Enterprise review: "Oasis".
(Episode 20)

You had the sets. You had the actor. What better way to open the episode than not only Tom Bergeron telling Archer about the haunted ship, but showing scenes of it in flashbacks.

This not only would have worked as a better Teaser, but it could have been used to play up the hauntedness of the ship by showing Bergeron's former experience with it. And by showing flashbacks of intermittant scenes of his experience, all of Bergeron's reactions could have been filmed separately from all the scenes of the Hologram crew, not requiring them to even be on the same set the same day. Everything was already there to have done this. And Bergeron could have pulled it off. With his alien make-up, he already had the wide-eyed look covered.

So if Mayweather is the "ghost story expert", why did he agree with Archer that this would make a great ghost story? So far, all we had was someone telling us there were ghosts, and a closed door. It kinda sucked at that point.

The Producers need to actually DO something with Mayweather. This was his first appearance in half a dozen episodes. He either had NO lines or else he just didn't appear at all in "Acquisition", "Rogue Planet", "Fusion", "Shuttlepod One" and "Shadows of P'Jem".

And of course, who's the "Ghost story" expert? The black guy. Black guys afraid of ghosts used to be a stereotype back in the Amos and Andy days. And let's not forget that Ensign Mayweather was suppose to have been a Lieutenant ... until they cast the black actor. Apparently they don't have Junior Grade Lieutenants in Archer's time.

In "The Andorian Incident", after failing to detect the Andorian ship at the Vulcan monastery and complaining about it, Reed then fails to even scan for the Vulcan Spy Array.

In "Shadows of P'Jem", Reed surpasses Tucker's Engineering abilities when he scans and detects Archer's stolen Shuttlepod before the actual expert does.

And now this time we get another one of Reed's yo-yo scanning lessons. He single handedly scans the alien ship so closely and in minut detail, he can instantly tell the aliens were not actually attacked. He also knows the ship has been there much longer than three years. And also that they experienced an explosion onboard that made them crash.

Yet he couldn't detect several Escape Pods in orbit of the planet before they even got to the ship. Nor did he detect the mass graves of the crew nearby in the field.

Tucker takes Leana for a tour of the ship. And where does he take his prized and valued cherished new friend? To the deadly Engineering Lift that has hand rails that chop your fingers off when you ride it, as established in "Unexpected".

Then when he is called away, who does he ask to help continue Leana's tour? Some nameless crewmember who apparently doesn't speak.

Some friend.

We're dealing with three sets of numbers here. Human years. The years of the race's original planet. And the years of the current planet they are now on. And yet everyone is on the same page here?

Okay. Enterprise just opens an aged Escape Pod in orbit with a 20 year-old corpse in it. What do you do? You cut to a commercial of KFC's spicy chicken! Yum!

What UPN idiot decided that was the first commercial that should be shown at that break? They couldn't have aired a non-food commercial first? I know I wasn't hungry for ANY spicy chicken after they cracked open an orbiting casket with a decomposed body in it.

I said it before in my review of "Unexpected". T'Pol teasing Trip about getting pregnant from the Xyrillians is out of character for any Vulcan. Even Spock wouldn't have done this, and he is half human. T'Pol immediately doing this so early in the show (Episode 5) was a terrible disaster in character and writing. Even after being with these guys for nearly a year, it's still out of character when she does it again in this episode.

Again I ask, if Doctor McCoy got pregnant, can you imagine Spock running around teasing him about it continuously? No. Yet B&B want us to believe this is completely in character for a full Vulcan. Or for any Vulcan.

Tucker mentions that the alien's computer is like a Xyrillian computer system. Besides T'Pol having already mentioned them early in the episode, (continuity is so rare it stands out), mentioning them a second time later was odd and out of place and blatantly indicating something was up.

I remembered the Xyrillians had Holodeck technology. And because this was a B&B production, it soon came to mind that the ghosts would be Holograms, as that was the extent of B&B's creative accomplishments. And there was still 20 minutes left of the show. I had to sit there bored until the crew figured out what I already knew.

The Writers must have known the idea of Holograms was so lame that viewers would catch on, because they included an unusual scene of Leana talking with her mother to throw us off track.

How commonly on Star Trek do you see aliens talking alone with their mothers unless a Main Castmember is present? Virtually never. The Producers constantly force on the Writers that the focus of every scene MUST be on a main character, even at the expense of story or drama. The only rare occasion is if the scene would greatly advance the plot, which this wasn't. That showed me that this scene was meant as a decoy to throw us off the Holodeck scenario by sidetracking us with "mom", because they thought viewers would forget if they saw Leana having a personal family conversation with one. This uncommon scene was the second indication to me that they were Holograms.

And yet there was still 18 minutes left of the show.

No matter what Archer believed the approaching shooting crewmen were - holograms, androids or ghosts, he should have still realized that if he could shoot through the people, he could at least try to hit the Phase Pistols they were using. They were obviously solid enough to shoot Reed in the butt.

After B&B introduced Enterprise to Holodecks already in "Unexpected", I said in my review of that episode that I saw a Holodeck malfunction episode coming up within a year. And I was right.

I see one coming up next year, too.

Didn't Renee Auberjonois recognize this story? He did it some years earlier in a Deep Space 9 episode called "Shadow Play", in which a settlement on an alien planet turned out to all be Holograms, except the original father. This time Renee plays the father, and they tossed a daughter in the mix to give Tucker someone to want to hump, then hide it within a false ghost story that wasn't played through.

Do we even want to mention TNG's "Future Imperfect", which involved a boy living and being raised in a Hologram world?

Do we even want to mention TNG's "The Survivors", which involved an old man living with his wife in a house that was a created illusion after he lost his home?

Do we even want to mention TOS's "What are Little Girls made of?", which involved a scientist who recreates duplicates of people from his life?

1 - The aliens ask you for help, and you still steal their computer cores?

2 - The aliens are hiding a secret, and they still let you leave with their computer cores that reveal what their secret is?

3 - You go through all the trouble of taking the aliens' computer cores, and leave them in the Shuttlepod?

4 - You don't threaten to dig up the graves in the hills to uncover the truth?

5 - You don't bury the Escape Pod guy, nor do you properly bury any of the other Escape Pod victims?

6 - Tom Bergeron didn't find the Escape Pods?

7 - After 22 years, you don't change anything about the Holograms at all? Not even the color of their clothes? The Escape Pod guy was still wearing the same colors.

8 - Never having been with a real man before, Trip never bothered to ask Leana about her sexual relationships with the Holograms or her permanent virginity with no real men ever being there?

9 - Leana never kissed a real man before, and it went that casually kissing Trip - and in front of the holo-crew?

10 - Phlox didn't think it was relevant to open the Escape Pod, even though it revealed vital information, and he still didn't think it was important?

11 - Enterprise goes there to take supplies, and ends up losing more supplies to help repair the ship, and nobody comments about that?

12 - Leana grew up there since she was 5, and there's nothing marked anywhere in the ship? No crayon marks on the walls? No posters. No paintings. All the supplies of all the dead crew to explore, and no one had a picture to hang?

13 - Two living quarters being used, and 20 quarters of the dead crew dusty and sealed up, and not even a hint is given to any of them?

14 - Voyager refused to give Replicators to the Kazon to make basic water, but Archer gives away replicators to Tom Bergeron for crap?

15 - Not once did Leana or her father leave their mark outside the ship? No benches? No playgrounds? No gardens? No patio? The atmosphere was breathable, but they never spent time outside?

16 - Instead of asking to help take them home, why didn't Archer ever ask where they were headed to? Maybe they wanted to go the other direction.