ST Enterprise: Rate "Zero Hour"

[Rayaru]

I think they made a concious decision at the start of the series to adress Time Travel as a primary theme of the show. They did this by introducing the Temporal Cold War. I saw season three as just an extention of that plot, and a very good one.

If they have good writing, I don't care what they do. Just as long as it's fun to watch.

[Tricky]

I almost didn't watch my tape. I'm glad I did!
(too many hours at work, needed to not be learning about the new computer system for an hour)

OK, I have a theory:
Archer has been 'displaced' in time. Probably by that jerk Daniels ( I mean, if you come from the future, give a guy a little help. Or don't try to talk a guy out of going on a misson: he's not gonna listen!)
So, he got sent through time. He was supposed to go somewhere safe. However, the minute he was displaced, his contribution to history was erased.
This allowed a different timeline to become the primary one.
This meant that all that TCW tampering was never averted/other races joined in. This has lead to wide spread interferance in all timelines.
Archer (and maybe his ship) where drawn to a major one; a Reman attempt to change the outcome of WWII!

[tmutant]

Very good: urgency, suspense, action. The Xindi weapon appeared, and no ships are there to protect Earth? Umm, okay, they're all busy. (You know that an alien race is trying to destroy your world, and you don't set up a round the clock patrol?) That's just nit-picking, however. It was a very good episode, and I look forward to finding out what's up with the ending.

[Balok]

A very nice episode; a nice resolution to the Xindi threat and to the Sphere Builders (for now?). Good tension in both "subplots"; nice to see Hoshi take some time to recover from such hideous mistreatment (not that I want her in pain, but the antiseptic "zap you're healed" of the future wouldn't have been right, here). And a potentially fascinating cliffhanger for the next season.

Twice this season I've given out ratings of 10. I sure didn't expect that; I'll be back in the fall.

[Sarge]

I'm finally at the point where I'd rather watch ENT than new episodes of Andromeda. Of course, that's largely because neither ENT nor NuAndromeda can hold a candle to original Andromeda.

Some of my beefs with Zero Hour:

No defenses around Earth. Yet another example of the complete disregard for basic military tactics that the writers demonstrate over and over again. Come on, people, let's use a little basic common sense.

A lot of the action felt derivative of SW. Huge spherical planet-destroying weapon, hero goes on board to fight hand-t0-hand with villain, spacecraft battling all around the superweapon.

Shran's presence was not required at all. I felt like he was added to the story just because everyone thinks he's cool. I want episode's with Shran to focus on him and his relationship with pinkskins in general and Archer in particular. The only real Shran Moment (TM) we got was his "Archer owes me now" line.

Cheesy CGI P-51s. Last I heard, ENT had a budget that is the envy of almost all other scifi shows. If they couldn't film real Mustangs, they could have added a CGI shuttlepod to stock footage of real Mustangs. ENT's SFX are usually beyond reproach, but that scene looked so fake.

And yet, I have to admit I did enjoy the episode. I still don't care about the characters the way I did about TOS, TNG, and DS9, but I do like them better than VOY's cardboard cutouts. And I really am curious to see what happens next.

[Sea Tyger]

I should've taken a point just for making me wait four months to find out what happens next. Grrr!

I gave it a ten anyway.

[Calcoran]

Funny, usually I tend to rate above average, but this time I seem to be below. Gave it an 8. The episode was good overall, but it looked as if Archer really wanted to be killed, and that bugged me. The worst part was when he made the big reptilian villain explode (good job, by the way!), and proceeded toward a place where he would be able to beam out ... at a very comfortable pace. I mean, he wasn't jogging in Central Park, he was supposed to be running for his life. Noone runs for his life <I>that</I> slowly, even if he's been wounded!
About the ending ... I was rather curious about the "back to WWII" trip, but I must say the alien SS kind of raised a "ugh" from me. Voyager anyone? The alien even looked like a Hirogen (with a bueish tint).

[Rayaru]

Just for the record.... the latest Communicator's interview with Rick Berman has him saying unequivocally that the alien Nazi is not a Reman.

[UFC465537]

I just caught Zero Hour off a buddy's TVo, and it was...okay. At best it was okay. A few things:

1) You'd think the weapon would be better shielded from transport (maybe I didn't watch enough of the shows to figure out how they managed that...I know they had the designer with them, but, you'd figure he'd give them a better way to kill it from the outside if he helped them get inside, non?). I'm just whinin' about this one, I guess.

2) You'd think the guys back home would step-up the construction of the NX-02...or have a phaser or two floating all by itself pointing out in open space...or something, anything!

3) Andorians were a nice touch, but, where were the Vulcans? You know, the pointed-eared fellows with better ships than Earth's?

4)Time travel done badly bothers me...always has. 2 1/2 million years of human history and they pick nazi's, naturally. Not that it hasn't been done before. I guess everyone loves to hate a good nazi..again and again and again....

[Rayaru]

Actually I thought it was great, not just okay.

[Balok]

Originally posted by UFC465537
1) You'd think the weapon would be better shielded from transport (maybe I didn't watch enough of the shows to figure out how they managed that...I know they had the designer with them, but, you'd figure he'd give them a better way to kill it from the outside if he helped them get inside, non?). I'm just whinin' about this one, I guess.

Transporter technology is new to most of the races they've encountered so far. The Xindi have it, but based on how little they used it, I'd say they're around the same level of development as Earth.

We haven't even seen the Vulcans use shields on their ships. Shielding something the size of a small moon would take enormous power, especially at that technical level. And that power is probably all needed to run the weapon.

While the Sphere Builders presumably have significantly advanced technology, we have seen that their tech is unreliable except in regions like the Expanse, that have been altered for compatibility with their physical laws. So their tips on shielding might or might not be effective.

Originally posted by UFC465537
2 1/2 million years of human history and they pick nazi's, naturally. Not that it hasn't been done before. I guess everyone loves to hate a good nazi..again and again and again....

You've answered your own question. With the exception of a tiny number of basically degenerate minds, the Nazis have no friends. They had no redeeming characteristics. They are almost unique in that using them as villians will anger no one. That can't be said of many other groups (none that I can think of off the top of my head).