Discovery - Short Treks 1x3 "The Brightest Star"

rating: **

the story: How Saru ends up joining Starfleet.

review: Well, "Calypso" officially seems like an outlier.  This is the second of three Short Treks to produce underwhelming results.  High hopes for the fourth, though, as it features Mudd, who has become one of my favorite Discovery elements.  "Brightest Star" wastes all its time, basically, fifteen long minutes.  Take the opportunity, people!  Be bold!

We see Kelpian society, at least Saru's experience of it, probably for the first and last time, including Saru's father and sister, and a wisp of the competing species they live amongst.  Maybe this is all revisited, but Kelpians are pre-warp, and only Saru is apparently clever enough to not only question why things run the way they do, but also to use technology on an instinctive level...This is all stuff that could be better explained if it's to be accepted easily at all, by pulling back the lens much more, make it less simplistic.  I realize that Star Trek's bread and butter has often been this kind of storytelling, but usually for aliens of the week, not main characters and their origins.  One of the franchise' strongest legacies is background material.  Even going back to the very beginning, Kirk and Spock had solid experiences sketched out at a time when it's wasn't particularly necessary.  Saru has been presented as one of Discovery's lead characters from the start.  There's no excuse to leave him with so little to go by, especially once you actually show it. 

I don't know.  I don't mean to be grumpy.  I hate grumpy Star Trek fans.  But these Short Treks haven't been showing Discovery at its finest (aside from "Calypso" which is the franchise at its finest), and that's somewhat inexplicable to me. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Having Georgiou explain what a huge exception she's making for Saru doesn't really fill the credibility gap in the whole concept.
• series - This is not Discovery at its finest by any measure.
• character - Still, you gotta give points for trying harder with Saru than they did with Tilly.
• essential - If this is the best they ever get with the guy, it is nice they tried, because we don't often get to actually see this kind of material.

Discovery - Short Treks 1x2 "Calypso"

rating: ****

the story: A thousand years in the future, Discovery's AI makes a startling new friend.

review: The first Short Treks was ultimately a disappointment, a crude narrative that suggested the whole concept was a mistake.  "Calypso" is the complete opposite.  It's also basically the same exact story, and that's how you can tell that it's the strength of the storytelling that's always key.  You can probably pin the victory on Michael Chabon, the celebrated novelist who helped come up with the idea and wrote the teleplay. 

Like "Runaway," "Calypso" features a single character visiting Discovery and interacting with a single character, and both visitors ultimately leave, and there's personal discoveries (ah) learned along the way.  But where "Runaway" feels forced, "Calypso" is a rich and rewarding experience.  It maybe doesn't hurt if you're an Odyssey nerd like I am, and realize that the title and arc of "Calypso" are drawn from Homer's ancient epic poem about Odysseus's ten-year journey homeward after the Trojan War.

That's actually a lot of what I love about the story, what it says about The Odyssey itself.  Calypso the Homeric character might be said to be a villain, who sidelines Odysseus for an extended period, keeping him from his mission, but as a commentary, "Calypso" helps explain how the experience might have been beneficial to him, therapeutic.  Too often, especially in our present age, we reduce everything to the most negative, simplistic interpretations possible. 

"Calypso," on a more superficial level, also revels in Star Trek's frequent indulgences in old Hollywood footage, in this instance Betty Boop and the Audrey Hepburn film Funny Face (1957).  Footage like that will always be cost-effective, but "Calypso" particularly uses it effectively, involving it directly in the plot.

No familiar faces appear, but the storytelling is strong enough where you become drawn into it anyway, and the concept of Short Treks suddenly awakens, as "Runaway" didn't manage to accomplish, a whole new world of possibilities in a more than fifty-year-old franchise. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - There's something that just feels right about an old Starfleet ship still doing good for the universe well after its crew has departed. 
• series - If that ship isn't named Enterprise, then a story like this almost does more to solidify Discovery's bid for an enduring legacy than anything in the first season.
• character - Easily draws you in with previously unknown characters.
• essential - This is Star Trek in a nutshell: evocative storytelling on every level.

Discovery - Short Treks 1x1 "Runaway"

rating: **

the story: Tilly encounters a stowaway.

what it's all about: This is Discovery doing what every other incarnation of Star Trek did on a regular basis.  Somewhat appropriately, as with the lone episode from the first season that attempted the same thing ("Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum"), it's a relatively clumsy affair.  The best that can be said about it is that it puts the spotlight squarely on Tilly, which strangely never really happened in the first season. 

As with "Para Bellum," the writers seem positively ill-equipped to handle this kind of storytelling.  Their attempts at shorthand in a short episode (roughly fifteen minutes, but this is called Short Treks) are painfully rough, and come off more as the work of an amateur playwright than professional screenwriter, the same naïve conclusion (experience literally makes Tilly feel better about herself) common to such efforts.  What Discovery does far better is breakneck speed storytelling, or letting Michael Burnham ruminate (or torture herself, which was why Ash Tyler was such a good match for her) on problems.  That's the complete opposite of what "Runaway" attempts to accomplish. 

But again, spending time with Tilly also helps us get to know her better.  Knowing at all that she struggles against an overbearing mother (imagine the young Troi!) adds welcome depth.  The story also builds on the Mirror Universe experience, where Tilly was a command-track type (to say the least).  Having her struggle along that path puts her in the same footsteps as the Doctor, say, or yes, Troi, and that's a nice bit of resonance.

But I really hope further Short Treks are less clumsy.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Familiar material for Star Trek fans.
• series - Unlike the whole first season (practically), there's nothing of particular significance going on here.
• character - Except some welcome character work for Tilly.
• essential - Nope.  Not at all, if for no other reason than it doesn't showcase Discovery's storytelling strengths very well.

Star Trek Discovery Season 2 Trailer

Here's what the second season of Discovery, and our third version of Christopher Pike, is going to look like!

Star Trek at the box office

I've always been interested in box office results.  Recently I've begun taking a closer look at different sets of figures: the international box office and the adjusted-for-inflation box office, which is something I previously didn't care too much about but now view as a window into comparative popularity.  This is going to be a look at how Star Trek movies look from these vantage points.  All figures come from Box Office Mojo, retrieved on 6/5/18.  (B = billion, M = million)

The first list is the US box office report:

1. Star Trek (2009) $257M
The first of the Abrams reboot series; this will be the most successful movie in two of the three lists.

2. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) $228M
The second in the Abrams reboot series will take the top slot in one of the two remaining lists.

3. Star Trek Beyond (2016) $158M
This will be the third Abrams reboot series entry's best showing.

4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) $109M
The obvious favorite among general audiences, it's never been as popular among fans.  We might see why in another list.

5. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) $92M
The second Picard flick and by far the most successful.

6. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) $82M
This total is going to have long legs.  You'll see why its exposure caused problems.

7. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) $78M
Its inordinate popularity with fans always seems to indicate it was more successful than the first one.  It wasn't.

8. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) $76M
Yet fans are never as excited about its sequel, even though it was about as successful.

9. Star Trek Generations (1994) $75M
This meeting of Kirk and Picard was a huge disappointment in a lot of ways.

10. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) $74M
The final full cast appearance of the original Kirk crew made up a lot of ground from its predecessor, but not quite enough.

11. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) $70M
Surprisingly, despite its reputation the third Picard entry was about par for the course.

12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) $52M
The first real flop of the franchise.

13. Star Trek Nemesis (2002) $43M
The second and far more disastrous was also Picard's fourth and last appearance.

Okay! 

Now onto adjusted for inflation, in which we see some interesting things develop:

1. Star Trek (2009) $316M
Still the most popular!  This is officially Star Trek as a whole at its most popular.

2. The Motion Picture (1979) $300M
Here's the biggest surprise!  Maybe it shouldn't be, being the oldest entry in the series, and therefore the greatest beneficiary of inflation.  But here we see that the first and subsequently much-maligned movie in the franchise was also its most successful for years.  Thirty years, to be exact!

3. The Voyage Home (1986) $264M
And here we see just how popular this one really was!

4. Into Darkness (2013) $250M
And here's where we see where all the fan outrage about Khan's second movie appearance comes from; it officially made more money, and thus had more exposure.

5. The Wrath of Khan (1982) $245M
Just a little more, but that's a little too much competition for some.

6. The Search for Spock (1984) $208M
When you look at the unadjusted box office, it looks like the follow-up follows more closely than in the adjusted box office. 

7. First Contact (1996) $189M
In the unadjusted box office this looks like a much more impressive hit.

8. Beyond (2016) $170M
You can see how far this one fell in comparison.  That's why it was so little talked about compared to its two predecessors.

9. Generations (1994) $165M
But it still did better than this one.

10. The Undiscovered Country (1991) $163M
Fans were so relieved to like a Star Trek movie again, they didn't really give this one its due.

11. Insurrection (1998) $134M
It doesn't look like par for the course in the adjusted box office.

12. The Final Frontier (1989) $120M
Although Final Frontier doesn't look as bad in comparison from this vantage point.

13. Nemesis (2002) $67M
Hard to make this one look good.


Okay!

Box Office Mojo doesn't have a full chart for international results (totals in parentheses include unadjusted results).  Here's what's available:

1. Into Darkness (2013) $238M ($467M total)
Here's where Wrath of Khan fans really have kittens.  It's technically the most successful Khan movie.

2. Beyond (2016) $184M ($343M total)
Surprisingly, this ranks above the first Abrams on this list.

3. Star Trek (2009) $128M ($385M total)
Still near the top, naturally.

4. First Contact (1996) $54M ($146M total)
Unsurprisingly charting high here.

5. Generations (1994) $42M ($118M total)
Here's where Generations most looks like a winner.

6. Insurrection (1998) $42M ($112M total)
And here's where you can see Picard made Star Trek more popular internationally than Kirk.

7. Nemesis (2002) $24M ($67M)
Even the least successful one was more successful than the most successful original Kirk film on the list.

8. The Undiscovered Country (1991) $22M ($96M total)
Which was the last one.  So internationally, Generations really was, comparatively, a huge hit, and original Kirk's biggest exposure, at least as far as Box Office Mojo knows.

And now you know!

Every episode and every movie in the Star Trek franchise now has a review!

A journey that began in 2010 has now been completed.  I have now written a review for the Star Trek Fan Companion of every episode and every movie, from all seven series and across all thirteen movies, 1966 to 2018, from the first season of the original series to the first season of Discovery.  There have been plenty of starts and stops along the way, but started a few years back I started making a concerted effort to get it done, and incredibly, something that seemed a long way off just a few years ago is finished.  Wow!  This whole project has always been driven by the belief that fans new and old alike deserve to be able to explore the franchise from a different viewpoint than the increasingly cynical one that developed during the late 1990s, that saw it more likely to reject new material than attempt to embrace it.  It's possible in my reviews to find a positive take on every series, something few fans are willing to admit.  You can trace their legacies as they develop, and find a new vision of the classics, and a new conception of the worst episodes, and even new takes on what the worst episodes have traditionally been considered.

Along the way I refined a couple of times how reviews were written.  At some point I thought it would be fun to apply tags for notable guest-stars, and that required some revision of older reviews, but hopefully the results speak for themselves.  There are a number of ways to work through the reviews, including those guest-star tags, as well as star ratings and even by the peculiar set of criteria I chose to use in coming up with the star ratings.  I labeled the criteria "franchise," "series," "character," and "essential."  Each of them was a way of calculating whether an episode had any intrinsic worth.  The full impact of an episode was either aided or hindered by whether or not they were worth viewing on any of these scores.  If they managed none of them, they got no stars at all, and so that was how I determined for myself the all-time worst episodes. 

Of course, this is all subjective, but I hope it's a good starting point on an immersive journey of discovery throughout franchise lore.

Enterprise 3x24 "Zero Hour"

rating: ****

the story: The Xindi conflict's resolution.

what it's all about: Well, this is it!  And finally we see where Archer's bull-headed pursuit of victory has landed him, and that's almost more interesting to talk about than the episode itself.

But let's just acknowledge that seeing the crew defeat Dolim and the Sphere Builders is a terrific and thrilling reward, well worth investing in three episodes to see them beat the clock.  Archer first demonstrates his apparent lack of perspective by pushing Hoshi, who's just survived slightly worse pressuring by the Xindi-Reptilians in "Countdown," to help him destroy the weapon.  Then Daniels appears and at first it seems like a reversion to "Carpenter Street" making the Temporal Cold War arc look cheap, instead of "Azati Prime," which made it look strong.  Fans who think it's a little on the nose for Archer to be outright crucial for the birth of the Federation might gag at this material, and again, it makes the Temporal Cold War look weak if all it ultimately accomplishes is produce Daniels to say how important Archer is, in this instance putting truth to the old adage show rather than tell.  But by the end of the series Archer is once again being given credit for the Federation, and fans complain that we don't get to see his big speech in "These Are the Voyages..."  So I wouldn't worry too much about whether or not fans are happy about Archer's status so much as quibbling about how it's presented.

But the real treat of "Zero Hour" is its twist ending.  In a way, it redeems two other Temporal Cold War stories.  One is from near the start of the series, "Shockwave," which concluded the first season and began the second.  In hindsight "Zero Hour" links "Shockwave" with "Storm Front," the two-part story that opens the fourth season and concludes the Temporal Cold War arc.  Daniels showing up to warn Archer in "Zero Hour" in effect translates "Storm Front" into a rephrasing of "Shockwave."  "Shockwave" is about what happens if Archer is removed from history.  He and Daniels discover a future that has been devastated.  "Storm Front" suggests much the same, only instead of going with Archer and Daniels to the future, we go to the past, WWII.  Our last glimpse of Archer in "Zero Hour" is with Nazis staring down at him, and one of them is an alien.

Now, I began to view "Shockwave" as ultimately disappointing, and "Storm Front" has always frustrated me as a conclusion to the Temporal Cold War arc.  "Shockwave" shortchanges its story by making it too simple too early.  "Storm Front" shortchanges itself by providing no conclusive answers about "Future Guy," the leading antagonist of the bad guys in the conflict.  And yet, as Archer angrily states he's tired of being a pawn in someone else's conflict...he's also admitting what "Zero Hour" makes plain, that he has been a pawn.  The Temporal Cold War is a complex series of power plays.  "Storm Front" illustrates how a faction of antagonists becomes trapped in the past.  I always wanted to believe that alien Nazi was "Future Guy," but I guess that was never really necessary.  Archer's disgust is its own statement, and illustrative of his emerging need to take control of his own fate, and as such embrace his destiny.  But it's also a confirmation that Daniels wasn't kidding when he said Archer was crucial to the future.  Whether or not he ends up captive of the Nazis for a time, we see him isolated from his crew by the end of "Zero Hour," and so it's is Archer and not him and his crew that Daniels is worrying about.  It's his choice to destroy the weapon personally that Daniels worries about, the risk he's taking, and Archer is transported to the past, and the rest of the crew, separately, too. 

In a last desperate bid, Daniels is responsible for transporting Archer and the crew to the past.  Happily, he sets about the circumstances that stop the alien Nazi and also Archer's declaration.  So Daniels has actually helped push Archer out of the conflict.  You kind of need the whole context to appreciate this, and so I give "Zero Hour" most of the credit for this.  It's appropriate for Daniels' ultimate role to be obscure like this, as his first appearance, in "Cold Front," features his rival Silik trying to convince Archer it's not so clear cut about which of them to trust.  But both Silik and Daniels, or versions of them, die in "Storm Front," Silik more obviously as a hero.  So it really does even out.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The big conclusion to one of Star Trek's biggest arcs.
• series - And the setup to the conclusion of another.
• character - Archer's determination motivates him to the last of his extreme actions.
• essential - Provides the key to unlock the Temporal Cold War.

notable guest-stars:
Matt Winston (Daniels)
Scott MacDonald (Dolim)
Tucker Smallwood
Rick Worthy
J. Paul Boehmer
Jeffrey Combs (Shran)

Enterprise 3x23 "Countdown"

rating: ****

the story: The Xindi-Reptilians become increasingly isolated, but it may already be too late to stop them.

what it's all about: It was always going to be inevitable to compare the heavily serialized Xindi arc with the most famous previous Star Trek serialized storytelling, the Dominion War in Deep Space Nine.  "Countdown" is where the comparisons really begin to find parallels.  The Sphere Builders are much like the Founders, the Xindi like the Dominion.  But where the Founders never quite pulled the trigger in active participation and the Dominion never quite splintered apart, the Xindi have and splinter still further during the course of the episode.

By the final episode of Deep Space Nine, "What You Leave Behind," the Cardassians have come to regret joining the Dominion.  Damar has led a full-scale revolt, which leads to the Dominion devastating the Cardassian homeworld in retaliation.  But the Jem'Hadar, the shock troops of the Dominion, never seriously consider leaving, or do the Vorta, the bureaucrats of the Dominion, or the Breen, like the Cardassians allies from the Alpha Quadrant.  But The Xindi have already splintered: the Primates (I have referred to them as Humanoids; Degra and the councilman played by Tucker Smallwood came from this species) and the Arboreals (the councilman played by Rick Worthy, for instance) were the first to believe Archer.  The Aquatics join the good guys in "Countdown."  The Insectoids (who like the Aquatics are fully CGI) rebel against the Reptilians (represented by Dolim) by the end of the episode.  There's a whole species who became extinct before we ever met the Xindi: the Avians. 

The Founders, meanwhile, as shapeshifters sowed distrust within the Federation and Klingon Empire, but they played no active part in the war aside from the Female Founder acting as a kind of general.  The Prophets, however, intervened on the behalf of the Federation.  That's what the Sphere Builders do in "Countdown," suddenly aware that their plans have reached a precarious state.

These are fascinating contrasts.  The momentum "Countdown" represents in the arc, meanwhile, is itself an interesting counterpoint.  Deep Space Nine limited even its serialized storytelling at the beginning of the sixth and end of seventh season to the conventional restraints of episodic and two-part installments.  Story elements keep the situation heightened to a crisis state, but each individual installment tends to stand for itself.  You have to go all the way back to the start of the second season, in an entirely unrelated story, to find material in this series comparable to the three-episode momentum that concludes the Xindi arc: "The Homecoming," "The Circle," and "The Siege," which encompass a Bajoran crisis that eventually sees a military seizure of the station.  Yet it's fair to say that Enterprise has more breathtaking momentum.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - High stakes keep the action going in unprecedented serialized storytelling.
• series - The Xindi have finally splintered completely apart.
• character - Dolim attempts to exploit Hoshi's linguistic skills.  Also, Hayes proves to be the ultimate red shirt.
• essential - This ends up as the template for Enterprise's fourth season storytelling.

notable guest-stars:
Steven Culp (Hayes)
Scott MacDonald (Dolim)
Tucker Smallwood
Rick Worthy

Enterprise 3x22 "The Council"

rating: ****

the story: Archer presents his case before the Xindi Council.

what it's all about: "The Council" is where the whole Xindi arc becomes operatic.  It's the end of a suite, in a way, the culmination of Degra's appearances and the conclusion of Dolim's transformation into the true face of villainy.  It also wraps up any lingering mysteries about the connection between the Xindi and the Sphere Builders.

Degra had emerged as one of the essential figures of the arc.  He became Archer's best shot at a diplomatic solution to the crisis through a series of events ("The Shipment," "Stratagem," "Azati Prime," and "The Forgotten") that saw him become go from enemy to ally.  In doing so he made an enemy of Dolim, the Xindi-Reptilian who rejects his logic, siding with the Sphere Builders and launching the attack without the full support of the council.

The council itself, as it represents the Xindi, is finally thrust fully into the spotlight, after having been featured throughout the season, with a full explanation at last.  We are given a history of the Xindi, and see the world they currently inhabit, the one ostensibly threatened by humanity.  Anyone still wondering what any of this was about will now have a definitive answer.

And Dolim murders Degra.  It's one of the great tragedies of the series, and one of its defining moments.  That's exactly the stature Degra had obtained during the course of the series.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Casual viewers will have very little excuse not to understand the Xindi arc now.
• series - Another key moment of the arc.
• character - Degra's last stand.
• essential - Character deaths usually tend to mean something in Star Trek, and this episode nails another one.

notable guest-stars:
Randy Oglesby (Degra)
Scott MacDonald (Dolim)
Tucker Smallwood
Rick Worthy

Enterprise 3x21 "E2"

rating: ***

the story: The crew encounters its own descendants thanks to a time paradox.

what it's all about: Though "E2" closely mirrors Deep Space Nine's "Children of Time," there are plenty of other episodes throughout the franchise where time paradoxes or outright time travel present alternate outcomes and thus encounters that otherwise would not or could not have happened.  Actually, one of the more famous is Next Generation's "Yesterday's Enterprise," which features the Enterprise-C, from between the Star Trek Generations and Next Generation eras.  But the descendants bit definitely feels like a riff on "Children of Time."

The episode is mostly another attempt at something like "Twilight," where the urgency of the Xindi mission is emphasized via outlandish sci-fi storytelling, only this time it doesn't quite feel as justified.  Where "Twilight" ultimately focused on Archer and T'Pol, "E2" actually spends much of its time with a wholly original character, the offspring of Trip and T'Pol.  And an aged T'Pol exists in this scenario, where the crew had entered a region of space that spit them out more than a hundred years in the past.  The logic of why they didn't stop the original Xindi attack from happening isn't very sound, nor how exactly they managed to stick around for so long, nor why they didn't do anything or learn anything else...only to conveniently show up right when the crew is about to enter the region all over again...

But the interactions between the crews is good, and the aged T'Pol gives current T'Pol another chance to meditate on what's been happening with her, and even what may happen later, a real relationship with Trip, which the fourth season spends much of its time exploring.  I assume the only reason the episode wasn't focused solely on these elements is because "Children of Time" did that, too, with Odo and Kira.  So they had to find something fresh.  And pretty much...didn't.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A familiar trope receives new life.
• series - Another rumination on the scope of the Xindi mission.
• character - A soft spotlight on T'Pol.
• essential - In hindsight, even if the episode hadn't completely paralleled "Children" by placing a hard focus on T'Pol and Trip, merely putting it on T'Pol herself would've been a nice complement for "Twilight."

notable guest-stars:
Randy Oglesby (Degra)
Tucker Smallwood
Rick Worthy

Enterprise 3x20 "The Forgotten"

rating: ***

the story: Archer and Degra solidify their new alliance.

what it's all about: "The Forgotten" is a chance to remember the victims of the Xindi crisis, not just the ones who died recently ("Azati Prime") but those lost at the very beginning ("The Expanse," the second season finale).  As such it features Trip fairly extensively, as he struggles not just over that but his hatred of the Xindi, which is problematic as Archer attempts to make one of them an ally.  We saw how he began those efforts in "Stratagem," and how subsequent experiences and revelations have persuaded Degra to consider the opportunity.  Like "Stratagem," "Forgotten" gives them time away from most of the other Xindi (Rick Worthy's fellow councilman is present this time), and as such is itself an assurance that Degra really is to be trusted, regardless of Trip's reservations.

It's a continuation of the heavy serialization that had set in with "Azati Prime," and would only have one break from ("E2") as the season winds down.  The season had set up its plot elements like dominos, and now they're being knocked over, and it's some truly inspired storytelling that results.  T'Pol's predicament, the effects of her drug addiction, is also featured.  I think mostly this element is used as the clearest form of the emotional toll the mission has taken, just as Trip continues to embody the home element, having lost his sister in the initial attack. 

By the time we know unequivocally that Degra will be taking Archer up on his offer, he's been forced to repel attacks from other Xindi factions, which is proof enough of his sincerity...and also foreshadowing of things to come in his future...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I don't mean to suggest casual fans won't be able to appreciate material like this, but their emotional involvement will always be smaller by definition.
• series - Whereas Enterprise fans will gobble this sort of thing up.
• character - The culmination of Degra's character arc as he at last joins the good guys.
• essential - It drives home that the arc considered all the angles, including mourning losses.

notable guest-stars:
Randy Oglesby (Degra)
Rick Worthy
Seth MacFarlane

Enterprise 3x19 "Damage"

rating: ***

the story: Archer must resort to desperate measures.

what it's all about: "Damage" continues the momentum from "Aazati Prime" in both obvious and subtle ways.  It directly follows the events of the previous episode in a serialized rather than two- or three-part episode fashion, something even Deep Space Nine shied away from during its heavily serialized six- and ten-episode arcs at the beginning of the sixth and end of seventh seasons.  Once again, only the later Discovery features storytelling like this.  But then it branches off into a more episodic development, even as it echoes material from the early-season "Anomaly" as Archer discovers he's going to have to make a tough choice about ethics if the crew will be able to continue its mission.

Specifically, he decides to raid another ship.  This is a bold moment, both for him and the series.  Repeatedly throughout the arc we've seen Archer pushed to his limits, but more often than not in metaphorical ways, such as when "Similitude" presents a Trip clone to demonstrate the importance of essential personnel to continue the mission.  This time there's no mitigating factor involved.  It is exactly what it is.

"Damage" also finally reveals a pair of secrets that've long been hinted: the Xindi Council is in contact with the Sphere Builders, and T'Pol has been compromised by a drug addiction.  The Sphere Builders link at last puts aside any doubt about all the time the season has spent exploring the mystery of the spheres almost at the expense of the Xindi.  T'Pol's addiction has been building since at least "Impulse," the "zombie Vulcan" episode where she first experiences the harmful effects of the Expanse on her people.  It's affected her relationship with Trip and now her ability to perform rationally, even though it gives her the perfect excuse to be Archer's loudest critic.  It's a perfect confluence of elements all the way around.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - As with a lot of serialized material I wonder how accessible it is to casual viewers.
• series - Although its significance is surely evident to committed viewers.
• character - From Archer to T'Pol, there's some heavy-hitting material here.
• essential - Just with Archer alone it's must-see.

notable guest-stars:
Casey Biggs
Randy Oglesby (Degra)
Scott MacDonald (Dolim)
Tucker Smallwood
Rick Worthy

Enterprise 3x18 "Azati Prime"

rating: ****

the story: The crew finally intercepts the Xindi weapon.

what it's all about: As proof that the whole season really is one big arc, the seeming climactic moment occurs now rather than at the end of the season...And then we discover that it won't be that easy. 

Daniels and the Temporal Cold War find a kind of redemption here, it must be stated.  In "Carpenter Street" a few episodes earlier, they'd been used as a kind of plot convenience.  Here they are used with pin-point accuracy.  For the first time ever, Daniels offers solid proof of a positive good in the future, an Enterprise-J that's involved in a battle with the Sphere Builders, the aliens manipulating the Xindi. He gives Archer proof that the Xindi in fact join the Federation in the future, and that will end up convincing Degra, the Xindi scientist who designed the weapon and whom Archer conned into giving them its location in "Stratagem," to abandon the cause and switch sides.  And then we discover that Dolim, the lead Xindi-Reptilian, will turn out to be the lead villainous Xindi...

All that accomplished in one episode, after building up material throughout the season.  It's remarkable, and probably unparalleled in Star Trek until Discovery, the first purely serialized series in the franchise.  It provides ample dramatic material for the rest of the season and makes the rest of it more desperate than the original mission itself, which was already desperate, but hadn't always felt like it was, until this moment, when all the stakes and players are finally revealed.  Kind of Shakespearean, really!

And it's probably the most thoroughly satisfying serialized material of the whole series.  Deep Space Nine wrung a lot of great material out of the Dominion War, but with only a single season to work with, Enterprise rises to the task and proves the worth of the whole experiment.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Meets or exceeds the standard of serialized storytelling in Star Trek lore.
• series - The unquestioned great moment of the serialized aspects of the Xindi arc.
• character - Archer rises to the occasion as a bold leader.
• essential - You can't appreciate the arc or the series without savoring this moment.

notable guest-stars:
Matt Winston (Daniels)
Randy Oglesby (Degra)
Scott MacDonald (Dolim)
Tucker Smallwood
Rick Worthy

Enterprise 3x17 "Hatchery"

rating: **

the story: Archer becomes overly protective of Xindi-Insectoid eggs.

what it's all about: "Hatchery" is the same kind of episode as "Similitude" before it, but there's a big difference.  Where "Similitude" shown a bright light on characters and character dynamics, "Hatchery" loses itself in its episodic material.  But both are symbolic of the kind of frayed nerves the crew experience during the Xindi conflict.

Once more I must remind viewers that Star Trek for the bulk of its history was episodic rather than serialized in nature, in that episodes were conceived to be self-contained, often with metaphorical value that served the story rather than characters or the overall fictional landscape.  Where Next Generation introduced serialized storytelling, it still favored episodic storytelling even in its efforts to serialize, and even Deep Space Nine spent the bulk of its time in episodic storytelling.  Enterprise chose to do a completely serialized season, but still sought after episodic material for much of it; "Hatchery" is one of the more arc-flavored episodic stories, in that it features the Xindi, when much of the other such material didn't.  It even depicts the Insectoids as ultimately sympathetic, even though just a little later they will be depicted as one of the more aggressive Xindi species.

The bulk of the story rests on the crew mutinying against Archer, who has been chemically induced to obsess over the Insectoid eggs.  However, the character who benefits most from the experience is Hayes, the lead MACO whose primary motivation is following orders.  Despite "Harbinger" showing his progress in integrating with the regular crew, Hayes actually seems to revert here.  Still, it's interesting use of the character, about what you'd expect from a military guy, and it does emphasize the differences continue to exist.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The increasingly impatient casual viewer ironically has no time for traditional Star Trek storytelling.
• series - The episode's usage of the Xindi-Insectoids is relatively inspired.
• character - Hayes, and the MACOs at large, receives a subtle nod.
• essential - Taking away the episodic gimmick would have improved the story in this instance.

notable guest-stars:
Steven Culp (Hayes)
Daniel Dae Kim

Enterprise 3x16 "Doctor's Orders"

rating: **

the story: Phlox is forced to sedate the rest of the crew and operate alone for four days.

what it's all about: From Next Generation's "Frame of Mind" and "Remember Me" to Deep Space Nine's "Distant Voices" to Voyager's "Projections," the franchise has a rich history of episodes where characters have a hard time telling what's real.  And "Doctor's Orders" is part of that tradition.  It also runs parallel to Voyager's "One;" like Seven, Phlox ends up alone and handles it poorly.  Seven's experience ultimately taught her that she did value the company of her crewmates despite her hard drone-honed exterior.  Phlox, meanwhile...Well, it's really just an excuse to hang out with him.  Is that really such a bad thing?

Phlox had been a standout of the series from his introduction, a typically cheerful individual who livened every scene he graced.  Beginning with "Dear Doctor" (like that one, he composes a letter to Dr. Lucas in "Orders"), however, Phlox took on a darker reputation, one "Similitude" would confirm earlier in the season. 

Yet Phlox was also good for unusual bits of comedy, such as in "Two Days and Two Nights" and "A Night in Sickbay," and "Orders" draws on that, too.  But mostly it's just an episode where the spotlight is fully on him, and it's a tall order for any character, but as with everything else thrown his way, Phlox is up to the challenge.  "Orders" may be lightweight and unrelated to the season arc, but it's also the last chance in the season for the crew to let loose a little, before it becomes darker, and that was exactly what it was set out to do.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Shares storytelling DNA with episodes from every Next Generation era series.
• series - Not particularly relevant to the season arc.
• character - It's an excuse to spend some quality time with Phlox!
• essential - Too bad he's often used as an aside, when he isn't involved in heavy subject matter.

Enterprise 3x15 "Harbinger"

rating: ***

the story: Reed and Hayes butt heads, a mysterious alien appears.

what it's all about: "Harbinger" is very much an episode packed with subplots, connective tissue that moves the season arc along.  Its title implies that there is a major development, and indeed there is: the "mysterious alien" in my brief summary is the first time we see a Sphere-Builder, which means the arc has gotten that much closer to reconciling the spheres with the greater Xindi threat.

That's all well and good, but the more important developments in the short term are character-based.  T'Pol and Trip reach a hiccup in their relationship, as T'Pol realizes she's developing feelings for Trip.  The therapy sessions they've been sharing throughout the season have created a kind of intimacy, but T'Pol was never interested in anything more than that until the events of "Similitude," in which she learns from Trip's short-lived clone that he has feelings for her.  Unaware of this, in the meantime Trip has pursued a romantic relationship with a MACO, which...Okay, this sounds like soap opera material. 

And the Reed/Hayes material seems equally on the nose.  They essentially have developed a professional rivalry, neither quite knowing where their responsibilities end and the other's begins.  This actually leads to a fight!  But franchise fans won't find this quite so cartoonish when they remember Odo always held a grudge anytime Starfleet suggested one of its officers work alongside him to administer station security in Deep Space Nine.  Hayes may never have gotten a chance to expand beyond this moment or his role as a MACO, but this is his biggest spotlight.

Essentially, "Harbinger" is serialized Star Trek in the manner serialized television would come to be known later, even in Discovery.  So it's a harbinger of that, too.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The importance of events in this episode may elude casual viewers.
• series - But they're important for many elements of the season, and even series.
• character - Trip and T'Pol's evolving relationship breaches the top of romance for the first time.
• essential - The first look at a Sphere-Builder is crucial to the outcome of the whole season.

notable guest-stars:
Steven Culp (Hayes)
Thomas Kopache

Enterprise 3x14 "Stratagem"

rating: ****

the story: Archer uses deception to glean information from Degra.

what it's all about: "Stratagem" is one of the most fascinating episodes of the series.  Like "Twilight" and "Similitude" before it, "Stratagem" is a standalone episode with deep roots in the season-long Xindi arc, and the results show the producers at their most clever.  In all three episodes, they look at the arc from a unique vantage point, and each of them characters are pushed to their limits.  In "Stratagem" it's actually Xindi scientist Degra, a recurring character we've seen repeatedly throughout earlier episodes, but now revealed to be a crucial element of the season, not merely as the designer of the doomsday weapons his people are using against humanity, but as Archer's best hope to stop them.

And the episode doesn't just feature Degra heavily, it essentially is his episode.  For Archer it's a kind of "In the Pale Moonlight," the classic Deep Space Nine tale of Sisko using every means to draft the Romulans into the Dominion War.  Archer is merely trying to trick Degra into giving him information, but it's still fascinating, watching Archer do things he'd never really done before.  At various points in the season he seems almost totally out of control, and yet in "Stratagem," he's clearly completely in control, his best showing of the season and possibly the whole series. 

But we're still left sympathizing mostly with Degra, who has every reason to believe Archer isn't being merely clever but exerting a kind of psychological torture on him, presenting him with fictional scenarios Degra keeps seeing through.  And at the end of the episode?  He's set loose, not really comprehending what's happened to him.  In later episodes he does become Archer's best ally, fighting against the rest of the Xindi Council, risking everything. 

So why isn't "Stratagem" an episode about Archer merely convincing Degra of the morality of switching sides?  Well, for one, all Archer has at this point is humanity's perspective.  Later he'll have material for a better case.  Besides, the earlier episode "The Shipment" already had Archer reaching a kind of understanding with a Xindi, one who is far less invested in the conflict than Degra.  Degra is less Oppenheimer, horrified at the full destructive power of the atomic bomb, than he is Einstein, realizing that the German people have been betrayed by their own arrogance. 

Here is the start of the endgame of the season arc, the turning point, and at its center Degra, on his journey to horrible comprehension.  He learns it by being tricked.  When the full scope of the arc becomes apparent, "Stratagem" takes on a kind of perfect symmetry.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A classic study of enemies confronting each other.
• series - The turning point of the season.
• character - Degra at last takes the stage, and Archer reaches arguably his most brilliant moment.
• essential - An episode that proves the cleverness of the whole arc.

notable guest-stars:
Randy Oglesby (Degra)

Enterprise 3x13 "Proving Ground"

rating: **

the story: Shran shows up, seemingly offering his assistance in the Xindi conflict.

what it's all about: One thing the third season didn't really do very well was integrate non-Xindi arcs.  The Temporal Cold War, for instance, proved an awkward fit in "Carpenter Street," and in "Proving Ground," Shran and the Andorians show up...Actually, that's about it.  They show up.

Okay, it's slightly more complicated than that.  The episode spends most of its time questioning whether or not Shran has an ulterior motive, and sure enough for most of it he does indeed seem to.  But then he doesn't.  The whole thing's a somewhat convoluted excuse to remind viewers that Shran still exists.  This would've been more relevant had he appeared earlier, or in more than just the season finale as a follow-up.  Instead he just feels tacked on.

I mean, it's not a bad thing.  It's just...awkward.  And it kind of contradicts the extreme dangers Archer and company have encountered along the way, most of them having little to do with dodging enemy Xindi.  That the Andorians can just stroll in at this point, it just feels forced.  Shran and Archer's relationship evolves more toward what it'll be in the fourth season, true, and so that's good.  But...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Poor excuse to remind viewers that the Andorians are still around.
• series - Still, it's an arc-specific episode that will feel like something is being accomplished.
• character - It just has nothing to do with the Xindi arc, but rather Shran.
• essential - An episode that clearly should not have been developed in a vacuum.

notable guest-stars:
Jeffrey Combs (Shran)
Randy Oglesby (Degra)
Scott MacDonald (Dolim)
Tucker Smallwood
Rick Worthy

Enterprise 3x12 "Chosen Realm"

rating: ***

the story: Religious fanatics are angry about the crew's sacrilegious approach to the spheres.

what it's all about: Pretty much everyone seems to have fixated on the ending of "Chosen Realm," which echoes the conclusion to the original series episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."  And while they are similar, there's also...plenty more that can be said about it.

For starters, it's the episode of the Xindi arc that most directly reflects its origins as a response to 9/11.  9/11 happened just as Enterprise was about to launch.  It took a few seasons, but the series eventually addressed its proximity to the terrorist attacks by way of metaphor: the Xindi attack Earth inexplicably, and Starfleet sends Archer and crew to try and stop further attacks.  Just as the Afghanistan and Iraq wars proved increasingly controversial, Archer faces his greatest moral struggles during the arc.  But "Chosen Realm" addresses the terrorists themselves.

Now, the terrorists had been acknowledged already, although the producers couldn't have known at the time that they were doing so.  At the start of the series a species called the Suliban was introduced as part of the Temporal Cold War.  The Suliban were named after the Taliban, who at the time were best known for smashing ancient Buddha statues.  No one knew they would suddenly become a lot more relevant for harboring the terrorists who caused 9/11.  So "Chosen Realm" features entirely unrelated aliens, who are caught up in an internal conflict, much as the Muslim world generally in the backdrop of the 9/11 terrorists disagrees about certain tenets of faith.  And of course these aliens are terrorists.

What's actually the most interesting aspect of the episode is that not only does it continue the seemingly inexplicable fascination with spheres that had no obvious connection to the Xindi threat itself, at the time, but even gives us the first real hint of what they actually are, and what they were designed to accomplish.  In hindsight, that makes "Chosen Realm" more important than it initially seems.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Echoes of "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" are surely noteworthy...
• series - But this episode is ultimately more significant in explaining the purpose of the spheres.
• character - It seems like a lost opportunity not to have included one of the aliens here in the season's host of recurring characters.
• essential - A direct look at 9/11 and its psychological impact.

notable guest-stars:
Taylor Sheridan

Enterprise 3x11 "Carpenter Street"

rating: ***

the story: Xindi-Reptilians attempt to engineer a bio-weapon in Earth's past.

what it's all about: Episodes set in the current day tend to feel like money-savers.  The original series did it first, naturally, only to do it again in the movies with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and eventually Voyager did it, too, the Bill Gates-evoking "Future's End" two-parter.  "Carpenter Street" at first glance looks like a waste of such an opportunity, but it really isn't.

It's actually got a lot going on.  The most convenient angle, and probably what ultimately made the Temporal Cold War look most like a cheap gimmick, was using Daniels mostly as a kind of time-traveling cab driver (although that would be a fantastic gimmick!), bringing Archer and T'Pol to the exact moment they need to thwart the latest Xindi plan.  "Thwart the latest Xindi plan" sounds as bad as trivializing Daniels, but it's actually the second best thing about the episode.  Or best, depending how much you like the next thing I'm going to talk about.

The present day (2004) is represented mostly at night, and by a scuzzball whose major contribution to showing Archer and T'Pol what 2004 looks like is having them bring him to the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant.  We'd already seen this guy scarfing down delivery pizza.  The drive-thru scene is classic, especially as T'Pol clearly wants no part of it, right around the time when our real world culture was transitioning away from taking fast food burgers for granted and seeking healthier alternatives.  Yet this guy lives on the stuff!  Take everything else out of the story, and having our future characters experience the present this way...absolutely perfect.

But the scuzzball is also unwittingly a pawn of a Xindi faction.  Up till now, the various Xindi species hadn't really distinguished themselves.  "The Shipment" had focused on a Xindi-Sloth, and we'd begun to suspect that Xindi-Humanoid Degra was probably going to be more important than he seemed.  What about the others?  Were any of them truly nasty?  "Carpenter Street" answers that in a big way, and also foreshadows the later truly nasty turn the Xindi-Reptilians take.  The Walking Dead's infamous bat-swinging Negan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, plays one of them, and apparently seriously contemplated quitting acting because he hated the prosthetics process.  I know some characters who would've been happy if he had...!  But it also sucks that Star Trek actually had Morgan in an episode, and we didn't even get to see his face.  In the words of McCoy (circa Star Trek Beyond), "Typical."

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The tradition of visiting the present day maintained.
• series - Yet it actually proves incredibly relevant in hindsight.
• character - Daniels, and the whole Temporal Cold War, kind of feels sabotaged.
• essential - The drive-thru scene is a classic.  And prescient!

notable guest-stars:
Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Leland Orser
Matt Winston (Daniels)

Enterprise 3x10 "Similitude"

rating: ****

the story: Phlox raises a clone of Trip with the intention of harvesting his body parts.

what it's all about: If you've never seen "Similitude," that summary sounds pretty grim, so let me just get this straight.  This is an episode built around the ethical dilemma of the situation.  The clone leads an accelerated life, so his whole life is two weeks long.  The episode absolutely knows that the situation is screwed up, and the clone even finds out there's a chance he could have his lifespan slowed down to normal, and that becomes part of the story, too...

It's an absolutely gut-wrenching experience, for the clone, and for Archer and Phlox, who agonize and argue over the situation.  And the funny thing?  It's the ultimate Trip episode, regardless of whether or not it's technically him featured in the story.  Trip had developed over the course of the preceding two seasons into the heart of the series, and his personal stakes in the Xindi conflict only helped solidify that status.  His relationship with T'Pol reaches its most satisfying point in "Similitude," besides; by the end of the series they had drifted apart, but at least for one episode and its peculiar circumstances, they were able to find peace together.

Beyond "Twilight," "Similitude" is also the ultimate creative statement of the Xindi arc.  Archer finds himself pushed to his limits trying to find his way in a truly "screwed up situation."  The biggest problem he faces with the clone is that he knows he needs Trip, and the clone won't live long enough to truly replace him, and even the risky lifespan-extending procedure isn't guaranteed to succeed, so he doesn't find it worth the gamble...even if it means the clone must die.  The ending of the episode, in which Archer and the clone attempt to make sense of the experience, is one of the true classic scenes of the whole franchise.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A classic character moment in all of Star Trek.
• series - A perfect use of the Xindi arc.
• character - The best Trip episode.
• essential - In a lot of ways, this may be Enterprise's best episode.

Enterprise 3x9 "North Star"

rating: *

the story: The crew finds a colony of humans...living like they were in the Old West.

what it's all about: It should always be noted that my rating system is as much a reflection of an episode's overall worth as it is a judgment of its entertainment value, although I tend to give precedence to worth over value, knowing impatient fans need to know the former more than the latter.  The particular episodic nature of the franchise for most of its run has a natural conflict with an era that values serialization above everything else.  If I give an episode any stars at all (I've really omitted them for only about a dozen entries), it means it has some viewing worth, and anything beyond that is really a judgment call on my part.  It's sad that an episode can't just be enjoyed for its entertainment value, but I've come across episodes that have long been my favorites that I've been shocked to give one or two stars to, based on my criteria. 

"North Star" is a huge reflection on franchise lore.  As such I'd like to say it's essential viewing on some score or another.  Gene Roddenberry originally envisioned Star Trek as "Wagon Train to the stars."  Wagon Train was one of many popular TV Westerns.  When the original series did a Western episode ("Specter of the Gun"), it was almost entirely befitting, even if it had also done Roman Empire episodes ("Bread and Circuses"), Nazi episodes ("Patterns of Force"), gangster episodes ("A Piece of the Action"), and even several hippy episodes!  And later series would do Westerns, too (Next Generation's "A Fistful of Datas"), as well as Cold War spy episodes (Deep Space Nine's "Our Man Bashir") and even old-time sci-fi serials episodes (Voyager's "Bride of Chaotica!").  "North Star" grounds its events into the same kind of thought as the original series, while holodecks invariably produced the results otherwise.

It even has something to say about the season, on a metaphorical level, another reminder, before things got really hairy, of the crew's intrinsic humanity (with apologies to T'Pol, Phlox), and how to keep it despite circumstances.  But I'll keep that as an implied value.  Really, it's just fun viewing at a basic Star Trek level, one of those episodes that ought to remind fans what the franchise is all about, and not just leaving them begging "for something more relevant."

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A good example of what Star Trek started out as.
• series - A latent commentary on the Xindi arc.
• character - Maybe one of those episodes that would've been improved with just one creative alteration: focusing on, say, Phlox and Archer.  Phlox makes everything better!
• essential - A nice throwback, but your level of enthusiasm is your own call.

notable guest-stars:
James Parks

Enterprise 3x8 "Twilight"

rating: ****

the story: Archer's long-term memory is compromised.

what it's all about: There's only one, flimsy, reason not to love "Twilight," and that's if you're a grump.  Being a grump in this instance means either that you hate "reset button" episodes, or you hate subsequent series chasing after Next Generation's "The Inner Light."  Which itself was chasing after the classic "City on the Edge of Forever."  Basically an episode that sort of exists out of continuity, its events technically never having happened.

So let's get that out of the way, because they're both the same issue.  A "reset button" episode is one where the ending means the characters somehow manage to erase the events of the story from ever happening.  One of the more obvious ones would be Voyager's "Year of Hell," where for two episodes the crew literally spends a whole year with everything going wrong, but by the end of it a solution is found (destroying the time ship that helped make it possible) that means they can relive that same period with a completely different experience.  "City on the Edge of Forever" is the classic episode where McCoy jumps through a time portal and does something that erases reality as he and his colleagues (and viewers) knew it.  Kirk eventually figures out that McCoy saves someone who was supposed to die, and the heartbreaking final moments of the episode see him prevent that from happening, even though Kirk has fallen in love with the woman he has to restrain McCoy from stopping getting run over in the street.

Next Generation's "Inner Light," meanwhile, is a more exotic story.  An alien probe gives Picard the experiences of someone else's lifetime.  The more he settles into it, the sadder it becomes to know that at the end of the episode, walking away from this means that man's life is essentially a tragedy.  Picard gets to resume his life, but he retains all the bittersweet memories he shared and even participated in.  Deep Space Nine's "Inner Light" episode was a deeply personal, poignant experience between Sisko and his son, "The Visitor," in which Jake becomes separated from his father because of an anomaly, and lives the rest of his life trying desperately to reunite with him.  It's routinely listed as one of the best episodes of the franchise.  Voyager's was "Timeless," in which a guilt-ridden Harry Kim, years into the future, tries to rewriter history so that he and Chakotay can get everyone else home, and not crashed on a desolate ice planet a long ways from home. 

So if you have no idea what "Twilight" is, that's its tradition.  But like the episodes from the other series, it's an experience that's deeply intrinsic to Enterprise.  "Visitor" was all about a bond unique to Deep Space Nine, "Timeless" is tied up in Voyager's premise, Picard's particular cerebral nature made "Inner Light" typical of him, and no character no matter how often they followed his tendencies could've sold the impact of "City on the Edge of Forever" quite like Kirk.

"Twilight" is in a lot of ways the Xindi arc in a nutshell.  If you were to skip the rest of the season, this one experience would explain the whole story perfectly.  In a larger sense, it also explains T'Pol's bond not just with Archer but the crew around her, an association that made no logical sense to her at the start of the series, but something she found increasingly hard to walk away from later, despite a number of clear opportunities.  In a sense, it is a "shipper" experience.  If Voyager never came closer than "Resolutions" in exploring the potential of a Janeway/Chakotay relationship, "Twilight" is the ultimate "might have been" between Archer and T'Pol, who otherwise pursued a real, and very complicated, relationship with Trip, notably throughout the Xindi arc.  A lot of fans saw equal potential with an Archer romance, which aside from "Twilight" never materialized.

"Twilight" makes it very clear why their relationship happens, and is a quiet tragedy for T'Pol.  While viewers only experience her explaining events to Archer once, this is something she must do on a routine basis, every time Archer's short memory needs reminding of an increasingly elaborate sequence of events, growing longer with every passing year.  Thanks to the reset button, events do play out differently, and much more happily, as far as the Xindi arc goes, but it's hard not thinking of the experience as being as much about T'Pol's endurance as the outcome of their mission.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Part of a long and prestigious tradition in Star Trek lore.
• series - Yet intrinsically a part of the season narrative.
• character - A bold exploration of both Archer and T'Pol.
• essential - One of those episodes you can very easily recommend as exemplifying the whole series.

notable guest-stars:
Gary Graham (Soval)

Enterprise 3x7 "The Shipment"

rating: ***

the story: Archer finally talks with a Xindi involved in the construction of their doomsday weapon.

what it's all about: "The Shipment" marks a definite shift in the season, between episodes where the crew probed the Expanse looking for answers and finally where they chased after the Xindi themselves.  As such, it's always been a favorite of mine, especially in how it features Archer in the unlikely predicament of having friendly relations with the first significant Xindi he meets. 

But it's actually more significant, in hindsight, as the first real spotlight for Degra, the Xindi scientist tasked with designing the weapon that will obliterate Earth, the follow-up to the attack that set off the arc at the end of the second season ("The Expanse").  Degra would become crucial to the arc; although he made his debut in the season premiere ("The Xindi"), he remained a fairly anonymous figure along with the rest of the Xindi Council in their few appearances before "Shipment."  He would eventually become Archer's most important ally.  As such, "Shipment" amounts to a dry run of his whole arc.

Archer definitely took an emotional rollercoaster ride throughout the season, and sometimes he appeared to go off the rails.  So this is an important moment for him, too, where he passes the Starfleet ideal with flying colors, which given everything else is an important moment to commemorate, to have at all, especially as it is the first time he's confronted with concrete experience with the Xindi.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Even in Deep Space Nine I always wonder if arc-specific moments translate well with casual viewers, regardless of how well they're executed.
• series - No such compunctions for Enterprise fans.
• character - Our first real look at Degra, who becomes crucial to the whole arc.
• essential - If you ever wanted a single moment in the arc where the good guys looked unabashedly like good guys, here's your chance.

notable guest-stars:
Randy Oglesby (Degra)
Steven Culp (Hayes)

Enterprise 3x6 "Exile"

rating: **

the story: An alien with information about the Xindi attempts to use Hoshi as a bargaining chip.

what it's all about: "Exile" is the first Hoshi spotlight that doesn't cast her in a vulnerable position because of neuroses but rather because of the situation itself.  In a way, its most significant aspect is foreshadowing later in the season when she's once again become a hostage, this time to the Xindi themselves.  Otherwise it's most useful as connecting tissue for the spheres mystery and getting closer to the Xindi.

A lot of observers seem to have fixated, upon original broadcast, the Beauty and the Beast nature of the plot, which is a fairly superficial understanding of the plot, insofar as the alien who tries to trick Hoshi into becoming his companion (an old Star Trek trope) turns out to be ugly, or maybe because of the arrangement he proposes.  Either way, Hoshi is never coerced; it's always her decision, even when he's trying to manipulate her.  She shows great strength of character throughout the episode.  It's really a remarkable turnaround for the character, a sign of the added experience she and the rest of the crew has at this point. 

It was probably bewildering, in these early episodes, all the emphasis on the spheres, not having any idea how they connected to the Xindi or the arc itself.  In hindsight they're a hugely significant element, and therefore any and all material concerning them, especially in these episodes, must be considered accordingly, especially the clever way in which the producers plotted this particular course.  If the crew was slow to come across the Xindi themselves, it was intriguing, learning about the spheres.  After all, they were directly responsible for the Expanse itself.  And, ah...never mind.  If you don't know yet, I won't spoil it for you.  In this review, anyway...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A familiar story trope that again might seem mystifying to casual viewers trying to understand the relevance to the season arc.
• series - But to dedicated fans, it makes a ton of sense, especially the spheres material.
• character - This is the most assured Hoshi we've seen to date.
• essential - It foreshadows later Hoshi material, but in hindsight maybe if the alien had been an agent of the Xindi the relevance would've been more obvious.

Enterprise 3x5 "Impulse"

rating: ***

the story: The crew encounters a Vulcan ship whose inhabitants have been adversely affected by the Expanse.

what it's all about: "Impulse" was one of those Enterprise episodes jaded fans actually enjoyed, for much the same reason as the second season's "Dead Stop."  It was a complete tonal break, not only within the series itself but from throughout the franchise.  It's a horror story.  Or, as fans dubbed it, "zombie Vulcans!!!"  Clearly, with the massive success of The Walking Dead just a handful of years later, horror was becoming the next big thing in the genre market, beginning with the Dawn of the Dead remake.  Little surprise, considering many fans were first lured away from Star Trek by The X-Files, which itself was more horror than sci-fi.

"Zombie Vulcans!!!" is the thrust of the episode, but there's plenty of justification for it.  The second season finale, "The Expanse," that set up the Xindi arc, had referenced such things.  Now, five episodes into the arc, viewers finally get the visceral experience they were promised.  "Impulse" can easily be seen as the most thrilling episode of the season.

But it's not just cheap thrills, either.  There're lingering consequences.  T'Pol's infection leads to a drug addiction that plays out in the season.  Like the best of the preceding episodes in the arc, significant elements are featured without barreling ahead of the story.  Conversely, the whole experience can also be described as an example of what primitive Vulcans were like, before Surak's logic saved them.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The events might seem inexplicable to casual viewers.
• series - But they're thoroughly justified in their connections to the Xindi arc.
• character - T'Pol's experiences here lead to a secret drug addiction.
• essential - The most vivid experience of the Xindi arc so far.

Enterprise 3x4 "Rajiin"

rating: **

the story: The crew takes aboard a troublesome passenger.

what it's all about: "Rajiin" quickly puts the season arc back into focus after lapsing in "Extinction."  Not only does it bring back the Xindi Council, last seen in the season premiere ("The Xindi"), but it shows them actively working on something.  At this point they still seem like a fairly anonymous group, perhaps comprised of actors familiar from various other appearances across the franchise, but little more than bad guys who show up once or twice an episode just to remind you they exist.  Once we've been properly introduced, later, these appearances take on greater significance.

The episode itself is another instance of Enterprise evoking the original series.  Kirk was encountering random beautiful women all the time; the association became so great that he was considered a ladies man regardless of whether or not he actively pursued every woman romantically.  The implication seemed to be enough.  Archer had been put in this position before, and this is one of the most explicit examples.

Other than all that, "Rajiin" is mostly an example of the arc being a continuous experience for the characters, as we touch back in with T'Pol and Trip, for example, during the therapy sessions Phlox suggested in the premiere.  So also is the acquisition of a compound the crew needs to coat the ship with; we'll see another explicit example, of why it's so crucial, in the next episode ("Impulse").

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Casual fans ought to be reminded of Kirk in the original series.
• series - Nudging the season arc along.
• character - I don't want to sell the episode too hard, but there is character work within, it's just not ultimately the point.
• essential - It would've been interesting if Rajiin had been a member of the Xindi Council.

notable guest-stars:
Randy Oglesby (Degra)
Scott MacDonald (Dolim)
Tucker Smallwood
Rick Worthy

Enterprise 3x3 "Extinction"

rating: *

the story: Several of the crew are mutated into an alien species.

what it's all about: It's a little difficult to imagine what "Extinction" was supposed to accomplish except on a metaphorical level.  It seems to exist mostly as a concession to Star Trek fans who might have otherwise been leery of a season-long arc.  As the lone episode of the season with no overt ties to the Xindi arc, that seems to be its only reason to exist.

There have been plenty of episodes throughout the franchise with the same general plot; "Ashes to Ashes," a Voyager effort, saw the return of a crewmate everyone thought was dead, who'd been given new DNA, a new appearance.  The idea itself is sound, and "Extinction" explores it about as well as an episodic story can.

The problem is, it comes near the start of a season that was constructed for a serialized story.  No matter how slowly the arc begins, it remains methodical in its approach.  There's always something added to the viewer's understanding of the framework.  Except in "Extinction."  The only thing "Extinction" does is theoretically give the crew a little perspective; perhaps after the ethical concerns of "Anomaly," the producers thought they should pull back a little.  Archer is given a gentle reminder of his humanity, so he doesn't quickly barrel ahead to a breaking point.  But that's mostly implication. 

The truth is, if "Extinction" didn't exist, it wouldn't affect the season at all.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - An familiar episodic entry for casual viewers.
• series - Doesn't press its metaphorical significance.
• character - If Archer had been observer instead of participant, the episode could've improved.
• essential - The later "Hatchery" covers this ground much better.

notable guest-stars:
Daniel Dae Kim

Enterprise 3x2 "Anomaly"

rating: ***

the story: The crew discovers the existence of the spheres.

what it's all about: While the Xindi arc continues to build at a slow pace, "Anomaly" establishes two additional, crucial layers to the season that will become more important as the story progresses.

The first of them is an extension of something that was previously explained in the second season finale, "The Expanse," that the region the crew has to explore is filled with dangerous anomalies (hence the name of the episode).  But what they didn't know, previously, was that some of the danger would come from other ships trapped in the region.  "Anomaly" gives the impression of Voyager's "The Void," where Janeway's crew was similarly at the mercy of other ships attempting to survive a strange region of space, forced to decide whether or not they would help each other.  It's an interesting insight into the greater mechanics of the arc, and how many moving parts there are within it.

What's fascinating is that this is actually the first time Archer exhibits the pressure the mission has placed on him.  Some observers have noted that he becomes driven, in this episode, to similar extremes as Janeway in "Equinox, Part 2," where they both use an airlock as a means of de facto torture.  There will be other moments in the season where Archer's desperation is on display, and much more personal ones (notably "Similitude"), but "Anomaly" effectively internalizes the mission for him in a way that had previously been reserved only for Trip, who lost his sister in the original Xindi attack. 

The other major soft development is the introduction of the spheres, which will become another investigation across the whole arc.  What they are and who built them and why...these will become crucial to the whole story.

Lastly, "Anomaly" will get a kind of sequel later in the season, "Damage," which will once and for all settle the matter of its overall relevance.  But more on that when it comes up.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Casual viewers still won't really understand why any of this is important.
• series - But the episode establishes several key elements crucial to the rest of the season.
• character - Archer begins to feel the pressure of the mission.
• essential - In hindsight a hugely important episode in the arc, really.

Enterprise 3x1 "The Xindi"

rating: ***

the story: The crew begins its search for the Xindi in a processing plant.

what it's all about: After the big setup at the end of the second season ("The Expanse"), "The Xindi" kicks off the ambitious season-long serialized arc...in a manner that seems like a fairly slow start.  But it's got a ton of stuff it does accomplish, and its unique handling of this kickoff is itself pretty clever.

The biggest thing the episode accomplishes is introducing a host of recurring characters.  One of the things fans loved most about Deep Space Nine was its humungous assortment of recurring characters, who helped make the series feel lived-in.  Voyager never quite attempted to duplicate that, and even Enterprise in its first two seasons used recurring characters somewhat sparingly.  But the third season, at least in the third season, changes that.  Technically the only recurring character introduced in the episode to receive a proper introduction is MACO Major Hayes.  But the Xindi Council, including members who will become much more important as the season progresses (Degra and Dolim), also debuts, and it's this early peak at it that's the episode's best selling point.

Otherwise our crew attempts to make do with scratching for clues.  Some reviews upon its original broadcast remarked that it was downright disappointing to see Archer scramble through a sewer system rather than, y'know, engage the Xindi.  And it is a little disappointing that a season premiere, especially one that kicks off a major arc, has a relatively soft approach.  But it also eventually leads to a killer ending, one of the many mysteries the season will solve: why are the Xindi trying to protect a home planet that was...apparently obliterated years ago?

So in that sense, it's a really clever way to go about the premiere.  The majority of the episode is spent acclimating to new circumstances.  The MACOs are a major addition.  If none of them ultimately spends a lot of time in the spotlight, their presence alone is a key element of the season.  They even end up being featured in the later film Star Trek Beyond!  The concept itself is a fascinating addition to franchise lore, and entirely in keeping with a rougher early Starfleet still operating with spare parts from entities outside of itself (Mayweather and Reed, you'll recall, came from such origins, too).

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Casual viewers will probably end up baffled and underwhelmed.
• series - But Enterprise fans will eat it up.
• character - The incredible wealth of introductions is almost itself worth it.
• essential - Especially in hindsight, as some characters fleetingly seen here become much more important later.

notable guest-stars:
Steven Culp (Hayes)
Randy Oglesby (Degra)
Scott MacDonald (Dolim)
Tucker Smallwood
Rick Worthy
Daniel Dae Kim

Enterprise 1x26 "Shockwave"

rating: **

the story: The mission is cancelled after a horrific accident, but turns out it's really meddling from agents of the Temporal Cold War.

what it's all about: "Shockwave" is a blunt concept, too obvious in at least one element.  It might be the reason fans never warmed to the concept of the Temporal Cold War.  It's all obvious setup for a season finale: the crew finally managed to screw up that badly?  And Archer's stuck in the future with no time travel devices to get him back home?  And of course the second season premiere quickly resolves both of these issues, and it's back to the status quo as if nothing ever happened.  It just feels too cheap, especially for being a featured element of the series.

Silik doesn't have the same chemistry with Archer as he did in "Cold Front," and that's a major problem in and of itself.  Daniels is as fascinating as always (well, as he'd been in his debut, "Cold Front"); in fact he's the best part of this finale and an even better part of the second part.  But again, here he's mostly relegated to setup.

The Temporal Cold War deserved a much better push if it was going to be featured in such a climactic moment.  Maybe learning more about "Future Guy," the shadowy instigator of the Suliban, but not only do we learn nothing more than when we saw him in the pilot ("Broken Bow"), we never learn more about him, even with the rushed wrap up of the arc at the start of the fourth season ("Storm Front").  And that's the most disappointing thing of all.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Will casual fans really care about too-obvious material?
• series - Despite reservations, it does serve as a reminder of the Temporal Cold War, and its scope.
• character - Archer's the one caught in the crosshairs, as always.
• essential - It's the most painful thing to say about a season finale, that it isn't essential.

notable guest-stars:
John Fleck (Silik)
Matt Winston (Daniels)
James Horan ("Future Guy")
Vaughn Armstrong (Forrest)

Enterprise 1x25 "Two Days and Two Nights"

rating: **

the story: The crew attempt to enjoy some r&r.

what it's all about: For the past few episodes this trip to Risa kept getting interrupted, creating one of the more esoteric serialized stories in franchise lore.  Risa is the pleasure planet previously featured in Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, so this is another of those soft hooks.  The episode itself is actually pretty much composed of separate vignettes for one or more characters.  Everyone has something to do.  Admittedly, Mayweather's is minimal compared to everyone else's, getting treated by a compromised Phlox, attempting to get some hibernating in.  Hoshi has the happiest experience.  Trip and Reed have perhaps an even more awkward experience together than in "Shuttlepod One."

And Archer discovers backlash from "Detained."  The aliens who'd been harassing innocent Suliban send an undercover agent to spy on him. It's a soft continuation of the story, but it's appreciated for having been done at all.

Otherwise a fairly deliberately low key affair, just spending time with the characters.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - It' doubtful that casual fans will care too much about a visit to Risa.
• series - Some soft serialization in a follow-up to "Detained."
• character - Everyone gets in at least one moment.
• essential - Not especially.

notable guest-stars:
Kellie Waymire (Cutler)

Enterprise 1x24 "Desert Crossing"

rating: ****

the story: Terrorists try recruiting Archer to their cause.

what it's all about: There's a little something of everything to love about this one: big ideas, time well-spent with a pair of characters, continuity, and Clancy Brown.

Let's just get Clancy Brown out of the way.  Clancy's a big personality.  He's never really found that one (or two or three) projects that squarely put the spotlight on him, but he's always been an outsize highlight in the material he has chosen.  Scoring him, which surprisingly took this long to accomplish, is a major coup for Enterprise.  He instantly makes the episode seem that much bigger, just by being in it, and he sells the material as few guest-stars could have.  Anyone else, that lost dimension is the difference between mediocre and great.

But there's a lot more working around him, too.  "Desert Crossing" is a rare opportunity to see old friends Archer and Trip on an adventure together.  For Trip, the experience ends up eerily similar to "Shuttlepod One," and with different interpersonal dynamics we get a different experience out of him, which I think works better for him.  ("Shuttlepod" works as well as it does because of Reed.) 

The episode also acknowledges the loose serialization of the series to this point.  Clancy's character references the events of "Detained" as the reason he's convinced Archer will be able to help him.  That's a great way to give further dimension to a story, something Enterprise was particularly good at.  A lot of serialized TV storytelling can begin to feel too insular, events blending together in a bad way so that it's just something that keeps happening.  Knowing how to link stories together is its own kind of skill.

The big ideas are terrorism and Starfleet noninterference policy.  Terrorism was a big thing in Next Generation, with memories of Irish unrest permeating episodes that never quite seemed capable of exploring the idea.  Bajorans had been terrorists in Deep Space Nine, and of course between them there was also the establishment of the Maquis.  Fans were actually upset that the Maquis in Voyager weren't rebellious enough.  I don't think they ever really managed to reassess that in the wake of 9/11.  Enterprise eventually tackled 9/11 (it launched literally in the shadow of the attacks) in its third season, but "Desert Crossing" is like a soft preview of the topic.  Archer decides that Clancy's terrorists, like the Bajorans, and even the Maquis, were probably right in their actions.  This isn't really to say terrorism itself is a justifiable tactic, but that there's always a need to assess the justice of a cause. 

Anyway, it's another example of Archer considering a Starfleet protocol of noninterference.  In the real world we see oppression in a country and it's probably hard to not condemn the oppression itself, but...what to do about it is usually a far more difficult matter.  What are you ultimately signing up for?  Are you willing to make the commitment?  How does it change you to become involved?  These are the kinds of questions Archer asks, and helps further explain the basis of the Prime Directive (previously explored in "Dear Doctor" under very different circumstances), one of the central tenets of franchise lore.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Exploring the concepts of terrorism and the Prime Directive.
• series - Loose serialization strikes again.
• character - Fine spotlight for Archer and Trip.
• essential - It's hard to describe an episode that deals with terrorism as "fun," but this is one of the most straight-up enjoyable experiences of the first season.

notable guest-stars:
Clancy Brown

Enterprise 1x23 "Fallen Hero"

rating: ***

the story: An embattled Vulcan ambassador requires rescuing.

what it's all about: Sometimes a bad situation stays bad because there's never a breakthrough in communications.  That's the thing about Enterprise.  It posits a relationship between humans and Vulcans that's a bad situation, because Vulcans find humans primitive.  Anyone who saw Star Trek: First Contact knows humans were certainly in a bad place when they first met.  It shouldn't be surprising.  Cochrane certainly wasn't a "great man" until history started making its judgments.  It definitely seemed to help, not only his achievement but his engine becoming so important; the Cochrane we glimpse in "Broken Bow" is a lot more civil than the one in First Contact. 

Anyway, so despite that warm fuzzy moment at the end of the movie when we see the Vulcan remove his hood, relations themselves weren't automatically warm and fuzzy.  That was merely a cathartic moment speaking for itself, after a tumultuous experience battling the Borg and making sure Cochrane's flight happened at all.  Not only does it attract the attention of an alien ship, but it's Vulcan, and it feels like the birth of the future in a snapshot.  But nothing's ever that simple.  Vulcans ultimately find these human upstarts primitive.  And I say again, is that really so surprising?  The only surprise is the depth and persistence, but again, a bad situation tends to stay bad until there's a breakthrough, and Enterprise is all about making breakthroughs.

"Fallen Hero" doesn't seem like it's a breakthrough story.  There are a lot of breakthrough stories in the first season, and subsequent ones.  But ultimately, it is.  It's the first time the crew encounters a friendly Vulcan, someone who will take them at face value rather than history or cultural development.  The crew helps the ambassador out of a sticky situation, and that does the trick.  It begins to thaw a sticky situation.  Ironically, it's very similar to a couple of experiences with Klingons earlier in the season, and yet the results are the complete opposite.  That should be telling.

Somewhat more intriguingly, however, is the plot itself, why the ambassador is in a tricky situation.  It's politics.  There was plenty of Klingon politics in Next Generation, and plenty of Bajoran and Cardassian politics in Deep Space Nine, but I think "Fallen Hero" still manages to mine new franchise territory.  The Vulcan ambassador's situation turns out to be that her reputation has purposely been smeared for political expediency.  The idea practically is politics, certainly politics as it's been practiced by Americans for over two hundred years.  It's ridiculously petty, but it seems to work every time.  This is an episode that seeks to point out the stupidity of it.  Later, "Judgment" sort of echoes this lesson, with a Klingon.  Irony.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Insight into the eventual thaw of human/Vulcan relations.
• series - Another example of how Archer makes bridges.
• character - The thrust of the episode is more the experience of it than a spotlight on Archer or T'Pol, or even the ambassador.
• essential - Intriguing insight into the pettiness of politics.

notable guest-stars:
Fionnula Flanagan
Vaughn Armstrong (Forrest)

Enterprise 1x22 "Vox Sola"

rating: **

the story: The crew struggles with an entity it can't communicate with.

what it's all about: "Vox Sola" is a long-delayed (relatively speaking) straight-on spotlight for Hoshi's linguistic skills, as she hones not just her personal abilities but the budding Universal Translator as well. 

That's all well and good, but it's actually kind of more relevant as the first of two appearances by the Kreetassans, both times featuring massive cultural misunderstandings that the crew never saw coming.  In the later "A Night in Sickbay" from the second season, the whole episode is dedicated to the incident, but in this one, it's a little more tangential to the plot, even if it's a featured element.  Different cultures have different customs, and interpret the customs of others in different ways.  In Next Generation, this concept was handled clumsily, downright stupidly, in "Justice," one of the worst episodes of the franchise. A lot of fans considers "Night in Sickbay" a similarly poor episode, but I never have.  "Vox Sola," meanwhile, seems like it can be lost in so much goo, stuff that dominates the visual aspect of the episode, the amorphous representation of the lifeform Hoshi must scramble to understand.  But it's much better understood for what it does around the goo, which admittedly has sometimes been a problem in Star Trek.  Once you establish a memorable element, for good or ill, the episode tends to be dominated by it.  In this instance it would be a considerable mistake.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Seems like a fairly standard episode.
• series - But it's not.  it's actually significant for a later episode.
• character - Hoshi gets a mild spotlight compared to her more sensational appearance earlier in "Fight or Flight."
• essential - The Kreetassans are more relevant in their next appearance.

notable guest-stars:
Vaughn Armstrong