Tag: top 5 | Amy C. Shaw

MY TOP 5(ish) EPISODES OF ENTERPRISE SEASON FOUR

August 31, 2018 • 0 Comments

As my husband and I are going through our second full watch of Star Trek as a couple, I thought it would be fun to report on the highlights along the way, so I decided to copy the same format as Charlene as she posted her journey with Star Trek.

I’m sad I’m finished with Enterprise and this Star Trek rewatch! However, I’m also excited to move on to something new after dedicating so much time to this endeavor! And I’m also excited that soon I will be sharing my top ten of all episodes of Star Trek! Spoiler alert: it’s going to be a lot of DS9.

A note about this list: this season was a lot of two and three episode arcs that are really hard to separate, and I didn’t like the standalone episodes from this season nearly as much, so I stopped at four, but it’s technically more than five. I just wanted to do it this way in order to best reflect my faves of the season. Now, without further ado, season four!

4. Storm Front Parts One and Two

I had really forgotten that the season three finale actually opened a new door in the Xindi story line to be resolved in this two-parter. The intensity of season three continues through these two episodes.

3. Affliction/Divergence

This is the arc in which Enterprise retcons the discrepancy between the Klingons’ appearance from the original series to the other series. I wasn’t as captivated with this arc as I was the first time, but they’re still a solid couple of episodes.

2. Demons/Terra Prime

A group of radical xenophobists create a bispecies baby from two Enterprise crew members to hold as an abomination and further their cause to rid Earth and its territories of aliens. Many consider Terra Prime the true finale of Enterprise and I concur whole-heartedly.

1. Borderland/Cold Station 12/The Augments

This arc explores what happened to some of the other genetically engineered augments from Khan’s time and their attempts to conquer other aliens as well as humans.

What are your thoughts on Enterprise season four? Did you feel the show was too short-lived? On a scale of 1 to 10, how enraged are you by the finale? (10 billion is my answer)

My Top 5 Episodes of Enterprise Season Three

July 24, 2018 • 0 Comments

This is the Enterprise I have been waiting for. From the word go, this season really delivered episode after episode (well, minus a couple of duds). I thought it would be really hard to narrow down my top five because there was so much good, but the hard part was actually remembering the specifics of some of these episodes that served the overall story arc more than an individual episode arc. As a result, most of my picks are episodes that have strong stories that still went with this season’s arc, but stood out a little more on their own as well.

5. Doctor’s Orders

It’s a common Star Trek trope: the ship is traveling through a part of space that will interfere with most everyone’s *insert medical technobabble here*, and only one or two of the aliens aboard can stay awake and take care of the ship. Despite the fact that the episode isn’t totally unique in concept, I really appreciated the insight we got on Dr. Phlox.

4. The Forgotten

Much like the previous episode, I chose this one for its character development, this time though, for Trip as he continues to struggle with the senseless loss of his sister.We also see T’Pol continue to struggle as she weans herself from her trellium addiction. While it’s terrible she has to go through it, it really opens up a new side of her that changes her character.

3. E^2

Star Trek loves doing alternate timeline episodes, and this is one of the good ones. When Enterprise discovers another Enterprise in the Expanse, they come to find out that their ship had been flung into the past and turned into a generational ship, giving the second Enterprise decades to figure out how they can still accomplish their mission to stop the Xinidi from destroying Earth.

2. Similitude

When Trip is gravely injured in an accident, Captain Archer and Dr. Phlox are faced with some very hard decisions. This episode is kind of uncomfortable, but it’s because it really makes you think about the ethics of the situation.

1. Stratagem

I don’t know how to talk about this episode without spoilers, so let me just say that it’s a very interesting exploration on a theme that intrigues me and gets into some interesting psychology.

What are your favorite episodes from Enterprise season three?

My Top 5 Episodes of Enterprise Season One

February 17, 2018 • 0 Comments

I’ve got faith, of the heart… Oh, Enterprise theme song. How turn-of-the-century you are.

I was really excited about starting Enterprise again, because since my first watch of it, I’ve said it’s my second favorite Trek series (after DS9). I remembered not loving the pilot though, nor really most of the first season, but I thought: well, I know the characters now, it’ll be different.

Guys, the first season is still rough, even when you know it gets better. I can see why it might be hard for someone to get into. (Also, after watching the first few episodes of Discovery and being thoroughly unimpressed, I can better appreciate why people were super dubious of Enterprise when it debuted.) However, when looking for my top 5, I actually did have a hard time narrowing it down. While Enterprise did struggle with execution in their first season, they were definitely trying to tell good stories, and I can see it so many times in this first season.

So first, some honorable mentions: Silent Enemy, in which the B plot of Hoshi trying to discover Macolm’s favorite food outshines the main conflict (this was the first time I felt I connected with the characters when I watched the show the first time) and Shadows of P’Jem, in which we see the aftermath of the episode The Andorian Incident (also a decent episode). Now for my top 5…

5. Breaking the Ice

A lot of this episode is forgettable, but there are two things about it that really stand out to me. One is that it’s the first time we see T’pol trust Trip with something personal. She doesn’t do it willingly, as Trip reads a personal letter of hers that was encoded and flagged as suspicious, but we see this play out later on (including in another episode this season, Fusion, which I also considered for this list, but that Vulcan dude seriously gives me the heebie-jeebies). The second is Enterprise accepting the Vulcan ship’s help at the end of the episode. Archer really has a chip on his shoulder for the Vulcans holding them back from going out into space sooner, but here is a moment where he has to admit that they can’t do everything on their own. I think for a show that is about the beginnings of mankind’s deep space exploration, that is a very important moment.

4. Dear Doctor

So the doctor’s attitude at the end really kind of bothers me, which is why this is lower on the list rather than higher, but I am definitely a sucker for epistolary episodes. I like the insight it provides of the doctor’s life, ethics, and culture.

3. Acquisition

I can’t believe I’m putting a Ferengi episode at number three on my list. I can’t stand Ferengi episodes. But really, it’s fun to watch Trip first, then Archer, and then T’pol, outsmart the Ferengi (not hard to do) and get Enterprise back.

2. Shuttlepod One

I remember this one being a favorite for me during my first watch, but I have to admit that Trip and Malcolm both annoyed me in this one this time, plus they seem to jump to the conclusion that Enterprise was destroyed a little too quickly for me to really buy into it. But I chose this one as one of my favorites despite these things because it is good development for both Trip and Malcolm.

1. Detained

Captain Archer and Travis Mayweather are imprisoned alien race who believe they have purposely encroached their space. When the leader of the internment camp where they are staying at realizes the misunderstanding, he says they will be free to go on the next transport ship out, but as Archer gets to know the Suliban that are in the camp with them, he stages a revolt. This episode of course makes you think of internment camps in American history and how misguided they are.

What are your thoughts on Enterprise? Which episodes form season one stand out to you?

My Top 5 Episodes of Voyager Season Seven

January 19, 2018 • 3 Comments

As my husband and I are going through our second full watch of Star Trek as a couple, I thought it would be fun to report on the highlights along the way. So I decided to copy the same format as Charlene. See her top episodes of Voyager season seven. (Spoiler alert: I think this is the first time we’ve had zero episodes in common for our lists! It goes to show though that season seven was pretty solid.)

And the Voyager rewatch is a wrap! My husband said something interesting about Voyager, that it’s the most even-keeled of the series. The others have extreme highs and extreme lows, so Voyager doesn’t stand out as much to me. But I do like the characters and their arcs, and that’s what matters most to me at the end of the day.

First, honorable mention goes to Repentance and Lineage. The latter struck me in a new way to me this time and made me appreciate it more than I had before. Now for the Top 5…

5. Critical Care

This is a good, standard Star Trek episode that acts as a commentary for human ethics, more specifically where health care is concerned.

4. Imperfection

Icheb takes a risk in order to save Seven, and I just love the portrayal of their relationship in this episode. Icheb has become a productive member of the crew and a mature young man, and it’s heartwarming see how he cares for his surrogate mother.

3. Body and Soul

This one is just plain funny. The doctor is forced to inhabit Seven’s body in order to hide from a group of aliens looking to destroy holographic beings. Let’s just say Jeri Ryan did amazing work on this episode playing The Doctor in Seven’s body.

2. Shattered

Voyager is caught in a temporal rift, and Chakotay must find a way to get the crew of Voyager set in various time periods to help him solve the problem.

1. Human Error

Seven is finally exploring her humanity more as she starts using a holodeck program to help her gain new social skills. Fantasy has a way of interfering with her real life, a theme I almost always enjoy exploring.

What are your favorite episodes of Voyager season seven?

My Top 5 Episodes of Voyager Season Six

October 3, 2017 • 3 Comments

5. Fair Haven

This episode is a little silly, but it’s fun to see the Voyager crew in a new environment. The main plot follows Janeway’s romance with a holodeck character whose program she alters to better fit her needs (and to delete his wife!), which is slightly alarming for Janeway, but not outside of the realm of plausibility for her either.

4. Good Shepherd

After Seven identifies the ship’s resident misfits, Janeway takes them in for an away mission, to prove to them that they add value to the crew. What is supposed to be a simple away mission turns into a potentially life-threatening situation, and they all have to rely on each other more than ever anticipated. I really kind of liked the hypochondriac character on this episode; I would have liked to have seen more of him!

3. The Haunting of Deck Twelve

Episodes that take place entirely on the ship hardly ever catch my interest, but I love the way this episode is framed. Neelix proves to be quite the storyteller as he deflects the Borg kids’ questions about what is happening on Voyager by telling them a scary story, which may in fact be the truth of what is happening.

2. Blink of an Eye

The concept behind this one is so fascinating: Voyager is trapped in a planet’s atmosphere for what feels like days for them, but for the people below, it’s centuries. If Voyager doesn’t act quickly enough, the people on the planet will soon have technology that outpaces their own.

1. Unimatrix Zero

I barely remembered this season finale (and part two season 7 opener) from my first watch of Voyager, but it was a stand-out episode for me this time. Though I do feel like Seven relaxes some after this episode, I would have liked to have seen her relax even more. She really seemed to thrive in the world she and some other Borg had created for themselves.

What are your favorite episodes of Voyager season six?

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