Shockwave (2)

DVD, Enterprise S1 (Shockwave) (2)

What an idea, eh? Ending a season by sending your main character into the far future beyond where any Trek had gone before… Where have I heard that recently, hmm? In all honesty this two-parter has never stuck in my mind in the way so many 'Enterprise' episodes have, especially not compared to the other 'big' episodes. It was charting new ground, not just in sending Archer to the 31st Century, but also in finishing its first season on a cliffhanger, something that no other Trek series had done. But then neither had any other Trek series (bar 'TOS' which knocked out almost thirty!), had such a fully formed inaugural season of twenty-six episodes. It must have seemed like they'd learned all the lessons of fourteen years of continual 'modern' Trek, a seasoned crew behind the scenes and the future of it all must have appeared more secure than ever. I don't know that I would say Season 1 was the best a Trek series had made, but it was certainly a strong debut and I would give it the award for best opening salvo of episodes, it's just a shame they weren't able to carry the momentum forward as thoroughly as they might have: we could have done with more focus, not serialisation, but certainly serial encounters with the Klingons for one, perhaps creating a personal adversary as they would attempt to do with Duras in Season 2, and with the Suliban acting for Future Guy, for another.

If the season was scant on Temporal Cold War detail, it feels they were partly trying to keep this pioneering starship as pure as they could without trashing the timeline too much and having everybody fully aware of what was going on in the bigger picture. There was a delicate approach to such things that was warranted, as we see that rather than Daniels appearing to the whole crew, he plucks Archer out specifically and gives him instructions to pass on. I like this targeted and careful method of dealing with the 22nd Century, rather than raining down time travellers all over and making huge flashy changes everywhere as I suspect current Trek would have done. At least with the coming of the end of the season they took up the threads of the TCW, one of the most potentially fascinating series arcs in all Trek, but also the most underused. We'd had only one episode ('Cold Front'), around mid-season to continue Silik and the idea that the NX-01 is integral to the time period it exists in, a weapon to be wielded by whomever can manipulate it, either positively or negatively, so it was fitting that the season ended on the same note. At the same time, despite my championing of the TCW as a conduit for a potentially terrific well of stories, I couldn't help feeling that this episode in particular might have been better served had they concentrated on the events that began the episode.

It's shocking what happens to the alien colony Enterprise visits, their own shuttlepod the apparent cause of a blast (a shockwave perhaps), that utterly annihilates this entire alien colony, and the aftermath is very realistic, and seeing how problems are dealt with is to me what Trek is all about. This was the most dramatic part of the episode and we can see here the two avenues Trek could have gone down, and partly why the franchise is in the shape it is today, creatively speaking: just imagine if they'd chosen to explore a genuine accident caused by Archer and his crew, the ramifications of what that meant for human space travel was powerful. There's talk of it pushing space exploration back twenty years once the Vulcans use this as proof humans weren't ready. At stake, then, is the entire formation of the Federation which we know is coming in only a decade's time. There would be no alliance with the Andorians or the Tellarites, no knowledge of the greater galaxy, maybe Earth would even have been destroyed when they had no experienced officers to send out to learn why the Xindi attacked in a year or so's time. The stakes are about as high as they can get, especially on a personal level, Archer described by T'Pol as full of agitation, despondency and guilt (reminding me of Captain Janeway in 'Night'). This realistic depiction of remorse and shame is not punctuated by the melodrama of 'DSC,' no crew members are bursting into tears, but it's no less powerful for that, and in fact is far more so.

I said there were two options to pursue, and while this focus on guilt and responsibility was more attractive to me now, I probably would have been more excited about the actual route they chose: that of time travel and conspiracy. I can't shake the impression that this episode could have been as strong as the 'DS9' Season 1 finale (and did feature some of the same themes), if the accident had been the whole story and Archer and the crew trundled home to face the music. Both this and 'In The Hands of The Prophets' show great progress, specifically between a male commander and his female subordinate who had been at loggerheads and distrustful of each other when they first met, and now, after a season of (in this case ten), months of cooperation and learning, have come to depend upon each other, trust each other, even with the hardest things (T'Pol still talks of the Vulcan Science Directorate's determination that time travel is impossible, but she agrees to keep an open mind because Archer is the one asking - mind you, a true scientist should be keeping an open mind anyway and unfortunately the Vulcans do represent the rigid worldview too many scientists stick to, refusing to acknowledge evidence that may put their position in doubt). Archer and T'Pol's growing friendship has been a delight to see and this is the capper, there being no doubt in the Captain's mind now about leaving his Vulcan sub-commander in charge when he does what every Captain always wants to do: handing himself over to the enemy so his ship can go free!

If this episode had followed the trail laid out at the start of it, and they had returned to Earth to effectively face a trial, such as Captain Kirk faced in 'Court Martial' or Dax in 'Dax' (among so many other great examples of the genre), we could have had an even more satisfying conclusion to the season. It wouldn't have been a cliffhanger and it wouldn't have been Big and Galaxy-Shifting, but it would have meant a lot personally for the characters as they must vindicate the decisions they made throughout the season, proving that they were right to be out there. It could have acted as a retrospective to the first year, but without 'Shades of Grey' style clips (if they really wanted to do something especially impressive they could have gone back to previous episodes and created new scenes that we never saw at the time - oh how my creative juices are flowing today!), as each crewmember stands up before the tribunal, or whatever, and cites their case. Soval for the prosecution would be throwing hard questions their way, perhaps causing them to stumble or admit something they were trying to play down, but then Archer would come onto the stand at the end and make a big speech reminding us of what they'd achieved, talking the room round, perhaps even bringing back the odd guest star to rest his case upon their testimony. It would have been a triumphant finale.

The important thing is that much of that optimism and pride in what went right is evident in the episode and is the most Trekky part of the story: despite appearances to the contrary, Reed sticks by his guns, adamant that the shuttlepod's ports were closed, the determining factor in whether the drive plasma was responsible for reacting with the planet's atmospheric gas. He doesn't buckle under, even while concerned about such a terrible event, and it's not pride in himself or avoiding responsibility, it's the First Duty, as Picard would say: the truth. He could easily have become as despondent as his Captain and given in, saying it didn't matter how it happened, it happened, but he is thorough and professional, reiterating there were no leaks in the pod's systems unless they fixed themselves afterwards. This creditable and reasoned response is shared by other members of the crew. Hoshi and Mayweather discuss what they might go back to, assuming the mission is permanently cancelled, Hoshi certain she'll be taken back at her language institute because she's so good (which she says wryly, but isn't any less true), while Travis is a bit more down about things since he can't imagine going back to cargo transports after flying the state of the art warp 5 ship. He also warns that people back home are thinking all they've done is cause trouble out in space, and this is when Hoshi jumps to their defence, saying that's why they need to go back, to tell people what really happened and what a difference they've made!

This is the spirit of Trek, and while Dr. Phlox is more fatalistic in his preparations for whatever his next position is, he again is optimistic, showing that this attitude he's expressed before isn't empty words, looking forward to whatever challenges he'll be faced with, even while knowing he'll miss the crewmates he served with on Enterprise. The point is, no one is hanging their head and believing it was all for nothing and they should slink back home with their tails between their legs to accept whatever punishment there is for daring to believe in the mission and mankind's place among the stars, forging a new path in the darkness. No one, that is, except for Archer in his hardest experience so far. This even after the wise words of Admiral Forrest, who tells him he has the whole crew looking to him on how to react to this, so don't let them down. But he allows personal guilt to overwhelm him to the point he doesn't even want to engage with the job of Captain any more. It takes a visit from T'Pol to remind him of his duty, though she does it without prodding, she simply provides an ear (two ears, pointed). T'Pol, who was of the same opinion as her people about the place of humans out in space, is the one who has turned around the most. Arguably when her character is seen across the entire series you can suggest that she was always geared towards humanity and subconsciously, even in her most Vulcan moments, carries a human bias that goes against her strict society and was gradually allowed to surface the more time she spent among humans, though she tried hard to hide it and not acknowledge it to herself. That's what I take from watching Season 1 again.

Archer has rolled over and given up, but T'Pol is ready to fight to prove they were right to be out there, just like Hoshi. And if she can turn around so entirely, going from almost a spy for the High Command, to fully supporting her colleagues and understanding their wholehearted goodness and desire to help and learn, then even the most guilt-stricken human should be able to buck himself up - she wants Archer to fight his organisation as she's willing to fight hers for him and them. Disappointingly, Archer never learns to overcome his own feelings, to rationalise what happened and put everything in perspective, to take hold of himself and be the man, the Captain, and the hero we need him to be. If there was ever a case for Archer being a weak Captain, and I went into Season 1 expecting to find more evidence of that, this is the point I'd bring up. In reality he's so often shown himself to be a good leader of men and I was actually impressed. It may be that seeing the modern iteration of Captain Pike in 'DSC,' who so constantly requires Burnham to set him straight, it made Archer look so much stronger, but I think even without that comparison to strengthen Archer's position, he comes across well for the majority of the time we spend with him in this season. Which is why it is a shame that he isn't responsible for pulling himself together, Daniels is.

More to the point, Daniels' ability to send him zipping through time to the pre-launch moment where he's literally taken out of his problem and able to have a new perspective. As a side note I don't know what they could have done to make that little trip back more memorable, but I feel like they should have done something special there. I'm not sure what we might have seen, but the chance to travel back to just before the NX-01 set out could have given us something better than just his apartment. Maybe we could have visited the NX-01 under construction (except it was finished, I think), or somewhere important, I don't know, and not that it's a bad scene, but it was definitely a lost opportunity in the way that we got to go back before the series on both 'TNG' (we see a Holodeck recreation of Utopia Planitia with the Enterprise-D under construction), and 'Voyager' (when Seven of Nine is time-hopping around to various eras in the ship's history). I imagine the rationale was that we were only going to be touching on that period briefly so they didn't want to do anything too elaborate. After this, the series takes the direction towards more action and fantasy (even though here it still feels much more scientific and coherent with what we'd seen in Trek before, unlike the stupid-sounding time crystals, open and notorious 'secret' organisation of Section 31 that everybody knows about, and technology they somehow built that's clearly centuries beyond their capability if we're still supposed to believe 'DSC' occurs in the Prime Timeline!).

The series could have gone either way, right from the start: they originally wanted to have the whole first season be the preparation for the launch of the NX-01 which is almost unimaginable in today's age of instant gratification and shiny fantasy sci-fi that bears only a passing resemblance to the well established Trek universe. Even then it was too much for the powers with the purse strings and it was they who demanded the TCW and nixed a season of preparing, something which would truly have been new ground for Trek. As it was they still managed to intertwine personal character stories with high concept ones, though the bent was definitely more towards the action than previous Trek series'. Otherwise we might have had a more psychological study of the characters in this episode rather than a move towards action. Not that I'm suggesting it was bad, on the contrary, if we hadn't had Daniels' intervention we wouldn't have got Archer's exciting mood change from utter depression to focused, driven and back in charge of himself and his ship - I love it when in the eyes of his crew he snaps out of it and orders everyone summoned to the Situation Room at the back of the Bridge, then proceeds to hand out assignments quickly and efficiently, galvanising this Starfleet crew for their task.

It's fun to see Trip so nonplussed by the technical knowledge his Captain now has that is beyond even his engineering know-how. It's also fun to see the future Tricorder, or whatever it was, that had been stashed away in Daniels' Quarters on the Enterprise in 'Cold Front.' They'd like to learn all the knowledge in that future tech (which looked like something 'DSC' would use as a matter of course in their bizarre ultra-advanced reality that bears so little resemblance to the timeline we know - I wish Daniels would go back and sort out that era, and maybe take Captain Braxton along, too, then they could set right what once went wrong, just like 'Quantum Leap' - hey that might not be a bad idea for a new series: call it 'Star Trek: Time Leapers' with Daniels in the Al role, while Braxton does the heavy lifting!), but Archer is strictly interested only in the Suliban stealth cruiser details, primed as he was by Daniels on the importance of knowing as little as possible about future events. The tables are turned and the ship has gone from defeated prey to hunter, tracking down the Suliban and going on an exciting raid. I liked seeing the unique Suliban design again, all lines and angles, with Archer having the knowledge of exactly where to go to find the data disks. It seems a bit risky taking both Trip and T'Pol along, and not Reed, I must say, but then the Captain knew what he was doing.

Having the Suliban be ordinary villains again gave me mixed feelings. It is in Trek's style that it shows enemies to be like us, and not everyone is the same as their group, and I can't help wishing there had been development of the Suliban characters where instead they're only soldiers to be opposed. Even Silik doesn't have anything interesting to add to his character, unlike last time when you're not always sure if he's acting for evil reasons or not. While it's visually dramatic to see them using their genetic enhancements again, crawling along walls and ceilings, in that instance it didn't seem to make much sense as this is their ship and it would surely have been quicker to run! But the raid is precise and targeted thanks to Archer's intuition, and I will say the whole episode was well directed by Allan Kroeker, a Trek veteran, right from the chaotic camera in Sickbay once the team had returned to the ship after the disastrous 'accident,' representing the confused feelings and shock of the participants as they whirl hither and thither trying to process what happened and how it could have. At the same time, with action there's much less discussion to be had and even having just watched it I find myself forgetting exactly what happened in the episode aside from the personal moments and the broad action strokes.

When I first saw it, it would have been the fascination with the 31st Century that I'd have been most thrilled about, but knowing that part two doesn't amount to much (at least in my memory), and that there isn't a great deal to be mined from that time, especially as it's an alternate timeline, it proves far less fascinating than would appear by the questions thrown up. Rather than rely on a wave of satisfaction and hope for the future, as 'DS9' Season 1 ended, they rely on the shock value of a cliffhanger to excite the audience, and shock value is exactly what everything relies on to a ridiculous degree in today's TV and film world. When I think of 'DS9,' and I think of it as the best Trek ever made, I think of the actual lack of direct end-of-season cliffhangers. They tended to set something up, whether it be the might of the Jem'Hadar in the episode named after them, or the threat of the Founders at the end of Season 3. The concern that Gowron is a Changeling another example. Season 5 did end with a more immediately dramatic situation with the station taken over, but even there that was to set up a multi-episode serial, and Season 7 went back to setup for the future rather than specific cliffhanger. You notice that style gives the writers far more leeway and options for how to proceed rather than writing themselves into a corner and having to put the pieces back into order so things can proceed as normal, which is what happened with 'TNG' and 'Voyager' so much, and is the template followed here.

There was so much they could have explored with future-future tech, the politics of the time, the status of races and planets, but they preferred to leave the slate largely blank, either in case they wanted to fill in further details later, or simply because trying to extrapolate a thousand years into Trek's future was a task best avoided. You'd have to be pretty confident to take on such a challenge: confident or, may I say, a touch arrogant that you could come up with something advanced enough to be understood as so much further, or perhaps just a little lacking in understanding of what makes drama. If your head is filled with comic book films and pulpy sci-fi, even fantasy, then you're not held back, because to extrapolate realistically would be a real headache. I think that's why we got so little revealed about Daniels' time, beyond the nugget that they use time portals (which have all been destroyed along with all the technology of the time). It's enough that when you see even the blase time travel master, who apparently died and came back, is worried, you know things are seriously bad. Actually that's another little disappointment: I understand that they preferred to keep the audience almost as much in the dark as the denizens of the 22nd Century in regard to how all this time travel works and the intricacies of the TCW, but they could have thrown us a bone about how Daniels survived being killed.

He fobs us and Archer off with no explanation and one reason Daniels isn't one of the best recurring characters of the series is that he embodies the writers' wish to be condescending rather than spill any beans that would require effort to create. Better not to let anyone in on how this whole thing works because then we'd have to work out how it works, so we'll just make him dismissive and gloss over any important details which it is in the nature of Trekkers to wonder about! It's good to have mystery, but sometimes it can go too far and you need to ground things, especially such ultra-future setup as they're playing with here, though they cunningly get around it by showing this alternate, ruined future. In the end none of the 31st Century connections really amount to much throughout the series, because the TCW was let go and never reached its potential, though this also means it's an element that could be taken up by writers any time they want to - trouble is, after the awful misuse of both the Mirror Universe and Section 31 I have no faith in the current writers' ability to handle Trek lore well. In fact, that's the main reason I dedicated this year to going through Season 1 of 'Enterprise' again: partly it was because I'd never even written basic reviews of the first two episodes, but also I needed something to wash away the aftertaste of 'DSC,' something that was more akin to it than the 24th Century series', widescreen, action-based, but also still revelling in Trek canon, indeed inventing the stuff rather than relying on the Spock family or the Constitution-class Enterprise.

My plan was a success, it brought back the enjoyment of Trek to me and made me remember how much I get from proper Trek. It can't make up for the horrible mismanagement of the franchise today, it can't rekindle hope for good new Trek, but it can restore my delight in the best sci-fi creation ever produced. It also helps that 'Enterprise' is the series of the original run that I've seen the least. That and 'TOS,' I would say. So it still has a freshness to it and makes it enjoyable to revisit. So much so that I wish I could just go straight onto Season 2 and continue my expanded reviews, even though I have far less favourable thoughts on that season than I've always held for Season 1. But other series' that I've put off still need reviewing, though I'll certainly keep in mind I need to go back. What this episode reminded me of once again were the details, the little details that always speak of Trek and its solidity as a coherent and believable world: it was classic stuff when Archer tells Hoshi to make sure the comms are 'on the fritz' so they can neither report nor receive orders. It's happened many times and it's always a good ruse (but only if you succeed with whatever you're trying to accomplish!), and I loved it. One very minor thing I noticed was that as Archer scrolls through the images of the 3,600 casualties of the obliterated colony, they're accompanied by the 'musical notes' visual characters that shows he's reading the Vulcan database, something that similarly impressed me as I wondered where he got these photos from. Logic!

It was even fun to hear Archer reference 'those old Bible films,' good to know that 'The Ten Commandments' et al. the apocalypse of World War III! He says it when Reed asks if the Suliban will come after them, and Archer responds that like those old films, it wasn't 'written.' Unfortunately for him, unlike those old films, time meddling switches things around and the Suliban do indeed come for the Enterprise, or more specifically, her Captain. I like that Archer is so matter-of-fact about handing himself over for the sake of his ship. Maybe he didn't believe in the word of Silik who isn't necessarily the most trustworthy, but perhaps he had faith in Daniels' ability to intervene. As it is, he confidently leaves T'Pol in command, again showing how far they've come, though even in the first episode she was forced to take command. Then Archer was worried about her, now he has no such concerns, and rightly so. Although the tiny Suliban ships don't look like much it's easy to forget they feature the tech of the future and by sheer weight of numbers would provide more than a deadly match for the NX-01. Maybe cliffhanger wasn't the best option for the episode, but it wasn't the worst, either and it does leave you wanting to see what happens next, even if you know it won't match up to this episode's quality.

One final note should be highlighted, as this was the last ever episode to appear on a videocassette, the VHS format that was superceded by DVD. I never collected the videos for this series, though I did buy the pilot's release as that was the only way to see it for me at the time. I also have many happy memories of collecting other Trek videos, in particular 'DS9' for which I bought the entire series, tracking how many I needed from each season as I went. DVD was obviously superior for clarity, but at the same time I sometimes think that the slightly less distinct video resolution worked well for Trek, especially when so many episodes had smoke and sparks, and I can still remember the whole monitor whiting out during explosions in a way that the digital nature of DVD doesn't give you. The individual art for each box and information provided inside were also very collectable. The 'Enterprise' releases didn't have the same level of attention paid to them as the medium died out, but I'll always remember with fondness the more immediate connection to that analogue medium and I wonder what it would be like to go back and watch this final video season in that format. Maybe I'll collect them one day and find out…

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