the rix mix

The dreary season premiere of "Enterprise" didn't bode well for the coming year or the series itself. One more mysterious unexplored zone of space with temporal displacements; one more subterranean slave mining colony; one more inexplicable escape/rescue; one more xenophobic alliance of alien worlds (with, at least, a clicking, insect biped). The show ended with a totally gratuitous scene in which T'pol disrobed, her hands clasped over her naked breasts like a Maxim model, in order to trick Tripp into accepting a "Vulcan pressure massage." I can get semi-nude pix of Blalock on the internet. Vulcan reserve & prudery, particularly toward lascivious Earthlings, being ignored altogether. There are only two interesting characters on Enterprise, T'Pol & Dr. Phlox - the latter the best conceived, most eccentric, & well-acted of all Star Trek docs. In two years, I've never gotten a real sense of the ship's size (100 crew). The limitations of first generation technology - a character unto itself - highlighted to good effect in the first season, no longer have much importance in the plots. Outwitting aliens with superior technology seems to me an important key to this series, as it often was in the original Star Trek. Hoshi is still a minor player. No big-breasted blonde Borg babe coming to the rescue here.