Vanishing Point

DVD, Enterprise S2 (Vanishing Point)

...And it was all a dream. The awful cliche of it all! But somehow this still ticks along and comes out as a good instalment. This is all due to the drive of the episode, which is invisible, literally - not the story, or the (admittedly very good) disappearing effects, but the music - it's superb and holds what is really just a standard bottle show, together, whether it's using a creepy X-Files piano or action music when Hoshi tries to avert the catastrophe, it makes an okay premise into a good one. The direction helps, with a few good shots such as characters staring right through Hoshi, or the camera whizzing between each section of what could only have been a bomb, but the music must garner the most praise.

It shows what a fertile imagination Ensign Sato has, what with creating this Cyrus Ramsey, supposedly the first person to be transported long distance (of 100 metres), and if anything, I wanted the creepiness to be ramped up. It was a good idea to get to the state of Hoshi's disappearance slowly; at first she's not heard over a lively meal table when she asks to sit down, and later T'Pol takes a while to become aware of her presence, until she actually sees herself vanish completely. Her fears manifest in disappointment from the Captain, another crewmember taking over her role (Crewman Baird, who may have been named for Stuart Baird, who would have been directing 'Star Trek Nemesis' at the time), as well as people ignoring her. The physical unease was another aspect that could have been taken to a higher level than simply seeing her hands or body flash in or out of existence, but then it would have been difficult to sustain the reality of the situation, which they were trying to do, to keep us wondering if it really was a transporter accident or not.

It's a shame the pale white, saurian aliens she conjures up weren't real because they looked great, the ribbed white heads contrasting with bright red eyes. I was a bit disappointed they never saw Hoshi as I thought they did and either chased her or tried to do something to her, but it was only my memory doing some wishful thinking. There were other items of interest in the episode - we get to see the gym, and Hoshi imagines up a guilt-stricken Trip who blames himself for not letting her transport up from the planet first, which gives the actor a chance to emote a little bit. It was also fun to see a further addition to the 'transporter club' as Hoshi and Trip join the Captain and Reed in taking the plunge, the effects for which are especially detailed and pleasing on the eye.

The episode's strength is its effects work and managing to maintain a degree of weirdness, plus we get to see Hoshi's Father (played by the reliable Keone Young, the famous Buck Bokai in 'DS9'). The downside is that we don't really learn much about Hoshi, except what we already know - that she will conquer her fears if the ship is in danger, and I suppose this was a confidence boost along the way to her losing that jitteriness that had already begun to move into the background by this stage of the series. I would have liked to have found out more about the ruins on that planet, though.

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