Enterprise 2x25: "Bounty"J

[Kira]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Okay, so this thread is a week late. I was moving -- so sue me.

I actually just finished watching "Bounty" since I wasn't able to catch it last week (due to, well, having no t.v.). I can't say it's a great improvement on "First Flight" and I certainly hope it's not an indicator of what to expect with this week's season finale.

Positives... Although not a TOS fan, I'm sure having the Tellarites make an appearance is a nice touch. The plot with Archer and the Tellarite captain was a tad predictable, but not entirely dull. And, given what they were forced to work with, Jolene Blalock and John Billingsley turned in good performances.

Negatives... hoo boy. I was hoping that the UPN promo for "Bounty" would be as misleading -- and lead to the same pleasant surprise -- as the promo for "Cogenitor" but, unfortunately, it turned out to be a fairly accurate representation of what to expect from the episode. First off, I'm sure that Trekkies all over the globe are having coronaries at the idea of female Vulcans undergoing Pon Farr. Okay, so maybe this was never directly contradicted -- but why oh why do the producers of Enterprise have to keep walking this fine line? Aside from the ratings generated by T'Pol running around the ship in her underwear, I can't see any motivation for this move. If they had to do T'Pol going through Pon Farr I'm sure they could have handled it with more... class, if nothing else. Of course, thanks to the convenience of it not [iost_uid0]really[/iost_uid0] being Pon Farr, they can always do another episode. Which brings me to my second (or whatever) nitpick: minimizing Pon Farr to a "biochemical imbalance" instead of the grueling psychological experience it used to be portrayed as. (Yes, Voyager did it first.)

It was nice to see some consquences of Archer's escape from the Klingon prison in "Judgment"... anyone want to give me odds this is the last time we ever hear about it?

So, all in all, I'm glad I had this on tape so I could make good use of the fast-forward button.

[Edit: Oops, typo in the topic title. My bad.][/colorost_uid0]