To Boldly Step Forward (Enterprise: Season 3) [3.2]

(Continued from 3.1)

This was a really cute shot so I just had to include it.

Proving Ground: Thank goodness, a really good one. And the Andorians and Commander Shran are back! As a "frenemy" alien race/supporting character to interact with Archer, I really am growing to like the Andorians and Shran. They bail Enterprise out of a massive anomaly, helping to repair the damages it caused while also assisting them in tracking down where Degra, the Xindi in charge of making their planet killer, is testing his prototype. There's a lot to love here, and though there's a little friction, that utopian idealism shines through as humans and Andorians work together to accomplish more than they could on their own. Of course, things sour a little bit when it turns out Shran's orders are to swipe the Xindi prototype for Andoria so they have a WMD deterrent to keep Vulcan from going after them. It's particularly disappointing because the episode makes a big deal about the human crew not exactly trusting the Andorians with access to their sensitive systems... only for them to be rather cynically proven right when it turns out fucking with them was part of their plan all along. That is a bummer, but Archer plays chicken with the Xindi weapon in the Andorian's cargo hold, and it's Shran who blinks. He even sends over their scans anyway at the end, taking their defeat in stride. It's a complex relationship between humanity and the Andorians, but they still remain favorites of mine. Cynicism aside? This is really good, and it delivered a blow against the Xindi plot. Well done!



Stratagem: Holy fuck. This one's genius, and it's all in the way it's structured. I'm going to recap its plot in abridged form, while also telling you how I felt about it as I watched. we open with a lengthy bit involving, of all people, Degra and Archer on the run from Insectoid Xindis in a stolen ship. As it turns out, they've just spent three years in prison together. Earth's been blown up by the Xindi and so has Enterprise, but the Insectoid Xindi then took control of the power vaccuum and declared war on the other distinct Xindi species. Right away I'm rolling my eyes a bit, because we just did this kind of thing back in "Twilight". OHHH NOOO, EARTH HAS BEEN DESTROYED. YES THIS IS TOTALLY GOING TO STICK AND NOT BE UNDONE BY TIME TRAVEL OR ANYTHING. So, fine, I say. We'll let them spin their wheels a bit and at least see the interesting out they come up with, and if it crackles or not. At least we get the sense that Xindi and humanity can co-operate, as Archer and Degra do sort of get on. That's hopeful for the future. Then the shoe drops. This was all a big lie... but an absolutely genius one. As we see, Archer and pals have captured Degra and two other Xindi, and want to get the location of the weapon out of him. He won't give it up, so they literally concoct a production out of it to fool Degra into thinking everything went to shit so he'll give up the co-ordinates to the weapon. Holy fuck. The crew of the Enterprise briefly become television producers as they control everything about the "set", from monitoring the cameras to creating fake warp effects and shaking their set to make it seem like space turbulence. Degra eventually finds out, of course, but it was still a genius idea. So at this point here, I've gone from being kind of unimpressed at the same stock bad end/narrative collapse shit being passed off on me as if it's going to stick, to finding the mid-episode twist genius, to thinking that we've just spun our wheels now that Degra's found out and his co-ordinates may or may not be bogus. Still, Enterprise tries a risky warp and it seems like they've made it to the place, and Degra confidently states that they'll never break through the weapon's defenses... at which point it's revealed that they haven't moved an inch and it was all another production to get Degra to confirm that he did give them the right co-ordinates. HOLY FUCK THEY DID IT TWICE! JESUS! I LOVE THIS EPISODE! It took me on a wild ride and fooled me along with fooling Degra, and it wasn't wheel spinning because now we have some solid data on our end game; Azati Prime. It'll take a while for the crew to get there, but it's a solid lead. One wonders what other twists will come along...


Harbinger: This one tested my patience in places, but I'll give it the thumbs-up with a tentative eye narrow. I'll just run down all three major plot threads in the episode, starting with the one I disliked most: Reed's toxic masculinity! Yeah, he's butting heads with Major Hayes, leader of the military squad that came on board this season, because he thinks the guy is telling him how to do his job and wants to take it over. It's gross machismo bullshit which culminates in them getting into a full-on fistfight over it and Archer quite rightfully chewing them out for acting like a bunch of dipshits when they should be working together. I just hope they got it all out by beating the piss out of each other. Up next, we have T'Pol and Tucker stuff. I haven't been mentioning it here that much, but they've been doing their Vulcan neuro-pressure and getting closer to each other. Also Sim, Trip's clone back in "Similitude" said he thought Trip liked T'Pol and she kissed him. Yeah so Tucker is giving Corporal Cole, one of Hayes' soldiers, the neuro-pressure stuff to help her out, they're getting closer, T'Pol shows concern and it's treated as jealously and oh for the love of god just kiss already-- OH? OH THEY FUCKED? THEY FUCKED! For T'Pol it's more of a curious dabbling into human sexuality, having sex with Tucker, but the two are pretty grown-up about it after the fact. That's refreshing, at least. Last, but not least, we have the titular Harbinger himself; an alien found inside a conglomerate of anomalies who's dying, but it turns out he wanted to destroy Enterprise. Whatever species he is, they're trans-dimensional and he can phase through walls. Oh, and he taunts Archer at the end and says that once the Xindi control Earth, his people will be free to do... something or other. I think we just found the true architects of this conflict, and the fuckers who told the Xindi they should blow up humanity. Let's see where we go from there. I've been waiting for the big game-changer to drop, and as we're past the halfway point I'm expecting it any minute now. We're one step closer now.


Doctor's Orders: We take a break from Xindi arc advancement for a spooky psychological horror episode involving perception of reality. Okay sure. We also give the lion's share of the heavy acting duty to John Billingsly and Jolene Blalock. It's a good idea, and it works. We have Phlox and T'Pol forced to run the ship by themselves while they fly through a dangerous anomaly, with the crew put into self-induced comas so their brains don't melt in the trans-dimensional cloud they're zipping though. Poor Pholx isn't entirely immune, though, and he keeps seeing shit and thinking the Xindi are invading. You're never really sure what's going on, at least until you see Hoshi as a zombie. Until then you get the sense that Phlox could be right, despite T'Pol being the ever-logical one and saying that invading Xindi doesn't make any fucking sense. There is another twist to be had, and it's one I'm proud to say I considered as soon as we realized the altered perceptions. I kept it in my head, the hypothesis wasn't broken, and then at the end it was confirmed; T'Pol in this episode is also a figment of Phlox's imagination, and I guess she's his more logical side poking through and taking form to give him someone to talk to as well as try and calm him down as he hallucinates and tries to work through problems. It's a pretty great glimpse into how he thinks, and what he thinks of T'Pol. Yeah, it works...

In space, no one can hear you scream... but they can hear my
screams about this episode.

Hatchery: ...WHICH IS MORE THAN I CAN SAY FOR THIS ETHICALLY FLIP-FLOPPED GODDAMNED MESS. Here's the idea. Enterprise finds a crashed Xindi Insectoid ship, but inside it are 31 unborn insect eggs that will die if they don't get enough of the ship back up and running to power the on-ship hatchery. Archer is determined to not just abandon them, despite the Xindi being the enemy; he wants to prove that the Xindi are wrong in their quest to exterminate humanity by being a shining beacon of empathy and not, you know, leaving 31 unborn children to die just because they happen to be The Enemy. Everyone in this episode reacts with actual shock and horror at Archer being so empathetic and wanting to save these eggs, to the point that they question his orders and he starts having them confined to quarters for insubordination... at which point, without any options left to stop him, they commit mutiny to stop Archer from giving a huge chunk of their antimatter and wasting a lot of time in helping these Xindi eggs. WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK? YOU ASSHOLES AREN'T WILLING TO SAVE LITERAL BABIES JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE THE BAD SPECIES? The episode wants you to read Archer as being an irrational fuckwit who needs to realize that the needs of the many blah blah blah you know the rest of the quote, and move on to stopping the weapon. It turns out that he's been affected by some alien maternal instinct that gives him a compulsion to protect the eggs, so he actually is acting out of sorts... but this isn't made explicit until the end. No, I was firmly on Archer's side, despite the narrative intending me to go "WELL WHAT THE FUCK, OF COURSE LETTING THE BABIES DIE IS THE RIGHT CHOICE, THE CREW IS JUSTIFIED IN THEIR MUTINY!". I just... I'm sorry for the blatant use of italics and shit, but Jesus Christ! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!! I thought we were moving away from this grimdark "in war you have to make sacrifices" approach. The crew commits mutiny over this, and none of them get punished because "oh well Archer had space mom sickness, they did the right thing!" FUCK THIS! FUCK ALL OF IT! HOLY FUCK NO! I could scream some more, but I think you get the idea.


Azati Prime: We're still about six or seven episodes away from the end of the season, but this episode still has the high stakes and tension of a season finale. We're finally at Azati Prime, building ground for the Xindi weapon, and shit goes down quick. Archer, upon ordering the destruction of a facility with three Xindi on it that could have alerted them, feels guilty and decides to be the one to pilot a shuttle into the heart of the weapon on a suicide mission. Of all people to try and step him, we get our temporal pal Daniels to explain the deal. It's basically just like "Harbinger" implied: the builders of the Spheres (the Sphere Builders, as they're called, which is straightforward enough) want to expand their trans-dimensional expanse across the whole galaxy at the expense of all other life. The future Federation will stop them, so they've gone back in time and told the Xindi that humanity will destroy them, so the Xindi destroy us first and thus eliminate the one possible force that can stop the Sphere Builders. Archer, for his stubborn-ass part, still decides to go through with his suicide mission but gets captured anyway. Luckily Degra is still around, and Archer can use all the shit he learned in "Stratagemn" to get Degra to at least second-guess this whole situation and consider what Archer is saying. Too bad the Reptilian Xindi won't let them do anything further... oh, and they're attacking Enterprise. And the ship is really getting fucked up, and that's where we leave off. Holy fuck. Well, the endgame of peace between the Xindi seems to be what the show wants to do. It's at least what Daniels wants to see happen. Hell, this could actually be the creation of the Federation for all we know; an alliance between humanity and Xindi leading to other people joining forces. Wouldn't that be an irony, the Sphere Builders creating ther very alliance which stops their subterfuge plot? (INTRUSION FROM THE FUTURE: It's a shame this isn't the case, or that we'll get to see the forming of the Federation as Season 4's plotline. Blame shitty 2004 ratings, I guess.) Enterprise has to survive first though, so fingers crossed and let's dive on in to...


Damage: ...GRIMDARK HORSESHIT. Yeah, our big cliffhanger is resolved soon enough as the Xindi Council manages to call off the Reptilian Xindi attack, getting an Aquatic Xindi ship to take Archer in "to the council" but actually putting him back on Enterprise. There's other interesting Xindi stuff, particularly Degra and the two other sympathetic Xindi confronting a mysterious lady Sphere Builder who I guess is the mastermind behind this whole thing about all the covert time travel shit from "Carpenter Street". We have now run out of the interesting things to say about "Damage", and enter the world-famous Frezno Bitching Zone. We'll start with the lesser plotline of T'Pol really feeling emotion hard, which she was already doing last time. There are parallels to "Impulse" and Vulcan trellium-D poisoning, and at first I thought the ship getting ten trillion times fucked up released the seals on the stuff and she was fucked due to that. NOPE. SHE'S BEEN INJECTING HERSELF WITH TRACE AMOUNTS OF IT EVER SINCE "IMPULSE" TO GET EMOTIONAL HIGHS. Oh my god it's a Say No To Drugs thing. I could yell about this, but why don't we complain about Archer instead? Enterprise's warp coil is all fucked up and they need a new one in order to rendevous with Degra in secret. A passing ship has one but can't spare it... so Archer plans to go over there and take it by force. It's not a decision he makes lightly, heavy is the crown that wears this burden, the needs of the many BLAH BLAH BLAH. I get it. I don't fucking like it but I get it. T'Pol gets to throw that wonderful line from "Impulse" about holding on to humanity back at Archer's face as he plots to do this, but she does help out in the end. Couldn't resist tarring us with the grimdark brush in the end, could you? Yes we'll commit a small atrocity in order for The Greater Good. This is how you create a well-developed and sympathetic villain, not the grim and gritty protagonists of your goddamned show. It's especially dissonant considering last episode, when Archer tried to go out in a blaze of glory so nobody else would have to die on his watch to stop the Xindi plot. The point of this arc, I thought, is to prove to the Xindi that we're not what the Sphere Builders made us out to be. Pulling shit like this just shows that the Sphere Builders are telling the truth about us. Fuck that. Fuck it. Archer and pals can justify it all they want to help them sleep peacefully at night, but they crossed a line there's no coming back from. This arc better do some serious utopian idealist shit, and soon, or there will be words. Well, there will be words anyway as this is a writeup, so let's move on.


The Forgotten: Really not sure how I should feel about this one, or what to say beyond the whole plot summary thing. This really is more of a transitional "let's move the arc along another step" episode, with what I'm guessing is a bit of tying up other things. Degra and pals show up again, and Archer is doing his very best to convince them that their Xindi Council is being misled by Miss Sphere Builder, showing them all his evidence he collected from "Carpenter Street" about the Reptilian Xindi. It's hard going to convince them to trust humanity, but Archer is doing his best. It doesn't help that Tucker is being adversarial, considering his sister died because of Degra. In a way, this episode is about him still holding on to that grief and keeping it suppressed, and there's a nice contrast between him and T'Pol when he finally does break down and lose it, tearfully telling her he envies Vulcans for being able to hide it, while she replies that she envies humanity for being able to handle feeling an emotion without it overloading them, as she's still going through her trellium withdrawal. Yeah, I'm still hesitant since this Tucker drama was built out of a fridging and all, but this seems to be him finally acknowledging it and coming to peace with it. Oh yeah, and Archer's going to get to go to meet the Xindi Council, which is exciting! Finally, we can talk our shit through! Oh, but there's a dangerous nebula ahead which will no doubt give us another 45 minutes of obstacle before we can finally resolve this whole thing. Fuck it, I'm ready to get this over with. Can Star Trek come back from the dank grimdark lows it's been hitting, and rise up to the utopian heights it's flirted with even back here in the past of the series? LET'S FIND THE HELL OUT!!


E²: Or we could show a third fucking potential bad end for the Xindi conflict. I'm going to walk that back a bit, I just wanted to be funny considering that even the show itself doesn't seem to have much faith in the mission it's portraying, in that it keeps portraying timelines where it got all fucked up. This time it's pretty unique though, as just before Enterprise is about to jump into a dangerous subspace warp to meet with Degra, they get stopped by... their own future ship. Yeah, something happened that flung the ship back about 100 years in time, and they stuck around in the Expanse to stop things from the inside. Now all their descendants are there to help out, including Trip and T'Pol's future son, Lorian. Okay, so that's a really neat idea! They're here to make sure the past Enterprise crew doesn't fuck up and get flung into the past, and it's great to see them work together and interact with their descendants from another timeline. Shit goes south, and soon enough Lorian and pals decide that, for The Greater Good, they have to swipe vital warp components from "our" Enterprise in order to complete the mission and save humanity. HMM? SOUND FAMILIAR? IT'S ONLY THE GRIMDARK SHIT I BITCHED ABOUT IN "DAMAGE"! I don't know if they planned it this way, but it really does show how this is actually the third bad end; if we accept that what they did in "Damage" was wrong (which you should), then this future Enterprise crew is just following their example. I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU, DAD! Maybe they can all learn a thing or two from it, but we don't know what happened to Lorian and pals at the end. Certainly, our Enterprise not being thrown in the past means theirs wouldn't be floating around 100-odd years later to help out... but I've dealt with timey-wimey before. This was good enough, and it was enough of a diversion to wring one more episode out before we get to what I presume is the wrap-up since I only have one Blu-Ray left of Season 3. LET'S GET THIS SHIT SORTED!!

Winning by talking.

The Council: Sorted is a strong word, of course. Enterprise is having its cake and eating it too as we ratchet up to the finale. We do get the bit I've been waiting for the entire time, where Archer comes down and actually talks to the Xindi and gets them to listen and all that... but we also have the nightmare scenario of the weapon being launched. Really, it all comes back to those Sphere Builders. In only a few lines of exposition, we suddenly understand just what type of antagonists these folks are; they're JRPG villains. A lot of those games have benevolent power structures that appear on the surface to serve a greater good, but are actually incredibly deceptive and only have their best interests at heart. So it is with the Sphere Builders, who have been benevolent caretakers to the Xindi for decades and are revered as saviors and Guardians... all to facilitate their long game of making our universe into their universe. Some random element's going to stop us in the future? We'll just tell the Xindi they're the bad guys in the past, and have them blown up before it becomes a problem! This is some real interesting stuff, I have to say... and it's how individual Xindi react to this that makes it a "have your cake and eat it too" scenario. Degra and most others believe Archer, given all of the evidence... but the Reptilians and Insectoids of the Xindi don't agree and the Sphere Builders use that to their advantage. When it becomes clear the lady Sphere Builder isn't going to sway Degra back to her side, she goes to the Reptilian Commander and primes him up to go steal the weapon and deploy it anyway, promising fortune and glory for the Reptilian race. These grand masterminds know just how to push the Xindi's buttons to get what they want, and it works. Degra gets shanked, the weapon gets stolen... oh, and Hoshi gets kidnapped? Um? What? What the fuck? Why are we damseling this late in the game? There's lots more I could touch on, like Tucker and Degra sort of hashing it out and making some sort of peace before he dies. Or one of the MACO soldier guys dying during the B-Plot exploration of a sphere and T'Pol literally saying aloud everyone's favorite Star Trek Vulcan sound byte when Malcolm is bummed about it. You know. The needs of the many outweight the JESUS CHRIST YOU STAR TREK NERDS HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN A MOVIE PAST WRATH OF KHAN??? Well, some of the Xindi are working together with humanity now... but the Sphere Builders appear to be getting what they want. The weapon's launched, and Hoshi's been taken. We got the diplomatic utopian solution we wanted. Now, for all you conflict folks, 90 minutes of shit being blown the fuck up. Or not. Hey, Intrusion From The Future? What will it be? (INTRUSION FROM THE FUTURE: Yeah that tracks, but you can't see it right now, can you?) Oh I can't see it right now. Guess I have to fire up the last two episodes.


Countdown: Well hot goddamn, we're ratcheting it up now. So yeah, the Reptilians needed to kidnap Hoshi so they could have her hack out the last launch code for their weapon, and they stick brain parasites in her to make her do it. Yuck. That's problematic but it does lead to a rescue mission where we get Hoshi out, but Major Hayes is killed. Him and Reed finally do hash things out, which I guess must be a death flag for this season now. Oh good, we finally resolved the conflict between these characters, now we can kill one! We've also got plots to disable one of the key Spheres, and the Sphere Builders actually taking direct action out of desperation during the big battle between the Reptilians and the other Xindi/Enterprise. Yeah, they make a shitload of anomalies! It's all very visually stunning and had me audibly going "oh shit". Even the Insectoids at the end realize "hey wait a goddamn minute, Archer was right" but Commander Dolim of the Reptilians blow them up because nothing in ze world can stop me now. This is, like "The Forgotten", a transitional episode that I have no bigger reading of. It moves the arc along to the finale and it's a wild ride. Shit looks bad, but while a small team is going in to disable the weapon once and for all, Enterprise under T'Pol's control is going to fuck up that Sphere. I'M READY TO FINISH THIS BITCH ONCE AND FOR ALL! See you in 45 minutes for me, and a paragraph for you.


Zero Hour: And here we are. The end... of the Xindi arc, anyways. It is, in a lot of ways, a satisfying 45 minutes. We've got the Enterprise crew, above all odds and despite reality warping bullshit (and actual interference from the Sphere Builders), blasting the holy hell out of the key sphere and stopping all this expanding reality bullshit once and for all. (Imagine telling D'Jamat and his devouts from "Chosen Realm" that the fuckers they worship as gods are selfish manipulators who want them all dead.) We got high action with the Xindi weapon, and good old Shran and the Andorians even show up to help! Again, Enterprise gets to have its cake and eat it too; it made peace with the Xindi two episodes ago, and now it's blowing the fuck out of the last stubborn remnants whose minds can't be changed, and saving Earth with it. Of course, we do have our material cost: Archer was on board when it blew up. We're also... not quite done, though. No, now we're seeding for next season. Enterprise gets home, but there's no answer from anybody and airplanes in San Francisco. Also Archer is... a badly injured patient in a Nazi medical camp in World War 2? And there's AN EVIL ALIEN NAZI??? I do not know what in the fuck is going on, and unravelling it is something for Season 4. For now, let's call this a good finale, call it quits on Season 3, and give those final thoughts on the Xindi arc...


Going in to this, I trusted these showrunners with a morally ambiguous arc about as far as I could throw them. That mistrust was, as it turned out, not entirely unjustified considering the slight teeny-tiny handful of atrocities commited in the name of The Greater Good. Or, should I say, the Needs Of The Many at this point? In the end, though, it all seemed to work out. This wasn't really my favorite season, per se, but its thesis did work in the end. It went in places I wanted it to go, and held up the values I wanted to see. The Xindi, who started out as these shadowy folks plotting our downfall, ended up being a real complex set of antagonists turned allies. There was a great sense, particularly with Degra, of them also doing what they did for what they thought was The Greater Good. Then, of course, we have the Sphere Builders as the true antagonists, playing that long game and manipulating the Xindi for their own ends. One wonders if they're done or not; perhaps they have something to do with that cliffhanger I got baffled at. I did appreciate the moral complexity and all the angles that the Xindi had. Not so much with humanity, I'm afraid. All that "for the greater good" stuff really grated on me, especially stealing from those guys in "Damage". Still, as far as a big war arc goes? I guess it turned out better than I expected. It's wild to think I only have one more season of this show left. One more go-around. Of course, we have a hell of a thing to resolve; the last-ever season cliffhanger for this show. We'll find out what the hell is up, in due time. Come and join me for one more adventure, won't you? Maybe we can actually get back to exploring... after we beat up some Nazis first, of course.


FIVE GOOD ONES: "The Shipment", "Twilight", "Carpenter Street", "Stratagem", "Azati Prime"

FIVE BAD ONES: "Extinction", "Rajiin", "Chosen Realm", "Hatchery", "Damage"

TO BE CONTINUED...