ENT - Future Tense

Plot – How can a ship wind up in deep space without an engine? An escape pod would need a propulsion system. It’s an intriguing mystery that uses when the series is set to its advantage. From what I recall (and I hope this fresh watch of the series is going to confirm) that that was one of the big strengths of the show – using its prequel nature to its advantage.

How can a ship be bigger on the inside than the outside? Oh man…it’s just a ladder. Imagine if the TARDIS had been just a corridor? Mind you if you watch Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS it is pretty much just that. If you’re going to play about with spectacular concepts, let your imagination go wild. It’s also a time ship…I’m beginning to see where they might have gotten their inspiration from. They could have had a huge amount of fun with these notions. I can only imagine what TNG or VOY (the premise masters) would have done with this.

It was an episode that was difficult to predict, which is always a bonus and the elements that were added to the plot (the temporal ship, the Suliban and the Tholians) felt organic. Each element adds an extra dimension to the story and it was tricky to try and guess which direction the writers would head. Will the three ships fight? Will Archer keep the time ship and have a new advantage and technology? What was the purpose of the traveller who came to this time zone? What impact would the ship have on the temporal cold war? Any script that provokes that many questions is doing something right. It scratches the surface of the idea of what you would do if you knew the future and would it have an impact on how you act…but doesn’t attack it with any great substance.

The temporal hiccup that sees Trip and Mayweather reliving the same scene over and over is the only real fun the writers have with the idea of time travel, and it left me thinking of the possibilities of what this episode could have been. Imagine if the time ship had exploded and the episode was told out of order and with repeated scenes, and the viewer has to work to put together the narrative like a crazy jigsaw puzzle. Where you would have to watch the whole episode to get all the pieces and again to put it together. Is that too out there for Enterprise? Would they ever take on something that daring and alienating?

The trouble with filling the screen full of ships and having Archer trying to fight his way out of the climax is that it is the most simplistic and least compelling option the writers could have gone for. In order to squeeze in an action sequence they jettison the idea of using time travel as a narrative device for straight up shoot ‘em up action. We don’t know why these different aliens want the ship so there are no real stakes. Just some vague comments that it would complicate the temporal cold war. When DS9 filled a screen with ships it was over the fate of an entire quadrant. It meant something. When Voyager did it, it was a matter of survival. This is such an uncertain fight, it’s hard to care what happens to the ship ultimately.

Character – Scott Bakula is such a charming man in real life. He played such an attractive man in Quantum Leap. How can the writers have possibly have sapped this gentle, sunny man of all of his appeal and delivered such a po-faced, difficult to love Captain? The distinct lack of likeable traits is made apparent by how many there are. I want to admire the lead on any given show, and empathise with them to an extent. Archer always seems so bullish, arrogant and unsympathetic. It’s a particular black mark on this show. I realise that there is long term conflict between Archer and T’Pol but when he comments if she is concerned by the idea of human DNA contaminating Vulcan DNA through inter-species mating it feels like a racial slur rather than a playful enquiry.

What is the point of Travis and Hoshi? They don’t contribute anything here.

I’ve seen about 10 Enterprise episodes in total and I cannot remember half of the characters names. Which tells me everything I need to know about how this cast of characters made an impact on me. For me, the human characters tend to be the least interesting and this is a crew with virtually entirely human characters. Unsurprisingly the two non-human characters often pique the interest the most. Saying that, Dr Phlox is a gorgeous character who never stops giving. Partly this is because of his unique perspective on things but mostly it is thanks to John Billingsley’s perfectly formed performance as the Denubian. He’s sweet, funny, competent and compassionate. He only gets one scene of note here and steals the entire show with it. ‘I believe in embracing surprises’ is the best line.

Production – CGI was still in a relatively primitive stage when this was broadcast and so the Suliban crawling along the ceiling looks like a dodgy effect rather than a spectacular visual.

Star Trek in its post Original Series generation has a great ability to be able to create life size spaceships and shuttle pods convincing enough for people to walk around. It lends a sense of scale to the proceedings that merely superimposing someone on CGI doesn’t. This one is a particularly battered example with a grisly corpse inside too. All the better.

Best moment – The Tholians turning up with a claim on the ship. A nice kiss to TOS and an alien that sounds pleasingly out there.

‘Apparently you’re not the first humans out this far’ says Phlox, and I love it when that bubble of human arrogance is popped by other species. It happens with Quark and Odo on DS9, Neelix on Voyager and Spock on TOS.

I wish they hadn’t done that – The reference to Spock is a little too knowing.

The theme song sets my teeth on edge every time I hear it.

The vessel just vanished? That’s the resolution? How to cut through all the tension…take away the thing everybody is fighting over for some unknowable reason. I think if any other show dared to do that I would proclaim that it jumped the shark. This episode set up the vessel came from nowhere and so it stands to reason that it can go nowhere. However, for it to simply pop away at the moment of ultimate crisis is so…predictable and unimaginative. Yes they set a beacon so the owners could discover it and yes they explain that its owners from the future had all the time in the world to retrieve it at the right time but it happens with such pinpoint accuracy it’s almost as if the vessel knew this was the climax and knew that the episode only had a few minutes to go and had to force a resolution. It’s sloppy as hell. They should have made the ship sentient as well with a rudimentary intelligence and have it look around at all the fuss it was causing and simply decide ‘screw this, I’m off.’

A reason to watch this episode again – Here it is then…the first episode of Enterprise that I have watched for review purposes…and it turns out to be as average as I imagined this show to be. Future Tense was an episode that was worth watching because of its script rather than its direction. It is realised in a fairly ponderous way (despite some action) and there were no moments that I would call especially dynamic. However, it played with some big ideas, it had a plot that was always adding layers and it got my mind racing with possibilities for potential storylines. Those things cannot be underestimated. Neither can the indolent way this episode was wrapped up. Future Tense could have been a five-star episode with some narrative tweaking, stronger direction and a greater sense of fun. Instead it’s riddled with unfulfilled potential and that’s the most frustrating kind of Star Trek episode.

**1/2 out of *****

Clue for tomorrows episode...

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