Episode 63: Carpenter Street

B&B offer us their version of a time travel story. This time, Archer and T'Pol are sent back to the beginning of the 21st Century by our old friend Daniels to stop three Xindi reptilians from developing the infamous bio-weapon.

The episode offers all of the standard issue flaws associated with such story lines and several more that are related to sloppy writing.

The plot is simple: Daniels warns Archer that three Xindi have been spotted where they should not be. When Archer inquires about the Xindi attack on earth, Daniels tells him that the effects of those events have yet to be felt in the 28th(?) Century.

Archer and T'Pol then travel to 2002 to investigate the Xindi incursion, where they encounter a wayward young mercenary who is collecting human test subjects from all blood types for a mysterious "scientist". The scientist is, of course, Xindi and they are using the collected blood to develop the dreaded bio-weapon.

Archer and T'Pol intervene and, after several fairly ridiculous gun fights, manage to overcome the Xindi, stop them from a desperate attempt to set off the 3/4 developed weapon in the 21st Century and return the entire kit and kaboodle to the future.

Almost from the outset, it is clear that the writers don't have sufficient material to create a 42-minute episode. We are treated to several scenes that make absolutely no sense and contribute little to the plot. The extensive scenes involving the strung-out mercenary are over-long and not particularly well-developed and the scene where Archer and T'Pol (in a fairly charming salute to TOS' "A Piece of the Action" where Kirk and Spock encounter similar automobile-related challenges) try to find and operate a 21st-Century mode of transportation.

It's a thin, linear story that gets resolved all too easily.

And it makes no sense whatsoever.

If the Xindi's main goal is to destroy the human race before it destroys the Xindi, why go back in time for the sole purpose of developing a bio-weapon rather than choosing a time when they can easily destroy the human race? Why would Archer not go back in time to stop the Xindi attack on Earth? Why why why why why why?

Further, Daniels starts the show by telling Archer that three Xindi have been spotted (from the far distant future, no less) in a time and place where they should not be -- they have travelled back from Enterprise's time and timeline to Earth in 2002 --  yet he states that the impact of the Xindi attack on earth (which led to the Xindi excursion to 2002 but is not recorded in Earth history in Daniels' timeline) has not yet been felt in Daniels' time. Huh? Does this not seem completely contradictory to you?

Time travel stories are, by their very nature, filled with just these kinds of problems. And B&B do not appear to possess the creative talent (or, if they have the creative talent, then the time and energy) required to overcome them.