ENT – Unexpected

Plot – I rather like how Unexpected begins with Star Trek being utterly exploitative to one of its male crewmembers. The franchise has been taking advantage of women for the past (almost) 50 years and so it is long past time that it took hold of a guy, stripped him naked and put him in an unexpectedly abusive scenario. Archer starts floating around the shower, almost showing off everything he has to offer and my interest is piqued from the word go. However, as a segue way into the episode I am about to watch it is entirely defunct because it tells me nothing about the hour of television I am about to watch. Except that it is going to take hold of its male characters and put them in silly and embarrassing situations.

Enterprise is a brand-new ship and it is having teething problems and so the show is going out of its way to show that during the first steps out into space the ship is experiencing some difficulties. This is a time before the Universal translator and Hoshi works double quick to try and understand the languages of the races that they meet. Getting from one ship to another is a whole exercise rather than taking the journey for granted such as in other Trek shows. All this is a fresh new look at space travel from the point of view of the pioneers.

After the complexity of DS9’s overarching narrative and the multifaceted nature of the better Voyager episodes, the first season of Enterprise is feels basically plotted and plods from plot point to plot point with very little in the way of the nuanced characterisation I expect from the previous Trek shows. As a result, these early episodes feel like a massive step back. This episode goes first contact – male pregnancy – Klingons. There’s no real overlap between these three things and the tone shifts alarmingly between the three. It was going to take more accomplished writers than this to pull of this material with the confidence to make it bearable.

Character – T’Pol is as cold as ice at this point and far from approachable. She’s the typical Enterprise Vulcan, distant and aloof. There isn’t much that Blalock can do with such a stiffly written character since there is no manoeuvrability for humour or charm at this point. Imagine a solid sheet of ice was carved into a beautiful woman and that is what you are getting from T’Pol at this point.

Phlox aside, the male characters on Enterprise seem to be pleasant but insipid. Archer is still a little too stubborn for his own good but he is essentially written as trying to be liked, Trip plays the gullible first-time space farer a little too well, Mayweather lacks any personality bar a cute smile and Reed is entirely characterised by his profession at this point. They are all (for the most part) pretty and all entirely beige. I could not find a reason here why any of them should be fronting a Star Trek show (as opposed to Spock, Picard, O’Brien or Paris who (love them or hate them) each have highly distinctive and vivid personalities from the get go.

Production – It takes a lot more than tilting a camera and talking in slow motion to suggest an alien environment. I appreciate the effort but it really is the least amount of effort the director could have gone to to suggest a discordant atmosphere. An unusual misstep from Mike Vejar.

Worst moment – Four episodes in an equivalent holodeck is presented. How predictable. Berman and Braga are supposed to be pushing away from all the tropes that held Voyager back and watching them lean on habits this early is very unsatisfactory.

All the obvious jokes that you could imagine from a male pregnancy episode crop up. Trip grows nipples, T’Pol chides his lack of self-control with new aliens, he is hormonal, overly emotional and paranoid, he goes through the dilemma of figuring how he is going to be a working mother, forced to wear maternity wear, he cries unexpectedly and everybody is laughing in their hands at his condition. It’s so amateurish and bizarre to watch that I felt uncomfortable rather than amused.

I wish they hadn’t done that – With a show that has the budget and the resources that Enterprise clearly does was it necessary to resort to a bottle show this early in its run? It feels like the show was paying for the fact that it had an expensive looking opener for some time with a fair few episodes set entirely on the ship after Broken Bow. Whilst this does give us a chance to get to know some of the crew more intimately (although I would suggest that this time was not used anywhere near as effectively as it was on the sisters shows during this time), it has the adverse effect of making Enterprise feel unambitious and lacking in resources, which it most definitely is not.

A reason to watch this episode again – The first ten minutes of Unexpected is going out of its way to explore a brand-new method of space travel to other Trek shows where nothing is taken for granted. All of that material that shows difficulties with gravity, communication and first contact, is very useful. However, from the point where Tucker is essentially raped and it is treated like a situation for laughs (I couldn’t imagine how this would play out if it was a female member of the crew) and I was in for another Berman & Braga cesspit of clumsiness. Get these two away from the typewriters already! It’s mostly thanks to Connor Trinner’s gentle performance as Tucker that manages to prevent this from sinking completely. Whilst Trip isn’t written with any particular skill (he’s so green) Trineer delivers the character with a healthy dose of wide-eyed charisma. The male pregnancy angle is about as hideous as you might imagine and for once you can understand why all the other Trek shows rejected such an obvious and unamusing premise. Coming out of the gate, Enterprise could really do without an episode this moronic. Just because I want to do unspeakable things to Trip and the camera loves him in this episode does not give Unexpected a pass. My brain is not in my underwear, thank goodness.

*1/2 out of *****

Clue for tomorrow's episode: