Rogue Planet (2)

DVD, Enterprise S1 (Rogue Planet) (2)

Hardly one of the most original ideas to deal with hunters of sentient beings, since that had been done very well in previous Trek, most notably the Hirogen in 'Voyager' and The Hunters, who weren't known as anything else, in 'DS9,' chasing Tosk across the galaxy. If they were going to revive the concept then they needed to come up with a really good new way of looking at it. And they didn't. This swoops in as a late contender for worst episode of the season, taking the current top spot that 'Fusion' was sharing with 'Breaking The Ice' just last week. It's not bad, in the sense that it isn't broken like many episodes of 'DSC' are, but it is rather perfunctory, an amalgam of previous ideas that in themselves were worth exploring, but merely hang together in this story, making the individual parts more than the sum of their total: hunters hunting on a hunt! Mysterious, flighty woman that only Captain Archer sees! Planet floating untethered through the darkness of space! Perpetual night! All manner of beasties! Shapeshifters! That last one says it all, as the shapeshifters of 'DS9' created much fascination, and when you add to that their own planet of residence was also a rogue then you see where that idea came from. As I said, alien hunters have been done before, and seeing a mysterious woman that at first won't stop to be questioned was also an intriguing story point previously used (off the top of my head there was that episode with Sisko, 'Second Sight,' and probably others).

I always love the weird episodes where you're not quite sure what is reality, so this could have been one of those, but failed on that count, even though assisted by the production design that made such a realistic dense jungle set, and taken further by the extremely low light levels - it was so realistic you could barely see anything! That's a slight problem, because a sense of danger and threat was never conjured up, so there was also never any concern over anyone heading off into the foliage. My impression was of a pretty safe place without any serious dangers from the animal life, these butch hunting guys never concerned, and even when one is seriously injured the atmosphere within the episode never reached a tenth of what it should have been. I don't know why such an experienced Director as Allan Kroeker was unable to pull it off, he'd achieved great things in Trek's past, but he wasn't helped by the story being so weak. Maybe that's the wrong word, those individual parts could have been crafted into something great, but we don't get to know any of the crew better as a result of the events, and so they are merely scenes of treading water before we get to the reveals of what's going on. The series had proved how well it could pull off alien planets and an atmosphere of terror and horror in 'Strange New World,' a similar story of exploring an alien world, and the conflicts that arise upon it.

Everything here is played much too safe: at any time they can go back up to the ship, as we see happen the only moment a serious injury threatens someone's life. It's also a nondescript guest role that I didn't even pick up the name of, so we don't care if this guy lives or dies, there's no investment. If there's no real danger, not even from the anger of the hunters at Archer's differing views from their own on the subject of hunting, then what's to fear? This makes things bland, despite all the creeping around with vision-improving technology in pitch blackness. What they needed to do was to have Archer and his team trapped on this planet and their only source of protection is from these people they don't like and have no choice but to follow. We could see a moral dilemma as they're forced to witness sentient life being hunted down, but have no way of stopping them. Hoshi should have been at the forefront of the story, maybe her newfound confidence in being out on the front lines begins to crack and we see her wondering if she's only been fooling herself, only for her to realise by the end what courage really is: not the absence of fear, but persevering despite it. That's the kind of personal story this episode needed to make it work, but instead, after attending the first Landing Party, Hoshi disappears and it just humdrums along.

They could have gone the other way and made it a proper shore leave, with all the blokes getting together and joining the hunt for the experience, then that scene where they drink with the Eska might have had more of a place, but really there appeared to be little reason why Archer and his crew would want to tag along with these people once they found out what they were doing. Maybe the inference is that not all hunting is wrong, beyond the obvious of hunting intelligent life? It was a foolhardy move to try and communicate with the unknown Eska in the first place - I know Archer just loves to make friends with anyone he can and is desperate to meet new species and learn about them, but in this case you have this one ship on its own on the planet, they can't contact it, and yet they choose to go down and barge in on the camp site, possibly interrupting some private ritual or who knows what, almost getting themselves shot in the process! It was a daft course to take, and even if they were desperate to explore a rogue planet, they could have landed on the other side of it to ensure they don't get in the way of whoever was there already. Archer likes to be cautious and not tread on anybody's toes, so he felt he had to check if they minded, but even after that he could see they were very different and unlikely to find common ground so after seeking permission and learning none was needed they could have gone off to a different area.

So far the atmosphere was lacking, the character development was missing, and the logic was poor, and these add up to a not inconsiderable problem. We are halfway through the season, so it's possible fatigue was setting in, or ideas weren't coming as thick and fast as they thought would happen with a new era to explore, but there's also that romantic angle they take with the Captain. It didn't really work in 'Civilisation,' and it doesn't really work here either: Archer, tantalised by this woman that runs off like a faun in the flora and fauna, is teased by his hosts and even his crew is sceptical - T'Pol even insults him by suggesting he wants to run off after her because she's a woman, not because she's some strange mystery! I thought she knew him well enough by now. Getting to the realisation of where this image comes from took an age and they really failed in not just creating an atmosphere of fear on the planet, but one of wonder and mystery. I will say the ending goes some way to redress the balance, succeeding at being beautiful and touching when he meets the image for the last time. That could easily have come across as comical, ridiculous or repulsive when we see the true form of the Wraith as she morphs into a giant slug, but it was done so sensitively, and the way this ugly great thing moves so carefully and turns for one last look at Archer, it genuinely makes you sad, despite how it looks.

It is also a wise choice they made not to actually explain to the Eska what they'd done, closing the gap on the only advantage the hunters had on their prey by preventing their tech from being able to detect the emissions resulting from fear which the Wraith were trackable from. It is interference, but there's no Prime Directive here, and in any case the Eska are warp capable and interfering in another culture anyway, so it seems reasonable, like Kirk arming some races against the Klingons in 'TOS.' Maybe they shouldn't have shown up to the Eska campsite after their little plan went into action, but they had to check that it was actually working and the Eska soon leave. It was an odd way of operating they had, since they say they're only allowed to hunt on the planet for four days a year - if so then why is there only one ship there? You'd think, as they say how prized the chance is, that the place would be overrun. I'm not surprised how long Eska wait to hunt if only one ship's allowed each time! It wasn't thought out sufficiently, and again the ideas on their own could have developed into something worthwhile, but weren't allowed to flourish, nor did they particularly work together. Working together was another angle they could have gone, perhaps sabotaging the hunt once they knew what it was about, risking the goodwill of the Eska. But Reed's trip with them doesn't come to anything, it's all about holding onto the mystery of what's really going on, and it wasn't necessary to keep it hidden for so long since it wasn't that great a secret.

It's left to the creatures of the night world to carry the interest, but they're a variable collection of CGI critters, some of which work very well (the glowing millipede - Trip makes a good point about at least knowing when such bugs have crawled into your sleeping bag!), others are a victim of the time the series was made (the main target, the drayjin), and again, none of them seemed likely to pose a threat, in spite of more unpleasant ones being mentioned (bore worms that crawl into your ear to lay their eggs sound very close to Ceti Eels). T'Pol gives us a nice reference to Deneva, the planet where Kirk's brother lived (and died), or the planet of floating pancakes as I like to call it ('Operation– Annihilate!'), but any points of interest are thin on the ground. That's the problem, there isn't the richness I expect from Trek, and even 'Fusion,' for all its faults, succeeded on levels that this episode doesn't even attempt. This was the style of too many of Season 2's episodes and the reason the series was almost cut prematurely short before limping on to greater things. Like 'Fusion,' I never had any prior attachment to this episode since I missed its original broadcast and only came to it years later on DVD. But even taking that into account it's difficult to see how I could have thought well of it because it is a case of GNDN (Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing), which for Trek is hard to achieve when it's part of such a rich tapestry of ideas.

There are some small details worth thinking about: the technology was advanced a little, although you'd think the night vision eye sensors the Landing Party flips over one eye (a bit like the Dominion navigational eyepiece in 'DS9'), were pretty useful, and make you wonder why they never brought them along on their many expeditions to dark, abandoned ships floating in space - I'm pretty sure we never saw them again, perhaps because they don't look that good for the actors to wear? There's also a moment that Archer takes some kind of scan of the Wraith woman using his Communicator! Forgive me, but surely the only use of this device is communication, not to collect information, that would be a Tricorder… It's like pointing a Phaser at something and getting detailed readings on its makeup. Maybe in the 25th Century they might have combined all three devices into one handy essential, but this is the 22nd Century so it didn't make sense. Again, I don't remember any other episode before or after when someone used the Communicator like that. About the only character details of note come from Archer and Reed competing over who was the best Eagle Scout - clearly Reed, since he got two more badges than his Captain ever did! The episode needed an injection of more of that personal side to it to make it work, but we don't get that.

Travis' one contribution from where he's glued to his pilot's seat on the Bridge is that the images of Starfleet Captain's on the walls of Starfleet Command were a great inspiration to him and others, so even before the famous mission of the NX-01 there must have been Captains worthy of looking up to for their exploits, and we know Starfleet has been around a while, so that was a good impression, opening up even the past of this series, and fitting that Archer should be due his own portrait there. One other thing I took away from the episode was that argument that's been made by the 'DSC' production staff that you need to have bigger sets to be able to film modern, exciting, fast-paced scenes, a justification for why they altered the size of all the ships, including, horrendously, the original Enterprise NCC-1701. I hate that philosophy that bigger and shinier is better, overriding established Trek history so rampantly, from the Kelvin Timeline films onward into 'DSC' (and probably 'Picard,' too, though I sincerely hope not). Such ideas are shown to be flimsy by a scene in the situation room at the back of the Bridge on the NX-01 in this episode, where the main cast are gathered for a meeting, packed into this tight space, yet Kroeker injects plenty of movement as the camera roves around them in spite of the tightness of the space, and that was one of the more visually pleasing scenes.

Finally, they featured more familiar Trek faces returning in guest roles, this time all four of the guest cast had appeared previously! Keith Szarabajka as the main Eska, Damrus (he was Bajoran Teero in 'Repression' on 'Voyager,' as well as having an important role in 'The Dark Knight'), Stephanie Niznik, the Wraith woman (she was the Trill conn officer of the Enterprise-E in 'Insurrection'), who sadly died last year at the young age of fifty-two (and was very good here - if only she'd had more screen time), and I didn't realise this until going through the credits, both the other Eska were familiar names: Conor O'Farrell as Burzaan, memorably Dr. Carlson in 'Little Green Men' on 'DS9,' who'd later appear as a cult leader in Season 3 of 'Enterprise' ('Chosen Realm'), and Eric Pierpoint as Shiraht (not to be confused with Sharat from 'Armageddon Game' on 'DS9'!), even more prolific, both in past roles ('TNG,' 'DS9' and 'Voyager'), and future (Section 31's Harris in four episodes of Season 4!). The Eska characters were completely unmemorable, which is probably why, even after seeing the names come up after the teaser, I forgot that these people were in it. On paper this should be a tour de force, but the writing didn't carry it off, though I do love the idea of Trek using only actors that had previously appeared, especially nowadays when you see almost no one from past Trek in current productions, partly due to location (filming it all, except 'Picard,' in Canada), and also to two decades having passed, so less of the 1990s actors would still be acting. Never mind, though this episode wasn't up to the quality of its guest cast, the next couple would be.

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