#The Aenar

[spockvarietyhour]

Star Trek Enterprise "The Aenar"

[giffingthingsss]

[best-star-trek-character]

[sshbpodcast]

To Be Continued: Multi-parters in Star Trek (Part 4)

By Ames

Last time on A Star to Steer Her By: We covered multi-part episodes across the Star Trek franchise. From The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine to Voyager, your plucky hosts were teased by waiting in suspense for the outcome of each first installment’s cliffhanger. And one pattern emerged: two-parters could almost always have been told with better pacing and intrigue in just one episode. It’s often painfully clear that the writers don’t plan it out beforehand. You can’t just wing this stuff.

It won’t be surprising to learn that we’ve come to the same conclusion with most of the two- and three-parters in our final series to discuss: Enterprise. All but one of these arching plots come in the final season of the show, when the focus of the show’s stories shifted to setting the stage for what we already know happens in The Original Series. But jeez, almost all of these multi-parters are meetings that could have been an email. Enjoy our final installment in this series below and listen to our chatter on this week’s podcast episode (shimmy on over to 48:33). And now, the exciting conclusion!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

ENT: “Shockwave”

Our first and only example of a two-parter not in season 4 comes as the season 1 finale / season 2 premiere. And you know what: we were thoroughly teased for a change! We marked this as the first time in Enterprise that we felt as though there were any stakes at all, which is more a dig at the rest of the show than praise for this episode. It’s also the first time we actually liked Archer, which again, is mostly a dig at Archer.

But “Shockwave” actually succeeds at a great deal of things. Visiting the distant future with Daniels and witnessing how it is NOT what that little time bitch expected gets our attention. That future is twisted and bleak and we finally see the consequences of the Temporal Cold War in ways that we hadn’t grasped before. Leaving off the season with that cliffhanger was very impactful, and the resolution in Part 2 didn’t disappoint either! I hope all the Enterprise story arcs go this smoothly!

ENT: All of season 3

Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no. So it’s unfair to qualify all of season 3 as a multi-parter since it goes off on mini-adventures once in a while and is more serial storytelling than a big “To be continued” at the end, but if we included that ten-parter in DS9, then we’ll at least touch on the Xindi War arc here. Annoyingly, the whole plot finally stops spinning its wheels and gets interesting at like episode 18, which is far too late to finally capture viewers’ attention. Writers of serial stories take note: you need to pay things off in a satisfying manner at regular intervals to keep your audience invested. We can’t wait to open the same mystery box for 20 weeks in a row. We would have left if we didn’t have a podcast to do.

“The Council” and “Countdown” are probably closest to being a sneaky two-parter out of this 24-episode arc (25 if you count “The Expanse” from season 2). And they do succeed in a number of things: there finally seem to be stakes, the Enterprise crew finally seems to be handling things in a diplomatic fashion instead of brute force, and things finally start to pay off. It just took way too long getting from there to here, and it was torture in way too many ways.

ENT: “Storm Front”

Season 4 begins our constant barrage of multi-parters with the conclusion of the Temporal Cold War. In Nazi times, for no good reason. After all of season 3, we badly needed a break, and we don’t get one until after this rather confounding two-parter. Like so many others, it probably could have been a one-and-done, but at least we were entertained.

And “Stormfront” achieves perhaps the finest feat in all of Enterprise: it closes out the Temporal Cold War! Was it satisfying? Your mileage may vary. But it did it and that is to be commended. It also never hurts to show our heroes punching a lot of Nazis, especially after all the really unethical behavior they engaged in in the previous season, so they get some points at the very least.

ENT: “Borderland,” “Cold Station 12,” “The Augments”

Nine out of the 22 episodes in this final season are in three-parters, which is a surprising percentage considering how rarely those occurred before. (Only five episodes of this season weren’t in multi-parters: “Home,” “Daedalus,” “Observer Effect,” “Bound,” and “These Are the Voyages…”) Our introduction to Arik Soong and his augmented children had some good stuff going for it, but by the time we made it to “The Augments,” we were finding things get repetitive and uninteresting. Soong and Malik can have the same fight only so many times.

A two-part version of this story arc really would have been sufficient. Tighten some of the plot up by cutting out the teenage drama among the Augments and use that extra time to maybe actually do something with Udar. Dealer’s choice if you want to still include the Orion slave market plot. But there was no reason to stretch this to THREE episodes unless the writer’s room had really declared idea bankruptcy.

ENT: “The Forge,” “Awakening,” “Kir’Shara”

Our next three-parter takes place mostly on Vulcan and ALSO could easily have been a two-parter instead of a three-parter! There was just so much wandering the desert. And so much wandering in the caves. It’s a three-parter that somehow spends a majority of its time wandering but not paying off that wandering with anything worth the trip.

When you start to notice that everyone up on the Enterprise is just waiting around for the Shran plot or chatting with the incredibly boring V’Las on the phone, then the flaws really become quite obvious. Yet again, the episodes would have benefited from a little more focus and a little less convolution. And then we get the Romulan reveal at the end, which comes out of nowhere and leaves me wondering what the hell I just watched. And don’t worry: it won’t be the last time the Romulans come out of nowhere…

ENT: “Babel One,” “United,” “The Aenar”

C’mon Enterprise writers. You CAN’T have two different three-parters that are both revealed to be about Romulan tampering. Do you even talk to each other? Arguably, this batch is a decent two-parter and then a third episode that should have just been its own thing. The plot just sort of stops when there’s suddenly a sideplot to Andoria to go visit the Aenar, adding another layer onto this pile of plots that starts to wobble under its own weight.

I do like the Aenar people we meet. I just wish they’d just gotten their own one-off episode. Between “Babel One” and “United,” we had Humans and Vulcans and Andorians and Tellarites and Romulans and Remans already. That is PLENTY for the story about bringing the founding members of the Federation together against a common cause. We didn’t need another race on top of all that because they didn’t really add anything to the theme of allying societies together. I still like Jhamel though.

ENT: “Affliction,” “Divergence”

An example that not only shouldn’t have been a two-parter, but shouldn’t even have been a one-parter is this Klingon augment virus idea that is so unnecessary I could weep. Remove the terrible, terrible forehead retcon and maybe we can squeeze one single episode out of the idea that the Klingons have tried to augment themselves and failed, and Phlox does some doctoring to help in one of few moral Phlox moments, but two parts? Bullpucky.

There were also too many obvious attempts to appease the fans here. T’Pol does a mindmeld on Hoshi with guidance from Archer, which frankly feels gross. We learn Reed is actually Section 31, which is so infantile to my sensitivities but I’m sure there were plenty of fans out there creaming themselves over this callback (callforward?). And then Trip shimmying his way between two ships at warp is obviously meant to be an impressive feat… but if you think about it for more than its airtime, it makes absolutely no sense and is just padding this episode out. Sad face.

ENT: “In a Mirror, Darkly”

While the second half of our trip to the mirror universe is admittedly a fun romp, you’ve also got to admit that the thing as a whole could also have benefited from trimming down to one episode. I’d suggest getting to the Defiant much, much earlier because that’s when things actually get interesting. An excruciating amount of Part 1 is exposition because these episodes take place entirely in the mirror universe instead of seeing a main character travel to the mirror universe. There’s so much establishing who these people are and where they live that takes up a huge chunk of time that could be used to tell the story.

Also, trimming down would allow us to lose the Gorn, which was entirely superfluous to the rest of the story and looked just plain terrible. With all that fixed, this would make for a tight, enjoyable, individual episode because everything in the mirror universe is always so dramatic anyway that it holds attention better than most.

ENT: “Demons,” “Terra Prime”

Finally! We get to our best Enterprise example of a decently paced two-parter and it’s the very last one before the show finale (or arguably the show finale itself if you don’t want to count “These Are the Voyages…” as canon, which would be understandable). The Terra Prime terrorist episodes do a good job of building and keeping their theme of confronting xenophobia, and I’ve got to commend them for keeping the action consistent, revealing the twists steadily, and mostly giving all the characters something to do!

I still have to nitpick though. There are just a ton of cuttable elements that wouldn’t affect a damn thing if you wrote them out. There’s Mayweather’s girlfriend Gannet, who just doesn’t add much and is contradictory and superfluous by the end. There’s the Enterprise spy, Masaro, whom we’d never met before and killing him off felt anticlimactic. There’s anything Reed learns from Section 31, which frankly would have been more interesting if they’d learned themselves in real time and kept Agent Harris off the callsheet entirely. But all the Paxton stuff: winner.

—

And so concludes this multi-parter about multi-parters! But don’t worry—if you thought we were done ragging on Enterprise, be assuaged to know that we’ve got some blogtivities in the coming weeks spotlighting it, so you’d best be following along here and on the podcast at SoundCloud or wherever you like to get your podcasts. You can also shuttlepod over to visit us on Facebook. And stop making the Romulans your twist ending—it’s been done to death!

[deadheaddaisy]

I love these two. He's so tender with her.

Beautiful and precious moments between Shran and Jhamel, to be cherished…

[foodcu-be]

doodles from twitter

[alienoryva]

A targaryen name that only used by one person in the family ;

Aenar (Father of Daenys the dreamer)

Daenys (Daughter of Aenar the exile)

Maegon (Son of Aegon & Elaena/grandson of Daenys the dreamer & Gaemon the glorious)

Aelix (Son of Aerys/great-grandason of Daenys the dreamer)

Daemion (Youngest son of Aerys/great-grandson of Daenys the dreamer/father of lord Aerion/grandfather of the Conqueror siblings)

Aenys i (only child of Aegon the Conqueror & Rhaenys)

Aerea (Daughter of Aegon the uncrowned & Rhaena Targaryen/twins sister of septa-princess Rhaella Targaryen)

Maegelle (Sixth child of Jaehaerys i & Alysanne)

Vaegon (Seventh child of Jaehaerys i & Alysanne)

Viserra (Tenth child of Jaehaerys i & Alysanne)

Valerion (Twelfth child of Jaehaerys i & Alysanne)

Gael (Youngest/thirteenth child of Jaehaerys i & Alysanne)

Rhaenyra i (Daughter of Viserys i & Aemma Arryn)

Helaena (Daughter of Viserys i & Alicent Hightower)

Baela (Daughter of Daemon & Laena Velaryon/Twins sister of Rhaena)

Jaehaera (Daughter of Aegon ii & Helaena/Twins of Jaehaerys)

Daena (Eldest Daughter of Aegon iii & Daenaera Velaryon)

Naerys (Daughter of Viserys ii & Larra Rogarre)

Rhaegel (Third son of Daeron ii & Myriah Martell)

Maekar i (Youngest son of Daeron ii & Myriah Martell)

Aelor (Son of Rhaegel & Alys Arryn)

Aelora (Eldest Daughter of Rhaegel & Alys Arryn/Twins of Aelor)

Daenora (Youngest child/daughter of Rhaegel & Alys Arryn)

Valarr (Eldest son/child of Baelor the breakspear & Jena dondarrion)

Matarys (Youngest son/child of Baelor the breakspear & Jena dondarrion)

Rhae (Youngest daughter/child of Maekar i & Dyanna dayne)

Rhaelle (Youngest daughter/child of Aegon v & Betha Blackwood/grandmother of Robert i,stannis,renly Baratheon)

Rhaegar (Eldest son/child of Aerys the mad king & Rhaella)

Shaena (Second child/Eldest Daughter of Aerys the mad king & Rhaella)

🪻

NOTE: I didn't add the Targaryen name which only uses additional alphabet but the spelling is same (Saera & Shaera / Aemon & Aemond)

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

#940

Sometimes, I wonder if it's just me, but I sincerely feel Hemmer had much more potential than to just help with another character development. It's not often I find a character that portrays blindness or even deafness, but it seems each one I do find, that I've also liked, end up getting thrown out in a horribly morbid way. There was so much wrong with this. They could have retired him or something to make room for Scotty. I'm not gonna lie, but I've been nervous to bring up a confession. Sure, Hemmer wasn't like a "main" character, but I wished there was more of him. Sometimes, I refuse to acknowledge some events of SNW as canon and that Hemmer is still there. He is a very cool character, Uhura lost her family, and he took almost like a father role to her as well as a mentor. Plus, an Aenar being in Starfleet as not just any engineer, but the Chief Engineer is pretty awesome. Hemmer is a wonderful representation of people and huge props for the actor for that. I wished and hope that more people eventually appreciate Hemmer even for the small things.

[silmarillaure]

Don't pit THE MEN of House Targaryen against each other!!!

Aenar is SMART FOR LISTENING TO HIS DAUGHTER

Aegon I is...

Aenys TRIED

Maegor is...

Aegon the Uncrowned MARRIED A LESBIAN ICON & IS AEREA'S FATHER

Jaehaerys I is...

Aemon the Pale Prince is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL TARG MAN

Baelon is HUBBY MATIRIAL

Vaegon is A NERDY ACE ICON

V*serys I is...

D@emon is...

Aegon II is...

Aemond is...

Daeron the Daring is A WAR CRIMINAL WHO GET'S A PASS FOR BEING A MINOR

Aegon III DESERVED BETTER!!!

Viserys II is...

Daeron I is...

Baelor I is...

@*g0n !V is...

Aemon the Dragonknight is THE FATHER DAERON II DESERVED

Daeron II is THE BEST KING OF WESTEROS

Baelor Breakspear is THE BEST TARGARYEN MAN EVER

Aerys I is AN AROACE BOOKISH KING

Rhaegel is A DANCER WHO HATES CLOTHES

Maekar is AEGON V'S FATHER

Daeron the Drunken is...

Aerion is...

Maester Aemon is FLAWLESS

Aegon V is THE MOST ICONIC MALE TARG

Duncan LOVES HIS WIFE

Jaehaerys II is...

Daeron the Gay MARRIED HIS BF FOR LOVE

Aerys II is...

Rhaegar is...

Viserys III is...

[pillowprincessherbertwest]

me @ myself: heY fOR Real, you hAVE 3 thINGs tO FInish bY MOnday so can W also me: SHROTH AND JHAMOTH! SHROTH AND JHAMOTH! (shran is modeled after a luna moth, jhamel is a white ermine moth)

[prince-aegon-targaryen]

Daenys the Dreamer in 114 BC

[spockvarietyhour]

Andoria, The Northern Wastes and The Aenar Compound, "The Aenar"

[giffingthingsss]

When I was on that ship with Malcolm I was convinced I was going to die. You ever been there?...I'm not talking close scrapes. I mean when you're in a bad situation, and you know this is it, there's no way out, and you have time to think about it....What went through your mind?

-Whether or not to transfer auxiliary power to the deflector array. Why do you ask?

...Just curious.  

[amoratearte]

🐉 Aenar Targaryen 🌋

Targaryen Family Tree

“Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer, and moved”

Known children: Daenys and Gaemon

[sshbpodcast]

Even a fanfic season of Enterprise is better than a 9/11 season

by Ames

After the deplorable nationalist nightmare that was season 3 of Enterprise, pretty much anything would be an improvement. And the final season of the Trek prequel series was… fine, I guess? Under the eye of the late showrunner Manny Coto, the show got back to its roots. A lot. Sometimes too much. But it’s a prequel series after all and that was sort of its expectation, so ya know what, your hosts at A Star to Steer Her By can sort of forgive it.

Much of season 4 feels a little like fanfic, much of the season was made up of two- and three-parters, and the whole thing fizzled to a finale that most fans utterly deplore, but still. Better than season 3. So what did your SSHB hosts think of these last twenty-something episodes? Grab your ushaan-tor and find out below and on this week’s podcast episode (jump to 1:15:34 for season chatter) featuring bonus picks from guest star Liz! En garde!

[images © CBS/Paramount]

Top Three Episodes

It was especially hard to come up with good episodes this season, partly because they all ran together in multi-episode arcs that were hard to pick apart, and partly because so much of it was very meh. So what rose to the challenge?

“Borderland”: Caitlin The first three-part romp starts off with the potential to build to something decent (though you’ll see shortly that that doesn’t exactly come to pass). But the Enterprise folks knew enough about how to win our hearts: involve Brent Spiner! We’re really easy to please in that regard, and meeting a new Soong who loves to ham things up is enough to bring this episode to the tops list.

“Cold Station 12”: Ames And Brent is even better in the second part of the Augments journey, so we’re seeing a little more representation of that arc here. Watching Soong reunite with his loser son Smike is touching enough on its own, but then he also grapples with his own ethics when he sees the delight that his other loser son Malik takes in torturing people. Just what is a mad scientist to do?

“The Aenar”: Ames In a season that mostly scrapes by as “fine,” there aren’t a ton of standouts, so when the Aenar show up, at least they’re something original and interesting. This newly contacted race of blind telepaths who live under the ice proves engaging enough in an otherwise confounding three-parter. More of these guys and less of the Romulans, I say, which is normally sacrilege on this podcast.

“United”: Chris, Jake You’ll notice that Chris and Jake overlap entirely in their tops picks this season, which seems like some kind of conspiracy to me. They’re getting along as well as Vulcans and Andorians and Tellarites in the middle of this confusing plot about Romulan nonsense, so that’s something. And as usual, Shran proves to be an utter delight even if his fight to the death with Archer ends in a cop out.

“In a Mirror, Darkly”: Chris, Jake Chris has been bigging up this mirror universe claptrap literally since the start of this podcast eight years ago, and it turns out to be the campy nerdfest we all expected it to be. It’s definitely the most we’ve enjoyed the mirror universe since “Mirror, Mirror.” Even the title sequence gets in on the game! So if you like fun romps that are full of little easter eggs, this episode may be for you! (Chris is going to LOVE Lower Decks.)

“Observer Effect”: Ames, Caitlin This one’s actually a super simple concept executed surprisingly well! It just goes to show that bottle episodes can be some of the best episodes because, rather than going all out on bells and whistles, the focus is more on characters, pacing, and filming technique, all of which “Observer Effect” excels at! The slow build of suspense is masterful, and every actor gets to play an Organian at one point or another. Fun!

“Terra Prime”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake Many fans argue that this is where the whole series should have ended, and we’re inclined to agree. Sure, there’s a lot of fat to trim off of the two-parter that “Demons” and “Terra Prime” comprise, but who can say no to watching Peter Weller’s performance as the irredeemably xenophobic Paxton? We also appreciated some lovely work from Connor Trinneer and Jolene Blalock with their doomed baby thing.

—

Bottom Three Episodes

You’re going to see a couple of episodes with full sweeps from your hosts in the Bottoms list because, boy, were there some bad eggs this season. Not to mention that most of the two- and three-parters were unfortunately uneven as hell.

“The Augments”: Jake Remember how the Augments arc started out with such potential? Well it doesn’t quite stick the landing in the final installment of that arc, which just became repetitive and full of more teenage angst. Sorry, but Malik just plain isn’t that interesting a character, let alone a villain. The whole batch of augmented kids start to feel too much like a drama on the CW, with not enough substance to carry three episodes.

“Divergence”: Chris The main dumpster fire of the Klingon plot is the fully unnecessary retconning of why Klingon foreheads in The Original Series are smooth but in other series are ridged. It’s the answer to the question no one asked, and frankly makes us feel dumber for learning. Even Trip shimmying through space on a wire or some actual ethical character work from Phlox (for a damn change!) can’t save this awful premise.

“Affliction”: Ames, Caitlin We’re not even done shitting on the Klingon augment virus two-parter, as both are represented on the bad list! We start the whole thing off with some preposterous set up which includes the utter retcon that Reed is an unwilling pawn of Section 31, which we’ve been frankly over since that catastrophe “Extreme Measures” in Deep Space Nine. And don’t worry: Paramount is going to force feed us more.

“These Are the Voyages…”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake As promised, you have TWO episodes with sweeps, and this is one of them. Frequently voted as the worst of all Star Trek, the series finale is a slap in the face to any actual Enterprise fans out there (if there were any to begin with). But for Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis to basically take over the show just after it’s been canceled is rude as hell and does a disservice to the characters we’ve been following.

“Bound”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake But I’ve saved this one for last because it’s so insulting. All the men on the Enterprise end up entranced by some Orion slave girls sexing up the place, which isn’t cringey enough on its own somehow that we’re forced to watch a full music video of them writhing around. But it’s okay after all! The writers have subverted the situation by making them empowered slave girls! Who just really like being slaves! What?

—

So long, NX-01! That’s all from the abruptly canceled Enterprise. We’ll never know if this show could have bounced back from some more mediocre ideas, generally unoriginal plots, and more Archer yelling at crewmen than we were expecting. There’s nothing left to do but check out our full series Top Five Star Trek ENT Episodes and Bottom Five Star Trek ENT Episodes blogposts. Keep following along here and on SoundCloud as the podcast prepares to move into less charted territory! Bounce a signal off Echo 1 over on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t give cheese to Porthos!

[flavoredfaeman]

Here's more art of my boys!