Plot – The question of being thrown back in time and having the opportunity to prevent the terror attack on Earth and crush the Xindi before they ever create their weapon of mass destruction is brought up and it’s a doozy of a premise. You know that Archer is too in love with protocol to dare to undertake such a mission but the idea alone is enticing.
Character – This episode is in the depths of the T’Pol drug recovery season, which honestly is the most interesting thing that ever happened to this character. The writers have also decided to take a risk with two of the characters and have them admit their feelings for each other and I would say that Trip and T’Pol have a chemistry that surpasses Tom and Torres but doesn’t quite match Jadzia and Worf. The actors do great work together and this attraction that they play with is certainly more interesting than if they weren’t taking that approach. They have had sex at this point and are now skirting around the fact that this is a thing between them and it is something worth exploring. There are only so many times I am willing to sigh with disappointment as they turn away from each, but at this stage it isn’t annoying yet.
Archer is seriously under the weather in the face of all the horrors he has seen lately and there isn’t even a glint of a sparkle in his eye. A shame because this episode might be a lot more palatable if he was in a more embracing mood. Think of Sisko in Children of Time; cuddling up to children, working in the fields, getting to know another Dax. We were charmed by that community because we saw it through Sisko’s eyes. All Archer reflects is mild boredom and irritation. This is a deviation from his mission and he wants to get over and done with.
It takes the episode 20 minutes to consider Hoshi and Mayweather and their descendants. Given the respect these characters are usually written with, I’m surprised they bothered at all. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one them had ended up with somebody of the same sex and it hadn’t been commented on? Reed, as ever, can’t find himself a woman. Even in after a freak accident where this crew only have each other to couple with.
Performance – David Andrews gives an effective performance as Lorien and in one scene with Archer after he has tried to destroy them I momentarily felt the connection between them. It’s more in how Andrews plays the dialogue to sound like Bakula than the dialogue itself.
Check out Balock playing the older T’Pol. Check out Rene Auberjonois playing the older Odo. Compare and contrast.
Production – This is two episodes after Azati Prime when Enterprise was given a thorough pummelling by the Xindi and the ship is still in a fair state of disrepair. This is what I was asking for on Voyager for a long time, to show the protracted consequences of travelling through a dangerous region of space. They copped out by giving us The Year of Hell, a brilliant story but taking place over two episodes and then resetting the ship as good as new at the end. Enterprise goes the whole hog and shows the ship brought to near destruction and then the slow process of continuing repairs whilst still facing regular threats. The crew is dirty, tired and on edge. It’s very well done.
How is old age makeup getting worse as time goes on? You would think that the designers would learn from the mistakes of the past. The most egregious example is Admiral Jameson from TNG’s Too Short a Season but I would suggest that T’Pol’s make up here is even worse. It literally looks like Jolene Balock’s head has doubled in size and then started to melt. Unless that is what happens to Vulcans when they get older, I don’t know.
Best moment – Trip is so handsome. I cannot say it enough times. Now he’s handsome, and a bit grimy. Phew.
Worst moment – The depictions of the descendants lacks any kind of curiosity because they are presented in such a bland way. These should be striking characters and a chance for the writer to take a germ of what we know about the regulars and take it to an extreme. Mind you I guess it could be said to be accurate that the descendants of the Enterprise crew are pretty tedious…because the majority of our crew are too. Even the design of the Ship is shockingly unimaginative. The designers could have gone crazy and turned Enterprise into a shrine filled with candles. The idea that over 100 years and many generations that it would look pretty much the same is very unlikely.
I wish they hadn’t done that – The story is such a blatant rip off of Children of Time (a freak accident in a subspace anomaly causing Enterprise to head into the past where the crew becomes a generational ship and eventually meets with its former self) that I’m surprised Rene Echeverria didn’t get a writing credit.
Trip being shot by his son should have some kind of emotional impact, but it just feels like another Enterprise action scene. It’s a telling sign that the emphasis is in the wrong place here. The DS9 managed to fill its episode without having to resort to action sequences but it is Enterprises stock and trade. I can see the urge to have one Enterprise fire on another but again it puts all the weight on the plot rather than the characters. It’s the most predictable thing the episode could do. Plus, Red Dwarf did it better.
I think it would have been far more effective to approach the episode from a completely different angle. The crew is tried, worn out and scared. It would have been fascinating had their descendants been portrayed as happy and content and loving life. Then the dramatic juice of the episode could have been the crew deciding whether they should abandon their hunt for the Xindi weapon and embrace this life (with the promise to warn Earth that the terror attack was coming so they can prepare) or not. Even better would be if they decided to go through with it, and then something prevented them from doing so. Forcing them back out into the cold. That would have been a real punch to the gut.
A reason to watch this episode again – The big question I find myself asking about E2 is why isn’t as gripping as DS9’s Children of Time, which it pays more than a little homage to? The answer is the characters. The characters simply are not as vivid or as arresting on this show and so showing a mutation of them from far flung future carries far less interest. Which is a shame because the premise is terrific and Mike Sussman figures a way to tie it into the Xindi arc which gives it a definitive place in the chronology of Enterprise. You can make a direct comparison between DS9 and Enterprise with this episode because the two episodes are so similar and unfortunately Enterprise disappears into the background. Children of Time was more imaginative, funnier, cleverer and more heartfelt. It was a brilliant piece of television. E2 spends more time examining how they got to this point rather than exploring the consequences. That means the plot becomes the focus, and thus we don’t get to know the characters as well as we should so the ending hurts. The best of E2 is what it says about the T’Pol/Trip relationship; teasing us with scenes of their inconsiderable chemistry, revealing that they can successfully have children and a future together and ending with a glimmer of hope that that is where we are heading. The climax is particularly problematic because I didn’t feel anything for the loss of the crew’s descendants. It feels like the whole thing is just a fever dream in the delirium of the Delphic Expanse. In one of the bravest seasons of Star Trek, this really fails to take any risks. I’m scoring 1/2 lower because I think this had massive potential and it was entirely unfulfilled.
** out of *****
Clue for the next episode:
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