Civilisation

DVD, Enterprise S1 (Civilisation)

More of a visual feast than a great story, but it continues to live up to the premise of the series, with the crew going boldly and a little recklessly into new lives and civilizations! It shows how conditioned we've become with the other series', that when they headed for the first Class-M planet in range I was waiting for them to confirm it as a warp-capable society. It wasn't, of course, and there's no prime directive to stop them. So they can have fun! That is perhaps the flaw of the episode: it was a chance to show what appearing on less advanced planets could do to the people, but instead it all goes rather well, and the only trouble comes from outside interference rather than the planet's inhabitants. That said, it made a change from some of the other undercover stories that have been done over the years.

The Original Series started the idea, and every series has to have at least one episode where people are surgically altered to walk among the natives! Some good twists (the apothecary makes tea, rather than some potion, and the adversary is a race of lizard-like aliens that have human prosthetics!), but it was a bit of a missed opportunity for that road to the big Prime D.

T'Pol did look good with long hair, but what happened to Hoshi who was going to be so integral to keeping the landing party running so smoothly? The enemy mentions a Tellarite, perhaps the first mention on this series. And the set lighting, and ship orbit looks absolutely beautiful, makeing up for any lack in the plot department. The first episode to only just scrape in as watchable, but for all that it does scrape in, partly because of the detail afforded to the town, with a real layout kept to in satellite view, street view and maps, and partly because of the enemy aliens angle. Archer gets to kiss the girl and fight the baddie, but he didn't rip his shirt! Kirk would be proud.

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