Strange New World (2)

DVD, Enterprise S1 (Strange New World) (2)

Apart from the pilot, this was the first episode that really made me wonder if 'Enterprise' could turn out to be the best Trek series ever made - going by the pattern of previous series' the first season tended to start off slow (usually apart from the pilot), with some high points along the way, and you didn't get consistency in writing the characters or the unique setting of each series until, traditionally, the third season when everything clicked. Of course that's a generalisation, but it was far truer than the mistaken belief in 'even-numbered films good, odd-numbered not so good,' that only held true for the first two Trek films (and in any case became weirdly inverted by the time of 'Nemesis' and the succeeding films made this century!). Since these first three (or four, if you count 'Broken Bow' as two 'instalments'), were so slickly produced, the characters popped off the screen immediately and the whole premise was ripe for a new style of Trek, if the rule held true then what we'd be getting by Season 3 would top even the best stuff of the great 'DS9,' or so went my thinking. But not everything happens in the same way, patterns aren't always adhered to, and so it was with 'Enterprise,' the drive and verve displayed here so early, soon to drop off into more typical Season 1 fare. But I'll never forget the excitement at seeing these first several episodes, and this one in particular (along with the pilot), remains one of my favourites of the whole series. That's quite sad in a way because it means they so rarely achieved the heights seen here in other seasons, but having seen 'Discovery' I'm more grateful for any episodes I enjoy now!

The signs of cracks in the overarching premise were visible even in this great story, but because everything worked so well, they aren't apparent unless you've seen what the series became. I'm always on the lookout for moments which serve to weaken Archer in comparison to other Captains, not because I'm trying to justify a point, just that my impression was formed somewhere, and so far he's come across very well. I'm also too aware of the lack of focus and intent in the general premise of going where no man has gone before if you don't have focus and intent in science fiction ideas to prop you up. Both of these flaws can be seen subtly woven through this story, but, for example, the fact that they're just wandering through space isn't a problem when we get to see them exploring their first M-Class planet. For a start it's a beautiful way to introduce it, seen literally through the eyes of the lower decks who aren't privy to what's going on, the first they know of it is to witness this glorious Earth-like planet appearing at the portholes in the Mess. We're introduced to a couple of guest characters, one of whom would be almost dead before the end of the episode, the other of whom would make a couple more appearances, becoming one of the very few recurring characters on the series, sadly cut short by the real world when she died young. Kellie Waymire (previously in 'Muse' on 'Voyager'), had she lived much longer into the span of 'Enterprise' would have made a wonderful addition, although I think she stepped back because she had a bigger role on another TV series, so even if her life hadn't been cut short she may not have returned to 'Enterprise' much.

I wish she had been made a proper recurring character in the vein of Garak, Rom or any number of 'minor' roles on 'DS9,' because she exudes the wonder of being among the first humans to explore deep space without going all gooey-eyed and stereotypical. She's a professional, she's there for a reason (bugs, basically!), and this is the reason she's selected for the mission (I still didn't catch them calling it a Landing Party), making it feel very Trekky, just as 'TOS' would often feature a specialist in a given field. I don't want to keep comparing it to 'DSC' and ripping into that, it's too easy a target, but this is a logical (as you'd expect when the mission is headed up by a Vulcan), procedure and protocol is being followed like a real military or scientific expedition, not a group of people forced together because they're the stars of the show. I very much like that aspect of the story, that it isn't the whole main cast down there together - you don't have Reed, who would've been the Eeyore, pouring caution like cold water on everyone else's ardour for exploration and fun. Nor do they have Phlox who would have had his medical kit with him and been more experienced in spotting the symptoms, nor Hoshi, who could easily have been placed in Cutler's position had there been any reason for it. That would have thrown up all kinds of problems in itself, though, as she'd have been able to understand T'Pol's Vulcan ramblings and wouldn't have been there to act as interpreter so Archer could instruct T'Pol privately on what to do.

Everyone is in the right place for drama - you have Mayweather The Underused (as he'd later become known), here to exert some experience of being out in space and giving them all a good ghost story round the campfire (he also gets the best line in the whole thing: "Are we allowed to squash alien lifeforms?" when a scorpion-like creature causes chaos in his and Trip's tent, hilariously!). Trip just wants to have a bit of fun, and although I would categorise the episode as being largely a T'Pol episode, revolves around Connor Trinneer's magnetic performance. If he hadn't been able to carry off a believable descent (or should that be ascent towards the heights of craziness), into paranoia, the episode wouldn't have worked nearly as well. But as in all the Trek casts you have some actors that are superior, and he was one of those on this series. He's a boisterous type anyway, despite being laid back in his manner, and it's really excellently done the way the tension rises until he's blasting Phase Pistol beams past T'Pol's ear, unhinged by fear and the hallucinatory effects of the pollen. Never sniff flowers on an alien world! To me, this episode is in the same area as 'This Side of Paradise' (for its mood-altering plants), and 'The Galileo Seven' (for its Vulcan in charge of a human team that take exception to unemotional reactions), both from 'TOS.' If you're going to borrow, borrow from the best, and these were both good episodes from the original's first season.

One thing I love about this episode is how Vulcan T'Pol is. Yes, she is still somewhat condescending and weary of human eccentricities, but she shows the curiosity she said her own people didn't share in the previous episode. Perhaps she even enjoyed the fact that Archer and crew waived all the rigorous preparation and cautious mapping out of all procedures that would have meant a wait of several days before even landing on the planet? She doesn't show it in the episode, but I have a sneaking suspicion she approved of the lack of delay so she was able to get to the heart of scientific observations, even though she ultimately discovers there's nothing of real value to be gained there - because it all happened so quickly, less time was wasted, so that's a good thing. Not when it comes at the price of a crewman, however, and that is the price they pay for their gung-ho attitude. Archer does show some care when approaching the planet that there's no obvious claim upon it. This makes him seem prudent, like Picard, but at the same time is one of the instances of maybe suggesting an overcautiousness that could be viewed as weak, or even timid. It makes sense, but at the same time you wonder if other Captains would have just made a cursory sweep and decided to risk it. That's it, Archer doesn't come across as much of a risk-taker, but equally he seems rather unconcerned over sticking to protocol and is much more relaxed about some things.

Another moment of potential weakness is when he pilots the Shuttlepod down during the storm. That in itself was typically heroic Starfleet behaviour, though maybe not so prudent considering his First Officer and Chief Engineer were both down there, and if the Captain was lost it could lead to losing the top three members of the crew! Obviously things in this time are supposed to be more slapdash, as Kirk was beaming down to every dangerous situation a century later, but in this case maybe Archer should have stayed managerial, delegating and relying on his crew. That he has to turn back is also a minus point against him: Reed says they can't land safely in that wind with a thruster out, after grazing a rocky outcrop, but I can't help thinking that other Captains (even the feisty Captain Hernandez of the NX-02 Columbia to come in the near future), would have somehow managed it, so it doesn't look good for Archer's hero credibility. Mind you, you can't be complaining that the heroes are too fallible in this series, while equally decrying the conversion into superheroes ordinary mortals go through in 'DSC'! I'd much rather see people fail and learn than use some fantastical technology or unknown inner ability to solve every problem, so it's not that I'm coming down hard on Archer, it's just that these traits were the early stages of a pattern that built up which didn't favour him very much overall.

T'Pol, on the other split-fingered hand, is at her most Vulcan, and for me that's a big positive mark. There's even a reason when she does respond heatedly to Trip's unreasonable behaviour, as she's being affected by the hallucinogenic, too. But again, she doesn't succumb as much because Vulcans are physically superior (unless they come up against something specifically that makes them more vulnerable, such as in 'Impulse,' the episode about the ship of zombie Vulcans), so she is their saviour, able to keep things together amidst the rising suspicions of her colleagues and subordinates. She doesn't know them well enough, nor do they know and trust her enough for this to seem strange, and that's why this episode needed to happen so early in the run while they (and we, the audience), don't know what her motives are. Is she actually a spy for Vulcan High Command? Does she really want to be on the ship with them? Or does she barely tolerate them? I'm not entirely sure why T'Pol did choose to stay aboard the NX-01. We know she has connections to humanity (her Great-Grandmother was one of the party who made actual first contact with humans in 1957, and she knows about it), and we know she develops a predilection for her human crew, and Archer in particular (and later Trip, even more in particular!), but at this stage she's an unknown quantity.

This is where I see parallels to 'The Galileo Seven' in which Spock had to deal with an unruly, insubordinate lot in a similar situation, stranded on an alien world in difficult circumstances. Throwing someone into challenging times is all part of our own curiosity to see how they'll react in that crucible, and T'Pol, despite her lack of experience with humans, uses her logic and restraint well. She acts quickly to take them to the caves when the storm becomes more violent and puts up with the human customs like the stories round the campfire, even if she does inject reality, further distancing them socially. She also notes that she can survive without water for several days, further evidence that the Vulcan body is more resilient than the human - any time they remind us why Vulcans are so cool it makes my day! Although she is affected she retains enough self control to be able to report accurately to her Captain when he calls, and here's where the episode really takes off. If this episode had been done on 'DS9' or 'Voyager' it could have been just as good with the superb characters on those series', even though it wouldn't have looked quite as spectacular as it did here with the hurricane effects of leaves and detritus whirling around in the storm or the atmospheric lighting of the cave, all done in widescreen vista. 'Enterprise' has all the bells and whistles of a higher budget, benefiting from the advances made and lessons learned through former Treks, and put to expert use here, but importantly, it also features some of the best character work of the series!

Forget Archer not looking like a strong Captain, he does the Kirk tactic of talking someone down, and he does it brilliantly! It's not a machine he has to convince of its imperfections, it's his own friend Trip. Again, he's still feeling out his command style at this stage, he doesn't have all the answers, but the key thing is he doesn't show hesitation or uncertainty (like Captain Harriman of the Enterprise-B), he uses his experience of the training for the mission and his personal history with Trip. I love his reference to a similar moment on Titan when Trip was affected and tried to remove his space helmet which would have killed him, I only wish we got to see that and other bumps along the road that would have given these characters the depth they eventually show to be lacking as the series progressed. That's the thing - in some ways the series did the opposite of what was expected, starting probably stronger than anything before (and certainly since!), but then becoming slightly apathetic, before improving in its final season when most Treks tended to drop in quality storytelling, to some degree or another, in their last seasons. But it was simply great to hear about this event that happened in their training and the imagination fills in the visuals for you so it wasn't like they needed to cut to a flashback. The way everything comes together with Hoshi's language expertise, T'Pol's compliance, and then finally her taking Trip out, was all superbly executed and really shows this crew in the best light as a team.

The music was also terrific, I don't know what it was, it's not a strong theme or anything, but it's just this ominous pumping in the background that upholds the tension so well. I'd like to listen to it separated from the episode just to get a sense of what it was doing, because during the episode it sucks you in and the story's tension swallows you up, and yet I can't remember the actual music! People have complained about the 'wallpaper' style of music on Berman-era Trek, but to me this just has that exact effect I just mentioned, swallowing you into the story, enveloping you, pulling you into moods and impressions. 'Enterprise' was capable of different styles, and they often had militaristic drumbeat action themes going on, but here the creepy atmosphere is perfectly enhanced. Things at the back of dark caves are always unsettling, and when we start to see actual rock monsters… they do hold up (William Shatner's gnashing his teeth, wishing he'd had this tech for 'Star Trek V'!). Maybe they could have been a little more subtle, like the worm creature Travis sees 'swimming' through the rock ceiling, or the face projecting from the crag (was it me or did it look a bit like Jaylah from 'Star Trek Beyond'?). I do approve the visions becoming more pronounced as the infection becomes more potent. So Cutler sees T'Pol talking to some aliens and Trip sees full-sized rock people materialise behind T'Pol. Maybe not seeing anything would have been a better way to go, but although the effects in the episode aren't perfect by today's standard (the shot of Novakovich standing on a flowery hillside was very obviously fake!), they work fine and enhance the story adequately.

If we hadn't got to see anything they saw, we wouldn't have been able to start the episode so effectively, as I love those people wandering in the bushes who appear to be in Starfleet uniform. Because they seem real, everything else is given the ring of truth and it's somehow more weird that Travis has seen humans out there that he doesn't know, than if it had been unknown aliens. The great thing about the episode is that it mixes wonder, humour and fear into an irresistible concoction that sells the inexperienced, yet optimistic excitement of this fresh-faced crew. In contrast, Dr. Phlox gets to display his first sign of gravity and deep regret when he has to watch a patient die because he didn't think to run a test that would have saved his life. In the first couple of episodes he comes across as this hopelessly happy chap, but here we see more of the serious later version, another side to his personality that shows he isn't just a gurning optimist that sees everything and everyone as a fascinating object of interest. That only the second man ever to beam up in the Transporter is infused with the leaves and twigs of the storm was a brilliant idea and probably why the device remained largely unused - so far, half the people who used it had died, and even though it wasn't the fault of the Transporter, human nature would overlook that fact. It was a terrific makeup design, the like of which they'd never attempted on the series before because the Transporter was always so reliable, except when it was going wrong, and even then it tended to go wrong nice and cleanly (tell that to Sonak in 'The Motion Picture'…).

The grim nature of death didn't preclude the episode from having some fun, and it really is fun - you get to see Porthos frolicking over the grass in the sun, just seeing a Shuttlepod fly down and land is beautiful, and there were a number of touches and references to other Trek. The most on the nose one was Archer making up the idea that the aliens on the planet were a silicon-based life form. Although he was just making it up on the spur of the moment we'd actually get to see one such being in 'TOS' ('The Devil in The Dark' - another creepy one set in dark caves, so a very fitting in-joke!). Travis speaks of a Y-500 freighter in his ghost story, which could be an offshoot of the old DY ships such as the one Khan was aboard. There's also T'Pol's first use of a Vulcan nerve pinch when she goes to inoculate the feverish Travis and he feebly tries to resist - amusingly he wakes up thinking he strained his neck! Again, I like the way they did this, they didn't make a big fuss about it, kept quiet and secret, the way Vulcans have always been portrayed, and while T'Pol would go on to do it a number of times across the series (although I can't recall any specific examples, so maybe they kept it to a wise minimum?), they introduced it subtly and without fanfare. The other big thing is mention of 'Minshara'-Class worlds (suitable for most humanoids), from which we get 'M-Class' - a lovely bit of retconning that this Vulcan word is where the famous classification originates. It would be interesting to know if all the alphabetical classes of planets are from Vulcan words - it makes sense, since they would have discovered all this long before Starfleet ventured out, but as we learn, the reason humans overtake them as the main founders of the Federation is because they are more reckless and want to get their hands dirty, and allying that with diplomatic skills to be all things to all races is what makes 'us' uniquely qualified to bring them together.

The fact that protocols are mentioned and observed, and sometimes ignored is much more realistic than how Trek portrays such things now, sadly (going by the first two seasons of 'DSC,' anyway), in an age where people are all about 'being themselves' and less about conforming to the rulebook. This is one reason why 'Enterprise' still felt like Trek to such a great degree, they were different, but not unrecognisably so. They had the potential to show the first alien encounter, the first planet, and many other firsts, but that wasn't the only thing it was about. I was curious, when Archer admits to a mildly concerned T'Pol that they'd lost track of time when the rendezvous isn't reached, how they do keep track - we don't see wristwatches, so presumably they either have a time readout on their Tricorders or Communicators, as I can't imagine they'd be checking in with the ship every few minutes to find out! I'd also forgotten they still wore the 'NX-01' baseball caps after the pilot. It makes things seem more informal, but I quite liked them. I've complained before about how 'DSC' has so many different uniforms and accoutrements, but 'Enterprise' also modelled quite a few uniform variations (cold, hot, EVA, caps, jackets, etc), the difference being that they all seemed functional and actually the costume design was among the series' best points because they were created by people fully versed in Trek history and knew what they were doing! Even the lens flares are good in this, created as they were from the beams of torches to great atmospheric effect!

It can sometimes be a bad idea to show people acting out of character so early in a series ('TNG' did it in 'The Naked Now,' and we didn't know them, 'DS9' did it towards the end of its first season in 'Dramatis Personae,' and we knew them quite well, but it was still a little strange), but the cast of this one were so well defined in the first couple of episodes, and it's really only Trip that is an extreme version of himself that it's not a problem. And the characters really are well observed, everyone having their essential job to do and fitting neatly into the whole. They're so well defined that we can almost chuckle at seeing Reed being overcautious again because he repeatedly demonstrated this attribute from the moment we first met him, while Travis is much more happy-go-lucky and takes everything in his positive stride. Trip would usually be that way, and is to begin with, which makes his turn into a Dr. Simon Van Gelder or Dr. Soran ("Let me go back!"), so much more pronounced and effective. What I love most is how T'Pol acts, most perfectly shown in her treatment of the team when the required vaccine is finally beamed down. I didn't know if she'd do this, but I was looking out for it, and she did: inoculated everyone first before she took care of herself. It could be argued that it made more sense for her to take care of herself first to ensure she could take care of the others, but it shows a much more responsible and heroic course to take by putting herself last, and it is these values that always stand out in Trek - thoughtfulness and care.

There was a message tacked on at the end with Trip remembering what his old Vulcan teacher once said about challenging your preconceptions, which seemed to be thrown in there like the end of a 1980s cartoon, not nearly as effective as what I took from the episode myself. And I thought I spotted a mistake when Archer says they've been out in space for three weeks (corresponding with the 'three' episodes we've watched), and later Trip says something about their bodies being found six weeks into the mission, but that could have meant they weren't discovered for another three weeks rather than being confused about the period they'd been out, and anyway he was irrational most of the time, so you can put it down to mental block otherwise. The important thing is they were able to cap off the episode beautifully, perfectly evoking the sunlight of a new day after a fitful dark night when the light pours into the cave mouth and Cutler walks out into the bright morning to see a Shuttlepod come gliding down through the sky, then we see from a high vantage point the degraggled (I meant to put bedraggled, but it made me smile so I'm leaving it in!), group walking towards it with the lovely music and it's just a high point of relief and satisfaction to end on. I wish there were more episodes that were as powerfully charged and brilliantly produced as this one and it's a shame so many high points came so early in the series, but that's why I'm still writing these reviews - the only ones I hadn't written for were the first two, but then they made me want to go back and do deeper examinations since my first run had been brief and simple, so that shows the quality for sure.

****