Carpenter Street

DVD, Enterprise S3 (Carpenter Street)

My problem when I first saw this were the high expectations I had for it: a time travel story, written by Berman and Braga, to contemporary Earth? You think back to some of the classic stories set contemporary to their production, and you think of Voyager in 1996, or Kirk's Enterprise in 1986 or other periods they travelled to such as 1930s America. 'DS9' did plenty of time travel to 20th Century decades, and 'TNG' took on older times. So far, this series had used travel through time sparingly, and in this season thoughts had moved away from the series arc of a Temporal Cold War raging in various centuries, but here, all of a sudden we're treated to 'Ensign' Daniels appearing in order to recruit Archer and a fortunate assistant of his choice - how great would it have been to use this as an excuse to bring in a character from another series? Just imagine Tuvok being plucked from the Delta Quadrant, just as Riker was taken from his ship in 'Death Wish,' to help Archer in his search for the rogue Xindi-Reptilians? It might not have been fair to the cast member chosen to be replaced (the sceptical T'Pol as it turns out), but just imagine an end scene in which Tuvok briefly meets the Vulcan female!

Not that she behaved in a Vulcan way in some of the episode, almost shouting in anger at Loomis lighting up a cigarette in the car, though her distaste at the burgers was thoroughly Vulcan! Maybe you can put it down to a kind of temporal psychosis? For me, the episode feels unfinished. I know we're in serialised territory here, but I needed a scene between Archer and T'Pol in which she becomes an avid proponent of time travel, maybe even going on to develop an obsession with it in future episodes. On the subject of arcs, I also felt Loomis was badly in need of a redeeming arc to make his character more worthy of our attention. As it plays out he's a messy, scruffy, dirty slob of an individual (Leland Orser is good with what he's given, but I can't help thinking how much his 'Voyager' character Dejaren would have hated Loomis!), who talks his conscience out of what he's doing, displaying, as T'Pol says, a prime example of the humans of our time: greedy, violent and selfish. If only his experiences could have led to his starting a new life with the help of Archer's advice and maybe the Xindi's money he might have managed to take during the phaser battle. He could have left the area resolving to be a better person.

But the episode isn't about him, and the urgency of Archer's continuing mission means he has no time to spend on deviants of the past. Mind you, as is glossed over briefly, time is something they should have in abundance. There's the old complaint that can easily rear up watching episodes through time that if they can go back to one point, why do they not simply go back to an earlier time with the knowledge they'd gained, and surprise the unsuspecting Xindi. The answer to that, and to the obvious 'hole' that if the Xindi can go to Earth in the past at any time, they could also drop a load of bombs there, is that the powers-that-be, (presumably the Starfleet Daniels works for), has strict enforcement of the timeline at its fingertips and would find a way to prevent a noticeable incursion.

There's also the fact that it's Archer who needs to be called upon to take the mission back in time, when there must be many temporal agents that could be used. But Daniels trusts Archer and knows he'll do what's best, and besides there's also a chance for Archer to have a bit more trust in Daniels, and no doubt temporal agents are always looking to build bridges with people they've had contact with. For that matter it would have been good idea to get Daniels teaming up with Archer himself, but with Trip barely registering and Hoshi, Reed and Phlox not appearing at all (is this the only episode where the three leads exclusively carry it?), it would have been a waste of money not to use a fully paid up cast member. I actually forgot to mention Travis, too, but it's never a surprise when he doesn't appear!

Plus, with a Vulcan there to exude displeasure at every opportunity the chance for some fun is rife. Fortunately they don't go down the 'Star Trek IV' route of a farce, but because the whole thing takes place at night, the episode is visually dark and can't be lightened by gags or funny situations. Don't misunderstand my impression, I loved the extreme contrast that led to characters literally disappearing into the shadows, and I received the humour in the way it was intended: as a gentle tug that reminds you that these people are from the future and are fish out of water. But scurrying around in dark city streets and abandoned warehouses doesn't have the same pull as the Voyager crew striding around in full daylight, enjoying their situation. The time travel is a side issue, mentioned, dealt with, occasionally a problem, but for a start, Archer has an advantage of those later space explorers in that he's well versed in travelling to other periods thanks to his association with Daniels, is driven by a greater purpose than getting back home, and is actually only 150 years removed from his own time, so would have a more detailed knowledge of history closer to his own experience.

There's no time wasted in explaining the mechanics of how they went back in time, we've already established Daniels is from the future and he can do cool stuff, so we dive right in, but I do wonder if they might have had more time to work out arcs for T'Pol and Loomis if they had had them pop up in the past without first showing us Daniels and his briefing. Now this may smack a bit of double standards here because usually I'd say it's better to actually have Daniels in the story than a line telling us that he got them there, but they could still have had him in the episode and started the characters in 2004. I really liked the very contemporary style of the opening, one that's completely cold, we don't know who this guy is or if we've tuned into the right show (like with 'North Star'), until the Xindi face is revealed. Even then we see a lot of Loomis going about his dirty business before the NX-01 glides into shot, and it's so well directed, and is so different to what you expect that it provides a good hook for the episode.

Having Daniels aboard, even if for a short scene helps to remind us of the stakes of the mission at hand: he spells it out that this particular threat to Earth, the Xindi weapon Future Guy had warned Archer about, was not part of history as it should have played out. Now, some people claim 'Enterprise' to be set in an alternate timeline set in motion by the events of 'First Contact,' but the writers have refuted that. Here, this season is definitely not supposed to have happened. What changed the timeline? Not the Xindi, but humans themselves: yes, the viewers of the series didn't show up in great enough number so the series went down a different route. Fortunately time stuff can usually be sorted out, but it gave the mission added gravitas and tension that we really don't know what the fate of the future could be: officially it hasn't 'rippled on down' the continuum yet! I also appreciated Archer's reminder to Daniels that he's supposed to be important to the future of humanity, but it must not be this mission that made him that way since the timeline has been changed, so he was still due for greater things, a kind of positive message that the writers expected the series to continue after the third season.

Small nits I noticed included the prostitute Loomis kidnaps not being able to smell the strong odour of the anaesthetic he used to smother her with - I imagine something like that would be instantly recognisable as soon as the lid of the jar was taken off. Also, why did the Xindi not recognise the famous Captain Archer, the single brave human organising Earth's fight back? Maybe the Xindi still don't consider the NX-01 a great threat. We've already seen communication between species isn't great, from 'The Shipment' and the Arboreal's horror at Archer's story. Now of course the Reptilians are doing their own thing in order to secure success against Earth. One thing that does let the story down lightly is the ending in which it boils down to Archer scrabbling over a rooftop to stop a tube of virus breaking open in a ventilation fan. I guess the virus would spread worldwide if it had ruptured, but it's not spelt out clearly enough and a dark rooftop didn't have the bold impact that the story demanded as a resolution, though I did feel the final scene in which Loomis is arrested by police babbling about his recent experiences fit the episode well.

The main thing is that my expectations were significantly lowered before this viewing and I actually enjoyed it a lot more this time (the opposite to my experience with 'North Star'). It shows that time can change your mind about an episode, but what you're thinking when you go into it also makes a big difference. It wasn't the typical time travel spectacular and for that reason I judged too harshly before, but it makes for a good next part of the continuing trouble with the Xindi. Because 'Enterprise' didn't do much time travelling you learn not to expect it and instead enjoy what an episode has to offer in other departments. I still wanted a scene like in 'Insurrection' where tagged people disappear, only this time they were temporal tags so they'd have zapped forward to the NX-01. I also really enjoyed the joke on Trip for whom no time has passed. When they first went through the door I wished they could have met themselves coming back, but having Trip still standing in the corridor was next best!

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