To Boldly Step Forward (Enterprise: Season 2) [2.1]

PREVIOUSLY ON "TO BOLDLY STEP FORWARD":

"These are but our first steps forward, and yet they've been wonderful steps. Sometimes we've stumbled, of course, and sometimes things have just been okay. Other times, though, this show has sung with a confidence and determination to prove itself amongst the sea of other Star Trek shows, much like humanity in the show moves forward with confidence and determination. I'll see you for the Season 2 writeups, whenever I get around to starting that (and then finishing it). Until then, let's leave Archer in the 31st century. Don't worry. Think fourth-dimensionally. He'll be fine with the wait here."

AND NOW, THE CONCLUSION...


Part Two: Nothing's Gonna Bend Or Break Me


Well, Season 2! I'm writing this part as I finish it, so know that the rest of this was written in sequence as I watched. It certainly does move a lot of arcs along, and that's both good and bad. I'll be upfront. This is a season of extremes for me. When Season 2 is good, it's astoundingly good and really inspiring for me personally. When it falters? Holy shit it blunders into the offensively terrible for me. Like, metaphorical frothing at the mouth... as you'll see when we get to those. Well then! On with the adventure, and let's start by resolving that little tricky bit of cliffhanger from last time...



Shockwave, Part II: I was expecting just a bit more advancement of the Temporal Cold War arc, but what we got here is mighty fine. We still don't know exactly who turned the Temporal Cold War into an outright war by trying to rewrite history. What we do know is that the bad future Archer and Daniels are stuck in is one without the Federation. Bad news for Star Trek. Someone wants to deny us our utopia, and Archer is somehow key to all of this. Really, this was to be expected given we've got, oh, three seasons left of a Star Trek prequel series and there's no Federation yet. Of course our protagonist captain is going to be integral to its formation. Our B plot is more action movie spectacle with the crew held hostage by the Suliban and busting out, and as with Shockwave I it's great to see them take charge and kick ass with a formulated plan that leads to Archer getting back to his time by pretending to be the Cabal's shadow puppeteer or whatever and then dropkicking Silik in the face as he jumps backwards in time. Holy fuck. Of course, the mission of exploration will continue. The Vulcans give Archer the usual excuses about how his missions are reckless, and he's done this and that and ooh that's bad you're just not ready. Funny enough he mentions breaking out those Suliban from jail in "Detained" which, again, was the right call. Archer makes his case that humanity needs to be able to boldly step forward and learn from his mistakes, but it's a real great punch the air moment when T'Pol steps in and both vouches for the crew and lets the Vulcans know that hey, we ain't perfect either, Mr. "Listening Post At P'Jem". Oh my God do I adore T'Pol now. She's really grown on me, and I guess her professional relationship with Archer and how they both learn from each other and are working together is how everyone feels about Kirk and Spock from the old show. This is meandering, but this is great for that moment alone. Now, how about a few episodes of one-off space adventures, and then you can shuffle some more plotlines along, Enterprise?


Carbon Creek: And we don't even get a one-off space adventure! We get T'Pol telling us a story over dinner! It's a lovely story though, and one that gets to show off Star Trek's occasional fun with doing period pieces. We used to have the holodeck for this sort of thing, but I think this works better in some ways. So we get the story of T'Pol's great grandmother as she and her Vulcan crewmates crashland on Earth in the '50s and integrate with humanity in the little town of Carbon Creek while awaiting rescue. Not only is this good fish out of water stuff, but in a way it's a microcosm of T'Pol's arc up to this point. Interacting with humans softens up the Vulcans and helps them to understand our primitive and weird fucked-up emotional existences. Mestral the Vulcan plays pool, goes to baseball games, and watches TV in an effort to broaden his horizons... and he ends up caring. Hell, he violates Vulcan Prime Directives to save miners from a cave-in, that's how much he cares. T'Pol's gran, T'Mir, ends up helping out as well by funding a kid's trip to college. She does this by, and I'm not kidding here, violating the Vulcan Prime Directive by pretending to invent Velcro. Holy shit. When the group gets rescued, Mestral ends up staying behind to explore the planet and learn more from humanity, a space anthropologist if there ever was one. This is just an incredibly sweet episode and it's great to see the show kick back like this. No grand space adventure, no alien mysteries. Just a valued friend and family member on our bold steps forward, sharing a wonderful story about her people learning and growing from ours. This was an incredibly sweet episode, and one of my favorites of the show so far. Damn, Season 2's off to a great start! What's next?


Minefield: Well, there is a minefield! A space one surrounding an uninhabited planet that the crew wants to explore. Oh, and the folks who own it are none other than the Romulan Star Empire! They got a brief mention in Shockwave II but here they are for real, and neither humanity nor T'Pol really knows what their deal is. They're not really important to the story, and it could have been anyone, but we'll let the show indulge in its little continuity reference because at least the Romulans are a much better classic Star Trek adversary than the fucking Ferengi. No, the bulk of this episode is character bonding between Captain Archer and Malcolm Reed, as the pair have to work together to defuse a space mine. Malcolm's attitude to Archer and his friendly approach of command is still a bit fraught, as he seems to consider the crew just his coworkers as opposed to his family. He's also willing to sacrifice himself to save the ship, and Archer rejects both of these outright. Forget the exploration or the Romulans for a moment, this is what the episode is about: Making sure Malcolm Reed is part of the NX-01 family. As it stands, it's a lovely episode.


Dead Stop: Haunted by the future, this one. Enterprise makes its way to a repair station in order to fix all the minefield damage from last time, and the place is fully automated and able to replicate anything in order to fix the damage. So, you know, we have the spectre of replicators here in Star Trek's past. More nebulous and possibly not what it appears to be is the station itself, which pulls a mean malicious trick that makes it seem like Ensign Mayweather is dead. I admit, part of me thought they really were going to pull the trigger on that and make it stick. Thank goodness they didn't, just ask TNG how killing off Tasha Yar went. No, the station stole him to hook him up to its computer along with a host of other people, presumably harvested from other ships it repaired. Now the way this is presented, with a machine linking people up? Makes me think this is some sort of Borg origin story. The episode doesn't commit to that, but it does have me wondering. After all, the Romulans showed up last week. I'm not sure about this one. Let's just give it a stance of "okay" and move on, hm?


A Night In Sickbay: This is a very difficult one to write about, and I'm honestly conflicted on if I like it or not. The plot, involving Archer's dog Porthos getting really sick from alien disease and Archer being super concerned, really hit me hard as we lost our family dog over a year ago. It didn't help matters that I was going through a personal crisis and my anxiety was through the goddamned roof, and I'd thrown this show on to relax and was met with potential dog death. As if that wasn't enough, the tone of this thing is all over the place. It's a dissonant nightmare involving the thought of a cute beagle puppy dying, comedy gold involving Archer and Dr. Phlox, and repressed sexual tension between... Archer and T'Pol? What the fuck? MORE sex dreams about T'Pol? There's something of a gem in here about living with your feelings and owning up to your mistakes that could have been dug out if I were in a better mood, but my experience watching this was equal parts confusion and depression. How about we just say "it's complicated" and put a cap on that?


Marauders: I liked it more than I thought I would, but it is pretty simple on the face of it. It's Star Trek doing Seven Samurai, but with Klingons as the titular Marauders. My feelings on Klingons are multifacted and full of frustration, but they slot into this perfectly as a group of violent assholes taking supplies from a bunch of space miners every year and leaving them in poverty, scrabbling to survive themselves. Though I question the "honor" in being a bunch of violent bullies, but that's Klingons for you. There's very little moral debate, too; even T'Pol, for all her logic, comes down on the side of wanting to help so long as they formulate a good plan to make sure there aren't worse consequences for standing up to the Klingons. This leads to the final act, where the Klingons are utterly trounced, humiliated, and told to fuck off. T'Pol even roundhouse kicks one in the face holy fuck I love her. It's not doing much complex, but that's okay. With my background of coming from Doctor Who, I'm a fan of stories like this or "Detained" where the crew stumble upon people being oppressed, go fuck that and help the oppressed by tearing shit down and/or blowing shit up. It's good, is what it is. Now all I ask is that some fucker, some hypothetical dumb motherfucker on the writing staff didn't look at those and go "HMM THE CREW DID A GOOD BUT WHAT IF I WROTE A SEQUEL WHERE IT CAUSED A BAD? HMMMM DRAMA I AM A GOOD STAR TREK WRITER.". Please GOD don't fuck this one up for me.


The Seventh: Yeah, I think I'm generally down with this one. If "A Night In Sickbay" whapped me extra hard because of anxiety issues at the time, then this episode was boosted a bit by the way I recovered from them. We have T'Pol going off on a secret mission to hunt down Menos, a Vulcan renegade smuggler man, but there's a lot more going on under the hood. What we have is a story about Vulcan trauma, as it turns out T'Pol went to P'Jem in the past to repress the traumatic memory of killing a man who was running with Menos. Encountering him again is making her remember, and it's actually doing one hell of an emotional wringer on her... which is extra bad for Vulcans. She called Archer down to assist in her secret mission, though, because she needed someone she could trust. This is where the episode starts to speak to me. I've never repressed a traumatic memory like T'Pol, but I very much understand the idea of putting your trust in someone and letting them help you through a difficult time. This resonated really well with me; especially with the end of the episode, when T'Pol tells Archer she'll return the favor if he needs someone to trust at a difficult time. I said that to one of the lovely friends who let me vent about my anxiety, who gave me an ear to listen and a shoulder to rest my burdens and worries on, less than 24 hours before I heard T'Pol say that to Archer. Now you really know I've learned and grown from this show, because I'm emulating its ideals before I even see it. The only weird downbeats are the attempt to make Menos sympathetic, and Archer's sudden insistence that T'Pol needs to stand her course and follow the law because "we came here to apprehend him, not to judge him.". It's almost like a role reversal of sorts, with T'Pol being emotionally vulnerable and Archer offering a detached Lawfully-aligned logic regarding their mission. Then the episode reveals at the end that, oh, he was smuggling the bad poison after all, guess he was really a Bad Man! It's a little too neat and tidy for my tastes, but y'know that? This gets a pass for personal resonance this time.


The Communicator: Nope! Nope nope nope! I may be in a better mood, but I'll be damned if it means I give this shit a pass! We've got another Prime Directive style story in which Reed leaves his advanced communicator on a pre-warp planet, and he and Archer get kidnapped by the militia which found it when they come back looking for it. What follows are Archer and Reed lying through their teeth in order to not admit they're aliens but only making shit worse for them and, implicitly, the people this militia are at war with. They're put to death and Archer is willing to die for this. Willing to die on this hill, quite literally, rather than admit shit and come to an understanding. Then, as all Prime Directive stories go, things end up at a "fuck it" peak for the last five minutes when a rescue team comes down in a cloaked Suliban ship, opens fire at the militia with their advanced phasers, and saves everyone while Archer gathers up all the advanced tech and whatnot. That seemed like the best option, but it's like T'Pol said: they still fucked up and "contaminated" this culture. I guess it counts as a variation on the Prime Directive story, in that the PD is violated in the opening and the plot is about trying not to violate it further, but the fact Archer was willing to let him and Reed die rather than try something, anything, really makes me steamed. Thanks, I hate it.


Singularity: Is it just me, or is there a theme of anxiety going on with this run of episodes? Well, what we have is a concept that I know has been tried a few times in Star Trek before, the "mysterious something making the crew act out of character" episode. This time black hole radiation or something makes everyone but T'Pol hyperfixated on getting one particular thing right, and anxious about possibly fucking it up. I thought she'd be immune because of emotions or something, but it's just Vulcan physiology. The whole thing starts in media res with T'Pol narrating about how shit be fucked up, so it is kind of interesting to see shit slowly get fucked up from that perspective. What crackles for me, though, is the ending, in which T'Pol needs Archer to help her fly the ship out of the radiation zone. I like seeing these two work together, and under the surface this is kind of returning the favor from "The Seventh"; T'Pol is helping to heal Archer by doing her best to calm him down enough so he can actually function and pilot the ship, so as to get him out of the radiation zone and free from this particular anxious episode. I dunno, that's how I read it. Otherwise it's a serviceable plot that's been done before, but this is a better use of it than anything I can think of off the top of my head. LOOKIN' AT YOU, "THE NAKED NOW" AND "THE GAME"!!!


Vanishing Point: Hey, speaking of TNG! This time we get an episode that heavily invokes a classic TNG episode called "The Next Phase." In that episode, two of the crew experience a transporter fuckup and are presumed dead, but are actually alive and just invisible to everyone else and have to figure out a way to get noticed before invading aliens who are also invisible blow up the Enterprise. So, with that in mind, what happens in Vanishing Point? Hoshi has to use the transporter, which sets off some anxiety about her molecules getting scrambled (Hey, there's that theme again! Also this idea was shown in a TNG episode, but let's not overwhelm this bracket) as she starts getting paranoid. Eventually she becomes invisible to everyone else, who presume her dead, and she has to figure out a way to get noticed before invading aliens who are also invisible blow up the Enterprise. Huh. I guess the twist here is that this all took place in Hoshi's head, Inception style, in the like two seconds before she got beamed back to Enterprise. I guess that's an interesting look at Hoshi's subconscious and her own anxieties and fears, and it's an overall good episode. It's also just kind of a retread of an, at the time, decade-old TNG episode. So, I don't know here. Could have been a lot worse.


Precious Cargo: Sometimes you just get a perfectly serviceable and inoffensive episode that's also not really doing too much under the hood. Enterprise helps out a cargo ship which is having trouble with a statis pod that has a woman in hibernation inside, but WHOOPS it turns out she's alien royalty and they've kidnapped her! Thank God. I thought this was going to be an episode about slavery or something, and I don't want a Prime Directive show touching THAT shit. Nah, instead we get this weird mix of a Disney movie and Star Wars, with Tucker and Kaitaama (our alien princess analog) rushing off in an escape pod and landing on a tropical planet while alternating between being sympathetic to each other and bickering a bunch. I mean, it works... but it's also cliche as almighty fuck. Special mention goes to the scene where they fight a lot, end up smacking each other and rolling into a pond, and then start making out. Like... what? At least this episode has a real funny scene where Archer convinces one of the alien kidnappers that T'Pol is an adjudicator and is going to execute his ass if he doesn't help them track down his partner in crime. Otherwise... it's fine.


The Catwalk: It's pretty good. There's some sci-fi technobabble space radiation wave coming at the Enterprise, so they all move to hide in the titular catwalk underneath the warp coils for the week or so it'll take to ride out the radiation wave without dying. They also let a group of aliens who tipped them off to it hide with them, but turns out they're defectors from a corrupt space militia which is now on board to A) hunt down the defectors and B) to steal Enterprise for themselves. There's some trepidation and annoyance at the fact that the aliens had lied to the crew, but let's be honest; can we see a situation where Archer and pals wouldn't have helped? Maybe it's my Doctor Who fan showing again, but taking corrupt military dunces down a peg is kind of satisfying to me at this point. The former half of this episode is somewhat cramped, given the circumstances, and the latter gets to be its own little tense action setpiece. Yeah. It's pretty good. Like I said.


Dawn: Funny. I wasn't feeling this one as I was watching it, and thought it was kind of dull and a little too concerned with rejecting the kind of empathy I want to see from Star Trek. It did come around in the end though. We've got Trip and an alien named Zho'Kaan stranded on an alien moon, unable to understand each other, and hostilities aplenty. Being Star Trek, you expect the hostility to evolve into empathy, but it takes just a bit too long to get there. There are at least two "haha GOTCHA" moments where it looks like the episode will go that way but then Zho'Kaan tries to beat the shit out of Trip. This is a plot that's been done before on Star Trek (a less violent and more poetic and beautiful variation is TNG's "Darmok") but after Trip and Zho'Kaan beat the living piss out of each other, they work together for a bit and lay dying on a mountain as the titular dawn comes and the temperature rises. Trip pulls a Blade Runner and speaks of all the wonderful things he's done and seen, and how he doesn't regret them, and bets Zho'Kaan doesn't either. That's a real moment, and I love that the end has them finally able to understand each other and form sort of a nice bond. That's lovely. Shame it took a while to get there, though, but it even getting there in the end is a sigh of relief for me.



Stigma: OH YOU MOTHERFUCKERS! OH YOU BRAZEN MOTHERFUCKERS!!! Hey, remember "Fusion" from last season? It had those Vulcans who were ostracized from Vulcan society for daring to deviate from the logical normative and experiment with their emotions. I took that as a metaphor for LGBTQ+ people and found it reprehensible when one of them basically mindraped T'Pol with a forced mind meld. It was easily one of the worst episodes of Season 1 for me, and I couldn't imagine it getting worse. THEY DID IT! You know how they did it? VULCAN SPACE AIDS!!! T'POL HAS A DEGENERATIVE NEUROLOGICAL DISEASE THAT WAS TELEPATHICALLY TRANSMITTED FROM THAT RAPIST FUCK! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!! Oh, and then the Vulcans... the Vulcans in this one... they're bigots! If I was reaching with my LGBTQ+ reading in "Fusion", then so be it. I cannot fathom how you could possibly read the bigoted beliefs of the Vulcans in this episode as anything other than AIDS crisis homophobia. Follow me on this one. It wasn't emotional Vulcans who were the LGBTQ+ metaphor here, but specifically ones who could mind meld. A small minority of Vulcans are born with this ability, and using it is both absolutely unthinkable and condemned by Vulcan society, and carries the risk of transmitting this neurological disease. Nearly every named Vulcan in this episode is completely bigoted and irrational about this, refusing to help aid with research on the disease, even though their science has at least advanced to the point where they can slow its effects... because of their strong belief that it's unnatural and not right. Holy fuck. Here are some good things you can say about this episode. It has a funny subplot with one of Dr. Phlox's wives hitting on Tucker, and Archer is unequivocal in calling out the Vulcans on their bullshit. The Vulcans, who for a hundred years have looked down on humanity and withheld warp drive because our oh so volatile emotions aren't in perfect check, can be this fucking bigoted towards their own kind? Honestly, fuck them. There's an immense satisfaction in seeing Archer call them on this, of course, but it's the writers calling attention to a problem you fuckers created in the first place! T'Pol has a strong moral stance as well, as she refuses to tell the Vulcans that she's not a mindmelder and was in fact mindraped. Because, as she puts it, it would reinforce their belief that the mindmelders are abberant degenerate individuals, and give legitimacy to their bigoted beliefs. At least one Vulcan is on her side though, and he's a mindmelder as well. He sticks up for T'Pol and ends up getting blacklisted for it, but he did the right thing. Holy fuck. I could go on, but I've shouted for long enough. I can't believe they would do this. Fuck it.


(Continued in 2.2)