Awakening

DVD, Enterprise S4 (Awakening)

What almost ruins a perfectly good story is the portrayal, behaviour and attitude of the Vulcans. I've said it so many times, but I have to say it again because this is such a Vulcan-centric episode and trilogy, in which things of great importance to their culture and place in the galaxy are explored. But it's so difficult to get past Vulcans that are angry, irritated, greedy for destruction, petulant, short-tempered, raising their voices. They're a telepathic race, that fact is integral to the episode, yet they're touching each other on multiple occasions with no effect than if they were human. There's even a tearful death scene in which T'Pol's Mother dies after the attack on the sanctuary! This would all be fine if it were any other race - they're acting more like Andorians, their worst enemy, and with all this lack of respect for the established culture that dates back over two thousand years, it really does become a thorn in my side as I try to enjoy the story. The purpose of this trilogy, as I understand it, was to reposition the Vulcans towards the race we know from the other series', and I could just about accept that, except those who would bring about the change, the Syrrannites, act as emotionally and unrestrained as their fellow Vulcans. Perhaps the new awakening is more about broader themes of peace-loving and rejecting violence than keeping emotions in check? Or much more study was needed for them to develop into the repressed race we recognise. Whatever the reason, (for misguided 'dramatic purposes'), they become like any other villainous leader and his followers or detractors.

Yet there were clear moments in which licence to express emotion were lost or lessened because of their generally heightened attitude. The mind meld scene in which T'Pau tries to remove Surak's katra from Archer's mind, is a prime example: look back at 'TOS,' or 'Voyager' - when a meld took place often the Vulcan in question would begin to show the character of the creature or person he was melding with, taking on the speech pattern, displaying greater levels of emotion, generally acting their hearts out! But because the level of restraint is so low, we get none of that, and with it, much of the mysteriousness is weakened. I also felt Archer should have been increasingly reminiscent of Vulcans in his demeanour, choice of words and stance (a la McCoy in 'Star Trek III'). A lost opportunity for a truly great episode that reached the heights of those other Vulcan-heavy episodes in other series'. The position Archer's given through Surak, as bearer of his soul, is a strong one, helping to cement the Captain in Trek lore in the same manner as Picard, or Sisko, or any of the other great Captains. They all have their first contacts and their boldly going, but I get the feeling it's not until they've gone through some kind of mystical, defining experience that they become legendary figures greater than mere starship Captains. Picard was Arbiter of Succession to the Klingons, and had a deep personal connection to the Borg. With Sisko it was another ritualistic position in an alien culture, Emissary to the Bajorans. Even Janeway became a legend through her share of formative unexplained experiences, though she was more of a straightforward Borg-beater.

So for Archer, leaving aside all his firsts, this was a defining role for him to play on the galactic stage, enhancing his role in history and making him confront things he'd never considered before, like the possibility of the soul, and other such strong themes that Trek likes to tackle or at least throw open to question. I'm not sure I can say those themes are tackled here, it's more a case of T'Pol expressing disbelief and wonderment, with little time for the big questions as attack is imminent and something important and lost must be found quickly (it would have been the greatest embarrassment if T'Pau had dropped the Kir'Shara in the bombardment!). If this had been a 'TNG' episode, perhaps even a 'DS9' it could easily have been all about Archer's reaction to having a katra in his mind, let alone that of the greatest historical Vulcan figure of all time. This could have been 'Rapture' for 'Enterprise,' but sadly, that was never the style of the series, it was always more concerned with the next fight or skirmish, which is ironic considering that these space battles usually come off as weak and underpowered in comparison to the other series' thanks to their place on the weapons development timeline.

Criticism of 'Enterprise's devotion to pace and action my be a little unfair as it set out to be the 'TOS' of the modern era, and it has many a good action episode. This isn't one of them, but in fact that's a positive in this case as it's more about the political ramifications both from the ruling class (a meritocracy, we learn, V'Las rose to power because he was most qualified), and those under the Syrrannite banner. We learn, for instance, that Arev, the Vulcan who helped Archer and T'Pol traverse the dangers of The Forge, was actually the Syrran, leader of the movement back towards Surak's teachings. There's a lot of discussion between various characters, and though the cloud of false Vulcan portrayal hangs heavily over these scenes, it remains engaging enough for the story to mean something. It's also wonderful to see Soval reveal himself a staunch supporter of humanity, and in talking to Trip, who's left in charge of the NX-01, we find out he was stationed on Earth for thirty years. The best exchange in the episode is that in which Trip tells him he hid his affinity for humanity well, which he takes as a compliment! Scenes like this show how different Vulcans are. They are super cool, but they hide it with natural modesty or lack of need to brag. They have so many skills and abilities that humans lack, yet they are happy to serve, and only display these skills when required. It is the essence of being Vulcan. It was a pleasure to see Soval's assistance when he's so often taken a hard line against Archer and his crew, with Trip in particular, being the outspoken type he is, getting angry at him many a time.

I can't say so much for the crew of the Enterprise. They don't feature greatly, and the characters that are usually shortchanged, another disappointment inherent in the series' DNA to match Vulcan emotionalism, remain the same - Travis gets a line, Hoshi gets a line, Dr. Phlox doesn't even appear… It's not really detracting from the story, it's more an overarching problem for the series as a whole, which even the well-regarded Season 4 couldn't fix entirely. To be fair, Travis gets more than a line, piloting a Shuttlepod in an unsuccessful rescue attempt, it's just that he's doing what he always does. T'Pol, too, isn't particularly well served, getting upset with her Mother, following Archer around like a nurse to mop his brow, and generally not showing why she came, a non-typical response to death not helping (though the lack of a passing on of T'Les' katra to her daughter could be as a result of the knowledge not being widely known or practiced). With all these criticisms it sounds like I didn't like the episode, but somehow I was able to bypass what didn't work for me, and see past to the greater scope of the story. The possibility of the Vulcans starting interstellar war with the Andorians; Earth's position in all this; Archer conversing with Surak (even he seemed a little emotional, but he had the excuse of being the Father of it all, and was alive long, long ago when his race really were bloodthirstier than Klingons, and more ruthless than Romulans), the vision of devastating war as the Time of Awakening dawned… I suppose there's a strong parallel between then and now, as the Vulcans are creeping back to those ways of arrogance and strong emotions; prideful, not wanting humanity's boldness to outstrip them.

The episode itself doesn't feature these ideas strongly, and I'm digging here, but it's often the case with 'Enterprise' that the viewer has to do the work, sometimes for little reward. At times you feel canon (or lack of it in regard to the Vulcans), is all that's on screen, others that they're trying too hard to be different from established continuity (such as the Xindi mission - I did like the reference to it in the Vulcans' suspicions that Andorians may be developing their own weapon based on Xindi technology), but I feel they've hit a fine balance this season. We've never been this much entrenched in and around Vulcan before, we see their cities of beautiful sun-drenched architecture, the NX-01 lazily gliding over a red planetscape, and the episode's visuals whether CGI or set, are varied and attractive - I especially liked the curved tabletop display V'Las and his fellow ministers viewed. Design did come across a little in the 'Star Wars' mould of the prequels with fine interiors and clean, white technology, but you could also say the prequels had a lot to thank 'TNG' for in style.

The destruction of the Syrrannites and their sanctuary should have been horrific and shocking, but V'Las is such a hammy villain, angry and vicious (for a Vulcan), it's just a scene of threat to the main characters running through caves. TV trying to do big ideas can often fail to live up to them, although CGI brings more possibilities, ability to show rather than tell doesn't mean ability to present an idea better, necessarily. I wasn't shocked by V'Las' actions as I should have been, on reflection, but the episode did succeed in leaving us with a cliffhanger that makes you want to see the concluding part - I can't remember if V'Las is actually an agent of Romulus and this is the first real stirring of Romulan manipulation on the galactic scene, something that comes to fruition later in the season, but if it wasn't, it should have been! I liked the episode on the whole, a little surprisingly given my main reservations, so well done to Director Roxann Dawson for keeping my attention. Hopefully the third part is equally successful in giving me enough to ignore or dampen my problems. A couple of actors returned to Trek for this one, most notably Bruce Gray as Surak (only the second person ever to play the role, after Barry Atwater introduced it in 'TOS'), he'd played Admiral Chekote in both 'DS9' and 'TNG.' And John Rubinstein was in 'Voyager' and a first season 'Enterprise,' here the dissenting voice of Minister Kuvak. It's worth noting this is the first appearance of the great T'Pau since she presided over Spock and Kirk's battle to the death in 'Amok Time,' a brilliant idea to bring in young versions of long-lived characters from 'TOS,' and something you'd think they'd have done more (Flint anyone?), so all eras were nicely represented!

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