Episode 11: Cold Front

Let me see if I've got this straight:

A crewman, Daniels, has been serving aboard Enterprise since the last visit to Earth (when new crew could be taken aboard) as a server in the Captain's mess. In reality, he comes from the 29th Century and has been sent back to Archer's time to stop a Suliban soldier named Silik from getting onto Enterprise and doing... something. Since Daniels' advanced equipment can only track general movements in time, he doesn't know exactly when Silik will come aboard nor what he has been sent to do; he just knows he has to stop him.

Silik is a Suliban, a race that has been recruited by some unknown force from the not-quite-so-distant future to bring the Temporal Cold War (TCW) to the 22nd Century in exchange for advanced genetic enhancements. Silik has met Archer before when he tried and failed to cause division in the Klingon Empire. Silik is being punished for this failure by having one of this enhancements removed (I think it's his enhanced eyesight) and must now prove himself by successfully infiltrating Enterprise and stealing one of Daniels' devices from the 29th Century.

In other words, if Daniels were not on Enterprise to stop Silik, Silik would not try to infiltrate Enterprise. Daniels could stop Silik simply by not being there to try to stop Silik.

So the plot of "Cold Front" is completely circular and nonsensical.

And that's just the half of it.

Silik has to get on board Enterprise to steal Daniel's device. Even though Daniels has been on Enterprise for several months, even though Silik has access to advanced stealth technology and the ability to get aboard Enterprise seemingly at will (see earlier and later episodes), Silik decides to depend entirely on luck to get aboard this time. He joins a group of worshippers on a cargo ship hanging out near some crazy spacial anomaly hoping that Enterprise will 1) spot the anomaly from four light years away, 2) decide to change course to investigate the anomaly, 3) decide to make contact with his particular cargo ship over all the other ships in the area, 4) invite the worshippers aboard Enterprise and 5) take absolutely no steps to keep Enterprise secure from the visiting worshippers.

Okay, maybe you can argue that Silik has been told Enterprise would do all these things by his contacts from the future. Amazing that the contacts from the near future, who cannot travel through time the way Daniels does, are better able to read details of the past than Daniels is. After all, Daniels has to hang out on Enterprise waiting for something to happen; Silik is directed to the exact place and time.

Silik boards Enterprise in disguise. Enterprise apparently performs no scans of the visitors of any kind when they board.

Silik then knows what's about to happen in sufficient detail to make a change to Enterprise's systems to help her avoid blowing up due to a natural phenomenon. Impressive. He saves Enterprise apparently to save himself the chance to steal Daniels' device.

So Enterprise is so extremely poorly designed that a single natural incident can cause a cascade reaction in the warp core that could blow the ship to bits in a matter of seconds. And no one on Enterprise, nor any of the warp field theorists among the worshippers, can predict that this might happen. But Silik can stop it simply by pulling out a tube in the reactor... that no one notices he has pulled out, not even their monitoring systems.

Then Daniels presents himself to Archer and tries to convince him that he, Daniels, is from the future. Daniels tells Archer that Silik is aboard Enterprise and Daniels is there to stop him. Stop him... from what? From, apparently, stealing Daniels' device. Which device would not be on Enterprise if Daniels were not there to stop Silik from stealing it.

Hmmm...

T'Pol gets to state several more times that the Vulcan Science Academy has studied, and dismissed, the possibility of time travel. Silly Vulcans.

Despite having 700 years of technological advancement on his side, Daniels needs to integrate his doo-dads into Enterprise's scanning systems in order to try to find Silik. Yes, in 700 years, they haven't developed a portable scanning device.

Silik then presents himself to Archer and claims that Daniels is the true enemy. Well, apparently Silik does not know who is the true enemy -- he just knows someone on Enterprise is trying find him and that person must be both the true enemy and the person who has the device Silik has been sent to steal.

So up comes T'Pol on the telecom to let slip that it's Daniels who is looking for Silik. Somehow, Silik already knows who and where Daniels is.

Silik stuns Archer (why he doesn't kill him, I'll never know) and heads to engineering. Now, Silik is able to make himself invisible, on top of his ability to become playdough, and he sneaks up on everyone. When he is spotted, Daniels (who is weaponless) orders everyone else out of Engineering and gets shot by Silik with what is apparently a futuristic gun that can kill across time (why this is necessary, I don't know).

Silik then escapes with the device. Archer, who has been brought around by Phlox, pursues, using another device of Daniels' that permits him to walk through walls. Despite the fact that Archer gets the drop on Silik on at least two occasions in the ensuing pursuit, Archer doesn't shoot him. In fact, when push comes to shove, Archer shoots Daniels' device and allows Silik to escape.

Silik's escape is a thing to behold: he's called one of the Suliban warp-capable life pods to him and, after opening Enterprise's shuttle bay doors, he simply drops from the ship into space, then lands in the pod and flies away. Archer, caught in the de-pressurized, de-atmosphered shuttle bay, loses the walk-through-walls device into space and nearly suffocates before managing to shut the bay doors again.

Enterprise flies off and Archer seals Daniels' cabin in case there are more cool devices inside there.

There is so much here to scoff it one doesn't know where to start.

Let's just talk about the climax of the story. Silik, who seems to know in detail what's going to happen, doesn't know enough to kill Archer when he has the chance, permitting Archer to foil his plans.

Archer could have shot Silik at least twice and retrieved the device but does not. Why, we do not know.

Archer shoots the device instead (huh?), then conveniently loses the other Daniels' device into deep space. And Enterprise doesn't bother to go looking for it! A piece of 29th century tech is floating around in space and you just let it go?

The Suliban have warp ships that are tiny. How? Silik has genetic enhancements that permit him to be playdough, permit him to render himself invisible, permit him to climb on walls and ceilings, permit him to breathe in space (or hold his breath an awfully long time) and permit him to survive the cold of space. That's pretty darned impressive, to be sure.

Silik drops out of Enterprise (apparently propelled by the venting atmosphere) but travels in a straight line directly to his waiting ship. The forward momentum of Enterprise and the expansion of the atmosphere as it leaves the ship apparently have no impact on the direction he goes.

Meanwhile, Daniels makes it clear that the future faction that is working with the Suliban does not have the capacity to travel through time, simply to send information through time. So why are the Suliban slaves to them? How did the future faction train certain Suliban in the advanced genetic techniques required to create (and remove) the enhancements and required to build the devices that perform the surgery? Why would the Suliban, once enhanced, permit themselves to be punished by a future faction that cannot touch them?

And then we get into the whole time travel conundrum that I have dealt with in other posts (or will deal with in future posts, if you are reading these in order).

The fact of the matter is that "Cold Front" is a ridiculous episode with a silly, circular, self-contradictory plot that undermines everything that comes after it. It's as if the writers didn't really care whether their story made sense or not. Make if confusing enough, they seemed to believe, and no one will realise how stupid it is.