Star Trek and the Changing Face of Eugenics

First airing February 16, 1967, the original series episode "Space Seed" introduced the genetic superman Khan Noonien Singh, who would appear twice more in the franchise (1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness).  Khan was described as a product of the Eugenics Wars, a still-nebulous concept in canon material that was supposed to take place somewhere in the 1990s.  In 1967, the term "eugenics" was broadly understood to have Nazi connotations, although it was a concept widely shared in the United States as well.  Eugenics was the idea that a "perfect" human could be engineered through selective breeding.  In Nazi hands it led to a genocidal purge of undesired ethnicities for a "pure" nation.  

Khan was presented as a monster incapable of reconciling his existence with those he found inferior, which was basically everyone else except the goons sent into the same exile as himself.  When Kirk finds his ship coasting in space and revives him, Khan attempts a coup of the Enterprise and is subsequently sent into a second exile, and an attempt at revenge.  

The extent of Khan's genetic engineering was physical as well as mental, so that he represented the idea of perfecting both by bypassing chance, willful education and fitness efforts.  In doing so, he developed a level of arrogance he couldn't see past, what Kirk eventually called two-dimensional thinking.  By taking his abilities for granted, Khan never considered that there was a chance anyone without his advantages could be his equal, much less superior.

In Star Trek lore, his existence and evident threat led the Federation to ban genetic engineering.  The franchise didn't seriously revisit the idea until the Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" in 1997, a full thirty years after "Space Seed."  In it we learn that Doctor Bashir, a member of the regular cast since the first episode of the series, has been genetically engineered the whole time.  To look at him (a complete inverse of Khan physically, a beanstalk of a man), you would certainly have never guessed, and since this was a fifth season episode, nothing the writers had planned until plotting that episode.  Bashir had always had a healthy ego from his introduction on, a recent graduate of Starfleet medical school who boasted of his high academic achievements and selection of the assignment to a station at the edge of Federation space meant as a challenge he didn't think he'd find elsewhere.  The episode explains how his parents chose to modify his genes after finding themselves with a sickly child of no apparent prospects.

Now, no one will ever argue Julian Bashir to be the second coming of Khan.  Starfleet ends up making a special exception for him (he would otherwise have lost his career), instead punishing his father for making the decision in the first place.  For the rest of the series, the only real effect of the revelation is two episodes where he spends time with other products of recent genetic engineering, misfits whose outcomes weren't nearly as fortunate as his own.

The next time the franchise revisits the concept is the trilogy of Enterprise episodes from 2004, "Borderland," "Cold Station 12," and "The Augments," in which we learn the ancestor of Data's creator, Arik Soong, was inspired by the original Khan project in his work, and in fact nurtured the genetic material left over from it and even raised some of the results to adulthood.  (In later episodes, the series finally answers the question of how Klingons in the original series had such smooth foreheads; the Empire attempted to reverse engineer this work, and it...backfired.)  When Soong is repeatedly stymied, he eventually decides to pursues robotics instead.

Which brings us to the modern era of Star Trek programming and the reason I'm writing this.  Genetic engineering has played a prominent role in three series from this period, Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy.  We'll start with Picard, as it most resembles the franchise's historic stance on eugenics.

The second season of Picard features another member of the Soong lineage, Adam Soong, whose efforts in this field of science are meant to create a daughter for himself.  By this time the Eugenics Wars are long over, Khan has been put into cryostasis and shot into space, WWIII has yet to occur, and of course the Soongs have begun their long journey toward the creation of Data, one of the main cast members of The Next Generation, an android with an innovative positronic net powering him.  Adam Soong, although a renowned member of the scientific community, keeps his greatest work to himself, and has failed a number of times at creating a daughter of unlimited viability, genetic flaws continually cropping up and leading to premature death or debilitating conditions.  When we catch up with him, his daughter Kore has no idea she was created in a lab, although she certainly knows she can't stray far from home, since her skin can't withstand UV rays.  Eventually she runs away from home, and the Soongs continually evolve their pursuits.  Adam and Arik Soong are clearly presented as villains, although Kore, like Bashir before her, is an unwitting victim and sympathetic protagonist.  

The same can be said for Strange New Worlds and Prodigy's contributions.  Strange New Worlds gives us Number One, Una Chin-Riley, who has been hiding her Illyrian heritage since Illyrians maintain a regular practice of genetic engineering.  Prodigy's lead character is Dal, and in the 2022 episode "Masquerade" we learn that he's entirely the product of genetic engineering.

At the end of its first season, Strange New Worlds positions Chin-Riley in the same kind of peril Bashir faced when finally exposed, just as Prodigy finds Starfleet forced to reconcile Dal's existence with its ban.  Chin-Riley's case is in the past, before Khan is even revived, while Dal's is after Bashir's.  It seems recent creators are increasingly interested in challenging the moral qualms of the whole concept.  So is this a problem?

I think so.  It's one thing to argue, as Bashir does, that he had no say in what happened to him.  After all, although he knowingly lied throughout his Starfleet career, he didn't think he was otherwise responsible for conditions that ended up violating the ban.  Dal's case is different.  Although a character in a show geared toward kids and constantly presented as someone who just wants to fit in (and therefore it would be tough to come to any other conclusion), it becomes problematic that he's yet another unwitting victim we're asked to accept.  As I write this, the second season of Strange New Worlds has yet to premiere, so there's no way to know if and how Chin-Riley's case is handled, but it seems equally unlikely that she will end up unabsolved, whether by Starfleet or her crew.

I'm not making an argument against modern Star Trek, or these characters.  What I'm saying, here, is that it's a curious development in a franchise that has long been a champion of reason, spending the entire original series questioning basically everything, even the most precious indulgences of the counterculture that has long since been assumed to most closely align with its utopian ideals.  The franchise has also become a beacon of acceptance, in increasingly overt ways, and yet...this might be a step too far.  What some would call inevitable scientific progress still represents a Doctor Bashir who asks his parents, finally, why he wasn't good enough for them as he originally was.  No subsequent depiction of genetic engineering in the franchise has voiced such a thought, nor the cautionary tale (which is the foundation of the franchise) of Khan and the generation of augments that followed him.

This is a dangerous road to travel.  My hope is that someone at the controls realizes this at some point.  We don't need a Khan to point this out.  We certainly don't need another Hitler.  Star Trek is always at its best when it depicts humanity's efforts to better itself.  Through more conventional means.  Moral means.

Star Trek Arcs XVII: The Xindi

One of my favorite franchise arcs is the Xindi crisis from Enterprise’s third season, until Discovery and Picard the only example of full serialization in Star Trek. 

Of course, as was true of the franchise, to that point, even that left plenty of room for standalone stories, plus a few out-and-out standouts. Here’s a complete rundown:

“The Expanse” - The second season finale kicks off the arc with the Xindi launching an attack on Earth, carving a swatch across Florida and killing, among others, Trip’s sister. The Enterprise is subsequently sent into the eponymous region to seek out the Xindi to confront them and prevent further attacks.

“The Xindi” - We meet the Xindi Council, along with weapons developer Degra, in the third season premiere, but the Enterprise crew itself quickly determines that their search for answers won’t be easy.

“Anomaly” - The region of space they’re forced to travel through is itself dangerous, and contains mysterious spheres, the first of which they encounter here.

“Extinction” - Doesn’t have a ton of arc relevance.

“Rajiin” - Enterprise never understood that modern fans had a hugely different opinion of hot chicks than those of the original series. So this episode, featuring a hot chick helping the Xindi Council spy on the crew, was yet another instance of not getting the expected reception.

“Impulse” The region’s weird properties have negative effects on…everything, but here they’ve resulted in Zombie Vulcans. Fans loved this one. If there was one way to guarantee a good reception, it was to drop in a random horror episode (see also: the second season’s “Dead Stop”).

“Exile” - Sato has another in her long series of uncomfortable situations, this time with an alien who could give them actual information about the Xindi.

“The Shipment” - For me this is the first episode of the season to dig fruitfully into the arc, in which Archer meets some actual Xindi, and discovers that it’s definitely going to only get more complicated.

“Twilight” - One of the true highlights of the arc is also a classic “reset button” episode (in the vein of “City on the Edge of Forever,” “The Inner Light,” “The Visitor,” and “Timeless”) in which a great premise must be undone so there can be a happy ending, in this case Archer losing his ability to retain long term memories and thus seeing an alternate version of how all this plays out, and developing a very different relationship with T’Pol.

“North Star” - A kind of classic original series episode that serves as a kind of metaphor for how the arc will need to play out.

“Similitude” - The other major highlight of the arc sees Trip needing to be saved by growing a clone from which Phlox will harvest needed organs. It’s one of those bitter ethical dilemmas the franchise can do so well, and a great spotlight for the show’s best character.

“Carpenter Street” - The most direct overlap between this arc and the Temporal Cold War, featuring pizza and Jeffrey Dean Morgan nearly quitting acting because of his Xindi getup.

“Chosen Realm” - Another nod to the original series that serves as a cautionary tale for Archer growing too obsessed with the mission.

“Proving Ground” - Our Andorian pal Shran pops up.

“Stratagem” - Another big highlight of the arc is Archer’s considerable battle to win Degra over as an ally. It’s the “In the Pale Moonlight” of the arc, solidifying Degra’s importance and humanizing, once and for all, the enemy, in the best franchise tradition. 

“Harbinger” - The crew becomes more aware of the Sphere Builders and their role in all of this.

“Doctor’s Orders” - A Phlox spotlight. Kind of sad, because it forces him to spend a lot of time alone, and he always works best off of other characters.

“Hatchery” - Another cautionary tale of obsession.

“Azati Prime” - The crew reaches the Xindi! But it’s still going to be very far from easy to resolving all this…

“Damage” - Driving home the point that sometimes hard choices must be made.

“The Forgotten” - An episode for grief.

“E2” - The crew interact with their own descendants (like “Children of Time”), and once again the emphasis is on the cost of completing the mission.

“The Council” - Archer, with Degra as his firm ally, meets the Xindi Council. No happy ending here: Degra is murdered by the more belligerent faction of the Xindi as thanks for his efforts.

“Countdown” - Putting all the pieces together, the crew realizes that the Sphere Builders are the ones responsible for all this. But they still have the aggressive Xindi to deal with, and a second assault to stop.

“Zero Hour” - The season finale. You can guess how it ends.

“Storm Front, Parts. 1 & 2” - Well, almost! The fourth season opens by closing out the Temporal Cold War, including recovering Archer from an alternate WWII, where he was whisked at the last minute when stopping the final Xindi weapon.

“Home” - Archer attempts to recover, “Family” style, from the psychological fallout of his traumatic experiences. 

Star Trek Arcs XVI: Duras Prologue

When fans think of arcs in Star Trek: Enterprise they naturally gravitate to the season-long Xindi affair. Feeding into that, however, is a three-episode arc that rounds out the second season, which actually acts as a prequel to events from The Next Generation, previously chronicled here as Part VII: Worf/Empire in this series. The impetus for the Klingon political saga was Duras creating intrigue by claiming Worf’s father had been in collusion with the Romulans.

As it turns out, as it proved true with the son and sisters of Duras, his ancestor, also named Duras, was just as despicable.

Archer had run afoul of the Klingons as early as the first episode of the series, but it wasn’t until “Judgment” that he made an enemy. The episode plays out as a courtroom drama in the style of Rashomon, in which we see the events leading up to the trial from the perspectives of Archer and Duras. There’s a neat subplot involving Archer’s public defender, who helps prove that Klingons need not be considered the enemy for a new generation.

Archer ends up in Rura Penthe (the same prison planet seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which the trial format also evokes), but his faithful crew immediately springs him. But in “Bounty,” he’s recaptured by a Tellarite. Archer once again uses the opportunity to try and make peace with an apparent enemy.

The mini arc concludes in the second season finale, “The Expanse,” which is better known for kicking off the Xindi saga. Duras pursues Archer all the way to Xindi space, ensuring that epic space battles are a part of that story before we even meet a Xindi.

The whole affair is very similar to how the fourth season would be conceived, consisting as it would be almost entirely by two- and three-episode arcs, of which we will focus on an interrelated five episodes’ worth two entries from now.

Star Trek Arcs XV: The Andorians

The Andorians first appeared in the origin series episode “Journey to Babel,” and for all intents and purposes that was it. Their unusual look (blue skin, antennae) was both a blessing and curse. Next Generation introduced two additional blue-skinned aliens (Bolians, Benzites) but even they were used sparingly.

Then Enterprise. In its first season, the prequel gave them another shot as one of the first major encounters for Captain Archer in “The Andorian Incident,” represented , as they would be for the duration of the series, by Shran. Mostly they were used as counterpoint to the Vulcans, reluctant allies of humanity. Shran didn’t seem in much more of a hurry to embrace “pink skins,” but at least he respected Archer.

Later in the season Shran shows up again in “Shadows of P’Jem,” thanks to ongoing hostilities between the Andorians and Vulcans. In the second season, “Cease Fire,” Archer is able to leverage his unexpected rapport with Shran to peace talks between the two.

The third season, which is otherwise concerned with the Xindi arc, has Shran show up to offer his support in “Proving Ground,” another significant step in the path toward the Federation.

In the fourth and final season, “Babel One,” “United,” and “The Aenar” give us our most extended look at Shran and the Andorians, as well as the final building blocks (including roles for Tellarites and Romulans) of the Federation, which is what Archer’s relationship with Shran always pointed toward.

Star Trek Arcs XIV: Temporal Cold War

Enterprise came around when Star Trek had been on TV continuously since 1987, with one period where there was only one series airing for the length of half a season (the start of Deep Space Nine’s third season) but otherwise two running simultaneously from 1993 to 1999. It was a glut of material, and even with one breaking radically from the mold (again, Deep Space Nine) it became easy to take the franchise for granted, and for the first time there was a sustained reaction of discontent, that in this era never really went away. Enterprise entered this fray, and attempted to have its cake and eat it, too, by being a prequel series that simultaneously looked far into the future, thanks to the story arc known as the Temporal Cold War.

Fans may have disagreed, but I loved the results.

In the first episode, “Broken Bow,” Archer must rescue a Klingon from the clutches of the Suliban, who operated at the behest of a shadowy character never officially named but quickly dubbed Future Guy by fans.

The best episode of the arc came next. The face of the Suliban, Silik, attempts to convince Archer they don’t have to be enemies, but another agent, a human from the far future named Daniels who had been masquerading as a crewman aboard the ship, presents Archer with a counterpoint. The beauty of “Cold Front” is that for a brief moment you really don’t know who to trust, capturing new levels of ambiguity that have often been the hallmark of Star Trek’s finest hours, in a franchise otherwise best known for keeping things pretty straight.

The first season ends and the second opens with “Shockwave,” which sort of mashes the ambiguity back into standard shape, hammering home that probably the whole reason the Temporal Cold War is concerning itself with Archer at all is because of his role in early Starfleet history, and the birth of the Federation itself.

The arc again leaps for greatness in its next appearance, “Future Tense,” which attempts no grand statements, but instead weaves in the Tholians (heh) and simply allows the weird possibilities of temporal shenanigans (including a clever use of repeating time that’s saved as a side element of the plot) to enjoy the spotlight, Archer being frustrated that he has no control of any of it (a metaphor apt for the whole series).

Then the Xindi arc happens and in the third season Daniels again pops up to emphasize Archer’s big future, and in “Carpenter Street” helps him out with a little bit of contemporary time travel (with emphasis on pizza! and Jeffrey Dean Morgan suffering under heavy latex).

The producers got the message that fans weren’t having it, so the fourth season wraps up involvement in the Temporal Cold War with “Storm Front,” which naturally revolves around time travel and Nazis. I always liked to speculate that the head alien Nazi was in fact Future Guy (speculation had always hinged on a Romulan, admittedly). And then the series ends at the end of the season anyway.

Star Trek Arcs XII: Section 31

One of Deep Space Nine’s shorter and yet most impactful arcs involved the introduction of Section 31, a secretive intelligence organization within Starfleet that played by its own rules and was alone convinced of the good it did.

In the sixth season episode “Inquisition,” Luther Sloan attempts to recruit Julian Bashir, who despite a long friendship with the former Cardassian spy Garak can’t bring himself to condone Section 31’s existence, which to this point had been largely unknown outside of its own circles.

In the seventh season episode “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” (in times of war the law falls silent) Bashir again runs into Sloan, realizing that Starfleet, in its increasing desperation during the Dominion War, has knowingly embraced Section 31’s questionable tactics. Fans as eagerly embraced this second spotlight as they had the first, both serving as pinnacle demonstrations of the morally gray areas so often associated with the series.

Late that season, Bashir confronts Sloan directly in “Extreme Measures” when he realizes Section 31 was responsible for a genocidal plague inflicted on the Founders that has inadvertently (?) also infected Odo.

Section 31 shows up in the fourth season of Enterprise, with the revelation that Malcolm Reed once worked for Section 31. Captain Archer takes a dim view on the revelation when Reed struggles to come clean in “Affliction”/“Divergence,” in which we meet his former handler Harris.

The idea is reprised on a far grander stage in Star Trek Into Darkness, in which we learn Admiral Marcus is also a part of Section 31, and thinks of nothing to use it in an attempt to launch all-out war with the Klingons.

Section 31 factors heavily into the serialized storytelling in the second season of Discovery, which features Agent Leland and new recruits Mirror Georgiou and Ash Tyler. There remains in development a full Section 31 spin-off which at one time was speculated to feature Georgiou and Tyler, although developments since that and the third season have perhaps complicated things.

With the movie appearance and heavy presence in and potential spin-off from Discovery, Section 31 has turned into as significant a development of modern Star Trek as anything else you could name. A certain step away from the original hopeful vision of the future Gene Roddenberry envisioned, Section 31 instead of a contradiction often serves to distinguish the enduring morals of the main characters. When Bashir or Kirk reject its tactics, we cheer them as heroes. When Mirror Georgiou embraces Section 31, we’re not surprised. When Tyler finds a temporary refuge in his crazy life, we can even begin to see it in a different light. In modern Star Trek, too, is the ability to see the good even in the bad (a legacy dating all the way back to “Balance of Terror”).

Star Trek Arcs VI: Picard versus the Borg

Arguably the biggest Star Trek arc ever was conceived in the least likely season of Star Trek ever (just like the last one). I’m talking, of course, about the Borg.

In the first season finale of The Next Generation, “The Neutral Zone,” the Romulans are reacting to the emerging threat of the Borg. That’s the whole point! 

But we don’t actually meet the Borg until the second season, in a Q episode, of all things, “Q Who?,” the unlikeliest thing ever, perhaps. In a lot of ways, that was an episode that redefined Q, took him seriously for the first time, and arguably too seriously! Every subsequent appearance (except maybe “Death Wish” in Voyager) veers far from the darkness of Q literally showing Picard how little he really understands about the dangers of space.

But it at least shows Picard as the one who needs to understand the threat of the Borg, because that becomes the big story.

At the end of the third season, “The Best of Both Worlds” makes franchise history as Picard finds himself assimilated into the Borg Collective, ending the episode on one of the most important (serialized) cliffhangers in television history. The fourth season premiere concludes the story, and of course Picard is rescued. But the fallout lingers for decades.

The first follow-up is the next episode of that season, “Family,” during which Picard deals with the emotional impact of his assimilation. He later encounters the Collective again in “I, Borg,” in which he’s forced to admit that even something seemingly as simple as how he should feel about this is actually quite complicated.

Then of course First Contact, in which he’s run through the ringer again. It remains my personal favorite Picard memory, especially the ready room scene where he admits how obsessed he remains, uncontrollably so.

The arc technically concludes in “The Impossible Box,” from Picard, in which he steps foot aboard a Borg cube again for the first time since his assimilation. 

Enterprise features a tie-in with all this in the episode “Regeneration,” in which we learn the time-traveling Borg from First Contact are in fact responsible for sending the signal that eventually brings the Collective on a collision course with humanity.

Finally, in the pilot of Deep Space Nine, “Emissary,” we meet Sisko, who lost his wife in the big battle from “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2,” and he still blames Picard, regardless of his assimilated state at the time. It’s the rare moment in franchise lore we see a significant separate story set during a more famous one.

Star Trek Arcs II: Khan

The second Star Trek arc is probably the most famous arc of the whole franchise: Khan Noonien Singh. 

Khan comes from our own lifetime, a genetic superman who rose to power in the 1990s as part of the Eugenics Wars, which other than this biographical detail have never been explored except in books. (Slightly more examined but still sketchy: WWIII.) Anyway, Khan loses power, is exiled into space in a sleeper ship called the Botany Bay, there to linger for hundreds of years until stumbled upon by Kirk and company near the end of the first season of the original series in “Space Seed” (which, for those keeping score, is of course before Chekov joins the cast).

And Khan immediately attempts his old shenanigans again, and once more finds himself in exile for his efforts, this time on a planet called Ceti Alpha V.

And then, in the second film of the franchise, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, he returns once more. Fans still claim this particular adventure is the high water mark of at least the films, and were none too pleased when Star Trek Into Darkness revisited it. Like the other Kelvin films it essentially exists in its own timeline, so it doesn’t technically connect with the rest of the arc, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more to the story.

Enterprise provides that. Remember how Data’s creator was named Noonian Soong? Well, we meet his ancestor, Arik, whose work begins with other “augments” from Khan’s heyday, similarly revived for additional mayhem, in the trilogy of episodes “Borderland,” “Cold Station 12,” and “The Augments,” before he decides to switch to robotics (the evolution of which itself carries into the first season of Picard).

That’s still not the end of the story!

The augments, during the course of their misbegotten adventures, crossed paths with the Klingons, and in “Affliction” and “Divergence” we learn the canonical explanation for the lack of ridges in the original series: they attempted an experiment to create augments of their own, and mostly the results were cosmetic (mostly so they didn’t accidentally annihilate themselves!).

A side note: Deep Space Nine revisits the idea of genetic engineering in “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?,” in which we learn that Bashir, naturally enough, is controversially entangled in it, thanks to his parents, and that the Federation still finds it otherwise as much a taboo as the Genesis Planet Khan helped create.

He Was a Particularly Troubled Romulan: Star Trek Post-9/11

"He was a particularly troubled Romulan."

That's what Spock says of Nero in Star Trek (2009).  The line always stuck out for me, but I never quite understood why until recently.  Spock, of course, is Vulcan, and Nero is Romulan, an offshoot of the Vulcans.  Further characterizing the Romulans was always a little difficult.  In the original TV series, they were presented as another Cold War analogy, like the Klingons, who had fought the Federation in the past but had retreated into reclusiveness.  In fact, the fact that Romulans descended from Vulcans wasn't even generally known until they emerged again, and they went back into isolation until The Next Generation, where they became a recurring threat, until the events of Star Trek Nemesis, in which a clone of Picard named Shinzon attempted another full-scale war against the Federation, but ended up suffering the loss of their home planet in the backstory of Star Trek. 

Characterizing Nero as "particularly troubled" is a telling detail.  Nero's response to the destruction of Romulus is to blame Spock, the older one still alive in Picard's day, and all of the Federation, and to once again declare open war.  He sets about a plan to what is in his mind equitable retaliatory action, affecting the destruction of the Vulcan home world and then the rest of the leading Federation worlds, starting with Earth.

And it made me wonder what exactly Nero represented.  Longtime fans tend to look down on the new films, claiming they lack the spirit of the franchise by putting too much focus on flashy special effects.  But that's simply not the case.

Since 9/11, Star Trek has had terrorism on the brain.  Star Trek: Enterprise famously launched within weeks of 9/11.  By the end of its second season, Enterprise launched a major story arc in direct response, an act of terrorism against Earth that led to a preventive mission against the aliens responsible. 

As you read above, the franchise was responsive to its times from the very beginning.  The Klingons and the Romulans were both reflective of the Soviet Union, an idea that culminated in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country with its breakup.  The Next Generation continued the tradition; the Troubles in Ireland were often reflected in its storytelling.  Deep Space Nine echoed the collapse of the imperial age with the end of the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor, reflecting back to the days of WWII but often evoking present times, if not the Troubles then the ongoing conflict in Israel.

Which brings us back to Star Trek.  What if Nero was a Palestinian analogy?  Or Islamic terrorists such as those who struck on 9/11?  I find it likely.  And then Star Trek Into Darkness doubled down on the idea. 
                                                                                                                                                                          

 

You'll recall the above promotional poster, meant to evoke Khan's early terrorism in the movie.  Khan himself might as well have depicted the perception that America's response to 9/11 ended up being excessive or misguided, to put it mildly.

 

Things worth considering.



Enterprise 1x4 "Strange New World"

rating: ***

the story: An away team becomes stranded on a planet and begins to grow paranoid.

what it's all about: In hindsight, "Strange New World" would probably have made a better first regular episode for the series.  It addresses the tension of having T'Pol among the crew and demonstrates the limits of the crew's technology, featuring a scenario where the transporter is necessary but problematic, and allows characters to talk freely so we get to know them outside their shipboard functions. 

It's one thing to have a setup where humans are resentful of Vulcans, but another to internalize it, and this is basically the one episode where the series allows anyone to question T'Pol herself, even if there's an elaborate excuse for it.  With everyone's trust being warn away by an infection, Trip gives full vent to his biggest fears concerning her, that T'Pol is only there to further hold back Starfleet's mission.

The campfire scene, before that, when Mayweather's telling a ghost story and we meet Cutler for the first time, is an early defining moment for the series.  This never happens in any series previously.  There'd never been a feeling of such informality allowed in a Starfleet crew, and it's another keen reminder of the fact that we're watching people who have none of the history we've come to rely on, that they're closer to our time than they are to Kirk's.  There's also a nice bit of symmetry there, too, from another campfire scene, one of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier's best moments, in which old friends are merely enjoying each other's company.  If there's one regret for this series, it's that there wasn't another campfire moment in its final season.  Would've been fitting.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A crew handicapped by its reluctance to use a transporter!
• series - A personable early approach to the crew.
• character - Trip and T'Pol in an early bump in the road for their relationship.
• essential - That's a missed opportunity.  If it had been written as a Trip and T'Pol episode, rather than one that features them in one particular moment, it would have greater lasting impact.

notable guest-stars:
Kellie Waymire (Cutler)

Enterprise 2x26 "The Expanse"

****

The second season ends with a bang, concluding the crew's efforts to figure out how they fit into the grander scheme by letting them know that they have a long way to go.  This is accomplished by kicking off the Xindi arc with a giant swash of Florida being eradicated, and also the last efforts by Duras to gain revenge on Archer, concluding another arc begun in "Judgment."

In a lot of ways, this is Enterprise being Deep Space Nine, having the series steeped in its own mythology.  Next Generation started this with "Redemption," which also featured Klingons, and certainly "The Best of Both Worlds," still the most famous but not first appearance of the Borg.  Contrary to how much of the preceding season had played out, there's a definite connection to other episodes (another irony of the perception of the season, given that even in the early episodes, there was a link between "Minefield" and "Dead Stop," and Trip references plenty of things we've seen in "Dawn").

Another notable feature of "The Expanse" is its inclusion of the Temporal Cold War arc, which even at this point seems to have been altered from its original conception.  Future Guy makes his last appearance of the series, undeniably aiding Archer, as previously suggested for his motives in "Cold Front" from the first season.  Rather than a black and white, Silik-is-the-bad-guy/Daniels-is-the-good-guy interpretation that some episodes might have argued (notably "Shockwave," which ambiguously ended the first season and began this one), we have reason to believe after "The Expanse" that it benefits plenty of factions for events to play out as they historically did, rather than be altered.

Which in itself suggests that the whole third season could be redefined as the definitive Temporal Cold War story, even though the familiar players from other stories in the arc are mostly absent (Daniels appears a few times).  But that's an argument for another time.

Even if you don't care about that arc, there's plenty to enjoy about the episode.  Trip loses his sister in the attack, which is the last push the season gives him for everything that would come, the material that would truly build his enduring legacy.  The Xindi crisis itself reflects the 9/11 attacks that had just occurred when the series began, marking the first time Star Trek used contemporary events to inspire an ongoing story (unless you count the other Cold War and the Klingons).

If you don't particularly want to watch this one for all the interseries continuity, it can still be enjoyed as a standout Star Trek adventure.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
John Fleck
Vaughn Armstrong
Gary Graham
Daniel Riordan
James Horan
Daniel Riordan

Memory Alpha summary. 

Enterprise 2x25 "Bounty"

***

The Klingon arc begun in "Judgment" continues in "Bounty," in which Archer's escape from the penal colony of Rura Penthe finally comes back to haunt him.  If that's not interesting enough for you, the episode also features Enterprise's first use of Tellarites, another species first seen in the original series but unused since.

Ah, and if that's not enough for you, T'Pol suffers from pon farr, the Vulcan mating drive famously depicted in "Amok Time" (and Voyager's "Blood Fever").  Like other points where the series depicts something later generations are only just supposed to be learning about, the episode leaves the topic unnamed, and since only Phlox is made aware of her condition, the secret remains pretty safe.  In fact, this whole aspect of the episode is better viewed for the sake of Phlox than T'Pol, even though it's about as uncomfortably atypical as "The Breach."  This is probably the only time the good doctor would ever be reduced (nearly) completely to comic relief, though some fans thought he reached that point (wrongly) in "A Night in Sickbay" still earlier in the season.  It's safe to say that the second season saw a lot of weird things attempted with the character.

Getting back to the main story, it's a lot like "Canamar," which as you'll remember was originally conceived as the ending of "Judgment."  This time Archer doesn't attempt to hide his identity, however.  It's Archer as he'd come to be known in the Xindi arc of the following season, actually.  Like the next (and final) episode of the season, "The Expanse," "Bounty" functions well as a preview of things to come.  Tellarites return in the fourth season, so that's another thing you might take away from this episode.  They never reach the level of Andorians in the series, but this is a fine starting point for what's done.

Don't think I've overlooked the Klingons!  The relevance Klingon element doesn't have to do with Klingons themselves, but rather another actor famous for portraying one making an appearance this season.  This time it's Robert O'Reilly, playing a rival to the Tellarite.  You know O'Reilly, right?  He played Gowron.  You'd know his eyes anywhere.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Robert O'Reilly

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x24 "First Flight"

****

In a lot of ways, this is a sequel to "Carbon Creek" from earlier in the season.  It's a story that Archer tells T'Pol, much as the reverse is true of the other episode.  Anyone who still believes that Enterprise's second season was pretty random will hopefully have one less reason to think so.

It's also a love letter to NASA, something Star Trek had done before in Voyager's "One Small Step."  At a time when the US space program was already in a decline and only a few months after the Columbia tragedy, it perhaps is appropriate that Star Trek did so again.

It's also a rare flashback in franchise lore.  Deep Space Nine did it with Odo and Kira, but for the most part the past was at best something characters only talked about.  "First Flight" presents Archer's efforts to get his father's warp engine approved for deep space travel, as well as his rivalry with A.G. Robinson, whose death in the present is the impetus for the occasion.

In a lot of ways, it's the episode fans had been waiting for from the start, dealing with Vulcans actively discouraging human technological advances.  Archer meets Trip for the first time during the depicted events, so it's an origin story in several regards.  Anyone still wondering just how perfectly the second season treated Trip must also view this episode as proof.  He serves as an excellent counterpoint to Archer, even though they eventually conspire in the same test flight that gets Starfleet the mandate to reach "Broken Bow" (the series pilot), even if it nearly grounds the program in the process.

If you view only one episode from the season, "First Flight" should probably be that episode.  It's a perfect example of Enterprise at its finest, and is a worthy induction into the new classics of the franchise.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Vaughn Armstrong
Keith Carradine

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x23 "Regeneration"

*

It's something of a pity that a season that has really started to get a good sense of what it was doing so well ended up doing an episode that was pretty much exactly what Enterprise detractors had been saying the series was doing all along, a fairly unnecessarily indulgent look at established franchise lore.

There are certainly justifications, though they may be too subtle to appreciate for what they are.  The detractors loved to say that Enterprise constantly risked contradicting canon by visiting certain elements that were historically known to not be known at this point in the timeline.  The series had already danced around Ferengi and Romulans at this point, but "Regeneration" features the Borg, who famously catch Picard by complete surprise a long way off in the future.

Fans who don't worry about such things know that there are several clever things done in the episode. One is that it's basically a sequel to First Contact.  The other is that it also provides the source of the Borg Collective's obsession with humanity.

Other than that, it seems like an excuse to feature the Borg again.  Fans grew tired of them after Voyager used the Collective in countless stories.  This is not to say that the Borg are not inherently still fascinating, but that many fans began to lose sight of their appeal, weakening "Regeneration"'s at least initial impact.  The episode is also fairly generic in its storytelling, even if we get some updated perspective on their tech.

It's not bad but it's also not amazing, and sometimes the Borg just need to be amazing.  That's the only real problem here.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Vaughn Armstrong
Bonita Friedericy (wife of "Phlox" John Billingsley)

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x22 "Cogenitor"

****

Characters in Star Trek have certainly screwed up before.  In Enterprise alone half the premise is pretty much predicated on everyone screwing up at one point or another as they try to figure out how to set the standards established as a matter of course in other incarnations.

But "Cogenitor" is probably the be-all-and-end-all of screw-ups.  Naturally it features second-half-of-the-second-season-all-star Trip Tucker, in the episode that solidifies that role.  It's the last time in the series, actually, where one of Trip's spotlights does not focus on something about him other than his personality and apparent bad instincts, probably because the writers no longer have any doubt after it that he's the breakout star of the series.

Before we get to that, let's just get out of the way another of Enterprise's efforts to make a franchise reprise of some of its most notable actors.  This time it's Andreas Katsulas, who famously played Picard's Romulan counterpart Tomalak (although he's better known as G'Kar in Babylon 5).  He gets to spend a lot of genial time with Archer in a first contact situation that's one of the best this crew has experienced.

Except for Trip's actions.

Several times in the course of the series alien species truly get to be alien, meaning that they have noticeable characteristics other than their appearance that makes them alien.  While it's happened in other incarnations, there's a more pronounced effort in Enterprise, even if it happens in an alien-of-the-week context most of the time.  Here it's a species that has three distinct genders.  Trip gets his knickers in a bind when he decides for himself that the third one is being unfairly exploited and limited in its potential.  He meets a couple who are trying to conceive, and so they have one of the eponymous members of this gender accompanying them. He becomes intrigued by this individual.

And he screws up big time.  You can imagine what happens next.  Riker did basically the same thing in "The Outcast," but where that episode used Riker in a fairly uncomfortable representation of his latent Kirk ladies man mode, Trip is Trip in "Cogenitor," a fallible human who probably thinks too much for his own good, the version of Archer who would've made the Vulcans even more uncomfortable (but who is ironically revealed to help the future captain get his father's engine working in "First Flight" two episodes later).  He's everything that Enterprise was supposed to be, and gets to be it for four seasons, warts and all.

Whereas most episodes like this end up being about the issues they were engineered to explore, "Cogenitor" is best viewed for its featured character, and that's the true strength of Trip, that he could make something like that happen.  That's how he gets one of his bona fide Star Trek classic episodes.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Andreas Katsulas
F.J. Rio

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x21 "The Breach"

**

Very much like the Voyager episode "Jetrel," we learn a disturbing history behind a species we've basically just come to know.  Unlike the Talaxians being victims in that instance, Denobulans are the villains as featured in the revelations of "The Breach."

Unfortunately, Enterprise never got around to exploring Denobulans, the race of Dr. Phlox, too extensively, so this remains one of the signature expositions for them.  As in "Jetrel," much of the episode is a reluctant dialogue between representatives of two species who were once at violent war with each other.  In the one positive note of this exchange, it's never exaggerated to anything other than the doctor-patient relationship that it begins as.

The main benefit is learning a little more about Phlox's family.  Earlier in the season we learned that he doesn't have the best relations with all his children, and here we learn why.  It's a sobering spotlight for a character who often served either as comic relief or a voice of reason, perhaps more somber than is enjoyable, considering that when utilized Phlox was always among the best assets of the series.  Like Mayweather before him, perhaps the wrong lessons were taken from the learning steps of Phlox's episodes from the early seasons.  Instead of taking his place as the featured character he deserved to become, the good doctor became a thoroughly supporting character.  It's not hard to view "The Breach" as a reason why.

On the plus side, the B-story does allow Denobulans to show a more positive and typically eccentric side, as some of the crew attempts to rescue some scientists from a tricky spot.  It's an odd mix, but it counts as a thoroughly Denobulan affair, and this is the only episode that can say that.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x20 "Horizon"

***

It's absolutely true that Travis Mayweather was the least utilized of any series regular in a Star Trek since the original series, where Sulu and Uhura especially were used mostly as window dressing, and Chekov mostly for Russian anecdotes.  It got to a point where fans joked that he could be played by a cardboard cutout with equal effectiveness to actor Anthony Montgomery.

This became true mostly in the last two seasons.  As point of fact, he got a spotlight episode in each of the first two seasons.  Yes, faint praise to a certain extent.  As I understand it, half the character's potential was pulled out from under him when it was determined his own backstory worked against the concept of the series.  Mayweather was a Boomer, part of the human space experience that lived on starships before Starfleet made it routine.  Of course, Enterprise was all about the formative development of Starfleet, pushing the boundaries of human space experience.

In short, being a Boomer meant becoming obsolete.  Mayweather joined Starfleet to be a part of this development.  His old colleagues and family didn't uniformly see that as a good thing.  "Horizon" is all about this conflict, brought to a point when news reaches Mayweather that his father has died.  Like the rest of the latter half of the second season, the episode serves as a status marker, showing how far things have developed, this time from the perspective of the pilot who was the most natural spaceman in Archer's crew.

I always wished the character would receive more material.  I'll admit to being fascinated by the potential of the Boomers to offer a commentary on Starfleet.  Unlike the show's creators, I still thought there was a chance that Mayweather's Boomers roots could provide insight into developments well past the second season.  I assume this didn't happen mostly because the writers found other things more interesting to them.

"Horizon" doesn't make Mayweather out to be a hidden treasure of the series, but at least an underappreciated one.  I would argue that there was a lot of worth to having a recognizable character lace his way through the series, regardless of how much material he got.  He was still more important and distinguished than Sulu or Uhura.  Other incarnations made use of their casts to varying degrees of effectiveness.  Mayweather rates below all of them, but he still leaves an impression.  An episode like "Horizon" is like a reward for noticing him at all.  You're a true fan of the series if you appreciate this one.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x19 "Judgment"

****

Sometimes fans of something don't seem to appreciate the benefits of being, y'know, a fan.  Perhaps they forget that "fan" is short for "fanatic."

I mention this because fans are supposed to be the ones who appreciate what fans will gleam from regularly enjoying something.  Too often in this magnified age of fan interaction, they end up rejecting what they seem to enjoy precisely because of that familiarity.  I know, I'm still confused by that myself.

What I'm still driving at is the appreciation of patterns.  Star Trek has always been about enjoying patterns.  The original series was littered with patterns.  It's nature of episodic television, what makes a procedural franchise possible.  Even when Star Trek doesn't follow the episodic format, there are still established elements that resonate through each incarnation.

I'm not even talking about that.  "Judgment" is a little more fundamental than that.  This episode of Enterprise  calls to mind a specific sequence from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, released some twenty years before the episode originally aired.  "Judgment," to be specific, features a return to the Klingon tribunal Kirk and Bones once got to enjoy, as well as the same result, a sentencing to the ice planet penal colony Rura Penthe.

If that weren't enough, it also guest-stars J.G. Hertzler, playing a Klingon defense attorney.  Hertzler famously played Martok, who eventually became the Klingon chancellor in Deep Space Nine.  Although he only appeared in the last few seasons Martok quickly became one of that show's most memorable recurring characters.

And in that weren't enough, "Judgment" also features the first chronological appearance of a character named Duras (infamous from The Next Generation and a pair of sisters who survived two TV series but not their first movie appearance, Star Trek Generations).

It's as if the whole episode were constructed in order for me to make this point.  Enterprise was always about celebrating the legacy of the franchise.  This may be the most resonant statement of that aspect of the series.

Anyway, the unfortunate dude at the Klingon tribunal this time is Archer, and he easily and confidently carries the episode, holding his own even as Hertzler is, well, Hertzler, actually making the case that not all Klingons are warriors (it's true!).

So yes, on the one hand you can watch "Judgment" for the novelty of revisiting something from one of the movies that fans generally like, or for Hertzler, or for Klingons in general (this is their best appearance in the series), or simply for the fact that it at last grounds the season in ways prior episodes, even "Cease Fire" with the Andorians and Vulcans, tried their best to do, establishing how far Archer has gotten and how far he still needs to go.  There's a string of episodes that continues the story, by the way, straight into the Xindi arc that envelopes the next season, so those fans who like Star Trek to be more serialized won't be disappointed, and neither will those who like it episodic.  It works every way you like, and beyond that.  It's meta Star Trek, but it doesn't lose sight of telling an interesting, compelling story.

In short, there's little wrong in loving this one.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
J.G. Hertzler
Daniel Riordan

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x18 "The Crossing"

*

This was originally an episode that I figured you could skip if you were so inclined, with nothing but fairly generic material contained.  On the one hand, it could have been rated as something fans of the franchise might watch, as it contains thematic elements featured in various incarnations of Star Trek, including non-corporeal beings and crew possession.  If that's your bag then you might still consider that a reason to watch.

Yet "The Crossing" might be considered equally for partisans of Trip Tucker, who's the nominal lead character of the episode, even though most of his scenes are under the influence and control of the wisp beings who flit about the ship and spend moments with several other characters.  It's a fine performance among many fine performances from Connor Trinneer (I don't reference actors by name too often in these recaps, so that may mean something), already at this point in the season well on his way to establishing him the most important if not simply breakout star of the series (although his career since Enterprise has been pretty nonexistent, which is horrible).  It's a rare chance for Trip to be on the other side of the mischief he's more usually instigating himself, as different from "Unexpected" (in which he famously gets pregnant) as you can get.

But you can also watch it simply as an ensemble piece, something that's always fun with these characters.  It's fun with any cast, but these ones in particular are good at maintaining a sense of continuity and purpose even when the situation doesn't really go anywhere as far as character growth goes.  If Star Trek had ever considered simply hanging out with a set of characters, this would have been the cast to do it with.

There you have it, then, three different reasons to care about an episode that might've been skipped under a different set of criteria.  It's not earth-shattering, but it's worth a look.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x17 "Canamar"

*

"Canamar" is on the whole a pretty fun episode, although it's probably best recommended to fans who already like Enterprise, even though it's of no great importance to appreciating the overall series.

Apparently it was inspired by the later episode "Judgment," spun off from events that involved Archer becoming a prisoner of the Klingons (which itself served as a mini-arc at the end of the season).  You should understand, however, that "Canamar" has nothing to do with "Judgment" otherwise, only the inspiration for the story, in which Archer and Trip find themselves prisoners of an alien culture.  Come to think of it, there are plenty of episodes like this in other incarnations of Star Trek (another recurring theme in the writing room, I guess), although I stick by my assessment that you can probably get by on the minimal recommendation for the episode (that's what one out of three key elements listed at the top of every episode summary gets you, which in this ranking system is one out of four stars, and still means it's worth your attention).

The reason I rate "Canamar" for series rather than franchise is because, along with just about every other episode from the second season, it marks a clear progression in Archer's ability to make decisions for himself.  As in elsewhere from the season, it's his ability to bluff that is again tested, and like in "The Communicator" Archer decides playing the bad guy is easier than being the good guy (which he is), especially since that image is more expedient to the face on the other side of the metaphorical poker table.

In this instance, he and Trip are onboard a transport ship filled with other individuals deemed to be criminals by an alien species.  I guess this happens even when Starfleet is generally well-known, but it's easier for a ship in the Enterprise's circumstances (similar to Voyager's) for the uniform and reputation to mean nothing.  The problems actually develop after Archer's innocence is cleared and he's free to go, because a mutiny breaks out and Archer then has to survive his own get-out-of-jail-free card, by aligning himself with the chief antagonist.

Now, it's true that Trip is also featured in this episode, but he's more the B-level protagonist.  Archer gets the most interesting material, which is fine.

Now, all that being said, I wonder if it wouldn't have been more interesting as part of the Klingon arc at the end of the season.  I know there are fans who prefer their Star Trek to be the traditional episodic material featured heavily in the original series and other incarnations, but I think it could have worked better if integrated back into the original source material.  Still, I guess there's another episode that more or less covers the same material within that arc (we'll reach it soon enough).  The choice is ultimately yours how much you take from "Canamar."  See how accommodating I am?

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.