Wacky Reviews: Star Trek
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CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Suicide.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
There's nothing in the episode to suggest they were murdered, it's pretty clear from context that it was suicide.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
First Flight - Archer gets a call from Forrest telling him that "A.G." has died. Archer wants to go map a nebula by himself but T'Pol insists on joining him. Archer eventually explains to her that he and A.G. Robinson were in the NX test program together and both wanted to be the first to break the warp 2 barrier. We then go to flashbacks showing a younger Commander Archer (he looks the same age really) being told by COMMODORE Forrest (I guess they're ranked under Admirals then) that Robinson has been picked for the first warp 2 flight over him, despite it being the engine Archer's father developed. A bitter Archer says to a barmaid "you remember what Buzz Aldrin said when he stepped on the moon? NOBODY DOES!" Somebody probably does. A.G. (Keith Carradine) tells Archer that he didn't get the flight because he worked too hard on being a pilot rather than a Captain. A.G.'s test flight launches with Archer in the (not very impressive looking) control room. Something goes wrong but A.G. doesn't want to drop out of warp because he's going faster than any human before. He ejects just as his ship blows up. A.G. is smug when he gets home and a young engineer Trip Tucker states to the Vulcans (who want to call off further tests) that there's nothing wrong with the engine. Archer and Trip go to the bar and bond over their dislike of the Vulcans. Forrest joins them and reveals that they have to stop using the warp 2 engine or the nasty Vulcans will be mad. Trip says Archer can't let them do this as it's his father's engine.
A.G. joins Archer and Trip and he's an asshole. He told the Vulcans the problem couldn't have been pilot error so it must have been the engine. A.G. says Archer's dad designed a lousy engine and they get into a stupid fist fight. Everyone else just kind of watches for a minute before they stop them. Archer goes to see A.G. and admits he finds it hard to be objective over his father's engine. He thinks there's a way Trip can fix the engine and wants to convince the Vulcans. A.G. suggest the only way is doing another test flight. He convinces Archer to take the risk of going ahead with the test without permission. Archer and A.G. steal the test ship with Trip's help. Forrest notices the ship is missing as A.G. lets Archer take the flight controls. Archer defies calls to return home because he's not playing by the book now! The test is a success. Forrests suspends them both from duty when they get home. A.G. and Archer stand up for themselves and say this proves they're ready to go into space and even if they're kicked out of Starfleet it'll all be worth it. Forrest can't help but smile. There's been a subplot with Archer and T'Pol mapping their nebula and it all works out and the nebula is pretty (it was invisible before they shot torpedos at it or something.) Archer says invisible nebulae are why they worked so hard to come out there. We see another flashback after Archer is named Captain of the Enterprise over A.G. as they have a drink together in the bar. T'Pol suggests they name the nebula after A.G.
It's pretty good? We get some backstory at last. I'd like to know more of what happened in the 80 years or so between First Contact and these flashbacks, but it's a start. Keith Carradine does a good job as A.G. It is a bit funny how he keeps telling Archer "You're too BY THE BOOK, KID" and stuff and we don't really see much of this younger Archer being by the book? The scene where the nebula appears is nice. It's alright. Didn't excite me but pleasant enough television.
SCORE: 7/10
A.G. joins Archer and Trip and he's an asshole. He told the Vulcans the problem couldn't have been pilot error so it must have been the engine. A.G. says Archer's dad designed a lousy engine and they get into a stupid fist fight. Everyone else just kind of watches for a minute before they stop them. Archer goes to see A.G. and admits he finds it hard to be objective over his father's engine. He thinks there's a way Trip can fix the engine and wants to convince the Vulcans. A.G. suggest the only way is doing another test flight. He convinces Archer to take the risk of going ahead with the test without permission. Archer and A.G. steal the test ship with Trip's help. Forrest notices the ship is missing as A.G. lets Archer take the flight controls. Archer defies calls to return home because he's not playing by the book now! The test is a success. Forrests suspends them both from duty when they get home. A.G. and Archer stand up for themselves and say this proves they're ready to go into space and even if they're kicked out of Starfleet it'll all be worth it. Forrest can't help but smile. There's been a subplot with Archer and T'Pol mapping their nebula and it all works out and the nebula is pretty (it was invisible before they shot torpedos at it or something.) Archer says invisible nebulae are why they worked so hard to come out there. We see another flashback after Archer is named Captain of the Enterprise over A.G. as they have a drink together in the bar. T'Pol suggests they name the nebula after A.G.
It's pretty good? We get some backstory at last. I'd like to know more of what happened in the 80 years or so between First Contact and these flashbacks, but it's a start. Keith Carradine does a good job as A.G. It is a bit funny how he keeps telling Archer "You're too BY THE BOOK, KID" and stuff and we don't really see much of this younger Archer being by the book? The scene where the nebula appears is nice. It's alright. Didn't excite me but pleasant enough television.
SCORE: 7/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Bounty - A friendly Tellerite Captain named Skalaar offers to be Archer's guide on shore leave to some planet. Instead he shoots Archer and flies off with him. Yep, Archer's been captured for the twenty seventh time this season! The Enterprise can't go to warp because it's shit. T'Pol and Phlox are stuck in decon infected with something. We get T'Pol rubbing herself again but hey we see Phlox's body too so it's NOT SEXIST okay? Archer figures out that Skalaar is taking him to the Klingons because he "escaped" prison (T'Pol bribed a guard.) Archer tries to convince Skalaar he's done nothing wrong. T'Pol starts getting angry in decon and tries to break out. Archer pretty easily learns that Skalaar is having money problems and is scared of his bullying Klingon employer. There's also a rival bounty hunter played by Robert "Gowron" O'Reilly who wants Archer's bounty and tries to steal him. Skalaar has to let Archer take the helm when Gowron attacks. T'Pol starts rubbing gel on Phlox and coming onto him. Jolene Blalock's acting is terrible here but the script is worse. She has gone into Pon Farr.
Archer and Skalaar land on an asteroid to do repairs and Skalaar tells him that he only became a bounty hunter to buy his cargo ship back from Klingon bullies. There's another awful T'Pol/Phlox scene where she begs him to shag her. The Enterprise runs into Gowron who explains the plot to them. Skalaar tries to convince his brother to buy the cargo ship back with him but the brother explains that those nasty Klingons wrecked up the ship (gee, I wonder where this is going.) Archer finally (easily) convinces him to fight back against the Klingons. T'Pol beats up Phlox and pulls a panel off the wall to escape decon. T'Pol runs around the ship in her underwear trying to convince any man she meets to have sex with her. This is possibly the lowest point in Trek history? Reed knocks her out. Skalaar invites the Klingons on his ship and they shove him right away because they're BIG BULLYING BASTARDS. The Klingons fly off with Archer but it's all a trick as he's in FAKE HANDCUFFS and escapes his cell. There's the typical boring Enterprise shootout. He gets into an escape pod and the Enterprise toes him away with its grappler. Phlox cures T'Pol of her infection induced Pon Farr (so she can still have a real one later, exciting!) Skalaar gets away with his reward from the Klingons as they didn't know he helped Archer escape.
And it's back to crap again! There's not much to say about the A-plot: it's as straightforward as Trek gets. It's obvious from the start that Skalaar is a NICE GUY REALLY (even though he's probably sent dozens of innocents to their deaths before Archer, oops!) and that he'll turn good in the end. Gowron is completely wasted on a three line cameo. And the fucking T'Pol plot...Christ. Did anyone ever find this shit sexy? I mean yeah there's Jolene Blalock in her underwear but we've seen that before. Her sexy acting is horrible but I wonder if that was just Blalock rebelling against the shittiness of the script. Plus I still think the Enterprise writers don't understand Pon Farr. We find out here that female Vulcans go through it too, when before we thought it was just males. And as has been repeated in Enterprise severlal times, Vulcans ONLY mate ONCE every seven years. They've made that clear (see, it's funny because they only have sex once every seven years lol!) So how does that work with a husband and wife? How do they manage to mate together if they're pon farring at different times? Do Vulcans always marry someone who has Pon Farr on the same day as them? How come Spock's betroved wasn't in Pon Farr in 'Amok Time'? It's stupid! It's just an excuse for "hot" scenes of T'Pol which aren't hot and barely qualify as scenes. It's really bad!
SCORE: 2/10
The Expanse - Hey, I like this show! A sphere thing appears at Earth and fires a death beam at Florida, cutting a huge path of destruction through it. Then 'Faith of the Heart' plays. They have to change that! The Klingons are still mad at Archer for escaping (they should be mad at their own guards for accepting a bribe though?) and task Duras with catching him. Archer lets the senior staff know of the attack and that there may be a million dead The Enterprise is called back to Earth. Trip comes to see Archer, worried that his sister could have died (the death count is up to three million now.) The Suliban appear out of nowhere and Silik transports Archer to their ship (it's really easy to capture Archer.) Archer gets to speak to FUTURE GUY as they still haven't given up on this storyline completely! FG explains that the Xindi attacked Earth as Earth will destroy their world in four hundred years. The weapon was just a test and the Xindi are building a more powerful weapon that will destroy Earth (why the fuck would they run their test on Earth itself, warning them of their existence?) This will change the timeline so FG wants it stopped. T'Pol still doesn't believe in time travel which is still dumb. Death figure is now at seven million. Enterprise arrives at Earth and is attacked by Duras' Bird of Prey. Some more Earth ships show up and chase off Duras. Attacking the Enterprise right next to Earth was really silly of him! Archer tells Forrest and Soval of FG's claims about the Xindi. Soval reveals that the coordinates FQ gave are inside the Delphic Expanse. It's a chaotic area of space full of monsters and weird space thingies. A Klingon ship once returned from it with the entire crew inside out but still alive. Umm, what. Archer wants to go to the Delphic Expanse anyway, even though Soval says it's certain death. Archer quantum dates the wreckage of the Xindi weapon, showing that one component of it is MINUS 420 years old. Thus it's from THE FUTURE! I don't think that's how quantum dating works. A Vulcan doctor questions Archer about time travel to see if he's mad (he's supposedly scanning him for radiation at the time.) Trip and Reed look at the wreckage of his home town (right in the path of the weapon) as he accepts this his sister is dead.
Forrest and Archer take a fly-by tour of the NX-02 which will be read in fourteen months. They probably should have started making it earlier. Phlox and T''Pol talk about the mission. Phlox is happy to go to the DE but T'Pol has been ordered not to by the Vulcan High Command. Reed receices new more powerful torpedos. Trip doesn't want to go to any memorials for his sister and is all angry and stuff now. He tells Reed to blow the Hell out of the Xindi when they find them. Soval shows Archer footage of a Vulcan crew who entered the Expanse. They all went mad and killed each other. T'Pol and Soval talk about what she's going to do. Forrest wishes Archer luck as the Enterprise launches from spacedock (is this just a repeat of the 'Broken Bow' footage maybe!) Duras is fucking waiting to attack again. Archer tells Trip that he's been worrying about the safety of 83 people for two seasons and now he's worrying about a whole planet. Trip can't wait to get to Afghanistan and find the people who did this and blow them up real good. He thinks it's good T'Pol is returning to Vulcan and won't preach her "non-interference crap." This makes little sense as I don't remember T'Pol ever suggesting that defending a planet from destruction would be interference. Duras attacks but Archer easily disables his ship. The Enterprise is nearing Vulcan and T'Pol comes to talk to Archer. She reveals she's used to the smell of humans now and wants to stay onboard. It's a nice moment. Archer tells the crew they aren't gonig to Vulcan. Hoshi smiles because T'Pol is her secret girlfriend. The Enterprise heads into the clouds at the border of the Delphic Expanse (they said earlier that it would take three months to get there so I guess there was a huge time jump after the last scene.) Duras shows up AGAIN and he's brought two other Birds of Prey. The other two ships are scared of the DE and turn around but Duras keeps chasing. The Enterprise hides in a cloud, does a backflip to get behind Duras and blows his ship up. It's a mini Wrath of Khan! Enterprise is properly in the Expanse now.
The first three quarters of Enterprise season 2 were not good. Viewers at the time were frustrated (I was on TrekBBS, I remember!) and ratings dropped quite a bit as the season went on. Something had to change and it starts here! It's obviously heavily 9/11 inspired as it was less than two years after that terrorist attack. You could say that's maybe in slightly poor taste, but Star Trek has always tried to reflect current events to some degree. There's some nice touches here like the way the death toll keeps getting revised that are obvious echoes of the 9/11 news coverage. I think the whole attack part works really well in the end. Enterprise needed something and starting an episode with Flordia being wiped out (sorry, Cassie) is certainly something! However, as a whole, the episode is a bit of a mess? There's so much going on here. It's almost a relaunch for the whole show, a reset button, but it also tries to tell its own story with Duras going after Enterprise. This part is mostly just annoying. The final fight in the cloud at least looks pretty cool, but Duras as a "HAHAHA I KILL YOU" villain is not interesting. I also think it might have been a mistake to include Future Guy and the Suliban. If this is a new start for show, surely they should move away from the failed Temporal Cold War storyline? Everything's super serious and dark one moment then the next Archer is talking to a weirdo from the future. The parts with Soval talking about how crazy the Delphic Expanse is are a bit too heavy handed too. You go mad! You turn inside out! I get it, it's scary! So yeah as a standalone episode this is pretty weird but it was necessary to completely restart the show in season 3...
SCORE: 7.5/10
Archer and Skalaar land on an asteroid to do repairs and Skalaar tells him that he only became a bounty hunter to buy his cargo ship back from Klingon bullies. There's another awful T'Pol/Phlox scene where she begs him to shag her. The Enterprise runs into Gowron who explains the plot to them. Skalaar tries to convince his brother to buy the cargo ship back with him but the brother explains that those nasty Klingons wrecked up the ship (gee, I wonder where this is going.) Archer finally (easily) convinces him to fight back against the Klingons. T'Pol beats up Phlox and pulls a panel off the wall to escape decon. T'Pol runs around the ship in her underwear trying to convince any man she meets to have sex with her. This is possibly the lowest point in Trek history? Reed knocks her out. Skalaar invites the Klingons on his ship and they shove him right away because they're BIG BULLYING BASTARDS. The Klingons fly off with Archer but it's all a trick as he's in FAKE HANDCUFFS and escapes his cell. There's the typical boring Enterprise shootout. He gets into an escape pod and the Enterprise toes him away with its grappler. Phlox cures T'Pol of her infection induced Pon Farr (so she can still have a real one later, exciting!) Skalaar gets away with his reward from the Klingons as they didn't know he helped Archer escape.
And it's back to crap again! There's not much to say about the A-plot: it's as straightforward as Trek gets. It's obvious from the start that Skalaar is a NICE GUY REALLY (even though he's probably sent dozens of innocents to their deaths before Archer, oops!) and that he'll turn good in the end. Gowron is completely wasted on a three line cameo. And the fucking T'Pol plot...Christ. Did anyone ever find this shit sexy? I mean yeah there's Jolene Blalock in her underwear but we've seen that before. Her sexy acting is horrible but I wonder if that was just Blalock rebelling against the shittiness of the script. Plus I still think the Enterprise writers don't understand Pon Farr. We find out here that female Vulcans go through it too, when before we thought it was just males. And as has been repeated in Enterprise severlal times, Vulcans ONLY mate ONCE every seven years. They've made that clear (see, it's funny because they only have sex once every seven years lol!) So how does that work with a husband and wife? How do they manage to mate together if they're pon farring at different times? Do Vulcans always marry someone who has Pon Farr on the same day as them? How come Spock's betroved wasn't in Pon Farr in 'Amok Time'? It's stupid! It's just an excuse for "hot" scenes of T'Pol which aren't hot and barely qualify as scenes. It's really bad!
SCORE: 2/10
The Expanse - Hey, I like this show! A sphere thing appears at Earth and fires a death beam at Florida, cutting a huge path of destruction through it. Then 'Faith of the Heart' plays. They have to change that! The Klingons are still mad at Archer for escaping (they should be mad at their own guards for accepting a bribe though?) and task Duras with catching him. Archer lets the senior staff know of the attack and that there may be a million dead The Enterprise is called back to Earth. Trip comes to see Archer, worried that his sister could have died (the death count is up to three million now.) The Suliban appear out of nowhere and Silik transports Archer to their ship (it's really easy to capture Archer.) Archer gets to speak to FUTURE GUY as they still haven't given up on this storyline completely! FG explains that the Xindi attacked Earth as Earth will destroy their world in four hundred years. The weapon was just a test and the Xindi are building a more powerful weapon that will destroy Earth (why the fuck would they run their test on Earth itself, warning them of their existence?) This will change the timeline so FG wants it stopped. T'Pol still doesn't believe in time travel which is still dumb. Death figure is now at seven million. Enterprise arrives at Earth and is attacked by Duras' Bird of Prey. Some more Earth ships show up and chase off Duras. Attacking the Enterprise right next to Earth was really silly of him! Archer tells Forrest and Soval of FG's claims about the Xindi. Soval reveals that the coordinates FQ gave are inside the Delphic Expanse. It's a chaotic area of space full of monsters and weird space thingies. A Klingon ship once returned from it with the entire crew inside out but still alive. Umm, what. Archer wants to go to the Delphic Expanse anyway, even though Soval says it's certain death. Archer quantum dates the wreckage of the Xindi weapon, showing that one component of it is MINUS 420 years old. Thus it's from THE FUTURE! I don't think that's how quantum dating works. A Vulcan doctor questions Archer about time travel to see if he's mad (he's supposedly scanning him for radiation at the time.) Trip and Reed look at the wreckage of his home town (right in the path of the weapon) as he accepts this his sister is dead.
Forrest and Archer take a fly-by tour of the NX-02 which will be read in fourteen months. They probably should have started making it earlier. Phlox and T''Pol talk about the mission. Phlox is happy to go to the DE but T'Pol has been ordered not to by the Vulcan High Command. Reed receices new more powerful torpedos. Trip doesn't want to go to any memorials for his sister and is all angry and stuff now. He tells Reed to blow the Hell out of the Xindi when they find them. Soval shows Archer footage of a Vulcan crew who entered the Expanse. They all went mad and killed each other. T'Pol and Soval talk about what she's going to do. Forrest wishes Archer luck as the Enterprise launches from spacedock (is this just a repeat of the 'Broken Bow' footage maybe!) Duras is fucking waiting to attack again. Archer tells Trip that he's been worrying about the safety of 83 people for two seasons and now he's worrying about a whole planet. Trip can't wait to get to Afghanistan and find the people who did this and blow them up real good. He thinks it's good T'Pol is returning to Vulcan and won't preach her "non-interference crap." This makes little sense as I don't remember T'Pol ever suggesting that defending a planet from destruction would be interference. Duras attacks but Archer easily disables his ship. The Enterprise is nearing Vulcan and T'Pol comes to talk to Archer. She reveals she's used to the smell of humans now and wants to stay onboard. It's a nice moment. Archer tells the crew they aren't gonig to Vulcan. Hoshi smiles because T'Pol is her secret girlfriend. The Enterprise heads into the clouds at the border of the Delphic Expanse (they said earlier that it would take three months to get there so I guess there was a huge time jump after the last scene.) Duras shows up AGAIN and he's brought two other Birds of Prey. The other two ships are scared of the DE and turn around but Duras keeps chasing. The Enterprise hides in a cloud, does a backflip to get behind Duras and blows his ship up. It's a mini Wrath of Khan! Enterprise is properly in the Expanse now.
The first three quarters of Enterprise season 2 were not good. Viewers at the time were frustrated (I was on TrekBBS, I remember!) and ratings dropped quite a bit as the season went on. Something had to change and it starts here! It's obviously heavily 9/11 inspired as it was less than two years after that terrorist attack. You could say that's maybe in slightly poor taste, but Star Trek has always tried to reflect current events to some degree. There's some nice touches here like the way the death toll keeps getting revised that are obvious echoes of the 9/11 news coverage. I think the whole attack part works really well in the end. Enterprise needed something and starting an episode with Flordia being wiped out (sorry, Cassie) is certainly something! However, as a whole, the episode is a bit of a mess? There's so much going on here. It's almost a relaunch for the whole show, a reset button, but it also tries to tell its own story with Duras going after Enterprise. This part is mostly just annoying. The final fight in the cloud at least looks pretty cool, but Duras as a "HAHAHA I KILL YOU" villain is not interesting. I also think it might have been a mistake to include Future Guy and the Suliban. If this is a new start for show, surely they should move away from the failed Temporal Cold War storyline? Everything's super serious and dark one moment then the next Archer is talking to a weirdo from the future. The parts with Soval talking about how crazy the Delphic Expanse is are a bit too heavy handed too. You go mad! You turn inside out! I get it, it's scary! So yeah as a standalone episode this is pretty weird but it was necessary to completely restart the show in season 3...
SCORE: 7.5/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
The Xindi - A bunch of aliens (the Xindi) are having a meeting. One is a lizard. One is a human-sized fly. They are concerned that the humans have come to the Delphic Expanse. MAYBE they shouldn't have fucking attacked Earth then? AND LOL WHAT THE HELL IS THE THEME MUSIC NOW. I totally forgot about this version. I thought they took the words out and just left the music but instead they've just jazzed up the music a bit and it's hilarious. It's really updbeat and doesn't seem to fit the new grittier show at all? Six weeks in the DE, The Enterprise still hasn't even found a single Xindi and Archer is following a lead from a dodgy freighter Captain despite Reed's misgivings. Hoshi introduces herself to some of the MACOS who she apparently hasn't talked to yet despite them all being on this ship together for like four months now? That's pretty weird? But one is Daniel Dae Kim so that's good. Archer and Trip encounter some floating crates in a room because there's weird anomalies all over the DE. Phlox suggests to T'Pol that she teach Trip "Vulcan Neuropressure" to help him cope with his sister's death. She agrees but then he reveals Trip already said no so she'll have to convince him. Archer and Reed visit a grim looking mine (some pretty good CGI environments on the fly down) looking for a Xindi. The owner of the mine is creepy looking and has breathing problems, so he's obviously evil. He presents the severed finger of a Xindi to Archer as proof he has one. Trip has a dream about his dead sister. Phlox reveals that the finger is Xindi, but a member of a different species of Xindi from the one who destroyed Florida. Archer and Trip bring liquid platinum to the mine guy in exchange for meeting the Xindi. Mine guy finally brings the Xindi (who has been forced into slave labour) to Archer and Trip. He's all fucked up. He says he'll only tell Archer where his homeworld is if Archer helps him escape the mine. Trip is ready to beat him up but then the evil mine foreman shockingly betrays Archer by locking him in and having three heavily armed "cargo ships" approach the Enterprise.
Archer, Trip and the Xindi do a Shawshank by wading through sewage to escape. Reed wants to take his team down to save Archer but the MACO Major Hayes thinks his team will do a better job. Reed comprimises by agreeing to lead a team of MACOs then tells T'Pol that Hayes is a dick. Archer and friends climb towards the shuttlepod. Evil mine guy is aware of what they're doing and plans to drop plasma on them. The humanoid Xindi tells Archer there's five species of Xindi. The three of them just barely outrun the plasma. They're recaptured by evil mine guys right away. Reed and the MACOs arrive for the usual shoot out. A girl MACO beats up an alien using a stun stick thing. The Xindi is rather predictably shot as they make it back to the shuttle. They get back to the Enterprise and warp away to escape the evil miners (some white guy is flying the ship instead of Travis by the way.) The Xindi dies but leaves coordinates for Archer. Phlox tricks Trip into going to T'Pol. She tells him she's been having trouble sleeping too and only Vulcan nueropressure can help her! But you can't do it alone and they have to "stimulate each other's nodes." So we get T'Pol covering her breasts with her hands while Trip massages her, then she starts moaning in pleasure. T'Pol offers to return the favour after ordering Trip to disrobe (he think she's coming onto him at first.) They bicker a bit then he lets her "do" him. This isn't as bad as the decon chamber stuff but it still feels forced. The Enterprise arrives at the coordinates and finds a debris field rather than a planet. The Xindi homeworld has already been destroyed, a hundred and twenty years ago. Archer orders the Enterprise deeper into the expanse. There's another Xindi council meeting. Did I mention one of them is a whale? The fy threateningly says he'll destroy the Enterprise whether the council wants him to or not but he's a big fly so it's a bit silly.
There are some ways in which this improves over the typical Enterprise fare. It all feels a bit more exciting, a bit more urgent. Scott Bakula feels like he's on edge all the time and I prefer it to his previous style. The MACOs are a decent edition and have some cool weapons. I like the Xindi council because they remind me of the separatist leaders from Attack Of The Clones. The mine guy is a pretty fun villain with his disgusting look and breathy performance from the guy who played Vreenak ("IT'S A FAKE") in DS9. On the downside it's yet another episode where Archer is captured and I'm really sick of that. It happened an insane number of times in the fist two seasons. The shoot out stuff is slightly better than usual but still not that interesting. We don't really find out much about the Xindi. Really not much happens at all after Arche rand Trip are betrayed by mine guy. It just all moves in a more entertaining way than usual.
And there's this...
SCORE: 7/10
Anomaly - Porthos starts crying because of the weird anomalies (they make a book fall over.) Maybe Porthos should have been left on Earth? Everyone's food flies up to the ceiling in the mess hall and a corridor starts to wave around making people fall over. This is pretty fun. The warp drive is having problems too because it always does when stuff like this happens. Enterprise comes across an adrift ship and Archer decides to board it to see what happened to them. Gravity's off so we get a cool bit of Archer, Reed and the MACOs walking upside down (in EV sits.) There's loads of dead aliens on the ship. They return to the Enterprise and Trip tells Archer they need to get away from the anomalies or the warp drive won't work no more. Some living aliens show up in a ship, beam over to the Enterprise, steal a load of stuff and shoot a load of people. It's pretty exciting and Archer slides down a railing. Trip bashes an alien with a spanner. All the other aliens escape. Crewman Fuller dies which I think is the first death of an Enterprise crewman. The pirate have stolen all the antimatter pods and Enterprise will be "out of gas" in a month. Angry Archer questions the pirate prisoner in the brig. Archer makes threats but the pirate laughs them off and won't give away his Captain's location. The pirate reveals they were just merchants at first until they got trapped in the expanse and had no choice but to become pirates to survive. They didn't kill anyone...at first. Archer says he'll do whatever it takes to get his shit back.
Trip and Reed talk about the dead guy and Reed thinks it's a miracle no one has died before. Trip doubts Fuller will be the last. Oh hey, Travis is still in the show. The Enterprise runs into another anomaly and Archer orders them to keep going through it. They find the Death Star at the centre of the anomalies (it's a huge cloaked sphere.) Archer, Reed, TRAVIS and some MACOs fly over to the sphere. They fly inside and dock with some habitable modules. They find Starfleet rations inside, so they've found the pirate fortress. They start beaming their stuff back home. Trip burns his hand and talks to Phlox about T'Pol's massages since this is an ongoing story. Hoshi finds writing that matches some of the writing on the Xindi probe that attacked Earth. The pirates attacked a Xindi ship so Archer asks the pirate about it. Archer shouts a lot but the pirate still isn't scared of him. Archer marches him out of the brig and the pirate sarcastically says "are you taking me to your torture chamber?" I laughed. Archer actually takes him to the airlock and starts to decompress it. Reed is shocked. Archer lets the pirate out just before he dies. The pirate reveals they downloaded a Xindi database and Archer wants to steal that information from the pirates. Enterprise pretends to be adrift then attacks the pirates. Hoshi hacks the pirate's computer whle the Enterprise chases them through anomalies (the pirates are immune to them because their ship is lined with sci fi stuff.) The pirates hide out in there sphere so Archer shoots them out while Hoshi keeps downloading. There's some nice special effects shots here as the pirate ship nearly crashes into the sphere. Archer frees his prisoner. Archer starts reading the Xindi database.
This is the stuff! This should have opened the season. I did like 'The Xindi' well enough but this pushes everything to the next level. We get fun anomalies, several actual exciting action scenes and it's the best episode yet for Archer. One of the strongest episodes of Enterprise yet and the most promising sign that this season might be the good season we've been waiting for!
SCORE: 9.5/10
Archer, Trip and the Xindi do a Shawshank by wading through sewage to escape. Reed wants to take his team down to save Archer but the MACO Major Hayes thinks his team will do a better job. Reed comprimises by agreeing to lead a team of MACOs then tells T'Pol that Hayes is a dick. Archer and friends climb towards the shuttlepod. Evil mine guy is aware of what they're doing and plans to drop plasma on them. The humanoid Xindi tells Archer there's five species of Xindi. The three of them just barely outrun the plasma. They're recaptured by evil mine guys right away. Reed and the MACOs arrive for the usual shoot out. A girl MACO beats up an alien using a stun stick thing. The Xindi is rather predictably shot as they make it back to the shuttle. They get back to the Enterprise and warp away to escape the evil miners (some white guy is flying the ship instead of Travis by the way.) The Xindi dies but leaves coordinates for Archer. Phlox tricks Trip into going to T'Pol. She tells him she's been having trouble sleeping too and only Vulcan nueropressure can help her! But you can't do it alone and they have to "stimulate each other's nodes." So we get T'Pol covering her breasts with her hands while Trip massages her, then she starts moaning in pleasure. T'Pol offers to return the favour after ordering Trip to disrobe (he think she's coming onto him at first.) They bicker a bit then he lets her "do" him. This isn't as bad as the decon chamber stuff but it still feels forced. The Enterprise arrives at the coordinates and finds a debris field rather than a planet. The Xindi homeworld has already been destroyed, a hundred and twenty years ago. Archer orders the Enterprise deeper into the expanse. There's another Xindi council meeting. Did I mention one of them is a whale? The fy threateningly says he'll destroy the Enterprise whether the council wants him to or not but he's a big fly so it's a bit silly.
There are some ways in which this improves over the typical Enterprise fare. It all feels a bit more exciting, a bit more urgent. Scott Bakula feels like he's on edge all the time and I prefer it to his previous style. The MACOs are a decent edition and have some cool weapons. I like the Xindi council because they remind me of the separatist leaders from Attack Of The Clones. The mine guy is a pretty fun villain with his disgusting look and breathy performance from the guy who played Vreenak ("IT'S A FAKE") in DS9. On the downside it's yet another episode where Archer is captured and I'm really sick of that. It happened an insane number of times in the fist two seasons. The shoot out stuff is slightly better than usual but still not that interesting. We don't really find out much about the Xindi. Really not much happens at all after Arche rand Trip are betrayed by mine guy. It just all moves in a more entertaining way than usual.
And there's this...
SCORE: 7/10
Anomaly - Porthos starts crying because of the weird anomalies (they make a book fall over.) Maybe Porthos should have been left on Earth? Everyone's food flies up to the ceiling in the mess hall and a corridor starts to wave around making people fall over. This is pretty fun. The warp drive is having problems too because it always does when stuff like this happens. Enterprise comes across an adrift ship and Archer decides to board it to see what happened to them. Gravity's off so we get a cool bit of Archer, Reed and the MACOs walking upside down (in EV sits.) There's loads of dead aliens on the ship. They return to the Enterprise and Trip tells Archer they need to get away from the anomalies or the warp drive won't work no more. Some living aliens show up in a ship, beam over to the Enterprise, steal a load of stuff and shoot a load of people. It's pretty exciting and Archer slides down a railing. Trip bashes an alien with a spanner. All the other aliens escape. Crewman Fuller dies which I think is the first death of an Enterprise crewman. The pirate have stolen all the antimatter pods and Enterprise will be "out of gas" in a month. Angry Archer questions the pirate prisoner in the brig. Archer makes threats but the pirate laughs them off and won't give away his Captain's location. The pirate reveals they were just merchants at first until they got trapped in the expanse and had no choice but to become pirates to survive. They didn't kill anyone...at first. Archer says he'll do whatever it takes to get his shit back.
Trip and Reed talk about the dead guy and Reed thinks it's a miracle no one has died before. Trip doubts Fuller will be the last. Oh hey, Travis is still in the show. The Enterprise runs into another anomaly and Archer orders them to keep going through it. They find the Death Star at the centre of the anomalies (it's a huge cloaked sphere.) Archer, Reed, TRAVIS and some MACOs fly over to the sphere. They fly inside and dock with some habitable modules. They find Starfleet rations inside, so they've found the pirate fortress. They start beaming their stuff back home. Trip burns his hand and talks to Phlox about T'Pol's massages since this is an ongoing story. Hoshi finds writing that matches some of the writing on the Xindi probe that attacked Earth. The pirates attacked a Xindi ship so Archer asks the pirate about it. Archer shouts a lot but the pirate still isn't scared of him. Archer marches him out of the brig and the pirate sarcastically says "are you taking me to your torture chamber?" I laughed. Archer actually takes him to the airlock and starts to decompress it. Reed is shocked. Archer lets the pirate out just before he dies. The pirate reveals they downloaded a Xindi database and Archer wants to steal that information from the pirates. Enterprise pretends to be adrift then attacks the pirates. Hoshi hacks the pirate's computer whle the Enterprise chases them through anomalies (the pirates are immune to them because their ship is lined with sci fi stuff.) The pirates hide out in there sphere so Archer shoots them out while Hoshi keeps downloading. There's some nice special effects shots here as the pirate ship nearly crashes into the sphere. Archer frees his prisoner. Archer starts reading the Xindi database.
This is the stuff! This should have opened the season. I did like 'The Xindi' well enough but this pushes everything to the next level. We get fun anomalies, several actual exciting action scenes and it's the best episode yet for Archer. One of the strongest episodes of Enterprise yet and the most promising sign that this season might be the good season we've been waiting for!
SCORE: 9.5/10
SAUSAGEMAN
Registered User
MACOs.....
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Extinction - A forehead alien is chased through a jungle then torched by guys in spacesuits. Trip goes for another neuro-session with T'Pol (gifting her some peaches) and she makes him take his shoes and socks off this time. This is not sexy. Archer pulls T'Pol away to tell her about his findings on the Xindi from the pirate database. A Xindi sloth ship recently visited on a nearby planet. Archer, T'Pol, Reed and Hoshi visit the planet and find a Xindi sloth shuttle, as well as a couple of burned up corpses. Literally seconds later Reed has grown forehead bumps, his haircut's changed and he's acting like a caveman. This is fucking ridiculous. Archer and Hoshi turn too, attack T'Pol and tie her up. They all talk in some alien language now. Thus begins endless scenes of T'Pol trying to communicae with them. Yeah she gets the universal translator working, but they still talk in stupid voices after that and say obscure things. Hoshi eats maggots while Archer and Reed have a fight.
Trip brings an away team to the planet (in EV suits.) Archer hits him with a stick. They get Reed to Sickbay while Archer and Hoshi run off. Some aliens show up and tell Trip they're putting the Enterprise under quarantine because Reed has a deadly virus. He must be killed with fire. They've been studying the virus for sixty years and there's NO CURE (spoiler: Phlox will cure it in five minutes.) Caveman Archer has a dream about a city and sees human Archer in a mirror. The alien tells Trip and Phlox how his people had to kill tens of millions of people because the virus was turning them into the annoying aliens. He wants to kill Archer and Hoshi too. Not Hoshi! Phlox needs T'Pol's DNA to create a cure as Vulcans are immune. Trip brings him the peach she bit the night before. Archer and Hoshi find their city in ruins (well, obviously.) Scott Bakula's acting is painful here. The flamethrower aliens show up but Archer beats them up with rocks. Trip and the MACOs (hi Daniel Dae Kim!) save them from more aliens. The Enterprise is chased by the aliens but Phlox easily cures Archer and Hoshi (they're speaking English again in mutants) to prove that he's a better doctor than this whole alien race has ever produced and thoroughly embarrass them. Archer decides to keep a sample of the virus because it's all that remains of the alien civilisation. Uhh, yeah, it also killed million of people.
I have no problem with them doing standalone episodes during story arcs. In fact I encourage it! I wish Discovery and Picard would do it! The thing is though, this episode would be bad even if it was in season one or two. Its badness is nothing to do with it not being part of the Xindi arc, it's just a bad fucking episode. I remember everyone hating the TNG episode 'Genesis' where the crew turn into animals and while I agree that episode was dumb it was also a lot of fun. This is the opposite of fun. It's three characters acting like stupid cavemen (how did that civilisation manage to create this virus if they're still climbing trees and eating maggots?) and then they turn back human again after Phlox effortlessly cures them. There's not much good here, beyond Linda Park doing some good physical acting when she's infected. Worst of all it's just boring.
SCORE: 1.5/10
Rajiin - We begin with another Xindi Council meeting and Degra (he'll be important later!) reporting that it'll take months to finish building the Earth-destroying weapon. Why the fuck did they already attack Earth six months ago then? The reptilian wants to consider another option. There's more neuropressure stuff. Why is T'Pol always in her pyjamas for it? Trip reports that the crew have been gossiping about them but T'Pol is unconcerned. Archer is having trouble sleeping as he's still recovering from being transformed into a caveman. I appreciate continuity. Phlox mentions Cutler, who we haven't seen sinces season one. The actress actually died a month after this episode aired, so I don't know why they didn't bring her back in season two or the first half of three. Archer, Trip and Reed visit an alien market in search of the formula for creating trellijm D, the substand they need to survive the expanse's anomalies. The chemist tells them he has a lead on some Xindi and that brings the crew to a slime ball with a big forehead selling slave women. One of the women escapes and asks Archer to take her back to the Enterprise. Archer beats up the slaver and takes her back to the 'prise. Her name is Rajiin and she's been a slave all her life. The chemist gives Trip the formula in exchange for some spices. Archer has dinner with Rajiin. She comes to see him later and says she wants to repay him from a life of sex slavery by giving him sex. What is this, a James Bond film? They kiss and then she...x-rays him...with her hands?
Trip and T'Pol experiment with Trellium and it explodes. They arrange a steamy neuropressure break. Rajiin comes onto Hoshi and Hoshi says she'd "love to hear her language" and Linda Park plays this more convcinigly than Scott Bakula played his attraction, prove me wrong. Rajiin comes onto T'Pol next and x-rays her tits as they both moan and grunt. T'Pol fights her off after they get enough promo material and Trip comes in and finds her knocked out, then gets lamped with a lamp by Rajiin. Security are alerted but Rajiin seduces a horny guy for help. She falls off a walkway in slow motion shooting a phaser. She gets caught anyway. Archer questions her and she admits she's working for the Xindi. Archer grabs her shoulder but doesn't shove her in an airlock. The Xindi reptiles show up and attack Enterprise as Rajiin called them. She does tell Archer that the Xindi are now working on a bio weapon. Some reptiles board the Enterprise and have a shoot out with the MACOs. A GIANT FLY is there too and shoots some guys with a sound gun(?) And the reptiles shoot a goo ball that then shoots out tiny darts. Is is all more fun than the rest of the episode (I did wonder if these Enterprise crewmen and MACOs we see get shot died?) They get away with Rajiin, eaving one dead reptilian behind. T'Pol wakes up from her sexy coma. Rajiin shows her bio scans to the Council and is then dragged away and I guess we never see her again.
It's better than the last one but still not great. Stuff happens, there's a fun action bit at the end. What's the point of it though? Wha's the story? Rajiin gets on the ship, tricks the crew and gets away. That's basically it. She's not really all that interesting a character. There's one part where it's made to look like she might help Archer and isn't working with the reptilians by choice, but it doesn't go anywhere as they rescue her right after and she's never seen again. Just leaves you with a feeling of "so what?" And typically for Enterprise they try to insert a sexy bit with her feeling up T'Pol and it's just all a bit silly.
SCORE: 5/10
Trip brings an away team to the planet (in EV suits.) Archer hits him with a stick. They get Reed to Sickbay while Archer and Hoshi run off. Some aliens show up and tell Trip they're putting the Enterprise under quarantine because Reed has a deadly virus. He must be killed with fire. They've been studying the virus for sixty years and there's NO CURE (spoiler: Phlox will cure it in five minutes.) Caveman Archer has a dream about a city and sees human Archer in a mirror. The alien tells Trip and Phlox how his people had to kill tens of millions of people because the virus was turning them into the annoying aliens. He wants to kill Archer and Hoshi too. Not Hoshi! Phlox needs T'Pol's DNA to create a cure as Vulcans are immune. Trip brings him the peach she bit the night before. Archer and Hoshi find their city in ruins (well, obviously.) Scott Bakula's acting is painful here. The flamethrower aliens show up but Archer beats them up with rocks. Trip and the MACOs (hi Daniel Dae Kim!) save them from more aliens. The Enterprise is chased by the aliens but Phlox easily cures Archer and Hoshi (they're speaking English again in mutants) to prove that he's a better doctor than this whole alien race has ever produced and thoroughly embarrass them. Archer decides to keep a sample of the virus because it's all that remains of the alien civilisation. Uhh, yeah, it also killed million of people.
I have no problem with them doing standalone episodes during story arcs. In fact I encourage it! I wish Discovery and Picard would do it! The thing is though, this episode would be bad even if it was in season one or two. Its badness is nothing to do with it not being part of the Xindi arc, it's just a bad fucking episode. I remember everyone hating the TNG episode 'Genesis' where the crew turn into animals and while I agree that episode was dumb it was also a lot of fun. This is the opposite of fun. It's three characters acting like stupid cavemen (how did that civilisation manage to create this virus if they're still climbing trees and eating maggots?) and then they turn back human again after Phlox effortlessly cures them. There's not much good here, beyond Linda Park doing some good physical acting when she's infected. Worst of all it's just boring.
SCORE: 1.5/10
Rajiin - We begin with another Xindi Council meeting and Degra (he'll be important later!) reporting that it'll take months to finish building the Earth-destroying weapon. Why the fuck did they already attack Earth six months ago then? The reptilian wants to consider another option. There's more neuropressure stuff. Why is T'Pol always in her pyjamas for it? Trip reports that the crew have been gossiping about them but T'Pol is unconcerned. Archer is having trouble sleeping as he's still recovering from being transformed into a caveman. I appreciate continuity. Phlox mentions Cutler, who we haven't seen sinces season one. The actress actually died a month after this episode aired, so I don't know why they didn't bring her back in season two or the first half of three. Archer, Trip and Reed visit an alien market in search of the formula for creating trellijm D, the substand they need to survive the expanse's anomalies. The chemist tells them he has a lead on some Xindi and that brings the crew to a slime ball with a big forehead selling slave women. One of the women escapes and asks Archer to take her back to the Enterprise. Archer beats up the slaver and takes her back to the 'prise. Her name is Rajiin and she's been a slave all her life. The chemist gives Trip the formula in exchange for some spices. Archer has dinner with Rajiin. She comes to see him later and says she wants to repay him from a life of sex slavery by giving him sex. What is this, a James Bond film? They kiss and then she...x-rays him...with her hands?
Trip and T'Pol experiment with Trellium and it explodes. They arrange a steamy neuropressure break. Rajiin comes onto Hoshi and Hoshi says she'd "love to hear her language" and Linda Park plays this more convcinigly than Scott Bakula played his attraction, prove me wrong. Rajiin comes onto T'Pol next and x-rays her tits as they both moan and grunt. T'Pol fights her off after they get enough promo material and Trip comes in and finds her knocked out, then gets lamped with a lamp by Rajiin. Security are alerted but Rajiin seduces a horny guy for help. She falls off a walkway in slow motion shooting a phaser. She gets caught anyway. Archer questions her and she admits she's working for the Xindi. Archer grabs her shoulder but doesn't shove her in an airlock. The Xindi reptiles show up and attack Enterprise as Rajiin called them. She does tell Archer that the Xindi are now working on a bio weapon. Some reptiles board the Enterprise and have a shoot out with the MACOs. A GIANT FLY is there too and shoots some guys with a sound gun(?) And the reptiles shoot a goo ball that then shoots out tiny darts. Is is all more fun than the rest of the episode (I did wonder if these Enterprise crewmen and MACOs we see get shot died?) They get away with Rajiin, eaving one dead reptilian behind. T'Pol wakes up from her sexy coma. Rajiin shows her bio scans to the Council and is then dragged away and I guess we never see her again.
It's better than the last one but still not great. Stuff happens, there's a fun action bit at the end. What's the point of it though? Wha's the story? Rajiin gets on the ship, tricks the crew and gets away. That's basically it. She's not really all that interesting a character. There's one part where it's made to look like she might help Archer and isn't working with the reptilians by choice, but it doesn't go anywhere as they rescue her right after and she's never seen again. Just leaves you with a feeling of "so what?" And typically for Enterprise they try to insert a sexy bit with her feeling up T'Pol and it's just all a bit silly.
SCORE: 5/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Impulse - The teaser is T'Pol flipping out in Sickbay and threatening to kill Archer as Phlox straps her down. Then we get a "one day earlier" caption. I remember tv shows doing this a lot in the early 2000s. BSG started like six episodes in a row in this way one time and it was pretty annoying. Trip wants to bring back movie night to cheer the crew up. Hoshi picks up a Vulcan distress call and they find a ship that entered the Expanse nine months earlier. It's inside an asteroid field and the asteroids are moving in a crazy way! Archer T'Pol and Reed to the Vulcan ship in a shuttle as asteroids hit each other and I'm convinced this season was heavily influenced by Attack of the Clones. The Vulcan ship is wrecked up and lit only be strobe lighting. Archer and T'Pol are attacked by what can only be described as a Vulcan zombie. Then two more. Reed and the MACO Hayes fight some Zulcans in a entertaining action scene. Hayes wants to set their weapons to kill and T'Pol reacts with anger. One of the Zulcans cuts off their route to the shuttle and they have to hide out in a small compratments while zombies beat it with spanners. T'Pol admits that whatever happened to the crew is starting to happen to her. Trip and Travis land a shuttle on an asteroid to mine for Trellium. T'Pol served with one of the Zulcans before and tries to talk to him but obviously you can't talk to zombies.
Hayes aks how the crew could turn so violent when Vulcans don't have emotions. T'Pol of course corrects him that Vulcans do have emotions, they just suppress them, and they used to be a very violent race. The four of them makes their way to the Bridge throug tights spaces and have to beat up some Zulcans along the way. Trip and Travis have to get off their asteroid as it's about to crash into another one. T'Pol's emotions slip further from her control. She snaps at Reed when he does something wrong. Jolene Blalock's acting is not her best here. She grows paranoid and accuses Archer of trying to sabotage her work. She pulls a phaser (set to kill!) on him. Phlox reports that Trellium-D is deadly to Vulcans and that's why their brains are breaking down. He can treat T'Pol (but not any of the others, of course) if they get her back in time. The Zulcans show up again and our heroes flee. The Vulcan ship is hit by rocks so there's explosions and stuff it's exciting. A section of flooring is missing so the away team have to walk over on a thin plank (Archer carrying a stunned T'Pol.) Reed has to shoot zombies walking backwards across it. They get back to the shuttle (they did something to get the door opened I don't know) but now the docking clamps are jammed! Trip and Travis just happen to be flying by and blow the clamps off. They fly away as the Vulcan ship explodes. Back on the ship, Phlox manages to treat T'Pol in time so that teaser where she was about to die was a bit misleading! Archer tells her what the Trellium does to Vulcans. T'Pol insists they still coat the ship with it to survive the anomalies and asks to be left behind. Archer says he's not going to try to save humanity without holding onto what makes him human. Movie night is interrupted by a tactical alert and T'Pol is attacked by zombies. Oh its just a dream. And that's how the episode ends, which is a bit weird.
As an action episode this is very good, and it looks a lot better than most Trek has by now. The CGI is great by the standards of the time, the asteroid field and the exploding Vulcan ship are really impressive. The strobe lights get a bit annoying but work really well during the action scenes. The zombie Vulcans (OR ZULCANS) are actully fairly scary. The weak part is the TPol story. It's just not that interesting watching her go mad again, even though the payoff with Archer promising not to leave her behind is good. And Jolene Blalock isn't all that convincing showing emotions. On the whole though I like it quite a bit as an action spectacle.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Exile - Hoshi (in casual clothes!) starts to hear a voice in her head and sees a mysterious man in her quarters. T'Pol discovers a second anomaly-causing sphere. She wants to make a map of where the anomalies will pop up so they go to investigate. Reed patronises Hoshi by telling her she probably imagined the scary man. Phlox can't find anything either and she accepts it was in her head. Then Hoshi hears the scary voice again and this time the man shows her a planet where he's "waiting for her." She finds herself in a castle built into the side of a mountain before Reed pulls her back to reality. Next the alien talks to her through Phlox and says listening to her thoughts has been "very pleasurable." Hoshi has a "unique mind" so he can talk to her telepathically and wants her to come to his planet to meet him. He claims to have information about the Xindi. Archer, Hoshi and Reed visit the castle. Creepy guy is unhappy she didn't come alone. His name is Tarquin and in reality he looks like a weird alien rather than the human face he showed Hoshi. He claims he can use his ability to help Archer find the Xindi weapon. He lives alone in his castle and only talks with the outside world through theinternet telepathy. He insists that Hoshi stay with him while he's working. Alarm bells! Hoshi agrees to stay so the Ent can investigate the second sphere. Taquin makes Hoshi all her favourite foods (he's read her thoughts!) He explains he was exiled for being telephatic but wants to get to know her like a normal person now. Yet he continues to creepy her out mildly by sharing insights into her thinking. When the Enterprise gets close to the sphere, an anomaly blows a big hole in the ship. Oops.
Hoshi changes into a dress with her hair down and umm yeah I'm into this. Tarquin shows her his magic crystal device that lets him reach out with her thoughts. He lets her use it and she sees a bunch of clips from earlier episodes. Hoshi discovers graves outside. Tarquin reveals they are previous companions who died of old age (he's over four hundred.) He asks her to consider staying with him for the rest of her life. She is not up for it. He appears to her as a human and tries to talk her round by listing events from her life. He points out that Hoshi isolates herself on the Enterpirse. I guess that's why it took her four months to speak to the MACOs. Archer and Trip land a shuttle on the cloaked sphere (after some drama.) They do a space walk on the sphere's surface. The shuttle gets thrown around and nearly hits them. They get all their data and head back to Hoshi and the creeer. Taquin asks if she'll stay and she again says no and he seems to accept it this time. Archer arrives and tells her Taquin has said he'll give them even more information on the Xindi as long as she stays behind again. Archer won't let her return to the ship to say goodbye to everyone and she starts to get suspicous. She realises it's just Tarquin pretending to be Archer. Tarquin shuts down the real Enterprise as it arrives (he can do that I guess!) Hoshi has had enough of Tarquin's shit and rants at him. He tells her he'll destroy the Enterprise if she agrees to stay. She threatens to destroy his magic crystal device, pointing out he'll be alone after she dies without it. He finally lets her go, but without any information on the Xindi. T'Pol has found there's at least fifty spears in the expanse and wonders who'd make such a thing. Taquin appears to Hoshi and gives her information the Xindi for real as he doesn't want to see her harmed. Its coordinates for a planet where they're building part of the weapon.
It's a pretty obvious 'Beauty and the Beast' rip-off, complete with castle! Voyager did it already with that woman who was hot for Tuvok, so it's not even original for Trek. And yet I still found it pretty good! Linda Park always does well when she has to carry an episode. Tarquin was creepy but they managed to make his interest in Hoshi seem fairly non-sexual, so you could just about buy that he was a very old, lonely guy. Then again you can also view it as an analogy to internet stalkers (or just stalkers in general whatever.) The subplot with the sphere is failry good too though a bit familiar as we've already had sphere/anomaly stuff this season. Anyway, it's fine. Nothing new but I wasn't bored.
SCORE: 7/10
Hayes aks how the crew could turn so violent when Vulcans don't have emotions. T'Pol of course corrects him that Vulcans do have emotions, they just suppress them, and they used to be a very violent race. The four of them makes their way to the Bridge throug tights spaces and have to beat up some Zulcans along the way. Trip and Travis have to get off their asteroid as it's about to crash into another one. T'Pol's emotions slip further from her control. She snaps at Reed when he does something wrong. Jolene Blalock's acting is not her best here. She grows paranoid and accuses Archer of trying to sabotage her work. She pulls a phaser (set to kill!) on him. Phlox reports that Trellium-D is deadly to Vulcans and that's why their brains are breaking down. He can treat T'Pol (but not any of the others, of course) if they get her back in time. The Zulcans show up again and our heroes flee. The Vulcan ship is hit by rocks so there's explosions and stuff it's exciting. A section of flooring is missing so the away team have to walk over on a thin plank (Archer carrying a stunned T'Pol.) Reed has to shoot zombies walking backwards across it. They get back to the shuttle (they did something to get the door opened I don't know) but now the docking clamps are jammed! Trip and Travis just happen to be flying by and blow the clamps off. They fly away as the Vulcan ship explodes. Back on the ship, Phlox manages to treat T'Pol in time so that teaser where she was about to die was a bit misleading! Archer tells her what the Trellium does to Vulcans. T'Pol insists they still coat the ship with it to survive the anomalies and asks to be left behind. Archer says he's not going to try to save humanity without holding onto what makes him human. Movie night is interrupted by a tactical alert and T'Pol is attacked by zombies. Oh its just a dream. And that's how the episode ends, which is a bit weird.
As an action episode this is very good, and it looks a lot better than most Trek has by now. The CGI is great by the standards of the time, the asteroid field and the exploding Vulcan ship are really impressive. The strobe lights get a bit annoying but work really well during the action scenes. The zombie Vulcans (OR ZULCANS) are actully fairly scary. The weak part is the TPol story. It's just not that interesting watching her go mad again, even though the payoff with Archer promising not to leave her behind is good. And Jolene Blalock isn't all that convincing showing emotions. On the whole though I like it quite a bit as an action spectacle.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Exile - Hoshi (in casual clothes!) starts to hear a voice in her head and sees a mysterious man in her quarters. T'Pol discovers a second anomaly-causing sphere. She wants to make a map of where the anomalies will pop up so they go to investigate. Reed patronises Hoshi by telling her she probably imagined the scary man. Phlox can't find anything either and she accepts it was in her head. Then Hoshi hears the scary voice again and this time the man shows her a planet where he's "waiting for her." She finds herself in a castle built into the side of a mountain before Reed pulls her back to reality. Next the alien talks to her through Phlox and says listening to her thoughts has been "very pleasurable." Hoshi has a "unique mind" so he can talk to her telepathically and wants her to come to his planet to meet him. He claims to have information about the Xindi. Archer, Hoshi and Reed visit the castle. Creepy guy is unhappy she didn't come alone. His name is Tarquin and in reality he looks like a weird alien rather than the human face he showed Hoshi. He claims he can use his ability to help Archer find the Xindi weapon. He lives alone in his castle and only talks with the outside world through the
Hoshi changes into a dress with her hair down and umm yeah I'm into this. Tarquin shows her his magic crystal device that lets him reach out with her thoughts. He lets her use it and she sees a bunch of clips from earlier episodes. Hoshi discovers graves outside. Tarquin reveals they are previous companions who died of old age (he's over four hundred.) He asks her to consider staying with him for the rest of her life. She is not up for it. He appears to her as a human and tries to talk her round by listing events from her life. He points out that Hoshi isolates herself on the Enterpirse. I guess that's why it took her four months to speak to the MACOs. Archer and Trip land a shuttle on the cloaked sphere (after some drama.) They do a space walk on the sphere's surface. The shuttle gets thrown around and nearly hits them. They get all their data and head back to Hoshi and the creeer. Taquin asks if she'll stay and she again says no and he seems to accept it this time. Archer arrives and tells her Taquin has said he'll give them even more information on the Xindi as long as she stays behind again. Archer won't let her return to the ship to say goodbye to everyone and she starts to get suspicous. She realises it's just Tarquin pretending to be Archer. Tarquin shuts down the real Enterprise as it arrives (he can do that I guess!) Hoshi has had enough of Tarquin's shit and rants at him. He tells her he'll destroy the Enterprise if she agrees to stay. She threatens to destroy his magic crystal device, pointing out he'll be alone after she dies without it. He finally lets her go, but without any information on the Xindi. T'Pol has found there's at least fifty spears in the expanse and wonders who'd make such a thing. Taquin appears to Hoshi and gives her information the Xindi for real as he doesn't want to see her harmed. Its coordinates for a planet where they're building part of the weapon.
It's a pretty obvious 'Beauty and the Beast' rip-off, complete with castle! Voyager did it already with that woman who was hot for Tuvok, so it's not even original for Trek. And yet I still found it pretty good! Linda Park always does well when she has to carry an episode. Tarquin was creepy but they managed to make his interest in Hoshi seem fairly non-sexual, so you could just about buy that he was a very old, lonely guy. Then again you can also view it as an analogy to internet stalkers (or just stalkers in general whatever.) The subplot with the sphere is failry good too though a bit familiar as we've already had sphere/anomaly stuff this season. Anyway, it's fine. Nothing new but I wasn't bored.
SCORE: 7/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
The Shipment - Degra tells his boss that his could deploy the Earth-destroying weapon in a matter of weeks if his next test is successful. Archer, Reed and Major Hayes visit the planet the mind pervert told Hoshi about. They hide out in a forest and spy on a factory and it reminds me of Return of The Jedi. They're surprised not to detect any security devices within the Xindi compound and break in pretty easily. The place employs Xindi sloths who are moaning about Degra wanting them to produce more of a mysterious substance (Kemocite.) Archer, Reed and Hayes invade the home of the lead sloth and question him at phaserpoint. Gralik (the sloth) claims not to know what Degra is using the kemocite for and is incredulous when Archer claims it's going to destroy Earth. Reed congratulates Archer on being about to destroy a Xindi weapon facility, but for the first time Archer wonders if his actions will result in a war and prove to the Xindi that they were right to fear humanity. Archer goes into angry mode to get answers from Gralik, showing him part of the probe that attacked Earth, but Gralik turns the tables by saing Archer is acting like a crazy person. Trip takes apart a Xindi rifle (captured in a previous episode) and finds it has organic components. Weird. Archer and Gralik finally relax and talk like normal people. Gralik admits he never asked what Degra wanted all the kemocite for and tells Archer there used to be a sixth Xindi race, the avians, who were wiped out in the war that destroyed their homeworld. He paints the insectoid and reptillian Xindi as the true villains. This always feels a bit racist, how it's the two scary looking Xindi races that are the evil ones. The reptillians show up on the planet before Archer can blow up the factory.
Trip and Phlox come up with a way to disable the rifles, but it needs a lot of deadly radiation. Gralik agrees to team up with Archer as he regrets aiding in the deaths of the seven million humans. Graliks co-workers come looking for him as he hides out at home. The reptillians send out teams to find him. Archer and the others are chased through the forest by probe droids. It's a bit like Star Trek: Insurrection. Trip thinks he's found out how to shoot the Xindi rifle but it's booby-trapped it explode when non-Xindi use it. Oops. He beams it into space just in time. Archer and friends hide out in some caves. Archer is willing to trust Gralik and comes up with a plan where Gralik will deliver kemocite to Degra that "isn't exactly what he ordered." Nothing needs to be blown up. Reed and Hayes both disgaree with Archer's decision but the Captain still wants to believe in the goodness of people/sloths. Gralik plays it cool with Degra and the reptillians and claims he shot the probe droid because he was out hunting and it was annooying him. Archer sneaks into Degra's shuttle and swaps some of the kemocite while Gralik distracts Degra. Degra tells him the kemocite is being used to stop a ruthless alien species. Archer and Gralik have a drink and Gralik wonders if he's just betrayed his people for a ruthless alien species. He asks Archer to remember that not all Xindi are his enemy.
This is good. I like how it shows Archer actually stopping to think and tells a Star Trek story about trust rather than having him just blow up the factory and shout at people. Gralik is a cool guest character and I like how he handled himself when he faced Degra and the reptillias. The B-plot with Trip is decent? I mean it's just a couple of scenes leading to a gun exploding, it's fine. It's a good episode.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Twilight - The Enterprise is under attack. Archer wakes up in bed (IN HIS PANTS) and runs to the Bridge. He finds T'Pol is the Captain(!?) and witness Earth being blown up. It's quite the teaser. He wakes up again, looking older, in a house somewhere. T'Pol (with long hair!) is making breakfast. She tells him he's forgotten the last twelve years. We get a flashback where the Enterprise is hit by an anomaly. He wakes in Sickbay and Phlox tells him that the anomaly infected Archer with parasites. He can't form new long term memories, like the guy in the movie 'Memento'. Archer stays as Captain at first, having breakfast with Trip and T'Pol as usual, but his memory problems obviously impair his ability to command as he comes up with ideas he's already had and stuff. T'Pol points out that Archer saved her life when the anomaly hit and that's why he ended up suffering from the condition. Back in the twelve years later future, T'Pol tells him Forest made her Captain and the brain parasites exist outside normal time. She tells him how the Reptillians attacked the Enterprise and Archer stabbed one to death. T'Pol rammed one Xindi ship (docked with the Enterprise) into another, which was pretty cool! However her heroics damaged the warp engine. Trip is angry at her and blames her for the failure of their mission. Earth was eventually destroyed as well as every other Earth colony, leaving less than six thousand humans. They now live on Ceti Alpha 5 (which is quite nice before CA6 blew up!) Another flashback shows Enterprise leading a fleet of human ships to CA5 and Soval meeting with T'Pol. He wants her to go back to Vulcan with him as humans are being wiped out. He offers to even let Archer come with her, but T'Pol stays with the humans. Soval feels a bit too harsh here compared to the season two finale?
We skip forward a year to the convoy arriving at CA6. T'Pol resigns her commission to look after Archer, leaving Trip in charge of the Enterprise (which orbits the planet for security.) T'Pol tells Archer their relationship has "evolved" and he wonders in what way. Phlox visits from his homeworld and tell Archer he has a way to destroy the parasites at last. They need a warp drive to do it so they visit the Enterprise. Archer meets Captain Tucker. Reed has a beard and is also a Captain. Hoshi is a Litutenant (well, she did better than Harry Kim) and looks hot with her new hair. Travis is nowhere and Archer doesn't ask for him. Archer thanks T'Pol for taking care of him for the last twelve years as Phlox prepares to kill his brain bugs. Another ship with one person onboard just happens to show up at this time. It tries to fly away but Trip disables it. Phlox's procedure works and he kills the parasites. Phlox asks T'Pol if she's told Archer she's in love with him. T'Pol says she was merely repaying a debt for the last twelve years. Trip and Reed question their prisoner, thinking he was going to sell their location to the Xindi. He admits he was hired to follow Phlox if he ever left his homeworld. Phlox and T'Pol make a shocking discover: destroying the parasites in the present destroys them in the past too. If they can destroy all the parasites they can change history so that the infection never occured. It's pretty lucky! Six Xindi ships show up right after Trip gets this news. Old man Archer rushes to the Bridge as the Xindi attack. The Bridge is fucking blown up and Trip, Reed and Hoshi die. T'Pol rushes Archer to Engineering to finish his procedure before the ship is destroyed. Repitillians board the ship and murder Phlox and T'Pol. Archer manages to blow up the warp core (while being shot three times...which doesn't really make sense since Phlox and T'Pol died in one shot) and it kills the remaining parasites. He wakes up back on the Enterprise twelve years ago with no parasites and no memory of any of it. T'Pol thanks him for saving her life and Archer says she'd make a wonderful nurse.
This episode has shades of 'Yesterday's Enterprise', 'The Inner Light', 'All Good Things...', 'The Visitor', 'Timeless' and probably several others. I gave all those episodes 10/10, yet I can't quite do the same here. Am I just BIASED against Eneterprise? Maybe! I think it because it all slightly feels like a mash-up of all those other episodes. I don't think it hits quite as hard as them. HOWEVER I'm only talking like 0.5 of a point less than them. This is still one of the best episodes of Enterprise by far, a great Archer/T'Pol story. The future scenes might feel familiar but they're very good. Jolene Blalock does a lot better with the subtle emotions here than the over the top emotions of 'Impulse'. It's a great episode of tv for sure and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
9.5/10
Trip and Phlox come up with a way to disable the rifles, but it needs a lot of deadly radiation. Gralik agrees to team up with Archer as he regrets aiding in the deaths of the seven million humans. Graliks co-workers come looking for him as he hides out at home. The reptillians send out teams to find him. Archer and the others are chased through the forest by probe droids. It's a bit like Star Trek: Insurrection. Trip thinks he's found out how to shoot the Xindi rifle but it's booby-trapped it explode when non-Xindi use it. Oops. He beams it into space just in time. Archer and friends hide out in some caves. Archer is willing to trust Gralik and comes up with a plan where Gralik will deliver kemocite to Degra that "isn't exactly what he ordered." Nothing needs to be blown up. Reed and Hayes both disgaree with Archer's decision but the Captain still wants to believe in the goodness of people/sloths. Gralik plays it cool with Degra and the reptillians and claims he shot the probe droid because he was out hunting and it was annooying him. Archer sneaks into Degra's shuttle and swaps some of the kemocite while Gralik distracts Degra. Degra tells him the kemocite is being used to stop a ruthless alien species. Archer and Gralik have a drink and Gralik wonders if he's just betrayed his people for a ruthless alien species. He asks Archer to remember that not all Xindi are his enemy.
This is good. I like how it shows Archer actually stopping to think and tells a Star Trek story about trust rather than having him just blow up the factory and shout at people. Gralik is a cool guest character and I like how he handled himself when he faced Degra and the reptillias. The B-plot with Trip is decent? I mean it's just a couple of scenes leading to a gun exploding, it's fine. It's a good episode.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Twilight - The Enterprise is under attack. Archer wakes up in bed (IN HIS PANTS) and runs to the Bridge. He finds T'Pol is the Captain(!?) and witness Earth being blown up. It's quite the teaser. He wakes up again, looking older, in a house somewhere. T'Pol (with long hair!) is making breakfast. She tells him he's forgotten the last twelve years. We get a flashback where the Enterprise is hit by an anomaly. He wakes in Sickbay and Phlox tells him that the anomaly infected Archer with parasites. He can't form new long term memories, like the guy in the movie 'Memento'. Archer stays as Captain at first, having breakfast with Trip and T'Pol as usual, but his memory problems obviously impair his ability to command as he comes up with ideas he's already had and stuff. T'Pol points out that Archer saved her life when the anomaly hit and that's why he ended up suffering from the condition. Back in the twelve years later future, T'Pol tells him Forest made her Captain and the brain parasites exist outside normal time. She tells him how the Reptillians attacked the Enterprise and Archer stabbed one to death. T'Pol rammed one Xindi ship (docked with the Enterprise) into another, which was pretty cool! However her heroics damaged the warp engine. Trip is angry at her and blames her for the failure of their mission. Earth was eventually destroyed as well as every other Earth colony, leaving less than six thousand humans. They now live on Ceti Alpha 5 (which is quite nice before CA6 blew up!) Another flashback shows Enterprise leading a fleet of human ships to CA5 and Soval meeting with T'Pol. He wants her to go back to Vulcan with him as humans are being wiped out. He offers to even let Archer come with her, but T'Pol stays with the humans. Soval feels a bit too harsh here compared to the season two finale?
We skip forward a year to the convoy arriving at CA6. T'Pol resigns her commission to look after Archer, leaving Trip in charge of the Enterprise (which orbits the planet for security.) T'Pol tells Archer their relationship has "evolved" and he wonders in what way. Phlox visits from his homeworld and tell Archer he has a way to destroy the parasites at last. They need a warp drive to do it so they visit the Enterprise. Archer meets Captain Tucker. Reed has a beard and is also a Captain. Hoshi is a Litutenant (well, she did better than Harry Kim) and looks hot with her new hair. Travis is nowhere and Archer doesn't ask for him. Archer thanks T'Pol for taking care of him for the last twelve years as Phlox prepares to kill his brain bugs. Another ship with one person onboard just happens to show up at this time. It tries to fly away but Trip disables it. Phlox's procedure works and he kills the parasites. Phlox asks T'Pol if she's told Archer she's in love with him. T'Pol says she was merely repaying a debt for the last twelve years. Trip and Reed question their prisoner, thinking he was going to sell their location to the Xindi. He admits he was hired to follow Phlox if he ever left his homeworld. Phlox and T'Pol make a shocking discover: destroying the parasites in the present destroys them in the past too. If they can destroy all the parasites they can change history so that the infection never occured. It's pretty lucky! Six Xindi ships show up right after Trip gets this news. Old man Archer rushes to the Bridge as the Xindi attack. The Bridge is fucking blown up and Trip, Reed and Hoshi die. T'Pol rushes Archer to Engineering to finish his procedure before the ship is destroyed. Repitillians board the ship and murder Phlox and T'Pol. Archer manages to blow up the warp core (while being shot three times...which doesn't really make sense since Phlox and T'Pol died in one shot) and it kills the remaining parasites. He wakes up back on the Enterprise twelve years ago with no parasites and no memory of any of it. T'Pol thanks him for saving her life and Archer says she'd make a wonderful nurse.
This episode has shades of 'Yesterday's Enterprise', 'The Inner Light', 'All Good Things...', 'The Visitor', 'Timeless' and probably several others. I gave all those episodes 10/10, yet I can't quite do the same here. Am I just BIASED against Eneterprise? Maybe! I think it because it all slightly feels like a mash-up of all those other episodes. I don't think it hits quite as hard as them. HOWEVER I'm only talking like 0.5 of a point less than them. This is still one of the best episodes of Enterprise by far, a great Archer/T'Pol story. The future scenes might feel familiar but they're very good. Jolene Blalock does a lot better with the subtle emotions here than the over the top emotions of 'Impulse'. It's a great episode of tv for sure and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
9.5/10
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CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
North Star - Cowboys lynch an alien. Archer, Trip and T'Pol are on the cowboy planet, disguised as cowboys. Trip trades a harmonica for a horse. Trip and T'Pol ride it together. Archer goes intoa saloon and the bad lads (one's a deputy) who lynched the alien (Skag) come in. They bully a young Skag until Archer steps in. The sheriff comes in to calm things down. Archer meets with a school teacher who is friendly to the Skags. She itroduces Archer, Trip and T'Pol to same Skag children she's teaching to educating despite it being illegal to do so. The alien children explain to Archer that their ancestors brough humans to their planet as slave labour three hundred years ago (weren't there any closer planets?) The evil deputy shows up to arrest the nice teacher. Archer gets beaten up and locked up in jail, as usual. The teacher tells Archer how humans turned the Skags into virtual slaves to punish them for the crimes of their ancestors (she doesn't know Archer is from Earth, he just pretends not to know any of this.)
The sheriff meets with Archer and defends the town's racist policies. He tells Archer to git out of town but Archer breaks the teach out instead. They try to ride out of town but the evil deputy shoots the teacher. Archer has no choice but to have the Enterprise beam them up so Phlox can save the teacher. Phlox reveals the teacher is part Skag. Evil deputy tells the sheriff that Archer must be working with the Skags and they have to kill every Skag in town to stop them taking over again. The sheriff doesn't want to so the deputy quits. Travis makes a rare season 3 appearance and even has one line! Archer returns to the planet on a shuttle and explains what's going on to the sheriff. Archer promises to come back some day to take the cowboys home to Earth. He explains how much Earth has changed in three hundred years, while the humans on this planet have just decided to stay as cowboys forever. The evil deputy shows up again for a shoot out. There's all the Western shoot out tropes in there like people falling off roofs in slow motions and a MACO jumping over a fence. Archer fights the deputy in a barn. There's one amusing bit where a bad guy grabs T'Pol to use as a hostage but Reed just stuns T'Pol with his phaser. The treacher returns to the planet and teachers the children (human and Skag) about the Earth history they've missed in the last three hundred years.
It's one of those season 1 or 2 episodes that try to emulate TOS. It's fine. It does a fairly decent job with the Western stuff (even though you'd think the planet would have changed a bit in 300 years) and tells a decent story. It's still not as much fun as it could have been though. I always feel like these type of episodes were better in TOS because they'd just go all out crazy there and have Scotty get drunk and punch a horse or something. The deputy is a boring evil racist villain. It's fine. It's okay. It's fine.
SCORE: 6/10
Similitude - There's a funeral going on...a funeral...FOR TRIP!? Trip's dead!? "Two weeks earlier" urgh. Trip is rubbing T'Pol's feet while her hip sticks out of pyjama bottoms. Enterprise is doing some warp test, something goes wrong, Trip gets smacked. Trip's in a coma with extensive neuro damage and could die (he won't die. Imagine killing off Trip! Phlox really quickly lets Archer know that he has a larvae that will grow into a human adult in two weeks if inserted with Trip's DNA. They can use the clone's tissue to save Trip. Hmm, I wonder who the funeral was for. The Enterprise is stuck in another weird part of the Expanse and the engines won't work, so Archer really needs Trip alive again and if that means killing a clone so be it. A couple of days later we have a baby Trip. Phlox coos over it even though he's going to kill it soon. He calls it Sim. Days later Sim is talking and don't ask me how that works. He then starts to remember Trip's memories and Phlox acts like he's just discovered that humans pass memories through their DNA. No they don't! That's not a real thing! You can't just say that! Archer wants to be the one to tell this small child that he'll be murdered soon. Archer lets him feed Porthos and fly a drone. Sim asks where his parents are. Archer shows him coma Trip and Sim takes the news pretty well.
Teenage Sim goes to work on the engines and crushing on T'Pol. Archer reports that the weird field the ship is trapped in will kill them in four days. Sim's an adult now and might as well just be Trip. Sim gets the memory of rubbing T'Pol's sexy feet back. He tells her he's in love with her and he doesn't know if the feelings are his or Trip's. Reed and Travis(!) pilot shuttles in an attempt to drag the Enterprise out of the weird field with the grappling hooks. There's some drama but it works, with Sim's help. The CGI is good. Phlox reports to Archer that Sim won't survive the transplant (wait, didn't we already know that?) Umm, I feel like I've missed something. Didn't they say all along that he'd die? Oh, it's that he was going to die of "old age" in five days anyway, not that he'd die in the transplant. So he's only losing five days. It's sad, I guess. Oh, and turns out Phlox knows a secret way to stabalise the clones and Sim could possibly live out a normal life. This is introduced pretty late in the episode. And now Janeway must choose if Tuvix will live or die. Sim wants to live but Archer tells him he needs Trip to complete this mission, even if it means killing Sim. Scott Bakula does some of his better acting here. Sim is ready to run away from the Enterprise in a shuttle but thinks better of it. Sim tells Archer that what stopped him is the memory of his sister and not wanting anyone else killed by the Xindi like she was. T'Pol tells Sim how much she'll miss him and kisses him. He's fine with dying now! Sim tells Phlxo what a good father he made. We go back to the funeral which was indeed for Sim (told you they'd NEVER kill Trip lol omg) with living Trip attending (we just didn't see him before.) Sim is shot out in a torpedo tube like he's Spock.
It's trying really hard to be a great episode. So hard that it feels quite manipulative to me. I know Star Trek isn't hard science fiction but the science here is just so dumb that I can't ignore it. Phlox also comes across as a complete monster. It's hard to get attached to Sim as a character when he's basically just Trip. It's gets better once Trinneer is playing him at least, because he does a good job with the acting and there's some interesting stuff like him not knowing if he's in love with T'Pol or if Trip was. Scott Bakula does some of his strongest acting yet and the final few scenes of Sim do work on an emotional level. But it's all just too stupid to be an all time classic or anything.
SCORE: 7.5/10
The sheriff meets with Archer and defends the town's racist policies. He tells Archer to git out of town but Archer breaks the teach out instead. They try to ride out of town but the evil deputy shoots the teacher. Archer has no choice but to have the Enterprise beam them up so Phlox can save the teacher. Phlox reveals the teacher is part Skag. Evil deputy tells the sheriff that Archer must be working with the Skags and they have to kill every Skag in town to stop them taking over again. The sheriff doesn't want to so the deputy quits. Travis makes a rare season 3 appearance and even has one line! Archer returns to the planet on a shuttle and explains what's going on to the sheriff. Archer promises to come back some day to take the cowboys home to Earth. He explains how much Earth has changed in three hundred years, while the humans on this planet have just decided to stay as cowboys forever. The evil deputy shows up again for a shoot out. There's all the Western shoot out tropes in there like people falling off roofs in slow motions and a MACO jumping over a fence. Archer fights the deputy in a barn. There's one amusing bit where a bad guy grabs T'Pol to use as a hostage but Reed just stuns T'Pol with his phaser. The treacher returns to the planet and teachers the children (human and Skag) about the Earth history they've missed in the last three hundred years.
It's one of those season 1 or 2 episodes that try to emulate TOS. It's fine. It does a fairly decent job with the Western stuff (even though you'd think the planet would have changed a bit in 300 years) and tells a decent story. It's still not as much fun as it could have been though. I always feel like these type of episodes were better in TOS because they'd just go all out crazy there and have Scotty get drunk and punch a horse or something. The deputy is a boring evil racist villain. It's fine. It's okay. It's fine.
SCORE: 6/10
Similitude - There's a funeral going on...a funeral...FOR TRIP!? Trip's dead!? "Two weeks earlier" urgh. Trip is rubbing T'Pol's feet while her hip sticks out of pyjama bottoms. Enterprise is doing some warp test, something goes wrong, Trip gets smacked. Trip's in a coma with extensive neuro damage and could die (he won't die. Imagine killing off Trip! Phlox really quickly lets Archer know that he has a larvae that will grow into a human adult in two weeks if inserted with Trip's DNA. They can use the clone's tissue to save Trip. Hmm, I wonder who the funeral was for. The Enterprise is stuck in another weird part of the Expanse and the engines won't work, so Archer really needs Trip alive again and if that means killing a clone so be it. A couple of days later we have a baby Trip. Phlox coos over it even though he's going to kill it soon. He calls it Sim. Days later Sim is talking and don't ask me how that works. He then starts to remember Trip's memories and Phlox acts like he's just discovered that humans pass memories through their DNA. No they don't! That's not a real thing! You can't just say that! Archer wants to be the one to tell this small child that he'll be murdered soon. Archer lets him feed Porthos and fly a drone. Sim asks where his parents are. Archer shows him coma Trip and Sim takes the news pretty well.
Teenage Sim goes to work on the engines and crushing on T'Pol. Archer reports that the weird field the ship is trapped in will kill them in four days. Sim's an adult now and might as well just be Trip. Sim gets the memory of rubbing T'Pol's sexy feet back. He tells her he's in love with her and he doesn't know if the feelings are his or Trip's. Reed and Travis(!) pilot shuttles in an attempt to drag the Enterprise out of the weird field with the grappling hooks. There's some drama but it works, with Sim's help. The CGI is good. Phlox reports to Archer that Sim won't survive the transplant (wait, didn't we already know that?) Umm, I feel like I've missed something. Didn't they say all along that he'd die? Oh, it's that he was going to die of "old age" in five days anyway, not that he'd die in the transplant. So he's only losing five days. It's sad, I guess. Oh, and turns out Phlox knows a secret way to stabalise the clones and Sim could possibly live out a normal life. This is introduced pretty late in the episode. And now Janeway must choose if Tuvix will live or die. Sim wants to live but Archer tells him he needs Trip to complete this mission, even if it means killing Sim. Scott Bakula does some of his better acting here. Sim is ready to run away from the Enterprise in a shuttle but thinks better of it. Sim tells Archer that what stopped him is the memory of his sister and not wanting anyone else killed by the Xindi like she was. T'Pol tells Sim how much she'll miss him and kisses him. He's fine with dying now! Sim tells Phlxo what a good father he made. We go back to the funeral which was indeed for Sim (told you they'd NEVER kill Trip lol omg) with living Trip attending (we just didn't see him before.) Sim is shot out in a torpedo tube like he's Spock.
It's trying really hard to be a great episode. So hard that it feels quite manipulative to me. I know Star Trek isn't hard science fiction but the science here is just so dumb that I can't ignore it. Phlox also comes across as a complete monster. It's hard to get attached to Sim as a character when he's basically just Trip. It's gets better once Trinneer is playing him at least, because he does a good job with the acting and there's some interesting stuff like him not knowing if he's in love with T'Pol or if Trip was. Scott Bakula does some of his strongest acting yet and the final few scenes of Sim do work on an emotional level. But it's all just too stupid to be an all time classic or anything.
SCORE: 7.5/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Carpenter Street - On 21st centuary Earth, a guy eating a pizza gets a phone call from a Xindi reptilian. Pizza guy (Loomis) picks up a hooker (in Star Trek!) and creepily tells her her blood type before knocking her out. He takes her to a building where several other humans are being held and leaves with his money. Daniels appears to Archer and as usual doesn't know anything useful (hisotry doesn't record the Xindi conflict and it "takes changes a while to ripple through the timeline" okay lol.) Archer tells T'Pol that Daniels wants to send them back Detroit on Earth in 2004. T'Pol asks logica questions about why Daniels can't do this himself but gets no satisfactory answer. Archer and T'Pol arrive in 2004 and "hilariously" try to steal a car (one has a clamp! Another has a dog! The radio is loud in the one they steal! This isn't all that funny!) They use a tricorder to rob an ATM. Loomis (who works in a blood bank) abducts a guy in a wheelchair next. Archer and T'Pol follow Loomis to his secret building where the reptilian orders him to bring the last two blood types as they're running back in time (despite having access to time travel.)
Archer and T'Pol follow Loomis home then chase him out the fire escape before a nerve pinching. Archer beats up Loomis when he won't talk because Archer's such a badass now. Loomis claims the reptilian (who always stands in shadows) told him he was a doctor working on a secret vaccine and he needed someone of each blood type. T'Pol makes very judgemental commens about what Loomis is willing to do for money. Archer and T'Pol takes Loomis through a drive through burger place in another weak attempt at Star Trek IV style humour. Loomis takes Archer into the abandoned building, pretending he's one of the drugged abductees. Loomis smokes a cigarette and T'Pol is disgusted. Archer crawls around spying on the Xindi. Arccher shoos one of the Xindi but the others escape with the virus. Loomis tries to stab T'Pol because he's evil and loves money. Archer and T'Pol chase the Xindi over rooftops as he tries to release the virus. Archer shoots the Xindi in slow motion then catches the virus as it lamely rolls away in slow motion. Archer and T'Pol return to the future with Xindi bodies. Loomis is arrested ranting about "lizard people."
It's the most half-assed, lazy, boring time travel episode ever. I guess it's trying to be "Archer and T'Pol in a cop show!" but that doesn't make it good. It doesn't offer any real social commentary on the 21st century aside from T'Pol making a few obvious comments like "smoking is bad!" and it isn't any fun. The plot makes no sense either, didn't Rajiin scan the Enterprise crew and give all that information to the Xindi earlier in the season? Wasn't that said to be all the information they needed for their biological weapon? What's all this shit about blood types? Why would their weapon only kill certain blood types? Do any actual biological weapons work that way? Plus did I mention it's just pretty boring? The guy who plays Loomis was pretty good at least in a sleazy way. But this was shit and a total waste of an episode.
SCORE: 2.5/10
Chosen Realm - Trip and Travis investigate another sphere. Some aliens watch the Enterprise and say they might have found what they're looking for. The Enterprise helps some of those same aliens on a ship trapped amongst anomalies. Phlox reports they're religious nuts who won't let him scan them. Freaks. Their leader D'Jamat explains to Archer that his poeple worship the spheres, are on a pilgrimage, and believe that the "maker" of the spheres will soon reveal himself to them. T'Pol and D'Jamar get in a "science vs religion" argument. Anyway, turns out the pilgrims are terrorists and D'Jamat calmly explains to Archer that each of his men has a biological bomb inside them and will blow themself up on his order. And one does so, killing an Enterprise crewman, as a demonstration. D'Jamat takes the Captain's chair on the hijacked Enterprise and blows up his old ship. He explains to Archer that he's taking the Enterprise to his homeworld where a religious war is being fought. He's going to use the Enterprise to kill the other side. D'Jamat wants Archer to choose a crewmember to sacrifice (for some reason) and also to delete all the information he's gathered on the spheres. Archer tries to win over a young terrorist whose wife has asked Phlox for an abortion.
D'Jamat tells Archer a story about how he killed a child due to his beliefs and it was the right thing to do. Archer tells D'Jamat that he has decided to sacrifice himself. But he has a trick up his sleeve and tells D'Jamat they have a "device" onboard that is used for executions. He's talking about the transporter! T'Pol "executes" Archer with the transporter but of course she's just beamed him somewhere else on the ship. D'Jamat tells the young guy that all non-believes are their enemy. Archer goes Die Hard, tying up a terrorist and scanning him so Phlox can come up with a way to neutralise the bombs. Archer talks the young terrorist into helping him (really easily considering he's supposed to be a zealot.) The young terrorist reveals that his people belive the Chosen Realm was made in nine days and the heretics believe it was made in ten. Also they're black down one side of their body. Some heretic ships show up and D'Jamat uses the Enterprise to shoot at them and such. He holds a phaser to Travis when he refuses to chase them. Phlox uses his bat as a distraction to take out a terrorist. Archer breaks out Reed and they shoot some bastards. And here's the MACOs because they're still a thing! Abortion lady sides with the good guys. The ship is retaken and Archer talks the heretics into stopping their attack. Archer takes D'Jamat to his homeworld that has already been destroyed.
It's 2004 so of course they want to do a terrorism episode. If they did it well I'd be fine with it! And there's some good stuff here: the guy playing D'Jamat does a good job being annoyingly single-minded, Archer's transporter ruse is pretty clever and the kind of thing Kirk would do, Phlox uses his bat to defeat a terrorist. The intention is good too, but it's all so simplistic. It's no more clever than 'Let This Be Their Last Battlefield' and has nothing interesting to say about religious violence. You can tell the writer (Manny Coto, who hasn't impressed at all in season 3 but will get better next year!) came up with the "they believe it was ten days..." line in an attempt at a classic Star Trek type moment but it's too silly to work at all. I think 2004 Star Trek viewrs probably realised that these types of conflict are a bit more complicated than just this type of thing (though yeah religion is pretty silly and I'm fine with making fun of stupid shit!0 Anyway this is better than last week's but not good.
SCORE: 5/10
Archer and T'Pol follow Loomis home then chase him out the fire escape before a nerve pinching. Archer beats up Loomis when he won't talk because Archer's such a badass now. Loomis claims the reptilian (who always stands in shadows) told him he was a doctor working on a secret vaccine and he needed someone of each blood type. T'Pol makes very judgemental commens about what Loomis is willing to do for money. Archer and T'Pol takes Loomis through a drive through burger place in another weak attempt at Star Trek IV style humour. Loomis takes Archer into the abandoned building, pretending he's one of the drugged abductees. Loomis smokes a cigarette and T'Pol is disgusted. Archer crawls around spying on the Xindi. Arccher shoos one of the Xindi but the others escape with the virus. Loomis tries to stab T'Pol because he's evil and loves money. Archer and T'Pol chase the Xindi over rooftops as he tries to release the virus. Archer shoots the Xindi in slow motion then catches the virus as it lamely rolls away in slow motion. Archer and T'Pol return to the future with Xindi bodies. Loomis is arrested ranting about "lizard people."
It's the most half-assed, lazy, boring time travel episode ever. I guess it's trying to be "Archer and T'Pol in a cop show!" but that doesn't make it good. It doesn't offer any real social commentary on the 21st century aside from T'Pol making a few obvious comments like "smoking is bad!" and it isn't any fun. The plot makes no sense either, didn't Rajiin scan the Enterprise crew and give all that information to the Xindi earlier in the season? Wasn't that said to be all the information they needed for their biological weapon? What's all this shit about blood types? Why would their weapon only kill certain blood types? Do any actual biological weapons work that way? Plus did I mention it's just pretty boring? The guy who plays Loomis was pretty good at least in a sleazy way. But this was shit and a total waste of an episode.
SCORE: 2.5/10
Chosen Realm - Trip and Travis investigate another sphere. Some aliens watch the Enterprise and say they might have found what they're looking for. The Enterprise helps some of those same aliens on a ship trapped amongst anomalies. Phlox reports they're religious nuts who won't let him scan them. Freaks. Their leader D'Jamat explains to Archer that his poeple worship the spheres, are on a pilgrimage, and believe that the "maker" of the spheres will soon reveal himself to them. T'Pol and D'Jamar get in a "science vs religion" argument. Anyway, turns out the pilgrims are terrorists and D'Jamat calmly explains to Archer that each of his men has a biological bomb inside them and will blow themself up on his order. And one does so, killing an Enterprise crewman, as a demonstration. D'Jamat takes the Captain's chair on the hijacked Enterprise and blows up his old ship. He explains to Archer that he's taking the Enterprise to his homeworld where a religious war is being fought. He's going to use the Enterprise to kill the other side. D'Jamat wants Archer to choose a crewmember to sacrifice (for some reason) and also to delete all the information he's gathered on the spheres. Archer tries to win over a young terrorist whose wife has asked Phlox for an abortion.
D'Jamat tells Archer a story about how he killed a child due to his beliefs and it was the right thing to do. Archer tells D'Jamat that he has decided to sacrifice himself. But he has a trick up his sleeve and tells D'Jamat they have a "device" onboard that is used for executions. He's talking about the transporter! T'Pol "executes" Archer with the transporter but of course she's just beamed him somewhere else on the ship. D'Jamat tells the young guy that all non-believes are their enemy. Archer goes Die Hard, tying up a terrorist and scanning him so Phlox can come up with a way to neutralise the bombs. Archer talks the young terrorist into helping him (really easily considering he's supposed to be a zealot.) The young terrorist reveals that his people belive the Chosen Realm was made in nine days and the heretics believe it was made in ten. Also they're black down one side of their body. Some heretic ships show up and D'Jamat uses the Enterprise to shoot at them and such. He holds a phaser to Travis when he refuses to chase them. Phlox uses his bat as a distraction to take out a terrorist. Archer breaks out Reed and they shoot some bastards. And here's the MACOs because they're still a thing! Abortion lady sides with the good guys. The ship is retaken and Archer talks the heretics into stopping their attack. Archer takes D'Jamat to his homeworld that has already been destroyed.
It's 2004 so of course they want to do a terrorism episode. If they did it well I'd be fine with it! And there's some good stuff here: the guy playing D'Jamat does a good job being annoyingly single-minded, Archer's transporter ruse is pretty clever and the kind of thing Kirk would do, Phlox uses his bat to defeat a terrorist. The intention is good too, but it's all so simplistic. It's no more clever than 'Let This Be Their Last Battlefield' and has nothing interesting to say about religious violence. You can tell the writer (Manny Coto, who hasn't impressed at all in season 3 but will get better next year!) came up with the "they believe it was ten days..." line in an attempt at a classic Star Trek type moment but it's too silly to work at all. I think 2004 Star Trek viewrs probably realised that these types of conflict are a bit more complicated than just this type of thing (though yeah religion is pretty silly and I'm fine with making fun of stupid shit!0 Anyway this is better than last week's but not good.
SCORE: 5/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Proving Ground - It's Shran! He's followed the Enterprise into the Expanse. He's got a new female second in command (Talas) to replace the one that turned evil (that one who threatened to rape T'Pol is also gone.) There's another Xindi Council Meeting: Degra is about to do another test on the weapon prototype. The Enterprise is hit by two anomalies that have combined to form an even bigger anomaly. They're tractor beamed out by the Andorians and there's an awesome shot of Shran's antenna appearing behind Archer's head on the viewsceen. Shran claims the Imperial Guard sent him to help after Earth was attcked. The Andorians come over to the ship to help out, but T'Pol is suspicious. Talas and Reed instantly clash. Archer and Shran have a friendly drink. Talas mocks Reed for his out-dated weapons but proves her usefulness to him. The Enterprise discovers Degra's weapons testing ground. Trip and Shran bond over having dead siblings.
Degra has to call off the weapon's test when Shran fires up to him, claiming to be from the Andorian Mining Consortium and looking for a rare element known as "Archerite." This is good fun! He has Archer and T'Pol on his ship. He says "the Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one" and it's like the best line in the history of Enterprise. Archer wants to steal the Xindi weapon to work on a defense. Reed tells Talas that same story about his parents wanting him to join the navy he tells everyone and she says maybe they'd be proud of him now. But then she takes secret scans behind his back. Degra's weapon fails to completely blow up a moon and the Council are angry like they always are. Even the whales tell Degra to get a move on. Archer thinks the failure was due to Gralick sabotaging the kemocite in that episode where that happened. Archer and Shran clash as Archer wants to take command of the mission to capture the weapon. Shran doesn't want his men taking orders from anyone. Shran reports back to his boss that he thinks they should stay friends with the humans because they're nice, but his boss just wants to steal the Xindi weapon to use in their war against the Vulcans. Archer takes command of the Andorian ship while the Enterprise distracts the other Xindi. The Andorians steal the weapon but Shran sets a course to Andoria rather than meeting up with Enterprise. He defends himself from Archer, claiming that the weapon will end the war with the Vulcans as it'll stop the Vulcans from ever attacking them. Archer punches and Shran chucks him out in an escape pod (Enterprise picks him up.) Enterprise catches up with Shran (Reed tracked Talas or something) and Archer claims he has the activation code of the weapon and will blow it up and kill Shran rather than let the Andorians have it. Shran doesn't buy it and neither do I really! But Archer activates the weapon and Shran has no choice but to kick it out. The weapon explodes and damages Shran's ship. Shran sends Archer all the data he has on the weapon anyway because he's a cool guy really!
Enterprise gets back on track thanks to the great Jeffrey Combs. It's the best episode yet for Shran as he just gets to be fun and funny, while still (reluctantly) becoming a believable adversary for Archer in the end. Okay, the Xindi still kind of suck, but this is a very good episode in its own right and gives me a bit more confindence in the rest of the season.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Stratagem - Archer and Degra(!?) both all dirty and with long hair are on a shuttle together, fleeing Xindi insectoids. The get away, but Degra is very confused. Archer claims that the insectoids tortured Degra with blood worms and they infected his brain. They've been in prison together for three years and are great mates now. Degra doesn't remember anything and is going to need some convincing. Archer tells him Earth was destroyed but civil war broke out between the Xindi after that with the insectoids conquering everyone else. Archer removes a blood worm from Degra and it goes some way towards convincing him of this new reality. Archer provides further details and Degra starts opening up to him a bit. There's a reactor leak and Archer gives up the one gas mask to Degra to show how trustworthy he is. The truth is revealed once Degra falls asleep: this is all taking place on a kind of shuttle simulator on board the Enterprise. Degra's been captured and Archer's been attempting to gain his trust to discover the location of the weapon. I think they revealed this at about the right timein the episode. Any longer and it would have been annoying to pull an "it's all fake!" ending. We get kind of pointless flashback scenes showing how Degra was captured and how Hoshi discovered the name of the planet (Azati Prime) where the weapon is being constructed, as well as Archer's unsuccessfuly attempts to get answers out of Degra. We could have probably figured all this out for ourselves. We see Phlox erasing Degra's recent memories and making his hair grow longer and stuff.
Finally we go back to the present day to watch the crew making anomalies by shaking the shuttle around. A real Xindi ship shows up so the Enterprise goes to hide in the debris field from the weapon test. Archer tries to get Degra drunk. Degra tells him to start a family. He reveals how he agreed to create the weapon only to protect his own children from the human threat. He talks of his regret watching the prototype weapon attack Earth (but still doesn't explain why it was tested there!) Hoshi calls (pretending to be one of Degra's friends) and tells Degra his family are safe on Azati Prime. Degra inputs the coordinates for Azati Prime into the shuttle. The fake shuttle starts to act up and Degra notices the starfield outside is fake. Degra tries to stab Archer and security run in. Degra is locked up in the Brig and claims he gave fake coordinates. It'll take three weeks to get wherever the coordinates go and Archer doesn't want to waste that time. Why? Where are they currently headed? They'd be as good going there as anywhere else. The ship starts violently shaking. Archer then tells Degra (and the other captive Xindi) that they attempted to use the Xindi portal technology to get to the coordinates and something went wrong. They need help before they blow up, but Travis manages to "invert the warp field" and get them where they were going. Archer takes Degra with them to the Bridge where a red giant is shown on the viewscreen. Degra yells that Archer will ever get close to the weapon and Archer now knows the cooridinates were real. He reveals the truth: they're still on the Holodeck! I mean, this is another trick. Degra's been tricked, the fucker. Travis gets a line! Archer erases all the Xindi memories (that's a lucky thing to be able to do!) and drops them off.
I like how the episode does the typical "it's all a simulation!" story but from the point of view of those running the simulation. There's some nice details, though I found the flashbacks in the middle way too long. Degra finally feels like a proper character. The ending is fairly clever. It's good!
SCORE: 8/10
Degra has to call off the weapon's test when Shran fires up to him, claiming to be from the Andorian Mining Consortium and looking for a rare element known as "Archerite." This is good fun! He has Archer and T'Pol on his ship. He says "the Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one" and it's like the best line in the history of Enterprise. Archer wants to steal the Xindi weapon to work on a defense. Reed tells Talas that same story about his parents wanting him to join the navy he tells everyone and she says maybe they'd be proud of him now. But then she takes secret scans behind his back. Degra's weapon fails to completely blow up a moon and the Council are angry like they always are. Even the whales tell Degra to get a move on. Archer thinks the failure was due to Gralick sabotaging the kemocite in that episode where that happened. Archer and Shran clash as Archer wants to take command of the mission to capture the weapon. Shran doesn't want his men taking orders from anyone. Shran reports back to his boss that he thinks they should stay friends with the humans because they're nice, but his boss just wants to steal the Xindi weapon to use in their war against the Vulcans. Archer takes command of the Andorian ship while the Enterprise distracts the other Xindi. The Andorians steal the weapon but Shran sets a course to Andoria rather than meeting up with Enterprise. He defends himself from Archer, claiming that the weapon will end the war with the Vulcans as it'll stop the Vulcans from ever attacking them. Archer punches and Shran chucks him out in an escape pod (Enterprise picks him up.) Enterprise catches up with Shran (Reed tracked Talas or something) and Archer claims he has the activation code of the weapon and will blow it up and kill Shran rather than let the Andorians have it. Shran doesn't buy it and neither do I really! But Archer activates the weapon and Shran has no choice but to kick it out. The weapon explodes and damages Shran's ship. Shran sends Archer all the data he has on the weapon anyway because he's a cool guy really!
Enterprise gets back on track thanks to the great Jeffrey Combs. It's the best episode yet for Shran as he just gets to be fun and funny, while still (reluctantly) becoming a believable adversary for Archer in the end. Okay, the Xindi still kind of suck, but this is a very good episode in its own right and gives me a bit more confindence in the rest of the season.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Stratagem - Archer and Degra(!?) both all dirty and with long hair are on a shuttle together, fleeing Xindi insectoids. The get away, but Degra is very confused. Archer claims that the insectoids tortured Degra with blood worms and they infected his brain. They've been in prison together for three years and are great mates now. Degra doesn't remember anything and is going to need some convincing. Archer tells him Earth was destroyed but civil war broke out between the Xindi after that with the insectoids conquering everyone else. Archer removes a blood worm from Degra and it goes some way towards convincing him of this new reality. Archer provides further details and Degra starts opening up to him a bit. There's a reactor leak and Archer gives up the one gas mask to Degra to show how trustworthy he is. The truth is revealed once Degra falls asleep: this is all taking place on a kind of shuttle simulator on board the Enterprise. Degra's been captured and Archer's been attempting to gain his trust to discover the location of the weapon. I think they revealed this at about the right timein the episode. Any longer and it would have been annoying to pull an "it's all fake!" ending. We get kind of pointless flashback scenes showing how Degra was captured and how Hoshi discovered the name of the planet (Azati Prime) where the weapon is being constructed, as well as Archer's unsuccessfuly attempts to get answers out of Degra. We could have probably figured all this out for ourselves. We see Phlox erasing Degra's recent memories and making his hair grow longer and stuff.
Finally we go back to the present day to watch the crew making anomalies by shaking the shuttle around. A real Xindi ship shows up so the Enterprise goes to hide in the debris field from the weapon test. Archer tries to get Degra drunk. Degra tells him to start a family. He reveals how he agreed to create the weapon only to protect his own children from the human threat. He talks of his regret watching the prototype weapon attack Earth (but still doesn't explain why it was tested there!) Hoshi calls (pretending to be one of Degra's friends) and tells Degra his family are safe on Azati Prime. Degra inputs the coordinates for Azati Prime into the shuttle. The fake shuttle starts to act up and Degra notices the starfield outside is fake. Degra tries to stab Archer and security run in. Degra is locked up in the Brig and claims he gave fake coordinates. It'll take three weeks to get wherever the coordinates go and Archer doesn't want to waste that time. Why? Where are they currently headed? They'd be as good going there as anywhere else. The ship starts violently shaking. Archer then tells Degra (and the other captive Xindi) that they attempted to use the Xindi portal technology to get to the coordinates and something went wrong. They need help before they blow up, but Travis manages to "invert the warp field" and get them where they were going. Archer takes Degra with them to the Bridge where a red giant is shown on the viewscreen. Degra yells that Archer will ever get close to the weapon and Archer now knows the cooridinates were real. He reveals the truth: they're still on the Holodeck! I mean, this is another trick. Degra's been tricked, the fucker. Travis gets a line! Archer erases all the Xindi memories (that's a lucky thing to be able to do!) and drops them off.
I like how the episode does the typical "it's all a simulation!" story but from the point of view of those running the simulation. There's some nice details, though I found the flashbacks in the middle way too long. Degra finally feels like a proper character. The ending is fairly clever. It's good!
SCORE: 8/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Harbinger - Trip is doing neuropressure...with ANOTHER WOMAN. A MACO who thinks Reed hates them. She kisses him and he seems to like it. Archer tells Reed that Major Hayes wants to put the senior officers and his team through a series of training drills. Reed is annoyed because he always is. Phlox tells T'Pol that Trip's been giving neuropressure to Cole (the woman) and it's giving her headaches because he's a stupid human. Reed continues to be difficult with Hayes, who comes across much more reasonable to be honest. The Enterprise uses its grappler to pull a pod thing out of a weird space thing. There's a bald alien inside who really looks ike a Suliban. He isn't very grateful at being saved and wants back in his pod. Hayes runs the crew through his drills. Trip and Cole fight sexily and T'Pol watches on jealous. It's dumb. Where's Daniel Dae Kim? Reed ends the drill early like the dick he is. T'Pol tells off Trip for talking to another girls and notes she saw Cole "touching his behind." Archer and T'Po think the alien they found was a "canary" sent into the weird space thing to see what it would do to him.
T'Pol does neuropressure on Cole and of course T'Pol is completely covered up here in stark contrast to how she dresses when massaging Trip's feet. Hayes instructs the crew in phaser practice and humiliates Reed by showing everyone how bad he is at shooting. Serves Reed right. Reed whines about him to Trip who points out that Hayes hasn't actually done anything bad. Trip denies he's part of a love triangle. The alien goes all flaky as Archer demands answers out of him even though he's dying. The alien starts to phase out of existence and yells a lot. Trip asks T'Pol why she's so jealous during their latest session. T'Pol denies it and says it's Trip who has the hots of her. His clone told her so! T'Pol kisses him, she takes her robe off, we see her bum crack. The alien knocks out Phlox and phases throgh Sickbay's wall. Reed and Hayes spar and Reed takes it too far by punching him. Reed accuses Hayes of trying to steal his job then violently attacks him when Hayes tries to leave. They keep fighting but a tactical alert ends it. The alien phaes into the warp core and Reed and Hayes need to "reverse the polarity" to stop him. They're friends now! T'Pol tells Trip she was just exploring human sexuality as an experiment and she doesn't give a fuck about Trip really. Archer tells of Reed and Hayes and orders them to "settle it." Archer yells at the alien as it fades out of existence.
It's pretty lame! Three stories and the stupid Reed/Hayes fight is probably the best one. And even that just makes Reed look like an immature idiot I'm not into the Trip/T'Pol thing really, but I'd have been fine with their story if they'd actually gotten together for real. But no T'Pol just says "lol it wasn't real" and they go back to normal. The alien stuff is completely by the numbers and if his species are the real big bad (they are) then that's pretty disappointing!
SCORE: 4/10
Doctor's Orders - Phlox is chasing Porthos around an empty Enterprise. Archer is in bed with a thingy on his head. Phlox is recording a letter to Doctor Lucas so we get flashbacks with his voiceover explaing what happened: the Enterprise ran into another weird space thing, Phlox had to put everyone else asleep to avoid going around it. The ship is on autopilot but Phlox is given a crash course on all its systems. Phlox runs around the ship with Porthos, sings, feeds his animals naked and watchesa movie. He starts hearing weird noises. Then it's suddenly revealed that T'Pol is awake too, and right away it's pretty obvious she isn't real since why would Phlox have learned to run the ship if she was awake? Phlox thinks he sees someone else creeping about Engineering. Phlox tells T'Pol how he doesn't like being around just one person as even a Denobulan marriage has more than two people involved.
Phlox sees a gremlin on the ship's hull. T'Pol logically suggests that maybe he's going mad. Phlox is chased by the monster. He thinks it's a Xindi insectoid. Phlox oues bug hunting without T'Pol, but she appears to tell him he's crazy. Phlox nearly shoots Porthos. Phlox imagines Hoshi coming out of the shower as a zombie. He imagines a less creepy Archer next. Phlox wants to sedate himself and put T'Pol in charge but she emotionally refuses. She tells Phlox that Archer trusted him to look after the ship. But they find the ship is still in the weird area of space and won't be out of it for ten weeks. T'Pol grows more and more emotional so it's up to Phlox to learn how to use the warp drive. Things start blowing up in Engineering as T'Pol continues to prove useless and Phlox has to do everything himself. They get out of the space thing and of course it's reveal T'Pol was asleep all along.
Remember that Voyager episode where Seven was alone on the ship and started imagining things and freaking out? Here it is again but with Phlox! Literally! It's not like it's even bad or anything, as Roxann Dawson does a good job directing it, there's some nice creepy moments and Phlox is always fun to watch. What's the point though? The Voyager episode was about Seven being on her own for the first time in her life, without the Borg Collective or even the Voyager crew. It made sense for her character. Why repeat the same story for Phlox? What's it trying to say, other than that he'd go mad on his own too just like a form Borg drone would? The T'Pol twist is really obvious too, though again it's done quite well with her obviously representing Phlox's rational mind and growing more emotional as he loses his mind. So yeah. It's fine on its own but I can't help feel it's a waste of an episode.
SCORE: 6/10
T'Pol does neuropressure on Cole and of course T'Pol is completely covered up here in stark contrast to how she dresses when massaging Trip's feet. Hayes instructs the crew in phaser practice and humiliates Reed by showing everyone how bad he is at shooting. Serves Reed right. Reed whines about him to Trip who points out that Hayes hasn't actually done anything bad. Trip denies he's part of a love triangle. The alien goes all flaky as Archer demands answers out of him even though he's dying. The alien starts to phase out of existence and yells a lot. Trip asks T'Pol why she's so jealous during their latest session. T'Pol denies it and says it's Trip who has the hots of her. His clone told her so! T'Pol kisses him, she takes her robe off, we see her bum crack. The alien knocks out Phlox and phases throgh Sickbay's wall. Reed and Hayes spar and Reed takes it too far by punching him. Reed accuses Hayes of trying to steal his job then violently attacks him when Hayes tries to leave. They keep fighting but a tactical alert ends it. The alien phaes into the warp core and Reed and Hayes need to "reverse the polarity" to stop him. They're friends now! T'Pol tells Trip she was just exploring human sexuality as an experiment and she doesn't give a fuck about Trip really. Archer tells of Reed and Hayes and orders them to "settle it." Archer yells at the alien as it fades out of existence.
It's pretty lame! Three stories and the stupid Reed/Hayes fight is probably the best one. And even that just makes Reed look like an immature idiot I'm not into the Trip/T'Pol thing really, but I'd have been fine with their story if they'd actually gotten together for real. But no T'Pol just says "lol it wasn't real" and they go back to normal. The alien stuff is completely by the numbers and if his species are the real big bad (they are) then that's pretty disappointing!
SCORE: 4/10
Doctor's Orders - Phlox is chasing Porthos around an empty Enterprise. Archer is in bed with a thingy on his head. Phlox is recording a letter to Doctor Lucas so we get flashbacks with his voiceover explaing what happened: the Enterprise ran into another weird space thing, Phlox had to put everyone else asleep to avoid going around it. The ship is on autopilot but Phlox is given a crash course on all its systems. Phlox runs around the ship with Porthos, sings, feeds his animals naked and watchesa movie. He starts hearing weird noises. Then it's suddenly revealed that T'Pol is awake too, and right away it's pretty obvious she isn't real since why would Phlox have learned to run the ship if she was awake? Phlox thinks he sees someone else creeping about Engineering. Phlox tells T'Pol how he doesn't like being around just one person as even a Denobulan marriage has more than two people involved.
Phlox sees a gremlin on the ship's hull. T'Pol logically suggests that maybe he's going mad. Phlox is chased by the monster. He thinks it's a Xindi insectoid. Phlox oues bug hunting without T'Pol, but she appears to tell him he's crazy. Phlox nearly shoots Porthos. Phlox imagines Hoshi coming out of the shower as a zombie. He imagines a less creepy Archer next. Phlox wants to sedate himself and put T'Pol in charge but she emotionally refuses. She tells Phlox that Archer trusted him to look after the ship. But they find the ship is still in the weird area of space and won't be out of it for ten weeks. T'Pol grows more and more emotional so it's up to Phlox to learn how to use the warp drive. Things start blowing up in Engineering as T'Pol continues to prove useless and Phlox has to do everything himself. They get out of the space thing and of course it's reveal T'Pol was asleep all along.
Remember that Voyager episode where Seven was alone on the ship and started imagining things and freaking out? Here it is again but with Phlox! Literally! It's not like it's even bad or anything, as Roxann Dawson does a good job directing it, there's some nice creepy moments and Phlox is always fun to watch. What's the point though? The Voyager episode was about Seven being on her own for the first time in her life, without the Borg Collective or even the Voyager crew. It made sense for her character. Why repeat the same story for Phlox? What's it trying to say, other than that he'd go mad on his own too just like a form Borg drone would? The T'Pol twist is really obvious too, though again it's done quite well with her obviously representing Phlox's rational mind and growing more emotional as he loses his mind. So yeah. It's fine on its own but I can't help feel it's a waste of an episode.
SCORE: 6/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Hatchery - Enterprise finds a crashed insectoid ship. There's a harchery inside with 31 vialable insectoid eggs. Archer gets sprayed in the face by an egg sac because he stupidly took his helmet off. They do capture a couple of insectoid bodies and a shuttle and one thing this season is doing well is mkaing stuff like that important later. Archer decides to save the 31 eggs because they're living beings. Trip wants to torch them and Archer rightly points out he wouldn't do that to 31 primate babies. Phlox does an autopsy on an insectoid (they only live twelve years, they're genderless0 while Archer grows increasingly obsessed with the eggs. He has MACOs (hi Daniel Dae Kim!) stand guard outside the hatchery. An insectoid baby dies so Archer has antimatter from the Enterprise transferred over to the Xindi ship to get it running again (it's pretty clear he's gone mad, in case you can't tell.) T'Pol, Trip and Reed grow concerned and T'Pol refuses Archer's command. Archer has Hayes lock her up.
Trip asks Archer what he's fucking doing and Archer tells a story about his grandfather who refused to kill school children during the eugenics war. This could actually be good material if it wasn't clear that Archer has lost his mind. Hayes finds a weakness in the Xindi ship and Reed admits he's impressed. T'Pol starts to get a bit emotional as she tells Trip they need to do a medical scan on Archer to relieve him of command. An insectoid ship attacks the Enterprise and Archer gets mad at Reed for destroying it because they could have looked after the babies. He makes Hayes the new tactical officer. Trip and Phlox try to get Archer to go for a physical but he refuses. Trip, Phlox and Reed mutiny, knocking out DDK to break T'Pol out. Reed isn't sure they can trust Hayes. Archer goes crazier and lets egg goop run over him. T'Pol and Reed storm the Bridge for a standoff with Hayes. Trip finds Archer with insect babies running over him so he shoots him. Phlox revals that the egg spray made Archer think he was the mother of the babies.
The only interesting is that Archer was actually right at the start: saving the insectoid babies was the moral thing to do and could have shown the Xindi that humans aren't all bad. But it turns out he was already insane when he suggested that and the episode isn't interested in telling a story about the morals of killing ugly babies. It's just another "Captain goes mad!" episode and it's less entertaining than most previous examples because Archer isn't really all that fun when he goes mad. The only actually character stuff here is between Reed and Hayes, again, and I don't much care about that. So yeah this is another total waste of time! I thought this was the good season...
SCORE: 2.5/10
Azati Prime - The Enterprise finally arrives at Azati Prime's system. Archer recognises Degra's ship, where Degra is celebrating the completion of the weapon (though he doesn't seem all that happy.) Archer plans to fly through the Xindi defensive grid in the insectoid shuttle like in Return of the Jedi. Hoshi has to come up with a translation matrix for the insectoid language. Trip and Travis(!) fly through the defense grid in the shuttle and Hoshi's translation comes through for them. Trip and Travis fly under water and find that the weapon is being built on the ocean floor. They bring scans back to the Enterprise and Reed knows exactly how to blow the weapon up, but it'll be a one way trip delivering the torpedos there in the Xindi shuttle. Trip and Travis volunteer but Archer says he'll be flying the mission. Archer walks through a door and comes out in the future, because Daniels can only time travle you when you walk through a door. He's on the Enterprise-J where the Federation is is battling the Sphere Builders. The Federation wins, so the Sphere Builders are trying to change the outcome. Daniels tells Archer not to go on the suicide mission because without him the Federation won't be formed and the Sphere Builders will win the battle. He gives Archer some Xindi medal to prove to the past Xindi that the future Xindi are friends with humans (that wouldn't really convince me.) An emotional T'Pol tells Archer "I don't want you to die!" as he still insists on carrying out the mission. Degra and the Reptilian leader clash as Degra is having doubts over blowing up a planet. Travis asks Archer why he's dong this and Archer says he won't order anyone else to die after Sim and all the other deaths. Archer leaves Porthos with Phlox and we get the usual cheese line.
Archer makes a speech to the crew about how they used to be explorers and they will be again when Earth is safe. T'Pol breaks down and cries after Archer leaves. A Xindi ship orders Archer's ship to power down after he arrives at the weapon, so he's been caught. Trip tries to comfort T'Pol but she tells him to get out. Archer gets beaten up (it's Enterprise!) and gives jokey answers to reptilian questions just like he did to Shran back in season one. The reptilian leader tells Archer how his people are the only Xindi willing to do what must be done and blow up planets. Archer tells him how the dinosaurs got wiped out on his planet (WELL ACTUALLY VOYAGER'S 'DISTANT ORIGIN' WILL REVEAL OTHERWISE.) Archer says he'll only talk to Degra and provides the name of Degra's dead child to get his interest. Degra talks to him and is intrigued as he doesn't remember Archer. Archer tells him that the Sphere Builders have been lying to them and it's the SB who will destroy the Expanse by transforming it into a different kind of space (or whatever.) Archer shows him the medal from the future. Degra takes it to his fellow primates and the a sloth as they can be more trusted than the ugly reptilians and insectoids. T'Pol is going to go and attempt to destroy the weapon next but Trip tells her she hasn't though this through. Her emotions are really getting out of control. Archer meets with the other Xindi and asks to be allowed to present his case to the Xindi Council. Xindi ships attack the Enterprise and kick the shit out of it. The warp drive is disabled and lots of stuff blows up. The reptilian doesn't want to hear from Degra. A guy catches fire in Engineering and Trip has to put him out with a fire extinguisher! A big hole is blown through the saucer and crewmen are sucked out into space. Dramatic zoom in on T'Pol's eyes. Yep, that's a great cliffhanger!
Okay, this is much more like it, obviously. Big plot developments with the Enterprise finally finding the weapon, Degra starting to listen to Archer, T'Pol growing more and more out of control and the ship being carved up by Xindi fire. It's exciting! Okay, I'm still not a big fan of Daniels and the whole thing where he can just suck Archer out of time whenever he steps through a door, but it doesn't take up too much time. So yeah more like this please, Brannon and Braga!
SCORE: 9/10
Trip asks Archer what he's fucking doing and Archer tells a story about his grandfather who refused to kill school children during the eugenics war. This could actually be good material if it wasn't clear that Archer has lost his mind. Hayes finds a weakness in the Xindi ship and Reed admits he's impressed. T'Pol starts to get a bit emotional as she tells Trip they need to do a medical scan on Archer to relieve him of command. An insectoid ship attacks the Enterprise and Archer gets mad at Reed for destroying it because they could have looked after the babies. He makes Hayes the new tactical officer. Trip and Phlox try to get Archer to go for a physical but he refuses. Trip, Phlox and Reed mutiny, knocking out DDK to break T'Pol out. Reed isn't sure they can trust Hayes. Archer goes crazier and lets egg goop run over him. T'Pol and Reed storm the Bridge for a standoff with Hayes. Trip finds Archer with insect babies running over him so he shoots him. Phlox revals that the egg spray made Archer think he was the mother of the babies.
The only interesting is that Archer was actually right at the start: saving the insectoid babies was the moral thing to do and could have shown the Xindi that humans aren't all bad. But it turns out he was already insane when he suggested that and the episode isn't interested in telling a story about the morals of killing ugly babies. It's just another "Captain goes mad!" episode and it's less entertaining than most previous examples because Archer isn't really all that fun when he goes mad. The only actually character stuff here is between Reed and Hayes, again, and I don't much care about that. So yeah this is another total waste of time! I thought this was the good season...
SCORE: 2.5/10
Azati Prime - The Enterprise finally arrives at Azati Prime's system. Archer recognises Degra's ship, where Degra is celebrating the completion of the weapon (though he doesn't seem all that happy.) Archer plans to fly through the Xindi defensive grid in the insectoid shuttle like in Return of the Jedi. Hoshi has to come up with a translation matrix for the insectoid language. Trip and Travis(!) fly through the defense grid in the shuttle and Hoshi's translation comes through for them. Trip and Travis fly under water and find that the weapon is being built on the ocean floor. They bring scans back to the Enterprise and Reed knows exactly how to blow the weapon up, but it'll be a one way trip delivering the torpedos there in the Xindi shuttle. Trip and Travis volunteer but Archer says he'll be flying the mission. Archer walks through a door and comes out in the future, because Daniels can only time travle you when you walk through a door. He's on the Enterprise-J where the Federation is is battling the Sphere Builders. The Federation wins, so the Sphere Builders are trying to change the outcome. Daniels tells Archer not to go on the suicide mission because without him the Federation won't be formed and the Sphere Builders will win the battle. He gives Archer some Xindi medal to prove to the past Xindi that the future Xindi are friends with humans (that wouldn't really convince me.) An emotional T'Pol tells Archer "I don't want you to die!" as he still insists on carrying out the mission. Degra and the Reptilian leader clash as Degra is having doubts over blowing up a planet. Travis asks Archer why he's dong this and Archer says he won't order anyone else to die after Sim and all the other deaths. Archer leaves Porthos with Phlox and we get the usual cheese line.
Archer makes a speech to the crew about how they used to be explorers and they will be again when Earth is safe. T'Pol breaks down and cries after Archer leaves. A Xindi ship orders Archer's ship to power down after he arrives at the weapon, so he's been caught. Trip tries to comfort T'Pol but she tells him to get out. Archer gets beaten up (it's Enterprise!) and gives jokey answers to reptilian questions just like he did to Shran back in season one. The reptilian leader tells Archer how his people are the only Xindi willing to do what must be done and blow up planets. Archer tells him how the dinosaurs got wiped out on his planet (WELL ACTUALLY VOYAGER'S 'DISTANT ORIGIN' WILL REVEAL OTHERWISE.) Archer says he'll only talk to Degra and provides the name of Degra's dead child to get his interest. Degra talks to him and is intrigued as he doesn't remember Archer. Archer tells him that the Sphere Builders have been lying to them and it's the SB who will destroy the Expanse by transforming it into a different kind of space (or whatever.) Archer shows him the medal from the future. Degra takes it to his fellow primates and the a sloth as they can be more trusted than the ugly reptilians and insectoids. T'Pol is going to go and attempt to destroy the weapon next but Trip tells her she hasn't though this through. Her emotions are really getting out of control. Archer meets with the other Xindi and asks to be allowed to present his case to the Xindi Council. Xindi ships attack the Enterprise and kick the shit out of it. The warp drive is disabled and lots of stuff blows up. The reptilian doesn't want to hear from Degra. A guy catches fire in Engineering and Trip has to put him out with a fire extinguisher! A big hole is blown through the saucer and crewmen are sucked out into space. Dramatic zoom in on T'Pol's eyes. Yep, that's a great cliffhanger!
Okay, this is much more like it, obviously. Big plot developments with the Enterprise finally finding the weapon, Degra starting to listen to Archer, T'Pol growing more and more out of control and the ship being carved up by Xindi fire. It's exciting! Okay, I'm still not a big fan of Daniels and the whole thing where he can just suck Archer out of time whenever he steps through a door, but it doesn't take up too much time. So yeah more like this please, Brannon and Braga!
SCORE: 9/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Damage - Enterprise is on fire and has lots of holes in it. The Xindi suddenly stop firing, but the Enterprise is still in terrible shape and can't even get the thrusters working. Turns out Degra called off the attack, much to the reptilian leader's disgust. Archer is to speak before the Council, after being transported home by the neutral Aquaitcs (they're not humanoid, but dolphins are nice!) Archer wakes up in an Aquatic ship, all beaten up and with dolphins swimming around him. T'Pol seems to be feeling emotional again as Enterprise is being repaired (the viewscreen doesn't even work!) Archer returns finding the ship in a mess and fourteen dead. It actually feels like a big deal since they didn't kill anyone in the first two seasons. When everyone's stood around that table on the Bridge, something explodes and rocks nearly fall on them. It's a nice little touch but I still wonder why Starfleet ships are packed full of rocks. There's a moment between Hoshi and Travis where he tries to assure her they'll get home and she isn't so sure. The Enterprise responds to another ship's distress call, hoping they can help each other. The Captain is Casey "Damar" Biggs and seems like a nice chap. Archer wants to trade a whole load of Trellium-D for a warp coil, but Damar can't spare one as it would leave his ship three years from home. T'Pol has a sex dream about Trip where she turns into a zombie and chokes him. She puts on a spacesuit and travels to an out of bounds part of the ship, where she falls off a ladder and punctures her suit. Turns out it's all to get her hands on Trellium. She cooks some up and injects herself with it, like some kind of drug addict.
Archer finds a secret message from Degra with coordinates and a date. They Enterprise will need warp drive to make it in time. Phlox brings Porthos back to Archer, who asks him if Phlox has ever done anything he thought was unethical. He reveals he's about to step over an ethical line...and it probably won't be for the last time (and the most damning thing of all is he thinks he can live with it?) Degra and friends talk to a female Sphere Builder and ask her about that time the Reptilians travelled back in time (I'd rather forget it!) She admits she was responsible for it but points out that her people saved the Xindi from extinction and owe her. Archer and crew plot a raid on Damar's ship. Nobody's very happy about it. T'Pol points out they're now no different from the guy Archer nearly threw out the airlock earlier in the season. T'Pol completely loses it and smashes a PAD. She goes to Phlox an admits she's hooked on the Trellium. It started when she was exposed on the zombie Vulcan ship. She started injecting herself with small amounts to feel emotions and improve her interactions with the crew (espeically with Trip, eh!) Quick quetion, if she wanted to feel emotions couldn't she just stop suppressing her emotions? Anyway, she's taken too much and her emotions are out of control. Enterprise attacks Damar's ship and Archer leads the raiding party with Trip and some MACOs. There's a lot of phasers fired (set on stun) and use of a stun grenade. Trip has a hard time getting the warp coil and Enterprise starts to take a beating again, but he's eventually beamed over with the coil. Archer comes face to face with Degra and tries to justisfy himself by saying he had no choice and at least he left some food for and Trellium behind.
I'm having a hard time deciding if this is 10/10 or not. It's definitely the best episode of the season and possibly the best episode of Enterprise yet. The only episode I've given 10/10 to so far was 'Cogeniator' just because it was the most thought provoking episode. I can understand why people would hate 'Cogenitor' and, in some ways, this one might be even more deserving of 10/10 because I doubt anyone hates it. Even I've wondered if 'Cogenitor' was done as well as it could have been in the weeks since I watched it. This one is so focused and intense. It's totally believable that Archer would do the unthinkable and rob a warp core from some nice alien dudes. T'Pol's story is strong too. But then I think, is it as good as 10/10 episodes from other series? Is it as good as 'The Pale Moonlight', the episode I compared it to above? No, I don't think it is. But then what if no episode is ever as perfect as that one? Does that mean no other episode ever gets 10/10? Let's be honest, I like DS9 more than ENT and the best ENT episode is never going to be as good as the best DS9 episode to me. Am I taking this whole 10/10 thing far too seriously? Should I just chill the fuck out and score it? Yes, I should. Fine.
SCORE: 10/10
The Forgotten - Archer makes a speech to the whole crew (and MACOs!), saying they have to succeed in their mission for everyone on Earth and for the eighteen crew who have died this season. Repairs are underway and the Enterprise is one its way to meet Degra. Archer wants Trip to write a letter to Crewman Taylor's family as she was in his department. Trip doesn't want to but Archer insists. T'Pol tells Phlox she can't stop feeling the new emotions. Phlox says she's done permanent brain damage with her drug addiction and she'll have to live with them. Degra and his sloth buddy show up after some anomaly stuff. They want to see Archer's proof before stopping the weapon's launch. T'Pol tells Trip to get some sleep as he hasn't slept since the attack. But then something catches fire again and a guy is badly burned. Archer shows Degra and Slothy the dead bodies of the time travelling reptilians, and a sample of the bio weapon they manufactured. Phlox also tells Trip to sleep because people need to sleep! He relieves Trip of duty. Arche rand Phlox explain to Degra how the Sphere Builders are converting the Expanse so they can live in it and everyone else will die. Trip has a dream about Taylor. She makes him feel guilty for not being able to think of anything to say about her in the letter. Slothy accuses Degra of being too willing to believe in Archer.
Trip and Degra end up in the same room together and Trip starts talking about how much death and destruction Degra's weapon caused in Florida (he doesn't ask why the fuck Degra decided to do a test run which warned Earth to the Xindi's existence. Nobody ever does!) There's a plasma fire or whatever on the outide of the Enterprise. Trip and Reed go to put it out in spacesuits. It's cool that special effects have advanced so much that Enterprise can just do this kind of thing routinely now. They fix the problem, it's a good looking sequence. Reed nearly dies. Trip blames Degra which makes no sense but he's not a fan of Degra! Archer shows Degra scans from inside a sphere. Degra is shocked because he Xindi have never been able to get inside one. It took the Enterprise about five minutes to get inside! There was a door! The Xindi are kind of thick? Trip fails to write the letter again. The Reptilians show up, angry as always. Degra doesn't want to attack his own people (but they're filthy reptiles.) He relents and fights them alongside the Enterprise. Degra has to destroy the Reptilian ship to stop it contacting the Council. Trip finally breaks down with T'Pol, revealing that whenever he tries to write the letter about Taylor he just thinks about Elizabeth. He's spent nine months trying to think of her as just another victim, but she was his sister. Degra gives Archer the coordinates of the Xindi Council chamber. Trip records an honest letter to Taylor's parents as he looks at a photo of his sister.
It's another very good episode. All the Degra stuff is strong as he's the only Xindi with a proper personality, but it's the Trip scenes that really elevate it. Connor Trinneer is the strongest actor in the cast and he does some of his best work here.
SCORE: 9/10
Archer finds a secret message from Degra with coordinates and a date. They Enterprise will need warp drive to make it in time. Phlox brings Porthos back to Archer, who asks him if Phlox has ever done anything he thought was unethical. He reveals he's about to step over an ethical line...and it probably won't be for the last time (and the most damning thing of all is he thinks he can live with it?) Degra and friends talk to a female Sphere Builder and ask her about that time the Reptilians travelled back in time (I'd rather forget it!) She admits she was responsible for it but points out that her people saved the Xindi from extinction and owe her. Archer and crew plot a raid on Damar's ship. Nobody's very happy about it. T'Pol points out they're now no different from the guy Archer nearly threw out the airlock earlier in the season. T'Pol completely loses it and smashes a PAD. She goes to Phlox an admits she's hooked on the Trellium. It started when she was exposed on the zombie Vulcan ship. She started injecting herself with small amounts to feel emotions and improve her interactions with the crew (espeically with Trip, eh!) Quick quetion, if she wanted to feel emotions couldn't she just stop suppressing her emotions? Anyway, she's taken too much and her emotions are out of control. Enterprise attacks Damar's ship and Archer leads the raiding party with Trip and some MACOs. There's a lot of phasers fired (set on stun) and use of a stun grenade. Trip has a hard time getting the warp coil and Enterprise starts to take a beating again, but he's eventually beamed over with the coil. Archer comes face to face with Degra and tries to justisfy himself by saying he had no choice and at least he left some food for and Trellium behind.
I'm having a hard time deciding if this is 10/10 or not. It's definitely the best episode of the season and possibly the best episode of Enterprise yet. The only episode I've given 10/10 to so far was 'Cogeniator' just because it was the most thought provoking episode. I can understand why people would hate 'Cogenitor' and, in some ways, this one might be even more deserving of 10/10 because I doubt anyone hates it. Even I've wondered if 'Cogenitor' was done as well as it could have been in the weeks since I watched it. This one is so focused and intense. It's totally believable that Archer would do the unthinkable and rob a warp core from some nice alien dudes. T'Pol's story is strong too. But then I think, is it as good as 10/10 episodes from other series? Is it as good as 'The Pale Moonlight', the episode I compared it to above? No, I don't think it is. But then what if no episode is ever as perfect as that one? Does that mean no other episode ever gets 10/10? Let's be honest, I like DS9 more than ENT and the best ENT episode is never going to be as good as the best DS9 episode to me. Am I taking this whole 10/10 thing far too seriously? Should I just chill the fuck out and score it? Yes, I should. Fine.
SCORE: 10/10
The Forgotten - Archer makes a speech to the whole crew (and MACOs!), saying they have to succeed in their mission for everyone on Earth and for the eighteen crew who have died this season. Repairs are underway and the Enterprise is one its way to meet Degra. Archer wants Trip to write a letter to Crewman Taylor's family as she was in his department. Trip doesn't want to but Archer insists. T'Pol tells Phlox she can't stop feeling the new emotions. Phlox says she's done permanent brain damage with her drug addiction and she'll have to live with them. Degra and his sloth buddy show up after some anomaly stuff. They want to see Archer's proof before stopping the weapon's launch. T'Pol tells Trip to get some sleep as he hasn't slept since the attack. But then something catches fire again and a guy is badly burned. Archer shows Degra and Slothy the dead bodies of the time travelling reptilians, and a sample of the bio weapon they manufactured. Phlox also tells Trip to sleep because people need to sleep! He relieves Trip of duty. Arche rand Phlox explain to Degra how the Sphere Builders are converting the Expanse so they can live in it and everyone else will die. Trip has a dream about Taylor. She makes him feel guilty for not being able to think of anything to say about her in the letter. Slothy accuses Degra of being too willing to believe in Archer.
Trip and Degra end up in the same room together and Trip starts talking about how much death and destruction Degra's weapon caused in Florida (he doesn't ask why the fuck Degra decided to do a test run which warned Earth to the Xindi's existence. Nobody ever does!) There's a plasma fire or whatever on the outide of the Enterprise. Trip and Reed go to put it out in spacesuits. It's cool that special effects have advanced so much that Enterprise can just do this kind of thing routinely now. They fix the problem, it's a good looking sequence. Reed nearly dies. Trip blames Degra which makes no sense but he's not a fan of Degra! Archer shows Degra scans from inside a sphere. Degra is shocked because he Xindi have never been able to get inside one. It took the Enterprise about five minutes to get inside! There was a door! The Xindi are kind of thick? Trip fails to write the letter again. The Reptilians show up, angry as always. Degra doesn't want to attack his own people (but they're filthy reptiles.) He relents and fights them alongside the Enterprise. Degra has to destroy the Reptilian ship to stop it contacting the Council. Trip finally breaks down with T'Pol, revealing that whenever he tries to write the letter about Taylor he just thinks about Elizabeth. He's spent nine months trying to think of her as just another victim, but she was his sister. Degra gives Archer the coordinates of the Xindi Council chamber. Trip records an honest letter to Taylor's parents as he looks at a photo of his sister.
It's another very good episode. All the Degra stuff is strong as he's the only Xindi with a proper personality, but it's the Trip scenes that really elevate it. Connor Trinneer is the strongest actor in the cast and he does some of his best work here.
SCORE: 9/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
E Squared - A Vulcan tells an aged T'Pol (in really overdone old age make-up) that he couldn't stop the probe from attacking Earth. Trip asks present day T'Pol for neuropressure, but really he's there because he's worried about her as she's been sticking to herself lately. He thinks it's all about that time he shagged her. Degra argues with his black friend and Slothy in a scene inserted here to remind you Enterprise has story arcs this season. Enterprise then comes across another version of itself, much more beaten up. The Captain (Lorian the half Vulcan, T'Pol's son) explains that the Enterprise is about to be flown back in time 117 years by flying through Degra's tunnel (I don't know why, really!) and end up flying around the Delphic Expanse trying to avoid the eys of history for over a century. Archer gave them a mission to destroy the probe but they failed. This all feels shockingly routine with none of the sense of wonder of something like 'Children of Time'. Loran's father is Trip, of course, and they get on well. Lorian has a plan at help the past Enterprise make its meeting with Degra and stop from behind sent back in time (which means Lorian will never be born, which no one brings up yet.) Lorian rveals Trip died when he was just fourteen. Phlox had lots of babies! Archer's grandaughter takes him to the ancient T'Pol who looks and talks like Yoda. Hoshi and Reed talk about the kids they'll have, then find out from Reed that he never got married or had children in the other timeline. LOL.
Old T'Pol has come up with a way that Enterprise can use Degra's tunnel without being sent back in time. The conflict is Lorian doesn't think this will work, but his plan has a 22% chance Enterprise will be destroyed and he never told Archer that. Lorian plots with his crew to meet with Degra in Archer's place. He has to steal a warp core part from Archer's Enterprise to get it done. Where do they come up with these crazy original ideas! Trip teases T'Pol about the fact they had a baby in another timeline. Lorian steals from the Enterprise and shoots Trip. The two Enterprises have a fight, it's lame. Archer wins and calls a truce. It's lame. Arche questions Lorain once he has him in the Brig. Lorian is the Odo, by the way. He reveals that he had one last chance to destroy the Xindi probe, a suicide run, but he hesitated and seven million people still died. Archer says they need to work together. The two T'Pols meet and Old T'Pol's voice is hilariously stupid. Old T'Pol tells her she'll never recover from the Trellium incident and will have emotions for the rest of her life. Trip can help her with that. Aliens attack Etnerprise as it tries to do the thing it's trying to do (I've tuned out.) The other Enterprise is hiding underneath our Enterprise and they beat the bad guys. Lorian's ship stays behind to hold off the aliens while Enterprise gets through the tunnel. It's just like 'Yesterday's Enterprise' only shit! The Enterprise gets through and Archer records a lot about how the other Enterprise never showed up, but then starts talking to T'Pol about how there's a chance they survived. WHAT THE FUCK. Then he FINALLY suggests that the other Enterprise now never existed because they weren't thrown back in time. NO SHIT. Then T'Pol says "why do we remember them then" and fuck time travel stories.
Hahaha it's so bad. It's like they didn't have enough arc to fill the rest of the season so they had to quickly rip off one of the best DS9 episodes to fill a week. There's absolutely NONE of the emotion of 'Children of Time' or any of the other similar episodes here. There's just nothing but a mechancial alternate timeline plot which everyone just shrugs off by the end. No one cares that all these hundreds of people will never be born! It's just an amusing incident that took up forty minutes! Why do this in the same season as the vastly superior 'Twilight'? I'd have rather had another Porthos episode. I'll admit though that it's so bad (old T'Pol's terribel make up!) that at least it's kind of entertaining and not really boring until the end. But man it's bad!
SCORE: 3/10
The Council - The Sphere Builders float around in a weird white space like they're the Prophets crossed with the Founders. They say Earth must be destroyed. We already knew this. T'Pol is still sturggling with emotions (I guess we'll get one "check in" scene like this every week.) Archer, T'Pol and Degra plot to travel inside a sphere for help proving to the Council that the Sphere Builders are evil. It's again hilarious that the Xindi have never got inside a sphere after studying them for decades. The Sphere Builder appears to Degra and says the Xindi could be a great civilisation if Degra allows the weapon to launch. She's so blatantly evil that it's a wonder the Xindi saw them as Gods for so long. Degra tells Archer how the Sphere Builders are known as The Guardians in Xindi culture and it goes some way to explaining why the Xindi believe in them (I guess they weren't acting so evil all that time.) Degra tells Archer that the Aquatics take ages to reach a decision (like Ents!), the insectoids are rash and quick to action and the reptilians (their leader is finally give a name: Dolim) are just really fucking evil. Degra escorts Enterprise to the Council and nearly gets into a fight with Dolim. Archer, Hoshi (for translating reasons) and Degra arrive at the Council chamber, which is was built into the side of a cliff by the extinct avians. Archer speaks before the Council and it's not long before Degra and Dolim are shouting at each other. Hoshi translates for the aquatics, which is weird? Surely the other Xindi have a way to understand them? Is she just translating for Archer? How does the Universal Translator even work? Dolim storms out of the meeting. T'Pol leads a team inside the sphere, after flying through a holographic wall.
Degra and Slothy tell Archer how the Sphere Builders showed the aquatics a "recording from the future" to convince them to build the weapon. The Sphere Builder orders Dolim to launch the weapon with the insectoids regardless of what the other three races think. She promises the reptilians will rule the Xindi with her help. Degra gets Phlox and Trip's help with preparing a visual presentation to convince the aquatics to join them. Degra tells Trip he's risking his family and he's killed all to help humanity so maybe Trip could trust him now. Archer tells Degra that humans and Xindi worked together on the future Enterprise he saw so I guess last week's episode kind of had a point. Archer makes another pesentation before the Council, this time with a hologram of the dead Sphere Builder/Guardian. Even the reptilians are impressed. T'Pol away team are attacked by big robot claws inside the sphere. Degra reports that the reptilians have voted to postpone the weapon launch and maybe that future of humans and Xindi together can happen! Trip and Degra even have a nice moment together. Then Dolim comes to see Degra in the next scene. He says he's discovered that Degra killed some reptilians (a couple of episodes ago.) He stabs Degra and, as he's dying, tells him he'll murder Degra's wife and children too. Archer is informed of Degra's death. A MACO dies and Reed goes on a rant about how they've become too comfortable with losing people. T'Po says "the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few" because it's a Star Trek line. Dolim calls a Council meeting and tells the others that the reptilians and the insectoids are withdrawing from the Council to launch the weapon. But he needs three of the five codes to launch it. The weapon flies off and Enterprise the good Xindi chase it. Reptilians beam Hoshi right off the Bridge (why don't they just beam Archer into space or something if they can do that?) and fly off into a votex with her.
It's not quite up to the level of the three episode arc that was the highlight of the season, mainly because the Xindi are just a bit too cartoonish at this point and the Sphere Builders are dull ultimate villains. However it's still a very fun pulpy science fiction adventure! Degra's death scene was very sad, partly because he was the only Xindi who felt like a full character.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Old T'Pol has come up with a way that Enterprise can use Degra's tunnel without being sent back in time. The conflict is Lorian doesn't think this will work, but his plan has a 22% chance Enterprise will be destroyed and he never told Archer that. Lorian plots with his crew to meet with Degra in Archer's place. He has to steal a warp core part from Archer's Enterprise to get it done. Where do they come up with these crazy original ideas! Trip teases T'Pol about the fact they had a baby in another timeline. Lorian steals from the Enterprise and shoots Trip. The two Enterprises have a fight, it's lame. Archer wins and calls a truce. It's lame. Arche questions Lorain once he has him in the Brig. Lorian is the Odo, by the way. He reveals that he had one last chance to destroy the Xindi probe, a suicide run, but he hesitated and seven million people still died. Archer says they need to work together. The two T'Pols meet and Old T'Pol's voice is hilariously stupid. Old T'Pol tells her she'll never recover from the Trellium incident and will have emotions for the rest of her life. Trip can help her with that. Aliens attack Etnerprise as it tries to do the thing it's trying to do (I've tuned out.) The other Enterprise is hiding underneath our Enterprise and they beat the bad guys. Lorian's ship stays behind to hold off the aliens while Enterprise gets through the tunnel. It's just like 'Yesterday's Enterprise' only shit! The Enterprise gets through and Archer records a lot about how the other Enterprise never showed up, but then starts talking to T'Pol about how there's a chance they survived. WHAT THE FUCK. Then he FINALLY suggests that the other Enterprise now never existed because they weren't thrown back in time. NO SHIT. Then T'Pol says "why do we remember them then" and fuck time travel stories.
Hahaha it's so bad. It's like they didn't have enough arc to fill the rest of the season so they had to quickly rip off one of the best DS9 episodes to fill a week. There's absolutely NONE of the emotion of 'Children of Time' or any of the other similar episodes here. There's just nothing but a mechancial alternate timeline plot which everyone just shrugs off by the end. No one cares that all these hundreds of people will never be born! It's just an amusing incident that took up forty minutes! Why do this in the same season as the vastly superior 'Twilight'? I'd have rather had another Porthos episode. I'll admit though that it's so bad (old T'Pol's terribel make up!) that at least it's kind of entertaining and not really boring until the end. But man it's bad!
SCORE: 3/10
The Council - The Sphere Builders float around in a weird white space like they're the Prophets crossed with the Founders. They say Earth must be destroyed. We already knew this. T'Pol is still sturggling with emotions (I guess we'll get one "check in" scene like this every week.) Archer, T'Pol and Degra plot to travel inside a sphere for help proving to the Council that the Sphere Builders are evil. It's again hilarious that the Xindi have never got inside a sphere after studying them for decades. The Sphere Builder appears to Degra and says the Xindi could be a great civilisation if Degra allows the weapon to launch. She's so blatantly evil that it's a wonder the Xindi saw them as Gods for so long. Degra tells Archer how the Sphere Builders are known as The Guardians in Xindi culture and it goes some way to explaining why the Xindi believe in them (I guess they weren't acting so evil all that time.) Degra tells Archer that the Aquatics take ages to reach a decision (like Ents!), the insectoids are rash and quick to action and the reptilians (their leader is finally give a name: Dolim) are just really fucking evil. Degra escorts Enterprise to the Council and nearly gets into a fight with Dolim. Archer, Hoshi (for translating reasons) and Degra arrive at the Council chamber, which is was built into the side of a cliff by the extinct avians. Archer speaks before the Council and it's not long before Degra and Dolim are shouting at each other. Hoshi translates for the aquatics, which is weird? Surely the other Xindi have a way to understand them? Is she just translating for Archer? How does the Universal Translator even work? Dolim storms out of the meeting. T'Pol leads a team inside the sphere, after flying through a holographic wall.
Degra and Slothy tell Archer how the Sphere Builders showed the aquatics a "recording from the future" to convince them to build the weapon. The Sphere Builder orders Dolim to launch the weapon with the insectoids regardless of what the other three races think. She promises the reptilians will rule the Xindi with her help. Degra gets Phlox and Trip's help with preparing a visual presentation to convince the aquatics to join them. Degra tells Trip he's risking his family and he's killed all to help humanity so maybe Trip could trust him now. Archer tells Degra that humans and Xindi worked together on the future Enterprise he saw so I guess last week's episode kind of had a point. Archer makes another pesentation before the Council, this time with a hologram of the dead Sphere Builder/Guardian. Even the reptilians are impressed. T'Pol away team are attacked by big robot claws inside the sphere. Degra reports that the reptilians have voted to postpone the weapon launch and maybe that future of humans and Xindi together can happen! Trip and Degra even have a nice moment together. Then Dolim comes to see Degra in the next scene. He says he's discovered that Degra killed some reptilians (a couple of episodes ago.) He stabs Degra and, as he's dying, tells him he'll murder Degra's wife and children too. Archer is informed of Degra's death. A MACO dies and Reed goes on a rant about how they've become too comfortable with losing people. T'Po says "the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few" because it's a Star Trek line. Dolim calls a Council meeting and tells the others that the reptilians and the insectoids are withdrawing from the Council to launch the weapon. But he needs three of the five codes to launch it. The weapon flies off and Enterprise the good Xindi chase it. Reptilians beam Hoshi right off the Bridge (why don't they just beam Archer into space or something if they can do that?) and fly off into a votex with her.
It's not quite up to the level of the three episode arc that was the highlight of the season, mainly because the Xindi are just a bit too cartoonish at this point and the Sphere Builders are dull ultimate villains. However it's still a very fun pulpy science fiction adventure! Degra's death scene was very sad, partly because he was the only Xindi who felt like a full character.
SCORE: 8.5/10
SAUSAGEMAN
Registered User
Man I don't remember a single thing about this season. Season 2? Yeah. Season 4? For sure. Season 3? "Uh, there were Xindi".
Starship Coyote
Original Gangster!
Yeah, I need to rewatch this whole series too, because Wacky's reviews are stirring vague memories on some parts, and a blank stare on other parts.