ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

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Mindworm
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

Post by Mindworm »

Shuboy07 wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 5:27 am Having been watching and enjoying NCIS New Orleans for the last four years, I have to say I find Scott Bakula's acting so cringeworthy when going back to Enterprise. And he's faking a New Orleans accent on NCIS! How is it his Dwayne Pride, a quirky federal agent who hits a lot of cop show stereotypes, come across as a better character than Jonathan Archer?

On a funny note, I find it amusing that Michael Dorn directed the episode given what happened with Worf that last time on Risa.
Bakula's a good actor. Used love him in the day when he was Dr Sam Beckett.

It's just B&B crapped out scripts so bad not even Olivier himself could rescue them.
Soulless minion of orthodoxy.
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CrypticMirror
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

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Mindworm wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 9:36 pm
Shuboy07 wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 5:27 am Having been watching and enjoying NCIS New Orleans for the last four years, I have to say I find Scott Bakula's acting so cringeworthy when going back to Enterprise. And he's faking a New Orleans accent on NCIS! How is it his Dwayne Pride, a quirky federal agent who hits a lot of cop show stereotypes, come across as a better character than Jonathan Archer?

On a funny note, I find it amusing that Michael Dorn directed the episode given what happened with Worf that last time on Risa.
Bakula's a good actor. Used love him in the day when he was Dr Sam Beckett.

It's just B&B crapped out scripts so bad not even Olivier himself could rescue them.
The problem is that Bakula has a very particular style of acting, and the role of Archer does not play to his acting style. If Bakula had been given the role of Trip then his everyman-underdog style of acting would have gelled better. Or if Archer was written as a less uptight guy too, if he was more conscious of Earth being the new kid on the galactic block and a bit more Buck Rogers.
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

Post by Shuboy07 »

CrypticMirror wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 9:41 pm
Mindworm wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 9:36 pm
Shuboy07 wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 5:27 am Having been watching and enjoying NCIS New Orleans for the last four years, I have to say I find Scott Bakula's acting so cringeworthy when going back to Enterprise. And he's faking a New Orleans accent on NCIS! How is it his Dwayne Pride, a quirky federal agent who hits a lot of cop show stereotypes, come across as a better character than Jonathan Archer?

On a funny note, I find it amusing that Michael Dorn directed the episode given what happened with Worf that last time on Risa.
Bakula's a good actor. Used love him in the day when he was Dr Sam Beckett.

It's just B&B crapped out scripts so bad not even Olivier himself could rescue them.
The problem is that Bakula has a very particular style of acting, and the role of Archer does not play to his acting style. If Bakula had been given the role of Trip then his everyman-underdog style of acting would have gelled better. Or if Archer was written as a less uptight guy too, if he was more conscious of Earth being the new kid on the galactic block and a bit more Buck Rogers.
That might be it. Bakula's Dwayne Pride is also a bit uptight like Archer but he comes across as more likeable because his harsh side is reserved for criminals. I think it's also balanced by how Pride is fair and caring around his team. Basically, he's Archer with more heart? Maybe?
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CharlesPhipps
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

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Bad writing is the problem.

I don't think there's actually much of a character to Archer and what is leaves a sour taste in viewer's mouths. Archer's motivations start as profoundly petty. He wants to ensure his father's legacy by taking the Enterprise into space and spiting the Vulcans for "holding humanity back." It is such a heavy part of his early character that his later idealistic explorer side comes off as disingenuous.

Its basically Pulaski writ-large. McCoy and Spock works because Spock gives as good as he gets. Pulaski and Data is just her bullying the 2nd most beloved character on TNG.

Archer's treatment of the Vulcans who are, at worst, vaguely snooty, comes off as just flat out racism. His treatment of T'Pol, who we generally like for being amusing in her barbs as well as right about being cautious, is even worse.

At some point, the writers missed that while writers seemed to hate Vulcans, Trekkies LOVE them.
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

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CharlesPhipps wrote: Thu Jul 05, 2018 3:26 pm Bad writing is the problem.

I don't think there's actually much of a character to Archer and what is leaves a sour taste in viewer's mouths. Archer's motivations start as profoundly petty. He wants to ensure his father's legacy by taking the Enterprise into space and spiting the Vulcans for "holding humanity back." It is such a heavy part of his early character that his later idealistic explorer side comes off as disingenuous.

Its basically Pulaski writ-large. McCoy and Spock works because Spock gives as good as he gets. Pulaski and Data is just her bullying the 2nd most beloved character on TNG.

Archer's treatment of the Vulcans who are, at worst, vaguely snooty, comes off as just flat out racism. His treatment of T'Pol, who we generally like for being amusing in her barbs as well as right about being cautious, is even worse.

At some point, the writers missed that while writers seemed to hate Vulcans, Trekkies LOVE them.
Yeah. It is stuff that does not match the actor. Bakula's style of acting means that when he delivers on an emotion, he really delivers. The guy can do intense like nobody else on Earth, especially if it is angry at (perceived) injustice, but that means the writers have got to balance that out. They just kept feeding him "hate the Vulcan" "revenge his Daddy" type of lines, and... Well Bakula delivered on those lines to the best of his ability, just the writers never thought through the implications of those lines and gave him reflective stuff to balance it out.

Bakula can do intense and passionate (good and bad passions) but he can also do self reflective and uncertainty/unsureness to the same standard, but he wasn't given any of that to do to balance out the other emotions in his character's lines. Not until the end of S3 and S4 anyway, when the writing staff started changing.
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

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Two Days, Two Nights actually was a show I really liked because Bakula is fully capable of selling, "Date with an alien woman in Hawaii."

At least for me.

It and the internment episodes were places where Bakula showed Archer could be good as a captain, IMHO, even if the writing itself wasn't great.
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

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Just rewatched this review, and am once again reflecting on characters. In concept, I really like the characters of Reed and Tucker, and seeing the two of them pal around has a lot of potential. You've got kinda snooty English naval officer paired up with casual Southern U.S. charm. They make a nice contrast, and yet the actors seem to have good chemistry together. There's a lot of ways you could play with that. It's got some of the same charms to it that O'Brien and Bashir had

It's a relationship that never really seemed to develop though. THIS episode would have been great it they dropped 90% of everything else and just wrote an episode focusing on the pair of them. You could have them accidentally dragged into an adventure, maybe even abducted off-world, and they have to use their wits to work together and overcome their captors and escape.

Or maybe there's some arrogant off-worlder tweaking everyone by issuing a challenge of some sort claiming nobody can best him, and they have to come up with a clever plan to beat the man at this own game. He could be a cardplayer, and Tucker has to figure out how he's cheating at cards before Reed runs out of poker chips, or maybe it could be like Ardra in "Devil's Due" where they need to stop a conman. Just these little character stories with low stakes are the sort of things that felt like they were missing.
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

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It's clearly the episode where they had no actual plot.

"Two transvestites rob horny tourists" is an urban vacation legend they play completely straight.

Also, Hoshi gets laid.

Really?

This the best you could come up with?
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Makeshift Python
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

Post by Makeshift Python »

That first clip is a perfect example of just how utterly dull the first two seasons felt. No vitality. It's just Star Trek going through the motions, by the same production people that have been working on Trek non-stop for 15 years. Moore, Braga, and even Berman were correct that Trek needed to take a hiatus after VOYAGER before kicking off another show.
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Re: ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

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CharlesPhipps wrote: Fri Jan 25, 2019 2:56 am It's clearly the episode where they had no actual plot.

"Two transvestites rob horny tourists" is an urban vacation legend they play completely straight.

Also, Hoshi gets laid.

Really?

This the best you could come up with?
Imagine that you are a small time thief and you have the technology to disguise yourself to lure victims into your clutches. Wouldn't you pick ''sexy woman''? Its well documented that men lower their guard around a cute face and large boobs, particularly when drink is involved. Those thieves are being smart. And as for Hoshi getting laid, A) Its Risa, that what you do on Risa and B) if anyone needed to loosen up and get laid it is season 1 Hoshi.
The ep is boring but none of this is true bad writing.
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