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This reminds me of the Farscape episode "Scratch N Sniff." I didn't really like that episode either because vacation episodes are boring, but it was masterpiece theater compared to this. What that episode did was provide a framework that explained why the story was happening and set up a conflict that drove the episode: Pilot kicked the crew off the ship because Crichton and D'argo's petty arguing is driving him nuts.

Even then, the extended party scenes were just boring as shit, but at least the episode, as a whole, had a point. This episode is the creators just wanting to put an episode on Risa so they can name-drop Risa again, without anything like an idea involved. There's no energy or creativity behind it.

King of the owls wrote: ↑Sat May 05, 2018 6:17 pm
I also feel like this episode could had worked....if you tweak one or two things. Remove the Archer nonsense.(Maybe he and T'Pol stay on the ship.) And make Reed and Tucker plot the focus and make it more of wild night than well what does happen.

I just pictured this episode as Reed and Tucker involved in a "Dude, where's my car?" story, and I fell in love with that idea. That would have been beautiful.

I like the "Rear Window" idea brought up before - definitely would have injected some life into the episode and actually served a purpose behind T'Pol saying that Archer needs a vacation... when we've seen no indication that he needs one. At least in Captain's Holiday it was shown that Picard was grouchier and more unsociable than normal.

Personally, I found Phlox the highlight of this one since his over-the-top goofiness was a hell of a lot more entertaining than anything else happening in the episode. I was particularly fond of when he started calling everyone Captain.

These are the episodes that really demonstrate the lack of quality in Enterprise's writing. If you find a scenario that's exciting enough, throw in some capable performances and cool effects, and you can get by with generic, uninspired writing without everyone noticing. The excitement distracts you from it.

In an episode like this, the only way it can possibly work is if the script is really on point and interesting, with strong interplay between the characters. That is clearly not the case with Enterprise.

bronnt wrote: ↑Sat May 05, 2018 7:48 pm I just pictured this episode as Reed and Tucker involved in a "Dude, where's my car?" story, and I fell in love with that idea. That would have been beautiful.

Tell me about it. It's a shame Reed and Tucker's friendship never developed as well as Bashir and O'Brien's friendship. Or to a lesser extent Harry and Tom Paris' friendship. Because there was potential for it.

That said Archer staring in a "Rear Window" type story does seem like a fun ride. Though now I'm imagining a scene where a extremely exhausted Archer hallucinates Porthos lecturing him about how much of a dumbass he's been this season.

Has there ever been a good Trek episode involving Risa? All the episodes I remember have all been horrible, and there haven't been many of them.

Independent George wrote: ↑Sat May 05, 2018 8:52 pm Has there ever been a good Trek episode involving Risa? All the episodes I remember have all been horrible, and there haven't been many of them.

There are only three and Chuck has reviewed the lot (I don't know if there are any in STD. I stopped watching it).
Spoiler: They all garnered very low ratings.

Independent George wrote: ↑Sat May 05, 2018 8:52 pm Has there ever been a good Trek episode involving Risa? All the episodes I remember have all been horrible, and there haven't been many of them.

No.

In fact in general, most scifi series I've seen don't handle this kind of episode well. S:AAB's R&R comes to mind. While there were a few okay scenes here and there (such as West joining McQueen to watch old movies), it's largely a forgetable episode at best.

So let me sum the plot of the episode up. Everyone goes to take a vacation. Archer is knocked unconcious and returns from the vacation without anything learned. Mayweather is injured and returns from the vacation without having anything changed. Reed and Tucker get their clothes stolen and return to Enterprise to get new clothes and back to work. And Hoshi gets boned and gets back to duty without the panties she was wearing each night The episode is not just boring, there is no story to be told there...

Ah, Chuck covering another S1 episode of ENTERPRISE. Brings me right back to the early years when you were only focusing on that and VOYAGER, especially with the pre-video bit. There must not be too many S1 episodes left to cover by this point, so there's the silver lining.

Having revisited ENT last month, it was pretty excruciating to go through episodes like this in the early years. I've also come to realize why TNG and ENT had very different outcomes. Both show started off with relatively weak seasons before changing things up a bit for improvement in the third and fourth seasons, yet only one of them went further while the other dropped like a brick. I really think it all has to do with presentation.

Berman & Braga like to chalk it up to Star Trek in general just declining in ratings, that it wasn't really ENT's fault, it all started with DS9. Except ENT had pretty massive ratings at the start, before dropping fast episode by episode. It clearly had a chance to grab new viewers after VOY, and yet it put off so many in a way TNG never did. As bad as TNG's first season is, I think it's ultimately in a sense more watchable than a lot of ENT first season one episodes because it at least has a more livelier presentation with the writing, photography and music. DISCOVERY's is better in that regard too (though I'm sure many will debate that).