Tuesday, 26 February 2013
E2
DVD, Enterprise S3 (E2)
This has the same concept as the 'DS9' episode 'Children of Time,' but none of the depth. I would have liked to have seen a story that put the NX-01 in peril as they sneak through the space around the spatial vortex and took on the dangerous alien race Degra warned them of. All that that came to was three little ships shooting at them, with none of the air of mystery or danger that Degra implied. These were faceless non-entities whose only role was to shoot at Enterprise and give the crew's descendants on the old Enterprise a reason not to go through the tunnel with them, thus not confusing the series by having a permanent double that's over one hundred years older than itself. At its heart it was a good story, but it was not well told, the ideas not milked as they were in the 'DS9' version. Both sets of descendants from each series didn't tell their ancestors everything, both planned to do harm to them, but I was given very little reason to care about the ones in 'E-Squared' (as it would be known if written without the symbol).
One claim to fame for the episode is that it has the shortest title in Trek history, being just one letter and one numeric symbol, but very little of it stands out apart from that nugget. I'd got used to the longer pre-credit teasers, so it was a surprise to go back to such a short one here, though it was a good one when a Vulcan male goes into the quarters of an ancient T'Pol and they talk of finding Archer. If nothing else, they succeeded with T'Pol's age makeup, perhaps because they were making it in the digital age and were cognisant of the fact that it needed to stand up to freeze frame and high-resolution viewing, or because makeup techniques had improved. One of the indications that this is makeup and not a real old person is that the eyes usually look young and bright, but they took the trouble to give the aged Vulcan misted pupils, and taken with Jolene Blalock's husky voice and doddery movements, it was a realistic portrayal of a Vulcan who was getting towards two hundred years of age.
The ancient Enterprise also had the details of being a beat up old ship that had been buffeted about over the decades, most visibly in the worn look of the walls in T'Pol's quarters. But here begins the dissection of what didn't work in the execution of the ideas: the ship didn't look different enough on the inside to make it believable that it had been operational for over a century. Yes, it had some new technology courtesy of aliens they'd met in the Expanse, but that in itself is hard to swallow considering how many species our Enterprise has met during its mission, and how many have been hostile. Imagine the number of battles this rickety old vessel must have endured, and that's without the advanced 24th Century technology of the USS Voyager. And why stick around in the Expanse anyway, when they could have gone to Vulcan or other warp capable species that would have been friendly? As for the major plot hole of a ship zipping around inside the Delphic Expanse for so long and yet the only thing that's ever been heard of is the odd rumour by the Xindi, it's preposterous! An Earth ship buzzing about for so long and meeting aliens, having them join the crew or whatever, and yet Archer never runs into anyone that had ever seen or heard of it! If they'd had the foresight to talk about a similar ship being sighted, and throughout the season from early on there had been these rumours of the Enterprise being where it couldn't have been, they could have built up to this episode, but taking it as it is, it's difficult to believe in.
The other major problem is that the crew's ancestors aren't very sympathetic or engaging characters. The series has often shown itself to be a poor developer of characters (though ironically some of the lesser used main cast do get a fun scene in what remains of the Mess Hall), so it shouldn't be surprising that they couldn't come up with compelling characters to represent the future of the ones we know. Lorian should have been the most fascinating of all, being the prototype of Mr. Spock as the first half-human, half-Vulcan. He did share a mildly touching scene with his Father, Trip, in Engineering, which had the beginnings of something that could have been explored, but he was such a basic person without the dynamic that should have made him carry the story easily. I don't know whether casting, writing or directing is to blame here, but he stayed a 'soft' character, someone who was there to carry out a function of the plot, but who I wasn't enamoured with or cared whether he sacrificed his ship or not. The same with Karyn Archer. She existed, and that's the best I can say about her.
The people in 'Children of Time' were real: living, breathing continuations of our favourite characters, and while it was fun spotting a Denobulan boy here, or hearing about who got married and how many children they had there, it was a different kind of story to that classic episode because it was required to fit into the NX-01's mission. Having a ship live on as a generational vessel, alone in a dangerous region of space makes me think of Voyager, and though it's somewhat unfair to compare that entire series and concept to this Enterprise who only got one episode, I wasn't drawn in enough to want to see more of it, the legend was not played up and it was very by-the-numbers in terms of introducing this new-old ship and its occupants. Perhaps if they'd fully gone into the weight of the issues, a standalone story unconnected to the Xindi, instead of it being about getting through the corridor without going back in time, we might have had something more fulfilling, but as it was, squashed into the middle of Archer's journey to meet Degra for a hearing at the Xindi council, it didn't fit.
Not to say there aren't morsels to digest, of course - the NX-02 Columbia, is mentioned as being under construction, a good reminder that life continues for Starfleet even while Enterprise fights to spare Earth's destruction, and while the conversations between Trip and T'Pol were rather immoral (all about having one-off fun without any emotional connection or intention to permanence), it was a major reveal that Vulcans and humans could conceive a child. We knew it, we've known it since 1966 when Spock first arched his eyebrow on screen, but for these people it's a new idea. The other reveal is that T'Pol will have to live with the emotions she's tapped into through her Trellium-D addiction, for the rest of her life. Excuse me, but Vulcans live with emotions anyway, it's almost sounding like they're confused about the race, thinking Vulcans don't have emotions. Long before 'Star Trek XI' gave us old Spock meeting young, alternate Spock, we get old alternate T'Pol, meeting young T'Pol, another nice scene, more impressive in some ways because the same actress played both roles. I suppose this gave the writers authority to write T'Pol as emotionally as they wished now, but I always wanted the Vulcans to be played properly, as stoic, dependable, and a little aloof. In this episode we get more emotional Vulcans than usual which didn't help my enjoyment level!
Roxann Dawson was back again for another directorial slot. While there wasn't much that stood out for me in that regard (apart from the good use of sepia-tinted flashback sequences), I was intrigued by the shot on the old Enterprise's bridge as Lorian makes his plans: the camera circles around in an arc behind the huge pulsating pillars of alien technology and it gives it a physically uncomfortable reaction that suits the mood of Lorian's wrongness. It's difficult to describe, but the darkness interspersed with a burst of thin, out of focus light was hard on the eyes, and it's not a reaction I remember having to a shot before (the closest I can think of is just before Voyager goes to warp in that series' credits, and a star blindingly shines out from behind a planet and makes you squint). Ultimately, though, the episode was a misstep, an attempt to do something bold and different and make some good sci-fi instead of the more basic action fantasy. It was one of the closest I've felt to what 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars' might be if the two were merged - dogfights, beaten up ships, basic characters and funny-looking aliens without much of a moral or ethical side to the action. This one didn't have the fun of 'Star Wars,' either, so while I appreciate the attempt at innovation I can't say it succeeded. And I didn't understand how they escaped going back in time the second time, either!
**
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