DVD, Stargate SG-1 S10 (Morpheus)
I saw what they were trying to do, but for much of this episode I wasn't quite getting into it. I didn't know if it was just me needing time to immerse back into that world before it clicked again, or whether this was going to be a typically weak final season of a long-running sci-fi series, as so often happens with the genre (and probably with non-genre fare, too). The jury is still to hear all the evidence on the latter point, but I'm pleased to say I did mostly come around to the series' style and characters again. There are two specific plots happening, the main being a mission to go somewhere to get something and encountering a problem. That could describe the majority of 'SG-1' stories, I'm sure, but the problem was that I wasn't keeping up with everything. I remembered the deal about King Arthur and his Knights, etc, a thread running through Season 9, but I didn't actually know what it meant and why King Arthur would be gallivanting round the galaxy, visiting planets, nor how. I still can't remember what it was all about, but once that was no longer the driving force of the narrative, and it became a standard survival tale, I was able to sink into it better. The B-story, all about Vala's misunderstanding of a psych evaluation, was more comedic in nature, but eventually came around to something a little more meaningful. Trouble is, I'm not sure if I actually like her. I can't remember if I liked her before, or if it was just the vague connection I had with 'Farscape' in which she costarred with Ben Browder, that interested me, but she's a little anarchic, for all her good qualities.
All the way through this episode I wanted her not to be trusted and to be locked away, and I'm sure that's not what the writers intended - they created her to be a sympathetic character, but one who's a little more off the leash than your usual SGC team member. But she can't be trusted, that's been established so often, and one early indication that they were finding the characters again after writing themselves out of the corner they'd painted into with the premiere episode of the season, always necessarily a reaction to the cliffhanger of a previous season, was the chat between Daniel and General Landry. Jackson wants Vala along on the mission, Landry can't allow it, but at Daniel's request, despite all he's gone through with Vala, Landry is willing to set the wheels in motion for her to come aboard the organisation. I don't remember hearing her actually keen to join the Stargate program, but if she's going to be a regular it would be difficult for her to be there on an ongoing basis without being certified for duty. It's a bit like Starfleet, you can't let just anyone in, there has to be a high level of professionalism and ability. Vala certainly has abilities, as shown by her dedication to passing what she considers a trick test in the psych evaluation by swotting up on psychology terminology, but whether she can be professional is an entirely different question. It's whether her contribution can be worth the imbalance.
It's quite fun to see her take what should be a spontaneous and honest examination of her psyche, so seriously, and I'm glad it wasn't that she passed by tricking the examiner or wearing him down - she's at her most honest when she gets into a strop and says she's reminded why she doesn't belong here, eventually turning into outright demands to leave. The real trickery with Wolsey was intelligent use of the character and I certainly believed in him as a potential spymaster, thinking this could well be a plot running through the season that Vala reports back to him. At the same time this is 'SG-1,' it wasn't going to be that likely they'd have double agent business going on, the characters are much too light for that kind of angst and texture, and I was wondering how Wolsey could be free to wander the base and speak to who he would without question, so I was glad it was revealed to be all part of the test (reminded me of a great old 'TNG' episode called 'Coming of Age' also about a character coming up against a psych test - it's fertile ground to explore). I also appreciated that Mitchell didn't simply slap an SG-1 patch on her and welcome her to the team, she's on probation and he let her know that. She needs to behave. When it all ends with them walking away with Vala asking about the loot they're going to get from the planets they visit, things looked up for the series and it's just a fun, positive way to finish on.
The main story also developed reasonably well. They go to this planet, the 'gate address which Daniel found by researching in an ancient book which had an illustration of some sword of Arthur's or Merlin's, one or the other, and upon it are the Stargate symbols. I was thinking it might be wise to flick through all the illustrations in these old books just in case there are any more symbols like that, just in case! It's not really about any of that (and indeed, it all leads to Daniel suggesting that whatever it was they were after might be in the Atlantis database, which hopefully will lead to some kind of crossover event - if they're going to do it they need to do it soon!), as it becomes a high concept story of needing to stay awake to stay alive. I was thinking as I watched that the actors probably didn't have to act that hard when they're playing tired, as even though they were only on the second episode of the season, for some of them it's their tenth season in a row, and the acting day is a long one. Disappointed Mitchell succumbed and lay in the cave, but of course if it's any physical endeavour that's needed, Teal'c's the man to attempt it, carrying the required lizard, with its immunity, to the surface. The CGI creature was actually very good, moving realistically, filmed like a real animal (and maybe that shot when it scurried along the cave floor, right into Teal'c's waiting bag, was a real lizard - if you're not sure whether what you're watching is real or not, they've succeeded).
The set of the ghostly village, the team walking through the gloom, was carried off well (though it does look like the standard medieval set that they keep using now), as was the descent into the caves (and they found the weariest looking guest actor to play the role of the doctor!), but I felt the story would have benefitted from getting into the action as early as possible instead of all the chatting back at Stargate Command. It led to the episode having to be curtailed rather too quickly at the end with another team showing up in haz-mat suits when it really would have benefitted from SG-1 carrying out the solution. When Carter and Daniel are sealed into isolation pods I thought it was going badly because the team hadn't listened to what Carter was trying to tell them about not falling asleep, and maybe this was actually going to almost kill them until Teal'c could make them understand, but then we're suddenly back at base and everyone's fine, and it was a little too easily resolved due only to the lack of time left. That's really the main point that let the side down, coupled with not giving enough time to the creepiness of village and cave - as well shot as it was we didn't linger long enough in places to build up suspense, and though the nasty brain bug was a hideously distressing proposition, it didn't have time to make the horror more pronounced in the way that last season's episode, 'The Scourge,' about escaping bugs on a planet, did. While it didn't quite win home in the end, the episode does bode well for the season now we've got back to recognisable SG-1 adventure, even if the title made me think it was a repeat of one they'd already done (except that was 'Moebius').
**
Tuesday, 3 November 2020
Civilisation (2)
DVD, Enterprise S1 (Civilisation) (2)
Innocuous, innocent, inoffensive, but not quite the in thing. This is traditional Trek at its most simple, a visit to an alien world, a personal investment for the Captain, who mostly goes it alone, and a problem to solve. This is definitely the kind of story we'll never see again in modern Trek, but it also shows up the flaws of this particular formula: these are totally aliens of the week, never to be seen or heard from again (at least I thought they were, but doing my due diligence with the 'Star Trek Encyclopedia' I discovered that the villains of the week, the Malurians, were one of the races wiped out by the Nomad probe in 'TOS' - great continuity!). The scale, that was initially the vastness of a new planet and its new life and civilisation, to the extent that they wondered who they should hail on arrival (which makes a lot of sense when there's no collective authority for a planet), is quickly whittled down into a manageable coastal village, but even that proves a little too far outside budgetary constraints so we never get to see their docks or ocean, it all takes place in narrow, built-up streets. It's like some forgotten 'Voyager' episode from its second or third season, or something from 'TNG,' a one-off race we visit undercover and sort out some kind of issue in secret. I expect the only reason they didn't use the traditional 'matte painting of alien city' that showed up a number of times as different planets was because it wasn't made for the widescreen format! Perhaps I'm being a little unkind, and it is good to see the NX-01 crew visit a planet with Dr. Phlox' cosmetic surgery skills tested, the first such mission in Trek history, and far from the last. But as with 'Breaking The Ice' it unfortunately falls into the trap of the series.
That is the directionless, lackadaisical approach to both exploration and storytelling. This would have been an ideal situation from which to learn a lot of lessons on how to go about interaction with a pre-warp species. We hear from T'Pol the Vulcan protocol is to avoid contact until a culture develops warp drive, the foundation for Starfleet General Order Number One, otherwise known as the Prime Directive. Maybe it would have been too on the nose for Archer to create such a famous rule this early and with only this experience, but that's the trouble: they, or more specifically, he himself, solves the problem and happily heads on his way after kissing the alien woman of the week, like a prototype (and stereotype of), Captain Kirk. In that respect the episode is also true to traditional 'TOS,' a blending of the 24th Century style of manufactured sets for an alien world, and the 23rd Century's cowboy approach - he kisses the girl, gets involved with a punch up, has a firefight with marauding aliens, and all without getting his shirt ripped! If this had been a disaster from which the Captain could have learned valuable lessons, if it had taught him to rely more on his crew than going out on a limb on his own, the crew mostly sitting around in orbit with a bit of tech support now and again, like some kind of futuristic call centre, it could have been worthwhile. If it had been a hard lesson of not being able to singlehandedly save a species from the exploitation of another, more advanced race, with good teamwork and planning beating superior odds, this could have been really something. But it wasn't.
That doesn't mean it's a poor episode, I'd take this bland offering that feels like Trek, over 'DSC' any day, but it needed to be more than an old episode of 'Stargate SG-1' to stand out. It's fun the way the crew tease their Captain by suggesting there are only 'dull' spatial novelties on the agenda for today's exploration, before revealing a Minshara-class planet ripe for examination, but though it was a joke, the 'what have we found today?' discussion also came off as the series' lack of focus in what it was trying to achieve. They were showing the pioneers going out for the first time, and Archer is the type who wants to get involved, they're there instead of probes that Starfleet could have sent, but you'd think they'd have more of a plan than merely wandering the galaxy hoping to find something of interest. There is something pleasant about that, like when you go out for the day and choose to pop into this town or walk up this road, but these aren't day-trippers, they're Starfleet's finest, or at the very least, Starfleet's chosen, and they need to report back on their accomplishments: making alliances, learning the lay of the galactic political landscape, finding out where they can best be of service, expanding scientific knowledge. In these days of short seasons, total serialisation, and galaxy-ending threats, it's quaint to see such a small story play out, but then that's where the misconception lies: vast stories of epic proportion are less enjoyable because they're too big to identify with, whereas a personal little event has the potential to be much more ground-breaking, and is the kind of thing Trek used to do so well.
In this episode, though it does become slightly personal, it's in the wrong way: Archer didn't need to be on his own dealing with Riann the apothecary and solving the mystery with her, a guest star we discover little about, and he doesn't seem to learn anything from the experience that would guide him in future decisions. It's a bit like an episode of 'Quantum Leap,' when Trek works better as an ensemble. It's not like we get a B-story on the ship to cut away to and fill out one of the other characters, nor do we get to know more about Archer, either, so while it's a nice little adventure and he gets to do some good by defeating a band of infiltrators, it's all a bit too pat. He even chucks the Malurian leader his weapon back - what was to stop the man shooting him in bitterness of making a fool out of him? There needed to be more of a challenge, and part of that may have been the direction which would have benefited from a more dramatic style, particularly in the ship to ship encounter (I can't really call it a battle, the NX-01 is about to get its hull whipped until they use their noggins), which had little of the excitement we saw on earlier Treks. Archer starts out a bit naive in his eagerness to visit the planet and its people, with T'Pol saying they can't just turn up, they'd be recognisable as outsiders. All they do is add a couple of forehead ridges and think that's enough to blend in! Unfortunately for story logic, that's all it takes. What about the Akaali mannerisms, their customs, cultural differences and behaviour? It shouldn't be as simple to go undercover as they make out because otherwise these aliens aren't very alien.
That's another problem, it could just as well have been a time travel episode where they go back to an earlier human period for how close everything is to humanity. They have little trouble fitting in, no one questions them, and only Riann is suspicious because they go into the curio shop she's been watching. Garos, the villain, didn't strike me as the type to be patient enough to run a shop, either! How many hours of his day does he spend selling masks and nicknacks, while his real business is… was it mining something? I can't actually remember what was their whole purpose for being there, that's how forgettable this side of the story was. I did like that this is another alien who's never heard of Earth, similar to the Andorians, and showing what a low profile humans had at this point compared to how integral we'd be to the galaxy in a century or less, but with Archer sticking his nose into other people's business and setting right what once went wrong ('Quantum Leap' again!), he was sure to make a name for humanity in a way the Vulcans' more conservative, hands off approach took them a lot longer to establish themselves, or that's the impression I always get. The episode is more than a little reminiscent of 'The Andorian Incident' in other ways, too: just when I thought the cave set was taking a break this week they descend beneath Garos' shop, his cellar another cave redress, but again, nicely done with machinery integrated with the rock walls, and just like the Vulcan monastery there's a secret underground complex which the dishonest group have for nefarious purposes.
Where that episode was vital and tense, this is a lot less dangerous. The standout moment that is pretty much the only thing I ever remember about this episode is when Archer fights one of the Malurians and in the scuffle rips half his face off. That sounds as vicious as 'The Andorian Incident,' but this one is a lot more old-fashioned, even down to its cowboy film fight scenes. The Malurians look almost human, except for those little decorative forehead ridges, but it turns out they're much more alien in reality with a lizard-like skin from what we glimpse under the ripped face mask, a bit Jem'Hadar, and it's not something you see every day on Trek. Apart from that, it's not a very driven episode, mainly an excuse to pair Archer up with the guest female, and nothing wrong with that except it never leads to understanding or development for the characters. Riann doesn't even seem that amazed by the thought of alien beings flying through the stars, and you'd think someone so scientifically minded would have been aching for one little flight above her world. Archer should have allowed her one magical moment as reward for helping him (and not punching him out when he kissed her!), something to give the episode a sense of hope for this lady who will forever be left to wonder. She doesn't seem that bothered and Archer just carries on his way, off to the stars, an alien woman in every port. Not really, but it was all a bit unresolved for the Akaali.
At least the Captain isn't made to seem weak, I can give the episode credit for that, unless you consider his solo attitude to command, doing the bulk of it himself, as a weakness. I can understand why he'd want to keep contact down to a minimum, but the only reason T'Pol and Hoshi don't hang around is so that he can make friends with Riann, but I'd have much rather have seen his crew in on the action, maybe send Hoshi and T'Pol off on another part of the mission to track down other members of the Malurian gang just to give them something to do! I will say that at least all the crew were involved along the way, even though the bulk of the episode was Archer going it alone. Mayweather gets to perform some tactical manoeuvres when the Malurian ship shows up, but we don't really get a good sense of what he's doing. Phlox shows some interest and does his cosmetics, Reed is mainly there at his console, but Hoshi proves vital by assisting the translator to decipher the various languages (she's still the best bet when it comes to a Landing Party for her translation abilities, but she's also the best bet to be reticent about going!). It's great to hear alien voices again, something pretty unique to this series. We see the Communicator is actually the device that somehow translates both aliens for humans and humans for aliens (or is the 'mouthpiece' of the ship's software), and in a humorous moment Archer has to play for time when it malfunctions and he's not getting what Riann is saying. Little things like this and the idea of a sensor-protected chamber beneath the ground that shows up as nothing on sensors, worked, and it's also good to see familiar Trek tech showing up again - they'd already done a Holodeck in 'Unexpected,' now they mention the Malurians' 'fabrication device' (Replicator), energy shields and tractor beam.
It might be a little too early to be introducing such technology into the Trek universe when you think about it, because why would it take Starfleet so long to develop this stuff? The Malurians were clearly on the same level as the Vulcans, technologically, and yet they could be bested by inferior humans. I suppose that was the point, Archer had his morals and values and the energy to care about others being exploited so he's clearly being heroic here, but maybe it should have been tougher and that he couldn't have managed singlehanded? Granted, the Malurians were only a small contingent and they weren't expecting the least bit of resistance, so the element of surprise worked in his favour, but it needed more going on. At least Riann proved herself by thinking scientifically in the firefight on the street: she informs Archer the street lamp contains a flammable substance and he's able to set it off, blasting the unsuspecting Malurians into submission (there goes the neighbourhood, full-on shootout on a bustling street). But what damage was done by all this? They saved the village, perhaps even the whole world by decontaminating the water supply and warning the Malurians off, but what about all those scared villagers wondering what all this bizarre shooting was? Wouldn't they explore the villains' store and discover advanced tech since he was one of the weirdos, vanished away never to return? I like that they said the Vulcans would drop by now and again to check nothing untoward was happening, that shows a confidence in their willingness to protect the rights of pre-warp peoples, and sounds more like the Vulcans we used to know: responsible, ready to help, and just.
T'Pol is one such, and I was thinking how much things had changed on the ship from a few episodes ago when she was constantly at odds with everyone - here she seemed to be in command without dissent. And then Trip gets hotheaded and is practically insubordinate, refusing to allow the ship to leave without its Captain. This really worked as a scene because, although there is a level of trust between T'Pol and the crew, and specifically T'Pol and Trip, he would still be more prone to righteous indignation if he felt Archer was threatened. The difference now is that T'Pol is able to quickly placate him, reassuring him she has no intention of leaving the Captain behind, even if the alien was telling the truth, and he's dead. This is another turning point in the series for T'Pol's position aboard, and shows that she has the measure of her crew and Captain, she knows how to respond. That was probably the standout moment as it shows she can go along with their jokes (as she did at the beginning), but also has authority, and not just because of a Vulcan sense of superiority, as you feel that that has been dented through recent events (finding out her people had lied about P'Jem; discovering the honourable nature of the humans she works with; turning down two opportunities to leave). There was an ideal time for a Vulcan nerve pinch, when Riann threatens Archer and Trip with a crossbow, but she chooses to Phaser her instead. I wonder if her long hair as an Akaali was a wig or whether it was some kind of follicle growth stimulation? Possibly not, as we later see her with normal length hair and we don't know who cuts it on the Enterprise with Bolians not yet discovered (I imagine).
We do hear mention of Tellarites from the villain (though we'd have to wait until the penultimate episode of Season 2 to see them), and we do find out where clothing on the ship comes from: the Quartermaster! I don't think this position had been mentioned since 'TOS,' so it's good to know they weren't replicating everything in these days (or anything, for that matter!), where 'DSC' brought 24th Century tech to the 23rd, and made all eras boringly the same. One thing that series did quite well was in zooming in from orbit, something that is also done in this episode. It's less ostentatious, but done in a far less advanced time for such effects - they didn't even have drone cameras back when 'Enterprise' was being filmed so I'd love to know how they filmed the shots of the Akaali street from above. I'd also like to know how Archer knew where to take the unconscious Riann once she'd been stunned. Maybe it was in dialogue and I missed it? And Wade Williams (Garos), already had form for playing a bad guy in 'One' on 'Voyager,' as imagined by Seven of Nine. This has always been an uneven episode for me, the first time I saw it I didn't think much of it, the second time it went up in my estimation for the little details I mentioned, but seeing it now it has to be considered part of the decline from the opening salvo of episodes' greatness, not important enough on a larger scale, nor on the intimate, either. Perhaps if it had been set on an alien world we'd heard of (those Bolians, maybe?), it could have added to our knowledge of an existing race. It's important to show the universe is vast, so you need to have aliens of the week that you never, or rarely, encounter again, but in that case they need to be made not to look like throwaway races that don't really matter, and as much as Archer enjoyed this encounter, it is rather insubstantial, even if it is reassuringly comfortable.
**
Innocuous, innocent, inoffensive, but not quite the in thing. This is traditional Trek at its most simple, a visit to an alien world, a personal investment for the Captain, who mostly goes it alone, and a problem to solve. This is definitely the kind of story we'll never see again in modern Trek, but it also shows up the flaws of this particular formula: these are totally aliens of the week, never to be seen or heard from again (at least I thought they were, but doing my due diligence with the 'Star Trek Encyclopedia' I discovered that the villains of the week, the Malurians, were one of the races wiped out by the Nomad probe in 'TOS' - great continuity!). The scale, that was initially the vastness of a new planet and its new life and civilisation, to the extent that they wondered who they should hail on arrival (which makes a lot of sense when there's no collective authority for a planet), is quickly whittled down into a manageable coastal village, but even that proves a little too far outside budgetary constraints so we never get to see their docks or ocean, it all takes place in narrow, built-up streets. It's like some forgotten 'Voyager' episode from its second or third season, or something from 'TNG,' a one-off race we visit undercover and sort out some kind of issue in secret. I expect the only reason they didn't use the traditional 'matte painting of alien city' that showed up a number of times as different planets was because it wasn't made for the widescreen format! Perhaps I'm being a little unkind, and it is good to see the NX-01 crew visit a planet with Dr. Phlox' cosmetic surgery skills tested, the first such mission in Trek history, and far from the last. But as with 'Breaking The Ice' it unfortunately falls into the trap of the series.
That is the directionless, lackadaisical approach to both exploration and storytelling. This would have been an ideal situation from which to learn a lot of lessons on how to go about interaction with a pre-warp species. We hear from T'Pol the Vulcan protocol is to avoid contact until a culture develops warp drive, the foundation for Starfleet General Order Number One, otherwise known as the Prime Directive. Maybe it would have been too on the nose for Archer to create such a famous rule this early and with only this experience, but that's the trouble: they, or more specifically, he himself, solves the problem and happily heads on his way after kissing the alien woman of the week, like a prototype (and stereotype of), Captain Kirk. In that respect the episode is also true to traditional 'TOS,' a blending of the 24th Century style of manufactured sets for an alien world, and the 23rd Century's cowboy approach - he kisses the girl, gets involved with a punch up, has a firefight with marauding aliens, and all without getting his shirt ripped! If this had been a disaster from which the Captain could have learned valuable lessons, if it had taught him to rely more on his crew than going out on a limb on his own, the crew mostly sitting around in orbit with a bit of tech support now and again, like some kind of futuristic call centre, it could have been worthwhile. If it had been a hard lesson of not being able to singlehandedly save a species from the exploitation of another, more advanced race, with good teamwork and planning beating superior odds, this could have been really something. But it wasn't.
That doesn't mean it's a poor episode, I'd take this bland offering that feels like Trek, over 'DSC' any day, but it needed to be more than an old episode of 'Stargate SG-1' to stand out. It's fun the way the crew tease their Captain by suggesting there are only 'dull' spatial novelties on the agenda for today's exploration, before revealing a Minshara-class planet ripe for examination, but though it was a joke, the 'what have we found today?' discussion also came off as the series' lack of focus in what it was trying to achieve. They were showing the pioneers going out for the first time, and Archer is the type who wants to get involved, they're there instead of probes that Starfleet could have sent, but you'd think they'd have more of a plan than merely wandering the galaxy hoping to find something of interest. There is something pleasant about that, like when you go out for the day and choose to pop into this town or walk up this road, but these aren't day-trippers, they're Starfleet's finest, or at the very least, Starfleet's chosen, and they need to report back on their accomplishments: making alliances, learning the lay of the galactic political landscape, finding out where they can best be of service, expanding scientific knowledge. In these days of short seasons, total serialisation, and galaxy-ending threats, it's quaint to see such a small story play out, but then that's where the misconception lies: vast stories of epic proportion are less enjoyable because they're too big to identify with, whereas a personal little event has the potential to be much more ground-breaking, and is the kind of thing Trek used to do so well.
In this episode, though it does become slightly personal, it's in the wrong way: Archer didn't need to be on his own dealing with Riann the apothecary and solving the mystery with her, a guest star we discover little about, and he doesn't seem to learn anything from the experience that would guide him in future decisions. It's a bit like an episode of 'Quantum Leap,' when Trek works better as an ensemble. It's not like we get a B-story on the ship to cut away to and fill out one of the other characters, nor do we get to know more about Archer, either, so while it's a nice little adventure and he gets to do some good by defeating a band of infiltrators, it's all a bit too pat. He even chucks the Malurian leader his weapon back - what was to stop the man shooting him in bitterness of making a fool out of him? There needed to be more of a challenge, and part of that may have been the direction which would have benefited from a more dramatic style, particularly in the ship to ship encounter (I can't really call it a battle, the NX-01 is about to get its hull whipped until they use their noggins), which had little of the excitement we saw on earlier Treks. Archer starts out a bit naive in his eagerness to visit the planet and its people, with T'Pol saying they can't just turn up, they'd be recognisable as outsiders. All they do is add a couple of forehead ridges and think that's enough to blend in! Unfortunately for story logic, that's all it takes. What about the Akaali mannerisms, their customs, cultural differences and behaviour? It shouldn't be as simple to go undercover as they make out because otherwise these aliens aren't very alien.
That's another problem, it could just as well have been a time travel episode where they go back to an earlier human period for how close everything is to humanity. They have little trouble fitting in, no one questions them, and only Riann is suspicious because they go into the curio shop she's been watching. Garos, the villain, didn't strike me as the type to be patient enough to run a shop, either! How many hours of his day does he spend selling masks and nicknacks, while his real business is… was it mining something? I can't actually remember what was their whole purpose for being there, that's how forgettable this side of the story was. I did like that this is another alien who's never heard of Earth, similar to the Andorians, and showing what a low profile humans had at this point compared to how integral we'd be to the galaxy in a century or less, but with Archer sticking his nose into other people's business and setting right what once went wrong ('Quantum Leap' again!), he was sure to make a name for humanity in a way the Vulcans' more conservative, hands off approach took them a lot longer to establish themselves, or that's the impression I always get. The episode is more than a little reminiscent of 'The Andorian Incident' in other ways, too: just when I thought the cave set was taking a break this week they descend beneath Garos' shop, his cellar another cave redress, but again, nicely done with machinery integrated with the rock walls, and just like the Vulcan monastery there's a secret underground complex which the dishonest group have for nefarious purposes.
Where that episode was vital and tense, this is a lot less dangerous. The standout moment that is pretty much the only thing I ever remember about this episode is when Archer fights one of the Malurians and in the scuffle rips half his face off. That sounds as vicious as 'The Andorian Incident,' but this one is a lot more old-fashioned, even down to its cowboy film fight scenes. The Malurians look almost human, except for those little decorative forehead ridges, but it turns out they're much more alien in reality with a lizard-like skin from what we glimpse under the ripped face mask, a bit Jem'Hadar, and it's not something you see every day on Trek. Apart from that, it's not a very driven episode, mainly an excuse to pair Archer up with the guest female, and nothing wrong with that except it never leads to understanding or development for the characters. Riann doesn't even seem that amazed by the thought of alien beings flying through the stars, and you'd think someone so scientifically minded would have been aching for one little flight above her world. Archer should have allowed her one magical moment as reward for helping him (and not punching him out when he kissed her!), something to give the episode a sense of hope for this lady who will forever be left to wonder. She doesn't seem that bothered and Archer just carries on his way, off to the stars, an alien woman in every port. Not really, but it was all a bit unresolved for the Akaali.
At least the Captain isn't made to seem weak, I can give the episode credit for that, unless you consider his solo attitude to command, doing the bulk of it himself, as a weakness. I can understand why he'd want to keep contact down to a minimum, but the only reason T'Pol and Hoshi don't hang around is so that he can make friends with Riann, but I'd have much rather have seen his crew in on the action, maybe send Hoshi and T'Pol off on another part of the mission to track down other members of the Malurian gang just to give them something to do! I will say that at least all the crew were involved along the way, even though the bulk of the episode was Archer going it alone. Mayweather gets to perform some tactical manoeuvres when the Malurian ship shows up, but we don't really get a good sense of what he's doing. Phlox shows some interest and does his cosmetics, Reed is mainly there at his console, but Hoshi proves vital by assisting the translator to decipher the various languages (she's still the best bet when it comes to a Landing Party for her translation abilities, but she's also the best bet to be reticent about going!). It's great to hear alien voices again, something pretty unique to this series. We see the Communicator is actually the device that somehow translates both aliens for humans and humans for aliens (or is the 'mouthpiece' of the ship's software), and in a humorous moment Archer has to play for time when it malfunctions and he's not getting what Riann is saying. Little things like this and the idea of a sensor-protected chamber beneath the ground that shows up as nothing on sensors, worked, and it's also good to see familiar Trek tech showing up again - they'd already done a Holodeck in 'Unexpected,' now they mention the Malurians' 'fabrication device' (Replicator), energy shields and tractor beam.
It might be a little too early to be introducing such technology into the Trek universe when you think about it, because why would it take Starfleet so long to develop this stuff? The Malurians were clearly on the same level as the Vulcans, technologically, and yet they could be bested by inferior humans. I suppose that was the point, Archer had his morals and values and the energy to care about others being exploited so he's clearly being heroic here, but maybe it should have been tougher and that he couldn't have managed singlehanded? Granted, the Malurians were only a small contingent and they weren't expecting the least bit of resistance, so the element of surprise worked in his favour, but it needed more going on. At least Riann proved herself by thinking scientifically in the firefight on the street: she informs Archer the street lamp contains a flammable substance and he's able to set it off, blasting the unsuspecting Malurians into submission (there goes the neighbourhood, full-on shootout on a bustling street). But what damage was done by all this? They saved the village, perhaps even the whole world by decontaminating the water supply and warning the Malurians off, but what about all those scared villagers wondering what all this bizarre shooting was? Wouldn't they explore the villains' store and discover advanced tech since he was one of the weirdos, vanished away never to return? I like that they said the Vulcans would drop by now and again to check nothing untoward was happening, that shows a confidence in their willingness to protect the rights of pre-warp peoples, and sounds more like the Vulcans we used to know: responsible, ready to help, and just.
T'Pol is one such, and I was thinking how much things had changed on the ship from a few episodes ago when she was constantly at odds with everyone - here she seemed to be in command without dissent. And then Trip gets hotheaded and is practically insubordinate, refusing to allow the ship to leave without its Captain. This really worked as a scene because, although there is a level of trust between T'Pol and the crew, and specifically T'Pol and Trip, he would still be more prone to righteous indignation if he felt Archer was threatened. The difference now is that T'Pol is able to quickly placate him, reassuring him she has no intention of leaving the Captain behind, even if the alien was telling the truth, and he's dead. This is another turning point in the series for T'Pol's position aboard, and shows that she has the measure of her crew and Captain, she knows how to respond. That was probably the standout moment as it shows she can go along with their jokes (as she did at the beginning), but also has authority, and not just because of a Vulcan sense of superiority, as you feel that that has been dented through recent events (finding out her people had lied about P'Jem; discovering the honourable nature of the humans she works with; turning down two opportunities to leave). There was an ideal time for a Vulcan nerve pinch, when Riann threatens Archer and Trip with a crossbow, but she chooses to Phaser her instead. I wonder if her long hair as an Akaali was a wig or whether it was some kind of follicle growth stimulation? Possibly not, as we later see her with normal length hair and we don't know who cuts it on the Enterprise with Bolians not yet discovered (I imagine).
We do hear mention of Tellarites from the villain (though we'd have to wait until the penultimate episode of Season 2 to see them), and we do find out where clothing on the ship comes from: the Quartermaster! I don't think this position had been mentioned since 'TOS,' so it's good to know they weren't replicating everything in these days (or anything, for that matter!), where 'DSC' brought 24th Century tech to the 23rd, and made all eras boringly the same. One thing that series did quite well was in zooming in from orbit, something that is also done in this episode. It's less ostentatious, but done in a far less advanced time for such effects - they didn't even have drone cameras back when 'Enterprise' was being filmed so I'd love to know how they filmed the shots of the Akaali street from above. I'd also like to know how Archer knew where to take the unconscious Riann once she'd been stunned. Maybe it was in dialogue and I missed it? And Wade Williams (Garos), already had form for playing a bad guy in 'One' on 'Voyager,' as imagined by Seven of Nine. This has always been an uneven episode for me, the first time I saw it I didn't think much of it, the second time it went up in my estimation for the little details I mentioned, but seeing it now it has to be considered part of the decline from the opening salvo of episodes' greatness, not important enough on a larger scale, nor on the intimate, either. Perhaps if it had been set on an alien world we'd heard of (those Bolians, maybe?), it could have added to our knowledge of an existing race. It's important to show the universe is vast, so you need to have aliens of the week that you never, or rarely, encounter again, but in that case they need to be made not to look like throwaway races that don't really matter, and as much as Archer enjoyed this encounter, it is rather insubstantial, even if it is reassuringly comfortable.
**
Breaking The Ice (2)
DVD, Enterprise S1 (Breaking The Ice) (2)
Unquestionably, this episode marked the first danger sign for the series where either the limitations of Trek in this form, or a failure for new writers to use the characters and situations well, became apparent. Whatever the reason, I imagine this is the kind of episode which gave the series its bad reputation, as while the patient will be forgiving, for casual viewers this would probably little more than a bore. It's a little boring even watching it from my perspective as someone paying great attention for the sake of a detailed review, and that's never a good sign. The issues are that we have three or four plots, something I'm not ordinarily averse to if they show progression, but in this case none of which really feel essential or go anywhere: the main one being the exploration of an unrecorded comet, the secondary one featuring the Vulcans buzzing around, a lesser plot running through the episode about T'Pol getting a secret message from the Vulcans, and a little side order of Archer responding to the curiosity of a class of children from Ireland with a Q&A on the Bridge. Most are either problematic, slow or fail to go anywhere. It's not that it's a bad episode in the manner of a 'Precious Cargo' or 'Singularity,' the kind of dull rehashes or nonentities that Season 2 gave us, it's just that after a salvo of pretty good-to-greats this is the first to fall short on all counts.
Let's start with the main story, the discovery of the biggest unknown comet an Earth ship has ever encountered. The effects weren't the best CGI I always thought, even at the time. It all looked very basic and even 'DS9' had done better asteroidal formations a few years previous (see 'Treachery, Faith and The Great River'), not to mention its beautiful rendition of a comet in the opening credits almost ten years before! Starting off unimpressed isn't a problem, it's a challenge, but one the episode failed to live up to. I perfectly understand the need for the series to be about exploring, that's one of Trek's hallmarks and something it has largely lost now, but the exploration needs to lead to something: a new race, an important discovery, whether of scientific value or personal for the characters. It wasn't clear what the benefit of the discovery was, Reed and Mayweather sent to dig up a core sample, as at the end it's more about an action sequence where they have to get off the comet before the direct sunlight raises the temperature beyond bearable. That in itself sounds like a terrific idea for a tense story, but in execution it didn't have that drama at all (see 'Shuttlepod One' in this same season for an example that works better). It doesn't even entirely make sense as Mayweather falls while climbing out of the crater they'd blasted, injuring himself. So they were on their way back to the Shuttlepod, and only after Mayweather has tried to climb out do they decide to take the core sample with them. But they had already decided to return so wouldn't they have prioritised that?
I liked the idea that something they did, a failure to calculate what would happen to the trajectory of the comet when explosives impacted the surface, caused them a life and death situation. They're supposed to be making mistakes, they're pioneers. At the same time T'Pol is supposed to be their Science Officer and should have paid more attention so she could have warned them that such an explosion might result in that eventuality, but no extrapolations are made. Her excuse may be that she had a lot on her mind, but in that case she should show some level of owning up to a mistake or oversight, but there's never any connection made with her. The other problem is as much about what is missing from the drama as what is there. This was a prime opportunity for the writers to get to know Reed and Travis as we did in 'Strange New World' when Travis and the others sit round a campfire. The closest we come to anything personal is when the pair build a snowman, which, incidentally, Reed promises the Captain will be removed shortly when he reminds them about the need for professionalism (something the 'Discovery' crew could do with), and how they're being observed. Instead of doing what he said he would Reed later embellishes it into a snow Vulcan, Travis laughing along with him! But we don't get to see them working as a pair, talking to each other, getting beneath the surface, the comet of which could have served as a metaphor, but there's none of that. All that happens is a slow trudge back to the Shuttlepod when they're under threat.
Even the effects in this sequence are suspect: the cracks that appear in the snowy ground don't look quite right and I thought I even noticed it go over the image of one of their arms at one point, further detracting from the effects in the episode. I will say that they did another classy redress of the classic cave set, this time standing in for the rocky, icy surface of the comet, so that old favourite was still being used extremely well. I hope the cave set's manager was able to get it higher residuals on the evidence of how well it was being used! But further to the detriment of the episode it recycles an idea already performed perfectly well in 'Terra Nova,' only two episodes before: the Shuttlepod dropping through a crevasse and having to be pulled out. I don't know what it was other than the fact that they were already reusing their ideas again, but I didn't warm to this sequence when it should have been great. Maybe it was the fact they'd already managed to survive such a trial before, and without the Vulcans' help, maybe it was that it didn't look so realistic this time. Whatever, the sequence fell short, much like the NX-01's grapplers. Again, I do understand the need for a situation in which Archer has to swallow his considerable pride and request assistance from his snooty Vulcan allies, and really it's all about showing what role T'Pol has taken on, but I feel it should have been achieved better.
The Vulcans spying on our crew was also something that had potential but never went anywhere. It makes sense that they'd suddenly be showing more interest in the little Enterprise after Archer showed them up for lying in front of their enemies, the Andorians, but that episode is never called back to. And if they truly had been spying then they never would have been seen, as Captain Vanik states. It might have been more effective if they'd been keeping out of range and somehow NX-01 spotted them, or through some freak anomaly their sensors picked them up, like a spatial 'change in the wind.' Instead they come across as slightly intimidating. T'Pol's there to explain the Vulcan side, but then she's under suspicion for breaking her promise of not contacting her people without permission. This is where you can feel some unfair treatment toward her. Yes, she'd been condescending towards her human crew at the start, but by the end of the first episode she'd, if not settled in, at least made the decision to remain, which she didn't have to do. It may have been through curiosity (and latent genes of ancestors that had been interested in humanity as we learn about in Season 2), or it may have been orders from above that she merely accepted, but this episode marks the second time she had a choice to leave and decided to stay, which suggests that though she may not even know it herself, she is drawn to humans - why would she have been assigned to Earth in the first place, or was it being on Earth that activated her curiosity, couched as it was in superiority and the assurance of her race being better developed.
T'Pol is the one saving grace of the episode, all the best moments stem from her. She's there as the voice of reason when Archer's emotions become heated. And he does become a little weak, his old prejudices against Vulcans coming to the fore and being proved true by the intractable, unimpressed Vanik who doesn't respond a brass millimetre to all Archer's attempts to be diplomatic. He comes close to being the most Vulcan we've seen on the series so far in that he doesn't display emotion, but at the same time you can see in his eyes that he betrays it, and it's not the passive reserve that I like from the other Treks, there's a fiery steel behind those eyes. And he doesn't even seem capable of a proper eyebrow arch. Maybe it was the makeup making it difficult, but I really wanted a proper quizzical look in the same manner as Spock or Tuvok, and I didn't get it. There were little things like this that would have helped to improve the episode, but were missing: when they all leave the Captain's table, only Trip remains and it would have been ideal to have a long shot of the whole room to emphasise Trip being completely alone there, but it didn't happen. That, and some other things are of course subjective, my personal wishes and how I see it could have been better directed or written, but I still see things like the drama not being used effectively beyond the minor flaws.
One reason the episode drags is that it's too grounded! I love the reality of Trek, but in this case, with the extended question and answer session, I felt it was a little too contemporary. I imagine this is just the sort of thing that would happen, it probably has for the International Space Station or something like that, with people from Earth being allowed to ask questions and have them answered by the astronauts in space. I even have to say I liked that sequence of the episode, but it did go on a little too long and somehow it takes away from the cool factor of the series. It makes things look almost mundane in a way, despite the fact that it is interesting to hear about these stock questions about what life is like on a starship. So ultimately I'm undecided because it's a charming scene, yet not necessary and is a plot too many, perhaps. I'd like to know how the children's drawings made it to the NX-01, too - they can't beam things that far (this isn't the ridiculous Kelvinverse!), and the Vulcan ship certainly wouldn't stoop to delivering paper mail. So… fax? It would have made more sense to show the images on a computer screen or PADD rather than give the impression they'd been printed out. It was just one more thing that didn't make a great deal of sense.
As I said, T'Pol is the only part of the episode that really works, and her mysterious communication from the Vulcans (in beautiful Vulcan script as seen on her monitor - great attention to detail!), is the only drama of the episode. When Archer said she'd promised not to communicate I was thinking she could still be adhering to that if she was only receiving a message, not replying, and I was surprised she never brought that up. It ties directly into the fourth season and it appears to be complete fluke that Trip was the one selected to read her personal letter. I really loved Hoshi's sense of propriety and discretion in choosing not to read the message even though she'd been tasked with translating it from the Vulcan. It's only a small moment, but she went up in my estimation, and it's these little choices that add to a character's morality as much as big crescendoes in the heat of drama. The same can be said for Trip who is so guilty about having read what was assumed as a secret transmission and discovered it was entirely personal, that he decides he has to inform T'Pol. Perhaps this was the start of where things went for them and why she trusts him so much later because he showed himself to be an honourable man. He clearly could have kept it to himself and she'd never have known the difference, but he needed to let her know her confidence had been broken. It's also completely in character for the Vulcans to go through private channels for private messages, no matter what it looked like to the humans, because she wouldn't even have wanted to admit she was expecting a private message.
T'Pol is shown in quite a favourable light - next to Vanik she almost looks jolly and accommodating! I can identify somewhat with Vulcan ways (privacy; "I only drink water," says Vanik), it's one reason I like them so much, but I've never been happy with the general portrayal in the series. T'Pol here shows she's learnt a lot about human psychology when she reminds Archer that he's human, and that means he's free to choose (in this case to accept the offer of Vanik's help in rescuing the Shuttlepod), something she'd got out of the seemingly fruitless conversation with Trip in her Quarters (the first time he ever went in there, as well as the first mention of her betrothed, Koss, whom we'd eventually meet in Season 4). Trip doesn't see things as Vulcans see them, he's blinkered in that regard, but although his suggestions of how she could keep up with tradition and yet not leave the ship (it's customary for husband and wife to live together for a year after marriage so he suggests Koss could stay on Enterprise! Actually that might not have been a bad idea as T'Pol would've had a permanent Vulcan companion to sound off against), are typically unhelpful, a piece of his homespun way of looking at things does touch a chord: personal choice. For Vulcans, as T'Pol explains, commitment to tradition outweighs personal choice (sounds a bit like needs of the many over needs of the one, but more subtle than that), but she apparently follows his point of view, and gives us the best moment of the episode in that exchange with Archer, reminding him of choice, only Trip understanding where that's come from.
Choosing to stay with Enterprise further cements her dedication and commitment. I don't know if it was to Archer or to the crew, or whether she felt that's what the High Command would prefer her to do, or whether she felt that she now knew these people and would logically be a better choice to remain than for the Captain to have to break in a new Vulcan (or from her perspective, a new Vulcan having to break in the Captain!), or if she felt a certain responsibility to the ship and crew, that she knows how they act or react and she's more qualified to guide them than others would be. I don't know if any, all, or some of these things went through her head, or the heads of the writers. It might be completely selfish and she just sees this ship as an escape from all the restrained Vulcan ways she's maybe never quite fitted into. I don't know, but it's a rich vein to explore and to speculate over and it makes you appreciate her more now that she's rededicated herself to this position. The episode even ends on a high (a sugar high! As Trip said when extolling the virtues of pecan pie, 'It may not be good for the body, but it sure is good for the soul' - he'd get on famously with Deanna Troi, I can tell!), with T'Pol in her Quarters, a piece of pecan pie in front of her to symbolise her acceptance of human values and customs, tying her more tightly to her crew in a beautifully simple visual way. If only that had been the quality of the entire episode this would have kept up the hit rate of the season so far.
There had to be a failure at some point, and if this episode falls short on a number of points it does at least give us a few more details about Vulcan culture. The absolutely stunning ship design for one. I'd love to know the history of the design of Vulcan ships because we'd seen precious little before 'Enterprise' came along - the Vulcan Shuttle in 'The Motion Picture' and the craft at the end of 'First Contact' are the only ones that come immediately to mind, and there was never a set Vulcan style as there was for Klingon, Romulan, and most other races' ships. Probably because they were always seen as part of the Federation rather than being their own spacefaring culture, in which case you'd think more of their design would have been influential in Federation starships. Perhaps the amalgamation of all the founding races was taken into account, and in any case Earth's style tended to be the main source of inspiration, judging by the NX-01. But their ships were terrific, one of the things that has carried through into 'DSC' somewhat, though more angular in that century (John Eaves, what are you doing?). We also learn from T'Pol that caffeine has little effect on Vulcan physiology and that she can go without sleep for more than two days with little ill effect (just a slight headache), which again proves how cool the race is! Even their EV suits are way more advanced than what we see on NX-01 as Archer says he experienced one once and it was like flying around in your own little starship (a bit like the Thruster suit in 'TMP' or Burnham's EVA suit in 'The Vulcan Hello' maybe?).
To some extent reexamining this episode in greater detail and finding that my earlier impressions were correct and still hold up, is somewhat gratifying. Of course it would be nice if every episode I went back to proved to be better than I'd thought (I'm currently experiencing that phenomenon with 'DS9' Season 1, which is just so good, even though it's as unfinished as Odo's face, from where it would go), but at the same time you have to have weaker episodes to prove the quality of the others, and I would so much rather watch a boring episode of Trek that sprinkles a few new details about Vulcans in, or reiterates the things we already knew, than any episode of 'DSC' with its action-heavy, fantasy approach that tramples on all that was good about Trek in the past, because it's important to get that sense of place that Trek had, that sense of continuity and a consistent universe. This isn't one I'd go back to eagerly, but even it had worthwhile moments. It proved that Rick Berman and Brannon Braga's intense deep dive into the setting and characters paid off because this is the first they didn't have a hand in writing, and it shows how difficult it can be to write good drama for a new series that has yet to be established. They'd had months or years of preparation, they knew these people, they'd developed them, and one problem with the series was how well new writers adapted. It took until Season 3 for them to get another of likeminded ability in Manny Coto, and of course he went on to be its saviour (or would have been if it had been allowed to continue). Not enough credit is given to the creators on this series, and there is evidence that they were tiring of writing Trek, but without qualification I would say they gave it a terrific startup this season in the same manner as Kes pushing Voyager so far when she left.
**
Unquestionably, this episode marked the first danger sign for the series where either the limitations of Trek in this form, or a failure for new writers to use the characters and situations well, became apparent. Whatever the reason, I imagine this is the kind of episode which gave the series its bad reputation, as while the patient will be forgiving, for casual viewers this would probably little more than a bore. It's a little boring even watching it from my perspective as someone paying great attention for the sake of a detailed review, and that's never a good sign. The issues are that we have three or four plots, something I'm not ordinarily averse to if they show progression, but in this case none of which really feel essential or go anywhere: the main one being the exploration of an unrecorded comet, the secondary one featuring the Vulcans buzzing around, a lesser plot running through the episode about T'Pol getting a secret message from the Vulcans, and a little side order of Archer responding to the curiosity of a class of children from Ireland with a Q&A on the Bridge. Most are either problematic, slow or fail to go anywhere. It's not that it's a bad episode in the manner of a 'Precious Cargo' or 'Singularity,' the kind of dull rehashes or nonentities that Season 2 gave us, it's just that after a salvo of pretty good-to-greats this is the first to fall short on all counts.
Let's start with the main story, the discovery of the biggest unknown comet an Earth ship has ever encountered. The effects weren't the best CGI I always thought, even at the time. It all looked very basic and even 'DS9' had done better asteroidal formations a few years previous (see 'Treachery, Faith and The Great River'), not to mention its beautiful rendition of a comet in the opening credits almost ten years before! Starting off unimpressed isn't a problem, it's a challenge, but one the episode failed to live up to. I perfectly understand the need for the series to be about exploring, that's one of Trek's hallmarks and something it has largely lost now, but the exploration needs to lead to something: a new race, an important discovery, whether of scientific value or personal for the characters. It wasn't clear what the benefit of the discovery was, Reed and Mayweather sent to dig up a core sample, as at the end it's more about an action sequence where they have to get off the comet before the direct sunlight raises the temperature beyond bearable. That in itself sounds like a terrific idea for a tense story, but in execution it didn't have that drama at all (see 'Shuttlepod One' in this same season for an example that works better). It doesn't even entirely make sense as Mayweather falls while climbing out of the crater they'd blasted, injuring himself. So they were on their way back to the Shuttlepod, and only after Mayweather has tried to climb out do they decide to take the core sample with them. But they had already decided to return so wouldn't they have prioritised that?
I liked the idea that something they did, a failure to calculate what would happen to the trajectory of the comet when explosives impacted the surface, caused them a life and death situation. They're supposed to be making mistakes, they're pioneers. At the same time T'Pol is supposed to be their Science Officer and should have paid more attention so she could have warned them that such an explosion might result in that eventuality, but no extrapolations are made. Her excuse may be that she had a lot on her mind, but in that case she should show some level of owning up to a mistake or oversight, but there's never any connection made with her. The other problem is as much about what is missing from the drama as what is there. This was a prime opportunity for the writers to get to know Reed and Travis as we did in 'Strange New World' when Travis and the others sit round a campfire. The closest we come to anything personal is when the pair build a snowman, which, incidentally, Reed promises the Captain will be removed shortly when he reminds them about the need for professionalism (something the 'Discovery' crew could do with), and how they're being observed. Instead of doing what he said he would Reed later embellishes it into a snow Vulcan, Travis laughing along with him! But we don't get to see them working as a pair, talking to each other, getting beneath the surface, the comet of which could have served as a metaphor, but there's none of that. All that happens is a slow trudge back to the Shuttlepod when they're under threat.
Even the effects in this sequence are suspect: the cracks that appear in the snowy ground don't look quite right and I thought I even noticed it go over the image of one of their arms at one point, further detracting from the effects in the episode. I will say that they did another classy redress of the classic cave set, this time standing in for the rocky, icy surface of the comet, so that old favourite was still being used extremely well. I hope the cave set's manager was able to get it higher residuals on the evidence of how well it was being used! But further to the detriment of the episode it recycles an idea already performed perfectly well in 'Terra Nova,' only two episodes before: the Shuttlepod dropping through a crevasse and having to be pulled out. I don't know what it was other than the fact that they were already reusing their ideas again, but I didn't warm to this sequence when it should have been great. Maybe it was the fact they'd already managed to survive such a trial before, and without the Vulcans' help, maybe it was that it didn't look so realistic this time. Whatever, the sequence fell short, much like the NX-01's grapplers. Again, I do understand the need for a situation in which Archer has to swallow his considerable pride and request assistance from his snooty Vulcan allies, and really it's all about showing what role T'Pol has taken on, but I feel it should have been achieved better.
The Vulcans spying on our crew was also something that had potential but never went anywhere. It makes sense that they'd suddenly be showing more interest in the little Enterprise after Archer showed them up for lying in front of their enemies, the Andorians, but that episode is never called back to. And if they truly had been spying then they never would have been seen, as Captain Vanik states. It might have been more effective if they'd been keeping out of range and somehow NX-01 spotted them, or through some freak anomaly their sensors picked them up, like a spatial 'change in the wind.' Instead they come across as slightly intimidating. T'Pol's there to explain the Vulcan side, but then she's under suspicion for breaking her promise of not contacting her people without permission. This is where you can feel some unfair treatment toward her. Yes, she'd been condescending towards her human crew at the start, but by the end of the first episode she'd, if not settled in, at least made the decision to remain, which she didn't have to do. It may have been through curiosity (and latent genes of ancestors that had been interested in humanity as we learn about in Season 2), or it may have been orders from above that she merely accepted, but this episode marks the second time she had a choice to leave and decided to stay, which suggests that though she may not even know it herself, she is drawn to humans - why would she have been assigned to Earth in the first place, or was it being on Earth that activated her curiosity, couched as it was in superiority and the assurance of her race being better developed.
T'Pol is the one saving grace of the episode, all the best moments stem from her. She's there as the voice of reason when Archer's emotions become heated. And he does become a little weak, his old prejudices against Vulcans coming to the fore and being proved true by the intractable, unimpressed Vanik who doesn't respond a brass millimetre to all Archer's attempts to be diplomatic. He comes close to being the most Vulcan we've seen on the series so far in that he doesn't display emotion, but at the same time you can see in his eyes that he betrays it, and it's not the passive reserve that I like from the other Treks, there's a fiery steel behind those eyes. And he doesn't even seem capable of a proper eyebrow arch. Maybe it was the makeup making it difficult, but I really wanted a proper quizzical look in the same manner as Spock or Tuvok, and I didn't get it. There were little things like this that would have helped to improve the episode, but were missing: when they all leave the Captain's table, only Trip remains and it would have been ideal to have a long shot of the whole room to emphasise Trip being completely alone there, but it didn't happen. That, and some other things are of course subjective, my personal wishes and how I see it could have been better directed or written, but I still see things like the drama not being used effectively beyond the minor flaws.
One reason the episode drags is that it's too grounded! I love the reality of Trek, but in this case, with the extended question and answer session, I felt it was a little too contemporary. I imagine this is just the sort of thing that would happen, it probably has for the International Space Station or something like that, with people from Earth being allowed to ask questions and have them answered by the astronauts in space. I even have to say I liked that sequence of the episode, but it did go on a little too long and somehow it takes away from the cool factor of the series. It makes things look almost mundane in a way, despite the fact that it is interesting to hear about these stock questions about what life is like on a starship. So ultimately I'm undecided because it's a charming scene, yet not necessary and is a plot too many, perhaps. I'd like to know how the children's drawings made it to the NX-01, too - they can't beam things that far (this isn't the ridiculous Kelvinverse!), and the Vulcan ship certainly wouldn't stoop to delivering paper mail. So… fax? It would have made more sense to show the images on a computer screen or PADD rather than give the impression they'd been printed out. It was just one more thing that didn't make a great deal of sense.
As I said, T'Pol is the only part of the episode that really works, and her mysterious communication from the Vulcans (in beautiful Vulcan script as seen on her monitor - great attention to detail!), is the only drama of the episode. When Archer said she'd promised not to communicate I was thinking she could still be adhering to that if she was only receiving a message, not replying, and I was surprised she never brought that up. It ties directly into the fourth season and it appears to be complete fluke that Trip was the one selected to read her personal letter. I really loved Hoshi's sense of propriety and discretion in choosing not to read the message even though she'd been tasked with translating it from the Vulcan. It's only a small moment, but she went up in my estimation, and it's these little choices that add to a character's morality as much as big crescendoes in the heat of drama. The same can be said for Trip who is so guilty about having read what was assumed as a secret transmission and discovered it was entirely personal, that he decides he has to inform T'Pol. Perhaps this was the start of where things went for them and why she trusts him so much later because he showed himself to be an honourable man. He clearly could have kept it to himself and she'd never have known the difference, but he needed to let her know her confidence had been broken. It's also completely in character for the Vulcans to go through private channels for private messages, no matter what it looked like to the humans, because she wouldn't even have wanted to admit she was expecting a private message.
T'Pol is shown in quite a favourable light - next to Vanik she almost looks jolly and accommodating! I can identify somewhat with Vulcan ways (privacy; "I only drink water," says Vanik), it's one reason I like them so much, but I've never been happy with the general portrayal in the series. T'Pol here shows she's learnt a lot about human psychology when she reminds Archer that he's human, and that means he's free to choose (in this case to accept the offer of Vanik's help in rescuing the Shuttlepod), something she'd got out of the seemingly fruitless conversation with Trip in her Quarters (the first time he ever went in there, as well as the first mention of her betrothed, Koss, whom we'd eventually meet in Season 4). Trip doesn't see things as Vulcans see them, he's blinkered in that regard, but although his suggestions of how she could keep up with tradition and yet not leave the ship (it's customary for husband and wife to live together for a year after marriage so he suggests Koss could stay on Enterprise! Actually that might not have been a bad idea as T'Pol would've had a permanent Vulcan companion to sound off against), are typically unhelpful, a piece of his homespun way of looking at things does touch a chord: personal choice. For Vulcans, as T'Pol explains, commitment to tradition outweighs personal choice (sounds a bit like needs of the many over needs of the one, but more subtle than that), but she apparently follows his point of view, and gives us the best moment of the episode in that exchange with Archer, reminding him of choice, only Trip understanding where that's come from.
Choosing to stay with Enterprise further cements her dedication and commitment. I don't know if it was to Archer or to the crew, or whether she felt that's what the High Command would prefer her to do, or whether she felt that she now knew these people and would logically be a better choice to remain than for the Captain to have to break in a new Vulcan (or from her perspective, a new Vulcan having to break in the Captain!), or if she felt a certain responsibility to the ship and crew, that she knows how they act or react and she's more qualified to guide them than others would be. I don't know if any, all, or some of these things went through her head, or the heads of the writers. It might be completely selfish and she just sees this ship as an escape from all the restrained Vulcan ways she's maybe never quite fitted into. I don't know, but it's a rich vein to explore and to speculate over and it makes you appreciate her more now that she's rededicated herself to this position. The episode even ends on a high (a sugar high! As Trip said when extolling the virtues of pecan pie, 'It may not be good for the body, but it sure is good for the soul' - he'd get on famously with Deanna Troi, I can tell!), with T'Pol in her Quarters, a piece of pecan pie in front of her to symbolise her acceptance of human values and customs, tying her more tightly to her crew in a beautifully simple visual way. If only that had been the quality of the entire episode this would have kept up the hit rate of the season so far.
There had to be a failure at some point, and if this episode falls short on a number of points it does at least give us a few more details about Vulcan culture. The absolutely stunning ship design for one. I'd love to know the history of the design of Vulcan ships because we'd seen precious little before 'Enterprise' came along - the Vulcan Shuttle in 'The Motion Picture' and the craft at the end of 'First Contact' are the only ones that come immediately to mind, and there was never a set Vulcan style as there was for Klingon, Romulan, and most other races' ships. Probably because they were always seen as part of the Federation rather than being their own spacefaring culture, in which case you'd think more of their design would have been influential in Federation starships. Perhaps the amalgamation of all the founding races was taken into account, and in any case Earth's style tended to be the main source of inspiration, judging by the NX-01. But their ships were terrific, one of the things that has carried through into 'DSC' somewhat, though more angular in that century (John Eaves, what are you doing?). We also learn from T'Pol that caffeine has little effect on Vulcan physiology and that she can go without sleep for more than two days with little ill effect (just a slight headache), which again proves how cool the race is! Even their EV suits are way more advanced than what we see on NX-01 as Archer says he experienced one once and it was like flying around in your own little starship (a bit like the Thruster suit in 'TMP' or Burnham's EVA suit in 'The Vulcan Hello' maybe?).
To some extent reexamining this episode in greater detail and finding that my earlier impressions were correct and still hold up, is somewhat gratifying. Of course it would be nice if every episode I went back to proved to be better than I'd thought (I'm currently experiencing that phenomenon with 'DS9' Season 1, which is just so good, even though it's as unfinished as Odo's face, from where it would go), but at the same time you have to have weaker episodes to prove the quality of the others, and I would so much rather watch a boring episode of Trek that sprinkles a few new details about Vulcans in, or reiterates the things we already knew, than any episode of 'DSC' with its action-heavy, fantasy approach that tramples on all that was good about Trek in the past, because it's important to get that sense of place that Trek had, that sense of continuity and a consistent universe. This isn't one I'd go back to eagerly, but even it had worthwhile moments. It proved that Rick Berman and Brannon Braga's intense deep dive into the setting and characters paid off because this is the first they didn't have a hand in writing, and it shows how difficult it can be to write good drama for a new series that has yet to be established. They'd had months or years of preparation, they knew these people, they'd developed them, and one problem with the series was how well new writers adapted. It took until Season 3 for them to get another of likeminded ability in Manny Coto, and of course he went on to be its saviour (or would have been if it had been allowed to continue). Not enough credit is given to the creators on this series, and there is evidence that they were tiring of writing Trek, but without qualification I would say they gave it a terrific startup this season in the same manner as Kes pushing Voyager so far when she left.
**
Flesh and Blood
DVD, Stargate SG-1 S10 (Flesh and Blood)
I was looking forward to getting back into real 'Stargate,' no spinoffs, just Carter, Teal'c and Daniel, and of course the other characters, especially as it left things in a pretty rum state at the end of Season 9. We leap right into proceedings here and it's a little chaotic, so realistic in terms of presenting war, though as Mitchell says, not a lot of war is going on when the bad guys are doing all the winning. They tore through the band of allied ships, as we saw, and here we get the odd flashback to find out the fate of each of our heroes. The episode, as is so often the case with resolutions to cliffhangers, exists mainly to bring the gang back together from whatever tricky situations they were in at the end of the previous season, as well as to set up the new threat for the season. Unlike the start of Season 9 they didn't have the advantage of starting a whole new story off, so it does feel a lot like season starters of old when it jumps right in and doesn't spare those who aren't keeping up. It had been over a year since I last saw 'SG-1' so it was a little bit of a struggle remembering where everyone was and the import of what was going on, so I didn't find it the most accessible, but then that's classic 'SG-1.' That it doesn't have much of a complete story is also true to form for the kind of serialised drama the series had morphed into, following the trend of TV in the late 2000s onwards, much more like an instalment of events in a bite-size format.
The important thing is that everyone's alright. Well, almost everyone, as it's pretty definite that the good old Russian colonel who had been in it from the early seasons, is no more, considering his ship, the Korolev, was utterly blasted apart with only Jackson having the chance to escape via Ring Transporter (though I noticed they've dropped all pretence to try and sound different to the Transporter in 'Star Trek' and just call it beaming now). I did think that the way some characters escaped or survived wasn't all that heroic and if there was a theme for the episode it would be that the main cast really don't want to die. And I get it, I don't want them to either, but at the same time desperately trying to save their own skins and not anyone else at the same time just came across as lacking in moral fibre. Again, I understand what was happening: Mitchell had split seconds to leap into a glider and blast out of there, and Daniel was in the same split second predicament, throwing himself into the Transporter and beaming away, but I couldn't help think that they might have saved at least one other person since the glider has room for one more, and the Rings likewise. And Mitchell does seem a bit whiny when Bra'tac's being his warrior self and ready to end it all!
Teal'c doesn't even get the action moment of an escape, being beamed away from the Lucian Alliance ship which had descended into anarchy as soon as the battle was over, blaming Teal'c and the other allies for deliberately getting them into this defeated position and then the leader of the Lucians taking out his frustration on Teal'c because it'll make him feel better. So much for the grand alliance of all factions versus The Ori! We get them all safe together by the end, including Daniel, who'd beamed onto Vala's ship, handily, and she gets rescued too - Claudia Black now a fully paid up main cast member, in the opening credits and everything! Took a long time coming, but she got there. Bra'tac almost ruins everything with his wish for a hopeless kamikaze attack on an Ori vessel over Chulak, their destination after they'd won the big battle, but fortunately the Earth ship under Emerson arrives in the nick of time to beam them all up. But it does seem like a situation of utter despair as these Ori ships are seemingly unstoppable and relentless, easily obliterating any ship that defies them. The episode ends with hope, however, as Carter reminds her friends and us, the audience, that the Goa'uld once seemed like an impossible force to overcome and some said Earth had no chance to stand up to them, and yet here they are. So there is still hope, and it probably lies in Vala's baby.
It was a little girl who was named the Orici, the one who will lead The Ori, with knowledge of the Ancients and all the mythology. Either it was genetic or she'd been given the complete boxed set of 'SG-1' fed directly into her brain. As expected, she's weird, with orange eyes and a vastly advanced growth rate so that she's no sooner taken away as a newborn babe, than she's returned to her Mother as a young girl. Vala isn't the best at trickery because she just has the face and voice of a liar so she was never going to turn the creature to the side of good (I'm not sure Vala could even be considered good except that she does work for the good guys despite all her flaws and vices). It seems this Orici is to be the main villain of the piece and next time we see her she'll be fully grown. Not having strong memories of what happened at the end of last season I forgot Vala was even pregnant and all the talk about the Ancients and the ascended was a bit heavy to take in. In fact I'd say the episode itself was a bit heavy and danced around quite a lot to disguise it all - the best bit might have been Carter being rescued by Mitchell driving the ship right at her so she got popped into the hangar bay, a risky procedure, but less demeaning than if she had to make a quick exit like the boys did. It's hard to go back to something that is so self-referential and deep in its own mythology, but I'm sure I'll settle back in in an episode or two. Until then it was nice to see the characters back as a team, even though 'big' episodes tend to be less engaging because there's less happening with the characters and it's more about the events around them.
**
I was looking forward to getting back into real 'Stargate,' no spinoffs, just Carter, Teal'c and Daniel, and of course the other characters, especially as it left things in a pretty rum state at the end of Season 9. We leap right into proceedings here and it's a little chaotic, so realistic in terms of presenting war, though as Mitchell says, not a lot of war is going on when the bad guys are doing all the winning. They tore through the band of allied ships, as we saw, and here we get the odd flashback to find out the fate of each of our heroes. The episode, as is so often the case with resolutions to cliffhangers, exists mainly to bring the gang back together from whatever tricky situations they were in at the end of the previous season, as well as to set up the new threat for the season. Unlike the start of Season 9 they didn't have the advantage of starting a whole new story off, so it does feel a lot like season starters of old when it jumps right in and doesn't spare those who aren't keeping up. It had been over a year since I last saw 'SG-1' so it was a little bit of a struggle remembering where everyone was and the import of what was going on, so I didn't find it the most accessible, but then that's classic 'SG-1.' That it doesn't have much of a complete story is also true to form for the kind of serialised drama the series had morphed into, following the trend of TV in the late 2000s onwards, much more like an instalment of events in a bite-size format.
The important thing is that everyone's alright. Well, almost everyone, as it's pretty definite that the good old Russian colonel who had been in it from the early seasons, is no more, considering his ship, the Korolev, was utterly blasted apart with only Jackson having the chance to escape via Ring Transporter (though I noticed they've dropped all pretence to try and sound different to the Transporter in 'Star Trek' and just call it beaming now). I did think that the way some characters escaped or survived wasn't all that heroic and if there was a theme for the episode it would be that the main cast really don't want to die. And I get it, I don't want them to either, but at the same time desperately trying to save their own skins and not anyone else at the same time just came across as lacking in moral fibre. Again, I understand what was happening: Mitchell had split seconds to leap into a glider and blast out of there, and Daniel was in the same split second predicament, throwing himself into the Transporter and beaming away, but I couldn't help think that they might have saved at least one other person since the glider has room for one more, and the Rings likewise. And Mitchell does seem a bit whiny when Bra'tac's being his warrior self and ready to end it all!
Teal'c doesn't even get the action moment of an escape, being beamed away from the Lucian Alliance ship which had descended into anarchy as soon as the battle was over, blaming Teal'c and the other allies for deliberately getting them into this defeated position and then the leader of the Lucians taking out his frustration on Teal'c because it'll make him feel better. So much for the grand alliance of all factions versus The Ori! We get them all safe together by the end, including Daniel, who'd beamed onto Vala's ship, handily, and she gets rescued too - Claudia Black now a fully paid up main cast member, in the opening credits and everything! Took a long time coming, but she got there. Bra'tac almost ruins everything with his wish for a hopeless kamikaze attack on an Ori vessel over Chulak, their destination after they'd won the big battle, but fortunately the Earth ship under Emerson arrives in the nick of time to beam them all up. But it does seem like a situation of utter despair as these Ori ships are seemingly unstoppable and relentless, easily obliterating any ship that defies them. The episode ends with hope, however, as Carter reminds her friends and us, the audience, that the Goa'uld once seemed like an impossible force to overcome and some said Earth had no chance to stand up to them, and yet here they are. So there is still hope, and it probably lies in Vala's baby.
It was a little girl who was named the Orici, the one who will lead The Ori, with knowledge of the Ancients and all the mythology. Either it was genetic or she'd been given the complete boxed set of 'SG-1' fed directly into her brain. As expected, she's weird, with orange eyes and a vastly advanced growth rate so that she's no sooner taken away as a newborn babe, than she's returned to her Mother as a young girl. Vala isn't the best at trickery because she just has the face and voice of a liar so she was never going to turn the creature to the side of good (I'm not sure Vala could even be considered good except that she does work for the good guys despite all her flaws and vices). It seems this Orici is to be the main villain of the piece and next time we see her she'll be fully grown. Not having strong memories of what happened at the end of last season I forgot Vala was even pregnant and all the talk about the Ancients and the ascended was a bit heavy to take in. In fact I'd say the episode itself was a bit heavy and danced around quite a lot to disguise it all - the best bit might have been Carter being rescued by Mitchell driving the ship right at her so she got popped into the hangar bay, a risky procedure, but less demeaning than if she had to make a quick exit like the boys did. It's hard to go back to something that is so self-referential and deep in its own mythology, but I'm sure I'll settle back in in an episode or two. Until then it was nice to see the characters back as a team, even though 'big' episodes tend to be less engaging because there's less happening with the characters and it's more about the events around them.
**
The Andorian Incident (2)
DVD, Enterprise S1 (The Andorian Incident) (2)
Shock value must have been this episode's main draw at the time because it's gone down as one of my favourites of the series. It still retains the shocks, and outside of the obvious the one that pleased me was: Landing Party! Landing Party! Landing Party! Yes, at last, just what I've been waiting for since the start of the season, someone (Reed does the honours), talks of the Landing Party rather than ignoring this well-worn piece of 'TOS' terminology. The episode doesn't shy away from embracing the Trek canon with references to Surak (oddly brought up by Archer in his scene of bamboozling the enemy by chattering away ten to the dozen in order to disguise his real reason for wanting out of the Vulcans' cell: to drop a small icon through the face in the wall so Trip can work out where it opens out to. But why didn't they just go up and look out through the holes of the eyes and mouth, they'd have seen the main entrance chamber without the Captain having to endure a beating!), Kolinahr (the Vulcans seem very free with the information, uncharacteristically, but then they were hiding something so perhaps they were trying to present as open and honest an attitude as possible to fool everyone), and the mating rituals where females force males to fight each other to the death over them, crassly brought up by one of the Andorians to show how bad he is. Andorians, there it is, I tried to put off writing the name, but the secret (on this two decades old episode with the clue in the title!), is out, and is a far, far worse kept secret than Vulcans hiding a spy station under their monastery.
If there was to be a series set pre-'TOS,' then it needed to explore the races we knew from 'TOS,' not just humanity's early attempts at exploring the galaxy. On a side note, Trip and Archer have a little discussion early on where Trip wonders why they should visit places humans have already been, or that the Vulcans have given them star charts for, and he replies 'we haven't been there,' meaning humans in general, but specifically Archer and his crew. To me, this was a light jab at viewers who may have been wondering, as Trip was, what was the point of a series going where man in the future will have gone before in other series', rather than where no one had been, and there are two answers to that: one is, for all the exploration seen in 'TOS,' 'TNG,' 'DS9,' and 'Voyager,' they'd all been focused outward, and with the exception of 'DS9' had not tried to examine known space and deal with the realities and complexities of future life in the stars with their galactic neighbours and familiar planets on a regular basis. 'Enterprise' had the chance to solidify the races, pin down the places, and be face to face with the known. The other point is that every experience a crew goes through is different depending on the crew - I've often said that Trek can do the same episode in a multitude of different ways depending on which character is at the centre of it. Worf will react differently to Hoshi, Janeway to Scotty, so even if we knew every facet of every race and situation Trek could put its characters into we can still have a different experience and learn about the individuals. And that is, at heart, the very essence of Trek: to explore the human condition (even if it has been largely lost in the last decade to simplistic, action-based adventure).
Okay, that was a little more than an aside, but I think I've made the point that 'Enterprise' didn't need to go beyond known space to make its mark, and one thing I do love about this episode is that it began to set up the familiar races and politics that are necessary for a fully rounded Trek series to properly carry the mantle of 'Star Trek.' One of the things that made 'TNG' and its 24th Century brethren stand above 'TOS' was in its careful interweaving of detailed races and their politics into the fabric of the adventures. Not every episode featured Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans and others, but every season would have its share of tales that would further our knowledge of these key races and expand on other, secondary races until there was a shorthand that loyal viewers were rewarded by picking up on. Although much of Trek featured little serialisation, there was a steady, growing shape to events and characters' lives which demonstrated change and development, and this was in a large part to the consistent fleshing out of the universe our heroes inhabit (one reason 'Discovery' infuriates in its inability to explore such nuances by preferring big, bombastic mysteries or physical adventure over introspection and thoughtful exploration, ignoring the main characteristics Trek has always worked under). The tapestry of galactic politics is integral to making a believable world, and though 'Enterprise' didn't do that nearly enough for my liking (two-dimensional Klingons, not following up with races that only had cameos, like the Tholians), one area they succeeded satisfactorily with was the Andorians.
Designing 'Enterprise' they really wanted to make it feel as grounded as possible, an extrapolation from our own time, which in turn could morph into 'TOS,' and so they stayed away from a lot of the 'TOS' stylings (also perhaps from the same reason of wanting to fashion their own identity as 'TNG' did by avoiding most familiar races for much of its first season), of outlandish aliens with green skin, tentacles, antennae - the 1950s aesthetic that had naturally bled over into 'TOS' in the 1960s. So the Klingons were bumpy-headed like the ones seen in everything post-'TOS,' the uniforms were functional and had an air of NASA about them. They preferred to travel down to planets by Shuttlepod rather than beam. And no Romulans allowed. Sometimes you have to make an exception that proves the rule, however, and the Andorians were it: blue-skinned, white-haired aliens with antennae represented exactly the kind of thing they didn't want the series perceived as, but at the same time if they were going to play in this universe they had to follow the rules to some extent, and though the founding of the Federation wasn't really the guiding arc of the series in the way that Voyager was always trying to get home, the pieces needed to be put in place, and what better way than to have some fun for an episode. I don't know whether the success of the episode was what changed their minds about introducing more building blocks of 'TOS' into the mix, but the advantage of a 'long' season of twenty-plus episodes allowed for course corrections and reaction to audience tastes, unlike now where a season is all done before it launches, and only violent reaction online between seasons can show how badly some decisions have gone down with the faithful (as seen by how 'Into Darkness' tried to fix many of the concerns over the first Kelvinverse film, or 'DSC' tried to do the same for its second season).
Whatever the case, the Andorians proved that you could do classic Trek races, updated for the modern day, and make it work. One of the few (only?), things I would say that 'DSC' has done better than any other Trek is making their version of the Andorians hark back closer to 'TOS,' with a gaunt actor in the role, high cheekboned and with the right amount of hair. Not sure the extended brow was necessary, but they did well, especially after ruining the Klingon look so effectively. What they didn't have are the detail that went into the antennae. The makers of 'Enterprise' were keen on making advances, but also having them make sense. In 'TOS' they didn't have money or technology to make Andorian antennae move, this being one of the great ideas 'Enterprise' brought. Andorians had been seen sparingly through Trek history (in the Federation Council of 'Star Trek IV,' a couple of minor times on 'TNG'), and always with static antennae, so why not make them move, and not only that, but correspond those movement to their emotional state? It was a brilliant idea and it's easy to forget now how revolutionary an idea it was to update a race in that ingenious way. Not only did they enable a potentially daft, pulpy sci-fi alien to have more reality, but they were using advances in technology to their best advantage to pull it off. I don't get the impression the Andorians (or Andorian, it seems to me we only ever see the same guy!), on 'DSC' follow the ideas laid out by 'Enterprise,' because while the antennae there do move a little, they don't appear to possess any particular meaning, another example of the kind of showing off of effects without thinking things through that that Trek is all about.
At least with the 'Enterprise' Andorians, although their heads look a bit bulbous, and in this first appearance you can see the blue paint has rubbed away a little in places to reveal pinkish areas, it all came down to characterisation, and they made one of the best decisions of the series by bringing in noted Trek actor Jeffrey Combs as the lead. That this character went so far in people's estimation that it has been said by the makers it was planned for him to join the series as a regular if Season 5 had gone ahead, is testament to the energy and effort brought to bringing this species back to life as Combs did. He, of so many recurring Trek guest stars, is up there at, or near, the top spot (it's so difficult with the number of greats on even just 'DS9' to narrow it down to one person). He'd already made his mark on Trek history forever with his turns as Weyoun, the slimy Vorta of the Dominion, and Brunt, the cowardly, bullying Ferengi who was Quark's nemesis, but like Quark actor Armin Shimerman, he now had the opportunity to define an entire race, and he goes to it with a will, making Shran (I'm not even sure we heard his name spoken), one of, if not the, most memorable recurring role on the series. And he's surprisingly brutal when you think how much of a friendship would grow between him and Archer over the course of the series. He could never be entirely trusted (just witness his entry into the Xindi saga of Season 3), but that trusting distrust and the humour of their respective positions in regard to each other was what developed a hearty respect between Archer and Shran.
And it all began here when the Captain turns against his Vulcan allies to support a man that has given him a good going over - it shows what kind of a man Archer is. Yes, you could suggest he was doing it to be spiteful toward the Vulcans, considering his history with them, but when you see how he's adapted to working alongside a Vulcan on a permanent basis in T'Pol, and you how he could have had his ego bruised as much as his face by the Andorians, he has those qualities you want in a heroic Captain. He operates from a place of strength even when he's on his knees having an Andorian rifle butt in the face, he takes the punishment and even goes back for more just to do the 'statue in the wall face' trick, baffling Shran at his attitude towards taking pain. He also refuses to capitulate to threats, and this is something shared by Reed, whom is left in command and we actually get to see taking the Captain's Chair - in fact we see him more in command than when Trip held the position in the previous episode. This is certainly not a time where the Captain or his Security Chief look weak. I love that Reed's usual pessimism and suspicious nature means that he doesn't assume everything's just fine and dandy down on the planet when there's been no contact with the Landing Party, and even when the others, like Hoshi, are smiling at his overcautiousness (reminding me of the times when Vulcan crewmembers were mocked for their over-preparation before being vindicated), he's proved right, and if such an attitude can save lives even once then it's a good deal, and as Archer said, Reed's attitude is why he chose him.
It was immense fun to see the Andorians, and they were an ideal race to be primed for a new Trek series since very little was known about them and yet they were said to be one of the founders of the Federation along with other notables the Vulcans and Tellarites. I only wish we could have had greater political and racial exploration across the series, one area they fell down on, getting lost in reset button action adventures of the week and not including enough ongoing plots for my satisfaction: the Temporal Cold War, the Suliban, the Klingon situation, the Vulcans, the Andorians and even other 'TOS' races could have done with a lot more movement on the chess board, but you never got a sense that they were building to something they'd planned out. The structure was a little too loose, and while I'd prefer more 'capsule' episodes where the end is the end of a story yet opens up future possibilities a lot more than the 'DSC' complete serialisation format, they could have achieved so much more if they'd thought through where they were going and the points they wanted to hit along the way. I will say that Berman and Braga developed a great opening sequence of episodes and I've always considered this one the last in that line where presumably they had expended so much thought and energy into boosting the series off that it caused a little drifting for periods of the season after this point, no matter the quality of some individual episodes. It's like they had been able to plan out the first six episodes over months of deliberation, but then the season caught up with them and they didn't quite know where to go with it.
Though the Andorians get all the attention in this episode the Vulcans were also a big draw for me, being my favourite race as they are. I liked the more traditional mien of these examples of the race, different from the barely contained emotions of Soval and his ilk, and yet this was the first true episode about the race on a series that used them a lot. It must have been that these were greater adherents to the creed of Surak than many of the other Vulcans we saw, as they were much more into the nonviolent, peaceful, emotions under wraps style that appeal about the race so much. It helped having another known Trek guest star in the main role, Bruce French having been there at the beginning of 'Voyager' for its pilot where he played an Ocampan, one of Kes' people. He'd also been in 'TNG' and had a small role in 'Insurrection,' but the Ocampan Doctor is the most memorable - I wonder if Director Roxann Dawson remembered him from her first episode as B'Elanna Torres and brought him back because of that? In any case it was his last role in Trek, but he was always good at projecting peace and care, ideal for the blind that this monastery is genuinely hiding what the Andorians fear. I wasn't so enamoured of the younger Vulcan who does act more like the other unconstrained members of his race, showing concern or superiority, even looking perturbed when Archer thumps him on his glass jaw. You could assume he's not a genuine adherent of the monastery, hence his attitude, really there to help liaise with the listening post below. Yet if he was a Vulcan spy you'd think he wouldn't be so weak as to be downed by a puny human's punch!
I get that he was supposed to represent the devious side of the Vulcans and Archer knocking him to the ground (as he threatened to do in the pilot), was meant to be cathartic, but the portrayal never landed far enough into the 'arrogant Vulcans we don't like' end of the spectrum, and he was somewhere between the true and trusted leader of the place, and the Soval type so it didn't quite play well when Archer decked him! Mind you, the Captain had been under a lot of pressure and he'd already been brutalised himself, so you could put that down to a bit of weakness there that he didn't control himself. It would have been better if T'Pol herself had performed a nerve pinch, but I can never be sure how secret such an act is supposed to be at this time. There's so much Vulcans keep to themselves, so their hidden listening base was completely in keeping with their position on things - if it's logical to deceive, then deceive they will! I never had a problem with Vulcans apparently being 'bad guys' in the series. If they could justify anything through logic as we've seen happen over the years, then in a less enlightened time, a time of greater external threats (and as we see in Season 4 with Romulan intrigue, internal threats, too), whether that be from Klingons or the meddling of their human allies rushing round off the leash and getting involved in things that stirred up hornets' nests, I can believe that they would be conducting all kinds of surveillance and operations to form plans to protect their position in the galaxy.
No, what I couldn't stand about the Vulcans in this series was always their surface emotions coming to the fore, whether it be T'Pol or the guest Vulcan. Bruce French did a pretty good job, even if he did look somewhat worried throughout the episode, but I did appreciate the attempts to remind us of the differences between Vulcans and humans. So T'Pol reports that the serene elder seems agitated and Trip remarks that she calls that agitated? That's exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see, as is the moment when Archer is given a blanket for the cold night in the monastery and offers it to T'Pol, but she refuses saying he needs it more than her. Because he would, as humans are less able to cope with the cold or heat than the more rigorous world of the Vulcans has inured them to. The issue of Vulcan secrecy is uncertain in this particular episode. So often on the series T'Pol comes out with private things about her people (though it's been nice to see that they started off trying to keep things secret as much as possible, and there's always the argument that Starfleet isn't the Federation so Federation records might not be as complete in the future, enabling Spock to still remain the only one on a ship of humans that knows about Pon Farr and that sort of thing), as she does about the Kolinahr here (and the Stone of J'Kah - was that a 'Babylon 5' reference to G'Kar? Andreas Katsulas even showed up on the series in Season 2!), yet at the same time humans don't know about Andorians! You'd think they'd know of a threatening neighbour to their closest (only?), galactic allies and also be aware of their main enemy!
It could be a case of size. I can buy that Andorians had never heard of Earth as I imagine the wise old Vulcans made contact with a number of planets and races at the stage they reached warp travel, if only to stop them suddenly flooding out into space and causing chaos in the well-ordered space lanes that Vulcans had seemingly tasked themselves with patrolling (this is all my imagination, but it comes from the attitudes we see from them and that their sense of responsibility is as much about self-preservation of them and their culture as it is nurturing allies). Earth is just one small planet, no matter how many cargo ships went out like Travis' family, trading back and forth. But Andor must be a bigger deal. Maybe they, like Earth, aren't one of the major players at this time (or at any time once they were subsumed into the Federation), and are more of a thorn in the Vulcans' side than a real danger like the Klingons. Then again, humans didn't even know about them until one dropped in to blow up a grain silo at the start of the season so perhaps Archer and others haven't given the Vulcan files enough respect, or they've been heavily redacted. It's only because Reed says he's consulted the Vulcan database and found out about the Andorians, so it's not like the Vulcans kept them a complete secret. Maybe they were lost in reams of races as I can imagine the Vulcans not wanting humans to know about their conflicts with others.
Other things I like about the episode include the face in the wall, reminding me of the one in 'Roman Holiday'; the inside of the spy station having computer designs reminiscent of 'TOS' (coloured rectangles and other shapes on black backgrounds you can just about make out in the distance), and the scene-setting CGI environments, a beautiful rendition of the monastery. I also like that the facility was realistic for its function. None of your secret caves of time crystals as 'DSC' threw in our faces, turning Klingon monastery Boreth into this ridiculous fantasy world and ruining its sense of reality. The caves in this episode are catacombs, and the good old cave set is redressed yet again in as many episodes. This time it's all cobwebs, Vulcan corpses and the remains of sculptures and antiques, which I thought were a brilliant production design for a set that could easily become tired, it's used so much. But they keep making it different enough to be a whole other environment, and the sound of the rushing winds and the sombre score all sell the environment expertly. Production design is certainly one of the high points, whether that be the Andorians themselves or the Vulcan details, and even more when you add the two together for the impressive entrance of the antennaed ones! I liked the justification for why the NX-01 couldn't call down to the planet to announce their presence - the monks consider technology to be a distraction (a valuable nugget of wisdom, especially for today!), and so don't have the facility to accept calls (much like me not having a mobile phone!). We learn the Andorians have inferior technology to Vulcans with no Transporters, for example. Talking of which, it seems dangerous to beam multiple people on the NX-01's pad at the same time, but then it was still early days of the technology's protocols, and I like that Reed has no time to be concerned about using it since he's too worried about what's happened to his Captain than anything else.
The episode doesn't feature a great deal of character moments, but we do get another little scene between T'Pol and Phlox as they dine together in the Mess, discussing being aliens on a human ship. I wonder if we get many more such scenes - if not we'll know why: Phlox incurs his First Officer's grave displeasure by grabbing a stick of celery off her plate! I know he's an alien, but surely he must know what Vulcans are like. In another misguided reminder of the Vulcan IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations), he clumsily reminds her of what it's all about, but as usual in this progressive stance the usually wise Vulcans never seem to realise that infinite means unending; everything. That means the worst degradation is still part of diverse thinking and is the reason IDIC simply does not work as a concept. People will always say that 'well of course it doesn't mean we accept…' but then what you're saying is that the words themselves are meaningless. If it was Almost Inifnite Diversity in Most Acceptable Combinations then there would be less of a problem (although there's still the issue of a creed that suggests embracing almost everything, and the wider you expand to include, the better, is that if you live by specific rules then these rules are at risk of breaking down under such a philosophy, putting society at risk for failing to realise certain rules are there for protection), but AIDMAC doesn't have the same ring to it, and it's still down to subjective thinking on what's acceptable and what isn't, which changes in societies over the course of time, going round in circles, not ever upward as some seem to think.
Phlox' IDIC chat was really only a reason to include him in the episode, something which would become increasingly problematic, and not just for him. While the main three and Reed could all be worked into action stories easily, a translator, a Doctor and a Helmsman were harder to justify, and outside of getting their own episode here and there, led to a troubling lack of ensemble feel. At least they were still making the effort toward inclusion in early episodes, where in too many they were simply there in the background and it became sad to see how often. T'Pol was never going to be one of the background characters and I wondered at the end whether she might have known about the monastery's hidden base. On reflection I realise she couldn't have done. Although she does put up barriers against visiting (and it does seem a curious decision by Archer to want to barge in on a place of silence and seclusion), she never hotly forbids such an incursion and obviously she's the one who forces the issue when they do beam down and Archer feels he's overstepped the mark and they should head off while the monks are in seclusion. What is ambiguous is how T'Pol feels about the breaking of a treaty as the Vulcans had done. Unfortunately we're not afforded a chance for a tag scene in the aftermath, the episode bowing out as suddenly as it began, and it very much could use a scene or two of reflection on what had occurred.
It may be they knew they were going to revisit the plot threads set up here later in the season, it may be that they were undecided on how T'Pol would react or what Archer would have to report back to Starfleet Command. It may be that T'Pol herself didn't quite know how to react, and if anything the ending does envision a much more serialised style than usual where not everything is tidied up or even addressed, but held back to be developed later. The problem is that you can do both, and even one scene of Archer and T'Pol, or Trip and Archer reprising their conversation about going where man has gone before would have been preferable to a vacuum. I don't remember if the next episode follows things up immediately, though I do know it features the Vulcans again, so I'll reserve judgement on how well the threads were taken up. There would certainly be ramifications, and that's what matters, and one reason why dealing with established races is so enjoyable for the average Trekker. Saying all that, coming to this episode now I didn't consider it to be as great as I previous thought. Once the shock value is removed, from seeing the Andorians as we would on a number of occasions in every season, there isn't much of a story being told. It needed something to cut back to on the ship, and though Reed's rescue attempt was almost that, it could have done with something for Phlox, Hoshi, and/or (Andor? Arf, arf!), Mayweather to be involved with. I love that it sets up the ongoing friendship of being in or repaying debts that went back and forth between Archer and Shran, but this episode on its own isn't as powerful as when it debuted.
***
Shock value must have been this episode's main draw at the time because it's gone down as one of my favourites of the series. It still retains the shocks, and outside of the obvious the one that pleased me was: Landing Party! Landing Party! Landing Party! Yes, at last, just what I've been waiting for since the start of the season, someone (Reed does the honours), talks of the Landing Party rather than ignoring this well-worn piece of 'TOS' terminology. The episode doesn't shy away from embracing the Trek canon with references to Surak (oddly brought up by Archer in his scene of bamboozling the enemy by chattering away ten to the dozen in order to disguise his real reason for wanting out of the Vulcans' cell: to drop a small icon through the face in the wall so Trip can work out where it opens out to. But why didn't they just go up and look out through the holes of the eyes and mouth, they'd have seen the main entrance chamber without the Captain having to endure a beating!), Kolinahr (the Vulcans seem very free with the information, uncharacteristically, but then they were hiding something so perhaps they were trying to present as open and honest an attitude as possible to fool everyone), and the mating rituals where females force males to fight each other to the death over them, crassly brought up by one of the Andorians to show how bad he is. Andorians, there it is, I tried to put off writing the name, but the secret (on this two decades old episode with the clue in the title!), is out, and is a far, far worse kept secret than Vulcans hiding a spy station under their monastery.
If there was to be a series set pre-'TOS,' then it needed to explore the races we knew from 'TOS,' not just humanity's early attempts at exploring the galaxy. On a side note, Trip and Archer have a little discussion early on where Trip wonders why they should visit places humans have already been, or that the Vulcans have given them star charts for, and he replies 'we haven't been there,' meaning humans in general, but specifically Archer and his crew. To me, this was a light jab at viewers who may have been wondering, as Trip was, what was the point of a series going where man in the future will have gone before in other series', rather than where no one had been, and there are two answers to that: one is, for all the exploration seen in 'TOS,' 'TNG,' 'DS9,' and 'Voyager,' they'd all been focused outward, and with the exception of 'DS9' had not tried to examine known space and deal with the realities and complexities of future life in the stars with their galactic neighbours and familiar planets on a regular basis. 'Enterprise' had the chance to solidify the races, pin down the places, and be face to face with the known. The other point is that every experience a crew goes through is different depending on the crew - I've often said that Trek can do the same episode in a multitude of different ways depending on which character is at the centre of it. Worf will react differently to Hoshi, Janeway to Scotty, so even if we knew every facet of every race and situation Trek could put its characters into we can still have a different experience and learn about the individuals. And that is, at heart, the very essence of Trek: to explore the human condition (even if it has been largely lost in the last decade to simplistic, action-based adventure).
Okay, that was a little more than an aside, but I think I've made the point that 'Enterprise' didn't need to go beyond known space to make its mark, and one thing I do love about this episode is that it began to set up the familiar races and politics that are necessary for a fully rounded Trek series to properly carry the mantle of 'Star Trek.' One of the things that made 'TNG' and its 24th Century brethren stand above 'TOS' was in its careful interweaving of detailed races and their politics into the fabric of the adventures. Not every episode featured Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans and others, but every season would have its share of tales that would further our knowledge of these key races and expand on other, secondary races until there was a shorthand that loyal viewers were rewarded by picking up on. Although much of Trek featured little serialisation, there was a steady, growing shape to events and characters' lives which demonstrated change and development, and this was in a large part to the consistent fleshing out of the universe our heroes inhabit (one reason 'Discovery' infuriates in its inability to explore such nuances by preferring big, bombastic mysteries or physical adventure over introspection and thoughtful exploration, ignoring the main characteristics Trek has always worked under). The tapestry of galactic politics is integral to making a believable world, and though 'Enterprise' didn't do that nearly enough for my liking (two-dimensional Klingons, not following up with races that only had cameos, like the Tholians), one area they succeeded satisfactorily with was the Andorians.
Designing 'Enterprise' they really wanted to make it feel as grounded as possible, an extrapolation from our own time, which in turn could morph into 'TOS,' and so they stayed away from a lot of the 'TOS' stylings (also perhaps from the same reason of wanting to fashion their own identity as 'TNG' did by avoiding most familiar races for much of its first season), of outlandish aliens with green skin, tentacles, antennae - the 1950s aesthetic that had naturally bled over into 'TOS' in the 1960s. So the Klingons were bumpy-headed like the ones seen in everything post-'TOS,' the uniforms were functional and had an air of NASA about them. They preferred to travel down to planets by Shuttlepod rather than beam. And no Romulans allowed. Sometimes you have to make an exception that proves the rule, however, and the Andorians were it: blue-skinned, white-haired aliens with antennae represented exactly the kind of thing they didn't want the series perceived as, but at the same time if they were going to play in this universe they had to follow the rules to some extent, and though the founding of the Federation wasn't really the guiding arc of the series in the way that Voyager was always trying to get home, the pieces needed to be put in place, and what better way than to have some fun for an episode. I don't know whether the success of the episode was what changed their minds about introducing more building blocks of 'TOS' into the mix, but the advantage of a 'long' season of twenty-plus episodes allowed for course corrections and reaction to audience tastes, unlike now where a season is all done before it launches, and only violent reaction online between seasons can show how badly some decisions have gone down with the faithful (as seen by how 'Into Darkness' tried to fix many of the concerns over the first Kelvinverse film, or 'DSC' tried to do the same for its second season).
Whatever the case, the Andorians proved that you could do classic Trek races, updated for the modern day, and make it work. One of the few (only?), things I would say that 'DSC' has done better than any other Trek is making their version of the Andorians hark back closer to 'TOS,' with a gaunt actor in the role, high cheekboned and with the right amount of hair. Not sure the extended brow was necessary, but they did well, especially after ruining the Klingon look so effectively. What they didn't have are the detail that went into the antennae. The makers of 'Enterprise' were keen on making advances, but also having them make sense. In 'TOS' they didn't have money or technology to make Andorian antennae move, this being one of the great ideas 'Enterprise' brought. Andorians had been seen sparingly through Trek history (in the Federation Council of 'Star Trek IV,' a couple of minor times on 'TNG'), and always with static antennae, so why not make them move, and not only that, but correspond those movement to their emotional state? It was a brilliant idea and it's easy to forget now how revolutionary an idea it was to update a race in that ingenious way. Not only did they enable a potentially daft, pulpy sci-fi alien to have more reality, but they were using advances in technology to their best advantage to pull it off. I don't get the impression the Andorians (or Andorian, it seems to me we only ever see the same guy!), on 'DSC' follow the ideas laid out by 'Enterprise,' because while the antennae there do move a little, they don't appear to possess any particular meaning, another example of the kind of showing off of effects without thinking things through that that Trek is all about.
At least with the 'Enterprise' Andorians, although their heads look a bit bulbous, and in this first appearance you can see the blue paint has rubbed away a little in places to reveal pinkish areas, it all came down to characterisation, and they made one of the best decisions of the series by bringing in noted Trek actor Jeffrey Combs as the lead. That this character went so far in people's estimation that it has been said by the makers it was planned for him to join the series as a regular if Season 5 had gone ahead, is testament to the energy and effort brought to bringing this species back to life as Combs did. He, of so many recurring Trek guest stars, is up there at, or near, the top spot (it's so difficult with the number of greats on even just 'DS9' to narrow it down to one person). He'd already made his mark on Trek history forever with his turns as Weyoun, the slimy Vorta of the Dominion, and Brunt, the cowardly, bullying Ferengi who was Quark's nemesis, but like Quark actor Armin Shimerman, he now had the opportunity to define an entire race, and he goes to it with a will, making Shran (I'm not even sure we heard his name spoken), one of, if not the, most memorable recurring role on the series. And he's surprisingly brutal when you think how much of a friendship would grow between him and Archer over the course of the series. He could never be entirely trusted (just witness his entry into the Xindi saga of Season 3), but that trusting distrust and the humour of their respective positions in regard to each other was what developed a hearty respect between Archer and Shran.
And it all began here when the Captain turns against his Vulcan allies to support a man that has given him a good going over - it shows what kind of a man Archer is. Yes, you could suggest he was doing it to be spiteful toward the Vulcans, considering his history with them, but when you see how he's adapted to working alongside a Vulcan on a permanent basis in T'Pol, and you how he could have had his ego bruised as much as his face by the Andorians, he has those qualities you want in a heroic Captain. He operates from a place of strength even when he's on his knees having an Andorian rifle butt in the face, he takes the punishment and even goes back for more just to do the 'statue in the wall face' trick, baffling Shran at his attitude towards taking pain. He also refuses to capitulate to threats, and this is something shared by Reed, whom is left in command and we actually get to see taking the Captain's Chair - in fact we see him more in command than when Trip held the position in the previous episode. This is certainly not a time where the Captain or his Security Chief look weak. I love that Reed's usual pessimism and suspicious nature means that he doesn't assume everything's just fine and dandy down on the planet when there's been no contact with the Landing Party, and even when the others, like Hoshi, are smiling at his overcautiousness (reminding me of the times when Vulcan crewmembers were mocked for their over-preparation before being vindicated), he's proved right, and if such an attitude can save lives even once then it's a good deal, and as Archer said, Reed's attitude is why he chose him.
It was immense fun to see the Andorians, and they were an ideal race to be primed for a new Trek series since very little was known about them and yet they were said to be one of the founders of the Federation along with other notables the Vulcans and Tellarites. I only wish we could have had greater political and racial exploration across the series, one area they fell down on, getting lost in reset button action adventures of the week and not including enough ongoing plots for my satisfaction: the Temporal Cold War, the Suliban, the Klingon situation, the Vulcans, the Andorians and even other 'TOS' races could have done with a lot more movement on the chess board, but you never got a sense that they were building to something they'd planned out. The structure was a little too loose, and while I'd prefer more 'capsule' episodes where the end is the end of a story yet opens up future possibilities a lot more than the 'DSC' complete serialisation format, they could have achieved so much more if they'd thought through where they were going and the points they wanted to hit along the way. I will say that Berman and Braga developed a great opening sequence of episodes and I've always considered this one the last in that line where presumably they had expended so much thought and energy into boosting the series off that it caused a little drifting for periods of the season after this point, no matter the quality of some individual episodes. It's like they had been able to plan out the first six episodes over months of deliberation, but then the season caught up with them and they didn't quite know where to go with it.
Though the Andorians get all the attention in this episode the Vulcans were also a big draw for me, being my favourite race as they are. I liked the more traditional mien of these examples of the race, different from the barely contained emotions of Soval and his ilk, and yet this was the first true episode about the race on a series that used them a lot. It must have been that these were greater adherents to the creed of Surak than many of the other Vulcans we saw, as they were much more into the nonviolent, peaceful, emotions under wraps style that appeal about the race so much. It helped having another known Trek guest star in the main role, Bruce French having been there at the beginning of 'Voyager' for its pilot where he played an Ocampan, one of Kes' people. He'd also been in 'TNG' and had a small role in 'Insurrection,' but the Ocampan Doctor is the most memorable - I wonder if Director Roxann Dawson remembered him from her first episode as B'Elanna Torres and brought him back because of that? In any case it was his last role in Trek, but he was always good at projecting peace and care, ideal for the blind that this monastery is genuinely hiding what the Andorians fear. I wasn't so enamoured of the younger Vulcan who does act more like the other unconstrained members of his race, showing concern or superiority, even looking perturbed when Archer thumps him on his glass jaw. You could assume he's not a genuine adherent of the monastery, hence his attitude, really there to help liaise with the listening post below. Yet if he was a Vulcan spy you'd think he wouldn't be so weak as to be downed by a puny human's punch!
I get that he was supposed to represent the devious side of the Vulcans and Archer knocking him to the ground (as he threatened to do in the pilot), was meant to be cathartic, but the portrayal never landed far enough into the 'arrogant Vulcans we don't like' end of the spectrum, and he was somewhere between the true and trusted leader of the place, and the Soval type so it didn't quite play well when Archer decked him! Mind you, the Captain had been under a lot of pressure and he'd already been brutalised himself, so you could put that down to a bit of weakness there that he didn't control himself. It would have been better if T'Pol herself had performed a nerve pinch, but I can never be sure how secret such an act is supposed to be at this time. There's so much Vulcans keep to themselves, so their hidden listening base was completely in keeping with their position on things - if it's logical to deceive, then deceive they will! I never had a problem with Vulcans apparently being 'bad guys' in the series. If they could justify anything through logic as we've seen happen over the years, then in a less enlightened time, a time of greater external threats (and as we see in Season 4 with Romulan intrigue, internal threats, too), whether that be from Klingons or the meddling of their human allies rushing round off the leash and getting involved in things that stirred up hornets' nests, I can believe that they would be conducting all kinds of surveillance and operations to form plans to protect their position in the galaxy.
No, what I couldn't stand about the Vulcans in this series was always their surface emotions coming to the fore, whether it be T'Pol or the guest Vulcan. Bruce French did a pretty good job, even if he did look somewhat worried throughout the episode, but I did appreciate the attempts to remind us of the differences between Vulcans and humans. So T'Pol reports that the serene elder seems agitated and Trip remarks that she calls that agitated? That's exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see, as is the moment when Archer is given a blanket for the cold night in the monastery and offers it to T'Pol, but she refuses saying he needs it more than her. Because he would, as humans are less able to cope with the cold or heat than the more rigorous world of the Vulcans has inured them to. The issue of Vulcan secrecy is uncertain in this particular episode. So often on the series T'Pol comes out with private things about her people (though it's been nice to see that they started off trying to keep things secret as much as possible, and there's always the argument that Starfleet isn't the Federation so Federation records might not be as complete in the future, enabling Spock to still remain the only one on a ship of humans that knows about Pon Farr and that sort of thing), as she does about the Kolinahr here (and the Stone of J'Kah - was that a 'Babylon 5' reference to G'Kar? Andreas Katsulas even showed up on the series in Season 2!), yet at the same time humans don't know about Andorians! You'd think they'd know of a threatening neighbour to their closest (only?), galactic allies and also be aware of their main enemy!
It could be a case of size. I can buy that Andorians had never heard of Earth as I imagine the wise old Vulcans made contact with a number of planets and races at the stage they reached warp travel, if only to stop them suddenly flooding out into space and causing chaos in the well-ordered space lanes that Vulcans had seemingly tasked themselves with patrolling (this is all my imagination, but it comes from the attitudes we see from them and that their sense of responsibility is as much about self-preservation of them and their culture as it is nurturing allies). Earth is just one small planet, no matter how many cargo ships went out like Travis' family, trading back and forth. But Andor must be a bigger deal. Maybe they, like Earth, aren't one of the major players at this time (or at any time once they were subsumed into the Federation), and are more of a thorn in the Vulcans' side than a real danger like the Klingons. Then again, humans didn't even know about them until one dropped in to blow up a grain silo at the start of the season so perhaps Archer and others haven't given the Vulcan files enough respect, or they've been heavily redacted. It's only because Reed says he's consulted the Vulcan database and found out about the Andorians, so it's not like the Vulcans kept them a complete secret. Maybe they were lost in reams of races as I can imagine the Vulcans not wanting humans to know about their conflicts with others.
Other things I like about the episode include the face in the wall, reminding me of the one in 'Roman Holiday'; the inside of the spy station having computer designs reminiscent of 'TOS' (coloured rectangles and other shapes on black backgrounds you can just about make out in the distance), and the scene-setting CGI environments, a beautiful rendition of the monastery. I also like that the facility was realistic for its function. None of your secret caves of time crystals as 'DSC' threw in our faces, turning Klingon monastery Boreth into this ridiculous fantasy world and ruining its sense of reality. The caves in this episode are catacombs, and the good old cave set is redressed yet again in as many episodes. This time it's all cobwebs, Vulcan corpses and the remains of sculptures and antiques, which I thought were a brilliant production design for a set that could easily become tired, it's used so much. But they keep making it different enough to be a whole other environment, and the sound of the rushing winds and the sombre score all sell the environment expertly. Production design is certainly one of the high points, whether that be the Andorians themselves or the Vulcan details, and even more when you add the two together for the impressive entrance of the antennaed ones! I liked the justification for why the NX-01 couldn't call down to the planet to announce their presence - the monks consider technology to be a distraction (a valuable nugget of wisdom, especially for today!), and so don't have the facility to accept calls (much like me not having a mobile phone!). We learn the Andorians have inferior technology to Vulcans with no Transporters, for example. Talking of which, it seems dangerous to beam multiple people on the NX-01's pad at the same time, but then it was still early days of the technology's protocols, and I like that Reed has no time to be concerned about using it since he's too worried about what's happened to his Captain than anything else.
The episode doesn't feature a great deal of character moments, but we do get another little scene between T'Pol and Phlox as they dine together in the Mess, discussing being aliens on a human ship. I wonder if we get many more such scenes - if not we'll know why: Phlox incurs his First Officer's grave displeasure by grabbing a stick of celery off her plate! I know he's an alien, but surely he must know what Vulcans are like. In another misguided reminder of the Vulcan IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations), he clumsily reminds her of what it's all about, but as usual in this progressive stance the usually wise Vulcans never seem to realise that infinite means unending; everything. That means the worst degradation is still part of diverse thinking and is the reason IDIC simply does not work as a concept. People will always say that 'well of course it doesn't mean we accept…' but then what you're saying is that the words themselves are meaningless. If it was Almost Inifnite Diversity in Most Acceptable Combinations then there would be less of a problem (although there's still the issue of a creed that suggests embracing almost everything, and the wider you expand to include, the better, is that if you live by specific rules then these rules are at risk of breaking down under such a philosophy, putting society at risk for failing to realise certain rules are there for protection), but AIDMAC doesn't have the same ring to it, and it's still down to subjective thinking on what's acceptable and what isn't, which changes in societies over the course of time, going round in circles, not ever upward as some seem to think.
Phlox' IDIC chat was really only a reason to include him in the episode, something which would become increasingly problematic, and not just for him. While the main three and Reed could all be worked into action stories easily, a translator, a Doctor and a Helmsman were harder to justify, and outside of getting their own episode here and there, led to a troubling lack of ensemble feel. At least they were still making the effort toward inclusion in early episodes, where in too many they were simply there in the background and it became sad to see how often. T'Pol was never going to be one of the background characters and I wondered at the end whether she might have known about the monastery's hidden base. On reflection I realise she couldn't have done. Although she does put up barriers against visiting (and it does seem a curious decision by Archer to want to barge in on a place of silence and seclusion), she never hotly forbids such an incursion and obviously she's the one who forces the issue when they do beam down and Archer feels he's overstepped the mark and they should head off while the monks are in seclusion. What is ambiguous is how T'Pol feels about the breaking of a treaty as the Vulcans had done. Unfortunately we're not afforded a chance for a tag scene in the aftermath, the episode bowing out as suddenly as it began, and it very much could use a scene or two of reflection on what had occurred.
It may be they knew they were going to revisit the plot threads set up here later in the season, it may be that they were undecided on how T'Pol would react or what Archer would have to report back to Starfleet Command. It may be that T'Pol herself didn't quite know how to react, and if anything the ending does envision a much more serialised style than usual where not everything is tidied up or even addressed, but held back to be developed later. The problem is that you can do both, and even one scene of Archer and T'Pol, or Trip and Archer reprising their conversation about going where man has gone before would have been preferable to a vacuum. I don't remember if the next episode follows things up immediately, though I do know it features the Vulcans again, so I'll reserve judgement on how well the threads were taken up. There would certainly be ramifications, and that's what matters, and one reason why dealing with established races is so enjoyable for the average Trekker. Saying all that, coming to this episode now I didn't consider it to be as great as I previous thought. Once the shock value is removed, from seeing the Andorians as we would on a number of occasions in every season, there isn't much of a story being told. It needed something to cut back to on the ship, and though Reed's rescue attempt was almost that, it could have done with something for Phlox, Hoshi, and/or (Andor? Arf, arf!), Mayweather to be involved with. I love that it sets up the ongoing friendship of being in or repaying debts that went back and forth between Archer and Shran, but this episode on its own isn't as powerful as when it debuted.
***
Terra Nova (2)
DVD, Enterprise S1 (Terra Nova) (2)
Having a checklist of things to do on their explorations helps to keep the NX-01's mission relevant and lessen the impression of being on an aimless wander as it could be sometimes, so I was all for this story filling in some backstory, not just pre-Federation, but pre-22nd Century. So that would be the 21st Century then! Hey, that's our time! The expedition of the SS Conestoga (or is it Comestoga - it looked like an 'M' on the dusty bulkhead they used for habitation), took place, takes place, will take place in 2069 (no, I didn't work it out, I'm reading from the 'Star Trek Encyclopedia,' available from all good Replicators and highly recommended for those that care about in-universe history and canon - so 'Discovery' writers excluded, then…), and I love that we get some sense of not just early space travel, but the first such deep space travel. There is a bit of a question of why Earth never asked the Vulcans, with their more advanced warp ships (don't forget the colonists left in the same decade as Zefram Cochrane actually invented the warp drive for humanity so we were probably still going at Warp 1!), to check up on Terra Nova, but that is well answered during the episode, quite early, in fact, and shows that the writers actually thought about it. Remember when Trek was thoughtful and written by people who thought things through and wanted the audience to think? Seems a long time ago now, doesn't it.
The Vulcans being not such lovely people as we used to think they were (the crowning mistake of 'Enterprise,' but one I learnt to live with because I knew how cool the race becomes in a century, or well, maybe a couple of centuries - though I've not seen 'Picard' yet so maybe they'll be as objectionable even in the 24th Century in the Bad Trek Retcon Extravaganza that's been going on in the Fake Prime Universe), so in that context it makes sense that humans wouldn't want to involve them, especially as this was their first such attempt to make a new life outside of the Solar System. Human independence and pride, and the fact, as Trip says, that favours required too high a price are all good reasons why the colony was allowed to sink into obscurity and remain a mystery for the ages, but there's also the fact that relations between Earthers and Novans soured when the colonists selfishly didn't want to share what appeared to be a huge planet with anyone else. You'd think after all the pulling together after World War III that opinions would have differed, but then again maybe these people were desperate to separate themselves from a planet and people that had come close to imploding. And Earth wasn't in a hurry to check and see if they were doing okay once they effectively seceded or broke off and probably thought they were just being stuck up when there were no further communications.
The sense of history is strong with this one, Mayweather expressing an affinity with such colonists because of his space boomer status and understanding the desire to live off-world. I wouldn't say this was one of the most character-driven episodes, but it still shows how well they were integrating everyone when even Travis gets something meaningful to say or do. He's even allowed on the… I still didn't hear them say Landing Party! Anyway, he goes along and not just as a pilot, and this time it's Trip who's left behind and takes the Bridge. I would have liked a little more command scenes for him to see him in that position because it was always such a joy when someone like Scotty or Sulu were left in charge of the Bridge in 'TOS,' it adds more depth to the protocol-led reality, but there was no B-story this time, it was all concentrated around the Novans and their abandoned colony. The episode had quite a 'Miri' feel to it, the 'TOS' episode in which Kirk and company beam down to a seemingly abandoned settlement and eventually find out only the children are left alive - in this case it's the descendants of the children who were left alive, but it's the same sentiment and explains how they went from 21st Century techies to aborigines with mud plastered on their faces and crude face paint. The other thing that pointed my mind in the direction of 'Miri' (the episode I always consider to have been my first ever exposure to Trek), was finding the remains of a bicycle, because of course the big shock hits when they discover a tricycle in the old episode, so I wonder if it was a deliberate reference for the observant?
I love it when they beam down to a natural environment on Trek, it always adds so much to the realism, much more than the limited city sets they could build or the super-value of the caves that paid for themselves almost infinitely and would be so integral to this very episode. I think especially with the later series', 'DS9' onwards and those darker uniforms, they just look so good being out in natural light, and this dusty, empty town was no exception. But. But, but, but. I do remember thinking this was the first episode that wasn't quite up to the quality of what we'd seen so far on my original viewing. Aside from flashes of drama, or I should say, excitement, such as Reed chasing the native through the woods, or the action-packed exit from the caves when Archer and Reed have to escape the projectile weapons of the Novans (where were they getting their bullets from, I wonder?), it was a much talkier episode. That's not a bad thing, especially when in comparison to 'DSC' every Trek episode that actually feels like Trek (in other words, pretty much anything not 'DSC'), has suddenly come to seem so much more rewarding. I certainly found the quandary at the heart of the story to be of interest, a classic Trek tale of the Prime Directive, but somehow inverted because there isn't one yet and it's all about the question of whether to live in ignorance, fighting change, is better than forcible relocation for your own good.
No, it's none of these things that stopped it from excelling, that's purely down to less emphasis on the main characters and maybe too much time spent in the caves. But as I said, even though this was the first not to be working on all levels (and in retrospect I'd say that was just as true of 'Unexpected'), it's still good enough and I wouldn't mark it down. It features another Trek actor in Erick Avari as the main Novan (Jamin), whose Mother is sick, a recognisable face who had appeared in both 'TNG' and 'DS9' (Vedek Yarka is the role I always remember him for), and also in 'Stargate SG-1' as recurring character Kasuf. His role is to constantly play the sceptic and rebuff all Archer's attempts to show that we're both human, we're all one big happy family, and this, I would say, is the first we've seen the Captain get frustrated and angry, perplexed as he is about the people, first with himself for losing his Security Officer when Reed does his job and holds off the pursuers so his Captain can get away, and then when they realise what's happening to this colony and its future. Maybe it does look a little weak of Archer not to go back for Reed and pull him out through the hole in the wall, but Reed shouldn't have said he was fine, and Archer isn't really used to being shot at. You can imagine he's had a comfortable life on Earth, and even with all the preparation for combat and the nightmare scenarios the Vulcans probably laid out, coming under alien fire (correction: fellow human fire), must be a new experience and he was still trying to take in that the Novans had transformed into Gollum.
What works with Archer is that he strives to be diplomatic, reasoning that they looked as strange to the colonists as the colonists did to them, he doesn't lose his temper with the Novans, even with their wilful stubbornness and unwillingness to let go of a narrative of the past that is simply not true, blaming Earth for the 'poison rain' that irradiated the surface so long ago, killing off the adults and leaving the children to fend for themselves. I can imagine there would have been something of a 'Lord of The Flies' situation and a similar one to that of the children in 'Miri,' and that would be a story worth seeing in itself, but this is something much further along where all those children have grown old so they barely remember the true past and all they have are vague memories of resentment towards humans. We see a culture that has developed (or undeveloped really), that if it were alien you can imagine Archer might have let well alone and sealed their fate. Perhaps not, but there were no handy Holodecks to transport the natives unknowingly away to a safe place (as in 'Homeward'), or trick them into leaving (as in 'Insurrection'), and this lack of technology is one of the series' strong points and how it could differentiate it from Treks of yore. T'Pol makes the point that they have developed a culture here and to take them back to Earth to remove their ignorance would be too great a shock. It would be like taking 'The Flintstones' and putting them into the space age - oh, that would be 'The Jetsons'!
I didn't agree with T'Pol's acceptance of the culture as valid and something to preserve because they were living in ignorance, and though they do throw in that lovely moment when they play soothing panpipe music through the skulls of the 'Diggers,' rodents or armadillo-like creatures they relied on for meat (and probably one of the last ever practical effects for a creature in a Trek production), as about the only concession made to their lives having something beyond survival, it's not very optimistic. It's great how the writers thought through what this culture might have been, and though we only see parts of it, it is fascinating - using every part of the Diggers, skins, bones and meat; the face paint, the tools, yet still carrying the 21st Century hand weapons they arrived with (love how Reed knows the history of such things, much like a history buff now would have extensive knowledge of 17th Century firearms, for example). The continuation of 21st Century continuity is something that has permeated through Trek production and was something even 'DSC' got right when they did their extract recording of WWIII in Season 2: every time we've seen soldiers from that time they still use these projectile weapons that are also somehow more advanced than what we use now, and the sound they made when they fired in the cave was impressively futuristic while still fitting in with what we know already.
Even those trusty cave sets get yet another makeover, this time with trailing creepers and symbols painted on the walls, and an impressive well in which a Novan becomes trapped under a heavy tree trunk. It's the usual story of two differing people coming together to rescue someone else or solve a problem and finding common ground through trusting each other, and that's one thing I really did feel worked with the story: that trust wasn't immediate. Archer makes the attempts early on, bravely showing up without weapons and with only his Doctor to accompany him in order to get Reed back. He tries very hard to understand things from their point of view and puts himself out on a limb in order to create trust, but even though a modicum of this trust is accomplished, enough to persuade Jamin and Nadet to travel up to the 'sky ship' so her lung cancer can be treated, it's not enough to prevent Jamin from constantly disbelieving what he's told, always suspecting a trick. It's a beautiful moment when Nadet is shown a photo of herself sitting on her Mother's lap as a child, and remembering her name was Bernadette. The point is that Archer keeps trying, especially when it becomes understood that the water source is poisoned and they won't survive in that part of the planet for much longer, but they can't be removed either. It's sad that these humans won't be able to benefit from the advancements of their race, because even though they wanted to be cut off from their origins I doubt this is what the parents who died would have wanted for their children - to survive scrabbling around underground.
Of course it's not politically correct to suggest that one way of life is wrong and another right (probably better to suggest that all ways of life are wrong to some degree, but we all have to live in the system we're in and make the best of it), but that is the point of the Federation: that they've solved the problems and are now reaping the rewards with peace and plenty. Maybe that's one reason Trek can't really work in the world we're in now (maybe why Starfleet and the Federation so often come across as the bad guy in modern Trek), because Trek was essentially America going round the galaxy telling other countries how to live, but at the same time, though there are plenty of problems with Western civilisation, it generally comes off better than most areas of the world. It's just that absolute truth and absolute falsehood are being eroded as concepts so that you have to accept that some barbaric custom should be considered as 'right' because 'it's their culture.' Not that the Novans were barbaric (as far as we can tell), but they weren't able to enjoy the fullness of the planet they were inhabiting, and despite their creativeness coming out in cave paintings and skull music, they're still missing out on the opportunities of the NX-01 crew and those back home. The issue of people that don't want to believe something, won't, and fighting ignorance within that mindset is not really addressed, but Archer is able to gain the necessary trust by risking his life and not giving up on these people. In the end it's a fairly happy ending as they're able to transport all the Novans to a clean part of the planet, but it would have been an ideal story to come back to later, perhaps when time had allowed the reality of Earth and humans to sink in, and perhaps some of the 'tribe' might be curious to see where they came from?
I wouldn't have said Levar Burton directed with flair, but he does a good job. Maybe flair was needed to invest the cave set with greater artistic merit, but the environs of what is pretty much a stage play (as Trek mostly is and should be, rather than a big budget empty action serial), are fairly unimportant and the actors carry the can. If there had been more for certain characters to do, or a focus on a particular person, this might have flowed better, but I suppose this is an Archer episode, except because he's so central to every episode it's less noticeable in that regard and is more that everyone else just gets less to do! I think the Captain came off well, I think T'Pol continues to integrate well, and it's good that both Reed and Phlox get to do their specialities. There are plenty of new facts, or old facts reinforced, such as Utopia Planitia had been built on Mars before the colonists left for their nine year journey to Terra Nova (Archer made it sound like it was nine years to get there and another nine years for messages to be relayed back, but that can't be right because communications went back and forth, so there must have been relays that sped up comms). It was so very cool to see Archer cut through the tree trunk to rescue the crushed Novan, I always like it when we see Phasers used as the multipurpose tool they are, not just a weapon (much like the lightsaber, though Phasers are better!), I noticed the coloured computer disks that were similar to those used on 'TOS' (and 'DSC' - they got one tiny thing right, wahey!), and it's nice to see Mayweather join the usual trio at the Captain's table.
On that occasion he mentions other Earth mysteries, including Amelia Earhart, a fun reference considering in 'Voyager,' two hundred years later, they located her in the Delta Quadrant! He also says in the episode that he'd promised his Dad that one day he'd see Terra Nova, a good mention since his Father would be dead the following season. A shame the DVD resolution isn't quite sharp enough to be able to read the bios Travis brings up of the colonists (maybe the Blu-Ray allows it?), but I could see that some of them were born in 2002, which puts things in perspective! Perspective is very important, as is adding to the history, another reason I feel this was a worthwhile entry in the season. Berman and Braga may have been running out of steam slightly, but I prefer to see this episode as a change of pace, a different kind of tale to the dramatic, visceral adventures they'd had before, and they clearly weren't done with great ideas judging by the next episode, one of the best of the series. Since there's so much retconning going on to try and get Trek to fit with the advances in tech in our own world, I wonder if in another thirty of forty years they'll be rewriting Trek canon to say that everything needs to be pushed forward by a hundred years. If Trek survives that far into the future I wouldn't be surprised, but it's not something I'll need to worry about because I probably won't be around then, and if I am, I doubt I'll be that bothered. For now, I love the sense of history uncovered, and that they were still being true to Trek so that it all feels part of the same timeline, something that cannot be said for productions after this series.
***
Having a checklist of things to do on their explorations helps to keep the NX-01's mission relevant and lessen the impression of being on an aimless wander as it could be sometimes, so I was all for this story filling in some backstory, not just pre-Federation, but pre-22nd Century. So that would be the 21st Century then! Hey, that's our time! The expedition of the SS Conestoga (or is it Comestoga - it looked like an 'M' on the dusty bulkhead they used for habitation), took place, takes place, will take place in 2069 (no, I didn't work it out, I'm reading from the 'Star Trek Encyclopedia,' available from all good Replicators and highly recommended for those that care about in-universe history and canon - so 'Discovery' writers excluded, then…), and I love that we get some sense of not just early space travel, but the first such deep space travel. There is a bit of a question of why Earth never asked the Vulcans, with their more advanced warp ships (don't forget the colonists left in the same decade as Zefram Cochrane actually invented the warp drive for humanity so we were probably still going at Warp 1!), to check up on Terra Nova, but that is well answered during the episode, quite early, in fact, and shows that the writers actually thought about it. Remember when Trek was thoughtful and written by people who thought things through and wanted the audience to think? Seems a long time ago now, doesn't it.
The Vulcans being not such lovely people as we used to think they were (the crowning mistake of 'Enterprise,' but one I learnt to live with because I knew how cool the race becomes in a century, or well, maybe a couple of centuries - though I've not seen 'Picard' yet so maybe they'll be as objectionable even in the 24th Century in the Bad Trek Retcon Extravaganza that's been going on in the Fake Prime Universe), so in that context it makes sense that humans wouldn't want to involve them, especially as this was their first such attempt to make a new life outside of the Solar System. Human independence and pride, and the fact, as Trip says, that favours required too high a price are all good reasons why the colony was allowed to sink into obscurity and remain a mystery for the ages, but there's also the fact that relations between Earthers and Novans soured when the colonists selfishly didn't want to share what appeared to be a huge planet with anyone else. You'd think after all the pulling together after World War III that opinions would have differed, but then again maybe these people were desperate to separate themselves from a planet and people that had come close to imploding. And Earth wasn't in a hurry to check and see if they were doing okay once they effectively seceded or broke off and probably thought they were just being stuck up when there were no further communications.
The sense of history is strong with this one, Mayweather expressing an affinity with such colonists because of his space boomer status and understanding the desire to live off-world. I wouldn't say this was one of the most character-driven episodes, but it still shows how well they were integrating everyone when even Travis gets something meaningful to say or do. He's even allowed on the… I still didn't hear them say Landing Party! Anyway, he goes along and not just as a pilot, and this time it's Trip who's left behind and takes the Bridge. I would have liked a little more command scenes for him to see him in that position because it was always such a joy when someone like Scotty or Sulu were left in charge of the Bridge in 'TOS,' it adds more depth to the protocol-led reality, but there was no B-story this time, it was all concentrated around the Novans and their abandoned colony. The episode had quite a 'Miri' feel to it, the 'TOS' episode in which Kirk and company beam down to a seemingly abandoned settlement and eventually find out only the children are left alive - in this case it's the descendants of the children who were left alive, but it's the same sentiment and explains how they went from 21st Century techies to aborigines with mud plastered on their faces and crude face paint. The other thing that pointed my mind in the direction of 'Miri' (the episode I always consider to have been my first ever exposure to Trek), was finding the remains of a bicycle, because of course the big shock hits when they discover a tricycle in the old episode, so I wonder if it was a deliberate reference for the observant?
I love it when they beam down to a natural environment on Trek, it always adds so much to the realism, much more than the limited city sets they could build or the super-value of the caves that paid for themselves almost infinitely and would be so integral to this very episode. I think especially with the later series', 'DS9' onwards and those darker uniforms, they just look so good being out in natural light, and this dusty, empty town was no exception. But. But, but, but. I do remember thinking this was the first episode that wasn't quite up to the quality of what we'd seen so far on my original viewing. Aside from flashes of drama, or I should say, excitement, such as Reed chasing the native through the woods, or the action-packed exit from the caves when Archer and Reed have to escape the projectile weapons of the Novans (where were they getting their bullets from, I wonder?), it was a much talkier episode. That's not a bad thing, especially when in comparison to 'DSC' every Trek episode that actually feels like Trek (in other words, pretty much anything not 'DSC'), has suddenly come to seem so much more rewarding. I certainly found the quandary at the heart of the story to be of interest, a classic Trek tale of the Prime Directive, but somehow inverted because there isn't one yet and it's all about the question of whether to live in ignorance, fighting change, is better than forcible relocation for your own good.
No, it's none of these things that stopped it from excelling, that's purely down to less emphasis on the main characters and maybe too much time spent in the caves. But as I said, even though this was the first not to be working on all levels (and in retrospect I'd say that was just as true of 'Unexpected'), it's still good enough and I wouldn't mark it down. It features another Trek actor in Erick Avari as the main Novan (Jamin), whose Mother is sick, a recognisable face who had appeared in both 'TNG' and 'DS9' (Vedek Yarka is the role I always remember him for), and also in 'Stargate SG-1' as recurring character Kasuf. His role is to constantly play the sceptic and rebuff all Archer's attempts to show that we're both human, we're all one big happy family, and this, I would say, is the first we've seen the Captain get frustrated and angry, perplexed as he is about the people, first with himself for losing his Security Officer when Reed does his job and holds off the pursuers so his Captain can get away, and then when they realise what's happening to this colony and its future. Maybe it does look a little weak of Archer not to go back for Reed and pull him out through the hole in the wall, but Reed shouldn't have said he was fine, and Archer isn't really used to being shot at. You can imagine he's had a comfortable life on Earth, and even with all the preparation for combat and the nightmare scenarios the Vulcans probably laid out, coming under alien fire (correction: fellow human fire), must be a new experience and he was still trying to take in that the Novans had transformed into Gollum.
What works with Archer is that he strives to be diplomatic, reasoning that they looked as strange to the colonists as the colonists did to them, he doesn't lose his temper with the Novans, even with their wilful stubbornness and unwillingness to let go of a narrative of the past that is simply not true, blaming Earth for the 'poison rain' that irradiated the surface so long ago, killing off the adults and leaving the children to fend for themselves. I can imagine there would have been something of a 'Lord of The Flies' situation and a similar one to that of the children in 'Miri,' and that would be a story worth seeing in itself, but this is something much further along where all those children have grown old so they barely remember the true past and all they have are vague memories of resentment towards humans. We see a culture that has developed (or undeveloped really), that if it were alien you can imagine Archer might have let well alone and sealed their fate. Perhaps not, but there were no handy Holodecks to transport the natives unknowingly away to a safe place (as in 'Homeward'), or trick them into leaving (as in 'Insurrection'), and this lack of technology is one of the series' strong points and how it could differentiate it from Treks of yore. T'Pol makes the point that they have developed a culture here and to take them back to Earth to remove their ignorance would be too great a shock. It would be like taking 'The Flintstones' and putting them into the space age - oh, that would be 'The Jetsons'!
I didn't agree with T'Pol's acceptance of the culture as valid and something to preserve because they were living in ignorance, and though they do throw in that lovely moment when they play soothing panpipe music through the skulls of the 'Diggers,' rodents or armadillo-like creatures they relied on for meat (and probably one of the last ever practical effects for a creature in a Trek production), as about the only concession made to their lives having something beyond survival, it's not very optimistic. It's great how the writers thought through what this culture might have been, and though we only see parts of it, it is fascinating - using every part of the Diggers, skins, bones and meat; the face paint, the tools, yet still carrying the 21st Century hand weapons they arrived with (love how Reed knows the history of such things, much like a history buff now would have extensive knowledge of 17th Century firearms, for example). The continuation of 21st Century continuity is something that has permeated through Trek production and was something even 'DSC' got right when they did their extract recording of WWIII in Season 2: every time we've seen soldiers from that time they still use these projectile weapons that are also somehow more advanced than what we use now, and the sound they made when they fired in the cave was impressively futuristic while still fitting in with what we know already.
Even those trusty cave sets get yet another makeover, this time with trailing creepers and symbols painted on the walls, and an impressive well in which a Novan becomes trapped under a heavy tree trunk. It's the usual story of two differing people coming together to rescue someone else or solve a problem and finding common ground through trusting each other, and that's one thing I really did feel worked with the story: that trust wasn't immediate. Archer makes the attempts early on, bravely showing up without weapons and with only his Doctor to accompany him in order to get Reed back. He tries very hard to understand things from their point of view and puts himself out on a limb in order to create trust, but even though a modicum of this trust is accomplished, enough to persuade Jamin and Nadet to travel up to the 'sky ship' so her lung cancer can be treated, it's not enough to prevent Jamin from constantly disbelieving what he's told, always suspecting a trick. It's a beautiful moment when Nadet is shown a photo of herself sitting on her Mother's lap as a child, and remembering her name was Bernadette. The point is that Archer keeps trying, especially when it becomes understood that the water source is poisoned and they won't survive in that part of the planet for much longer, but they can't be removed either. It's sad that these humans won't be able to benefit from the advancements of their race, because even though they wanted to be cut off from their origins I doubt this is what the parents who died would have wanted for their children - to survive scrabbling around underground.
Of course it's not politically correct to suggest that one way of life is wrong and another right (probably better to suggest that all ways of life are wrong to some degree, but we all have to live in the system we're in and make the best of it), but that is the point of the Federation: that they've solved the problems and are now reaping the rewards with peace and plenty. Maybe that's one reason Trek can't really work in the world we're in now (maybe why Starfleet and the Federation so often come across as the bad guy in modern Trek), because Trek was essentially America going round the galaxy telling other countries how to live, but at the same time, though there are plenty of problems with Western civilisation, it generally comes off better than most areas of the world. It's just that absolute truth and absolute falsehood are being eroded as concepts so that you have to accept that some barbaric custom should be considered as 'right' because 'it's their culture.' Not that the Novans were barbaric (as far as we can tell), but they weren't able to enjoy the fullness of the planet they were inhabiting, and despite their creativeness coming out in cave paintings and skull music, they're still missing out on the opportunities of the NX-01 crew and those back home. The issue of people that don't want to believe something, won't, and fighting ignorance within that mindset is not really addressed, but Archer is able to gain the necessary trust by risking his life and not giving up on these people. In the end it's a fairly happy ending as they're able to transport all the Novans to a clean part of the planet, but it would have been an ideal story to come back to later, perhaps when time had allowed the reality of Earth and humans to sink in, and perhaps some of the 'tribe' might be curious to see where they came from?
I wouldn't have said Levar Burton directed with flair, but he does a good job. Maybe flair was needed to invest the cave set with greater artistic merit, but the environs of what is pretty much a stage play (as Trek mostly is and should be, rather than a big budget empty action serial), are fairly unimportant and the actors carry the can. If there had been more for certain characters to do, or a focus on a particular person, this might have flowed better, but I suppose this is an Archer episode, except because he's so central to every episode it's less noticeable in that regard and is more that everyone else just gets less to do! I think the Captain came off well, I think T'Pol continues to integrate well, and it's good that both Reed and Phlox get to do their specialities. There are plenty of new facts, or old facts reinforced, such as Utopia Planitia had been built on Mars before the colonists left for their nine year journey to Terra Nova (Archer made it sound like it was nine years to get there and another nine years for messages to be relayed back, but that can't be right because communications went back and forth, so there must have been relays that sped up comms). It was so very cool to see Archer cut through the tree trunk to rescue the crushed Novan, I always like it when we see Phasers used as the multipurpose tool they are, not just a weapon (much like the lightsaber, though Phasers are better!), I noticed the coloured computer disks that were similar to those used on 'TOS' (and 'DSC' - they got one tiny thing right, wahey!), and it's nice to see Mayweather join the usual trio at the Captain's table.
On that occasion he mentions other Earth mysteries, including Amelia Earhart, a fun reference considering in 'Voyager,' two hundred years later, they located her in the Delta Quadrant! He also says in the episode that he'd promised his Dad that one day he'd see Terra Nova, a good mention since his Father would be dead the following season. A shame the DVD resolution isn't quite sharp enough to be able to read the bios Travis brings up of the colonists (maybe the Blu-Ray allows it?), but I could see that some of them were born in 2002, which puts things in perspective! Perspective is very important, as is adding to the history, another reason I feel this was a worthwhile entry in the season. Berman and Braga may have been running out of steam slightly, but I prefer to see this episode as a change of pace, a different kind of tale to the dramatic, visceral adventures they'd had before, and they clearly weren't done with great ideas judging by the next episode, one of the best of the series. Since there's so much retconning going on to try and get Trek to fit with the advances in tech in our own world, I wonder if in another thirty of forty years they'll be rewriting Trek canon to say that everything needs to be pushed forward by a hundred years. If Trek survives that far into the future I wouldn't be surprised, but it's not something I'll need to worry about because I probably won't be around then, and if I am, I doubt I'll be that bothered. For now, I love the sense of history uncovered, and that they were still being true to Trek so that it all feels part of the same timeline, something that cannot be said for productions after this series.
***
Tempest
DVD, Smallville S1 (Tempest)
It says something about a series when the best episode of the season is the finale. Either it says the season wasn't very good so they didn't have far to peak, or as I prefer to say, they were inspired by such a strong year of stories that they excelled themselves in an extravaganza to go out all guns blazing! There's a strong sense of place, both in terms of Smallville the town, and the characters, but also in the sense of finality and things moving to a head for the production. When characters talk about it being a tough year, or when Lionel congratulates all the staff members of the Luthor plant, it's like the writers are referring to themselves and everyone else that worked to create in 'Smallville' such a successful first season, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the extras in that huge gathering were people involved in making the series. I love so much of what they do in this finale, it consolidates what's gone before, sets up characters and situations for Season 2, and does it all effortlessly with the panache of confidence as much as Lex showed in his dedicated single-mindedness to prove himself and save his employees from the ruthless games of his evil Father. And if there was ever any doubt of Lionel Luthor's evilness then this is the episode to prove it beyond question. He comes in with such energy and relish to shut down the plant and destroy his son's reputation in this 'backwater' town, and is willing to hold the people of the town financially hostage when his son shows sparks of fight.
That's one of the brilliances of the ending, because Lex, having seen what his Father is capable of, is put in the position where he can make the decision to save him or let him be skewered on the hanging buttress that is aimed fatefully at Lionel's pleading head. It's exactly the situation that has been set up all season with the goodness of Lex fighting against the worse nature his Father has instilled in him, and now you can see that he could justify not saving such a monster for others as well as his own gain, Lionel put in the ironic position of potentially suffering from what he himself created (the Frankenstein's monster situation). And we know Lex still wants gain, he wants to win, to succeed to prove himself in life, and he's resourceful and has been trained up to get to the level that Lionel wants him to be. And yet throughout this episode, although Clark pleads his case, saying Lex had big plans for the town, Lex is also concerned about those under him, his friends and their families. He has a sense of responsibility to the community, even if it may come out of a rebelliousness towards the business practices of his Father, it's still genuine. He has secrets, even from his closest friends, but he truly believes he's always doing what needs to be done, and that's why Lex Luthor could become such a dangerous villain, because like the best (or worst), villains of films and TV, he's not acting out of pettiness or desire to cause chaos, he's doing it because he thinks he knows best and wants to prove it.
This complexity of character is something that would be stripped away from both Lex and all the others as the series 'progressed,' but I come down heavily on all subsequent seasons because they showed so strongly what they were capable of with Season 1. In some ways (just as in my wish that 'Star Trek' had never been brought back after the end of 'Enterprise'), I think it might have been better if the series had lasted this one, single season and we'd been left to wonder what might have been. But from the other point of view, at least we did get to see that it became nothing special and failed to develop, rather than being left hanging. The superb cliffhangers of Lionel's life in Lex' hands, the anger-prone Jonathan heading out into the storm to chase down Roger Nixon and the proof he holds on Clark's unique nature, the activated ship, and Lana and Clark sucked up into the tornado could have been a terribly hard end to accept if you thought you'd never see the conclusion, I can understand that, but it was the culmination of so much of what this season was about and what we came up with in our imagination would probably be just as powerful as the actual resolutions to those stories and beyond. Saying all that, I do look forward to Season 2 almost as much as I anticipated watching Season 1 again after so many years, because I still felt fondly towards their second year, even if I realised it wasn't as consistent, and marked a downward trends that would continue on and off throughout the series' lifespan.
What works about this finale is its sense of finality. With Whitney literally heading off to join the Marines it's the end of a way of life that we'd shared with these people for twenty-one episodes and the better part of a year in their life. It has even more meaning now when you think that it's almost twenty years since this was first shown and how much has changed in that time, and that it's not too far off a third of the average person's lifetime ago. I love that we don't see mobile phones all over the place (Chloe even keeps it separately at the dance and says she has to go off and ring Lana), or that Whitney has the forethought to actually bring a CD to the gym where the dance is to later take place so he can give Lana the dance she'll miss because he's leaving. In reality it does seem a little harsh that he had to go on the very night when this big event is happening, couldn't he have put it off till at least after the dance? But he spends the whole episode doing everything he can to make it up to her with a picnic in which he breaks the news, the dance, and the last parting. He became a much more likeable character after his initial friction with Clark, and it really feels like a member of the gang is leaving. Somehow, with all the bad things that happened to the big football team, and even Whitney saying that he thought the trophy cabinet was his whole life and now sees it as trivial, the bad lads and the sense of factions within the school has lessened a lot, and they're all mates together by the end, so much so that Whitney even asks Clark to look after Lana for him while he's away!
The balance wasn't always there, in fact it too often was off, in that Pete and Whitney got short shrift, probably why they both left, but I like it when a series allows time now and again for a character to shine, and both of them had their episodes or story-lines that were focused more on them, and I think the cast had a really strong mix, something that was lost in all the other seasons as so much got messed about. There'd be plenty of problems in Season 2, and I'll save them for when I write about those episodes, but Season 1 was so strong for me, especially being a debut season. And this episode lives up to everything they'd set up, whether that be the Kryptonian spaceship and the key (come on Roger, you must be a pretty daft reporter not to realise that the worst time to investigate someone's storm cellar is just as a storm's about to hit - but then journalists act as if there's no time like the present, he's conditioned to deadlines and seizing the moment, so you can't change an instinct like that!), Lex' enmity with his old Dad, Jonathan's protectiveness of Clark and his secret, or the romantic angle of Chloe and Lana homing in on Clark. That's another fascinating part of the story, because in one sense Clark is stronger than he's ever been, he barely felt the explosion of the truck that Nixon set up to test him, and yet he's more vulnerable than ever now that there's video evidence!
I don't blame Martha and Jonathan for not suspecting bugs in their farm or camcorders recording from a distance. Nowadays there are drones, much more freely available miniature technology, even every mobile phone is essentially a tracker and a bug, that's what's so creepy about so many people having them and never thinking about such things, but they could never have expected a reporter to have been keeping such close tabs on Clark. I don't know what it was that Clark did to tip Nixon off about his abilities, unless he just believed from the evidence of Lex' crash, and maybe they never even showed what it was, but it doesn't matter, he had a nose for a story and he gets one. True to character, rather than undercut all the drama by telling Lex everything he just hints and relishes being the one in the know so that he seals his fate: he can only die from that knowledge! He's a villain, himself, but he's a wild card, someone out for himself with no other motive than to make his name or his fortune. We get a namecheck for another of these types with Clark claiming he'd been so careful to keep his powers under wraps since Phalen, so they were still successfully dealing with the continuity from earlier.
The style and production of the episode itself is also up to the task. The sense of foreboding, yet energy and force that is coming with the storm is prefigured by Lionel's whirlwind stop at the plant, coming in by helicopter, all smiles and greetings, as the blades whip his hair into a frenzy, shouting above the noise of the engine, and then he's gone, crushing Lex' plans and thinking he's got his son cornered so he'll have no choice but to return to Metropolis and his rightful place at his side. But the eternal chess game continues as Lex uses every resource he can muster to fight this decision, much to Lionel's surprise. That's another joy of the episode, seeing Lex go toe to toe in the business world with his heavyweight Father, and doing it with the best of intentions, not just as a way to get back at him. Clark stands with him, and I also love how he continues to defend his friend, either by paying him a visit (even if he did have the ulterior motive to see if he could borrow the limo, but was tactful enough not to ask when he sees Lex in such difficulty), and supporting him in front of his parents. Clark is a true friend, and Lex reciprocates, and it's all such a good, inspiring set of scenes, Lex especially so dedicated and so set in his purpose. The Smallville Ledger even rushes out an edition so fast to cover the plant closure they misspelled 'cited' as 'sited' (I'm pretty sure that isn't an American variation!).
It's never been a draw for me to see the teen romance stuff going on, but I will say it was all sensitively handled, far more than in Season 2, and Chloe's face is once again radiant when Clark says she's not his fallback choice, he's going to the dance with her because he wants to. Sure, Chloe doesn't really have that much to do beyond thinking she's not as important as Lana, but as usual if Chloe really wanted to be like Lana she'd have to have all her problems, too, and she's clearly not having a great time, conflicted within herself at the thought of Whitney leaving for the immediate future, and not knowing where she fits in. It all seemed so simple at the start of the season with Lana's future sure and secure, her cheerleading and her boyfriend and everything fine except for living with the tragedy of her lost parents, but like Whitney realising the things he thought were so important had become small and meaningless, so did she and the season has been as much about these young people navigating the small world they inhabit as about defeating the freak-of-the-week. The season came together mightily (they even throw in a clever appearance by Remy Zero, the band that created the series' theme), and showed mastery, intelligence and thoughtfulness. I'm not sure how much further into the series I could award such compliments, but they succeeded wonderfully to this point and left you wanting more.
****
It says something about a series when the best episode of the season is the finale. Either it says the season wasn't very good so they didn't have far to peak, or as I prefer to say, they were inspired by such a strong year of stories that they excelled themselves in an extravaganza to go out all guns blazing! There's a strong sense of place, both in terms of Smallville the town, and the characters, but also in the sense of finality and things moving to a head for the production. When characters talk about it being a tough year, or when Lionel congratulates all the staff members of the Luthor plant, it's like the writers are referring to themselves and everyone else that worked to create in 'Smallville' such a successful first season, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the extras in that huge gathering were people involved in making the series. I love so much of what they do in this finale, it consolidates what's gone before, sets up characters and situations for Season 2, and does it all effortlessly with the panache of confidence as much as Lex showed in his dedicated single-mindedness to prove himself and save his employees from the ruthless games of his evil Father. And if there was ever any doubt of Lionel Luthor's evilness then this is the episode to prove it beyond question. He comes in with such energy and relish to shut down the plant and destroy his son's reputation in this 'backwater' town, and is willing to hold the people of the town financially hostage when his son shows sparks of fight.
That's one of the brilliances of the ending, because Lex, having seen what his Father is capable of, is put in the position where he can make the decision to save him or let him be skewered on the hanging buttress that is aimed fatefully at Lionel's pleading head. It's exactly the situation that has been set up all season with the goodness of Lex fighting against the worse nature his Father has instilled in him, and now you can see that he could justify not saving such a monster for others as well as his own gain, Lionel put in the ironic position of potentially suffering from what he himself created (the Frankenstein's monster situation). And we know Lex still wants gain, he wants to win, to succeed to prove himself in life, and he's resourceful and has been trained up to get to the level that Lionel wants him to be. And yet throughout this episode, although Clark pleads his case, saying Lex had big plans for the town, Lex is also concerned about those under him, his friends and their families. He has a sense of responsibility to the community, even if it may come out of a rebelliousness towards the business practices of his Father, it's still genuine. He has secrets, even from his closest friends, but he truly believes he's always doing what needs to be done, and that's why Lex Luthor could become such a dangerous villain, because like the best (or worst), villains of films and TV, he's not acting out of pettiness or desire to cause chaos, he's doing it because he thinks he knows best and wants to prove it.
This complexity of character is something that would be stripped away from both Lex and all the others as the series 'progressed,' but I come down heavily on all subsequent seasons because they showed so strongly what they were capable of with Season 1. In some ways (just as in my wish that 'Star Trek' had never been brought back after the end of 'Enterprise'), I think it might have been better if the series had lasted this one, single season and we'd been left to wonder what might have been. But from the other point of view, at least we did get to see that it became nothing special and failed to develop, rather than being left hanging. The superb cliffhangers of Lionel's life in Lex' hands, the anger-prone Jonathan heading out into the storm to chase down Roger Nixon and the proof he holds on Clark's unique nature, the activated ship, and Lana and Clark sucked up into the tornado could have been a terribly hard end to accept if you thought you'd never see the conclusion, I can understand that, but it was the culmination of so much of what this season was about and what we came up with in our imagination would probably be just as powerful as the actual resolutions to those stories and beyond. Saying all that, I do look forward to Season 2 almost as much as I anticipated watching Season 1 again after so many years, because I still felt fondly towards their second year, even if I realised it wasn't as consistent, and marked a downward trends that would continue on and off throughout the series' lifespan.
What works about this finale is its sense of finality. With Whitney literally heading off to join the Marines it's the end of a way of life that we'd shared with these people for twenty-one episodes and the better part of a year in their life. It has even more meaning now when you think that it's almost twenty years since this was first shown and how much has changed in that time, and that it's not too far off a third of the average person's lifetime ago. I love that we don't see mobile phones all over the place (Chloe even keeps it separately at the dance and says she has to go off and ring Lana), or that Whitney has the forethought to actually bring a CD to the gym where the dance is to later take place so he can give Lana the dance she'll miss because he's leaving. In reality it does seem a little harsh that he had to go on the very night when this big event is happening, couldn't he have put it off till at least after the dance? But he spends the whole episode doing everything he can to make it up to her with a picnic in which he breaks the news, the dance, and the last parting. He became a much more likeable character after his initial friction with Clark, and it really feels like a member of the gang is leaving. Somehow, with all the bad things that happened to the big football team, and even Whitney saying that he thought the trophy cabinet was his whole life and now sees it as trivial, the bad lads and the sense of factions within the school has lessened a lot, and they're all mates together by the end, so much so that Whitney even asks Clark to look after Lana for him while he's away!
The balance wasn't always there, in fact it too often was off, in that Pete and Whitney got short shrift, probably why they both left, but I like it when a series allows time now and again for a character to shine, and both of them had their episodes or story-lines that were focused more on them, and I think the cast had a really strong mix, something that was lost in all the other seasons as so much got messed about. There'd be plenty of problems in Season 2, and I'll save them for when I write about those episodes, but Season 1 was so strong for me, especially being a debut season. And this episode lives up to everything they'd set up, whether that be the Kryptonian spaceship and the key (come on Roger, you must be a pretty daft reporter not to realise that the worst time to investigate someone's storm cellar is just as a storm's about to hit - but then journalists act as if there's no time like the present, he's conditioned to deadlines and seizing the moment, so you can't change an instinct like that!), Lex' enmity with his old Dad, Jonathan's protectiveness of Clark and his secret, or the romantic angle of Chloe and Lana homing in on Clark. That's another fascinating part of the story, because in one sense Clark is stronger than he's ever been, he barely felt the explosion of the truck that Nixon set up to test him, and yet he's more vulnerable than ever now that there's video evidence!
I don't blame Martha and Jonathan for not suspecting bugs in their farm or camcorders recording from a distance. Nowadays there are drones, much more freely available miniature technology, even every mobile phone is essentially a tracker and a bug, that's what's so creepy about so many people having them and never thinking about such things, but they could never have expected a reporter to have been keeping such close tabs on Clark. I don't know what it was that Clark did to tip Nixon off about his abilities, unless he just believed from the evidence of Lex' crash, and maybe they never even showed what it was, but it doesn't matter, he had a nose for a story and he gets one. True to character, rather than undercut all the drama by telling Lex everything he just hints and relishes being the one in the know so that he seals his fate: he can only die from that knowledge! He's a villain, himself, but he's a wild card, someone out for himself with no other motive than to make his name or his fortune. We get a namecheck for another of these types with Clark claiming he'd been so careful to keep his powers under wraps since Phalen, so they were still successfully dealing with the continuity from earlier.
The style and production of the episode itself is also up to the task. The sense of foreboding, yet energy and force that is coming with the storm is prefigured by Lionel's whirlwind stop at the plant, coming in by helicopter, all smiles and greetings, as the blades whip his hair into a frenzy, shouting above the noise of the engine, and then he's gone, crushing Lex' plans and thinking he's got his son cornered so he'll have no choice but to return to Metropolis and his rightful place at his side. But the eternal chess game continues as Lex uses every resource he can muster to fight this decision, much to Lionel's surprise. That's another joy of the episode, seeing Lex go toe to toe in the business world with his heavyweight Father, and doing it with the best of intentions, not just as a way to get back at him. Clark stands with him, and I also love how he continues to defend his friend, either by paying him a visit (even if he did have the ulterior motive to see if he could borrow the limo, but was tactful enough not to ask when he sees Lex in such difficulty), and supporting him in front of his parents. Clark is a true friend, and Lex reciprocates, and it's all such a good, inspiring set of scenes, Lex especially so dedicated and so set in his purpose. The Smallville Ledger even rushes out an edition so fast to cover the plant closure they misspelled 'cited' as 'sited' (I'm pretty sure that isn't an American variation!).
It's never been a draw for me to see the teen romance stuff going on, but I will say it was all sensitively handled, far more than in Season 2, and Chloe's face is once again radiant when Clark says she's not his fallback choice, he's going to the dance with her because he wants to. Sure, Chloe doesn't really have that much to do beyond thinking she's not as important as Lana, but as usual if Chloe really wanted to be like Lana she'd have to have all her problems, too, and she's clearly not having a great time, conflicted within herself at the thought of Whitney leaving for the immediate future, and not knowing where she fits in. It all seemed so simple at the start of the season with Lana's future sure and secure, her cheerleading and her boyfriend and everything fine except for living with the tragedy of her lost parents, but like Whitney realising the things he thought were so important had become small and meaningless, so did she and the season has been as much about these young people navigating the small world they inhabit as about defeating the freak-of-the-week. The season came together mightily (they even throw in a clever appearance by Remy Zero, the band that created the series' theme), and showed mastery, intelligence and thoughtfulness. I'm not sure how much further into the series I could award such compliments, but they succeeded wonderfully to this point and left you wanting more.
****
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