I had myself prepared for the most violent assault on good music imaginable. Kinda on a par with Skunkanansie. So when the theme was actually playing, I was surprised by how inoffensive it was - it was just on a mediocrity frequency that I couldn’t quite hear. They may as well have blown a dog whistle.
I enjoyed it. Bakula is excellent, showing many different sides to his character. Blalock was surprisingly good: I knew they’d cast her for looks, and I hadn’t seen any of her other performances. She makes a great Vulcan, and apart from Linda Park probably came off best acting-wise. The gel decontamination scene was gratuitous - “let’s show off a few of the shows assets!”
Linda Park was fab. Great fledgling character, great performance, everything scared the shit out of her. She’s adopted Uhura’s place in this series, but is capable of doing a lot more with it. I really like the fact that they have a linguist: I thought Darmok was one of the best episodes of TNG, because the universal translators can really tread on fresh story possibilities. My favourite lines:
Archer: “Tell him (the Klingon) to shut up!”
Sato: “SHUT UP!”
The Suliban are good villains for once. I get the impression that the person in the temporal chamber is human, although I’ve nothing to base that on besides years of honed Trek intuition. In a fanboy centric world he’d be from Section 31, but I don’t think this is gonna happen, is it?
The effects ranged from excellent to really dire. Trek as usual, then. The thing that really stood out was the extensive range of locations, and the variety of ways in which they were shot and lit. I hope it won’t descend into rock world hell from the third episode in. The shots in the space station were very effective, with a Cantina bar style scene, and some neat role reversals with the Enterprise crew being naive, amazed and frightened when confronted by the range of other species.
I’ll definitely be watching next week. It’s nice to know that Trek can still be exciting after so many years, particularly when you consider that most “franchises” (shit like the X-Files) run out of steam in the first few series. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the new movie, too. |
- I've heard a rumour it's Rod Stewart 'Faith of the Heart' Confirm/deny? Anyone?
