2.26: The Expanse (S2 finale)

[Dave]

Spoilers (obviously)
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from TrekToday
Will air in a double-bill with "Bounty" on May 21.

Reportedly features the continuation of the Klingon story arc from "Judgment" and "Bounty", with the Klingon Chancellor offering Duras a chance to reclaim his honour by capturing Captain Archer. Meanwhile, the NX-01 is recalled to Earth, after a massive attack on the home planet.

Rumoured to include a romantic interest for Jonathan Archer.

from Star Trek Monthly

Rick Berman: "I think our final episode of the season is going to be quite startling because we're going to do a cliffhanger that will put a new twist on the series as it enters its third year," Berman told the British Star Trek Monthly (via StarTrekUK.com. "I don't really want to get specific about it, but we're not talking about a tiny change. We're talking about a change that is going to, to some degree, alter our mission and, to some degree, change the tone of the series. We're very excited by it. This idea will be introduced partially in the final episode of this season and then more dramatically dealt with in the opener next season."

 

[mordy]

This Sounds Exciting i can't wait to see it

 

[gr8scott]

At some point, and for some reason... Earth has to begin building a spacefleet consisting of many enterprise type ships. At least, this is what I read before the series took off - somewhere on some site I read about all the different classes of ships that preceded TOS enterprise. These ships seem to be in response to some threat to Earth. I wish I could remember where I saw this?????? I wonder how this coincides with the beginnings of StarFleet.

EDIT: It can be dangerous trying to remember things when you're me. I think that the threat to earch had something to do with the Klingons.

 

[Tabitha]

This doesn't really have much to do with the ep... but... there are 26 eps this season of enterprise. Sheesh.

 

[gr8scott]

Did you guys see the trailer for the finale? It had some ship/weapon shooting a beam at earth. Then you see the impact area look kinda like the Genesis effect. Who do you think the aggressor is?

Whoever it is, it will most likely launch the beginnings of the federation - different races coming together for mutual defense. We'll see!

 

[gr8scott]

Are we suppose to wait a week before openly posting spoilers, or should put all spoilers in tags?

 

[skoon]

Spoiler
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kinda good. didn't see any romance for Captain Archer. wasn't a cliff hangert to my knowledge. I didn't really see the point of Trip's sister being among the dead...

 

[gr8scott]

Tripp's sister... so that Tripp, and maybe some of the crew in general, will have this REVENGE type of attitude going in. It adds an element of urgency and doom to the show that it totaly lacked. Will it work? I don't know. I thought that the storyline should have been stretched out a little. Events changed to quickly to be real. It seemed to crunched.

Also, a big jump in Enterprise's abilities? They were the underdogs, now they can beat a Klingon Ship in an otherwise pitched battle?

EDIT: It would have been better IMO to see earth so freaked out that they started building defenses and such. It seems they just placed their defense on Archer's shoulders. This is unrealistic. Also, the Vulcan's saying that Vulcan technology is still "slightly" more advanced than humans is interesting don't you think?

 

[skoon]

They seem to focus on Trip so often, sure he's cute & all but maybe there should have been a few people who had friends & family. I dunno, I didn't 'beleive' Trip had just lost a family member...he didn't seem to act how one should act when loosing a family member...

 

[gr8scott]

I bet that the Future Guy is actually lying to both the humans and the Xindi. Future guy probably told them that the Federation would destroy their world in 400 years (a lie) and then told Archer that they knew this futuristic info (truth about a lie). Future Guy is probably just trying to create a war.

EDIT: the more I think about this, the more I bet this will be the case. Future Guy probably lied to the Xindi and gave them future tech. Then told Starfleet a similar lie. He wants to start a war! Just like with the Klingons. Interesting.

 

[skoon]

all this future stuff still confuses me...& whos world did we destroy? was it the Klingons (what abour Warf then ) or were the Klingons just involved in this show because they were after Archer?

 

[gr8scott]

No. The alien race that the Earth is suppose to destroy in 400 years is called the Xindi. So far, the Klingons are just pesky aliens.

 

[gr8scott]

Spoilers for Xindi, from Trekweb:

Spoiler

Braga says the Xindi ...will be unlike any alien foe seen in TREK before, and Berman says some components of the beings on screen will be created with computer imagery. Braga says we will see not only Xindi humanoids, but insectoids and other species, all with their own technology

 

[skoon]

hmm...doen't that bug (sorry 'bout the pun) anyone else that they say that they will be unlike any alien foe seen in TREK before? Why didn't the later Treks see them then if Enterprise comes first? Ya ya that whole confusing futer/time travel stuff again.

 

[gr8scott]

I'm of the opinion that the original timeline is shot to hell. Braga would have it no other way. Maybe this is why Gene's wife threw a fuss when Braga wanted Enterprise to occure before TOS.

 

[Dave]

I've just seen this and I have to agree about the Timeline. We must be in an alternate reality caused by the activities of 'Future Guy'. It is now too divergent from the things we already know to have happened, or not happened. The idea that 7 million people could be killed here, but that this attack, the Xindi, and the Delphic Expanse are all be unheard of elements in the Trek canon is much too unlikely.

There were a number of other things that would have Gene Roddenberry turning in his grave. Archer apparently agreed to having some kind of Marines onboard (although we never got to see them.) Now I actually think that is a good idea, but it's just not 'Star Trek', and if they have them now, why didn't the the 'Enterprise-D' take some to attack the Borg? Why didn't they have them during the Dominion War? Cardassian Wars?

The whole concept of the surprise attack was a much too obvious parallel with the American view of 9/11. And I agree with whoever said that there would be Earth defences built, not just a reliance on a single ship, sent on a suicide mission of no return.

I wondered why the Xindi attacked Earth anyway. Surely, if they are developing some kind of super-weapon, they would have been better to have perfected it first, rather than to show their hand with a less lethal prototype.

The quantum dating machines made no sense to me. Obviously, I have no idea how they work, but they certainly don't work like carbon-dating. I can't see how an electronic component can be dated as -420 years old, because it fell through a time-warp 420 years. It would just be as old as the time since it was made, how can it be less than zero. I agree with Soval on this one!

Also, they spent three episodes this season building this Klingon/Duras story, only to kill him off in this one. What was the point of that? I thought that this Duras was going to be revealed as an ancestor of the TNG era Duras, but obviously not then.

My main problem was that this was just not as good as I had been expecting. I could stand them being fast and loose with the Trek continuity if it had been an earth-shatteringly good story, but it just wasn't up to it.

 

[gr8scott]

I thought the same thing about the Xindi testing the prototype on Earth. I thought... "why in the world would they test the prototype on the actual target, and kill one of their own. Surely they could have destroyed a moon with an unmanned version or something".

I just find it hard to believe that the Federation would destroy an entire race. It goes against everything. I bet Archer will discover that the Xindi, as well as Earth, are all being lied to by Future Guy. Earth probably never destroyed the Xindi.

 

[ray gower]

I missed the first five minutes, consequently the first thing I saw was a Suliban, and that said it all

From out of no where sandpaper faces reappear and launch us into another time-hopping episode of alternative timelines, mucked up futures and knackered histories, with only the sudden and totally irrational and baffling punch up with Duras to break the monotony. Talk of throwing a good story away!

If only they could bump off the Suliban and leave us with the Klingons. It might have been something far more interesting and just perhaps the gaping plot holes might not have been quite so blatent? Though the sudden and major upgrade in torpedoes is a major hole in itself.

I've a feeling I will not be looking forward to the second part of this with a great deal of enthusiasum.

 

[Brit Chick]

I didn't see anything really cliffhangery about this at all - they are off to get the bad guys but thats nothing new - they could be doing that any week on Star Trek - so yeah, no real urgency to see the next episode in my mind either

If I want a really good cliffhanger I'll watch Part 1 of Best of Both worlds - now that is a cliffhanger!

As far as the Duras thing goes, I reckon they could still say he is an ancestor of the Duras from TNG time, he may have been killed but he could have already had his heirs (unless they said somewhere that he didn't and I missed it) However, I suspect that they just threw in the Duras name beause they knew us die hard trek fans would recognise it and give us the familiary factor. Much as they did by bringing in a Worf ancestor to defend Krik and McCoy in The Undiscovered Country

I know what you mean about the time lines and I guess ultimately its a case of what my Dad always calls 'poetic licence' i.e. when a program or film blurrs the lines just so they can do or say what they want to suit the plot they are dealing with at that time.

Much as I love Scott Bakula and Star Trek generally, I may not get into the next season as one of my 'must see' series unless it gets a bit more interesting

 

[gr8scott]

I agree. Kinda boring. New aliens. Upgraded ship. Unknown region of space. Kinda Voyager-like. Been there done that - haven't we?

I wish they didn't "upgrade" the Enterprise. It'd be great to have them come back to earth without having "won" the war against this supposed enemy - the Xindi. But instead, got their buts wooped and the ship barely returns home - and it's all torn up... lots of shredded metal sticking out and stuff. We'll never see that on ST. The ST shows are just to pristine.

I want to see some real battles. I want to see particle weapons slicing through hulls the way it really would be. What's up with "polorizing the hull"? I believe that would assume that the weapon being used is of the opposite "pole". Correct? I want some real space battles, real human-to-human and/or human-to-alien conflicts and understandings/misunderstandings. ST fails one of my personal tests for good SF - Can the storytellers make aliens seem truely ALIEN. I don't want a modified humanoid. Please, please, please... give us something really alien. Fear of the unknown or the unknowable is one of the best lures in storytelling. Wouldn't you agree?

One of the only things I like about David Brin's Uplift series - he makes good aliens. ST could take some notes from Brin.

ST did a great job in the final ship battle in Nemisis. I want more ship battles like that. It was great!