Episode 93: Bound

I don't know how to begin this blog post. I've run a couple of dozen different openings through my mind but somehow none of them quite captures what I want to say.

"Manny Coto's "Bound" is quite possibly the worst, most offensive episode of Star Trek ever filmed" deserves some consideration but I worry it might come across as hyperbole.

"I am surprised and a little disappointed that the male stars of Enterprise didn't refuse outright to permit the characters they had spent the last three and half seasons developing to take part in such a demeaning, offensive, insulting episode as Manny Coto's "Bound"" also floated through my head.

When I think maybe a more flippant opening is warranted, I consider: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water..."

Or a more apologetic tone: "Maybe it wasn't just Berman and Braga that were the problem after all...".

An Orion ship approaches Enterprise with an invitation for Archer to come aboard to discuss business with the Orion captain, Harrad-Sar. Archer hesitates, thinking back to earlier interactions he's had with representatives of the Orion race, but then, on the basis that this might be an opportunity to improve such relations, Archer, Reid and two male MACOs accept the invitation.

Harrad-Sar provides a warm welcome for the four humans, including a feast, a sample of Gorn alcohol (for all you Star Trek loyalists out there) and a seductive dance sequence by three scantily clad Orion slave sisters that lasts a full two minutes on screen. Archer and Reid actively drool over the women like a pair of masturbatory teens and the camera does too.

Archer returns to Enterprise a short time later with a tentative agreement to work with the Orion to exploit the rich magensite deposits of some planet Harrad-Sar has discovered along with a gift from the Orion: the three Orion slave women.

Despite the fact that the last time Archer returned from an alien encounter with a slave woman he almost lost his ship and his life, our brilliant Captain puts the three women in quarters and gives them free run of the Enterprise. He then orders the ship to the planet to investigate the truth of Harrad-Sar's claims.

At first, the women prove merely a distraction for the male members of the crew and a headache for the females. We are treated to a ridiculous scene in the ship's weight room (yes, this tiny cramped ship has an enormous weight room that appears to be for men only) where Mayweather and Reid discuss the beneficial effects of a painful workout to address one's horny feelings. Mayweather tells Reid that he used the same strategy when his father's freighter took on several Deltan women (another little tid-bit of Star Trek lore to keep all of us fans happy) when he was just a boy.

Then, after a prolonged encounter with one of the women, Archer shows signs of distress and orders Reid to fire upon and destroy a small, lightly armed science vessel Enterprise encounters in orbit around the planet. Reid refuses and the ship escapes. No action is taken against Reid for this act of direct insubordination and no action is taken to relieve Archer of command, despite the fact thathe is clearly no longer capable.

T'Pol notes that the male crew are becoming more and more distracted by the women such that duties start to be neglected and fights break out. Phlox notices an influx of female crew with headaches and then, while making particularly sexist and offensive comments to Sato (“a little healthy sexual energy, keeps the blood pumping...You never seemed prone to jealousy”), he collapses. Yet no action is taken to address the problem and, in fact, no investigation is done into the cause of Phlox's collapse.

Tensions are on the rise between Kelby, Enterprise's new chief engineer, and Tucker who has temporarily returned to "help out". When Delby takes one of the Orion women on a detailed tour of Engineering, he refuses Tucker's direct orders and initiates a physical confrontation with his superior officer. Tucker confines him to quarters but takes no steps to isolate him from the Orion woman. Kelby is then Lady Macbethed into returning to Engineering and severely disabling Enterprise's power systems before Tucker can stop him.

Enterprise still has weapons but cannot move. She's a sitting duck and Archer and company finally realise that this whole thing has been an elaborate trap, something the viewer knew from the outset. Harrad-Sar is no doubt on his way to capture their ship and the crew.

Kelby is taken to Sick Bay where Phlox reveals that the Orion women are excreting powerful pheromones that are driving up the sexual and aggressive drives of the male crew members and giving the female crew members headaches. Only T'Pol and Tucker seem to be unaffected. Remember, Dr. Phlox is capable of finding a cure for a Klingon genetic plague in a matter of days, of developing an elixir that permits humans to survive in Sphere People space in a matter of seconds, yet can't seem to concoct and antidote for the pheromones that are threatening the ship.

The women are placed in the brig under guard by male MACOs. Even though it becomes clear that the pheromones continue to affect the men who interrogate the women, no effort is made to put the women in Decon, where at least the pheromones could be contained.

T'Pol and Tucker are tasked with focusing their unaffected attentions on fixing Enterprise's power systems so that she can put up a fight when Harrad-Sar arrives. Instead, they waste precious minutes discussing their relationship like two middle-school kids. T'Pol tells Tucker that he is immune to the pheromones because a psychic link was created between them when they "mated". In essence, her emotional control is making him resistant to the Orion women.

Harrad-Sar arrives and attacks Enterprise. Soon deprived of even its weapons, the Star Fleet ship is taken in tow by the Orion vessel. Tucker and T'Pol realise that the Orion tow cable has attached itself right at Enterprise's deflector emitters, meaning they can send an energy pulse back through the cable that should disrupt the Orion's power systems and disable his ship.

T'Pol heads to the bridge while Tucker takes necessary steps in Engineering. Harrad-Sar tells Archer that Enterprise will be taken back to the Orion Syndicate, where Archer is a wanted man. He also reveals that everyone has gotten the Orions wrong from the beginning: the women aren't slaves; the men are.

The three Orion women arrive on the bridge (predictably, they were able to convince their male MACO guards to release them) and send the male crew into compliant tizzies. T'Pol tells Archer she has a plan and the Orion women tell Archer to arrest her. Sato cries "No, Captain!" but does nothing further. Tucker arrives on the bridge, stuns Archer and Reid (but not, for some reason, the Orion women), and T'Pol successfully puts their plan into action.

The threat gone, the women sent back to Harrad-Sar's ship and Enterprise repaired, T'Pol and Tucker carry out yet another juvenile discussion in a corridor where neither is willing to say "I like you". Finally, fearing that Tucker plans to return to Columbia, T'Pol grabs him and kisses him passionately. Tucker then admits that he has already put in for a transfer back to Enterprise, leaving T'Pol surprised, delighted, annoyed and finally giddy like a school girl.

The episode manages to be insulting to both men and women while implying that there is absolutely no sexual diversity among Star Fleet crews (and perhaps human society) in the 22nd Century.

Archer is presented in this episode as a complete idiot, both before and after he is affected by the pheromones. He takes unnecessary risks, fails to recognise the traps that are being laid for him, proves incapable of learning from past mistakes and is seemingly unable to sense his own declining condition.

Reid is even worse. He has always been presented as a bit of an over-sexed little boy but his behaviour on the Orion ship is appalling and embarrassing. It's a real surprise that he manages to summon up the moral fibre to defy Archer's order to destroy the tiny ship and it's even a bigger surprise that no consequences flow from that but, for the most part, Reid acts like a drooling teen in this show.

And what do we make of the fact that the ship's complement of female crew members (I think it has been established that about one-third of the crew is female) take absolutely no action to put a stop to the situation, despite the fact that it is clear that their male colleagues are rapidly losing the ability to act rationally? In several scenes, we get a female crew member casting annoyed looks at her distracted male shipmates but they don't take any steps to address the problem.

These women are trained Star Fleet personnel. They are among the best and brightest of their generation (or else they would not have been chosen to serve on Earth's flagship) and yet Manny Coto writes them as if they are stereotypical 1950s American TV housewives, rolling their eyes as their husbands drive the car over a cliff while gawking at a young woman in a bathing suit.

The misogyny runs so deep that the creative team decides that it will take a man (Tucker) to act. 25 or so capable women on board but only the one unaffected man is deemed capable of intervening to solve the problem. Wow. In what century is this show set? In what century was this show filmed?

Coto doubles down on the whole mess in the final scene: whatever positives one might be able to take from the fact that T'Pol, a female, plays a role (albeit a secondary role to the man) in resolving the issue, the final scene undermines them. T'Pol is portrayed in that scene as a coy, manipulative school girl whose entire sense of well-being is dependent on proving to herself that the dreamy boy in class likes her and will stay with her. All the work she has done to return to her Vulcan roots, to embrace logic and emotional control is tossed out the airlock when it looks like she might lose Tucker again.

Arghhhh...

And, before we end, let's talk for a moment about the big revelation that Orion women aren't slaves to the men but that, instead, the men are slaves to the women. I guess this is supposed to make the fact that Archer and, by extension, Star Fleet appear to condone slavery and sexual exploitation more palatable (after all, the women are not really slaves).

But the revelation does not jive with everything else we know about the Orions, their Syndicate and their slave trade. We saw Orion raiders steal sentient beings from Enterprise and put them up for sale as slaves in their market. We saw those slaves (from a variety of races and a spectrum of genders) shackled, abused and sold. We saw that T'Pol, a Vulcan woman, drew a much higher price that any other slave sold, including a male human who drew almost no bids at all.

The Orion slave trade is a true slave trade. The buying and selling of sentient beings against their will, with a strong sexual flavour to it. It is repugnant and contrary to everything we are supposed to stand for.

Orion slave women were first introduced in TOS' first pilot which was filmed in 1964 -- still not acceptable but 40 years before Enterprise was filmed -- and TOS had the good sense to distance itself from the subject thereafter. The only other green woman to appear in TOS was merely another patient at the psychiatric facility in "Whom Gods Destroy", not necessarily a slave.

But Enterprise makes the Orion slave trade a point of discussion on several occasions, including this episode. This series makes it clear that true slavery is taking place and that Star Fleet intends to do nothing about it. Sure, Archer tells every slave he acquires that she is free and not property but, well, the fact is that the show's creative team permits Archer to acquire slaves at an alarming rate. And Star Fleet, the Vulcans, the Andorians, and all of their eventual allies seem to see no need to take steps to stop the slave trade.

Coming at it from another angle, if Orion women were truly the masters in the relationship, why would they permit themselves to be sold to the highest bidder and taken away? And why, after enough Orion slave women turned the tables and took control of their masters, didn't word get out that maybe buying these "slaves" isn't a very good idea?

Arghhh again.

I was starting to feel a little bit bad that Enterprise was cancelled after four seasons, thanks to what seemed to be some progress made to repair the damage and bring the series back to its Star Trek roots under new show runner Manny Coto. But then along came "Bound" and I realised that this show really needed to die. And soon.