Anomaly

DVD, Enterprise S3 (Anomaly)

Another confident entry into the new 'Enterprise' that succeeds in continuing the pressure placed upon the crew that began in the season opener. Maybe not quite as hard-nosed, action-packed thrilling as the first part, but it's up there, close behind! Not only do we get a Landing Party shuttling over to an alien spacecraft left drifting (shades of 'Fight or Flight' again), we also experience the crew almost becoming used to the anomalies as a way of life, tossing them around, whipping their food and drink up in the air like a magician's irritating trick, and even launching like a mini tidal wave through the NX-01, sending crewmen sprawling in some of the best CGI of the series so far! If that wasn't enough to contend with, add a pinch of raiders (remember 'Voyager' episode 'The Void'? Maybe they should start trying to ally with those they meet?); a dash of thieving throughout the ship, and Archer already taking things further than is comfortable, and you have a packed episode.

Once again the music is militaristic and dramatic, drum beats and a thrumming of tension, running hand in hand with the confident direction - there are so many great shots, and the camera rarely stands still. Not in an annoying shaky-cam way, but a vital, energised kinetic style that continues to demonstrate the difference between old 'Enterprise' and new 'Star Trek: Enterprise' in strong fashion. Space is properly seen as three-dimensional, with less of a 2D plane for ships to run along, and a dynamic roiling to space-borne scenes, such as the ship to ship battle at the end in which the Osaarians use the Sphere's cloaking field to come in all guns blazing at the NX-01. We see the shuttlepod gracefully arc in space to dock, and the camera floats slowly as Archer and his team enter an alien ship, using magnetic boots to prevent floating in zero gravity, something we don't see enough of on Trek due to the expense. Here we see bodies free of gravity plating, objects casually hanging in mid-air, but thanks to the anomalies this isn't something confined to zero-g, as Archer discovers when his coffee mug suddenly ejects itself from the table to hover smugly in front of the Captain.

Maybe it was this last straw that broke the Captain's back, and forced him to resort to tactics that are so unlike him. I talk, of course, about the torture he inflicts on his Osaarian captive. We know humans have a need to find out who attacked Earth in such a terrible way, and Archer and Trip are at the very forefront of this desire, but I felt it was early for the Captain to compromise his beliefs so much. I, like the captive, still don't believe he's quite ready to kill in cold blood, but he came very close to it. I needed a scene in which he shows some remorse, if even to himself, but no time was allotted, and even to the audience he remains the steadfast, now becoming almost unapproachable, leader. He redeems himself in a small way by letting his prisoner go, but what other choice did he have at that moment? He wasn't going to kill him, so the only alternative would have been to keep him in the brig for the rest of the journey - as the USS Voyager found, that was never a workable solution. Although Archer displays some of his personal abyss in this episode, he also shows he's still the Captain, and hasn't yet done anything that compromises his morals. I like that he retains his command presence among the MACOs even half-naked when dressing for the visit to the adrift ship -  a bit of a Kirk trait!

The MACOs prove their worth again, though I didn't understand the significance of the large backpacks they were doomed to lug round the corridors of Enterprise in the attack of the raiders. At first I was thinking 'where have the MACOs got to?' as the mystery aliens beamed away everything they could get their hands on. But Reed and his MACO friends were soon on the scene and fighting back, the backpacks perhaps to blame for them taking their time to get to the scene. The whole sequence was a fast frenzy of phaser battles and stunts (I loved Archer and the others sliding down the stair rail in Engineering!), but where was the Tactical Alert, I didn't hear a sound? On the subject of sound, I felt the pingpong-sized noises of the weapons in the fight didn't match the robust action on screen, but it's easily rationalised that weapons in the 22nd Century aren't as powerful as in later Treks.

The captured Osaarian didn't seem as tough as he looked in the initial raid, coming across as weary of his enforced life in the expanse. His anomaly-emblazoned face might have been better thought out, it looked fine in the short scenes we see of him as a marauder, but up close it wasn't textured enough, and his left eye showed no sign of damage. His real purpose, aside from provoking Archer into putting his morality on the line for the greater good, was to provide an ominous warning of the NX-01's situation: he says that once you're in the Expanse you can't get out. The Osaarians themselves are a sign of what the Enterprise crew could turn into if they truly were to lose all moral direction, something that really should have been played up in response to the Captain's actions with the airlock.

Another thing that hasn't had a lot of use so far is the Transporter, but we see it in action here to return some of the stolen goods. The big news of the episode is the first appearance of a Sphere, something that would become an integral part of the season, though here its use only goes as far as being a hideout for the pirates. The vastness dwarfs Enterprise (I wanted them to say "that's no moon"), and reminded me of the Dyson Sphere from 'TNG' episode 'Relics.' Was it too easy for them to get inside? Maybe, but it provided another place to creep around, though this time there was no one home, not even dead aliens. There were some stem bolts which led me to the obvious question (if you've seen 'DS9'): were they self-sealing? Zefram Cochrane gets a namecheck, and this is the first appearance of the brig, a necessary addition if they were going to be dealing with the likes of Osaarians and whatever those miners were in the first episode.

The episode doesn't work quite as neatly as 'The Xindi,' mainly because it doesn't have the character scenes that work so well - T'Pol comes into minor conflict with Archer, but only to a point, it's more a minor ripple of discontent. Travis gets to prise himself from the helm chair for a change, and it's good to see him used, but as usual he doesn't have anything worthwhile to do, he just tags along. I suppose they had to let him off the bridge occasionally… We see Trip at work in the engine room this time, and his insomnia comes up again with the doc (who's noticeably lost weight - must be the worry of this new mission, or the loss of half the food stores to the raiders!), but he claims he doesn't have time to spare an hour with T'Pol each night. If he's not sleeping it's surely better for him to do something constructive that's going to help him sleep than be laying awake, but in reality he was just covering for his discomfort at her neuropressure sessions, I think. Continuing a pretty strong beginning for Season 3, the story remains active rather than passive, and jolts along pleasingly.

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