Enterprise S4E10 Daedalus

Dr. Emory Erickson, inventor of the transporter, conducts a long-range experiment in order to recover his lost son – Wikipedia.

The good:

It’s cool to meet early pioneers in critical Starfleet technology. Transporters are a big deal. In particular, I loved the discussion on early competition between warp drive and transporter technology. Which one is actually better? There isn’t always a clear “right” answer at the beginning.

On a related note, these technologies were inherently dangerous and even unpredictable in the developmental stages. Of course, transporter malfunctions are a staple of Star Trek, but it makes sense. Transporters are freakin’ weird and scary if you think about it.

Emerson’s nod to the moral/philosophical arguments of transporter technology and the nature of the human soul. Of course, he only brought it up to immediately dismiss it – no time to go down that rabbit hole. Read more about it here.

Nice character development with Archer and Danica.

Great job on including the Kir’Shara – T’Pol was reading Surak in the mess hall. The Kir’Shara is a cultural bombshell – and logically it’s what all the cool Vulcans will be reading for quite some time. I was fairly certain that it was going to be an immediate throwaway despite being the focus of a three-episode arc.

Quinn’s radiation ghost looked pretty cool.

The bad:

Poor Tucker! He just wanted to hang out with his childhood hero. He was totally star struck. It was going to be one of the highlights of his life. And Emerson just took a crap on him the whole time. It’s good to have characters that are flawed and unlikable…still felt bad for the guy.

Very straightforward and forgettable bottle episode.

Enterprise S4E7-9 The Forge...of Boredom

S4E7 The Forge - Earth's embassy on Vulcan is partially destroyed by a bomb, killing Admiral Forrest. Archer & T'Pol travel to Vulcan in search of an alleged terrorist group blamed for the explosion, of which T'Pol's mother is s member.

S4E8 Awakening - Archer & T'Pol find T'Pau and T'Pol's mother and learn that Archer is carrying Surak'skatra.

S4E9 Kir'Shara - Archer and T'Pol bring back the Kir'Shara (Surek's artifact) that will lead changes in the Vulcan world. T'Pol's Pa'nar Syndrome is cured by T'Pau.

The good:

It was cool to see planet Vulcan.

Introduction of the katra.

T'Pol gets cured...end of a meh plot line.

The Vulcans are forced to finally get over themselves a bit.

The bad:

"T'Pol's Pa'nar Syndrome is cured by T'Pau" is perhaps the geekiest sentence I have ever written.

I don't have many plot issues. This three story arc introduced a key concept with the katra, resolved a sub-plots (T'Pol's illness and marriage), and set up a critically important development in human-Vulcan relations.

Having said that, I cannot offer specifics as to why this was so forgettable and boring. It took me a couple of months to get through these episodes. If memory serves, it took 3-4 viewing sessions to get through the Forge and at least two sessions to get through Awakening. I watched Kir'Shara immediateky following Awakening...and I fell asleep in the middle. Part of the problem was that I kept trying to watch after I went to bed...but I stay awake too late watching plenty of other shows. It was just a snooze-fest (literally).

I don't even have any pithy remarks, just glad to move on.

I'm BACK baby!

Long time no post. Sometimes life gets so busy that there simply isn't enough time to update my geek blog about old TV shows. After a significant hiatus, I was finally able to return to Enterprise. However, I had to give myself permission to not jump back into blogging at the same time. It's really weird, but it was like a mental block. I put off watching the show because I felt pressured to write the blog. Ha! A self-imposed geek prison. Anyway, I jammed through a bunch of episodes to reinvest in the show. Now let's get back to business. I left off at the end of season 1, but I have now watched through to season 4. The reality is that I don't remember specific details about many of the episodes that I binged. There is NO WAY I am going to re-watch them to refresh my memory, and anyway the premise of this blog is to respond the the episodes after a single viewing and without any background research.

So here's the deal. Wikipedia has season guides with brief (1-2 sentence) summaries for each episode. It was very interesting to read through and see which episodes "stuck" with me. Most of the episodes were fine. Some were memorable. Unfortunately, the main plot arcs were only so so.

Major Plot Lines

The Temporal Cold War

• Great premise with a good start. The Suliban are a very cool species with a lot of potential. The final episodes of that plot line (StormFront I/II) were mildly interesting. Aliens time-travel to give aid to the Nazis to turn the course of history. The CGI of Nazi tanks in front of the White House looked like it was composed in Microsoft Paint. Anyway, it just sort of lost steam. Something throws the time stream out of whack and then Daniels pops in, grabs Archer, and...fixes it somehow....again.

The Delphic Expanse

• It sounds sweet...but meh. There were cool elements. Vulcan space madness. The special effects for the temporal anomalies. The cloak and dagger politics of the Xindi council was a little interesting. The Enterprise was racing the clock to save the Earth from complete destruction so the drama was watching the crew try to not lose their shit under the stressful conditions. But...come on. At no point did I ever remotely entertain the idea that Earth was going to get blown up. I think this is were Enterprise suffers as a prequel. We already know everything is going to be alright no matter what.

Memorable Episodes

S2E2 Carbon Creek: Sub-Commander T'Pol relates the tale of a Vulcan crew stranded on Earth in the 1950s. 

• THIS was the episode that re-ignited my interest in the show. It was a pseudo-time travel episode via flashback. T'Pol's great grandmother bore a remarkable resemblance to T'Pol herself. Anyway, this is a tried and true Star Trek maneuver...a fish out of water story set on 20th century Earth. Honestly, most of it is boilerplate...except for the most amazing scene where three Vulcans are sitting around watching sitcom television while arguing in textbook sitcom fashion...in Vulcan deadpan. It was high art and it was beautiful. 

S2E5 A Night in Sickbay: The Captain's beagle, Porthos, becomes ill from an alien pathogen, and Captain Archer frets in Sickbay waiting for him to recover.

• A one-off featuring Porthos and Phlox. Porthos pees on a magic alien tree and gets space sickness until Archer gets over himself and apologizes to the aliens. There is a great scene where Archer and Phlox chase a weird blue bat bird around sickbay. It's the best. 

S2E9 Singularity: Enterprise charts a course through a trinary star system to investigate a black hole, and the crew find themselves suffering from a condition similar to OCD.

• Great progression of the OCD sickness over time. Tucker builds a super swell chair for Archer. Phlox wants to put Mayweather in a blender to cure his headache. Malcom gets a Tactical Alert boner. T'Pol watches in annoyance.

S2E10 Vanishing Point: After her first trip through the transporter, Ensign Sato finds herself becoming incorporeal, with the crew believing she has perished.

• Again, a great progression of "something is wrong". It always works to make transporters dangerous. Plus...Sato slowly disappears and nobody can hear her anymore...sign me up! Don't worry kids, it was all a dream.

S2E18 The Crossing: Incorporeal aliens attempt to take over Enterprise.

• The aliens have a totally boss ship. Tucker and Reed are fantastic as possessed aliens. I loved Tucker's scene in the mess hall. Those poor aliens were just looking to settle down into a new home by using the Enterprise crew as meat puppet hosts. I wasn't sure who to root for.

S2 E26 The Expanse: After an alien attack on Earth, Enterprise is refitted before being sent into the Delphic Expanse. Sub-Commander T'Pol resigns her commission with the Vulcan High Command, and Commander Tucker is troubled by the death of his sister.

• This was decent as a season closer. A giant space laser destroys Florida! Woohooo!

S3E8 Twilight: A parasite causes Captain Archer to lose his long-term memory, and he (with the help of T'Pol and Doctor Phlox) seeks a way to change the past.

• I think I generally love the alternate history episodes. To me, this had a great vibe reminiscent of Battlestar Gallactica on New Caprica.

S3E10 Similitude: Commander Tucker becomes comatose after an accident, and a rapid-growing clone is created for the purpose of harvesting brain tissue.

• I was annoyed by the bait and switch opening funeral for Tucker. Don't worry, it was his clone. However, it gave us a great way to learn more about Tucker's past and gave "him" a chance to tell T'Pol his true feelings. Good acting by Connor Trinneer.

S3E16 Doctor’s Orders: As Enterprise passes through a "trans-dimensional disturbance," the crew is put into hibernation, leaving Doctor Phlox in control of the ship.

• Phlox saves the day with help from T'Pol. Sort of. Great semi-creepy mood to set up T'Pol's entrance and it was hilarious when she started to break down and just shrug a lot at the end. This is one of the few episodes that I think would be even better on second viewing. 

S3E21 E^2: The Enterprise crew meet their own descendants from an alternate timeline in the past.

• Alternate history again. I'm a sucker.

S4E5 Cold Station 12: A space station crew is held hostage as Dr. Arik Soong and his Augments work to obtain hundreds of Augment embryos in hopes of creating an Augment population.

S4E6 The Augments: Dr. Arik Soong finds himself overthrown as "father" of the Augments and Archer rushes to prevent the destruction of a Klingon colony. As a result of his dashed hopes of enhancing humans, Soong turns in a new direction of research.

S4E7 The Forge: Earth's embassy on Vulcan is partially destroyed by a bomb, killing Admiral Forrest. Archer & T'Pol travel to Vulcan in search of an alleged terrorist group blamed for the explosion, of which T'Pol's mother is a member.

• A nice three story arc. Good to see Brent Spiner again...this time as a "bad ass". Cannot go wrong by giving props to Wrath of Khan. The one Augment girls was pretty hot. #winning

So that's the catch up. We are at the beginning of the fourth (and final) season of Enterprise. I'm going to give a shot at going back to posting per episode starting with episode 9. 

Enterprise S1E22 - Fallen Hero

Enterprise finds itself under attack while transporting a Vulcan ambassador. – Wikipedia.

The good:

Another segment of the human-Vulcan frenemy soap opera. It was pretty cool when Archer called Ambassador V’lar’s bluff and started to take her back to the Mazarites.

T’pol’s backstory developed a bit more with the revelation that V’lar was an inspiration for her to join Vulcan Star Fleet.

Porthos.

Phlox’s rage-scream when the Mazarites shot up his sick bay was seriously the best acting moment so far in the entire series.

The Vulcan battleship was really awesome, it totally made me respect them more.

Enterprise held it together to hit Warp 5.0.

The bad:

Snooze-fest in general.

The open was really uncomfortable. T’Pol asked Archer and Trip the last time they got some, because she was worried about a three percent drop in efficiency. The suggestion? Go to a beach planet full of whores to blow off some steam. Seriously, it was only made worse by Trip talking about twelve-fingered masseuses later on.

Trip brought a Hawaiian shirt on an interstellar voyage? He probably had room for like two outfits that weren’t jumpsuits and he decides to bring a Hawaiian shirt? They have Hawaiian shirts in the 22^nd century?

What a weak set-up for Ambassador V’lar. T’Pol was so high-strung about the preparations that you just knew that V’lar would be the exact opposite of her expectations.

The entire premise of the episode was underdeveloped. Why should I care about the Mazarites at all? They were not presented as an important race. Hell, V’lar’s big secret was that their leadership was corrupt and she was essentially conducting an internal audit. Whoohoo. I mean, that is important enough, but why all the “need to know” bluster? Obviously her cover was already blown. Who exactly was Archer going to tell?

I don’t envy T’Pol for having to do mental math warp calculations on the rendezvous time with the Sh’Raan, but I’m pretty sure she screwed it up. My understanding is that warp speed increases exponentially. For example, warp 5 is WAAAAAY faster than warp 4.5…but it only cut the time in half when Enterprise put the pedal to the floor. And when the Sh’Raan started to approach at warp 7.0 (WAAAAAAAAAY faster than warp 5), it only cut the time from about an hour to 10-15 minutes? That doesn’t seem right, but it sure does seem convenient.

I know this is SUPER nitpicky, but sometimes I get weary of the big reveal of the plan to the audience. For example, Archer ordered V’lar to sick bay before the Mazarites arrive. She understandably wanted to know why. He complained that there isn’t time for explanations, but then went on a mini-rant about trust. Archer was going to need to take time to explain it Phlox off-screen anyway, why not just have her tell Plox? How about this, “Tell Phlox to pretend to put you in the scanner to buy us a few minutes of time!” 

The ending didn’t make any sense. Enterprise had to keep V’lar safe so she could testify about the corrupt Mazarites. In the process, the Mazarites repeated chased down and fired upon a Federation starship. Wasn’t that an act of war against Star Fleet? Then they sent an armed boarding party onto Enterprise who, as far as they knew at the time, openly murdered a critically injured Vulcan ambassador in front of witness. Wasn’t that an act of war against the Vulcans? But the ah-ha moment is that V’lar was still alive to testify about the corruption charges? Why didn’t Archer just arrest them right there? If he didn’t want to deal with it, why didn’t he turn them over to the Vulcans on the Sh’Raan? Why did they just let them go?

Enterprise S1E21 - Vox Sola

An unknown alien boards Enterprise and starts capturing crew members, linking them together neurologically – Wikipedia.

The good:

There was a strong Alien vibe when the entity was crawling around the walls, and when first encountered by redshirts Rostov and Kelly.

The entity was pretty cool. Webs are creepy…especially giant, sentient, people-eating webs.

I like that the entity was clearly “alien” and mysterious, but not evil. It was made stronger by the fact that we never really know much about it, including why it attached to the Kreetassan’s ship, or why it decided to come onto Enterprise. It was ultimately understandably self-interested and had a clear goal, to get back home.

The psychic link between the captured crewmembers was cool. It heightened the tension by symbolically eating them, while also creating a huge obstacle to saving them. Of course, it also gave us a chance to learn that it was both intelligent and ultimately non-hostile as otherwise the security team would have just fried it during the first rescue attempt.

“Not in my sickbay.” Phlox is the man.

Porthos.

Malcolm gets to play hero by finalizing an operational force field.

I guess Ensign Mayweather was the acting captain? He was the only one left on the bridge and conducting intergalactic diplomacy on behalf of Starfleet. Good for him.

Cool closing scene with the massive hive entity.

The bad:

Anytime the spotlight is on Hoshi, she just annoys me. She’s always whining that it’s not her fault and everyone is picking on her. Hey Hoshi…you’re the communications officer. When talks break down over a language barrier, the ball was ultimately in your court. Deal with it. But the words in the Kreetassan language can have multiple meanings dependent on context! Yeah, sounds like pretty much every language ever.

Phlox speculates that the entity is sensitive to EM based on his examination of the severed tendril. Malcolm builds special EM laser guns to fight it. Holy lame sauce. Why didn’t they just fix the lights on the cargo deck? Or go back with bigger flashlights? Or bring in amplifiers and rock out to Quiet Riot “Metal Health”? Because you know, those are all types of EM radiation.

The Kreetassan’s were just a plot device to get the entity onto the ship. I guess I was supposed to be blown away by the cultural misunderstanding over something we take for granted, but whatever. It would have been better if they were not brought back after the opening scene. Even the negotiation to get the planetary coordinates was ultimately unnecessary, because the crew got that information from the entity after they established contact. Speaking of which, the entity knows the latitude and longitude of where it was picked up on its home planet? Cool.

The entity sure shrank down a lot to fit in that box at the end.

Enterprise S1E20 - Detained

Archer and Travis find themselves imprisoned in a Suliban internment camp by the Tandarans – Wikipedia.

The good:

This was a great plot development episode to continue the Temporal Cold War plot. I like when we see complexity in the different factions. Of course not every Suliban is a hardened rebel/terrorist. Additionally, the Tandaran’s aren’t “bad” either… they’re just dealing with a messy situation.

Overall, this was an effective commentary on contemporary world events, which of course when Star Trek is at its best. This episode aired just at the same time that detention centers at Guantanamo Bay were being expanded to house prisoners from the War on Terror. The closer parallel, however, is to the Japanese internment camps of World War II, a fact that I believe was pointed out in the episode. What is the government’s responsibility to protect its citizens? What about citizens it does not trust? Such deep questions have no clear answers, but are sure to create strong opinions.

The prison break was believable only because they didn’t get too bogged down in the details. Trip provides air support. The Sullies breach the wall. Run for freedom. Yay.

I like the uncertain ending for the Suliban refugees. They are free…but where is their new home?

The bad:

PYINFST…or its much feared cousin…ISOLATION!!! Muahahahaha!

Another in media res cold open…I feel like we have seen a few of those lately. All things in moderation Star Trek writers.

I don’t want to pull a double spoiler…but a certain Tandaran is also a prominent bad guy on another sci-fi series. Not that I mind, but it was a bit distracting, I really couldn’t think of anything else when he was on screen. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, fuggedaboutit.

I appreciate that we were totally suppose to empathize with the Suliban, and that means we have to see the similarities…but it just felt a little weak. I never thought I was seeing a regular civilian from a different planet…just a bunch of dudes with wacky skin make-up. Maybe that’s a stupid thing to say since that describes pretty much all the aliens…but they’re just too damn human. The script writers haven’t really created a distinctive culture. Hopefully they work it out if we have to spend extended time with Suliban peeps in the future.

Enterprise S1E19 - Oasis

Archer, T'Pol, Trip and Travis find a crew apparently alive on a ship that crash-landed years ago - Wikipedia.

The good:

The opening scene was great. The space trader D’Marr looked really awesome. I’m glad they didn’t explain where he came from or how the Enterprise crew met him; it added texture and avoided unnecessary exposition. Sometimes less is more.

It was very creepy when Trip and T’Pol were exploring the engineering deck of the ship before they caught Liana.

I remember thinking that it didn’t seem believable that a crew that large could have survived for years on one small hydroponics farm and re-routed power from the ship’s core. I’m glad that wasn’t an oversight but rather a clue to the real situation.

Once it was evident that some of the crew members were holograms, it was fun to try and figure out who was real. I totally thought the mother was the only real one.

Computer core reminded me of computer on the Nostromo in Alien.

The bad:

It was immediately obvious that a bunch of the crew were holograms as soon as Ezral freaked out when T’Pol fiddled around with the main computer.

Ezral turned his entire ship into a holodeck…including creating an incredibly sophisticated AI to preserve the memories and personalities of his crew. All by himself. On a disabled ship with limited resources. Sure, why not?

Let’s just address the elephant in the room, OK? It’s a liiiiiiittle creepy that a dude is trapped alone with his daughter for two decades and as soon as help comes along, he’s like, “Nope…Everything’s fine. I like my life here. Go away.” Cue the banjo music.