Enterprise 1x21 "Detained"

rating: ****

the story: Archer learns more about the Suliban in a most unexpected manner.

what it's all about: "Detained" is the last great episode of the season, and it's notable for a number of reasons.  The most superficial is still the most enjoyable: it's the reunion between Scott Bakula and his old Quantum Leap costar Dean Stockwell.  In "Detained" they're enemies, not allies.  The contrast actually helps strengthen the material, not only because it's unexpected but because they still maintain their chemistry, regardless of their relationship. 

But there's more going on.  As roughly sketched in the above summary, "Detained" is actually about the Suliban, Silik's species.  As previously encountered, it's easy to assume that all Suliban are agents of the Temporal Cold War, but "Detained" makes it clear that they aren't.  It's a sobering lesson.  It's not without precedent in the franchise.  Various Romulans have been depicted as sympathetic (the original series classic "Balance of Terror," Next Generation's "The Defector," Voyager's "Eye of the Needle"), and Deep Space Nine went out of its way to do the same with the Cardassians (most memorably in "Duet").  But this episode is still unique. 

"Detained" explains that not all Suliban are engaged in the Temporal Cold War.  It's a lesson that became relevant in the post-9/11 world, where terrorists were seen everywhere, and all Muslims were suspect.  "Suliban" was deliberately fashioned after the Taliban, the corrupt ruling body in Afghanistan, after all.  It's funny that the Temporal Cold War was clearly another echo of the '60s cold war era, and yet it also evoked very contemporary matters.  In hindsight, just as we still live in a world of uncertainty, Afghanistan itself still at war, the idea of a Temporal Cold War, its agents spread out not just through space but time, it seems to have greater meaning now than it did when Enterprise was still producing new episodes.  Fans thought poorly enough about the arc that it ended up being downplayed in later seasons, and outright abandoned at the start of the fourth season (Archer virtually speaking for the fans when he says he's sick of it), thus depriving it of reaching its full potential.  "Detained" is an excellent example of what that might have looked like.  At any rate, it remains one of the best episodes to come from it.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Continues the rich tradition of socially relevant material.
• series - An unexpected entry in the Temporal Cold War arc.
• character - Archer plays well in this crisis.
• essential - In hindsight not just a good episode but an important one.

notable guest-stars:
Dean Stockwell
Christopher Shea

Enterprise 1x20 "Oasis"

rating: **

the story: The crew encounters an apparently haunted ship.

what it's all about: Like "Acquisition" immediately preceding it (Voyager's Ethan Phillips), "Oasis" features the novelty of a previous series main cast member appearing in an entirely unrelated role.  This time it's Deep Space Nine's Rene Auberjonois, who previously embodied shapeshifting Odo.  Fans had a hard time appreciating this fact on original broadcast, as he happens to be featured in an episode that's very similar to one Odo himself previously experienced ("Shadowplay").  Yet it's also worth noting that even then, the template of an isolated survivor living in an artificial setting had been done before even that, in Next Generation's "The Survivors."  And if we want to be really technical, that's the basis of the very first episode ever produced in the franchise, "The Cage," a pilot that was scrapped and later repackaged as the two-part "The Menagerie."  So the story has considerable pedigree.

The question is, does "Oasis" do anything significantly different?  Well, it can be argued that every time the story's been told, it's been told differently.  "The Menagerie" retold Pike's experiences so that he could reclaim a semblance of a normal life after a horribly debilitating injury.  "Survivors" was about a lonely alien who regretted the actions he took on the attackers of his colony, and the wife he resurrects to accompany him.  "Shadowplay" was about a similarly isolated man who simply wanted to have village life around him again.  "Oasis" is about a father trying to give his daughter a normal life.  Each time the premise is depicted as a mystery.  "Menagerie" is presented as a Spock story, his complicity in Pike's efforts to return to the planet where he might find sanctuary.  Only "Shadowplay" has similar character-specific content: it's a rare instance of a soft look at Odo, who otherwise usually puts up massive barriers around himself.  His relationship with a little girl is actually the central element of the story.

Which makes it appropriate that Auberjonois is once again playing someone protecting a girl.  The premise happens to lightly touch on the nature of the young Starfleet mission, how the crew learns about the space around them, and how that reflects their fears.  Voyager similarly produced scores of episodes that handled its crew's isolation and hope for a shortcut home, but usually had more direct associations being made.  In "Oasis" it's mainly the crew experiencing the mystery, including the manner in which the ghost ship is discovered, from a visitor, which calls to mind material from earlier and later episodes ("Cold Front," "Cogenitor").

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Follows a rich tradition of mysteries surrounding inexplicable communities.
• series - Touches on the crew's habit of learning things.
• character - Focuses mainly on a guest character's arc.
• essential - Its appeal seems diminished rather than enhanced by the story's history.

notable guest-stars:
Rene Auberjonois
Tom Bergeron

Enterprise 1x19 "Acquisition"

rating: ****

the story: The Ferengi unofficially make first contact with Starfleet.

what it's all about: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: fans had kittens about yet another thing Enterprise "wasn't supposed to do."  And they weren't particularly amused about how "Acquisition" skirts canon, anymore than they were the next season when it was done with the Borg, too.  But those fans can seriously stuff it.  "Acquisition" is above and beyond anything else one of the best Ferengi episodes of the franchise.  Maybe the best.  Or most accessible anyway.

Those same fans, mind you, would call that faint praise.  Part of the problem is that the Ferengi have a bad reputation.  Originally conceived as a major new menace in the first season of Next Generation, they instead came off as goofy wannabes.  While that series revised its depiction of Ferengi over the years, Deep Space Nine actually included one in its main cast, the bartender Quark, not to mention a whole host of recurring Ferengi around him.  Now, Deep Space Nine is generally regarded, at least by a cult-within-the-cult, as the best Star Trek series.  But even so, it became plagued, so these fans suggested, by "Ferengi episodes," an epitaph that means anytime an episode revolved around a Ferengi, any Ferengi, all Ferengi...it was probably regrettable.

Anyway, Voyager managed to do a few Ferengi episodes, too, mind you, despite featuring a crew flung far from home.  I can only assume the amusement level of the fans.  But let's move along.

"Acquisition" features a pack of Ferengi who aren't trying to be warriors or merchants but...pirates.  It's really the first time they're ever depicted this way, and it's genius.  Of course it fits into their wheelhouse, perfectly.  And not only is the depiction perfect but the real treat is that the three Ferengi attempting to rob the Enterprise are all played by familiar faces (...underneath the rubber): Jeffrey Combs, Ethan Phillips, and Clint Howard.  Combs had played a Ferengi before, the recurring IRS figure Brunt in Deep Space Nine, Quark's nemesis.  Phillips, better known as Voyager's Neelix, had masqueraded as one ("False Profits," from that series, naturally).  Howard, meanwhile, subsequently became the first actor to appear in every era of the TV franchise when he showed up in Discovery.  He's a truly peculiar Star Trek institution.

Of them, it's Combs who's the lead, and like Quark's brother Rom, he's not especially happy trying to be a typical Ferengi.  Since it's Combs, who also plays Shran in the series, it's a strong performance, and he gets to play opposite Archer (as he does in Shran's blue makeup, too), and once again draws out some of Scott Bakula's strongest Enterprise material. 

Trip's running around, too, in a Die Hard scenario, so it's effectively a three-man drama.  And the thing about it?  In retrospect?  It's kind of a warm-up for the series finale, "These Are the Voyages...," in which another caper involving Archer, Trip, and some invading aliens ends...differently. 

Plus there's some classic comedy, because it's a Ferengi episode, and there's got to be comedy, too.  Eventually Archer admits they do have the vault the Ferengi are looking for.  But really, it's just their reaction to Porthos.  Honestly, the importance of Archer's beagle can't be overstated in the series.  He's not just a vague reference in JJ Abrams' later film reboot!

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Arguably the most accessible Ferengi appearance of the whole franchise.
• series - Foreshadows the final episode.
• character - Archer, Trip, Jeffrey Combs...you pick.
• essential - If you can get past your reservations about whether this should happen, you'll discover its immense pleasures.

notable guest-stars:
Jeffrey Combs
Ethan Phillips
Clint Howard

Enterprise 1x18 "Rogue Planet"

rating: *

the story: The crew encounters a party of hunters who are unwittingly tracking sentient prey.

what it's all about: In hindsight, "Rogue Planet" feels like a leftover Hirogen script from Voyager.  Just look at that summary...!  Otherwise it's one of those historical ironies of the later franchise: an episodic adventure in an era when that was no longer satisfying in and of itself.

But it is worth watching of its own accord.  "Planet" amounts to an allegory of contemporary concerns.  As fewer people hunt for a living, or even for sport, the very notion of it begins to seem barbaric, especially as more people identify as vegetarians or outright vegans.  Enterprise doesn't go so far as to sympathize with all that so far as to acknowledge it as a growing trend.  Sometimes such bare acknowledgment can seem somewhat disastrous (Next Generation's "Forces of Nature"), but here it's merely innocuous.  We get to see Archer once again loosely fitting the Kirk mold of ladies man, a role Trip would fill later in the series, as had already been suggested in "Unexpected."  And on the whole, it's another light exploration of the crew's learning curve, and how they experience this sort of thing as newcomers to the Starfleet mission overall.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Light allegorical work concerning modern-day hunting.
• series - Not particularly informative.
• character - Light work here, too.
• essential - Not especially.

notable guest-stars:
Eric Pierpont

Enterprise 1x17 "Fusion"

rating: ****

the story: "Vulcans without logic" visit the ship, bringing with them an ancient, abandoned custom: the mind meld.

what it's all about: "Fusion," as my brief summary above suggests, features one more significant deviation Enterprise chose to feature from classic depictions of Vulcans.  In fact, it may be considered the most important of them.  Vulcans who don't mind meld?  Whoa!

That the series depicted Vulcans in a less than flattering light was always a bone of contention among fans.  They also didn't like the thought that Vulcans and mind melds were not somehow intrinsically synonymous, that this too would be added to the things Enterprise sought to establish about the familiar Star Trek mythos.  "Fusion" posits that mind melds had been abandoned, ending up practiced only by fringe members of society.  T'Pol actively shuns the ship's visitors because of it, initially, until Archer insists.  Then her experience ends up with a metaphorical rape.  Aside from Shinzon and Troi in Star Trek Nemesis, this is a topic that's never really been explored in the franchise, and that alone makes the episode noteworthy.

That the whole incident is followed up next season with "Stigma" also makes it a part of the show's informal serialization, besides the fact that it of course begins to reconcile the differences between the classic depiction of Vulcans and how they appear in Enterprise; these are things that further develop in the fourth season. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Exploring the famous Vulcan mind meld, and how it wasn't always practiced openly.
• series - Crucial development in the overall Enterprise arc.
• character - T'Pol reaches a critical moment in that arc.
• essential - A massive chipping away at the mythology surrounding the Vulcans, and therefore making them more believable.

notable guest-stars:
Robert Pine
Vaughn Armstrong (Forrest)

Enterprise 1x16 "Shuttlepod One"

rating: ****

the story: Reed and Trip end up marooned together in a shuttlepod, convinced either that Enterprise has been destroyed, or they won't survive long enough to be rescued.

what it's all about: "Shuttlepod One" has a few antecedents. The more famous of the two I'll mention is the original series classic "Galileo Seven," in which Spock is similarly marooned with some bigoted colleagues.  But perhaps more to the point, Deep Space Nine's "Armageddon Game" features Bashir and O'Brien finally putting aside animosity toward each other that had existed since the start of the series, as they struggle to survive.  Reed and Trip don't have as much history as Bashir and O'Brien at this point (theirs happened in the second season, for one), and regardless of my interest in Enterprise, they will probably never be as famous or beloved as Spock.  What they have going for them instead is a singular, spectacular experience, regardless of how many times the scenario has happened before.

Reed had previously gotten a little character work in during the events of "Silent Enemy."  Trip, meanwhile, had been featured as one of Enterprise's most important characters since the start.  The contrast between Trip's extrovert nature and Reed's introvertedness is itself a classic template, Odd Couple style.  How far can they push each other?  How desperate will their situation become?  Will they put aside their differences, at last?

Trip actually has another survival experience later in the season, "Desert Crossing," with someone he is friends with, Captain Archer.  The results are completely different.  In "Crossing" he gets to be the vulnerable one.  Of course in "Shuttlepod" it's Reed.  The first regular episode of the series, "Fight or Flight," had attempted to paint Hoshi as the most neurotic main character, but she has nothing on Reed.  A second season episode (one of my favorites), "A Night in Sickbay," draws on the kind of delusions Reed experiences in "Shuttlepod," and this is a series where this is no coincidence. 

So the joy of the episode is watching Reed and Trip antagonize each other.  That's it!  But they have so much time, as it's really most of the episode with minimal subplot aboard the ship, that it either works or it doesn't.  It works.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Drawing on a tradition of characters antagonizing each other for a whole episode.
• series - It draws you further into Enterprise by revealing the true strengths, and weaknesses, of two main characters.
• character - Ah, again, Reed and trip.
• essential - It's a must-see character moment.

Enterprise 1x15 "Shadows of P'Jem"

rating: ****

the story: The Vulcans are upset about the crew's interaction with the Andorians.

what it's all about: Though to this point in the series less serialized than it would be later and certainly less than fans liked at the time and probably less even now, "Shadows of P'Jem" certainly catches Enterprise early in its run with an episode drawing directly from previous material.  It's a direct sequel to the events of "The Andorian Incident."  It also involves the nature of the human-Vulcan relationship as depicted in the pilot episode ("Broken Bow"), representing the first time in the series the Vulcans attempt to cut short the crew's mission. 

One of the things this accomplishes is allowing the growing family of recurring characters to show exactly what they add to the series.  Recurring characters had really only been similar to this, and on a much larger scale, eventually, in Deep Space Nine.  To see Admiral Forrest and Ambassador Soval again is one thing, but we get to see Shran again, too.  It's his relationship with Archer that grows the most over the course of the series.  Word has it that if Enterprise had gotten a fifth season, Shran would've become a regular.  If only!  Here we get to see his love-hate relationship with Archer, his vaguely racist term of affection, "pink skin," becoming a trademark already, a touch that helps add dimension to him.

T'Pol's position with the crew is threatened; her immediate recall is asked for, and only the events of the episode spare her such a fate.  This is usually something that happens in a season finale, so it's nice to see that in this series, such danger can come at any turn, sort of suggesting the later constant volatility of Discovery.

Of course, the whole thing's a further exercise in watching how Archer is put in-between the conflict between Vulcans and Andorians, a precursor to his helping build a lasting coalition between them and other aliens: the Federation.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Seeing relationships evolve between classic aliens like Vulcans and Andorians.
• series - And how our crew helps make that happen.
• character - Specifically Archer, thanks to his relationship with Shran.
• essential - Crucial further development in the overall arc of the series.

notable guest-stars:
Jeffrey Combs (Shran)
Vaughn Armstrong (Forrest)
Gary Graham (Soval)
Gregory Itzen