Epsiode 71: Damage

Ahh, so that's why T'Pol has been acting so strangely. She is addicted to Trellium D, which strips her of her emotional control!


OK. That works... only, why would a being who is driven by logic and reason, who is trained from birth to be in control, fall so easily out of control?


What flaw does T'Pol possess that makes her so un-Vulcan in her inability to control her drives?


I fear the answer is that T'Pol is a woman and, well, this is B&B's version Star Trek, which doesn't just take place before TOS but also before the 1960s and 1970s, when western society started to make strides (albeit small ones) toward women's equality and the celebration of diversity.


Or... that someone came along after earlier episodes in Season Three which featured T'Pol behaving so unlike any Vulcan before her and said, "Hey, you can't have her do that without some explanation!" And so Phyllis Strong came along and said, "I know, let's make her an addict. That will explain EVERYTHING!"


Strong's "Damage" follows up immediately on the mess left at the end of "Azati Prime". Enterprise is about to be blown to pieces by a Xindi task force and Captain Archer is being tortured by the enemy. Luckily, Archer's efforts to reach Degra are successful, the Xindi ships are called off and Archer is turned over to the Xindi Aquatics for delivery to the Council.


Degra apparently intervenes even further and gets Archer delivered in pod back to Enterprise as she tries to pick up the pieces. Rarely has a Star Fleet ship been battered into a worse condition (the Seleya was in better shape) and the Enterprise crew struggles to put her back together.


As Archer and his ship start to recover, T'Pol falls to pieces and we learn her secret: she's been mainlining Trellium D for months and is now a complete addict, with little or no emotional control left to her.


Tucker delivers to Archer the sobering news that the ship's warp coil is damaged beyond repair and they have no way of replacing it. When an alien ship flies up, asking for help to repair its own damage suffered by way of the spatial anomalies, Archer agrees to help but only in return for the alien's warp coil. The alien captain politely refuses (without warp power, they would be three years away from their home world without sufficient provisions to get home) and goes on his way.


Sato, meanwhile, has discovered a coded message in the computer memory of the pod that delivered Archer, inviting Enterprise to a meeting with Degra in a couple of days at a location some distance away. Without warp drive, Enterprise cannot get there in time.


Over the protests of almost every member of his senior crew, Archer makes the difficult decision to track down the alien ship and take its warp core by force. With Archer leading the boarding party, a struggling T'Pol tries to hold things together well enough to lead Enterprise in its battle with the alien ship. T'Pol's goal: don't lose but also don't win so strongly that the alien ship is crippled and unable to limp to its home.


Archer finally succeeds at stealing the warp coil and justifies his actions to the alien captain by telling him his race's survival depends on the warp coil and, besides, Enterprise put both Trellium D and extra food in their storage rooms.


Meanwhile, T'Pol seeks help from Phlox to try to kick her addiction and the Xindi Council challenges the Sphere People and their actions in helping the Reptilians attempt to build a biological weapon in the past, in direct contravention of the Council's orders.


Once again, this is a well-paced, well-directed episode of science fiction. If we set aside our reservations with regard both to the depiction of T'Pol and the inconsistency of Archer's moral values, "Damage" works well.


I don't understand how Enterprise, in its crippled condition, could find and dominate the alien ship which still had warp power. I don't get why the Enterprise crew appears so willing in some moments to use the transporter liberally and then, in other moments, forget that it exists at all.


And I still can't quite understand how T'Pol, given her addiction, loss of control and new withdrawal symptoms, would accept command of the Enterprise in a battle situation.


And, finally, what's with the Sphere People and the remarkable (yet patronizing) control they seem to exert over the Xindi and over time itself?