Episode 54: Anomaly

A fairly standard action yarn, written by Michael Sussman, "Anomaly" follows Enterprise deeper into the Delphic Expanse where it encounters a powerful spatial anomaly that renders most of its systems inoperative and a raider vessel of Osaarians who board the crippled Enterprise and steal crucial supplies. Desperate and angry, Archer tortures the one Osaarian crew member they managed to capture into giving Enterprise information on how to track and defeat the Osaarian vessel and retrieve their lost supplies.

As a surprise bonus, Archer also discovers that the Osaarian ship can provide much needed data about the Xindi, information he steals while disabling the Osaarian vessel and then fleeing.

This is probably the episode they should have used to launch Season Three. It is tightly written and well acted with strong action and direction. It's not a fantastic bit of film-making, to be sure, but it manages to avoid many of the pitfalls to which so many Enterprise episodes fell victim.


The most troubling thing about "Anomaly" is the complete lack of discussion, challenge or debate in response to Archer's sudden decision to torture the Osaarian prisoner. Reid is the only one who seems to have problems with Archer's decision but he shows it only in his facial expressions as he watches the torture take place. No one else steps forward to say: "Hey, wait a minute, this isn't what we're all about".


I wonder how any remaining true Trek fans still watching Enterprise (sorry, Star Trek: Enterprise) at that point responded to this development. Certainly, the parallels between this entire story line and the then current hunt for al-Qaeda in the wake of the 9-11 attacks are fairly clear. But even in the highly charged atmosphere post 9-11, the question of using torture for the protection of one's community was heavily debated and, from what I could see, opposed by a strong segment of society as an abandonment of what that community stands for in the first place.


Surely, Archer's decision to resort to torture should have drawn strong reactions in the moment and even more discussion and debate in the aftermath.



Beyond that, the episode also suffers from some pretty major plot holes that just don't seem to stand up to scrutiny. After being damaged by the anomaly, Enterprise finds an alien ship floating dead in space. Their investigation discloses that the ship had been attacked after the anomaly had done its worst yet Archer takes very few steps to prepare his own crew for what seems like a pretty obvious development: the attack of the Osaarians.

In fact, despite the fact that he clearly understands the tactics of the then unknown adversaries, Archer fails to have his crew arm themselves to prepare for an attack, nor does he increase the watch around the ship. Osaarian fighters manage to beam over to Enterprise in small parties over a period of time and, every time they appear, they surprise the Star Fleet crew members.

I also can't figure out how an Osaarian crew could have built or found the massive space station they use as a depot -- T'Pol clearly states that it is made of the same alloy as the Osaarian ship so it is apparently Osaarian in origin.

I am also bewildered by the fact that Sato, who has managed to master several alien languages well enough to be able to speak them after only hearing a sentence or two in previous episodes, cannot work out the Osaarian language even though she has an entire database of it to study.

From a plot standpoint, the show manages to undermine the usual expectations of these kinds of stories by not having the Osaarian ship surprise Enterprise as it searches for its supplies in the space station and then brings them home -- instead, Enterprise has enough time to recover its goods, then set up a trap for the Osaarians which permits the Star Fleet crew to steal the Xindi data from the Osaarian computers.

Watching this episode did raise in my mind a couple of questions that I should have asked in the season premiere:
1. Why did Star Fleet put a group of soldiers on Enterprise but not bolster its crew of technicians and repair people? Enterprise expects to be gone a very long time and to encounter significant resistance -- shouldn't priority one be on ensuring that Enterprise has the staff and the expertise to repair damage and continue to function effectively? Shouldn't Star Fleet have added about 50 more engineers?

2. Where are the soldiers bunking? One cargo bay has been converted to the command centre, another still has supplies and cargo and the ship was already pretty cramped with just the Star Fleet crew aboard: where are they storing the soldiers?

3. Why wouldn't issues of who is commanding who (between Reid and the soldiers) have been settled before they left?

4. Would the soldiers (and even the Star Fleet crew) be willing to take orders from some Vulcan in a red jump suit who has no official status whatsoever yet still walks around like she's second in command?