Chosen Realm

DVD, Enterprise S3 (Chosen Realm)

So Manny Coto couldn't always spin gold. The complex message of this episode is: extremist terrorism is bad. Wow, really hit a high note with that one, then! Seriously, I understand the need to tackle the thorny issue of religiously (or any other), motivated terrorism and suicide bombers, as it was a topic at the forefront of, particularly, Americans when this season went out in 2003, (and hasn't lost any relevance to today, sadly), but it's a very straightforward depiction of a madman obsessed with the tiniest details of his faith, which the other side disagrees over (that creation took one more or less day to be completed), bringing to mind the half-black and half-white story of 'Let That Be Your Last Battlefield' in 'TOS' over thirty-five years before! The enemy even have that same device of sporting their tattoo on the opposite side of the face to Pri'Nam and his followers.

The story travels familiar ground in both a surprise attack from a seemingly benevolent race (as happened to the Voyager crew in 'Displaced,' though that had a cleverer sci-fi side to it), people crazy enough to blow themselves up to help the cause (like the Kazon in 'Basics, Part I'), and in the solution being a weak link in the D'Jamat's chain: one of his men, Yarrick, has doubts about his ruthless methods and Archer is easily able to convince him to switch sides. Either his religious convictions were weaker than he thought or the Pri'Nam had completely gone too far in using the religion to justify his own destructive goals. It was a new idea for the Spheres to be seen as holy relics, part of a grand plan by the 'Makers' (another 'TOS'-sounding connection), with the anomalies considered to be the 'Makers' Breath,' which added a mythological element to the Expanse. It gives credence to the Spheres' longevity that a race within their bounds would build up a religion around them. I don't believe it was explained in the episode what they were actually doing at this particular Sphere, which would have been good to know.

Aside from Hoshi, who's barely seen, some of the 'minor' cast, as they might be called, get a little more exposure than normal: Travis is the one nipping back with Trip from a Sphere (didn't think D'Jamat would call the cloaking barrier by the same name as them - he should have had some fancy moniker for it, such as the Makers' Curtain!), and he stands up to the leader towards the end, at first refusing to set a course of pursuit after the retreating ships. He doesn't literally stand up to him as he's sitting down, and doesn't even get to talk, but at least you see a stubborn scowl upon his face as the Phase Pistol is pressed to his temple, until, with a look, T'Pol advises him to comply. T'Pol also gets her heroic moment, grabbing a Triannon from behind to prevent him firing the ship's weapons, though for a Vulcan she was remarkably ineffective: she doesn't use a nerve pinch to incapacitate the guy, and her superior Vulcan strength isn't even enough to pull him out of his chair, so maybe she didn't eat her Weetabix that morning? Phlox is good as a spy, and standing up to the Pri'Nam about healing the injured crew members, as well as letting fly his Pyrithian bat as a cunning diversion. I loved his line shouted out that there was no cure for the venom!

It's Captain Archer that proves to be most heroic, as you'd expect. No doubt he didn't need six hours to come to the decision that it would be he who would die as punishment for desecrating the Spheres (notice how D'Jamat feels he can adjust his beliefs to suit his mood: he 'likes' the Captain so instead of taking out the whole crew he demands 'only' one life). He pulls a clever trick that was very Kirk-like, in fooling D'Jamat into thinking the Transporter system was actually a humane execution device. If the Pri'Nam had read his Captain's logs as he claimed, then he'd know its use and that there were never any executions, but you have to suppose that he only read recent entries, post-Xindi attack on Earth (probably had the Season 1 and 2 DVDs on pre-order and didn't want to ruin the surprise).

Once Archer's up and about again, disabling systems and setting free his crew, things liven up, the last act saving the episode from utter mediocrity with phaser fights and fist fights (that female MACO gets to do her stuff again!), but should a story that sets out to tackle such themes have to rely or resort to action to close out the episode instead of driving home a meaningful message as you would have expected from the other Trek series'? I felt this could have been an ideal episode in which to introduce the Bajorans, or specifically a rogue contingent of that spiritual race, since the Triannons looked similar, with their nose ridges, pulled back hair and dangly earring chains in the right ear. The Pri'Nam would have been a misguided Vedek and having them might have made the episode a little more attractive than these dull, brown-robed fanatics with little personality, made it. The story would have had to be tweaked as we wouldn't have been able to have that ending in which Archer takes D'Jamat and his followers back to his planet to show him the devastation his war has caused.

I liked the episode title, it had that mythological feel to it without giving anything away, and there was a development that set the NX-01's mission back some way when the Pri'Nam wipes all the data they've collected in the Expanse. There wasn't time to discuss the implications of this action in the episode, so I hope it gets addressed subsequently. Another enjoyable moment was seeing the old trick of transferring command to Engineering and locking out the bridge controls, something done many times in the other series'. Roxann Dawson would know all about that in her previous position as Torres on 'Voyager,' but I didn't feel her efforts as Director were among her best moments. I think that's more to do with the script and that it doesn't say anything that isn't blindingly obvious about terrorism. Perhaps they could have turned things around and showed a religious conviction in a positive light for a change (they managed it on 'DS9' plenty of times), but as usual it's all about another violent madman using his faith to rally the troops and subjugate his followers to his will. It made the episode slightly more enjoyable after I read on Memory Alpha that D'Jamat was played by the same actor that had been good guy Dr. Carlson in 'Little Green Men' on 'DS9' - he certainly had the eyes for a bad guy, with that fanatical, far-seeing glint and faux-benevolent smile forever gliding onto his face. And look out for Solok ('Take Me Out To The Holosuite') as the leader of the enemy ships!

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