Episode 7: The Andorian Incident

So, you're a huge Star Trek loyalist. You've watched TOS, TNG, DS9 and even Voyager and you've anxiously awaited the debut of Enterprise, the prequel to TOS.


You watched the premiere with some satisfaction and some trepidation: what are they doing to our beloved, peace-loving, logic-embracing Vulcans? what is with these titillating Decon scenes? Why are the vast majority of significant roles, both in the societies and in the show, filled by men, and white men at that? Why are these men so xenophobic, so angry, confrontational, almost bullying in their behavior? Why is this new series seemingly focused on time travel and the so-called "Temporal Cold War"?


These are the questions that a Star Trek loyalist must have asked as Enterprise started its run. These questions relate to areas where Enterprise seemed to depart significantly from basic ST principles, from the ST canon.


After the first couple of regular-run episodes, perhaps you felt a bit reassured. Sato and Mayweather have been featured. T'Pol has managed to maintain both her emotional control and her clothing. Female characters have, at least to a small extent, been featured; the amount of xenophobia,  anger and bullying has not escalated (even if has not diminished at all); and the time travel stuff has been kept in check.


And, let's face it, those first couple of episodes were pretty decent Star Trek.


So you're feeling pretty good.


Then along comes "The Andorian Incident". You're delighted that our blue-skinned friends, who played so small a role in earlier series, are making an early appearance here. You might also be willing to accept that there are tensions between the Andorians and the Vulcans, especially when T'Pol explains that the Andorians are jealous of Vulcan rationality and technology.


But how do you deal with the fact that the entire episode is so strongly anti-Vulcan? How do you accept the overt violence of Schran's interrogation of Archer? How do you react to the salacious, sexually threatening behaviour of one of the Andorian officers toward T'Pol, basically threatening her with rape on a regular basis? How do you digest the final revelation that the Vulcans are, in fact, behaving in a dishonourable manner? And what do you make of the fact that, while preaching peace, the Vulcans seem willing to resort to violence to protect their installation?


If Enterprise hadn't already lost Star Trek loyalists with some of the problems with the premiere and subsequent shows outlined above, I think "The Andorian Incident" probably proved the last straw for many of them. This single episode repudiates so much of what the original Star Trek stood for that I can't imagine any true Star Trek fan watching it without significant misgivings about where the series is headed and what its creative team has in mind for it.


Archer decides to pay a friendly visit to the Vulcan monastery/retreat at P'Jem. When he arrives, however, he discovers that the "monks" are being held prisoner while a small team of Andorian soldiers ransack the retreat, in search of a listening post the Andorians suspect is hidden somewhere beneath the dust and artifacts of the monastery.


Despite the pleas of the Vulcans for him to leave, Archer chooses instead to attack and, once he is captured, to resist the Andorians, expressing contempt for the pacifistic approach of the Vulcans. He simply cannot accept that the Vulcans are willing to sit by while the Andorians play bully boy on the expectation that the Andorians will leave once they fail to find what is not there.


Archer proves himself, once again, to be completely ill-suited to his role as commander of Earth's first vessel of deep-space exploration and first contact. He is aggressive and emotional. He shows contempt for any being that might not respond to situations as he does. And he approaches every situation with a ridiculous confidence that he is the embodiment of what is good and moral.


In this case, his interventions get himself beaten to a pulp on several occasions, get Tucker roughed up, expose T'Pol to the menacing of an Andorian officer and put the lives of all of the Vulcan monks at risk.


When Reid transports down with an assault team to rescue the hostages, the result is an ongoing firefight that causes more damage to the P'Jem monastery and its many irreplaceable artifacts than the small Andorian party could ever do and runs roughshod over the expressed wishes of the Vulcans who live at the monastery.


The fact that, as a result of the gun battle, Archer manages to expose  that the Vulcans actually do have a listening post hidden deep within the planet appears to be put forward as grounds for everything Archer has done to that point. After all, the Vulcans were lying (as Vulcans are, in the universe that is Enterprise, wont to do) and breaching their treaty with the Andorians. And the accidental exposure of this fact is apparently justification for Archer's many many misdeeds.


Lost in this final development is the fact that the Andorians have apparently regularly raided the monastery, beaten up the monks and smashed up Vulcan relics, all no doubt in contravention of that self-same treaty. In this case alone, they invade, do significant damage, beat innocent visitors viciously and threaten on several occasions to rape the only female in the room.


But, you see, the Vulcans are evil in this new universe and nothing is going to be allowed to undermine that perception.


To be frank, I find this episode appalling. The more I think about it, in fact, the more appalling I find it. It appears to attempt to justify the extremely violent, remarkably self-centered, approach Archer takes in this situation simply by the fact that, in the end, a curtain is accidentally wrenched from its fastenings and a listening post discovered.


Everything that is wrong about Enterprise (as discussed above) is forefront in this episode.


And, of course, there are the small things:

• Reid and Archer have a reasonable amount of time to plan their assault on P'Jem and yet, when they attempt to execute it, they fail to an epic degree: one of their assault team is injured; two of four Andorians escape; the network of tunnels that the Vulcans had heretofore been able to keep secret from the Andorians is revealed; and the Andorians are permitted to destroy even more of the Vulcan artifacts. Yes, these are the two guys handpicked from the entire human race to serve as captain and chief of security on Earth's first warp-five ship. Impressive;
• Despite the fact that the Vulcans have managed to keep that massive listening post hidden from repeated and intensive Andorian searches (somehow masking its power plants and its various electronic emissions, not to mention the numerous Vulcan life-signs), the Vulcans depend on a hanging rug to disguise the massive door to the post in the event that the Andorians ever do make it into the tunnels? A rug? That tears so easily? Wow. Maybe Vulcans aren't so clever!
• The Enterprise is capable of scanning the tunnels beneath Terra Prime in the previous episode yet the Andorians, with their more advanced scanning devices and the fact that they are sitting in room mere feet from one the entrances to the tunnels, can't see them?