{"id":3603,"date":"2023-12-20T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3603"},"modified":"2024-01-20T14:37:25","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T14:37:25","slug":"trekaday-124-babel-one-united-the-aenar-affliction-divergence-bound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/12\/20\/trekaday-124-babel-one-united-the-aenar-affliction-divergence-bound\/","title":{"rendered":"Trekaday #124: Babel One, United, The Aenar, Affliction, Divergence, Bound"},"content":{"rendered":"

ENT S04E12 Babel One <\/strong>(\"3.5). The Andorians in general and Shran in particular are the hidden MVPs of this show. Between the off-brand Vulcans, the conveniently quarrelsome Xindi and the played-out Klingons, the \u201cblue-skins\u201d\u2018s blend of warlike aggression and compassionate nobility is absolutely fascinating. Less so is the \u201cspecies which communicates via arguing\u201d which ret-conning feels a little like writerly desperation at the crunch point of a long season. And in true TOS<\/strong>\/TNG<\/strong> style, Enterprise<\/em> is being used as a taxi service for this week\u2019s crop of touchy ambassadors instead of continuing with its mission of exploration.<\/p>\n

Doing sequels to TOS<\/strong> episodes is weird choice for a show set before any other Star Trek<\/strong> series, but less weird than bringing in TNG<\/strong> staples like Ferengi and Borg, and as Zagbars vs Zoobles stories go, this isn\u2019t bad and it does help that we\u2019ve seen both aliens before (although in the case of the Tellarites not for decades). But the concept of \u201cthe aliens who insult you to show respect\u201d really doesn\u2019t work when you\u2019re trying to tell a story in which diplomatic relations break down, because the Tellarites sound exactly the same when Archer\u2019s welcoming them on board as they do when they accuse Shran of trying to get them all killed. Somebody didn\u2019t think this through. We\u2019re also back in Voyager<\/strong>-land, where Enterprise<\/em> is under attack and nearly destroyed \u2013 and then in the next scene, everything is running smoothly again, and they\u2019re charging along at top speed. And we\u2019re back in multi-part story land, tying up loose ends from TOS<\/strong>\u2019s Balance of Terror<\/em>. It\u2019s a strong ending too, earning a last minute extra half-star.<\/p>\n

After last week\u2019s episode in which Hoshi got plenty of lines when she wasn\u2019t in control of her own body, here we she gets a big scene shouting at Archer in which she was only pretending. I mean, I guess it\u2019s progress but\u2026 \u201cVulcans are expert liars!\u201d claims Shran, not without reason, but it\u2019s not exactly what they\u2019re known for in every other series. I don\u2019t think injecting pure oxygen into those air tanks is going to go well for Malcolm and Trip. I can only assume that science consultant and co-writer of this episode Andre Bormanis turned two pages at once.<\/p>\n

Last episode to air before Paramount announced that there would be no Season 5. The party\u2019s over and all that\u2019s left is the clearing up.<\/p>\n

ENT S04E13 United<\/strong> (\"4.5). So this is why Kirk\u2019s crew had never seen a Romulan before, despite the Federation having fought a war with them \u2013 remote controlled ships. Neat. And it\u2019s a great escalation for Trip and Malcolm whose last hope was getting to the bridge where presumably life support would be in full effect. Tracking down the hologram-disguised Romulan ships requires a huge fleet to create a sensor web, and thus Archer must assemble a coalition of squabbling species with Enterprise issuing the commands. It\u2019s the kind of thing you\u2019d expect a prequel series to have been doing from the beginning but it\u2019s no less welcome for its late arrival.<\/p>\n

This is quite a busy episode, but all the strands work well. Trip and Malcolm\u2019s trial of traps inside the Romulan drone is tense and unpredictable; Archer\u2019s grouchy diplomacy strikes a good balance between Bakula\u2019s two chief modes of impatient headmaster and jovial baseball coach; Shran\u2019s subplot with poor doomed Talas is genuinely affecting; and the big political plot has tremendous scope and impact. We could have used something for T\u2019Pol to do, but that seems like quibbling when the overall quality is so high.<\/p>\n

Archer\u2019s dual with Shran isn\u2019t set up with quite the seamless logic of Kirk\u2019s famous battle with Spock but it\u2019s a great way of making the bigger story personal and keeping the focus on our leading players, and not on the Zagbars and Zoobles. This doesn\u2019t have the deep character work of the very best of Star Trek<\/strong>, but it\u2019s otherwise pretty faultless, with a confidence which is extremely gratifying.<\/p>\n

ENT S04E14 The Aenar <\/strong>(\"3.5). Wrapping up many of the big plotlines last time gave a satisfying end to the previous episode but means we don\u2019t carry much momentum into this one. The visit to the Andorian homeworld is worthwhile however, being a genuinely alien environment as well as just a change of scene. But it\u2019s Shran who comes a cropper on the ice and not newcomer Archer. The slower pace creates a bit of room for some nice Trip\/T\u2019Pol scenes which is welcome, but it\u2019s hard not to feel that this is just a bit dull, compared to part two which combined Thrilling Escapes From Death with an opportunity for Archer to build the Star Trek<\/strong> legend.<\/p>\n

Slicing an antenna in half is enough to render Shran incapable of defending himself, thus ending the dual last week, but he happily goes on the mission with Archer, seemingly unaffected. Maybe that\u2019s why he slips on the ice. He shrugs off being impaled through the thigh as well.<\/p>\n

ENT S04E15 Affliction <\/strong>(\"1.5). Columbia<\/em> is setting sail and Trip is going with her to avoid having to see officially unmarried T\u2019Pol every day (although he denies that\u2019s the reason). I\u2019m not sure this is the for the good of the show. T\u2019Pol seems to have concluded her arc prematurely and while the stories in this season are far more engaging than before, T\u2019Pol \u2013 who was such a highlight of episodes past \u2013 for the most part has just become Tuvok. She delivers exposition in a slightly sarcastic tone and lets other people have the big emotional journeys. If she and Trip had to deal with their complicated feelings for each other, I\u2019d be more interested in both of them. Luckily he\u2019s still popping up in her white cyclorama meditation dreamscapes. The new chief engineer is never introduced to us, or Archer. Do you know, I\u2019m not altogether convinced that Trip\u2019s never coming back.<\/p>\n

Speaking of things I am and am not interested in, we\u2019ve just had a three-part story in which the Romulans turned out to be pulling the strings \u2013 Romulans with a rather different make-up job than those who appeared in TOS<\/strong>. But nobody thought to mention this fact, because it\u2019s clearly irrelevant. And yet, here we are with bumpy-foreheaded Klingons so concerned with some of them not having bumpy foreheads that they\u2019ve kidnapped Dr Phlox and made him try and figure out what\u2019s going on. That\u2019s pretty much the definition of letting the foam latex tail wag the targ. I\u2019m also pretty uninterested in whatever Malcolm is creeping around doing. Maybe I\u2019d have looked upon this subplot with more generosity if I wasn\u2019t so distracted throwing things at the TV screen as poor John Schuck has to dole out this pointless nonsense.<\/p>\n

Far from embracing a glorious death, the Klingon in the opening scene protests \u201cMy death sentence was commuted!\u201d It\u2019s nearly as bizarre as those madly illogical Vulcans. Seth McFarlane is back for another brief appearance. In Phlox\u2019s absence, another medical officer takes over. Archer doesn\u2019t talk to her, because he doesn\u2019t know her name.<\/p>\n

ENT S04E16 Divergence <\/strong>(\"1.5). Director David Barrett brings us out of the titles with a bonkers CGI whip-zoom through both Enterprise<\/em> and Columbia<\/em> to really hammer home just how thrilling this all is. It would love to be a huge exciting chase like the movie Speed<\/em>, which is clearly where they got the idea of \u201cif we go below Warp 5 we all die\u201d. But it just feels like people in silly costumes standing around studios hanging on to ropes. None of it has any reality or verisimilitude, and it all just feels like busywork because the story of How the Klingons Lost Their Ridges turns out not be worth a movie\u2019s worth of broadcast TV after all. It also seems like there should be someone on Enterprise<\/em> who can do Trip\u2019s job when he isn\u2019t there. Didn\u2019t they learn that lesson in Similitude<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Phlox\u2019s method for determining the likely effect of various compounds appears to be akin to playing hypospray Russian Roulette. Apart from Malcolm, who is given a new personality in order to make this week\u2019s plot work, characterisation has become something which only happens on other shows. This is all theatrical actors glowering meaningless exposition at each other while melodramatic music thunders away in the background. It\u2019s what Star Trek<\/strong> looks like to people who don\u2019t watch Star Trek<\/strong>. Only John Billingsley emerges with any dignity at all. Actually, Ada Maris isn\u2019t bad as Captain Hernandez. Where\u2019s her spin-off?<\/p>\n

ENT S04E17 Bound <\/strong>(\"1). We have a nascent Federation, so now let\u2019s start building some Starbases. And who could wait to see the Orions again after the Augments trilogy? After all, this show\u2019s always had great luck with slave girl stories. It will take Lower Decks<\/strong> to really make a good stab of the Orion Syndicate, because here we\u2019re right back to trafficking scantily-clad young women like a science fiction version of The Benny Hill Show<\/em>, complete with senior Starfleet officers watching the floor show with their eyes bugging out of their heads like the Tex Avery cartoon wolf. Travis too behaves as if he\u2019s never seen a woman before when they come on board. Meanwhile, Trip is in a plot superposition of states, both with his love life and his professional life, neither in a relationship with T\u2019Pol nor not, neither chief engineer on Enterprise<\/em>, nor not. This had better be going somewhere, because at the moment it\u2019s orbiting a story but not actually landing on it. The rest of this is just a The Naked Time<\/em> yet again, but in bikinis. Yawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ENT S04E12 Babel One (). The Andorians in general and Shran in particular are the hidden MVPs of this show. Between the off-brand Vulcans, the conveniently quarrelsome Xindi and the played-out Klingons, the \u201cblue-skins\u201d\u2018s blend of warlike aggression and compassionate nobility is absolutely fascinating. Less so is the \u201cspecies which communicates via arguing\u201d which ret-conning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[539,19,79,528],"class_list":["post-3603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-enterprise","tag-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-trekaday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-W7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3603"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3665,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3603\/revisions\/3665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}