Enterprise: The Augments

[Madner Kami]

Was anticipating the same, though he hasn't reviewed the TV series yet, so maybe it wasn't lodged into his mind that prominently.

[CareerKnight]

1. It wasn't season 1, 2 or 3 that gave us T'Pol being treated like literal property, it was the "good" season.

Unless you are arguing that shows should never show slavery/sexism or that the episode portrays slavery in a positive light I don't see how this can really be taken as a strike against the season.

[cdrood]

3. I grew up with reruns of Quantum Leap... how do you get worse as an actor... how?

Maybe because he had Dean Stockwell to play against. The guy has literally been doing this since he was a kid

[cdrood]

The retool plan kind of sounds like the third season of Seaquest where Roy Scheider became a recurring character and Michael Ironside took over as captain and the show took on a more military/political focus and cut out a lot of the environmentalism and fantastic sci-fi stuff (giant prehistoric crocodile, aliens).

[FaxModem1]

Honestly, if we look at the episode 'Home', and Archer's character evolution in season 3 and 4, it presents a character arc for Archer. Archer was, well, naive. And not the innocent form of naive. He was the proud, arrogant naive person who had never had to look beyond his horizon and consider other ways of life, thinking he was always right. Then, the Xindi came, and that shattered his entire worldview.

Archer makes more and more moral compromises, making harsher and harsher decisions, and over the course of season 3, realizes that just straight up killing the enemy won't cut it, because they're much stronger than he is. So he learns to bury the hatchet, and makes peace with Degra, and other more reasonable people on the Xindi Council. This isn't pleasing to Archer, and sends him into a quite a funk as a person. When he's victorious, and he does finish the Xindi as a military threat, and heads home, and after the Time War shenanigans, he finds himself back on Earth.

And what does he see? Hernandez, as him, only without the baggage. She wants to explore, she wants to have see what's going on out there. He tells her throughout the episode that, "You need more guns, you need more soldiers." Because that's what mindset he's in now. You have to be ready for that sort of thing. Freaking out on a camping trip, he learns that he doesn't have to be so guarded. He can be an explorer, but for the right reasons, to look around, establish peace, and learn from others.

So what does Archer spend the majority of season 4 doing? Making peace. Improving the relations of Vulcan and Andor, helping the Andorians and the Tellarites negotiate, helping the Vulcan government reform, etc.

What's sadly missing is Archer's self reflection on all of this. He doesn't state as much as he should, or as openly as he should, that he has grown up over the past four years.

But, if you want to be funny about it, what made Archer really grow up was having the founder of Vulcan logic and wisdom, Surak, inside his head, and that made him let go of a lot of the madness and xenophobia he had stored away.

[AlucardNoir]

1. It wasn't season 1, 2 or 3 that gave us T'Pol being treated like literal property, it was the "good" season.

Unless you are arguing that shows should never show slavery/sexism or that the episode portrays slavery in a positive light I don't see how this can really be taken as a strike against the season.

The show isn't making slavery look good, it's making Jolene Blalock's chest look good. I'm not a feminist, can't still be one with all the bullshit feminists has been puling for the past few years, but even I find those scene amusing, oh, look Enterprise want's to have it's "slave princess Leia" cake and it it too and all that.

As for slavery in general:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery

despite slaves being a smaller percentage of the global population then they've ever been they are still a thing. They might not be a legal institution anymore... anywhere but the practice hasn't died out. So, if anything the show is a bit too lenient with it's depictions of slavery, too clean. I know you might want to disagree but it's (unfortunately) not hard to find the way quite a few modern day slaves are kept, and compared to that... Enterprise is close to paradise.

I'm not saying ENT makes slavery look good, I'm just saying it doesn't make it look as bad as it should. Chuck can joke all he wants about "buying slaves" appearing on the report but I doubt the Writers on ENT even went that far with their thinking.

[clearspira]

1. It wasn't season 1, 2 or 3 that gave us T'Pol being treated like literal property, it was the "good" season.

Unless you are arguing that shows should never show slavery/sexism or that the episode portrays slavery in a positive light I don't see how this can really be taken as a strike against the season.

The show isn't making slavery look good, it's making Jolene Blalock's chest look good. I'm not a feminist, can't still be one with all the bullshit feminists has been puling for the past few years, but even I find those scene amusing, oh, look Enterprise want's to have it's "slave princess Leia" cake and it it too and all that.

As for slavery in general:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery

despite slaves being a smaller percentage of the global population then they've ever been they are still a thing. They might not be a legal institution anymore... anywhere but the practice hasn't died out. So, if anything the show is a bit too lenient with it's depictions of slavery, too clean. I know you might want to disagree but it's (unfortunately) not hard to find the way quite a few modern day slaves are kept, and compared to that... Enterprise is close to paradise.

I'm not saying ENT makes slavery look good, I'm just saying it doesn't make it look as bad as it should. Chuck can joke all he wants about "buying slaves" appearing on the report but I doubt the Writers on ENT even went that far with their thinking.

Just a point about Slave Princess Leia that I think a lot of people miss, particularly those feminists that keep on trying to ban the costume. Leia is a strong, independent woman; but she is also a realistic strong, independent woman. She loves men, she wants kids, she wears a dress, she cries, and Lucas wasn't afraid for her to have vulnerable moments. Too many writers today think ''man with boobs'' is the best way to portray a strong woman and we have seen that in Disney Star Wars over and over again. This is why Leia is a great example of a strong woman done right as she is a perfect balance of the strong feminine, not the strong masculine.

With that in mind, let's look at Slave Leia again. He has taken this strong woman, this leader of armies, and stripped her down to her underwear, treated her like meat and put a chain around her neck. This is Jabba mentally as well as physically torturing her. He is degrading her in front of everyone and leaving nothing to the imagination. But what happens at the end of this scene? Leia takes that chain and chokes Jabba to death, reaffirming her strength and rises stronger from it. Was this scene played for fanservice, yeah, perhaps. But it is so much more than that and it is a level of thinking was what Enterprise lacked. I argue that you can have all the T&A you want as long as it is in service to the plot.

[AlucardNoir]

1. It wasn't season 1, 2 or 3 that gave us T'Pol being treated like literal property, it was the "good" season.

Unless you are arguing that shows should never show slavery/sexism or that the episode portrays slavery in a positive light I don't see how this can really be taken as a strike against the season.

The show isn't making slavery look good, it's making Jolene Blalock's chest look good. I'm not a feminist, can't still be one with all the bullshit feminists has been puling for the past few years, but even I find those scene amusing, oh, look Enterprise want's to have it's "slave princess Leia" cake and it it too and all that.

As for slavery in general:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery

despite slaves being a smaller percentage of the global population then they've ever been they are still a thing. They might not be a legal institution anymore... anywhere but the practice hasn't died out. So, if anything the show is a bit too lenient with it's depictions of slavery, too clean. I know you might want to disagree but it's (unfortunately) not hard to find the way quite a few modern day slaves are kept, and compared to that... Enterprise is close to paradise.

I'm not saying ENT makes slavery look good, I'm just saying it doesn't make it look as bad as it should. Chuck can joke all he wants about "buying slaves" appearing on the report but I doubt the Writers on ENT even went that far with their thinking.

Just a point about Slave Princess Leia that I think a lot of people miss, particularly those feminists that keep on trying to ban the costume. Leia is a strong, independent woman; but she is also a realistic strong, independent woman. She loves men, she wants kids, she wears a dress, she cries, and Lucas wasn't afraid for her to have vulnerable moments. Too many writers today think ''man with boobs'' is the best way to portray a strong woman and we have seen that in Disney Star Wars over and over again. This is why Leia is a great example of a strong woman done right as she is a perfect balance of the strong feminine, not the strong masculine.

With that in mind, let's look at Slave Leia again. He has taken this strong woman, this leader of armies, and stripped her down to her underwear, treated her like meat and put a chain around her neck. This is Jabba mentally as well as physically torturing her. He is degrading her in front of everyone and leaving nothing to the imagination. But what happens at the end of this scene? Leia takes that chain and chokes Jabba to death, reaffirming her strength and rises stronger from it. Was this scene played for fanservice, yeah, perhaps. But it is so much more than that and it is a level of thinking was what Enterprise lacked. I argue that you can have all the T&A you want as long as it is in service to the plot.

Thus my comment about them wanting to have their cake and it too. They wanted to put T'Pol in a bind, and "manhandle" her like a literal object only for the roles to be reversed and later on. Except the result is... well it's no were near as strong or powerful as the Leia moment. Leia is a woman who gets enslaved and then gets to take her freedom back. T'Pol is an absurdly strong Vulcan that gets trapped, she somewhat keeps her composure, to the point were it becomes ridiculous only to loose her composure at the end when she takes revenge. The whole T'Pol subplot of this episode is a failed attempt to redo the Leia scene.

[Admiral X]

When someone is made a slave, are they not objectified? When T'Pol finally fought back, was it before or after the bomb on her neck was disabled? If after, does it not make sense that she, as a logical person, recognized that resisting the manhandling, as degrading as it might be to her, might not simply result in her death?

[AlucardNoir]

When someone is made a slave, are they not objectified? When T'Pol finally fought back, was it before or after the bomb on her neck was disabled? If after, does it not make sense that she, as a logical person, recognized that resisting the manhandling, as degrading as it might be to her, might not simply result in her death?

And if the scene with her kicking the Orion slaver wouldn't have shown her angry - as it has already been pointed out - you'd have a point. But when we see her remain not just calm but positively apathetic during her captivity only to show anger when calm would have been most useful... Princess Leia at least had emotions before she strangled Jaba.