ENT - Terra Prime

[MerelyAFan]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/e197.php

Terra Prime might actually be one of the most frustrating episodes to watch, if just because its such a tantalizing glimpse into the improved quality that an Enterprise series at that point offered. Season 3 was rough in parts but was the adjustment the show needed. Season 4 made even better use of the premise and completed the transformation of a program that had once been floundering as a lesser version of both The Next Generation and Voyager into a genuinely interesting prequel show.

It feels like a watching a TNG that got canceled right after Best of Both Worlds Part 2 and never having all the strong episodes that happened in S4-S6.

[aaa1e2r3]

I don't know if this is the case for anyone else, but Terra Prime isn't appearing on the home page, I only got access to it via the link that got posted on Twitter

[Mecha82]

I didn't expect that speech at end from Archer. It seemed more Kirk or Picard like than anything that we had used to from him. Also that additional video from Chuck was really insightful.

[Sir Will]

Here we are. The proper Enterprise finale. I agree that it sucks it took so long to get here. Enterprise was finally coming into its own and using its premise and setting well.

[clearspira]

I think Terra Prime just kind of comes out of nowhere. What we needed was something akin to Babylon 5's Nightwatch where TP just kind of in the background throughout the series. A symbol here, a whisper there. Simple stuff. And remember that in the Klingon episode they are back on Earth, we could have had some good set up there.

It also could have set up Trip being sympathetic to Terra Prime given what the Xindi did to his sister and his breakdown in season 3. As things stand, he has no reason to be tempted by TP because they are clearly Bond villains from the off. But a Nightwatch model that subtlety puts those thoughts into his head? It could have made for great drama.

A lot of potential but failed execution. 9/10 is a fair score though as when put against the rest of the series, this is the NX-01 crew that if we had had in season 1 the show probably would have gone down so much more fondly with the fandom.

[jshaarda]

Hey Chuck,
Would you mind if I posted the followup Considering Terra Prime on Facebook? Certain friends of mine could use the ideas you expressed.

[clearspira]

Incidentally, as a big fan and dare I say it follower of George Orwell, I liked the implication that certain words ''are not in the Universal Translator''. Are they just talking about swear words or does it censor anything that does not fit with the liberal/progressive views of the burgeoning Federation? We have seen just how much of an informed attribute the Federation's tolerance is in other episodes. Some examples include: the fact that just talking to a former Maquis member gets Kim an electronic tag in ''Non Sequitur'', the fact that Voyager monitors your brain waves all the time for no reason, Janeway's swoon at the diversity of a 20th century beach in Future's End. And that is before we get into all of Picard and Riker's speeches from season 1 and 2 of TNG where nationalism, hunting, capitalism and some forms of recreation are greatly frowned upon.

I am currently imagining something akin to the Sylvester Stallone film ''Demolition Man'' where you get a pink slip for doing something non-PC. Only here it is ''just'' a language filter.

I'm just posing ideas here but it does make you think about just how much the Federation must be reliant on those UTs to keep itself together. If one were to find a way to hack them then you would be able to throw the whole lot of them into turmoil. I am not sure they even know each other's written languages as am I the only ones that has noticed that the Federation marks the buttons on its displays with numbers instead of letters? Obviously some kind of universal mathematically based language they use in place of forcing everyone to learn written English.

[Enterprising]

Thought the accompanying video was as chilling as it was brilliant. As someone in the UK, I can't help but see a near perfect replication of the techniques Chuck talked about, in being used to dupe so many people here to vote for Brexit, and so many of those same people still double-down on it over 3 years on. Even when facts state so many of their prime arguments to Brexit have been found to be factually incorrect.

[Worffan101]

Heh, he references Karen Traviss's clone-trooper number obsession in the companion video. Alright, that's pretty funny.

[CrypticMirror]

I almost wish that this story had been the series premiere episode. It wouldn't have taken many tweaks to make this a crew coming together story, and Enterprise launching to defend Earth and the Alien Ambassadors and from there to start the process of the Federation. It would have been better than Broken Bow, that is for sure. As a finale two parter, it is good too. It would have been right up there with All Good Things, if that had happened.