Enterprise Secret Santa
You may have noticed we still have the Christmas banner up on the front page. There's a reason for that. (And it's not just to spite evay, who scolds me sometimes when I go past Epiphany. Superstition and balderdash!)
<p>This is an ENT update -- and the biggest one since the <i>Dirty Pair</i> pastiche. But before I can show you, I need to do a little explaining. <p>As you know, I'm into anime and manga. One of my personal favourites is <i>Bleach</i>, a long-running shounen series with remarkable depth and artistry behind the swordplay. It has an obscene number of characters, so the learning curve is steep, but well worth it -- I get more out of the series on each reading. (Trivia fact: I first checked it out on Jim Wright's recommendation.) <p>Now, <i>Bleach</i> has a big fandom, and I recently became addicted to one of the best things in it: <a href="http://bleachlists.tumblr.com/">Bleach Lists</a> on Tumblr. Created by Bleach Lists Girl (BLG), it's now in its fourth year, with literally thousands of lists posted (she used to post four a day!). You'd think it would get old after a while, but BLG is consistently hilarious, always finding new spins to put on things. <p>Let me put it this way: over the last couple of months I've made it most of the way through the archives on my phone, taking screenshots of all the funniest bits. I have taken <i>well over a thousand</i>. <p>Now if you poke around the blog a bit, you'll notice that BLG's style is very similar to mine here at 5MV -- her posts are basically chattier Top 10 lists with fiver scenes mixed in. It struck me that some of her list concepts would work well here too; maybe I could use one for a <a href="../features/thedisbanding2.html">Disbanding</a>-sort of thing that would double as my tribute to Bleach Lists. And then I noticed that BLG's birthday was coming up. (She shares my holiday-season birthday pain. Hers is January 14 -- the same as Rukia, <i>Bleach</i>'s female lead.) And <i>then</i> I realized which of her list ideas was the perfect one for both occasions! <p>What follows has nothing to do with <i>Bleach</i>, and 5ME fans can enjoy it fully with no outside knowledge -- but it is also a Bleach Lists tribute. It's written in her format, which differs a bit from mine (you'll quickly notice the biggest way). There's another connection I won't spoil that BLG's readers will spot immediately. And if she gets even a <i>fraction</i> of the laughs from this that I've gotten from her blog, I'll consider it a success. <p>Ladies and gentlemen: <b><a href="../features/entsanta.php">Enterprise Secret Santa!</a></b> |
Hey, I liked "Bound"! Understood as a critique of the sexual revolution and its ultimately destructive, enslaving consequences for all concerned, it's actually quite progressive!
I actually really like this format. The decompression adds a lot of space for humor. 5ME S4 like this? Secret Santa MVP: Travis by a mile. |
Tucker's pun about the shirt was awful at the end, which is why I loved it.
I am also glad Porthos did not give chili as a present. Overall, I giggled. |
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Soval: Well, yes and no... |
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I was a bit surprised (disappointed?) that they weren't joined by Enterprise's Most Feared Villainous Enemy: ...The Aibo. |
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I loved the entire bit with Silik and Reed; too long to quote. Quote:
I'd actually managed to make myself forget about "Bound." I consider the Mirror eps to be the end of ENT and I ignore everything after that. |
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What's with the antimatter box? Beyond the obvious fact that it'll blow up Phlox. |
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Frankly, Phlox is a bit of a Dr. Frankenstein, and the crew doesn't necessarily have reason to love him. Zeke will have to answer specifically, but I read it as Malcolm taking revenge for everyone generally and for Trip in particular. |
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But, until now, it has never seemed like anyone on the 5ME crew has wanted to kill him. They just take it in stride as one of his lovable quirks, like T'Pol's illogic, Sato's prissiness, and Reed's desire to blow up literally everything, including all his shipmates. It seemed like a leap, which is why I assumed there was more to the joke than "kill Phlox." That said, demanding and expecting consistent character arcs and steady evolution from parody versions of actual characters is asking, perhaps, too much from this noble website. EDIT: Alternatively, it may just have been a while since I read much 5ME, and I forgot parts where people expressed their desire to kill him. |
The edited point is accurate. Half of 5ME season 1 is dedicated to Trip failing to kill Phlox.
You fail at Spock-katra. |
Yeah, I'm re-reading now.
Man, Trip hates that guy. I forgot how tied-up Phlox-hatred was in the Porthos/Chile/Aibo arc. |
Told you those therapy sessions at Tantalus weren't worth it.
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And now, a few notes I wrote up but forgot to post.
Finally, re: above Phlox discussion, you guys know where I stand on him. (On the off chance you don't, I will never, ever let "Dear Doctor" go, and it terrifies me that so many reviewers agreed with him, including some friends of mine.) What's particularly interesting here, though, is that we're talking about this in a <i>Bleach</i>-related thread. That series includes a character who basically <i>is</i> the fiver version of Phlox: Mayuri Kurotsuchi, a gleeful mad scientist who never met an experiment he didn't like. He can be Doctor Who one moment and Mengele the next. And yet he's a Captain in Soul Society, the main group of good guys! The reason this sort of almost makes sense is that Soul Society has weird morality in general -- not evil, but weird -- and Mayuri is a super-genius that they couldn't really do without. Those of us with regular human morality would never be able to condone him, but he's fascinating, and Kubo Tite clearly loves writing (and drawing) him as much as I love writing Phlox. |
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