They couldn't have picked a better way to end Enterprise's four-season run: with a really crappy episode, which focuses on characters from another show, features a contrived plot and a involves an entirely needless death.
"These are the Voyages" is an embarrassment. It offers stiff competition to "The Turnabout Intruder" for the title of worst final episode ever for a Star Trek series and perhaps for worst episode ever in Star Trek history.
Not surprisingly, Berman and Braga returned seemingly from nowhere to write it. You get the feeling that the actors and crew on the show hated it as well because the performances are hackneyed and the production values poor.
The connection to the TNG episode "The Pegasus" is clever and surprisingly well considered but takes on way too important a role in the final episode of Enterprise. This is not the final episode of Enterprise; it is just another episode of TNG.
And I think it's an insult to everyone associated with the show, both the creative folks who brought it to the world and the viewers who watched it, that B&B would decide first that they had to kill off Tucker in this travesty of an episode and then, once they made that decision, that they would care so little about making his death meaningful or even believable.
I watched this episode grateful in the knowledge that this would be Enterprise's last show and even more grateful in the knowledge that this would be, if there is any justice in the world, Berman and Braga's last opportunity to cause damage to Star Trek and its canon.
I should point out, I did quite like the last sequence where the legendary "Space, the final frontier" opening is passed from Picard, to Kirk and finally to Archer, which I think is the first time we hear Scott Bakula voice those words in that style.
There were some good things in the four years of Enterprise and I have to wonder what Season Five would have looked like under the guidance of TOS fans Manny Coto, Mike Sussman and the others, free as much as possible from the influence and control of B&B, and building upon some of the interesting character developments that were planted in Season Three.
3.25.2016
Episodes 96 & 97: Demons & Terra Prime
There isn't enough plot to fill two complete episodes, and what plot there exists is so outlandish that even James Bond's producers would have rejected it, and yet we still get "Demons" and "Terra Prime".
It would appear to me that, by the time they wrote and produced this, the Enterprise show runners were already pretty sure the show was going to be cancelled at the end of its fourth season. So why bother? Just slap something together and go home, right?
Enterprise is called back to Earth for a very important conference -- a trade conference that builds on the bridges Archer and crew have built between the Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Dinobulans and a couple of other races. The hosting "Minister", who, for bored, sloppy or lazy writers, is sufficient to represent the blank face of "government", gives no credit to the all-being Captain Archer and, in protest, his loyal crew almost refuses to play nice for the gathered media.
Despite what should have been top level security considering the oft-described galactic importance of the conference, an itinerant, half-mad suspected member of a Human-Supremacy Group (Terra Prime) manages to stumble in among the delegates with a phial full of some kind of bio-matter, despite being shot in the chest with a phase pistol, and pass the phial along to T'Pol before succumbing to her injuries.
Despite what should have been top level security considering the oft-described galactic importance of the conference, T'Pol is permitted to bring the phial back to Enterprise for analysis. Surprise surprise: the phial contains a single hair from a baby, a half-Human, half-Vulcan baby who just happens to share the DNA of T'Pol and Tucker. Oh my my.
Star Fleet Security takes on the investigation, 'tis true, but they make so little progress that Reid intervenes and, with the help of his secret agent pal, tracks the Human-Supremacy Group to a moon mining operation. John Paxton, the owner of the mining operation, is a student of the infamous Colonel Green (we met him in a TOS episode; his beliefs in maintaining the purity of the human race led to the murder of millions after the third world war).
Meanwhile, an old girlfriend of Mayweather has shown up in the guise of a member of the media and manages to convince him to entertain her aboard Enterprise. Will they get back together? Will their career-centred lives ever come together? Is she a journalist, a Terra Prime operative or perhaps the Star Fleet Security agent she eventually claims to be?
Tucker and T'Pol volunteer to go undercover at the mining operation to try to recover their daughter because, you know, they really really love her and no one on the moon would ever recognise two of the three most famous people on Earth since Enterprise saved the planet from the Xindi.
The two are captured almost immediately (duh!). Paxton then gives the order and his mining installation suddenly transforms into a warp capable space ship (Transformers were apparently all the rage in 2005) that launches itself from the moon.
Before anyone can stop it, it goes briefly to warp and then arrives at Mars, where it lands and, in one motion, takes control of a giant ray gun that apparently Earth installed on Mars to ward off comets, asteroids and such.This ray gun is virtually unprotected yet has the power to blast big chunks off the face of the Earth (like, for example, Star Fleet headquarters and most of San Francisco) all the way from Mars.
If you have been following Enterprise, of course, you'll realise that the existence of this unprotected giant ray gun located handily on Mars renders the entire Xindi plot unnecessary since the Xindi could have sent a single ship to Mars to take over the ray gun and then would have had Earth at their mercy.
Paxton gives all aliens on Earth one hour to leave the planet or else he'll turn the ray gun on Star Fleet headquarters. He tells Tucker he had better help them fine tune the aiming device on the ray gun or else hundreds of thousands of innocents may die in his planned attack on Star Fleet.
While T'Pol coos over her daughter and gets all motherly (that is, after all, the proper role for a woman, the script suggests), Tucker resists, fights, works, and finally escapes the bad guys, only to roam the mining operation for no apparent reason, and Enterprise works out a plan to rescue their crew mates and the baby and maybe save San Fran as well.
Mayweather's lady friend warns him that there probably is a Terra Prime operative on Enterprise and, if there is one, he probably knows about their plan to attack the ray gun. Mayweather refuses to be fooled again and jumps in the shuttle pod with Reid, Phlox and Archer. Guess what? Yep, someone did sabotage the shuttle pod and it's only Mayweather's ability to fly it in manually that saves the day.
T'Pol figures out that Paxton, the Human Supremacist, relies on a treatment that involves Rigelian DNA to stay alive (the brilliant and clever parallel to Hitler's Jewish ancestry should not be forgotten) but her attempt to threaten him with that information fails.
Archer and his team arrive, shoot one security guard and manage to find Tucker next. Then they get to the control station where, apparently, Tucker is the only one who knows how to shut off the ray gun before it fires. There follows an uh-oh moment when Tucker is shot, leaving only Archer (who else?) to save the day.
Meanwhile, Sato is left in charge of Enterprise with the order to destroy the Mars installation (and everyone in it) rather than let the ray gun fire. She stands strong in the face of the Minister, who orders her to fire, in order to give Archer as much time as possible.
Archer shuts off the weapon but then carelessly wanders into the path of a pressurized window that he knew was about to blow out. When it does blow, Archer is knocked off his feet, giving Paxton a chance to re-initialise the weapon.
Sato does nothing. The ray gun fires. But, oh thank goodness, Tucker had managed to throw off its aim at some point in the previous hour or so and no one noticed.
The conference resumes but, this time, Archer is permitted to give the opening address and he gets a standing ovation, started by his old pal Vulcan ambassador Soval. Meanwhile, Tucker and T'Pol share a boo-hoo moment over the death of their daughter (whom they named Elizabeth, in honour of Trip's sister), though Tucker shares the news that Phlox has figured out what was wrong with the baby and can fix it if ever Humans and Vulcans ever want to try again to have a baby.
Oh yes, and finally, Reid investigates the sabotage of the shuttle pod and traces it back to none other than Kelby, the new chief engineer and rival of Mr. Tucker. Kelby protests and identifies another crew member as having replaced him on the shuttle maintenance team.
The crew immediately decides that this Terra Prime agent must be planning to kill the Minister, who is still on board Enterprise, and rush to his aid. Archer, however, is intercepted by the agent who has the good Captain at his mercy. But, you know, no good Star Fleet crewman who has ever served aboard Enterprise with the great all-being Jonathan Archer could ever dream of harming a hair on his pretty little head so the agent shoots himself instead.
Is it possible that this is Captain Terrell's great grandfather? But, unlike that future Reliant captain who refuses to shoot Admiral Kirk, despite having a strange ceti eel curving around his brain stem, this young lad had his entire life ahead of him, had not really done much wrong to that point, had no such agony inflicting critter in his head and had nothing to dear from Paxton, his version of Khan. So why does he kill himself instead of turning himself in, taking a ten year sentence for sabotage, and head back out into the world as a reformed 30-year-old?
The plot is so preposterous that it is almost not worth critiquing. And the continuing deification of Captain Archer is almost vomit-inducing.
I really despise lazy plots like this one (and Nemesis, by the way) that suggest that the bad guys have been able to build massive ships/weapons/installations right under the government's noses and then use them in an almost-successful bid to overwhelm the forces of good.
I really despise lazy plots that have people shot with phase pistols, stumble into intergalactic conferences and deliver a bio-matter bombshell, and then die, without any one ever explaining the who's, what's, when's, why's and how's of her behaviour or her death.
I don't get why this massive ray gun would be left completely unprotected. I don't get why the Vulcans, Andorian, Tellarites and their pals don't have ships of their own in orbit for the security of the conference. I don't get why Star Fleet security would try to slip an operative aboard Enterprise to try to find the Terra Prime agent rather than simply warning Archer and his crew and I certainly don't get why Star Fleet's security operative would waste so much time seducing and sleeping with Mayweather when she should be investigating.
And let's talk about Sato. Hooray that she is finally given a chance to command. And hooray that she stands so strong against the interference of the Minister. But her orders were clear and her goal simple: Destroy the Mars installation before the ray gun can fire at Earth. She fails miserably. Why isn't she in the brig, court-martialled, something?
It would appear to me that, by the time they wrote and produced this, the Enterprise show runners were already pretty sure the show was going to be cancelled at the end of its fourth season. So why bother? Just slap something together and go home, right?
Enterprise is called back to Earth for a very important conference -- a trade conference that builds on the bridges Archer and crew have built between the Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Dinobulans and a couple of other races. The hosting "Minister", who, for bored, sloppy or lazy writers, is sufficient to represent the blank face of "government", gives no credit to the all-being Captain Archer and, in protest, his loyal crew almost refuses to play nice for the gathered media.
Despite what should have been top level security considering the oft-described galactic importance of the conference, an itinerant, half-mad suspected member of a Human-Supremacy Group (Terra Prime) manages to stumble in among the delegates with a phial full of some kind of bio-matter, despite being shot in the chest with a phase pistol, and pass the phial along to T'Pol before succumbing to her injuries.
Despite what should have been top level security considering the oft-described galactic importance of the conference, T'Pol is permitted to bring the phial back to Enterprise for analysis. Surprise surprise: the phial contains a single hair from a baby, a half-Human, half-Vulcan baby who just happens to share the DNA of T'Pol and Tucker. Oh my my.
Star Fleet Security takes on the investigation, 'tis true, but they make so little progress that Reid intervenes and, with the help of his secret agent pal, tracks the Human-Supremacy Group to a moon mining operation. John Paxton, the owner of the mining operation, is a student of the infamous Colonel Green (we met him in a TOS episode; his beliefs in maintaining the purity of the human race led to the murder of millions after the third world war).
Meanwhile, an old girlfriend of Mayweather has shown up in the guise of a member of the media and manages to convince him to entertain her aboard Enterprise. Will they get back together? Will their career-centred lives ever come together? Is she a journalist, a Terra Prime operative or perhaps the Star Fleet Security agent she eventually claims to be?
Tucker and T'Pol volunteer to go undercover at the mining operation to try to recover their daughter because, you know, they really really love her and no one on the moon would ever recognise two of the three most famous people on Earth since Enterprise saved the planet from the Xindi.
The two are captured almost immediately (duh!). Paxton then gives the order and his mining installation suddenly transforms into a warp capable space ship (Transformers were apparently all the rage in 2005) that launches itself from the moon.
Before anyone can stop it, it goes briefly to warp and then arrives at Mars, where it lands and, in one motion, takes control of a giant ray gun that apparently Earth installed on Mars to ward off comets, asteroids and such.This ray gun is virtually unprotected yet has the power to blast big chunks off the face of the Earth (like, for example, Star Fleet headquarters and most of San Francisco) all the way from Mars.
If you have been following Enterprise, of course, you'll realise that the existence of this unprotected giant ray gun located handily on Mars renders the entire Xindi plot unnecessary since the Xindi could have sent a single ship to Mars to take over the ray gun and then would have had Earth at their mercy.
Paxton gives all aliens on Earth one hour to leave the planet or else he'll turn the ray gun on Star Fleet headquarters. He tells Tucker he had better help them fine tune the aiming device on the ray gun or else hundreds of thousands of innocents may die in his planned attack on Star Fleet.
While T'Pol coos over her daughter and gets all motherly (that is, after all, the proper role for a woman, the script suggests), Tucker resists, fights, works, and finally escapes the bad guys, only to roam the mining operation for no apparent reason, and Enterprise works out a plan to rescue their crew mates and the baby and maybe save San Fran as well.
Mayweather's lady friend warns him that there probably is a Terra Prime operative on Enterprise and, if there is one, he probably knows about their plan to attack the ray gun. Mayweather refuses to be fooled again and jumps in the shuttle pod with Reid, Phlox and Archer. Guess what? Yep, someone did sabotage the shuttle pod and it's only Mayweather's ability to fly it in manually that saves the day.
T'Pol figures out that Paxton, the Human Supremacist, relies on a treatment that involves Rigelian DNA to stay alive (the brilliant and clever parallel to Hitler's Jewish ancestry should not be forgotten) but her attempt to threaten him with that information fails.
Archer and his team arrive, shoot one security guard and manage to find Tucker next. Then they get to the control station where, apparently, Tucker is the only one who knows how to shut off the ray gun before it fires. There follows an uh-oh moment when Tucker is shot, leaving only Archer (who else?) to save the day.
Meanwhile, Sato is left in charge of Enterprise with the order to destroy the Mars installation (and everyone in it) rather than let the ray gun fire. She stands strong in the face of the Minister, who orders her to fire, in order to give Archer as much time as possible.
Archer shuts off the weapon but then carelessly wanders into the path of a pressurized window that he knew was about to blow out. When it does blow, Archer is knocked off his feet, giving Paxton a chance to re-initialise the weapon.
Sato does nothing. The ray gun fires. But, oh thank goodness, Tucker had managed to throw off its aim at some point in the previous hour or so and no one noticed.
The conference resumes but, this time, Archer is permitted to give the opening address and he gets a standing ovation, started by his old pal Vulcan ambassador Soval. Meanwhile, Tucker and T'Pol share a boo-hoo moment over the death of their daughter (whom they named Elizabeth, in honour of Trip's sister), though Tucker shares the news that Phlox has figured out what was wrong with the baby and can fix it if ever Humans and Vulcans ever want to try again to have a baby.
Oh yes, and finally, Reid investigates the sabotage of the shuttle pod and traces it back to none other than Kelby, the new chief engineer and rival of Mr. Tucker. Kelby protests and identifies another crew member as having replaced him on the shuttle maintenance team.
The crew immediately decides that this Terra Prime agent must be planning to kill the Minister, who is still on board Enterprise, and rush to his aid. Archer, however, is intercepted by the agent who has the good Captain at his mercy. But, you know, no good Star Fleet crewman who has ever served aboard Enterprise with the great all-being Jonathan Archer could ever dream of harming a hair on his pretty little head so the agent shoots himself instead.
Is it possible that this is Captain Terrell's great grandfather? But, unlike that future Reliant captain who refuses to shoot Admiral Kirk, despite having a strange ceti eel curving around his brain stem, this young lad had his entire life ahead of him, had not really done much wrong to that point, had no such agony inflicting critter in his head and had nothing to dear from Paxton, his version of Khan. So why does he kill himself instead of turning himself in, taking a ten year sentence for sabotage, and head back out into the world as a reformed 30-year-old?
The plot is so preposterous that it is almost not worth critiquing. And the continuing deification of Captain Archer is almost vomit-inducing.
I really despise lazy plots like this one (and Nemesis, by the way) that suggest that the bad guys have been able to build massive ships/weapons/installations right under the government's noses and then use them in an almost-successful bid to overwhelm the forces of good.
I really despise lazy plots that have people shot with phase pistols, stumble into intergalactic conferences and deliver a bio-matter bombshell, and then die, without any one ever explaining the who's, what's, when's, why's and how's of her behaviour or her death.
I don't get why this massive ray gun would be left completely unprotected. I don't get why the Vulcans, Andorian, Tellarites and their pals don't have ships of their own in orbit for the security of the conference. I don't get why Star Fleet security would try to slip an operative aboard Enterprise to try to find the Terra Prime agent rather than simply warning Archer and his crew and I certainly don't get why Star Fleet's security operative would waste so much time seducing and sleeping with Mayweather when she should be investigating.
And let's talk about Sato. Hooray that she is finally given a chance to command. And hooray that she stands so strong against the interference of the Minister. But her orders were clear and her goal simple: Destroy the Mars installation before the ray gun can fire at Earth. She fails miserably. Why isn't she in the brig, court-martialled, something?
Episode 95: In a Mirror Darkly, Part II
At least we get to see a re-interpretation of a Tholian and a Gorn. That's pretty fun.
Tucker and T'Pol manage to get Defiant operational and, with its 23rd century weaponry, Defiant makes short work of the Tholian base and its fleet. They pick up the survivors of Enterprise and, with a crew now numbering 47, streak off (probably at Warp Seven or so) to intervene in the Empire's efforts to put down the rebellion.
Defiant arrives in time to save Avenger, an NX class starship, from about a dozen enemy vessels (representing Vulcan, Andorian, Tellarite and several other designs). Archer goes out his way to pursue and destroy a fleeing Vulcan ship, to T'Pol's anguish, only to permit a Tellarite ship to escape so that it can warn the rest of the rebels of the Empire's new weapon.
Archer continues to show his xenophobic stripes and T'Pol and a bearded Commander Soval (yes, that's where the poor dead Ambassador has ended up, on the bridge of the Avenger) begin to plot against him. The Gorn, meanwhile, starts to kill crew and damage Defiant in order to force Archer to release him in a shuttle. Archer, however, is goaded on by a bizarre imaginary representation of himself, into hunting the Gorn down himself.
Archer then decides to remove every non-human crew member from Defiant and transfer them to Avenger, to avoid any further interference. Dr. Phlox is the only non-human permitted to remain (apparently, Avenger does not have a human doctor who could take his place).
T'Pol and Soval then entice Phlox (with promises of riches, power and, of course, "females") to join their cause. He goes back aboard Defiant to do the exact same damage to her that the Gorn did (you know, to save on the cost of sets).
Phlox fails, and Defiant destroys Avenger. Then, in a final twist, Sato poisons Archer and, with Mayweather's support, takes over Defiant. She pronounces herself "Empress Sato" and demands Earth's surrender. Fade out.
And I mean, fade out. Episode 2 ends with Sato's pronouncement and there is no third episode in the series to say what happens next.
It doesn't matter. Not to the writers, not to the creative team, not to the viewer. The past 84 minutes of Enterprise might as well have been a dream. A teenage masturbatory nightmare, to be honest.
I will give kudos to Linda Park, however. She brings real seduction and menace to her alt-universe character. And to the people who build, decorated and presented the sets -- they are impressive.
But the alt-universe story line comes across to me as a cheap ploy to try to draw Star Trek loyalists back to Enterprise. Nothing more. The story is fun but not particularly well designed nor well written. There is absolutely no tie back to the "real" universe that would warrant viewers to become invested in the story line or the characters.
There is just... an over-sexed, over-violent indulgence of anti-Trek disguised as good Trek.
Tucker and T'Pol manage to get Defiant operational and, with its 23rd century weaponry, Defiant makes short work of the Tholian base and its fleet. They pick up the survivors of Enterprise and, with a crew now numbering 47, streak off (probably at Warp Seven or so) to intervene in the Empire's efforts to put down the rebellion.
Defiant arrives in time to save Avenger, an NX class starship, from about a dozen enemy vessels (representing Vulcan, Andorian, Tellarite and several other designs). Archer goes out his way to pursue and destroy a fleeing Vulcan ship, to T'Pol's anguish, only to permit a Tellarite ship to escape so that it can warn the rest of the rebels of the Empire's new weapon.
Archer continues to show his xenophobic stripes and T'Pol and a bearded Commander Soval (yes, that's where the poor dead Ambassador has ended up, on the bridge of the Avenger) begin to plot against him. The Gorn, meanwhile, starts to kill crew and damage Defiant in order to force Archer to release him in a shuttle. Archer, however, is goaded on by a bizarre imaginary representation of himself, into hunting the Gorn down himself.
Archer then decides to remove every non-human crew member from Defiant and transfer them to Avenger, to avoid any further interference. Dr. Phlox is the only non-human permitted to remain (apparently, Avenger does not have a human doctor who could take his place).
T'Pol and Soval then entice Phlox (with promises of riches, power and, of course, "females") to join their cause. He goes back aboard Defiant to do the exact same damage to her that the Gorn did (you know, to save on the cost of sets).
Phlox fails, and Defiant destroys Avenger. Then, in a final twist, Sato poisons Archer and, with Mayweather's support, takes over Defiant. She pronounces herself "Empress Sato" and demands Earth's surrender. Fade out.
And I mean, fade out. Episode 2 ends with Sato's pronouncement and there is no third episode in the series to say what happens next.
It doesn't matter. Not to the writers, not to the creative team, not to the viewer. The past 84 minutes of Enterprise might as well have been a dream. A teenage masturbatory nightmare, to be honest.
I will give kudos to Linda Park, however. She brings real seduction and menace to her alt-universe character. And to the people who build, decorated and presented the sets -- they are impressive.
But the alt-universe story line comes across to me as a cheap ploy to try to draw Star Trek loyalists back to Enterprise. Nothing more. The story is fun but not particularly well designed nor well written. There is absolutely no tie back to the "real" universe that would warrant viewers to become invested in the story line or the characters.
There is just... an over-sexed, over-violent indulgence of anti-Trek disguised as good Trek.
Episode 94: In a Mirror, Darkly, Part I
It occurred to me as I watched Parts I and II of "In a Mirror, Darkly" that Star Trek's much celebrated parallel, or "mirror", universe must have seemed like a dream universe to the Enterprise show runners: women are sex objects, white men rule, racism and xenophobia abound, violence is ubiquitous and all of the wonderful things that make Roddenberry's vision of the future so attractive to the intelligent Star Trek fan base don't seem to exist.
If only they could have set Enterprise entirely in that universe...
Mike Sussman wrote the two episodes and you can't really fault him, or the designers and set builders, for their knowledge of Star Trek history, Star Trek lore and TOS itself. "In a Mirror, Darkly" is, in many ways, a TOS fan's dream and, in the DVD commentary, Sussman shows off an impressive mastery of many things Trek.
Except, of course, for what really made Star Trek great. Because it is in all the ways that Roddenberry's universe is different from that parallel universe that Star Trek shines.
What makes these two episodes even more problematic is the fact that they are not even remotely connected to the "real" universe of the show. The events presented in "IaMD" have absolutely no relationship to, and no impact on, the people and events of the series. "IaMD" is a self-contained mini-Star-Trek-Mirror-Universe movie, nothing more.
There is no real drama here because we have not built up even the slightest relationship to these characters. We do not care one whit if Archer is successful or if he dies. Enterprise's destruction at the end of the first episode is visually spectacular but absolutely incapable of affecting us emotionally (as the death of Enterprise in The Search for Spock, for example, so poignantly did).
These two episodes fail for many reasons but, most importantly, because they are without meaning or impact.
The teaser of episode 1 is clever enough: we are treated to footage of the arrival of the Vulcan Lander on Earth from First Contact, only to have our expectations turned on their head when Zephram Cochrane kills the Vulcan leader and the Earth people storm the Vulcan ship. This, we find out soon enough, is the first step in the birth and development of the Imperial Space Service and the anti-Star-Fleet time line.
In the alt-universe, the Empire is facing open rebellion, apparently from the many alien races humans have subjugated (Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, and Dinobulans among them). The war is not going well for the Empire. On board Enterprise, Commander Archer overthrows Captain Forrest in order to take command so that he can investigate a possible way to save the Empire: it seems the Tholians have managed to connect to an alternative universe, lure a star ship from that universe and capture it. The key point: the star ship is an earth ship from 100 years in the future.
With its advanced weapons and technology, Archer believes, the Empire will be able to put down the rebellion for once and for all.
There are exactly two women who play significant roles in these episodes: Sato, as the Captain's concubine, and T'Pol, as the overly emotional Vulcan subordinate who seduces Tucker at a key moment in the story. Every other character in the show is male (well, the Tholian who is captured, tortured and eventually murdered is of mixed gender).
After a number of sex scenes, several fist fights and gun fights and the re-emergence of Forrest to wrest command of the ship back from Archer, they arrive at the Tholian base and discover that the stories Archer has heard are true. The Tholians have somehow managed to capture Defiant, NCC-1764, from the TOS era. How they managed that, since Defiant under Archer's command and a skeleton crew, manages to brush off the Tholian fleet and its base as if they were mosquitoes...
Archer and an assault team go aboard Defiant with orders to download its database and blow it up. T'Pol, meanwhile, has secret orders from Forrest to kill Archer during the mission. Archer, on the other hand, plans to liberate Defiant and use her for his own purposes.
The Tholians find Enterprise and destroy her to end the episode, leaving Archer, T'Pol and a few others onboard the stripped down, non-functioning Defiant.
I watched the two episodes once, then watched them again with the DVD commentary playing. Writer Sussman and some guy from StarTrek.com chatted away all chummily about the episode and about how great it was to be able to give Star Trek fans the chance to return to the days of TOS on a real-live Constitution class starship.
They also manage to make it very clear that this alternative universe is very much to their liking, with the women as scantily clad sex objects and the men filled with testosterone and nastiness. Sussman is particularly annoying in declaring, over and over again, that despite his stated commitment to being true to TOS as much as possible he loves writing in the alternative universe because he can change anything he wanted and no one could complain.
Constitution Class star ships don't have aft phasers or torpedo launchers? Too bad, so sad. Defiant does (even though its from the "real" universe). Enterprise NX-01 doesn't have a tractor beam? Well, it does in the alt universe.
Yes, they do an amazing job of recreating the Constitution Class star ship, both externally and internally. And, yes, we get the same feeling of titillation from seeing Archer and his crew in TOS uniforms as we did when DS9 put their crew in TOS uniforms in "Trials and Tribble-ations".
But the fact that this story line is absolutely meaningless is too big a fact to ignore. These episodes have no dramatic impact. They are fun but silly.
And Sussman and the creative team fail entirely to try, even a little bit, to explain how a social order that rewards insubordination and the assassination of those ahead of one in the chain of command manages to last a generation without destroying itself, not to mention centuries.
If only they could have set Enterprise entirely in that universe...
Mike Sussman wrote the two episodes and you can't really fault him, or the designers and set builders, for their knowledge of Star Trek history, Star Trek lore and TOS itself. "In a Mirror, Darkly" is, in many ways, a TOS fan's dream and, in the DVD commentary, Sussman shows off an impressive mastery of many things Trek.
Except, of course, for what really made Star Trek great. Because it is in all the ways that Roddenberry's universe is different from that parallel universe that Star Trek shines.
What makes these two episodes even more problematic is the fact that they are not even remotely connected to the "real" universe of the show. The events presented in "IaMD" have absolutely no relationship to, and no impact on, the people and events of the series. "IaMD" is a self-contained mini-Star-Trek-Mirror-Universe movie, nothing more.
There is no real drama here because we have not built up even the slightest relationship to these characters. We do not care one whit if Archer is successful or if he dies. Enterprise's destruction at the end of the first episode is visually spectacular but absolutely incapable of affecting us emotionally (as the death of Enterprise in The Search for Spock, for example, so poignantly did).
These two episodes fail for many reasons but, most importantly, because they are without meaning or impact.
The teaser of episode 1 is clever enough: we are treated to footage of the arrival of the Vulcan Lander on Earth from First Contact, only to have our expectations turned on their head when Zephram Cochrane kills the Vulcan leader and the Earth people storm the Vulcan ship. This, we find out soon enough, is the first step in the birth and development of the Imperial Space Service and the anti-Star-Fleet time line.
In the alt-universe, the Empire is facing open rebellion, apparently from the many alien races humans have subjugated (Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, and Dinobulans among them). The war is not going well for the Empire. On board Enterprise, Commander Archer overthrows Captain Forrest in order to take command so that he can investigate a possible way to save the Empire: it seems the Tholians have managed to connect to an alternative universe, lure a star ship from that universe and capture it. The key point: the star ship is an earth ship from 100 years in the future.
With its advanced weapons and technology, Archer believes, the Empire will be able to put down the rebellion for once and for all.
There are exactly two women who play significant roles in these episodes: Sato, as the Captain's concubine, and T'Pol, as the overly emotional Vulcan subordinate who seduces Tucker at a key moment in the story. Every other character in the show is male (well, the Tholian who is captured, tortured and eventually murdered is of mixed gender).
After a number of sex scenes, several fist fights and gun fights and the re-emergence of Forrest to wrest command of the ship back from Archer, they arrive at the Tholian base and discover that the stories Archer has heard are true. The Tholians have somehow managed to capture Defiant, NCC-1764, from the TOS era. How they managed that, since Defiant under Archer's command and a skeleton crew, manages to brush off the Tholian fleet and its base as if they were mosquitoes...
Archer and an assault team go aboard Defiant with orders to download its database and blow it up. T'Pol, meanwhile, has secret orders from Forrest to kill Archer during the mission. Archer, on the other hand, plans to liberate Defiant and use her for his own purposes.
The Tholians find Enterprise and destroy her to end the episode, leaving Archer, T'Pol and a few others onboard the stripped down, non-functioning Defiant.
I watched the two episodes once, then watched them again with the DVD commentary playing. Writer Sussman and some guy from StarTrek.com chatted away all chummily about the episode and about how great it was to be able to give Star Trek fans the chance to return to the days of TOS on a real-live Constitution class starship.
They also manage to make it very clear that this alternative universe is very much to their liking, with the women as scantily clad sex objects and the men filled with testosterone and nastiness. Sussman is particularly annoying in declaring, over and over again, that despite his stated commitment to being true to TOS as much as possible he loves writing in the alternative universe because he can change anything he wanted and no one could complain.
Constitution Class star ships don't have aft phasers or torpedo launchers? Too bad, so sad. Defiant does (even though its from the "real" universe). Enterprise NX-01 doesn't have a tractor beam? Well, it does in the alt universe.
Yes, they do an amazing job of recreating the Constitution Class star ship, both externally and internally. And, yes, we get the same feeling of titillation from seeing Archer and his crew in TOS uniforms as we did when DS9 put their crew in TOS uniforms in "Trials and Tribble-ations".
But the fact that this story line is absolutely meaningless is too big a fact to ignore. These episodes have no dramatic impact. They are fun but silly.
And Sussman and the creative team fail entirely to try, even a little bit, to explain how a social order that rewards insubordination and the assassination of those ahead of one in the chain of command manages to last a generation without destroying itself, not to mention centuries.
3.23.2016
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.
"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.
3.22.2016
Episode 92: Divergence
Columbia comes to the rescue. Phlox and Antaak figure out a cure. Millions of Klingon mutants (they are not really Augments because they have no special characteristics) survive and TOS' ridgeless Klingon conundrum is resolved.
In the process, there is an extended (though not particularly necessary) special effects sequence involving Columbia flying upside down under Enterprise so that Tucker can transfer from one ship to the other without requiring them to drop out of warp. It's nicely done and quite exciting.
Phlox shows some clever thinking under pressure, not only coming up with the cure very quickly but also figuring out how to force the suddenly arrived Klingon battle cruisers to stop bombarding the planet. At the end, the Klingons are stuck with a subspecies of cranial-ridge-free people but are free from the plague.
The problem is, despite all of the good, the episode just does not make sense.
Enterprise is in Klingon territory and going above-top-speed (something like Warp 5.2) to avoid blowing up because of the Klingon subroutine in its engine computers, yet newly launched Columbia, which still doesn't have all the bugs worked out in her brand new engines, catches up to her easily. Okay, maybe Enterprise swept around in a very wide turn and started heading back toward Earth to meet her but how then did both ships get to the Klingon colony so quickly thereafter?
Further, Enterprise, which has all the bugs out of her, is about to shake apart at Warp 5.2 but Columbia, still new, maintains that speed fairly easily and is even able to extend her warp field to surround Enterprise long enough for Enterprise to perform a shut down and restart of her engines, to purge the subroutine.
And they still manage to get to the Klingon colony before the Klingon battle cruisers.
Then, in the epic battle between Enterprise, Columbia and the three Klingon battle cruisers, the two Star Fleet ships manage to hang in the battle for a lot longer than Enterprise has ever managed to hang in with a smaller Klingon bird of prey. Huh?
And did you see how many Klingon torpedoes Enterprise took and still kept on fighting? Wowee. Where did that come from?
Further, Phlox's resolution is ingenious -- he packs some of the plague into a bottle with a time-release feature and beams it aboard the lead Klingon battle cruiser's bridge in mid-battle, infecting the Klingon crew and forcing them to stop fighting in order to permit Phlox to finalise the cure and save their lives.
Problem is, members of the Enterprise bridge crew had commented seconds earlier that they can't penetrate the Klingon ships' shields. Well, it's pat Star Trek lore that you can't beam through a ship's raised shields.
Sloppy but fun, I guess.
In the process, there is an extended (though not particularly necessary) special effects sequence involving Columbia flying upside down under Enterprise so that Tucker can transfer from one ship to the other without requiring them to drop out of warp. It's nicely done and quite exciting.
Phlox shows some clever thinking under pressure, not only coming up with the cure very quickly but also figuring out how to force the suddenly arrived Klingon battle cruisers to stop bombarding the planet. At the end, the Klingons are stuck with a subspecies of cranial-ridge-free people but are free from the plague.
The problem is, despite all of the good, the episode just does not make sense.
Enterprise is in Klingon territory and going above-top-speed (something like Warp 5.2) to avoid blowing up because of the Klingon subroutine in its engine computers, yet newly launched Columbia, which still doesn't have all the bugs worked out in her brand new engines, catches up to her easily. Okay, maybe Enterprise swept around in a very wide turn and started heading back toward Earth to meet her but how then did both ships get to the Klingon colony so quickly thereafter?
Further, Enterprise, which has all the bugs out of her, is about to shake apart at Warp 5.2 but Columbia, still new, maintains that speed fairly easily and is even able to extend her warp field to surround Enterprise long enough for Enterprise to perform a shut down and restart of her engines, to purge the subroutine.
And they still manage to get to the Klingon colony before the Klingon battle cruisers.
Then, in the epic battle between Enterprise, Columbia and the three Klingon battle cruisers, the two Star Fleet ships manage to hang in the battle for a lot longer than Enterprise has ever managed to hang in with a smaller Klingon bird of prey. Huh?
And did you see how many Klingon torpedoes Enterprise took and still kept on fighting? Wowee. Where did that come from?
Further, Phlox's resolution is ingenious -- he packs some of the plague into a bottle with a time-release feature and beams it aboard the lead Klingon battle cruiser's bridge in mid-battle, infecting the Klingon crew and forcing them to stop fighting in order to permit Phlox to finalise the cure and save their lives.
Problem is, members of the Enterprise bridge crew had commented seconds earlier that they can't penetrate the Klingon ships' shields. Well, it's pat Star Trek lore that you can't beam through a ship's raised shields.
Sloppy but fun, I guess.
Episode 91: Affliction
There is some clever work done in the two-parter that begins with "Affliction", written by Mike Sussman from a story by Manny Coto, and ends with "Divergence", written by the Reeves-Stevens pair.
These episodes finally resolve the long-standing Trek mystery surrounding the ridgeless Klingons who appear throughout TOS. You remember, the mystery that got Worf grumbling about a "long story" when challenged by his DS9 crewmates in "Trials and Tribble-ations'?
"Affliction" and "Divergence" tell that long story. And they quite cleverly tie in the Khan/Soong/Augment storyline into it as well.
It seems the Klingons, fearful that the Humans were developing a race of super soldiers using Soong's genetically enhanced Augments as the source, use several Augment embryos they saved from their destroyed bird of prey to develop their own Augment experiments.
Unfortunately, the experiments go wrong and, instead of developing a super soldier, they get a super plague that first mutates the carrier into a half-Klingon/half-Human entity, then kills him very painfully. Numerous Klingon worlds have been infected. Several have already been eradicated by the Klingon fleet.
Their solution? Kidnap Phlox from Earth and set him to work with Dr. Antaak, his Klingon disciple, on a way to stabilize the process, eliminate the plague and, if possible, create Klingon Augments.
Archer is committed to tracking Phlox down but Reid's participation in the search is interfered with by a mysterious man from his Star Fleet security past who calls on his long dormant oath and requires him to delay Enterprise's work. It seems this clandestine Star Fleet security (introduced in DS9) is working with the Klingons on the plot because a stable Klingon Empire is key to Star Fleet's future.
Meanwhile, Archer guides T'Pol through the process of performing a mind meld on Sato to help Sato remember key information from the kidnapping (yes, Archer can do anything... defeat an Andorian solider in a duel using an Andorian weapon, help a Vulcan perform a mind meld, cure the common cold). The mind meld results in T'Pol, Tucker and Sato sharing a "dream" in which Tucker appears with T'Pol in a pure white setting.
It would seem that T'Pol is not quite over Tucker yet and even Sato is now in on the situation.
Enterprise investigates the destruction of a Rigelian ship that left Earth shortly after the kidnapping and, while there, Enterprise is attacked by a Klingon bird of prey. A small boarding party, four individuals that look surprisingly like the Klingons from TOS, infects Enterprise's warp engine programming. Star Fleet security captures one of the invaders and the other three flee.
Meanwhile, Archer has discovered Reid's disloyalty and placed him the brig. There is much hand-wringing on Reid's part -- his loyalties are divided and he feels awful about undermining Archer -- and he gets the chance to chat with the Klingon in the other cell.
Phlox comes to a working relationship with his Klingon disciple but angers the Klingon General who is in charge of the facility. They have five days to accomplish their goal because that's how long it will take the Klingon fleet to get there to exterminate them all. (How is it that Klingon battle cruisers take five days to get there and Enterprise can get there in a matter of hours?)
At first, Enterprise can't go to warp but then, once they do go to warp, the Klingon computer subroutine forces them to go to maximum warp and stay there. Anything slower and the warp engines will explode. (And, no, Keanu Reaves and Sandra Bullock do not make guest appearances here with their supercharged bus).
The episode ends with Enterprise speeding along, searching for an answer before they shake apart.
The basic premise of the episode is, as I said above, quite clever: tying together the ridgeless Klingon mystery from TOS with the Augment story line is an impressive idea and well executed.
It's also a Star Trek blast from the past to see John Schuck again as a Klingon, this time as Dr. Antaak. If I am not mistaken, Schuck played the Klingon Ambassador to the Federation in The Search for Spock, swearing that there will be no peace between the Empire and the Federation while James Kirk lives.
I'm not sure I fully understand why it is a small crew of Klingon Augments that is sent to harass Enterprise, nor why they go the subtle route of installing a nasty sub-routine rather than just disabling Enterprise entirely. I also don't understand the Augment leader's motivation for telling the General upon her return that Enterprise was destroyed and her son killed.
The subplot about Reid's torn loyalties doesn't really do much for the episode, to be honest, and frankly doesn't seem necessary at all. Sometimes, I wonder if the show's creative team simply had run out ideas and were desperately trying to fill the last 10 or so episodes of Enterprise with something, anything, just so that they could all go home.
I also don't understand the Klingon motivation in involving Star Fleet secret security in this situation. Dr. Antaak makes it clear that it would be a shameful act of weakness for the Klingons to ask for help from Star Fleet to resolve the plague yet it doesn't seem to be shameful at all for the Klingons to ask for Star Fleet help to kidnap Phlox and delay Enterprise.
Further, why is Star Fleet secret security so wound up about ensuring the stability of the Klingon Empire at this point? Human/Klingon interaction has been extremely limited to this point and, with so much of the known galaxy just trying to figure itself out, why would you want the most obvious potential enemy to remain stable?
It's nice to see a female leading the Klingon Augments but I wonder why every other Klingon of any consequence in the episode is male. The doctor, the general, the soldiers, the commander of the star ships, they are all male.
It's also nice to see Sato put some of her Akido training into action, even despite the overwhelming odds against her. But I wonder, I really really wonder, why Phlox, faced with an aggressive kidnapping attempt on a dark street, doesn't show the "instinctive reaction" to danger that he displayed in a simple bar fight in "Home". Did we forget about that?
These episodes finally resolve the long-standing Trek mystery surrounding the ridgeless Klingons who appear throughout TOS. You remember, the mystery that got Worf grumbling about a "long story" when challenged by his DS9 crewmates in "Trials and Tribble-ations'?
"Affliction" and "Divergence" tell that long story. And they quite cleverly tie in the Khan/Soong/Augment storyline into it as well.
It seems the Klingons, fearful that the Humans were developing a race of super soldiers using Soong's genetically enhanced Augments as the source, use several Augment embryos they saved from their destroyed bird of prey to develop their own Augment experiments.
Unfortunately, the experiments go wrong and, instead of developing a super soldier, they get a super plague that first mutates the carrier into a half-Klingon/half-Human entity, then kills him very painfully. Numerous Klingon worlds have been infected. Several have already been eradicated by the Klingon fleet.
Their solution? Kidnap Phlox from Earth and set him to work with Dr. Antaak, his Klingon disciple, on a way to stabilize the process, eliminate the plague and, if possible, create Klingon Augments.
Archer is committed to tracking Phlox down but Reid's participation in the search is interfered with by a mysterious man from his Star Fleet security past who calls on his long dormant oath and requires him to delay Enterprise's work. It seems this clandestine Star Fleet security (introduced in DS9) is working with the Klingons on the plot because a stable Klingon Empire is key to Star Fleet's future.
Meanwhile, Archer guides T'Pol through the process of performing a mind meld on Sato to help Sato remember key information from the kidnapping (yes, Archer can do anything... defeat an Andorian solider in a duel using an Andorian weapon, help a Vulcan perform a mind meld, cure the common cold). The mind meld results in T'Pol, Tucker and Sato sharing a "dream" in which Tucker appears with T'Pol in a pure white setting.
It would seem that T'Pol is not quite over Tucker yet and even Sato is now in on the situation.
Enterprise investigates the destruction of a Rigelian ship that left Earth shortly after the kidnapping and, while there, Enterprise is attacked by a Klingon bird of prey. A small boarding party, four individuals that look surprisingly like the Klingons from TOS, infects Enterprise's warp engine programming. Star Fleet security captures one of the invaders and the other three flee.
Meanwhile, Archer has discovered Reid's disloyalty and placed him the brig. There is much hand-wringing on Reid's part -- his loyalties are divided and he feels awful about undermining Archer -- and he gets the chance to chat with the Klingon in the other cell.
Phlox comes to a working relationship with his Klingon disciple but angers the Klingon General who is in charge of the facility. They have five days to accomplish their goal because that's how long it will take the Klingon fleet to get there to exterminate them all. (How is it that Klingon battle cruisers take five days to get there and Enterprise can get there in a matter of hours?)
At first, Enterprise can't go to warp but then, once they do go to warp, the Klingon computer subroutine forces them to go to maximum warp and stay there. Anything slower and the warp engines will explode. (And, no, Keanu Reaves and Sandra Bullock do not make guest appearances here with their supercharged bus).
The episode ends with Enterprise speeding along, searching for an answer before they shake apart.
The basic premise of the episode is, as I said above, quite clever: tying together the ridgeless Klingon mystery from TOS with the Augment story line is an impressive idea and well executed.
It's also a Star Trek blast from the past to see John Schuck again as a Klingon, this time as Dr. Antaak. If I am not mistaken, Schuck played the Klingon Ambassador to the Federation in The Search for Spock, swearing that there will be no peace between the Empire and the Federation while James Kirk lives.
I'm not sure I fully understand why it is a small crew of Klingon Augments that is sent to harass Enterprise, nor why they go the subtle route of installing a nasty sub-routine rather than just disabling Enterprise entirely. I also don't understand the Augment leader's motivation for telling the General upon her return that Enterprise was destroyed and her son killed.
The subplot about Reid's torn loyalties doesn't really do much for the episode, to be honest, and frankly doesn't seem necessary at all. Sometimes, I wonder if the show's creative team simply had run out ideas and were desperately trying to fill the last 10 or so episodes of Enterprise with something, anything, just so that they could all go home.
I also don't understand the Klingon motivation in involving Star Fleet secret security in this situation. Dr. Antaak makes it clear that it would be a shameful act of weakness for the Klingons to ask for help from Star Fleet to resolve the plague yet it doesn't seem to be shameful at all for the Klingons to ask for Star Fleet help to kidnap Phlox and delay Enterprise.
Further, why is Star Fleet secret security so wound up about ensuring the stability of the Klingon Empire at this point? Human/Klingon interaction has been extremely limited to this point and, with so much of the known galaxy just trying to figure itself out, why would you want the most obvious potential enemy to remain stable?
It's nice to see a female leading the Klingon Augments but I wonder why every other Klingon of any consequence in the episode is male. The doctor, the general, the soldiers, the commander of the star ships, they are all male.
It's also nice to see Sato put some of her Akido training into action, even despite the overwhelming odds against her. But I wonder, I really really wonder, why Phlox, faced with an aggressive kidnapping attempt on a dark street, doesn't show the "instinctive reaction" to danger that he displayed in a simple bar fight in "Home". Did we forget about that?
3.21.2016
Episode 90: The Aenar
Yep, I am really running these episodes together. I watched them all in a row and have a hard time keeping track of what went on in each individual show.
That being said, the third episode of the trilogy, "The Aenar", is fairly easily distinguishable since its plot is a single cohesive unit.
With the help of Schran, the Enterprise crew discovers that the white-skinned Andorian who is telepathically operating the Romulan Marauders is a member of the Aenar, a blind but reclusive subspecies of Andorians that lives deep within the ice cap.
Meanwhile, pressure mounts on the Romulan general in charge of the Marauder program to overcome the “setback” with the two Marauders now available to him. A scientist colleague clearly feels badly about what they are doing to the Aenar.
While Archer and Schran visit the Aenar in their underground city to seek help, Tucker, T’Pol and Phlox attempt to build a telepathic control device (the telepresence unit) of their own so that, if the Aenar agree to help, they can try to interfere with Romulan control over the Marauders.
While they work, Tucker struggles with the loss of his relationship with T'Pol and continues to be distracted by it.
The Aenar who is controlling the Marauder, Garab, turns out to be the brother of the interim leader of the Aenar, Jumell, who yearns to save him and to escape the permanent cold of her city.
T’Pol agrees to test the machine, despite the risk and Tucker’s fears. At first, the Aenar refuse to help as helping would require violence.
The Romulans launch their two drones, on a mission to find and destroy Enterprise, and the Aenar leader, Jumell, then agrees to join their mission to save her brother. A cargo ship goes missing, clearly a trap, but Enterprise goes off to investigate.
Jumell lets herself be hooked up to Enterprise's telepathic machine and finds it “strangely enjoyable” but then things go wrong and she’s badly injured. Schran has taken a liking to her and she to him.
When Enterprise arrives to investigate the disappearance of the cargo ship, a Tellarite freighter appears but it’s one of the Marauders. Jumell decides to try to reach her brother to get him to stop. Meanwhile, the Romulans decide to send in the second ship even though it might not be necessary and could damage their pilot.
Jumell makes contact with her brother, Garab, through the devices and tells him she’s on the ship he is attacking, She learns that the Romulans told him he was the last surviving Aenar. Garab then decides not to continue and instead makes the two drones attack each other. The Romulans kill him but not before both drones are destroyed.
Jumell is devastated but pleased that at least her brother did not die alone. Enterprise returns her and Schran to Andoria. Schran leaves, with an apology and the statement that he probably won’t get another command. Tucker puts himself on report for missing a 10-degree variance in the emitter. Archer refuses to punish him but Tucker insists that he be transferred to Columbia for personal reasons, not admitting to Archer that he wants to get away from T’Pol.
That being said, the third episode of the trilogy, "The Aenar", is fairly easily distinguishable since its plot is a single cohesive unit.
With the help of Schran, the Enterprise crew discovers that the white-skinned Andorian who is telepathically operating the Romulan Marauders is a member of the Aenar, a blind but reclusive subspecies of Andorians that lives deep within the ice cap.
Meanwhile, pressure mounts on the Romulan general in charge of the Marauder program to overcome the “setback” with the two Marauders now available to him. A scientist colleague clearly feels badly about what they are doing to the Aenar.
While Archer and Schran visit the Aenar in their underground city to seek help, Tucker, T’Pol and Phlox attempt to build a telepathic control device (the telepresence unit) of their own so that, if the Aenar agree to help, they can try to interfere with Romulan control over the Marauders.
While they work, Tucker struggles with the loss of his relationship with T'Pol and continues to be distracted by it.
The Aenar who is controlling the Marauder, Garab, turns out to be the brother of the interim leader of the Aenar, Jumell, who yearns to save him and to escape the permanent cold of her city.
T’Pol agrees to test the machine, despite the risk and Tucker’s fears. At first, the Aenar refuse to help as helping would require violence.
The Romulans launch their two drones, on a mission to find and destroy Enterprise, and the Aenar leader, Jumell, then agrees to join their mission to save her brother. A cargo ship goes missing, clearly a trap, but Enterprise goes off to investigate.
Jumell lets herself be hooked up to Enterprise's telepathic machine and finds it “strangely enjoyable” but then things go wrong and she’s badly injured. Schran has taken a liking to her and she to him.
When Enterprise arrives to investigate the disappearance of the cargo ship, a Tellarite freighter appears but it’s one of the Marauders. Jumell decides to try to reach her brother to get him to stop. Meanwhile, the Romulans decide to send in the second ship even though it might not be necessary and could damage their pilot.
Jumell makes contact with her brother, Garab, through the devices and tells him she’s on the ship he is attacking, She learns that the Romulans told him he was the last surviving Aenar. Garab then decides not to continue and instead makes the two drones attack each other. The Romulans kill him but not before both drones are destroyed.
Jumell is devastated but pleased that at least her brother did not die alone. Enterprise returns her and Schran to Andoria. Schran leaves, with an apology and the statement that he probably won’t get another command. Tucker puts himself on report for missing a 10-degree variance in the emitter. Archer refuses to punish him but Tucker insists that he be transferred to Columbia for personal reasons, not admitting to Archer that he wants to get away from T’Pol.
Archer grants his request.
Despite some nice scenes and the introduction of a very interesting subspecies of Andorians in the Aenar, this episode feels sloppy and somewhat incoherent. To be honest, it felt to me like it was thrown together at the last minute by Manny Coto, who wrote the story, and André Bormanis, who wrote the teleplay. The Tucker subplot appears contrived and rushed and the early threat by the Romulan admiral to use the two Marauders to hunt down Enterprise never really comes true.
Jumell appears early to be completely seduced by the idea of leaving the cold of her home city and joining Enterprise on her mission, then declares that the Aenar will not cooperate in such a violent venture, then says she wants to help her brother. No explanation for her inconsistency is ever offered.
Jumell is badly injured by a test run of the telepathic device, then uses it with absolutely no damage during the battle scenes. The writers attempt to explain this in a clumsy way in Tucker's admission to Archer that he missed a variance in the emitter but, as I said before, it seems contrived, like a last-minute rewrite to address a flaw someone noticed on the last day of filming.
Further, Garab's willingness to pilot the Romulan Marauders makes no sense, given the fact that the Romulans kidnapped him and he comes from a strictly pacifist society. Again, the last-minute explanation for his behaviour (that he believed his entire race was dead) does not constitute a reasonable explanation for why a confirmed pacifist would be a somewhat willing participant in causing so many deaths.
This latest trilogy represents a significant step backwards from the improving quality of the episodes that preceded it. That's unfortunate, since I really felt that Enterprise was starting to hit its stride under show runner Manny Coto.
Episode 89: United
For plot details, see previous entry. These episodes run together in my mind.
This one ends with the alliance succeeding in chasing away (but not destroying) the Romulan Marauder and an Andorian vessel rescuing the crew of a Tellarite ship that was destroyed in the battle. Schran and the Tellarite ambassador shake hands and announce they have more to agree upon than mere trade pacts.
Over the course of the rather verbose episode, we find out that Tucker mooned over his lost relationship with T'Pol as he faced near certain death aboard the Marauder but that T'Pol apparently doesn't share his sense of loss. This angers Tucker and leads to several speeches from various characters that Tucker needs to behave professionally and not let his personal issues interfere with his work.
We also learn that the Romulan admiral who is running the Marauder program is seriously under pressure as a result of the set backs he's endured, bringing the various races closer together rather than driving them apart. A Romulan senator threatens to pull the plug on the project but is convinced at the last moment that, now that the first Marauder is almost fully repaired and the second Marauder is ready, they will able to redeem themselves and accomplish their goals by hunting down Enterprise.
Wait, that might be in the next episode.
This one ends with the alliance succeeding in chasing away (but not destroying) the Romulan Marauder and an Andorian vessel rescuing the crew of a Tellarite ship that was destroyed in the battle. Schran and the Tellarite ambassador shake hands and announce they have more to agree upon than mere trade pacts.
Over the course of the rather verbose episode, we find out that Tucker mooned over his lost relationship with T'Pol as he faced near certain death aboard the Marauder but that T'Pol apparently doesn't share his sense of loss. This angers Tucker and leads to several speeches from various characters that Tucker needs to behave professionally and not let his personal issues interfere with his work.
We also learn that the Romulan admiral who is running the Marauder program is seriously under pressure as a result of the set backs he's endured, bringing the various races closer together rather than driving them apart. A Romulan senator threatens to pull the plug on the project but is convinced at the last moment that, now that the first Marauder is almost fully repaired and the second Marauder is ready, they will able to redeem themselves and accomplish their goals by hunting down Enterprise.
Wait, that might be in the next episode.
Episode 88: Babel One
The TOS retrospective continues with "Babel One", a clear homage to "Journey To Babel" from Kirk's era. Written by Mike Sussman, this episode chronicles the first Babel peace conference, with Archer invited to act as the mediator between the ever-warring Andorians and Tellarites.
The plot of this three-part adventure is quite complex. It involves a Romulan secret weapon, their attempt to destabilise the entire system by creating war among the locals (humans, Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites especially), and Archer's attempt not just to keep the peace but to build a lasting alliance.
We are "treated" to a scantily clad female Andorian officer seducing a MACO guard, yet another discussion about T'Pol's bum, and a good old fashioned duel, where Archer manages to defeat Schran using an Andorian blade he's never seen before and a fighting technique that is new to him.
If I recall my Star Trek history correctly, the Romulans were said to have been behind Star Fleet in terms of technology when they first "burst out of their star system" 100 years before Kirk's era and, even in the seminal TOS episode "Balance of Terror", Romulans had simple impulse engines and were no match for NCC-1701's speed.
Yet here we are in the 22nd century and the Romulan empire is capable of building a ship that can be operated telepathically all the way from Romulus, that can mimic the configuration of any ship, that has weapons more powerful that those of the best Andorian ship, that can literally dance around space such that targetting scanners are useless against it and that can repair significant damage by itself in significantly less time than it would take a Star Fleet crew.
Miraculous. And yet they would lose a war to the neophyte Star Fleet just decades later?
The episode ends with the Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites and Humans in a fragile alliance, joining forces to hunt down the Marauder. The last scene offers the stunning revelation that the telepathic "pilot" of the Marauder is a white-skinned Andorian.
Despite its many many flaws, the episode is not without merit. The space battles are well depicted and the Tellarites come across as charmingly repugnant. Their conflict with the Andorians is believable.
I also continue to enjoy seeing the development of Schran, the Andorian Commander played so effectively by Jeffrey Combs. Seeing him in love is an interesting experience and they do a nice job with the relationship that has been developing since season one between Schran and Archer.
The plot of this three-part adventure is quite complex. It involves a Romulan secret weapon, their attempt to destabilise the entire system by creating war among the locals (humans, Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites especially), and Archer's attempt not just to keep the peace but to build a lasting alliance.
We are "treated" to a scantily clad female Andorian officer seducing a MACO guard, yet another discussion about T'Pol's bum, and a good old fashioned duel, where Archer manages to defeat Schran using an Andorian blade he's never seen before and a fighting technique that is new to him.
If I recall my Star Trek history correctly, the Romulans were said to have been behind Star Fleet in terms of technology when they first "burst out of their star system" 100 years before Kirk's era and, even in the seminal TOS episode "Balance of Terror", Romulans had simple impulse engines and were no match for NCC-1701's speed.
Yet here we are in the 22nd century and the Romulan empire is capable of building a ship that can be operated telepathically all the way from Romulus, that can mimic the configuration of any ship, that has weapons more powerful that those of the best Andorian ship, that can literally dance around space such that targetting scanners are useless against it and that can repair significant damage by itself in significantly less time than it would take a Star Fleet crew.
Miraculous. And yet they would lose a war to the neophyte Star Fleet just decades later?
The episode ends with the Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites and Humans in a fragile alliance, joining forces to hunt down the Marauder. The last scene offers the stunning revelation that the telepathic "pilot" of the Marauder is a white-skinned Andorian.
Despite its many many flaws, the episode is not without merit. The space battles are well depicted and the Tellarites come across as charmingly repugnant. Their conflict with the Andorians is believable.
I also continue to enjoy seeing the development of Schran, the Andorian Commander played so effectively by Jeffrey Combs. Seeing him in love is an interesting experience and they do a nice job with the relationship that has been developing since season one between Schran and Archer.
3.20.2016
Episode 87: Observer Effect
If you have been reading this blog, you know that it is not often that I watch an episode of Enterprise and find myself thinking: "Now that's good Star Trek".
"Observer Effect" is good Star Trek. It's a spine-tinglingly creepy hour of television. Well designed. Well written. Well paced. Using the full regular cast to good effect. Drawing on, and contributing to, Star Trek lore.
What's even more remarkable is that, though the episode features two distinct, expertly drawn, powerful guest villains, it features no guest actors. Body-less in their natural state, enemy aliens inhabit the bodies of different members of the crew as the show progresses.
Even as they move from Mayweather and Reid and into Phlox and T'Pol, then back to Mayweather and Reid, then into Tucker and Sato, etc., two distinct personalities develop such that it takes the viewer only a few moments of dialogue to decipher which of the aliens inhabits which crew member after each switch.
It's powerful, effective and impressive writing from Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens who, if my memory serves, made their writing debut on Enterprise with "The Forge" earlier in Season Four.
In the teaser, Reid and Mayweather sit in the crew's mess, playing chess, discussing the simplicity of the game and how the people around them will respond to what they found on the planet below. It takes an agonizing minute before we realise that something is different about these two and, when Reid says in a patronizingly satisfied voice that at least one person dies every time, we know for sure. Whether their bodies have been inhabited or replaced by aliens, these are not our familiar friends.
We soon find out that Enterprise has been sending teams down to the planet for exploration purposes and that Klingons at least had been there before them. Tucker and Sato report in from their shuttle pod and, even as they request permission to dock, Tucker succumbs to a coughing episode that leads him to collapse. Tucker and Sato are placed in medical isolation and Phlox soon discovers they have been infected with a silicon-based pathogen that will soon kill them if no cure is found.
The resulting desperate scramble to find a solution is punctuated by truly creepy, anxiety inducing scenes of Mayweather and Reid calmly discussing the agony their crewmates are enduring and rating the rationality and intelligence of their colleague's response. We soon learn that humans are being tested by some advanced, non-corporeal race to see if humans have sufficient rational intelligence to warrant preparation for first contact. How rationally do they respond to the hopeless situation; how well do they balance the impetus to save the lives of their infected comrades with the rational imperative to protect the rest of the crew from inevitable contamination and death if the carriers of the pathogen are not successfully dealt with?
Hundreds of races have been tested in this same way, to the point that the aliens can assess the progress of the Enterprise crew in percentages as compared to other species tested. And, as Reid repeats several times, at least one death is always the result, though often many people die during the test.
The Klingons, for example, simply tossed the infected crew out the air lock. Problem solved.
Archer remains committed to saving Tucker and Sato, however, and inspires some sympathy from the younger of the aliens, who wonders if the test itself is too barbaric. Once Archer and his crew have proven their intelligence (in coming very close to developing a cure in time) and their willingness to take risks and even make sacrifices for their friends, the younger alien argues, the test should be suspended and the cure provided.
The older alien (Reid, usually) argues first that it is not their place to question a testing procedure that has been in place for more than 900 years and second that, since they are not responsible for the situation (they did not create the pathogen nor place it on the planet, they joined the Enterprise crew only after the planet had been located and the pathogen had infected the crew), it was not their place to interfere in the natural development of the human race by saving them from the pathogen.
Phlox manages to figure out what's going on (seeing on a medical monitor the alien-inhabited but supposedly sedated Tucker and Sato standing up in their isolation cell, calmly discussing the status of the testing of the humans) and the viewer begins to feel a little bit of hope, only to have that hope crushed. The aliens approach Phlox, in the bodies this time of Archer and T'Pol, and, after he protests about the barbarity of their behaviour, erase his evidence and his memory so that the test can continue.
The episode is so well written and acted that I actually felt painfully deflated at that point: these aliens are all powerful and completely willing to let members of the Enterprise crew die. I hate to admit it but I actually decided that the show runners must have decided a change of cast was necessary to save the show and Tucker, Sato and finally Archer were to be written out.
Phlox, with his memory wiped, figures out a cure but he and Archer need to don environmental suits and move the now unconscious Tucker and Sato to Sick Bay to put the cure into action. The suits' gloves prove too clumsy for Phlox to do what's necessary so Archer sacrifices himself, removing his helmet and gloves to handle the equipment, but the effort still fails. Sato dies, Tucker is dying and Archer is now infected.
Archer tells T'Pol over the comm to take command and promises that, if Tucker regains consciousness before he dies, he'll let T'Pol know. Tucker then dies, leaving a grieving Archer alone in the contaminated Sick Bay.
After a heart-rending beat, Tucker suddenly sits up in his bed. The younger alien has inhabited his body and wants to tell Archer what has been happening. Sato then sits up, the elder alien in tow, and the two get into an argument over the younger's breach of protocol and his intention to interfere in human development. Then come the magic words that must have made all Star Trek fans shake their heads in wonder: "We are Organians".
Ahhhh, so that's it. First introduced in the TOS epsiode "Errand of Mercy", the Organians are an advanced, peace-loving non-corporeal race that is committed to non-interference as long as the lesser races leave them alone.
"Observer Effect" is yet another stage in Enterprise's effort to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of Star Trek loyalists by bringing back (re-introducing?) one of TOS' most talked about alien races.
Archer then turns on his inner Captain Kirk (see "Arena", for example, or "Spectre of the Gun"), facing down an advanced race and questioning its right to call itself "advanced". If permitting other people to suffer grievously for no purpose, if sitting back and observing as lesser beings struggle against such devastating challenges is their definition of "advanced", then he's not interested in being advanced. If they want to understand kindness, empathy, sacrifice, and all the other wonderful emotions they claim to value, then they should display them now.
Needless to say, Archer's arguments strike a chord, especially with the younger Organian, and the situation is soon resolved in the Enterprise's favour. Archer and crew have no clue what could have caused the cure of Tucker and Sato, who were clearly dead, and have no memory of any alien presence on the ship but they are happy to be healthy, happy and safe once more.
I am not sure how I feel about having the Organians portrayed in this cold-blooded way but it works in the context of this episode. And, okay, there is no way a race as advanced as the Organians would need to enter Tucker and Sato simply to have a brief confab about the ongoing testing that permitted Phlox to figure out what was going on, but that's just a minor issue.
"Observer Effect" is an excellent episode and one that must have made at least some of the Star Trek fans who had stuck it out this far feel hope that Enterprise might just be able to turn things around.
All seven of the regular cast get significant, meaningful screen time. We get some interesting character development for both Tucker and Sato (who knew she was an akido black belt who got tossed from Star Fleet training for breaking the arm of her commanding officer when he tried to break up her floating poker game?) and we get treated to a tense hour of television.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
"Observer Effect" is good Star Trek. It's a spine-tinglingly creepy hour of television. Well designed. Well written. Well paced. Using the full regular cast to good effect. Drawing on, and contributing to, Star Trek lore.
What's even more remarkable is that, though the episode features two distinct, expertly drawn, powerful guest villains, it features no guest actors. Body-less in their natural state, enemy aliens inhabit the bodies of different members of the crew as the show progresses.
Even as they move from Mayweather and Reid and into Phlox and T'Pol, then back to Mayweather and Reid, then into Tucker and Sato, etc., two distinct personalities develop such that it takes the viewer only a few moments of dialogue to decipher which of the aliens inhabits which crew member after each switch.
It's powerful, effective and impressive writing from Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens who, if my memory serves, made their writing debut on Enterprise with "The Forge" earlier in Season Four.
In the teaser, Reid and Mayweather sit in the crew's mess, playing chess, discussing the simplicity of the game and how the people around them will respond to what they found on the planet below. It takes an agonizing minute before we realise that something is different about these two and, when Reid says in a patronizingly satisfied voice that at least one person dies every time, we know for sure. Whether their bodies have been inhabited or replaced by aliens, these are not our familiar friends.
We soon find out that Enterprise has been sending teams down to the planet for exploration purposes and that Klingons at least had been there before them. Tucker and Sato report in from their shuttle pod and, even as they request permission to dock, Tucker succumbs to a coughing episode that leads him to collapse. Tucker and Sato are placed in medical isolation and Phlox soon discovers they have been infected with a silicon-based pathogen that will soon kill them if no cure is found.
The resulting desperate scramble to find a solution is punctuated by truly creepy, anxiety inducing scenes of Mayweather and Reid calmly discussing the agony their crewmates are enduring and rating the rationality and intelligence of their colleague's response. We soon learn that humans are being tested by some advanced, non-corporeal race to see if humans have sufficient rational intelligence to warrant preparation for first contact. How rationally do they respond to the hopeless situation; how well do they balance the impetus to save the lives of their infected comrades with the rational imperative to protect the rest of the crew from inevitable contamination and death if the carriers of the pathogen are not successfully dealt with?
Hundreds of races have been tested in this same way, to the point that the aliens can assess the progress of the Enterprise crew in percentages as compared to other species tested. And, as Reid repeats several times, at least one death is always the result, though often many people die during the test.
The Klingons, for example, simply tossed the infected crew out the air lock. Problem solved.
Archer remains committed to saving Tucker and Sato, however, and inspires some sympathy from the younger of the aliens, who wonders if the test itself is too barbaric. Once Archer and his crew have proven their intelligence (in coming very close to developing a cure in time) and their willingness to take risks and even make sacrifices for their friends, the younger alien argues, the test should be suspended and the cure provided.
The older alien (Reid, usually) argues first that it is not their place to question a testing procedure that has been in place for more than 900 years and second that, since they are not responsible for the situation (they did not create the pathogen nor place it on the planet, they joined the Enterprise crew only after the planet had been located and the pathogen had infected the crew), it was not their place to interfere in the natural development of the human race by saving them from the pathogen.
Phlox manages to figure out what's going on (seeing on a medical monitor the alien-inhabited but supposedly sedated Tucker and Sato standing up in their isolation cell, calmly discussing the status of the testing of the humans) and the viewer begins to feel a little bit of hope, only to have that hope crushed. The aliens approach Phlox, in the bodies this time of Archer and T'Pol, and, after he protests about the barbarity of their behaviour, erase his evidence and his memory so that the test can continue.
The episode is so well written and acted that I actually felt painfully deflated at that point: these aliens are all powerful and completely willing to let members of the Enterprise crew die. I hate to admit it but I actually decided that the show runners must have decided a change of cast was necessary to save the show and Tucker, Sato and finally Archer were to be written out.
Phlox, with his memory wiped, figures out a cure but he and Archer need to don environmental suits and move the now unconscious Tucker and Sato to Sick Bay to put the cure into action. The suits' gloves prove too clumsy for Phlox to do what's necessary so Archer sacrifices himself, removing his helmet and gloves to handle the equipment, but the effort still fails. Sato dies, Tucker is dying and Archer is now infected.
Archer tells T'Pol over the comm to take command and promises that, if Tucker regains consciousness before he dies, he'll let T'Pol know. Tucker then dies, leaving a grieving Archer alone in the contaminated Sick Bay.
After a heart-rending beat, Tucker suddenly sits up in his bed. The younger alien has inhabited his body and wants to tell Archer what has been happening. Sato then sits up, the elder alien in tow, and the two get into an argument over the younger's breach of protocol and his intention to interfere in human development. Then come the magic words that must have made all Star Trek fans shake their heads in wonder: "We are Organians".
Ahhhh, so that's it. First introduced in the TOS epsiode "Errand of Mercy", the Organians are an advanced, peace-loving non-corporeal race that is committed to non-interference as long as the lesser races leave them alone.
"Observer Effect" is yet another stage in Enterprise's effort to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of Star Trek loyalists by bringing back (re-introducing?) one of TOS' most talked about alien races.
Archer then turns on his inner Captain Kirk (see "Arena", for example, or "Spectre of the Gun"), facing down an advanced race and questioning its right to call itself "advanced". If permitting other people to suffer grievously for no purpose, if sitting back and observing as lesser beings struggle against such devastating challenges is their definition of "advanced", then he's not interested in being advanced. If they want to understand kindness, empathy, sacrifice, and all the other wonderful emotions they claim to value, then they should display them now.
Needless to say, Archer's arguments strike a chord, especially with the younger Organian, and the situation is soon resolved in the Enterprise's favour. Archer and crew have no clue what could have caused the cure of Tucker and Sato, who were clearly dead, and have no memory of any alien presence on the ship but they are happy to be healthy, happy and safe once more.
I am not sure how I feel about having the Organians portrayed in this cold-blooded way but it works in the context of this episode. And, okay, there is no way a race as advanced as the Organians would need to enter Tucker and Sato simply to have a brief confab about the ongoing testing that permitted Phlox to figure out what was going on, but that's just a minor issue.
"Observer Effect" is an excellent episode and one that must have made at least some of the Star Trek fans who had stuck it out this far feel hope that Enterprise might just be able to turn things around.
All seven of the regular cast get significant, meaningful screen time. We get some interesting character development for both Tucker and Sato (who knew she was an akido black belt who got tossed from Star Fleet training for breaking the arm of her commanding officer when he tried to break up her floating poker game?) and we get treated to a tense hour of television.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Episode 86: Daedalus
In a remake of TOS' "The Ultimate Computer", with hints of TNG's "Where No One Has Gone Before" and with an Enterprise twist, "Daedalus" tells the story of a famous but tortured scientist (Emory Erickson) who lies his way onto the Enterprise in a desperate attempt to rescue his son from a years-old transporter accident.
In the two source episodes, the Captain of the Enterprise and his crew resisted the use of their ship as a test vehicle, especially as the problems and lies start to manifest themselves. The Enterprise twist is that the scientist is an old friend, a second father, to the current Captain and the lost son the Captain's childhood best friend.
This pits Archer against Tucker, T'Pol and Reid (the rest of the bridge crew, Sato and Mayweather, the members of racialised communities that is, are remarkable for their absence from their episode) as it becomes clear that Dr. Erickson is lying and his mission is not what he says it is. The conflict comes to a head when a crewman is killed by a mysterious entity (that turns out to be the son, Quinn, still trapped in the transport) and T'Pol is injured. Archer puts his personal feelings ahead of the safety of the ship and its crew in deciding to continue to permit Erickson to carry out his plans and, in a fiery exchange with Tucker, threatens an insubordination charge if Tucker continues to challenge his orders.
I'm not sure that the writers, Ken LaZebnik and Michael Bryant, intended this but I came away from the episode feeling a great deal less respect for Archer as a result of his unacceptable willingness to put his ship and crew at risk for personal reasons. The death of a crewman, which had been the source of frankly unreasonable levels of guilt and regret for Archer in the context of the Xindi war, now seems a trivial detail to the Captain. The maiming of T'Pol's hand passes almost without comment.
If Star Fleet functions at all properly, Archer will face charges in the next episode for the decisions he makes in this situation and will likely lose his command. I will be interested to see if there are such consequences in store for him (or any at all).
Dr. Erickson is accompanied on the voyage by his daughter, Danica, who is also a childhood friend of Archer. Unfortunately, as so often happens in Enterprise, the female character is presented as being clearly subordinate to the males (father and lost son), sacrificing her life and interests to care for her father and help him in his search for a way to rescue her brother.
The creative decision to permit the son to die in the end, to cause the father to fail, is interesting and fairly poignant, serving perhaps as the morally required "punishment" for the scientist's various sins. Once again, however, the life of the "other" (in this case a young man of apparently African American background) serves merely as a narrative tool for the series' creative team.
There is no doubt that "Daedalus" is seriously flawed -- how Quinn, trapped in a transporter beam, can possibly take on a form capable of killing, maiming and damaging the ship is never explained, to give an additional example -- but it does have one redeeming feature.
In the ongoing effort to address the many wrongs on Star Trek lore perpetrated by the show runners throughout the first three seasons, this episode features the interesting sub-plot of T'Pol's reconsideration of what it is to be Vulcan as she studies Surak's writings contained in the Kir'Shara. Her study causes her to withdraw from the rest of the crew (including Tucker) and to begin the process of re-packing her emotions deep inside her.
Jolene Blalock gives a nuanced, subtle performance (it must have been quite a challenge for an actor to be told to convey significant emotion in a character who is currently packing away all of her emotions) in a variety of situations, from fending off Tucker's efforts to "check in" with her emotionally, to accepting that she has been cured of the incurable Pa'Nar Syndrome or explaining to Dr. Phlox how she is being required to reconsider her entire life philosophy.
And the final withdrawal of T'Pol from her emotional/sexual relationship with Tucker closes a difficult loop for many Star Trek enthusiasts (and, we hope, puts an end to those inane Vulcan neuro-pressure scenes that the earlier show runners were so fond of).
In the two source episodes, the Captain of the Enterprise and his crew resisted the use of their ship as a test vehicle, especially as the problems and lies start to manifest themselves. The Enterprise twist is that the scientist is an old friend, a second father, to the current Captain and the lost son the Captain's childhood best friend.
This pits Archer against Tucker, T'Pol and Reid (the rest of the bridge crew, Sato and Mayweather, the members of racialised communities that is, are remarkable for their absence from their episode) as it becomes clear that Dr. Erickson is lying and his mission is not what he says it is. The conflict comes to a head when a crewman is killed by a mysterious entity (that turns out to be the son, Quinn, still trapped in the transport) and T'Pol is injured. Archer puts his personal feelings ahead of the safety of the ship and its crew in deciding to continue to permit Erickson to carry out his plans and, in a fiery exchange with Tucker, threatens an insubordination charge if Tucker continues to challenge his orders.
I'm not sure that the writers, Ken LaZebnik and Michael Bryant, intended this but I came away from the episode feeling a great deal less respect for Archer as a result of his unacceptable willingness to put his ship and crew at risk for personal reasons. The death of a crewman, which had been the source of frankly unreasonable levels of guilt and regret for Archer in the context of the Xindi war, now seems a trivial detail to the Captain. The maiming of T'Pol's hand passes almost without comment.
If Star Fleet functions at all properly, Archer will face charges in the next episode for the decisions he makes in this situation and will likely lose his command. I will be interested to see if there are such consequences in store for him (or any at all).
Dr. Erickson is accompanied on the voyage by his daughter, Danica, who is also a childhood friend of Archer. Unfortunately, as so often happens in Enterprise, the female character is presented as being clearly subordinate to the males (father and lost son), sacrificing her life and interests to care for her father and help him in his search for a way to rescue her brother.
The creative decision to permit the son to die in the end, to cause the father to fail, is interesting and fairly poignant, serving perhaps as the morally required "punishment" for the scientist's various sins. Once again, however, the life of the "other" (in this case a young man of apparently African American background) serves merely as a narrative tool for the series' creative team.
There is no doubt that "Daedalus" is seriously flawed -- how Quinn, trapped in a transporter beam, can possibly take on a form capable of killing, maiming and damaging the ship is never explained, to give an additional example -- but it does have one redeeming feature.
In the ongoing effort to address the many wrongs on Star Trek lore perpetrated by the show runners throughout the first three seasons, this episode features the interesting sub-plot of T'Pol's reconsideration of what it is to be Vulcan as she studies Surak's writings contained in the Kir'Shara. Her study causes her to withdraw from the rest of the crew (including Tucker) and to begin the process of re-packing her emotions deep inside her.
Jolene Blalock gives a nuanced, subtle performance (it must have been quite a challenge for an actor to be told to convey significant emotion in a character who is currently packing away all of her emotions) in a variety of situations, from fending off Tucker's efforts to "check in" with her emotionally, to accepting that she has been cured of the incurable Pa'Nar Syndrome or explaining to Dr. Phlox how she is being required to reconsider her entire life philosophy.
And the final withdrawal of T'Pol from her emotional/sexual relationship with Tucker closes a difficult loop for many Star Trek enthusiasts (and, we hope, puts an end to those inane Vulcan neuro-pressure scenes that the earlier show runners were so fond of).
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