Text 281, 112 rader
Skriven 2004-12-07 05:54:00 av Kevin Karmann (1:278/230)
Ärende: (Part2) "Kir'Shara"
===========================


***** Continued From Previous Message *****
ut that this means Earth can
finally stand on it's own.  Archer, no doubt thinking that Admiral Forrest's
final mission has been achieved, vows that they are ready.

Elsewhere, V'Las has taken to the underground himself.  He tells a figure in
shadows that he failed.  He thinks Archer should have been killed.  The
mystery man says that V'Las brought the humans into it.  But the former head
administrator protests that decades of work has been lost.  The shadowy
voice can only say that his own position has been compromised, so he must
leave Vulcan immediately.  Typically, V'Las wants to know what will happen
to him.  The man suggests that it would be suspicious for him to leave.  As
he steps from the shadows, revealing himself to be a Romulan, he continues
to reassure V'Las that the Romulans and the Vulcans will be re-unified.

This final scene raises lots of possibilities.  Now we know that the
Romulans have been poking their heads into Vulcan affairs for quite some
time.  In fact, we really can't discount the possibility that V'Las had been
a Romulan himself, explaining much of his behavior.  Still, I think a few
more scenes communicating to the unseen man may have added some layers to
V'Las' character.  While his megalomania was pretty well-portrayed, he still
often seemed to be rather one-sided, just as many modern day Trek villains
do.  That way, he could have expressed any reservations about the plan, as
well as given some deeper incite into his motivations.  In fact, it might've
been as interesting had V'Las not used underhanded means to achieve his
goals.  We knew, for example, that the Andorians had made detailed scans of
the Xindi weapon.  A case could probably be made for war on that alone
without bothering with the forged sensor readings and phony tale of a stolen
prototype, raising nice ethical concerns.

This brings me to how simplistic the whole culture change has been made out
to be.  While T'Pau did acknowledge that it will take time for the full
effects to felt, I can't see a society lining up behind the Syrrannites over
even a century.  With a race a logical and skeptical as the Vulcans, it
would seem that even dating the Kir'Shara may not convince a great deal of
the population.  Hopefully, they will explore this in the future.

Likewise, I have a hard time seeing the Andorians just letting the situation
go.  The Vulcans attacked their ships, likely injuring or killing some of
their crews.  While it may not be quite as bad as the planned attack on an
entire planet, it could easily be regarded as an act of war.  If nothing
else, it probably should set back relations for the two peoples for quite a
while.

T'Pau, herself, poses some problems of her own.  I noted last week that she
lacked the accent Celia Lovsky brought to the character in "Amok Time."
However, it goes far beyond that.  From all appearances, T'Pau has pretty
much accepted humans by the end of this storyline and even owes a great deal
to one in particular.  In "Amok Time," however, she is much more standoffish
to Kirk and McCoy.  Not to mention that she was well-known for turning down
a seat on the Federation Council.  It would seem that this T'Pau has very
little in common with the older one, other than the name.  Of course, a
century offers ample opportunities for change and I'd hope to see some of
that in the future.

Some of the events of the previous weeks made some events rather predictable
now.  The main one, as I noted last week, is how Kuvak turned on V'Las.  The
minister's questioning last week -- and being the only one among the High
Command to do so -- made it pretty clear that he would come through at the
last moment.

That said, there was much to like about the episode.  Even with these flaws,
the show managed to pull together quite nicely.  A nice pace kept things
moving along pretty smoothly.  As in the Augments storyline, various
elements were put to good use later in the story, like the sehlat and
gallicite bits.  The character interactions, especially the confrontation
between Reed and Trip at the beginning of the episode, seemed much sharper
than most of what we have seen in the past, giving good voice to Reed's more
by the book attitude.

The acting also played a big role in the general feeling of the episode.
Chief among them, I think, would have to be Connor Trinnear's stepping into
the spotlight as Trip.  He made a real good impression in his interactions
as temporary captain in these three episodes.  It is always good to see
Jeffrey Combs in Trek and this latest spin as Shran is no exception.  Over
the years, Gary Graham's Soval has received a lot of negative reactions from
fans, but I think his performance these past few weeks should turn around
here.  Of greatest significance has to be the torture sequence.  I really
like how his eyes darted about when his emotional threshold began to lower.

One final note about the special effects. While the effects that we did
see -- from the battle with the Vulcan ships to the matt painting of the
Vulcan capitol -- were outstanding, I think we might be seeing some of the
effects of the show's reduced budget.  Much less of the action seems to be
taking place out in space, making for more reliance on consoles exploding
and the bridge shaking.  The good news is that, in some respects, the
tension showing up on the bridge crew, through looks and awkward silences,
actually brings more atmosphere to the episode than seeing ships being blown
apart.

All in all, "Kir'Shara" and the Vulcan arc in general proved highly
entertaining.  Although there may have been a few bumps on the way, such as
Archer too easily taking on Vulcans along with a certain amount of
over-simplification and predictability, the writing and acting managed to
make this easily the best story of the season and a very good addition to
the series as a whole.  Truth be told, this is probably the best or better
than any explanation we could have expected for the differences between
Vulcans in the early years of ENTERPRISE versus the other Trek series.
Hopefully, this trend will continue into January when the series returns
from reruns.

Kevin




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