he still has to convince the council, I would argue that you could combine the plot of this episode and The Council into one tighter, more action packed episode.

E²LOSE IT: This might be controversial. Before I started my Enterprise rewatch I checked out a few lists of the best episodes and this was on a lot of people’s top 10, but…it’s ok…but it’s basically a remake of the Deep Space Nine episode “Children of Time” which did the same story better. Again, you won’t be missing out any plot points by skipping this episode. All it adds to the story is the Enterprise’s journey through a corridor. If you’re a deep person you’re meant to say “The journey is more important than the destination” but it isn’t really here.

The Council
KEEPER: This is the episode where Archer must convince the council to stop the weapon launch. It’s also an episode where we get some more details of the spheres. As I say we have already seen a lot of this evidence in The Forgotten (and it’s been gathered over the previous season's episodes) so I think they could have combined The Forgotten and The Council to make one bigger, better episode. But this has a nice little moment of Malcolm’s reaction to the rising body count of the series, and the launch of the Xindi weapon. So you need to keep one of The Forgotten or The Council and unless they go back and remake it with my notes, this one is more important, because it ends on a cliffhanger that runs into a tight final couple of episodes.

Countdown
KEEPER: This is the tension builder. As the name implies there’s a ticking clock element to this one. With the Reptilians taking the weapon and Hoshi, Archer must convince the aquatics to join the fight before it’s too late. In return T’Pol and Trip must promise to destroy the spheres. This one brings the sphere builders into play properly. There’s lots of action. And it moves all the pieces into position ready for a finale.

Zero Hour
KEEPER: Well you want to see how the story ends right? And this is a pretty good series finale. Action packed. High stakes. A couple of returning characters make cameos. There’s two big battles on two fronts going on simultaneously, as Captain Archer takes a team to destroy the weapon (even if at one point it does look a little bit like it could be a scene on The Crystal Maze) which is now in Earth orbit and ready to attack. Meanwhile Enterprise must honour their promise to destroy the spheres and the Expanse. There’s big explosions, high stakes, phaser fights, fist fights, a slow-mo hero run as everything explodes behind him. It’s a pretty strong finale.

If you’ve never watched it but want to, here’s the 13 episode run I think would work in a nut shell, enjoy:

0. The Expanse (Season 2 finale)

1. The Xindi

2. Anomaly

3. Exile

4. The Shipment

5. Similitude

6. Chosen Realm

7. Proving Ground

8. Stratagem

9. Azati Prime

10. Damage

11. The Council

12. Countdown

13. Zero Hour

Obviously the series doesn’t quite work with all these omissions, I think it’s better because it’s slicker, tighter and maintains an overall higher quality, but there are things in those other episodes that come up again. However in an ideal world if they had been commissioned for a 13 part series the elements of the other episodes that you need would all have fitted into the ones I kept. But in case they don’t:

Dan’s Bonus Episode Idea: Falling between Stratagem and Azati Prime. Since there’s a couple of time travel episodes I cut from this series, what might have been fun would be to make a whole episode out of Daniels taking Archer to the future where the Federation and Xindi are working together. Archer, Trip and Malcolm could be taken to the future, working as observers on the Enterprise-J and forced to work in collaboration with a future crew and also work with their enemies. They confront their prejudices and gather the evidence they need to show the council. Any gaps in the narrative caused by missing out episodes could be squeezed in here. Also what if you relocated the story time-wise to the 24^th Century and put Archer and co. on the USS Titan, Riker’s ship? Now you have a mid-season fun crossover episode, a trailer that will bring back fans whose viewership may have slipped in the first 2 seasons of Enterprise, all the design elements associated with Star Trek that Enterprise changed, and a much better use of Riker and Troi than that fucking awful season 4 episode.

What do you think? Would these cuts make it better? Would they make it worse? Would you change anything? Do you like it as a series in the first place? Will you watch it this way next time? To be honest, as long as I don’t need to watch North Star ever again, I will be happy.

I am beyond excited at Peter Capaldi's casting as the Doctor. All 11 Doctor Who actors so far, have become my favourite actor after being in Doctor Who and I watched their other stuff, Peter Capaldi is the first actor to already be one of my favourite actors before getting the part in Doctor Who and that's even after being forced to watch Local Hero every week for a year in A Level Film Studies. No offence to Peter but if you show a class of 16 year olds that film and ask them to compare it to Trainspotting for a year, sorry, it wont do well. As a result our class are far more likely to do heroin than drill for oil, so it's not all bad.

Everything we've read so far about Peter's Doctor - ok, maybe I should say everything we've officially read, not counting scripts that have leaked and episodes you can watch online, wonder if they'll send the DVDs out before the big twist again this time, or put the finale on 23rd August....

Everything we've read about Peter's Doctor suggests he will be dangerous, strange and quite possibly dark which is all exciting. He's also not too old. It turns out around 38 is the appropriate age to play the Doctor. Tennant and Smith were 'too young' to play the Doctor (of course they were, neither of them looked 900), while Capaldi is apparently 'too old' and young people wont connect with him. (Erm...not like there was a kids spin-off with a 60 year old woman in the lead on CBBC or that it was their most watched program, and Dumbledore was no spring chicken, nor was the Wizard of Oz or Grandad from Bernard's Watch). Even worse is the people who think he's not too old, they say things like "It'll be good to see a Doctor who doesn't flirt with his companions." Actually it'd be pretty cool to see an older Doctor who still fancies his young companion when they are no longer a good fit - you can have that idea Moffat, just wait for all the yewtree stuff to blow over though. Some people say it will be better to see him no longer kissing River Song all the time. Because apparently 50 year old Alex Kingston kissing 30 year old Matt Smith is normal but a 56 year old Capaldi kissing 51 year old Kingston isn't. Gross. Old people kissing. My parents are old. I don't want to think about them kissing.

Fortunately a lot of the cynicism is dying away now as the new series draws close and the intriguing trailers must help that, it looks epic. Unconvincing dinosaurs in central London? It really is a return to the Jon Pertwee era!

My only concern with Peter Capaldi is he is such a talented and in demand actor we may not get too many years of him as the Doctor. When a new Doctor Who is announced on Sunday, the papers usually start asking when they will leave on the Monday, but he is a big star already. It's a worry.

So I would like to throw my fez into the ring to be considered for the role of the 13th Doctor.

The rest of this blog is more for Steven Moffat to read than you but thank you for sticking with it.

You see, here's my theory...

This is Peter Capaldi before he was the Doctor.

Peter Capaldi in Prime Suspect

And this is Matt Smith before he was the Doctor

Matt Smith in That Face

And this is David Tennant before he was the Doctor

David Tennant in Rab C Nesbitt

And this is Christopher Eccleston before he was the Doctor

Christopher Eccleston in Shallow Grave

Ok, so the pattern collapses a bit then. But anyway, here's me before I played The Doctor.

Dan Vine in Leicester Square (don't ask)

And this is Jon Pertwee actually playing the Doctor.

Jon Petwee in Doctor Who: The Green Death

If Peter Capaldi is an older Doctor, then you should contrast that with a younger one next, and while Peter Capaldi may be getting his bus pass by the time he regenerates, I am currently renewing my 16-25 years Railcard for another 3 years (and hoping nobody notices that takes me up to 27).
Another fan theory is because Capaldi looks like an older moodier Doctor, when the Timelords renewed his life cycle they reset him back to being like the first Doctor. In which case next you need a Troughton, a scruffy cosmic hobo of a Doctor. Like this?

He was also a genius...Just sayin'

There was also this Facebook game doing the rounds a while ago:

I'm The Book-Keeper. I have a sonic Thesaurus and my catchphrase is "It's like changing history and there being no My Family after Nick left *happy sigh*."

So clearly I was already thinking about time travel, although the amount of spam I get, it's surprising the Book-Keeper doesn't have an awesome catchphrase of shouting "STOP" powerfully at aliens and EE.

The Book-Keeper may not sound like the most exciting name but a wise man once said:

"You want weapons. We're in a library. Books. The most powerful weapons in the universe." - The Doctor

I understand there may be some difference between Book-Keeping and literally keeping books, but you try taking an interest if both your parents are book-keepers. And keeping books isn't a million miles away from Curator is it?