Huh? The first season of "Enterprise" ran for a full ten episodes before taking a brief break; the second stops abruptly after only half as many to accommodate (as T'Mir might say) some combative earth ritual. As I recall it took awhile to get going. With few exceptions only "average" episodes occupied that first decade ( "The Andorian Incident" and "Broken Bow" come to mind).

For the most part ENT's second season has been "above average," building up momentum that hopefully will suffer little from the week off. But talking about that won't make for an "above average" column - so with pen caught somewhat off-guard shall we take a moment to muse about something - say, what an "average" episode might actually mean?

Like this collection of columns (only different), with a time-slotted television series one can't use length to compare as are all the same. (Some might argue that two-parters or series' bumpers might vie but let's stay on target.) Other potential starters might try script length, action scenes, or even missing shirts (red or otherwise). But what about beginning with the obvious, the title? It's always been my gut that longer and more interesting titles accompany better episodes.

[Lessee … seventy-eight TOS episode titles (no "Cage") tally to 256 words and 1412 characters (with surprisingly little punctuation - only twelve characters worth (''''???::!,,) plus 186 spaces. That averages a little more than three words (3.28) and about sixteen characters per title. The most common word in TOS titles is the most common (written) word in English "The" (with 44 occurrences), followed by the upstart "of" (with 19 occurrences). The most common spoken word in English - "I" - occurs only twice.]

We talk about "oh that was just an average episode" as if to declare a particular show clear of any specific merit, free of any memorable distinction. This emphasizes a deep understanding, to wit: That average episodes come with an "an," not a "the." Even after we have them all recorded and ready for playback, we still can't ever point out "the average episode."

Perhaps internally we categorize according to a position relevant to range and offset from some imaginary "the average," but in reality, no real "average" exists unless all are "average." (How did Kiri-kin-tha's First Law of Metaphysics go again?) "The Leonard McCoy" said it the best (in "Balance of Terror") when he reminded the one named Kirk about rejecting any individual as "average." No one can be "average" since you must be "the" one who you are!


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