Enterprise 2x23: "Regeneration" - Oh Boy (spoilers of course)

[ijdgaf]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I'm starting this thread because.... I'm the only one on the board right now and I've wanted to start one for a while.

Thoughts:

-Continuity was not airtight, but what else is new. My major nitpicks are the fact that it took them about three seconds to start using the word "nanoprobes", and the whole events-in-[iost_uid0]First Contact[/iost_uid0]-resulting-in-deaths-of-people-200-years-earlier thing.

-This episode was not original.

...

-That said, this episode was about as good as it could be given the concept. The borg didn't need to be on [iost_uid0]Enterprise[/iost_uid0], but if they did, this was the episode to do it. Dramatically good, musically great, plot not bad. Having the borg on [iost_uid0]Enterprise[/iost_uid0] goes against its very premise, but for what it's worth, the episode itself is pretty good.

Take that as you will.[/colorost_uid0]

[Kira]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Although I enjoyed this one (despite missing the crucial seconds where Archer explains why Enterprise is involved at all, leaving me confused for most of the episode), the word that comes to mind is "pointless." Why [iost_uid0]did[/iost_uid0] the Borg have to be on Enterprise? (The phrase that comes to mind there is "May Sweeps.")

Secondly, I think "Regeneration" proves something I've always wondered: you [iost_uid0]can[/iost_uid0] walk on ice only one molecule thick and not break it. My first instinct is to rail on the total, blatant violation of everything we ever learned from "Q Who?". But I'm not sure the temporal paradox doesn't explain it -- the Borg going back in time in [iost_uid0]First Contact[/iost_uid0] could have changed what Starfleet knows about the Borg. But then, shouldn't that have already happened by "Q Who?"

My head hurts.

I did have a few other nitpicks. Phlox's cure seemed a little too convenient. Starfleet having all those scans of the Borg is way too far past continuity, even given the FC time loop -- I'm sure they could have found a way around that. And shouldn't the assimilation been faster? These are Borg from the 24th century, after all, and every assimilation I've ever seen is much faster than the slow progression we saw here. (Okay, so Phlox said he slowed it down... but then why did no one ever figure this out in the 24th century?) And how did the "Borg" ship get all the way to Enterprise that fast? Hasn't Enterprise been travelling away from Earth, more or less, for almost two years? Even with the Borg modifications they couldn't go near that far, that fast.

That all being said, I enjoyed this one. A lot. The crew's initial lack of caution has consequences, and John Billingsley turned in another fantastic performance as Phlox dealt with his own "infection". I liked Archer being forced into blowing up the "Borg" ship.[/colorost_uid0]

[Celeste]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="Kira"]And how did the "Borg" ship get all the way to Enterprise that fast? Hasn't Enterprise been travelling away from Earth, more or less, for almost two years? Even with the Borg modifications they couldn't go near that far, that fast.[/quoteost_uid0]
Hmm. Don't quote me on this, but I thought they had came back closer to earth in the Mayweather episode, to put him on that cargo ship thing. But then i'm not sure. [/colorost_uid0]

[Wonko The Sane]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="Kira"]Hasn't Enterprise been travelling away from Earth, more or less, for almost two years? Even with the Borg modifications they couldn't go near that far, that fast.[/quoteost_uid0]
It is unlikely that they have been travelling in a straight line from Earth. Instead, I imagine they used the Vulcan star charts to pick points of interest, and then plot a rough itenerary of when they would visit those points. Their track would resemble more of a zigzag.

Also, the Enterprise was not travelling at warp 3 for the whole journey, unlike the Borg transport.

*phew* Now on to what I thought...

I agree with earlier points about the slow assimilation process. I was expecting the Tarkalian's (spelling?) apperance to change drastically from when we first saw them on the biobed, to when they were blown out into space.

My major problem, though, is that the Enterprise wasn't cut up like a christmas turkey. The borg had 3 days to modify the transport before they left. That would mean that they'd have plenty of time to salvage any borg weaponry from the sphere. If the sphere's weapons could wreak havoc with 24th century ships, why didn't Enterprise's hull plating fail on the first shot?

Oh, and weren't all the drones transported to the Enterprise - E? Why were there survivors on the sphere?

Given these above points, I thought the episode was well executed. The music was excellent, and truly accented the fear and genuine danger involved throughout.

If nothing, this episode gives a glimpse (albeit a small one), of the potential that this series has, and I believe this episode was a step in the right direction.

P.S. Can you spot the saucer section of the Enterprise E's model jutting out of the snow?[/colorost_uid0]

[Katy Jane]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Ok, I've figured it out! The reason that Enterprise has no continuity when compared to the other series is because it takes place in an alternate time line that was created by the events of the movie First Contact, right? Ok so it's a bit of a stretch, but the ep wasn't all bad. (Though I agree that Phlox's cure was way too convenient.)
now i need to go home and get some sleep.[/colorost_uid0]

[NeoMatrix]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I think the alternate time line makes since. Afterall, in the episode where Q introduces the Borg, they had not gone back in the past to stop the Borg from stopping First Contact yet. So when they go back in time after that epidsode, another time line is present and the Q episode timeline does not exist anymore. I guess "Back to the Future" helps explain this stuff better.[/colorost_uid0]

[Kira]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="Wonko The Sane"]It is unlikely that they have been travelling in a straight line from Earth. Instead, I imagine they used the Vulcan star charts to pick points of interest, and then plot a rough itenerary of when they would visit those points. Their track would resemble more of a zigzag.

Also, the Enterprise was not travelling at warp 3 for the whole journey, unlike the Borg transport.[/quoteost_uid0]
Naturally, but still don't you think they'd be a little farther than a few days' journey from Earth by now?

Something I noticed on TrekToday caught my attention (I avoided spoilers, then went back and read articles after having seen the ep):

[quoteost_uid0]Enterprise consulting producer David A. Goodman told visitors to the Trek BBS that they don't need to worry about the Borg's introduction into the show. "Everything you're worried about, regarding the Borg and Enterprise, [iost_uid0]will not happen[/iost_uid0]," he wrote. "This episode doesn't violate continuity. In fact... it [iost_uid0]serves[/iost_uid0] it.[/quoteost_uid0]

I see two possibilities from this. One, derived from "will not happen," is that there is something we don't know -- such as this being an entirely alternate timeline that will ultimately be erased. Two, the producers are not as intelligent as I'm giving them credit for, and they are ignoring the events of "Q Who?" in favor of the events of [iost_uid0]First Contact[/iost_uid0]. A stupid move, in my opinion, as the two can be reconciled without a lot of difficulty.[/colorost_uid0]

[Wonko The Sane]

[quoteost_uid0="Kira"][color=#000000ost_uid0]Naturally, but still don't you think they'd be a little farther than a few days' journey from Earth by now?[/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]Perhaps the writers just have no sense of distance. Remember how long it took them to get to Qo'nos in 'Broken Bow'?[/colorost_uid0]

[Opium]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]It was a pretty good eppy, high in plot, low in relationships , but it was pretty cool, although, if these where past, ie, future Borg,why did it take so long for them to assimilate? And why were they in a sphere and not a cube? Because, I mean, if they are in a sphere here, then RIGHT AFTER First Contact they should have done away with cubes, only, then there never would have been cubes at all, so why didnt they just stick to cubes? Um, okay, now I'm REALLY confused. If this is some sort of alternate timeline, then howcome when Daneil or whoever came back in time, he was talking about stuff that would have had to happened with the timeline as we know it?
Or,like, then wouldnt there have been a different Enterprise if there HAD been Borg's? And didnt the First Conact crew go to an alternate timeline, that wasnt altered at all, because everything happened as it was supposed too, which meant that someone in the future had come back in THIER history...so then in Enterprise wouldnt they have the same future and past as the post-Contact ie, current Voyager/DS9 timeline, only of course DS9 went back in time twice, and Voyager too, so does that mean we have been seeing people in different timelines interacting? And also, because the Borg was all destroyed, how could they come back a hundred or so years later, and *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
*head explodes* :swear:[/colorost_uid0]

[Anonymous]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Ow.. Stop that![/colorost_uid0]

[PointyHairedJedi]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Well, Kira's TrekToday quote seems to bear out my opinion of what the writers/producers have planned for the show, which will at some point involve some major altering of the time-line that [iost_uid0]Enterprise[/iost_uid0] currently occupies.

If you think about it, it explains a heck of a lot.[/colorost_uid0]

[Michiel]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Well, they ARE involved in a temporal cold war after all. Who knows what kind of time-travel-stuff will still happen? Anyway, I hope that somehow the continuity will be saved.[/colorost_uid0]

[Derek]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]As someone who avoided spoilers as best he could, but still sought out the producers' comments on TrekBBS (the producers refrained from spoilers so I felt safe reading just their posts), I can give you more information on what they were thinking.

The producers were actually trying to reconcile "Q Who?" and "The Neutral Zone". In "The Neutral Zone" the Borg were on the outskirts of known space already. I mean, they were picking off Federation/Romulan outposts along the Neutral Zone. So why were they there? For a DQ-based people, why were they expanding so far toward the AQ when they hadn't even assimilated all of the DQ or BQ? This is the question they tried to answer. I think they did a pretty good job in that regard.

And since I'm posting anyway, here's what I thought of the episode:

likes:
- the tension dominating the entire first act
- the "Conspiracy" sort of ending at the end
- the semi-Borg *
- the music

dislikes:
- some of the implausibility of the episode based on what we know of the Borg

* I liked the semi-Borg that we saw. It made sense that since they didn't have a facility where they could integrate the mechanical components what we'd get is mostly biological Borg. To an extent this tells us what part of the Borg's abilities are due to the nanoprobes and what part are due to their machine-enhancements. In all frankness I find it hard to believe that nanoprobes somehow create the personal shields against phaser fire. I also find it difficult to accept that their assimilation tubules are somehow created by the nanoprobes as well, but, oh well.

Last thought: When watching the ending of the episode, I was reminded of "Relativity" where Seven was explaining how through a paradox, the Borg's efforts to stop Zefram Cochrane actually ended up allowing him to succeed in the end. It seems that those same efforts also started the Borg vs Federation struggle which instigates the Borg's efforts to go back in time.[/colorost_uid0]

[Sa'ar Chasm]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]The only way they can possibly explain the legions of continuity screwups is to blame the Temporal Cold War. Archer will have to travel back in time to set right what once went wrong, and then he'll walk out of the shower and the whole series will never have happened.

And then Patrick Duffy will guest star, and the entire crew will move to Trip's ranch in Texas.[/colorost_uid0]

[Opium]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I think Sa'ar Chasm is right...this is UPN, where "condinudee" is a swear word...just look at Buffy! The only chance of explanations are if we ban together and make silly ones of our own!
Like, the Borg-in-21st Century problem will be solved the day Archer and T'Pol get it on in Trip's new ranch on The Dress Ing Planet, while Mulder and Scully finally track down T'Pol's purse-taking greatgrandmom and ask her for Mulder's sister, right as Buffy makes a tough desision in Spike's arms about killing the Evil Future Guy.

Duff Man Says: OOOOOHHHHHHHH YAAAAAAHHHHH.

Okay, I need sleep. Or less of it. Or more of it. And it's still many hours to darkness and sleep...so bear with me[/colorost_uid0]

[Celeste]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Lay off the poppyseed muffins, Opium. [/colorost_uid0]

[PointyHairedJedi]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]Duffman is thrusting in the direction of the problem![/quoteost_uid0]

I know it doesn't have anything to do anything, but I really love that quote.[/colorost_uid0]

[ijdgaf]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I really, really dislike the alternate timeline theory, namely because:

- this is Star Trek, and

- this is a prequel.

If you're going to do a prequel, make one. Don't reset the franchize, alter the timeline slightly, or anything like that. So far, none of the continuity issues have been so irreconciliable that I feel it has to be an alternate universe. I'm much more fond of [iost_uid0]First Contact[/iost_uid0] creating a predestination paradox, meaning the lives lost in that episode would have been lost no matter what. And the temporal cold war should not be altering the past either. I hope at the end of the series, we'll get a sense that TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY will all unfurl as we saw they did.

Now, if they use a reset button to do this (which I despise even more than the AU idea), I'll have to go on a berserker rage and kill special ops soldiers with my adamantium claws.

:::reminisces over [iost_uid0]X2[/iost_uid0] again, and all is well:::[/colorost_uid0]

[PointyHairedJedi]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Huh. Personally, I plan to really confuse things by building a time machine at some point, then go back in time and change [iost_uid0]Enterprise[/iost_uid0] round so that it actually makes some kind of sense. It'd be nicely ironic, in a really twisted kinda way.[/colorost_uid0]

[Sa'ar Chasm]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]Personally, I plan to really confuse things by building a time machine at some point, then go back in time and change Enterprise round so that it actually makes some kind of sense. [/quoteost_uid0]

While you're at it, change the theme song as well and get rid of that whiny singer. Bring back the orchestra, dammit.[/colorost_uid0]