Archer's on-again off-again humanity is on-again in this episode written by Chris Black and Brent V. Friedman. Not long ago, our enterprising captain was torturing an alien soldier just to find out where some of his ship's supplies have been taken but in this little yarn he finally succeeds in finding a Xindi outpost, confirms that the outpost is producing a substance used in the Xindi weapon, yet still decides to go all sympathetic on us and decide against blowing up the production facility or killing any of the Xindi.
Huh?
Archer decides to trust his instincts and believe that the local group of arboreal Xindi did not know that the substance they were refining was to be used in a weapon of mass destruction. And the leader of the arboreal Xindi group decides he will trust the human captain he's just met and sabotage his own production to help him.
Huh?
It's interesting that Archer decides his instincts are trustworthy when he is attempting to "read" a member of an alien race that is completely foreign to him and that is part of his mortal enemy. The man is xenophobic most of the time but a master in alien behaviours when it really counts.
"The Shipment" is also remarkable in that it features an all-male cast: other than a few brief appearances by T'Pol, every character who receives on-screen time (be they human, arboreal Xindi, reptilian Xindi or humanoid Xindi) is male. It's a man's man's man's man's man's Delphic Expanse, let me tell you.
We do learn some important stuff, though. We find out that Enterprise has been inside the Expanse for more than three months at this point, far outlasting any ship staffed by those weak-kneed Vulcans.
And we learn that the Xindi were once six species but that avian Xindi were exterminated in the final battle of the century-long civil war that ended when the reptilians and insectizoids blew up their home planet.
What I can't figure out is why, if Kemocite is integral to every component of Xindi technology (as Tucker and T'Pol establish), Archer decides against destroying a key Kemocite production facility when he could do so with apparent ease.
And why, when he, Tucker and the Army Major have two of the key Xindi leaders in their sites (literally), they don't take advantage of the situation and knock them off.
"The Shipment" is not a great episode. But it's certainly not the worst of the bunch.
2.20.2016
2.17.2016
Episode 58: Exile
If you can put aside any reservations you might have about why a society, which chooses to exile the 1-in-50-million of its members that displays telepathic abilities, would then give each such telepathic member a planet of his or her own and all the resources required to survive for the 400+ years of his or her lifespan, Phyllis Strong's "Exile" is a fairly decent episode.
Strong, like her frequent writing partner Michael Sussman, seems to enjoy adding a gothic/horror flavour to her writing and "Exile" is no different.
In a spooky opening sequence, Sato begins by hearing voices, then starts seeing a strange man in her quarters.
I must admit to having been almost embarrassingly grateful that Strong actually has Sato's crew mates take her experiences seriously enough to investigate them -- too often in the past, especially since Enterprise embarked on its Xindi mission and entered the Delphic Expanse, I have been frustrated when the writers took the easy route to conflict by having Archer and his crew ridiculously dismissive of early signs of trouble. They are in a war zone, after all, one controlled by their enemy. They should be on high alert for any signs of potential problems.
When the visitor tells Sato that he can help Enterprise on her mission and gives her the coordinates of his planet, Archer only needs a little convincing from his Comms Officer to redirect Enterprise to Tarquin's planet to investigate. Tarquin turns out to be a lonely exile from his planet on account of his telepathic abilities who offers his help in locating the Xindi weapon in exchange for a visit from Sato, who happens to be one of a rare few beings with whom he can communicate fully and effectively.
Sato, who has battled her fears in earlier seasons, bravely agrees to stay with Tarquin while Enterprise heads off to confirm T'Pol's theory that the spatial anomalies in the Expanse are being caused by not one artificial sphere but by two... or more.
Thankfully, Strong focuses most of her time and plot on Sato's interesting interactions with Tarquin as she uncovers the fact that he plans to use his powers to keep her with him for the rest of her life. This is a much more interesting story-line than the fairly banal "how many spheres are there" plot.
"Exile" recalls for me three episodes from The Original Series: "The Squire of Gothos", "Metamorphosis" and "Requiem for Methuselah". Like the Enterprise episode, all three from TOS feature lonely individual beings with significant powers who turn to the Star Fleet crew to fill some need.
"The Squire of Gothos" is a lonely telepathic being who draws the Enterprise to him so that he can play with the crew. At one point, Kirk believes he has destroyed the conduit for the Squire's powers (a mirror), similar to Sato's threat to break Tarquin's crystal football conduit which finally makes him relent.
"Metamorphosis" is the original Zephram Cochrane episode from TOS. In it, Enterprise's shuttle craft is highjacked by a strange entity and brought to a planet to provide companionship for a human male (Cochrane) who is apparently trapped there. The entity, who is referred to by Cochrane as "the Companion", loves him and will do anything to keep him alive. I don't think it's a coincidence that Tarquin refers to the role he hopes Sato will play in his life as his "Companion".
"Requiem for Methuselah" might be a bit of a reach here in terms of resonances with "Exile", but it did come to mind. In that TOS episode, Enterprise visits a planet whose lone human resident turns out to be some form of human (Flint) who has lived thousands of years and has been, at one time or another, some of the greatest contributors to western European science and art. Flint realizes that Kirk can be of use to him in bringing the dormant emotions in his cybernetic companion to life.
On a side note, don't you love the titles of the episodes from TOS? Creative, poetic, often including a literary reference. It always bothered me that Enterprise went away from that practice, usually choosing remarkably boring, on-the-nose titles that simply reflect the name of the guest character("Rajiin") or the planet ("P'Jem").
Back to "Exile". It's not a bad episode. Even if the "how-many-spheres" subplot doesn't amount to much and is full of holes, the Sato-Tarquin storyline is pretty good. And Linda Park does a nice job carrying the episode opposite her heavily-applianced but creepily soft-voiced captor (Maury Sterling).
And it does fit fairly well into the greater Xindi story arc. Archer needs info, Tarquin has info, Sato has to take risks to obtain that info.
As usual, there are significant holes, the most galling of which is the one I identified at the outset. Why does Tarquin's society exile him? Why, if they are exiling him, do they provide so bountifully for him? And why do none of their members (like his family) ever visit him?
How does a person whose powers are, for the first 39 minutes of the episode, restricted to telepathy (and using objects to "see" and "know" stuff), suddenly able to shut down power on an entire starship? Those seem like pretty different sets of powers to me. And if he is so powerful, and so lonely, why wouldn't Archer at least offer to take him along with them? Seems he'd be pretty handy to have around and he'd get to be near Sato.
Why does no one in the Delphic Expanse seem to know where to find the Xindi? They are a fairly advanced race and we learn in this episode that they actually have colonies on other planets -- why isn't there a map of the Delphic Expanse available at one of the many markets Enterprise has visited that has a big red circle marked "Xindi" at the location of their home world?
Speaking of colonies, Tarquin does finally give Sato the coordinates of a Xindi colony at which, he tells them, one part of the weapon is being manufactured. Great news for Archer and his mates. But I thought we had established, in an earlier episode, that the Xindi weapon is still be designed and that it is not going well. How can any part of it already be in the manufacturing stage?
Isn't it convenient that, after setting their (remarkably undamaged, considering what it went through in the previous episode) shuttlepod down on the surface of the sphere then watching it start to fly away due to a malfunctioning thruster, Archer and Tucker can knock out said thruster with a phase pistol shot and then placidly watch as the pod (thanks, no doubt, to the sphere's gravitational pull) bounces gently back into place just meters from them?
Finally, we discover at the end of the episode that there is not one, not two but about 50 spheres creating the anomaly problem across the Expanse. Each emits significant amounts of distortion and, we are told, the anomalies are created where the waves of distortion from two or more such spheres intersect. If this is true, and T'Pol establishes the existence and location of said spheres by charting the patterns of the gravitational anomalies the interaction of their effects create, how is it possible that she is able to direct Enterprise's shuttle pod so precisely to sphere number two when she believed that there were, in fact, only two such spheres? Basing her calculations on two spheres where there were really 50 should have thrown her calculations off astronomically. She should not have been able to located the second sphere and direct Enterprise and her shuttle pod to it.
Strong, like her frequent writing partner Michael Sussman, seems to enjoy adding a gothic/horror flavour to her writing and "Exile" is no different.
In a spooky opening sequence, Sato begins by hearing voices, then starts seeing a strange man in her quarters.
I must admit to having been almost embarrassingly grateful that Strong actually has Sato's crew mates take her experiences seriously enough to investigate them -- too often in the past, especially since Enterprise embarked on its Xindi mission and entered the Delphic Expanse, I have been frustrated when the writers took the easy route to conflict by having Archer and his crew ridiculously dismissive of early signs of trouble. They are in a war zone, after all, one controlled by their enemy. They should be on high alert for any signs of potential problems.
When the visitor tells Sato that he can help Enterprise on her mission and gives her the coordinates of his planet, Archer only needs a little convincing from his Comms Officer to redirect Enterprise to Tarquin's planet to investigate. Tarquin turns out to be a lonely exile from his planet on account of his telepathic abilities who offers his help in locating the Xindi weapon in exchange for a visit from Sato, who happens to be one of a rare few beings with whom he can communicate fully and effectively.
Sato, who has battled her fears in earlier seasons, bravely agrees to stay with Tarquin while Enterprise heads off to confirm T'Pol's theory that the spatial anomalies in the Expanse are being caused by not one artificial sphere but by two... or more.
Thankfully, Strong focuses most of her time and plot on Sato's interesting interactions with Tarquin as she uncovers the fact that he plans to use his powers to keep her with him for the rest of her life. This is a much more interesting story-line than the fairly banal "how many spheres are there" plot.
"Exile" recalls for me three episodes from The Original Series: "The Squire of Gothos", "Metamorphosis" and "Requiem for Methuselah". Like the Enterprise episode, all three from TOS feature lonely individual beings with significant powers who turn to the Star Fleet crew to fill some need.
"The Squire of Gothos" is a lonely telepathic being who draws the Enterprise to him so that he can play with the crew. At one point, Kirk believes he has destroyed the conduit for the Squire's powers (a mirror), similar to Sato's threat to break Tarquin's crystal football conduit which finally makes him relent.
"Metamorphosis" is the original Zephram Cochrane episode from TOS. In it, Enterprise's shuttle craft is highjacked by a strange entity and brought to a planet to provide companionship for a human male (Cochrane) who is apparently trapped there. The entity, who is referred to by Cochrane as "the Companion", loves him and will do anything to keep him alive. I don't think it's a coincidence that Tarquin refers to the role he hopes Sato will play in his life as his "Companion".
"Requiem for Methuselah" might be a bit of a reach here in terms of resonances with "Exile", but it did come to mind. In that TOS episode, Enterprise visits a planet whose lone human resident turns out to be some form of human (Flint) who has lived thousands of years and has been, at one time or another, some of the greatest contributors to western European science and art. Flint realizes that Kirk can be of use to him in bringing the dormant emotions in his cybernetic companion to life.
On a side note, don't you love the titles of the episodes from TOS? Creative, poetic, often including a literary reference. It always bothered me that Enterprise went away from that practice, usually choosing remarkably boring, on-the-nose titles that simply reflect the name of the guest character("Rajiin") or the planet ("P'Jem").
Back to "Exile". It's not a bad episode. Even if the "how-many-spheres" subplot doesn't amount to much and is full of holes, the Sato-Tarquin storyline is pretty good. And Linda Park does a nice job carrying the episode opposite her heavily-applianced but creepily soft-voiced captor (Maury Sterling).
And it does fit fairly well into the greater Xindi story arc. Archer needs info, Tarquin has info, Sato has to take risks to obtain that info.
As usual, there are significant holes, the most galling of which is the one I identified at the outset. Why does Tarquin's society exile him? Why, if they are exiling him, do they provide so bountifully for him? And why do none of their members (like his family) ever visit him?
How does a person whose powers are, for the first 39 minutes of the episode, restricted to telepathy (and using objects to "see" and "know" stuff), suddenly able to shut down power on an entire starship? Those seem like pretty different sets of powers to me. And if he is so powerful, and so lonely, why wouldn't Archer at least offer to take him along with them? Seems he'd be pretty handy to have around and he'd get to be near Sato.
Why does no one in the Delphic Expanse seem to know where to find the Xindi? They are a fairly advanced race and we learn in this episode that they actually have colonies on other planets -- why isn't there a map of the Delphic Expanse available at one of the many markets Enterprise has visited that has a big red circle marked "Xindi" at the location of their home world?
Speaking of colonies, Tarquin does finally give Sato the coordinates of a Xindi colony at which, he tells them, one part of the weapon is being manufactured. Great news for Archer and his mates. But I thought we had established, in an earlier episode, that the Xindi weapon is still be designed and that it is not going well. How can any part of it already be in the manufacturing stage?
Isn't it convenient that, after setting their (remarkably undamaged, considering what it went through in the previous episode) shuttlepod down on the surface of the sphere then watching it start to fly away due to a malfunctioning thruster, Archer and Tucker can knock out said thruster with a phase pistol shot and then placidly watch as the pod (thanks, no doubt, to the sphere's gravitational pull) bounces gently back into place just meters from them?
Finally, we discover at the end of the episode that there is not one, not two but about 50 spheres creating the anomaly problem across the Expanse. Each emits significant amounts of distortion and, we are told, the anomalies are created where the waves of distortion from two or more such spheres intersect. If this is true, and T'Pol establishes the existence and location of said spheres by charting the patterns of the gravitational anomalies the interaction of their effects create, how is it possible that she is able to direct Enterprise's shuttle pod so precisely to sphere number two when she believed that there were, in fact, only two such spheres? Basing her calculations on two spheres where there were really 50 should have thrown her calculations off astronomically. She should not have been able to located the second sphere and direct Enterprise and her shuttle pod to it.
2.15.2016
Episode 57: Impulse
Vulcan zombies! Vulcan zombies! Vulcan zombies!
Written by Jonathan Fernandez and Terry Matalas, "Impulse" proves a watchable distraction from the larger flaws of Enterprise's third season. It's a horror film, really, with decent visual effects and, if you can adjust your mind to create more reasonable explanations of certain aspects of the episode, a decent plot.
A distress call from the Vulcan ship, Seleya, draws Enterprise to the perimeter of a rather active asteroid field which just happens to feature rocks that are rich in Trellium, that most rare and valuable substance in the Delphic Expanse. While Archer, T'Pol, Reid and an army dude take one shuttle pod through the field to the Vulcan vessel, Tucker and Mayweather take the other pod on a mining expedition.
Seleya is in rough shape and the surviving Vulcans aboard her in even rougher shape. In fact, they appear to be died-in-the-wool zombies (note the pun on died/dyed), complete with decaying bodies and ornery dispositions. As the Star Fleet team explores, it becomes more and more clear that the Vulcans are trying to cut them off from their shuttle pod and, if possible, kill them; it also becomes clear that whatever has affected them is now starting to affect T'Pol.
There is a lot to like about the episode. It's visually effective and internally consistent. The action aboard Seleya builds as Archer and his team must accomplish a series of increasingly difficult tasks (finding medical treatment for the injured army dude, finding a way to communicate with Enterprise to seek help, developing a way to circumvent the Vulcan zombies' efforts to block them from their shuttle pod and finally trying to keep T'Pol in good enough shape to escape with them). This is one of the few episodes that actually manages to build dramatic tension over the course of 35 minutes such that the ending is actually somewhat exciting.
Note, I say 35 minutes because "Impulse" reaches its climax early, leaving about seven minutes for what I can only suspect is late-added foolishness. And, speaking of dramatic tension, I cannot understand the value of telling this as a frame story, with the first scene showing the arrival of T'Pol in sick bay at the end of the Seleya mission. From where I stand, the frame does little but undermine the suspense: we know from the start that everyone survives.
But. there are some nice Star Trek touches. "Seleya", for example, is the name of the mountain on Vulcan to which Spock's katra asks to be returned in The Search for Spock, the mountain upon which the Vulcan mystics manage to perform the ritual to return Spock to his own body. It's a nice touch and one that made this viewer feel at least a little bit comforted that someone actually knew and perhaps even respected their Star Trek lore.
That being said, the explanation as to what the Trellium is doing to the Vulcans (attacking that part of their brains that is responsible for their emotional control) is complete garbage and represents just another instance of Enterprise undermining the long-established truths about Vulcans. The explanation suggests that, without their vaunted emotional control, Vulcans are homicidal maniacs, incapable of rational thought.
On the contrary, we know that Vulcans adopted logic and emotional control because, as Spock once explained, Vulcans used to be a lot like humans, with violent and self-destructive tendencies. Vulcans chose another path, sure, but that path didn't start from a position of zombie-like nastiness.
So, in order to enjoy the episode, I just added a bunch of other stuff to the explanation to account for the Vulcan zombies' inability to think rationally, their physical transformation and their thoughtless violence. Oh, yeah, and their amazing ability to resist phaser fire that no non-zombie Vulcan could resist. I can only hope that the Trellium-impact-on-Vulcans bit doesn't play at all in later episodes -- if it does, I'm going to have to do an awful lot of calculated ignoring to get through this.
And there are other quibbles:
With Enterprise still basically at war, in hostile space, why would every single member of the senior crew (with the exception of Sato) leave the ship to enter a clearly dangerous asteroid field? Enterprise is left completely leaderless in the case of an enemy attack while the command crew are away and if, perish the thought, both pods should be destroyed on their escapades, it would likely doom Enterprise's mission entirely.
With the one shuttle pod already deployed deep in the asteroid field, in a situation of significant peril, why would Tucker leave them exposed with no hope of rescue by taking the other shuttle pod into equal peril? Why not simply wait until one risky venture is completed before embarking on another risky venture? The Trellium-rich asteroids will still be there and they are clearly not worried about an attack of any kind -- why not wait?
Why is it that Archer's phaser is so much more powerful than anyone else's phaser and even the army dude's really cool rifle weapon? While shots from everyone else's weapons just seem to bounce off the Vulcan zombies, Archer picks them off with a single shot.
And just how tough are these shuttle pods? They certainly do take an awful lot of pounding without suffering any catastrophic damage? And when did shuttle pods gain laser/phase-cannon type weapons? In TOS, the shuttle craft are sub-warp craft with no apparent weapons. It's only in TNG that they start to equip the shuttles with more impressive technology. Enterprise takes place a long time before TOS -- how come the shuttle pods of the earlier era are more advanced than the shuttle craft of the later era?
Written by Jonathan Fernandez and Terry Matalas, "Impulse" proves a watchable distraction from the larger flaws of Enterprise's third season. It's a horror film, really, with decent visual effects and, if you can adjust your mind to create more reasonable explanations of certain aspects of the episode, a decent plot.
A distress call from the Vulcan ship, Seleya, draws Enterprise to the perimeter of a rather active asteroid field which just happens to feature rocks that are rich in Trellium, that most rare and valuable substance in the Delphic Expanse. While Archer, T'Pol, Reid and an army dude take one shuttle pod through the field to the Vulcan vessel, Tucker and Mayweather take the other pod on a mining expedition.
Seleya is in rough shape and the surviving Vulcans aboard her in even rougher shape. In fact, they appear to be died-in-the-wool zombies (note the pun on died/dyed), complete with decaying bodies and ornery dispositions. As the Star Fleet team explores, it becomes more and more clear that the Vulcans are trying to cut them off from their shuttle pod and, if possible, kill them; it also becomes clear that whatever has affected them is now starting to affect T'Pol.
There is a lot to like about the episode. It's visually effective and internally consistent. The action aboard Seleya builds as Archer and his team must accomplish a series of increasingly difficult tasks (finding medical treatment for the injured army dude, finding a way to communicate with Enterprise to seek help, developing a way to circumvent the Vulcan zombies' efforts to block them from their shuttle pod and finally trying to keep T'Pol in good enough shape to escape with them). This is one of the few episodes that actually manages to build dramatic tension over the course of 35 minutes such that the ending is actually somewhat exciting.
Note, I say 35 minutes because "Impulse" reaches its climax early, leaving about seven minutes for what I can only suspect is late-added foolishness. And, speaking of dramatic tension, I cannot understand the value of telling this as a frame story, with the first scene showing the arrival of T'Pol in sick bay at the end of the Seleya mission. From where I stand, the frame does little but undermine the suspense: we know from the start that everyone survives.
But. there are some nice Star Trek touches. "Seleya", for example, is the name of the mountain on Vulcan to which Spock's katra asks to be returned in The Search for Spock, the mountain upon which the Vulcan mystics manage to perform the ritual to return Spock to his own body. It's a nice touch and one that made this viewer feel at least a little bit comforted that someone actually knew and perhaps even respected their Star Trek lore.
That being said, the explanation as to what the Trellium is doing to the Vulcans (attacking that part of their brains that is responsible for their emotional control) is complete garbage and represents just another instance of Enterprise undermining the long-established truths about Vulcans. The explanation suggests that, without their vaunted emotional control, Vulcans are homicidal maniacs, incapable of rational thought.
On the contrary, we know that Vulcans adopted logic and emotional control because, as Spock once explained, Vulcans used to be a lot like humans, with violent and self-destructive tendencies. Vulcans chose another path, sure, but that path didn't start from a position of zombie-like nastiness.
So, in order to enjoy the episode, I just added a bunch of other stuff to the explanation to account for the Vulcan zombies' inability to think rationally, their physical transformation and their thoughtless violence. Oh, yeah, and their amazing ability to resist phaser fire that no non-zombie Vulcan could resist. I can only hope that the Trellium-impact-on-Vulcans bit doesn't play at all in later episodes -- if it does, I'm going to have to do an awful lot of calculated ignoring to get through this.
And there are other quibbles:
With Enterprise still basically at war, in hostile space, why would every single member of the senior crew (with the exception of Sato) leave the ship to enter a clearly dangerous asteroid field? Enterprise is left completely leaderless in the case of an enemy attack while the command crew are away and if, perish the thought, both pods should be destroyed on their escapades, it would likely doom Enterprise's mission entirely.
With the one shuttle pod already deployed deep in the asteroid field, in a situation of significant peril, why would Tucker leave them exposed with no hope of rescue by taking the other shuttle pod into equal peril? Why not simply wait until one risky venture is completed before embarking on another risky venture? The Trellium-rich asteroids will still be there and they are clearly not worried about an attack of any kind -- why not wait?
Why is it that Archer's phaser is so much more powerful than anyone else's phaser and even the army dude's really cool rifle weapon? While shots from everyone else's weapons just seem to bounce off the Vulcan zombies, Archer picks them off with a single shot.
And just how tough are these shuttle pods? They certainly do take an awful lot of pounding without suffering any catastrophic damage? And when did shuttle pods gain laser/phase-cannon type weapons? In TOS, the shuttle craft are sub-warp craft with no apparent weapons. It's only in TNG that they start to equip the shuttles with more impressive technology. Enterprise takes place a long time before TOS -- how come the shuttle pods of the earlier era are more advanced than the shuttle craft of the later era?
2.14.2016
Episode 56: Rajiin
Let's see: lots of Vulcan neuro-pressure with a certain female science officer in her tiniest pajamas, a host of scantily clad slave women, a sexy seductress named Rajiin and even the hint of lesbian sexual relations between the seductress and both Sato and T'Pol.
Oh, and a sexual assault.
This must have been B&B's dream episode. Only they didn't write it. Paul Brown, Brent V. Friedman and Chris Black get the credit for that. Oh joy.
It's even better that Archer permits an unknown woman of unknown origins with unknown powers or intentions roam free on Enterprise without escort or supervision. Then, when his ship is under attack by two Xindi warships with apparently overpowering weaponry, Archer hangs out chatting with (oh, sorry, interrogating) the seductress (who, of course, has a heart of gold).
Once Enterprise is disabled, apparently without much of a fight, Xindi reptilians and insectizoids prove to be invulnerable to Star Fleet hand weapons (well, unless it's Archer's hand phaser -- it disables Xindi soldiers with a single shot) and to be equipped with weapons to which Star Fleet has no answer. If two Xindi ships can overpower Star Fleet's best vessel with such ease, and Xindi soldiers are so remarkably better trained and equipped than their Star Fleet (and army) counterparts, why are the Xindi bothering with developing a bigger weapon?
Why don't they just use their space tunnel travelling tech to deliver an armada of star ships to earth and blow Star Fleet to bits and the planet with it?
Do you get what I'm saying? THIS MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.
Sorry, I'll start again. Enterprise and her crew go to a market planet to find a chemist who can sell them the formula for the magical stuff that will protect the ship from the anomalies (Trellium D) and, while there, Archer and Reid encounter a vendor of enslaved women who just happens to have dealt with a couple of Xindi recently.
No one bothers to object to the fact that people should not be owned or bought and sold, well, not until the blonde, white slave woman who looks an awful lot like the mysterious dream woman who appeared to Archer in a season two episode breaks free of her chains and throws herself upon our good captain to demand protection.
Ever the hero, Archer beats up the merchant and brings the blonde, white slave woman (Rajiin) onto Enterprise where he then, without making much an effort to determine whether or not she is a threat, permits her the free run of the ship.
What he doesn't know (and, you know, since he's in an unknown region of the galaxy where his mortal enemy has more influence, why should he even suspect such a thing), Rajiin is working for the Xindi and has a bunch of special powers, including the ability to seduce just about anyone she comes across and the ability to scan and record a detailed inventory of their physiology.
Oh yeah, did I mention that the Xindi had a bit of an accident at the research facility where their best scientists are developing the weapon that will wipe out the human race? That their plans to destroy earth have been set back as much as six months by the accident (which is an awful lot of time to lose when you only have 400 years before humans are destined to destroy you).
And that, as a result, the reptilian and insectizoid Xindi want the team to focus instead on developing a biological weapon to destroy the human race? And that the other three forms of Xindi object to this proposed path as too dangerous, protesting, anyway, that they don't know enough about humans to develop such a weapon?
Hey, wait a minute, didn't Enterprise just visit a planet that offered up a ready-made contagion that would very nicely destroy the human race? Couldn't the Xindi just go back to the planet from "Extinction" and help themselves to the local virus, then deliver it to Earth and watch the humans morph into weird muppet-like entities with an overpowering homing instinct?
No, apparently not. Instead, the Xindi reptilians and insectizoids come up with a complicated plan to lure Archer and his mates to the slave trader's stall on this other market planet and to plant the lovely Rajiin onboard Enterprise so that she can collect the data they need on the humans.
Isn't it strange that the Xindi know enough about humans to know that Archer and his crew will be drawn to the slave women, will fight to free the blonde one and then will permit her free access to their ship and personnel? and yet don't know enough to build a biological weapon?
When all seems lost and Rajiin has been caught, two Xindi ships show up out of nowhere to disable Enterprise (effortlessly, I might add), permitting their soldiers to board the Star Fleet vessel, prove almost completely invulnerable to the humans' weapons, defeat the combined forces of the Enterprise crew and their special army pals, and rescue Rajiin and her invaluable information on the humans for the purposes of their biological weapon.
Now, let's think about this. The Xindi clearly have technological and military superiority over Enterprise. They can sneak up on her, attack almost without notice, effortlessly disable the Enterprise, then board and take the ship with little trouble and few casualties.
Why don't they just take human prisoners as guinea pigs for their experiments? Why go through the highly improbable plan involving Rajiin? Why permit the Enterprise to continue its journey after they have disabled it, rescued Rajiin and fled back to their own superior vessels?
WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?
Well, we know why. Because certain members of the Enterprise production team have no respect for their viewers and figure a bit of sex, a splash of male machismo, a gun fight or two, a bunch of explosions, and a plot so full of holes it can't possibly hold together is enough to attract and keep an audience of science fiction lovers.
Before B&B, Star Trek sought (for the most part) to create intelligent, thoughtful, challenging science fiction, science fiction that used the guise of its futuristic setting to permit it to discuss difficult 20th century topics in an intelligent and forward-thinking way.
As episodes like "Rajiin" demonstrate, Enterprise has turned its back on the higher aspirations of earlier iterations of Star Trek. And Star Trek fans turned their backs, as a result, on Enterprise.
Oh, and a sexual assault.
This must have been B&B's dream episode. Only they didn't write it. Paul Brown, Brent V. Friedman and Chris Black get the credit for that. Oh joy.
It's even better that Archer permits an unknown woman of unknown origins with unknown powers or intentions roam free on Enterprise without escort or supervision. Then, when his ship is under attack by two Xindi warships with apparently overpowering weaponry, Archer hangs out chatting with (oh, sorry, interrogating) the seductress (who, of course, has a heart of gold).
Once Enterprise is disabled, apparently without much of a fight, Xindi reptilians and insectizoids prove to be invulnerable to Star Fleet hand weapons (well, unless it's Archer's hand phaser -- it disables Xindi soldiers with a single shot) and to be equipped with weapons to which Star Fleet has no answer. If two Xindi ships can overpower Star Fleet's best vessel with such ease, and Xindi soldiers are so remarkably better trained and equipped than their Star Fleet (and army) counterparts, why are the Xindi bothering with developing a bigger weapon?
Why don't they just use their space tunnel travelling tech to deliver an armada of star ships to earth and blow Star Fleet to bits and the planet with it?
Do you get what I'm saying? THIS MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.
Sorry, I'll start again. Enterprise and her crew go to a market planet to find a chemist who can sell them the formula for the magical stuff that will protect the ship from the anomalies (Trellium D) and, while there, Archer and Reid encounter a vendor of enslaved women who just happens to have dealt with a couple of Xindi recently.
No one bothers to object to the fact that people should not be owned or bought and sold, well, not until the blonde, white slave woman who looks an awful lot like the mysterious dream woman who appeared to Archer in a season two episode breaks free of her chains and throws herself upon our good captain to demand protection.
Ever the hero, Archer beats up the merchant and brings the blonde, white slave woman (Rajiin) onto Enterprise where he then, without making much an effort to determine whether or not she is a threat, permits her the free run of the ship.
What he doesn't know (and, you know, since he's in an unknown region of the galaxy where his mortal enemy has more influence, why should he even suspect such a thing), Rajiin is working for the Xindi and has a bunch of special powers, including the ability to seduce just about anyone she comes across and the ability to scan and record a detailed inventory of their physiology.
Oh yeah, did I mention that the Xindi had a bit of an accident at the research facility where their best scientists are developing the weapon that will wipe out the human race? That their plans to destroy earth have been set back as much as six months by the accident (which is an awful lot of time to lose when you only have 400 years before humans are destined to destroy you).
And that, as a result, the reptilian and insectizoid Xindi want the team to focus instead on developing a biological weapon to destroy the human race? And that the other three forms of Xindi object to this proposed path as too dangerous, protesting, anyway, that they don't know enough about humans to develop such a weapon?
Hey, wait a minute, didn't Enterprise just visit a planet that offered up a ready-made contagion that would very nicely destroy the human race? Couldn't the Xindi just go back to the planet from "Extinction" and help themselves to the local virus, then deliver it to Earth and watch the humans morph into weird muppet-like entities with an overpowering homing instinct?
No, apparently not. Instead, the Xindi reptilians and insectizoids come up with a complicated plan to lure Archer and his mates to the slave trader's stall on this other market planet and to plant the lovely Rajiin onboard Enterprise so that she can collect the data they need on the humans.
Isn't it strange that the Xindi know enough about humans to know that Archer and his crew will be drawn to the slave women, will fight to free the blonde one and then will permit her free access to their ship and personnel? and yet don't know enough to build a biological weapon?
When all seems lost and Rajiin has been caught, two Xindi ships show up out of nowhere to disable Enterprise (effortlessly, I might add), permitting their soldiers to board the Star Fleet vessel, prove almost completely invulnerable to the humans' weapons, defeat the combined forces of the Enterprise crew and their special army pals, and rescue Rajiin and her invaluable information on the humans for the purposes of their biological weapon.
Now, let's think about this. The Xindi clearly have technological and military superiority over Enterprise. They can sneak up on her, attack almost without notice, effortlessly disable the Enterprise, then board and take the ship with little trouble and few casualties.
Why don't they just take human prisoners as guinea pigs for their experiments? Why go through the highly improbable plan involving Rajiin? Why permit the Enterprise to continue its journey after they have disabled it, rescued Rajiin and fled back to their own superior vessels?
WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?
Well, we know why. Because certain members of the Enterprise production team have no respect for their viewers and figure a bit of sex, a splash of male machismo, a gun fight or two, a bunch of explosions, and a plot so full of holes it can't possibly hold together is enough to attract and keep an audience of science fiction lovers.
Before B&B, Star Trek sought (for the most part) to create intelligent, thoughtful, challenging science fiction, science fiction that used the guise of its futuristic setting to permit it to discuss difficult 20th century topics in an intelligent and forward-thinking way.
As episodes like "Rajiin" demonstrate, Enterprise has turned its back on the higher aspirations of earlier iterations of Star Trek. And Star Trek fans turned their backs, as a result, on Enterprise.
Episode 55: Extinction
Just to recap: by the time episode three of season three rolls around, Enterprise is faltering in the ratings and probably facing cancellation if it can't turn things around. In an effort to save the series, show runners Brannon Braga and Rick Berman have conceived of the idea of introducing a significant, imminent threat to the survival of the human race in a plot arc that will last the entire season (if not longer).
The Xindi-Human conflict will dominate season three and, with any luck, draw a new crop of loyal viewers who will tune in every week to see the story develop.
By the end of the second episode of season three, much of the background information on the XH conflict has been established. For example, about the Xindi we know the following:
We also know how the current XH conflict got started;
So now we get to episode three of season three, "Extinction", written by veteran Enterprise contributor André Bourmanis. With all of the above established, and with the first two episodes of the season establishing that Archer will do anything (including torture) to gain information about the Xindi, one would expect that episode three and those that follow it would follow a series of pretty simple rules, in order to support the overall arc of the season:
Then you watch "Extinction" and you realize: No. None of those rules will apply.
In this episode, Archer decides to take time away from finding the Xindi for some reason to check out an apparently uninhabited planet. While there, he finds a small Xindi ship and a mutational virus that starts turning him, Reid and Sato into another species with a remarkable homing instinct. Only T'Pol seems resistant to the effects of the virus. While the Star Fleet folk are trying to figure this out, two war ships arrive and demand that Enterprise turn over the infected personnel so that they might be destroyed to avoid the spread of a contagion that apparently has killed tens of millions of people on nearby planets.
Even if this episode were simply a one-off episode, it makes no sense. If the virus is that lethal, why hasn't this nearby alien race marked the planet clearly as dangerous to ensure no one visits? If the number of visitors to the planet is so high that this alien race actually has several ships deployed for the sole purpose of destroying people who are exposed to the virus, why does Enterprise only find one metallic object on the surface, not hundreds? Why don't the Enterprise crew immediately report their symptoms rather than waiting until they are pretty far along before alerting the others that, hey, something's wrong? Why is Archer the strange alien still in command of Reid the strange alien and Sato the strange alien? Why is it always Vulcan physiology that is resistant? Why is T'Pol so physically weak that she can't defend herself from her now-alien crewmates? Why does Tucker bring T'Pol peaches at the beginning of the show and why does she only take a single bite before starting in on the now-apparently-required-in-all-third-season-episodes half-naked Vulcan neuro-pressure? How is it that Dr. Phlox is able to come up with a cure in an hour or two when this technologically advanced local race hasn't gotten anywhere with a cure in 70 years? And on and on and on and on...
That's all well and good. The show has flaws. But it also fails entirely to live by what I think are fairly simple rules for the good of the XH conflict story arc:
The Xindi-Human conflict will dominate season three and, with any luck, draw a new crop of loyal viewers who will tune in every week to see the story develop.
By the end of the second episode of season three, much of the background information on the XH conflict has been established. For example, about the Xindi we know the following:
- the Xindi are a race with five distinct sub-races -- arboreal, insect, reptile, amphibian and... hmm... what is that fifth one now? human-like?
- the Xindi live on a planet that lies within a terrifying region of space called the Delphic Expanse within which the human laws of physics do not always seem to apply;
- the Delphic Expanse, in which the Xindi homeworld is located, lies three-full months' travel away from Earth at approximately Warp 5;
- the Xindi are socially advanced far enough to have brought a measure of peaceful cooperation among the five sub-species on their planet such that the society appears to be governed by a council that includes representatives from each subspecies;
- the Xindi are technologically advanced enough to have developed a weapon that can carve massive swaths of Earth away with a single beam and to send that weapon all the way to Earth, undetected, aboard a single-person space pod in a very short period of time.
About Humans of that period, we know the following:
- Humans have wiped out poverty and hunger in a single generation;
- Humans are technologically advanced enough to have developed interstellar warp capability and to develop weapons such as phase cannons, photon torpedoes, and phase pistols;
- Despite the fact that the human race is racially diverse, only white men can hold positions of power and authority;
- Humans have accomplished all this despite the fact that they still apparently prize aggression, machismo and arrogance in their leadership.
We also know how the current XH conflict got started;
- The Xindi were told by some individual or group who claimed to be from the distant future that, in 400 years, the Humans would wipe their race out;
- Acting on this very trustworthy information, the Xindi developed their weapon and sent it to Earth to test out how well it worked, thus warning the Humans of the threat the Xindi posed to them;
- In the aftermath of the Xindi attack, the Humans were told by an individual who claimed to be from the distant future that the Xindi, acting on information from a group or individual who claimed to be from the distant future that, in 400 years, the Humans would wipe them out, were planning to wipe the Humans out instead and very, very soon;
- Acting on this very trustworthy information, and in the face of what was clearly a race with significantly superior technology, the Humans decided to send their only Warp 5 starship on a long trip to try to find the Xindi home world and then put a stop to the Xindi ability to attack the Humans;
- Though knowing that the Humans had sent a ship out to deal with them, the Xindi chose not to send five of six more little weapons to Earth to destroy the Humans bit by bit but, instead, to hold off and work very hard on building a much larger version of the weapon (a sort of "Death Star" if you will) that can do the job in one shot;
- Though knowing that the Humans have sent a ship to deal with them and that the Human ship took three months to cover a distance the Xindi appear to have covered in a much shorter period of time, the Xindi choose not to send a group of their own space ships out to destroy the Human ship; and
- Even though the Xindi know the Humans are not slated to destroy them for another 400 years, they are in a big rush to get this all done, such that they are willing to take chances and argue a lot.
Did I miss anything?
So now we get to episode three of season three, "Extinction", written by veteran Enterprise contributor André Bourmanis. With all of the above established, and with the first two episodes of the season establishing that Archer will do anything (including torture) to gain information about the Xindi, one would expect that episode three and those that follow it would follow a series of pretty simple rules, in order to support the overall arc of the season:
- Archer will take every and any opportunity to learn more about the Xindi;
- Archer will make friends with any race he encounters in order to enlist their support against the Xindi;
- Archer will focus on the Xindi to the exclusion of any other distraction;
- Archer will recognize that Enterprise is in enemy territory and is likely being watched by a race that is as desperate as he is and who will stop at nothing to thwart his mission.
Then you watch "Extinction" and you realize: No. None of those rules will apply.
In this episode, Archer decides to take time away from finding the Xindi for some reason to check out an apparently uninhabited planet. While there, he finds a small Xindi ship and a mutational virus that starts turning him, Reid and Sato into another species with a remarkable homing instinct. Only T'Pol seems resistant to the effects of the virus. While the Star Fleet folk are trying to figure this out, two war ships arrive and demand that Enterprise turn over the infected personnel so that they might be destroyed to avoid the spread of a contagion that apparently has killed tens of millions of people on nearby planets.
Even if this episode were simply a one-off episode, it makes no sense. If the virus is that lethal, why hasn't this nearby alien race marked the planet clearly as dangerous to ensure no one visits? If the number of visitors to the planet is so high that this alien race actually has several ships deployed for the sole purpose of destroying people who are exposed to the virus, why does Enterprise only find one metallic object on the surface, not hundreds? Why don't the Enterprise crew immediately report their symptoms rather than waiting until they are pretty far along before alerting the others that, hey, something's wrong? Why is Archer the strange alien still in command of Reid the strange alien and Sato the strange alien? Why is it always Vulcan physiology that is resistant? Why is T'Pol so physically weak that she can't defend herself from her now-alien crewmates? Why does Tucker bring T'Pol peaches at the beginning of the show and why does she only take a single bite before starting in on the now-apparently-required-in-all-third-season-episodes half-naked Vulcan neuro-pressure? How is it that Dr. Phlox is able to come up with a cure in an hour or two when this technologically advanced local race hasn't gotten anywhere with a cure in 70 years? And on and on and on and on...
That's all well and good. The show has flaws. But it also fails entirely to live by what I think are fairly simple rules for the good of the XH conflict story arc:
- After the virus threat is over, why doesn't Enterprise return to the planet to get the little Xindi ship so that they can learn as much as possible from it?
- Why don't Archer and his crew stop and have a long chat with the alien race that is monitoring the virus planet in order to learn all they know about the Xindi -- I would think that the Xindi and this local race would be rivals in the smallish area known as the Delphic Expanse;
- Why don't our Star Fleet friends try to enlist the alien race's aid in fighting the Xindi?
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