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ENTERPRISE |
Johnathan Archer - Scott Bakula Trip Tucker - Connor Trinneer T'Pol - Jolene Blalock Lt Reed - Dominic Keating Ensign Sato - Linda Park Dr Phlox - John Billingsley Ensign Mayweather - Anthony Montgomery 
OTHER SEASONS Season 1 Season 2 Season 4 OTHER STAR TREK SHOWS Star Trek The Next Generation Deep Space Nine Voyager OTHER TREKS THROUGH SPACE Babylon 5 The new Battlestar Galactica 
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The XindiSix weeks after entering the unexplored expanse of space in search of the aliens that attacked Earth, the Enterprise still has no clues, so Archer chases down his only lead and finds a Xindi on a mining planet. He also finds that the people running the planet are less friendly than they appear to be and both he and his crew are likely to end up joining the slave workforce. It's the start of a new season, but it's also the start of a whole new set up for the series, so this is a whole new origin story, almost. There has to be dialogue that introduces the new characters (mainly soldiers), introduce the enemy (an intriguing mix of CGI creatures and men in suits that make up the five distinct strains of Xindi), the anomalous nature of the space (stuff sliding around a cargo bay) and the fact that there was an attack on the Earth (Tucker's missing sister). The set up of the slaves on the mining planet is far from new, but it does have a slightly harder edge to it and the show throws in a topless T'Pol being stroked by Commander Tucker in a cynical bid to capture the audience. TopAnomalyWhen the Enterprise strikes an anomaly that disrupts all its main power and shuts down most of its systems, aliens board the ship and make off with a good part of the ship's manifest of supplies whilst it is still helpless. Archer goes after the ship and discovers a giant sphere that is the aliens' base. There, he discovers that the aliens have been in contact with the Xindi and he determines to gain all the information that they have, even if it means leaving his own morality in his wake. The harder edge to the show continues with firefights aplenty and Captain Archer shoving an alien in the airlock and opening the outer door slowly. When there is a whole planet at stake can one man's moral standpoint survive? This aside, it's a pretty straightforward STAR TREK episode. TopExtinctionFollowing the trail of the Xindi ship's passage from the database rescued after it was attacked by raiders, the Enterprises comes to a planet with no humanoid lifesigns, but one ship on the surface. Beaming down, Archer, Reed and Sato are infected by a disease that rewrites their DNA, transforming them into a race long dead. Only T'Pol seems to be able to fight off the disease. Then another alien race turns up intent on controlling the disease by wiping out all those who contract it. With traces of the hunting race from STAR TREK VOYAGER and the STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION episode Identity Crisis (crew member transforms into alien race), there is a lot of deja vu associated with this episode, but it manages to stave that off through three fine performances from Scott Bakula, Linda Park and Dominic Keating as the apparently primitive alien beings. They channel the tics and animalistic behaviour quite well to make their new states quite believable. The season's harder edge continues with burning alive the method of choice for disease control and the bug-eating scene is most definitely squirmworthy. TopRajiinA visit to a trading planet in order to gain the recipe for liquid trillium to coat the ship to guard against the local spatial anomalies lands Archer with a runaway slave girl. She turns out to have a disruptive effect on the crew thanks to her sexuality, but she also happens to be a Xindi spy looking to find out more about the humans. Considering the mission that the Enterprise is on, namely the saving of Earth, it is not believable that any captain would allow any stranger to wander around his ship unescorted. Experienced spy she may be, but her actions are so obviously suspicious that she would have been locked up long before she could cause the damage that she does. TopImpulseThe Enterprise detects a missing Vulcan ship in the heart of an asteroid field laced with deposits of Trillium. Whilst Tucker tries to gather the Trillium for the ship's hull, a rescue team boards the vulcan ship to find themselves under assault from vulcans turned into mindless killing machines. STAR TREK does NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. This is a zombie movie and is structured like a zombie movie. When the support storyline isn't doing a poor impression of ARMAGEDDON, the main plot strand follows the horror format to the letter. There's a dark, haunted house (or in this case crippled vulcan ship) and it is filled to the brim with flesh-craving zombies (or trillium-maddened vulcans). The heroes have weapons, but there are far more zombies than there are of them. It's a race for survival, for an escape that will need them to fight a running battle through the dark space full of places for zombies to jump out at them from, and a race against time as one of their own has been infected and will become one of the undead at any moment. Whilst it is true that the episode is a slave to its format, it makes for an effectively sleek episode with a simple set up and lots of action. It's even slave enough to steal a typical horror ending. It seems that STAR TREK ENTERPRISE is at its best when it's trying hard to be something else. TopExileHoshi receives a telepathic message that contains within it the offer of help if the ship will go to a specific planet. There they discover a being living alone, exiled from his own world because of his telepathic powers. He offers to use those powers to find out what he can if Hoshi will stay for a while. When it is time for her to go, her host seems unwilling. Beauty and the Beast gets the STAR TREK once over in this altogether dull episode. Hoshi is clearly not interested in her host from the beginning and makes it clear that she never is going to be and yet he is insistent, which makes all of what follows predictable and trite and really not worth anyone's time. TopThe ShipmentFollowing information gained from a telepathic alien, the Enterprise travels to a Xindi outpost that is manufacturing a chemical compound to be used in the weapon that the Xindi are building to destroy Earth. Archer takes the head man hostage for some answers only to learn that these workers know nothing of the weapon or even the purpose to which their work was being used. When a Xindi warship shows up, Archer is left to trust a Xindi for the lives of his crew and possibly the fate of humanity. Considering how urgent it is that the weapon planned for the destruction of Earth be located and destroyed it is surprising how much time Archer has got to sit around and chat. In fact talking is about all that anyone does in this entire episode and by the time it comes to an end you can't help but be glad about it. The side story of Tucker and Dr Phlox examining Xindi technology to look for weaknesses is a distraction that is so weak that it isn't even welcome. TopTwilightThe mission to find the Xindi weapon fails and so Earth is destroyed. The last survivors of the human race hide out in a remote system always fearful of being discovered. Captain Archer knows nothing of this as his ability to form memories was destroyed by parasites contracted from an anomaly that he was caught in. An operation to solve his problem brings hope of a different future, but the Xindi arrive at the critical moment. Doing an alternate future story in ENTERPRISE is something of a waste of time as we have already seen the future in the other series belonging to the franchise and so we know that Earth isn't destroyed. This undermines any attempt to build tension through showing events that we know didn't happen. That said, the story itself hangs together well. The destruction of Earth at the very beginning is certainly a spectacular opening gambit and the final battle sequences are exciting enough even if we know all along how they are going to turn out. This episode also allows Jolene Blalock a bit more leeway with her performance as both T'Pol and her relationship with the Captain have 'evolved'. TopNorth StarThe crew of the Enterprise explore a planet where a colony of humans is found living frozen in the wild west era. They are subjugating a humanoid race and anyone who attempts to help the 'skags' are likely to have an abrupt lynching. There must be dozens of worlds scattered through the universe that have been tainted by human history if the STAR TREK franchise is anything to go by. The excuse here is particularly weak one, but it does offer the chance to see Scott Bakula as a cowboy and a pretty convincing one as well. The plot isn't convincing, but the setting is nicely rendered is washed out colours to give the impression of era and the final shoot out is pretty impressively managed. TopSimilitudeTucker comes up with a plan to boost engine output, but when things go wrong the ship is stranded in space and its chief engineer is lying in sickbay in a coma. Dr Phlox has a plan, but it means creating a clone with a life span of only 15 days and extracting the brain tissue needed for a transplant. The procedure becomes even more ethically difficult as the clone becomes a member of the crew and it becomes clear that he isn't going to survive the operation to save Tucker. This is a surprisingly powerful episode and not just because of the ethical problems that it raises about cloning and organ donation, creating one life to save another. This is clearly meant as a comment on the state of modern genetics, designer babies and stem cell research. This does what all good science fiction should by looking at current issues through a distorting mirror. It also makes us think about those issues. A dry examination of the issues, though, this is not. There's a history of short-lived additions to STAR TREK crews (most notably STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION's The Offspring) and this is every bit as moving as those stories have been. A strong performance from Scott Bakula as Captain Archer, grappling with the emotional, ethical and downright practical dilemmas of the situation helps enormously. If by the end you're not feeling a lump in the throat or a prickling of the tear ducts then perhaps you're an emotionless clone. TopCarpenter StreetA man is kidnapping people off the streets in Detroit, one for each type of blood. In the far future, Captain Archer is warned that the Xindi have invaded 2004 for some reason and he and T'Pol are transported back through time to locate the aliens, stop their plot and bring them back to their own time, all in one night. There are more than a few whiffs of STAR TREK IV:THE VOYAGE HOME about this trip to the present day (well 2004), except that Archer seems a whole lot better prepared for it than Kirk was. Getting money from an ATM and stealing a car (although he does have trouble with a wheel clamp) are no problems for him. After that, locating the Xindi and shutting down the plot is a snap. It's a lightweight episode that tries hard to be dark, dealing with prostitutes, drugs and lowlifes, but never really coming up with anything more to say than 2004 stinks. TopChosen RealmWhilst surveying one of the spheres for further clues as to the nature of the Expanse and the location of the Xindi weapon, the Enterprise saves a ship adrift in a field of spatial anomalies. The crew turns out to be religious fundamentalists who are suffused with organic explosives and who are willing to blow themselves and the ship up if Archer doesn't help with the destruction of their heretic enemies. Suicide bombers and religious fundamentalism? It seems that ENTERPRISE is trying to do what all good science fiction does, look at the problems of the modern world through a distorting mirror. Unfortunately, it does so in such a hamfisted, unsubtle manner that its message overwhelms the plot. There's too much discussion about 'the truth' and what is acceptable in service of one's beliefs so it's a great relief when the shooting starts. TopProving GroundAfter the Enterprise is damaged trying to steer through a dense pocket of anomalies in chase of the Xindi weapon, an Andorian ship comes to their aid and offers an alliance to capture the prototype on its first test run. Though their captain is a trusted old acquaintance can their motives really be so honourable? After several weeks away from the search for the Xindi and their weapon, the series returns to its season plot arc and pulls in an old friend in the Andorians for some familiar faces. Aside from this, it's a pretty standard STAR TREK story with little to mark it out from any of the others. TopStratagemHaving captured the designer of the weapon that devastated Earth and the larger one being built, the crew of Enterprise stage an elaborate hoax to persuade him that it is years later and the weapon destroyed his world as well in order to find out the location. Conning people with trips forwards or backwards in time or into other realities has been done time and again in the STAR TREK universe, enough times at least to make it a whole sub-genre. That said, this is an OK version of that story and the double and triple bluffs turn out to be far more entertaining that they have any right to be thanks to Scott Bakula's tireless efforts. TopHarbingerAn alien in an escape pod is found floating in a field of spatial anomalies and Archer stops his mission to investigate the alien intelligence within. Lt Reed's problems with the leader of the marines comes to a head and T'Pol and Tucker finally find their mutual attraction too much to bear. It's a strange man that would pause in his mission to save his planet to look at a scientific anomaly, even such a large and interesting one, but Captain Archer is such a man. Unfortunately, the plot isn't as interesting as he is as it is splintered into three equally unexciting plotlines. The alien in the pod lies around doing nothing for most of the episode before going on the rampage and adding a new alien race into the whole Xindi equation with no explanation, trying to build up a little mystery. Reed at the marine leader solve their differences in the time-honoured fashion of kicking eight bells of crap out of each other and T'Pol's jealousy of Tucker's interest in another woman and the aftermath is predictable from start to finish. TopDoctor's OrdersA field of unstable space will destroy the minds of the crew and the only way to traverse it is to put everyone except the Doctor into a coma for several days. As the most social of species, the solitude weighs heavily on Phlox and he starts to suspect that there is someone other than himself and T'Pol still active on the ship and he has to deal with it alone as she doesn't believe him. Loneliness and hallucinations are far from uncommon themes in the STAR TREK franchise and there is little here to add to what has already passed. It is good to see an episode that focusses on the Doctor for a change, but the dictating of notes to his colleague is a tired dramatic device and undermines some of the creepier, more effective scenes. The big twist at the end is also fairly obvious from a very early stage and so comes as no surprise to anyone. TopHatcheryEnterprise encounters a downed Xindi ship of the insectoid variety and discover that it contains a hatchery filled with some still viable eggs, eggs that spray Archer with a defensive venom. Far from taking offence, Archer begins operations to ensure that the Xindi young are allowed to be born, even taking measures likely to compromise the ship's mission to save Earth. The crew don't take kindly to this and before long officers are being locked up and a mutiny is brewing. It would appear that Jonathan Archer is the first of Starfleet's captains to face a mutiny. Pretty much all of them have faced the same no matter what series of the franchise they commanded. At least the reasons for Archer's strange behaviour make sense to begin with, casting some doubt on whether he is compromised or just has more humanity than (or less practicality) than the others. TopAzati PrimeThe Enterprise finally reaches the planet where the Xindi are constructing their doomsday weapon with which to destroy the Earth. The only way to get to the device is for a stolen Xindi shuttle to take two photonic torpedoes on a suicide run. Archer gets a visit from a time travelling future agent who explains that the Federation are the key to Xindi survival and without Earth there will be no Federation. Archer sets out on the suicide run, but is intercepted, as is the Enterprise. This is an episode of two halves with the first half being dedicated to Archer suffering over his decision as to who will make the suicide run. The second half is about Archer suffering over being tortured when the suicide run fails. Most of it isn't very interesting, but as the mission begins to unravel, the truth about the Xindi and the sphere builders is revealed and Enterprise is getting big holes shot out of it things pick up considerably and the cliffhanger is one that ensures that anyone who made it this far will be willing to go at least one extra episode. TopDamageArcher is returned to his ship by a Xindi council that is coming to question the righteousness of its mission to destroy Earth. The Enterprise, however, is crippled and cannot make warp drive. It then fortuitously encounters another damaged ship that has a functioning warp drive, but will not give it up, leaving Captain Archer with a grave moral dilemma. This episode sums up the darkness into which the show is willing to descend in an attempt to bolster its dwindling audience. Where once it was about the hope of a new starship out exploring the universe and meeting new peoples it is now about humans desperate enough to steal and condemn others to potential death in the name of their own survival. Add to that a side story of T'Pol becoming a drug addict and the glossy sheen has been completely sandpapered away in favour the gritty realism that it is searching for. Whether that is for the better is difficult to say. It also doesn't help that it makes no sense that Archer would be returned to Enterprise when the council want him in good condition to answer more questions. What's all that about? TopThe ForgottenFollowing the Xindi attack, the Enterprise is full of holes and coming apart at the seams. As Archer continues to try and convince the Xindi about the truth of his story, Tucker tries to come to terms with the deaths of his crewmates in the attack. Grief is a terrible thing and it's a brave show that takes time out to examine the effects it has on people. This episode also takes a look at the aftermath of the battle, something that doesn't often show up. Unfortunately, the episode also tries to shoehorn in the dangerous repairs, Tucker's simmering hatred of the Xindi, the conflict of the lead Xindi between his loyalty to his fellow Xindi and the greater good of the race and a space battle. It's too much, doesn't scan smoothly and feels a lot like trying to fill in space in the holding pattern of the main plot. TopE2On their way to meet with the Xindi council, the crew of the Enterprise enter a nebula and encounter an Enterprise that is crewed by their descendants. The last time they tried to get to the Xindi council, they were hurled back in time and now their grandchildren have arrived to see that the mission succeeds - whatever the cost. We've been here before, the crew meeting their future families and selves and being faced with decisions that might wiped those out of existence. Time paradoxes are tricky things and this episode follows the STAR TREK tradition of just ignoring them and getting on with telling the story. It's not much of a story as most of it is character interplay and character interplay that actually doesn't mean a lot. With the show heading towards the finale, this is a distraction and could be kindly described as filler. TopThe CouncilCaptain Archer finally goes before the Xindi council in order to present his evidence regarding the sphere builders' manipulative plan that will see not only the end of Earth, but also the destruction of the entire Xindi civilisation in all its forms. When the evidence proves compelling enough to fracture the council, the reptilians are urged by the sphere builders to take drastic action. There's an awful lot of talk in this episode and whilst peace negotiations are a worthy thing, they don't really make for great drama. That is supposed to be provided by the shuttlepod mission into the interior of the nearest sphere, but that proves to be so obvious and inept that it really doesn't carry any excitement with it. TopCountdownThe reptilian Xindi try to use Hoshi to crack the launch codes they need to deploy the weapon that could destroy Earth. Archer negotiates with the aquatics to gain their help and an attack is launched, but the sphere builders are also not without their resources. The penultimate episode of a season is often a disappointment because it is too busy setting up the big finale to be successful in its own right. This one is busy setting up the big finale and can't stand as an episode on its own, but then not many of this season's episodes can as they are woven into the main plot arc that has run through this entire season. That's not a complaint, however, as the plot arc is coming to its climax and this is the exciting final step before the big one. The hard edge of this season is shown in Hoshi's torture scenes and the casualties that the ship suffers and there some small character moments in between the plot action, but it is the plot and the action that drive this episode on and both come together well. The space battle around the weapon is exciting and impressive and the final outcome not what is expected. It also leaves the story on a cliffhanger that could have been a season finale, but means that, for pretty much the first time, mising the next epiosde would be impossible. TopZero HourThe Xindi weapon is on its way to Earth and Archer is in hot pursuit, but whilst his ship is faster it has no weaponry to speak of. Enterprise has been left behind in the expanse to take care of the alien spheres, but the sphere builders set into motion a desperate defence that could kill the entire crew before the task is done. And so the season-long plot arc that has characterised ENTERPRISE's third outing comes to a close, but does it have any surprises in store for us? There has been little reticence about killing off minor characters along the way, so will it go out with a bang and a loss of someone more important? Well it goes out with a bang, that's for sure, but not in the way that might have been expected. The two missions running in tandem proceed as you could easily predict to a conclusion that was inevitable without altering the timelines of every single franchise show that follows after it (in stardate order at least), but then it serves up a suprise postscript that provides the cliffhanger to takes us into series four. As a season finale goes, it is acceptably exciting and dramatic, but doesn't quite match up to the previous Countdown. Still, it caps a season in which the fortunes of the show have been turned around, the characters have become less annoying, the new, gritty edge has suited it and continuity issues that dogged the first two seasons have dwindled away. ENTERPRISE will be back for a new season and just about deserves it. Top |
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