Further, the Tandarans have the advanced technology required both to fend off the Suliban Cabal attacks for almost a decade and to spy on all the other major powers in the area, including the Klingons and the Vulcans.
And, for some reason, we have never heard of them.
As far as my rather faulty memory serves, the Tandarans do not appear again in Enterprise, they are never heard from in TOS, they make no noise in TNG or DS9 and Voyager manages to last seven seasons without ever mentioning them. I don't even recall a mention of Tandarans in any of the films in the Star Trek canon, nor in the animated TV series. I guess it is possible that the Tandaran race plays a major role in one or more of the ubiquitous Star Trek novels, or in a fan-made web series, but I've never heard of them.
A major race, with claims to a significant sector of the galaxy, with the military and technological ability to fight toe-to-toe with the Suliban cabal, and we never see them again?
Oh wait, isn't that woman Archer encounters on Risa a Tandaran? Okay, so chalk one up for B&B. They actually made this race somewhat significant for two whole episodes.
Okay, sarcasm aside, at least B&B were trying to do some real Star Trek in "Detained". Like "A Private Little War" from the Original Series, "Detained" is intended to place a real life, morally challenging situation, place it into the sci-fi context, and then examine it in some detail.
In this case, the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War is re-examined in the Star Trek context. Archer and Mayweather wake up in a Tandaran internment colony that has been built for the sole purpose of "relocating" Suliban people who, until the advent of the Cabal, had been happy, contributing members of Tandaran society, living on Tandaran worlds.
It would seem that our Star Fleet officers flew a shuttle craft into Tandaran space and were shot down. When Archer explains the situation to the Tandaran warden, all seems well. Archer and Mayweather will be transported in three days' time to Tandar Prime for a quick hearing and then be released.
Then things start to go south. Archer begins to mingle with the Suliban, the Tandarans (apparently) start to suspect that Star Fleet has had a little too much interaction with the Suliban in the past, and the warden starts to demand that Archer provide the Tandarans with information about the Cabal.
Archer, upset with the very existence of the internment camp and the fact that children are kept there and families kept separated, refuses to cooperate. Suddenly, their trial is postponed and their detainment at the camp is extended for another two months.
Meanwhile, back aboard Enterprise, T'Pol attempts to negotiate with the Warden but is constantly interrupted by Tucker, who threatens and fumes. When they learn the trial has been postponed, T'Pol orders Enterprise to the prison colony to help Archer and Mayweather stage a prison break.
The Suliban prisoners are hesitant allies. They are none of them soldiers and they prefer to remain detained rather than be killed in a botched escape. Enterprise, however, overwhelms the Tandaran defences and the escape succeeds.
It's an allegory, fine. It sends the absolutely true message that the U.S. (and Canada) were wrong to imprison their citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. Great. Agreed. Absolutely true.
But it is so filled with holes that it is almost not worth watching:
- Enterprise's sensors can pick out two humans among more than 100 Suliban and Tandarans in a matter of seconds, a feat of which their sensors never were capable of before;
- Enterprise beams a communicator down to Archer and Mayweather but no weapons. With the limited number of guards at the camp, two phase pistols should have been enough to overwhelm the entire Tandaran force and permit the prisoners to go free safely;
- Archer and Mayweather were shot down in their shuttle pod yet, at the end of the episode, their shuttle pod is in good enough shape to fly away home without any repairs;
- T'Pol makes the tactically questionable decision of permitting Tucker to fly another shuttle pod down to attack the camp, despite the fact that Enterprise is right behind him, having disabled two Tandaran security vessels;
- The Tandarans have managed to battle the Suliban for eight years, yet Enterprise can disable two of their ships with a single torpedo for each?
- Reed, with a phase pistol in his hand, leaves it to his explosive charges to deal with the head Tandaran guard and two of his cohorts, rather than just stunning all three?
- If the Tandarans are an ally in the battle against the Suliban Cabal, why not now circle back, demand that they dismantle the internment camps as a condition to a mutual cooperation pact?
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