Future Tense

DVD, Enterprise S2 (Future Tense)

This is exactly the kind of thing that was wanted, needed and expected from this series before it had begun: exciting space action, but more importantly connections to 'The Original Series' that make you smile, all cleverly woven into a tale that encompasses familiar alien races and the distant future, beyond even the 24th Century! They should have achieved this level of inventiveness and thrills on a regular basis, and if they had, who knows, but the series might have lasted for its full and necessary quota.

Like all the Temporal Cold War-themed episodes this leaves a lot of questions dangling, and in the light of the diminishing involvement of the War within the series' continuity, this is quite frustrating, though in this particular case the pieces are varied enough to be more than a passable story in their own right, with technology from 900 years in their future including organic circuitry, which came in with the USS Voyager, and another visit to Daniels' quarters, though Archer really shouldn't leave the door wide open when dealing with top secret stuff - the rest of the time it's kept sealed! The questions, however, do remain: what faction did the mysterious ship belong to? Presumably a kind of future Federation since the human had ancestry from a variety of species, but most importantly human with Vulcan DNA (and some Terellian, Rigelian, and others that aren't mentioned).

This leads to some of the most joyful hints towards 'TOS' with Archer and crew wondering about the possibility of a future where Vulcans and humans would intermarry - we know it will happen, and in less than a century, since Sarek would be born a few years after this, and would marry Amanda, a human, during the 23rd Century, leading to Spock. Why does everything (the past, the future and alternate realities), always seem to lead to the most famous Vulcan of all? T'Pol's distaste is evident, though perhaps it was thanks to these new ideas permeating her ordered Vulcan brain (and the fact that she was always a bit skewed towards the different, with a rebellious nature), that she would go on to fall in love with a human herself?

I don't know how or why, but when an episode comes together on this series, all the cracks that often appear, the flaws that drag it down, and the lack of exuberance and truly going where no man has gone before in story terms, seem to be overcome at the same time. Case in point: often some characters aren't used too well, a problem with this season in particular, yet between the battle scenes and the futuristic connections we get the friendship of Trip and Reed continuing as they work together on the strange ship; we have a nice scene in the mess between Phlox and T'Pol, something we don't see enough of as the two alien members of the crew show their different attitudes plainly. We get Archer and Reed working together and we get Mayweather doing something other than being stuck to the helm chair - I was surprised they didn't use him for a 'ghost story' moment at the point when they're examining the pod, as he usually provides a creepy experience to enhance such scenes.

This may be the first Temporal War story not to feature either Silik the Suliban or Daniels, though both are mentioned. This Suliban representative doesn't have the same dignity and sliminess that Silik embodied, being a rather gruff, no-nonsense type. Having the Suliban along for the ride almost guarantees some action, and we're not disappointed thanks to a slippery raid from the aliens, and later, a full-on space battle in which Enterprise is almost pleased to see their enemies appear to attack a worse foe: the Tholians. These have always been a mysterious race at the best of times, so to hear their scratchy voice and see their arrow-head vessels screeching into view was a major event.

The negatives were that it gave us the taste of 'TOS' lore, then proceeded not to fulfil that promise very often in succeeding episodes. So we'd just had the Andorians, but all this meant was a stronger wish for more known races. We also weren't blessed with an image of the Tholians, having to wait a couple of years longer for that. The race were only seen once, on a viewscreen in 'TOS,' but were mentioned a few times over the years, with Sisko having some connection with a Tholian Ambassador, so they would become allies to the Federation in future. Here they seem strong, but not quite tough enough to steal the future ship. Why did they want it? What did they know of it? What did they plan to do with it? We'll never know, and while some level of mystery is a good thing, to have so much come out in these kinds of stories, yet never discover the main details was a criminal offence to loyal viewers.

The ship and its special technology, the fact that it had ladders down into further rooms which went on for who knew how far, may not be an original idea ("Bigger on the inside?"), but it is a great one. I wanted them to explore inside it and get lost - that could have been an episode in itself. The best thing about it were the time loops that made those near the ship experience the same scene over and over, especially distressing when Archer and Reed are trying to carry out a delicate plan in a short timespan! Even better was the mystery of Zefram Cochrane, which is suggested by Archer as a possible explanation of the dead human found in the ship, but which we know is not the answer since Cochrane landed on a distant planet and was discovered by Captain Kirk many years later! It's a brilliant nod to the one man that links the various Trek generations together, and if anyone was worried that 'Enterprise' was pulling apart the historical continuity they should have relaxed - it was furthered and enhanced naturally and provided a very satisfying feeling.

Furthering some of the good relations displayed in the preceding story with the Vulcans, Andorians and humans managing to find some common ground, Archer is reliant on a Vulcan ship to back him up, and it's quite a turnaround from his general attitude towards the race that his ship is headed as fast as it can to reach it when under pursuit. It also shows the threat level of the Tholians that they can disable such a vessel when the Vulcans so often seem unchallenged masters of the Quadrant. Another scene takes a little more away from them too - Phlox talks about the time Denobula experienced first contact, and it wasn't from the Vulcans, but a different race.

Originally entitled 'Crash Landing' the final choice was much more evocative, and like many Trek titles is similar to a previous one, in this case 'Past Tense,' a two-parter of 'DS9' - I wish this had been expanded into a two-parter, as there was so much to mine. All we need now is for a new series with an episode called 'Present Tense' to complete the set! The episode is probably the best of the season to this point, and would certainly have got a higher mark had it been the precursor of great revelations in the future, so that it became even more enjoyable to watch again with hindsight - the closest to being called a classic this season. Of all the references to 'TOS' that are scattered throughout, one is perhaps less obvious: Trip uses Scotty's famous line about the Tribbles when the future ship and all its technology vanishes, the whole 'kit and caboodle'!

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