The Enterprise boldly goes into its crucial Season 4
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
TrekCheck/ ENTERPRISE: the first 9 of Season 4, a commentary
The opening 9 episodes of the fourth season may turn out to be crucial for the Enterprise series. With a new producer, new writers and a new night, fans had new hope that it will live to see a fifth season, and perhaps more. So far, those hopes have not been dashed. These were intriguing episodes, and provide every reason to keep watching.
I'm not going to speculate on the future, except to say that I'm looking forward to the rest of the season. For now, I'd just like to add to the dialogue with my own reactions and thoughts on these first 9 stories.
Perspective on the Way I Watch
It's a Star Trek tradition, to state your franchise experience---kind of the way some Native peoples begin councils by reciting the names of their ancestors.
Well, I've seen every TOS and TNG episode and feature film multiple times in multiple media, plus many episodes of DS9 and Voyager at least once. I've seen all of the first three years of Enterprise, maybe lacking an ep or two. There's no UPN affiliate on the cable system where I live, but the local Fox station runs Enterprise, at midnight on Wednesday (now Friday) and again at 6p. Saturday. So I tape the episodes and watch them later, fast-forwarding through commercials (and the opening theme.)
It's common knowledge that the original Star Trek series didn't really catch on until it was syndicated in the 70s. A big factor in Star Trek's success then, I believe, was not only that it became available again, but that it ran every day. (I go into this a little more in my essay on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which you can find below in the Trekalog, beginning at the June 30, 2004 post.) Seeing an episode every day gets you into the world of the series, and you begin to know the characters as they start to live in your subconscious and eventually your consciousness in your daily, so-called real life.
So in addition to seeing each of the first 9 episodes of the fourth season as they ran weekly, I've gone back to the videotape and watched them all again, at least one a day for several days in a row.
Which reminds me of something else important to Star Trek's success: multiple viewings. Subtleties in the stories, nuances in the performances, even entire arcs and subtexts within a story or relating to other stories, don't always reveal themselves the first time. Star Trek fans, like fervent fans of any show, might wind up seeing more than there actually is in a given story. But there is often quite a lot in Star Trek episodes that rewards repeated viewings. That includes these 9 episodes of Enterprise.
I'll take the opportunity that writing for nothing provides in this blog, to look at these shows as a writer as well as a viewer or a cultural historian, which describes much of what I do in my published nonfiction. My dramatic (and comic) writing has mostly been as an amateur, with some theatrical productions, but my opinion is sometimes sought because I'm pretty good at analyzing what works and what doesn't on stage, and of course that's part of writing about TV and movies, which I've done professionally. So that's how I watch.
Arcs
This new creative team was also doing something new for Star Trek: telling stories in three-episode "mini-arcs." The season started with two episodes that directly continued the semi-cliffhanger that ended the season-long Xindi arc of last year ("Storm Front" I & II) and a coda ("Home") that wraps up the Xindi saga with its aftermath and effects back on earth.
Then came the Arik Soong/Brent Spiner arc, three episodes about the ancestor of Data's creator who rescued 19 genetically engineered embryos kept in cold storage from the Eugenics Wars (referenced in TOS), "birthed" them through some unspecified process, and raised them on a remote planet for their first ten years. Now ten years after that, he is enlisted from his prison cell to help Archer and the Enterprise find the "Augments," who have commandeered a Klingon ship.
Then came the Vulcan arc: three episodes concerning a conflict on Vulcan between the High Command and a dissident group that believes the Vulcans have strayed from the true path of Surak, who rescued them from planetary violence with the gospel of logic centuries before.
"Storm Front" wasn't a true three episode arc: more like two fast-paced episodes and a coda in a different key. (Sort of like TNG's Borg two-parter, "Best of Both Worlds," followed by the quieter "Family" on earth.) The two true arcs showed promise that this could be a good format for Star Trek. But there are inherent problems. I imagine it's difficult enough to time out and pace a story in one 40 or so minute episode, but there are experienced hands who have done this for many years. To my knowledge, nobody has tried telling stories over three to five episodes as a regular procedure since the first run of Doctor Who. But that was a unique show, with different audience expectations (and production values) from Star Trek. So this team was really breaking new ground.
The results were a bit uneven, which is about the best you could expect. They might have been unnecessarily frenetic, but basically they all hold up, and they certainly kept moving. The pace of the Soong arc was quite good, but a little too much happened, and the second episode cliffhanger (Archer on his way up a ladder to prevent deadly toxins from killing everybody on Cold Station 12) was pretty weak. A different problem arose in the Vulcan arc. Though some thought the final episode was rushed, my feeling about the arc overall was that it was a bit padded, even if with extraneous action. On the other hand, the last few minutes of the first and second episodes of this arc had great pace and interest, so you really wanted to see the next episode. The team got that element of the mini-arc to work pretty quickly.
Some of these episodes leaned on the tried-and-true illusion of action that characterized Doctor Who episodes: getting caught and escaping. It's a relatively inexpensive kind of action sequence, and it does keep the actors in motion. But it's really a nervous substitute for action. It's serviceable when it advances the story at least a little.
The mini-arcs may be necessary to compensate for the steadily reduced portion of the hour that isn't comprised of commercials, but reserved for story-telling. This is something I asked Manny Coto about, and he acknowledged the difficulty of telling stories as fulsomely as TOS could, which had more minutes to work with. The mini-arc might help to counteract that limitation.
But it can't address what I regard as a chief reason people aren't watching dramatic storytelling on TV as much anymore. I don't think it's all because of the fad for so-called reality TV, which owes more to sensationalism than "reality." I believe it's mostly because blocks of so many commercials for so long interrupt the story so completely that dramatic tension is very hard to maintain, and it's too hard for viewers to pick up the threads of excellent, complex stories. The commercials slaughter mood (Norman Mailer once described totalitarianism as "the interruption of mood") and change emotions---you can wind up feeling distracted, frustrated, bored, assaulted and angry, just by the endless commercials. When the story starts again finally, your suspension of disbelief is suspended. (Which is another reason I prefer to watch TV drama on videotape. Maybe I'll get a TVo for Christmas.)
[continued below after the picture...]
The opening 9 episodes of the fourth season may turn out to be crucial for the Enterprise series. With a new producer, new writers and a new night, fans had new hope that it will live to see a fifth season, and perhaps more. So far, those hopes have not been dashed. These were intriguing episodes, and provide every reason to keep watching.
I'm not going to speculate on the future, except to say that I'm looking forward to the rest of the season. For now, I'd just like to add to the dialogue with my own reactions and thoughts on these first 9 stories.
Perspective on the Way I Watch
It's a Star Trek tradition, to state your franchise experience---kind of the way some Native peoples begin councils by reciting the names of their ancestors.
Well, I've seen every TOS and TNG episode and feature film multiple times in multiple media, plus many episodes of DS9 and Voyager at least once. I've seen all of the first three years of Enterprise, maybe lacking an ep or two. There's no UPN affiliate on the cable system where I live, but the local Fox station runs Enterprise, at midnight on Wednesday (now Friday) and again at 6p. Saturday. So I tape the episodes and watch them later, fast-forwarding through commercials (and the opening theme.)
It's common knowledge that the original Star Trek series didn't really catch on until it was syndicated in the 70s. A big factor in Star Trek's success then, I believe, was not only that it became available again, but that it ran every day. (I go into this a little more in my essay on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which you can find below in the Trekalog, beginning at the June 30, 2004 post.) Seeing an episode every day gets you into the world of the series, and you begin to know the characters as they start to live in your subconscious and eventually your consciousness in your daily, so-called real life.
So in addition to seeing each of the first 9 episodes of the fourth season as they ran weekly, I've gone back to the videotape and watched them all again, at least one a day for several days in a row.
Which reminds me of something else important to Star Trek's success: multiple viewings. Subtleties in the stories, nuances in the performances, even entire arcs and subtexts within a story or relating to other stories, don't always reveal themselves the first time. Star Trek fans, like fervent fans of any show, might wind up seeing more than there actually is in a given story. But there is often quite a lot in Star Trek episodes that rewards repeated viewings. That includes these 9 episodes of Enterprise.
I'll take the opportunity that writing for nothing provides in this blog, to look at these shows as a writer as well as a viewer or a cultural historian, which describes much of what I do in my published nonfiction. My dramatic (and comic) writing has mostly been as an amateur, with some theatrical productions, but my opinion is sometimes sought because I'm pretty good at analyzing what works and what doesn't on stage, and of course that's part of writing about TV and movies, which I've done professionally. So that's how I watch.
Arcs
This new creative team was also doing something new for Star Trek: telling stories in three-episode "mini-arcs." The season started with two episodes that directly continued the semi-cliffhanger that ended the season-long Xindi arc of last year ("Storm Front" I & II) and a coda ("Home") that wraps up the Xindi saga with its aftermath and effects back on earth.
Then came the Arik Soong/Brent Spiner arc, three episodes about the ancestor of Data's creator who rescued 19 genetically engineered embryos kept in cold storage from the Eugenics Wars (referenced in TOS), "birthed" them through some unspecified process, and raised them on a remote planet for their first ten years. Now ten years after that, he is enlisted from his prison cell to help Archer and the Enterprise find the "Augments," who have commandeered a Klingon ship.
Then came the Vulcan arc: three episodes concerning a conflict on Vulcan between the High Command and a dissident group that believes the Vulcans have strayed from the true path of Surak, who rescued them from planetary violence with the gospel of logic centuries before.
"Storm Front" wasn't a true three episode arc: more like two fast-paced episodes and a coda in a different key. (Sort of like TNG's Borg two-parter, "Best of Both Worlds," followed by the quieter "Family" on earth.) The two true arcs showed promise that this could be a good format for Star Trek. But there are inherent problems. I imagine it's difficult enough to time out and pace a story in one 40 or so minute episode, but there are experienced hands who have done this for many years. To my knowledge, nobody has tried telling stories over three to five episodes as a regular procedure since the first run of Doctor Who. But that was a unique show, with different audience expectations (and production values) from Star Trek. So this team was really breaking new ground.
The results were a bit uneven, which is about the best you could expect. They might have been unnecessarily frenetic, but basically they all hold up, and they certainly kept moving. The pace of the Soong arc was quite good, but a little too much happened, and the second episode cliffhanger (Archer on his way up a ladder to prevent deadly toxins from killing everybody on Cold Station 12) was pretty weak. A different problem arose in the Vulcan arc. Though some thought the final episode was rushed, my feeling about the arc overall was that it was a bit padded, even if with extraneous action. On the other hand, the last few minutes of the first and second episodes of this arc had great pace and interest, so you really wanted to see the next episode. The team got that element of the mini-arc to work pretty quickly.
Some of these episodes leaned on the tried-and-true illusion of action that characterized Doctor Who episodes: getting caught and escaping. It's a relatively inexpensive kind of action sequence, and it does keep the actors in motion. But it's really a nervous substitute for action. It's serviceable when it advances the story at least a little.
The mini-arcs may be necessary to compensate for the steadily reduced portion of the hour that isn't comprised of commercials, but reserved for story-telling. This is something I asked Manny Coto about, and he acknowledged the difficulty of telling stories as fulsomely as TOS could, which had more minutes to work with. The mini-arc might help to counteract that limitation.
But it can't address what I regard as a chief reason people aren't watching dramatic storytelling on TV as much anymore. I don't think it's all because of the fad for so-called reality TV, which owes more to sensationalism than "reality." I believe it's mostly because blocks of so many commercials for so long interrupt the story so completely that dramatic tension is very hard to maintain, and it's too hard for viewers to pick up the threads of excellent, complex stories. The commercials slaughter mood (Norman Mailer once described totalitarianism as "the interruption of mood") and change emotions---you can wind up feeling distracted, frustrated, bored, assaulted and angry, just by the endless commercials. When the story starts again finally, your suspension of disbelief is suspended. (Which is another reason I prefer to watch TV drama on videotape. Maybe I'll get a TVo for Christmas.)
[continued below after the picture...]
Within the Arcs: Storm Front
Within the arcs were great moments, not so good moments; great writing, not so good writing; and generally good stories. I liked Storm Front more than some critics and fans apparently did. Sure, I know the evil Nazis are a cliché, but the Nazis were real, and they can still be dramatically powerful both as a reminder and a caution. I don't think these stories exploited the Nazi associations, as some dramas-and even some so-called documentaries---have, for cheap villainy and stereotypes.
As Manny Coto said to me and other interviewers, his main goal for Enterprise was to make it a true prequel series to the rest of Star Trek. The first experiments were in Storm Front, and they expanded from there, once most of the loose ends from the previous Enterprise season (or seasons) were tied.
There's an inherent danger in referencing other Trek, which may have been a factor in the response to "Nemesis." Expanding and building on what came before (or in this case, events in the future of the Star Trek story universe, told in our past) is one thing, but repeating what we've seen before is another. Sometimes that's a matter of balance and perception.
For example, there were subtle echoes of Picard's relationship with Lily in "First Contact" in Archer's with Alicia (the 1940s earth woman who nursed his injuries.) I don't think it worked that well---it just reminded me of a relationship that was done better in the movie, where it had a chance to develop. Here it just seemed like a way to move the story forward by borrowing emotions from somewhere else.
Alicia however was a believable character. Even the hoodlums turned resistance fighters had their moments, even though they were movie hoods (what other kind do we know about, from that era?) It is plausible that those are the guys who would be the resistance, at least in Brooklyn (they were the ones with guns, after all.) No Albert Camus there, writing noble manifestos and smoking existential Galloises, between taking pot shots at Nazis. Alicia's story of the tenants resisting a Nazi ban on "colored music" by passing around a gramophone to play Billie Holliday was both affecting and realistic.
Another goal that Manny Coto expressed to me was to return to telling stories that illuminate contemporary issues, as did many of the best original series and subsequent Trek stories. This began in Storm Front with great theatrical flourish. The Nazi flags on the White House were followed by a fake newsreel praising the new Nazi-American alliance. There are some hints that this isn't entirely phony propaganda in this timeline---that there are American collaborators (as there were in France, for instance.) But the identification made most strongly is of course between the Nazis and the aliens from the future who are helping them.
(I'll have more to say about this in my "Arc of Arcs" section that follows.)
Coto and crew were given a writing problem: they had to explain the Nazi aliens, and wrap up the Xindi arc. They did that one better by wrapping up the Temporal Cold War arc (although we still don't know the identity of Future Man.) I thought they did all of this skillfully, and got an exciting story out of it.
I guess I liked the energy and the sort of slightly wacky mood of these episodes. The surreality of it was tipped off from the start when the Nazi officer taking Archer away in the open truck is talking to him about American movies. He says that the flaw in those war movies is that the Americans always win. Those are his last words, as immediately the Americans attack and win.
These were dramatic episodes, with action and meaning, and some fine acting from the guest cast. In the coda, "Home", the acting of the main cast was the chief attraction, and they all acquitted themselves well, while advancing both character development and story. I learned something more about each one of them (including Travis Mayweather), usually from a look or a gesture, or the way he or she said something. There were strong guest performances too, especially Joanna Gleason as T'Pol's mother and Ada Maris as Captain Erika Hernandez (I liked the fact that Archer's squeeze wasn't young and blond, but an equal.)
High points of this arc: the spot-on fake newsreel,;on the apparent threshhold of returning to his time, the alien making his speech about totalitarian destiny still in Nazi uniform; and the way that Gary Graham as Soval extends his hand to Archer and says thank you [for saving Earth and probably Vulcan from the Xindi]---he does it with a subtle effort and awkwardness that shows just how alien the gestures are for him, and yet how sincere.
Low point: the welcoming ceremony when the Enterprise crew returns. It looks fake and sounds the same, a kind of weak parody of the Star Wars welcome to the returning heroes.
Within the arcs were great moments, not so good moments; great writing, not so good writing; and generally good stories. I liked Storm Front more than some critics and fans apparently did. Sure, I know the evil Nazis are a cliché, but the Nazis were real, and they can still be dramatically powerful both as a reminder and a caution. I don't think these stories exploited the Nazi associations, as some dramas-and even some so-called documentaries---have, for cheap villainy and stereotypes.
As Manny Coto said to me and other interviewers, his main goal for Enterprise was to make it a true prequel series to the rest of Star Trek. The first experiments were in Storm Front, and they expanded from there, once most of the loose ends from the previous Enterprise season (or seasons) were tied.
There's an inherent danger in referencing other Trek, which may have been a factor in the response to "Nemesis." Expanding and building on what came before (or in this case, events in the future of the Star Trek story universe, told in our past) is one thing, but repeating what we've seen before is another. Sometimes that's a matter of balance and perception.
For example, there were subtle echoes of Picard's relationship with Lily in "First Contact" in Archer's with Alicia (the 1940s earth woman who nursed his injuries.) I don't think it worked that well---it just reminded me of a relationship that was done better in the movie, where it had a chance to develop. Here it just seemed like a way to move the story forward by borrowing emotions from somewhere else.
Alicia however was a believable character. Even the hoodlums turned resistance fighters had their moments, even though they were movie hoods (what other kind do we know about, from that era?) It is plausible that those are the guys who would be the resistance, at least in Brooklyn (they were the ones with guns, after all.) No Albert Camus there, writing noble manifestos and smoking existential Galloises, between taking pot shots at Nazis. Alicia's story of the tenants resisting a Nazi ban on "colored music" by passing around a gramophone to play Billie Holliday was both affecting and realistic.
Another goal that Manny Coto expressed to me was to return to telling stories that illuminate contemporary issues, as did many of the best original series and subsequent Trek stories. This began in Storm Front with great theatrical flourish. The Nazi flags on the White House were followed by a fake newsreel praising the new Nazi-American alliance. There are some hints that this isn't entirely phony propaganda in this timeline---that there are American collaborators (as there were in France, for instance.) But the identification made most strongly is of course between the Nazis and the aliens from the future who are helping them.
(I'll have more to say about this in my "Arc of Arcs" section that follows.)
Coto and crew were given a writing problem: they had to explain the Nazi aliens, and wrap up the Xindi arc. They did that one better by wrapping up the Temporal Cold War arc (although we still don't know the identity of Future Man.) I thought they did all of this skillfully, and got an exciting story out of it.
I guess I liked the energy and the sort of slightly wacky mood of these episodes. The surreality of it was tipped off from the start when the Nazi officer taking Archer away in the open truck is talking to him about American movies. He says that the flaw in those war movies is that the Americans always win. Those are his last words, as immediately the Americans attack and win.
These were dramatic episodes, with action and meaning, and some fine acting from the guest cast. In the coda, "Home", the acting of the main cast was the chief attraction, and they all acquitted themselves well, while advancing both character development and story. I learned something more about each one of them (including Travis Mayweather), usually from a look or a gesture, or the way he or she said something. There were strong guest performances too, especially Joanna Gleason as T'Pol's mother and Ada Maris as Captain Erika Hernandez (I liked the fact that Archer's squeeze wasn't young and blond, but an equal.)
High points of this arc: the spot-on fake newsreel,;on the apparent threshhold of returning to his time, the alien making his speech about totalitarian destiny still in Nazi uniform; and the way that Gary Graham as Soval extends his hand to Archer and says thank you [for saving Earth and probably Vulcan from the Xindi]---he does it with a subtle effort and awkwardness that shows just how alien the gestures are for him, and yet how sincere.
Low point: the welcoming ceremony when the Enterprise crew returns. It looks fake and sounds the same, a kind of weak parody of the Star Wars welcome to the returning heroes.
Soong/Spiner Arc
Brent Spiner created a complex character in Arik Soong, different from the three he created for Next Generation. In the first episode, we see Soong the outlaw scientist, devoted to his work, and both cynical and sardonic about authority. As we learn here and throughout the arc, he's also been a rogue player in interstellar politics and trade, and has dealt with some unsavory characters---but all, it seems, to support his vision and his work. He's complex but single-minded: not all that rare among visionaries, especially in science. We can see aspects of him in the later Soong, and certainly in Lore.
In the middle and third episodes, we see his paternal devotion to the Augments. The scene in which he views the remaining embryos is a bit startling: he really sees them as life he has some responsibility for. He also begins to see the flaws in his genetic engineering, and works to repair these flaws before the other embryos are "born."
His approach to parenting is a bit dodgy however. He apparently assumes the Augments have a moral compass though evidently he didn't teach them much about moral values as children, and now that they are adults, he still plays the authoritarian father. Maybe this is supposed to suggest to us that part of the reason the Augments are morally flawed is that Soong is as well. If so, perhaps that point could have been made more clearly.
In Cold Station 12, Soong realizes that the Augments are ethically challenged, especially Malik (a name out of Harry Potterdom which guarantees the kid is going to be a mal-icious mal-content) who is recognizably a sociopath: a charismatic liar who always blames others, as well as a vicious power-hungry killer. He's a kind of Richard III, whose mal-formed limbs aren't physical, but psychological and moral. Playing him that way might have been interesting. But Malik does seem to be struggling within himself early on, at least in relation to Soong.
The reason we're given for how the Augments behave is consistent with their behavior but seems a little too simplistic. Archer provides the formula: "Superior ability breeds superior ambition." But what does that mean? Depends on what you mean by superior. The only elements of superiority we are shown are physical strength and abilities, and adeptness at math and computer manipulation: technical intelligence. Otherwise most of the Augments are like super sheep, with no personalities or social, emotional or moral intelligence. The metaphor here may be technology: the Augments represent superior technology, which does tend to breed superior ambition, when technological power has outrun humanity's moral and psychological intelligence. A better formula is Phlox's analysis of the designers of these Augments in the Eugenics War---human intelligence and human instinct were out of synch.
The middle episode also features scenes of torture; there are extended torture scenes in the Vulcan arc as well. I object to these scenes, and when re-viewing these shows, I fast-forwarded through them. I think they compromise Enterprise as a family-friendly show because of their gratuitous violence, and they give a false sense of torture, at a time when polls show that many Americans share this false sense of torture while their government is actively engaged in it.
Torture of a kind appeared in TOS but it was not very realistic and usually was done with some exotic technology. I believe torture appeared in the TNG series exactly once, in an exemplary episode which explored the psychology of torture, and in which Picard explicitly told the truth about torture as a means of obtaining information: it doesn't work, and professionals in the information-extracting business know it doesn't work. (That's a big part of the internal dispute in the U.S. government right now, apart from violations of Geneva Accords in Iraqi prisons and Guantanamo.) The public doesn't seem to know it, but they should.
I can forgive all the scenes in caves, since I've seen the standing sets. But torture has been treated as a device rather than explored for what it is. This is certainly not unique to Enterprise, but I'd hope they would think about it harder. The fact is that while torture is employed on TV and in movies to extract information, it hardly ever was in the real world. It was mostly used to get people to admit to what the authorities wanted them to admit to. The Inquisition, for example. This is one of those TV/movie conventions that can be really harmful as it affects attitudes about real torture in the real world.
Sure, there's a point to it in this episode---to show how far Malik will go. It has more of a justification here, actually, than in the Vulcan arc. But even so, this point needs to be made. And as the case with any sort of violence on Star Trek, it doesn't need to be so graphic. That's been a Star Trek tradition---that all ages and families as a family can watch it. Maybe the demographics of young male viewers make it tempting, but that temptation should be resisted. I'd hate to see Star Trek cheapen itself with this kind of sensationalism, especially violence. I'm no expert but it seems to me that kids essentially ignore sexual suggestiveness, it goes right by them. But they are affected by graphic violence. I'll bet this is discussed frequently by the producers, so that's my two cents.
Back to the arc. To maintain the pace, there's a lot of action consisting of getting in and out of trouble that diverges from the main arc of the arc, but most of it is fun to see once. Some issues of genetic manipulation are at least raised, though the emphasis seems to be more on continuity with what's known about the Eugenics War. The conversation between Archer and Phlox in the middle ep will remain important in Star Trek lore, and I say that not just because I witnessed its taping (see account of my set visit below.)
It's also intriguing that Soong treats the genetically engineered embryos as children with a right to life, and that Malik views these artificially altered embryos as having inviolable integrity, when he objects to Soong's plans to introduce more changes into their genome, because they are "not what our creators intended." Though this may be more of Malik's mendacity: what really upsets him is that Soong wants to dampen their aggression, maybe even make them more Data-like. Still, it's an interesting irony.
As for Soong's modifications, it's not clear that dampening aggression is what's needed. Maybe Data's ethical programming, or some built-in introspection and sensitivity. Although that's already in the genome, however recessively. Humanity at its best is not more passive, but more conscious and compassionate.
The prequel links to the rest of the Star Trek saga really begin to multiply in this arc and the next, with the Orions, the Eugenics War and then all the Vulcanology: IDIC, needs of the many, the katra, "remember," etc. There's an echo of Kirk in the way Archer bluffs the Klingons. Even the name "Hernandez" has a Star Trek history. And there's an irony possible only if you know from the film, Star Trek: Insurrection, that "The Briar Patch" Soong heads for contains a planet of perpetual youth, which the Augments might have found, but they refuse to go there. And that the eventual creation of Soong's descendant will save the inhabitants of that planet from Federation treachery.
On the other hand, Enterprise still has trouble keeping its technology to prequel levels. After barely using the transporter for three seasons, this year it has suddenly become standard, and is capable of transporting somebody in motion, which Kirk-era transporters didn't seem able to do.
The foreshadowing ending was a little too much, with Soong deciding to give up genetics for designing artificial life forms, which he figured might take several generations to figure out. But it could have been worse. Imagine if he'd continued:
SOONG
Yes---creating an artificial lifeform will be part of my lore. I could do it now, if I only had more data...
But it might take a generation or two. Of course, I'm not married, and somebody else's genes might mess up my son's ability to do the work, so I'd better clone myself, and have my clone clone himself when the time comes. That way, my descendant in the twenty-fourth century will carry on my work without a pause, and he'll look exactly like me!
For the first true mini-arc, this worked well---it had good momentum, individual scenes and performances, good chemistry between Brent Spiner and the regular cast, particularly Scott Bacula, and some meaningful issues raised in subtle ways that will repay repeat viewings and discussions. Best of all, it was inviting; we want to see what they'll do next.
High points of this arc: Hard to specify except as Brent Spiner's acting and character creation.
Low points: the torture scene, T'Pol as a rag doll.
Brent Spiner created a complex character in Arik Soong, different from the three he created for Next Generation. In the first episode, we see Soong the outlaw scientist, devoted to his work, and both cynical and sardonic about authority. As we learn here and throughout the arc, he's also been a rogue player in interstellar politics and trade, and has dealt with some unsavory characters---but all, it seems, to support his vision and his work. He's complex but single-minded: not all that rare among visionaries, especially in science. We can see aspects of him in the later Soong, and certainly in Lore.
In the middle and third episodes, we see his paternal devotion to the Augments. The scene in which he views the remaining embryos is a bit startling: he really sees them as life he has some responsibility for. He also begins to see the flaws in his genetic engineering, and works to repair these flaws before the other embryos are "born."
His approach to parenting is a bit dodgy however. He apparently assumes the Augments have a moral compass though evidently he didn't teach them much about moral values as children, and now that they are adults, he still plays the authoritarian father. Maybe this is supposed to suggest to us that part of the reason the Augments are morally flawed is that Soong is as well. If so, perhaps that point could have been made more clearly.
In Cold Station 12, Soong realizes that the Augments are ethically challenged, especially Malik (a name out of Harry Potterdom which guarantees the kid is going to be a mal-icious mal-content) who is recognizably a sociopath: a charismatic liar who always blames others, as well as a vicious power-hungry killer. He's a kind of Richard III, whose mal-formed limbs aren't physical, but psychological and moral. Playing him that way might have been interesting. But Malik does seem to be struggling within himself early on, at least in relation to Soong.
The reason we're given for how the Augments behave is consistent with their behavior but seems a little too simplistic. Archer provides the formula: "Superior ability breeds superior ambition." But what does that mean? Depends on what you mean by superior. The only elements of superiority we are shown are physical strength and abilities, and adeptness at math and computer manipulation: technical intelligence. Otherwise most of the Augments are like super sheep, with no personalities or social, emotional or moral intelligence. The metaphor here may be technology: the Augments represent superior technology, which does tend to breed superior ambition, when technological power has outrun humanity's moral and psychological intelligence. A better formula is Phlox's analysis of the designers of these Augments in the Eugenics War---human intelligence and human instinct were out of synch.
The middle episode also features scenes of torture; there are extended torture scenes in the Vulcan arc as well. I object to these scenes, and when re-viewing these shows, I fast-forwarded through them. I think they compromise Enterprise as a family-friendly show because of their gratuitous violence, and they give a false sense of torture, at a time when polls show that many Americans share this false sense of torture while their government is actively engaged in it.
Torture of a kind appeared in TOS but it was not very realistic and usually was done with some exotic technology. I believe torture appeared in the TNG series exactly once, in an exemplary episode which explored the psychology of torture, and in which Picard explicitly told the truth about torture as a means of obtaining information: it doesn't work, and professionals in the information-extracting business know it doesn't work. (That's a big part of the internal dispute in the U.S. government right now, apart from violations of Geneva Accords in Iraqi prisons and Guantanamo.) The public doesn't seem to know it, but they should.
I can forgive all the scenes in caves, since I've seen the standing sets. But torture has been treated as a device rather than explored for what it is. This is certainly not unique to Enterprise, but I'd hope they would think about it harder. The fact is that while torture is employed on TV and in movies to extract information, it hardly ever was in the real world. It was mostly used to get people to admit to what the authorities wanted them to admit to. The Inquisition, for example. This is one of those TV/movie conventions that can be really harmful as it affects attitudes about real torture in the real world.
Sure, there's a point to it in this episode---to show how far Malik will go. It has more of a justification here, actually, than in the Vulcan arc. But even so, this point needs to be made. And as the case with any sort of violence on Star Trek, it doesn't need to be so graphic. That's been a Star Trek tradition---that all ages and families as a family can watch it. Maybe the demographics of young male viewers make it tempting, but that temptation should be resisted. I'd hate to see Star Trek cheapen itself with this kind of sensationalism, especially violence. I'm no expert but it seems to me that kids essentially ignore sexual suggestiveness, it goes right by them. But they are affected by graphic violence. I'll bet this is discussed frequently by the producers, so that's my two cents.
Back to the arc. To maintain the pace, there's a lot of action consisting of getting in and out of trouble that diverges from the main arc of the arc, but most of it is fun to see once. Some issues of genetic manipulation are at least raised, though the emphasis seems to be more on continuity with what's known about the Eugenics War. The conversation between Archer and Phlox in the middle ep will remain important in Star Trek lore, and I say that not just because I witnessed its taping (see account of my set visit below.)
It's also intriguing that Soong treats the genetically engineered embryos as children with a right to life, and that Malik views these artificially altered embryos as having inviolable integrity, when he objects to Soong's plans to introduce more changes into their genome, because they are "not what our creators intended." Though this may be more of Malik's mendacity: what really upsets him is that Soong wants to dampen their aggression, maybe even make them more Data-like. Still, it's an interesting irony.
As for Soong's modifications, it's not clear that dampening aggression is what's needed. Maybe Data's ethical programming, or some built-in introspection and sensitivity. Although that's already in the genome, however recessively. Humanity at its best is not more passive, but more conscious and compassionate.
The prequel links to the rest of the Star Trek saga really begin to multiply in this arc and the next, with the Orions, the Eugenics War and then all the Vulcanology: IDIC, needs of the many, the katra, "remember," etc. There's an echo of Kirk in the way Archer bluffs the Klingons. Even the name "Hernandez" has a Star Trek history. And there's an irony possible only if you know from the film, Star Trek: Insurrection, that "The Briar Patch" Soong heads for contains a planet of perpetual youth, which the Augments might have found, but they refuse to go there. And that the eventual creation of Soong's descendant will save the inhabitants of that planet from Federation treachery.
On the other hand, Enterprise still has trouble keeping its technology to prequel levels. After barely using the transporter for three seasons, this year it has suddenly become standard, and is capable of transporting somebody in motion, which Kirk-era transporters didn't seem able to do.
The foreshadowing ending was a little too much, with Soong deciding to give up genetics for designing artificial life forms, which he figured might take several generations to figure out. But it could have been worse. Imagine if he'd continued:
SOONG
Yes---creating an artificial lifeform will be part of my lore. I could do it now, if I only had more data...
But it might take a generation or two. Of course, I'm not married, and somebody else's genes might mess up my son's ability to do the work, so I'd better clone myself, and have my clone clone himself when the time comes. That way, my descendant in the twenty-fourth century will carry on my work without a pause, and he'll look exactly like me!
For the first true mini-arc, this worked well---it had good momentum, individual scenes and performances, good chemistry between Brent Spiner and the regular cast, particularly Scott Bacula, and some meaningful issues raised in subtle ways that will repay repeat viewings and discussions. Best of all, it was inviting; we want to see what they'll do next.
High points of this arc: Hard to specify except as Brent Spiner's acting and character creation.
Low points: the torture scene, T'Pol as a rag doll.
Vulcan arc
I watched the first moments of the first episode ("The Forge"), with almost a sigh of relief as well as appreciation. With writers Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens, we are in very good hands. The opening dialogue between Admiral Forrest and Soval is the best written, most succinct dialogue I can recall in all of Enterprise. There is equally good dialogue between Archer and T'Pol.
The Forge and the Awakening, along with the Vulcan scenes that introduced T'Pol's mother, T'Les, show surer hands in Vulcan dialogue. I noticed that, when confronted with an accusation, these Vulcans (notably Soval and T'Les) were straightforward in their response, without any of the emotional denial or "whataya mean by that?' comebacks of humans in confrontation.
I was sorry to see T'Les die, although that scene was a very good one, an acting triumph for Joanna Cassidy and especially Jolene Blalock. I'd be cautious about killing off too many subsidiary characters, though. It begins to feel formulaic, and future possibilities for these characters are ended. Subsidiary characters invented for the purpose of a single story (for instance, Spock's parents) can generate more story---these characters are greatly responsible for the richness of the ST universe.
In the Awakening everyone is hot blooded. The Vulcan leader of the High Council, the young T'Pau, and Archer, when he confronts the woman he believes killed Admiral Forrest, is angry and belligerent. Though more in control, the ambassador is operating out of deep feeling. The coolest head, ironically, seems to be Trip. He's fairly passive at being in charge, at first just disbelieving that Vulcans would attack the Enterprise, and then withdrawing only after the advice of the ambassador. But he's credible, especially when he admits doubts but agrees he's doing what he thinks Archer would do, and he does it resolutely.
Gary Graham gets to strut his stuff in this arc. Actors can be amazing---here's a guy cast apparently for a bit part who is given this opportunity and runs with it. The writers don't do him any favors by tasking him with making credible the sudden revelation of the Andorian invasion plot, but they do give him a strong character arc, and one more classic scene: aboard Enterprise, Trip is asking Soval why he's suddenly helping humans instead of criticizing them. Having been posted on earth for so long, he says, "I developed an affinity for your people." "You did a pretty good job of hiding it," Trip says. And to Trip's delight, Soval replies in all sincerity, "Thank you." It's a Spock moment, written and performed perfectly.
Kara Zediker as T'Pau did a good, nuanced job, too. It seems the formidable great priestess of TOS was once quite a fox.
The central metaphor of this arc, a surprise to no one, is the war in Iraq. The Vulcan leader V'las is GW Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld rolled into one giant head. V'las's WMD excuse to launch a pre-emptive strike is the Xindi weaponry that the Andorians also don't have. His lines, "Sooner or later the Andorians will make use of this technology. Is it logical for us to wait for that day?" is a virtual paraphrase of the we can't wait for "the smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud" rhetoric of Bush and Condi Rice, and their later insistence that the Iraq invasion was justified because of Saddam's desire to develop weapons. Like Malik, and our sociopathic administration, he sets up a situation and then says, "This is the only way," meaning that innocents will die to further his ambition, ideology and agenda. For anybody who misses the references, there's dialogue like, "We're in the desert. There's a storm." The Syranites are referred to several times as "insurgents." (More about this in "The Arc of Arcs.")
There might even be a subtle political parody here. It seems that in the so-called real world the group of militarists behind the Iraq invasion policy call themselves the Vulcans---a reference to the god of fire rather than to Star Trek. So in this arc, some Star Trek Vulcans sound a lot like some D.C. Vulcans.
As for the planet Vulcan, we see a bit more of it, and there's visual continuity with previous glimpses, the enhanced DVD Star Trek: The Motion Picture scenes especially. The Reeves-Stevens obviously know even more about Vulcan from the novels they've written and read that describe it more in detail. I believe this was the first time that we saw a Vulcan cityscape?
Making the ordeal a trek through the desert was certainly appropriate, not only for the earth associations with the desert religions (Christianity, Judaism, Muslim) but with the nature of the planet Vulcan. Not only is the name associated with fire and heat, but once upon a time the existence of a planet Vulcan in our solar system was theorized, even closer to the sun than Mercury (as a way to account for an apparent discrepancy in Mercury's orbit.) Anyway, they did good planet work---even the caves seemed different.
Though there are even more twists and turns in this arc, some seem forced. But in terms of writing to create tension and forward momentum, these multiple conflicts and multiple jeopardy pay off in dramatic tension and excitement. Add in an effective contemporary metaphor, the furthering of Vulcan history, the tie-ins with the rest of Star Trek and more loose ends of Enterprise past tied up, this arc whets the appetite for the future.
What's going to happen in the future? I hope the effects of carrying Surak's katra on Archer's sudden ability to toss Vulcans around and use the neck pinch are addressed in the next episode or two. Maybe with some joke about Archer no longer being able to do the neck pinch.
Archer's character has gone through a lot from last season to these 9 episodes. It will be interesting to see what he's like now, after having Surak in his head. The effects of all this on T'Pol need to be defined, too. There was less indication of what direction this will take, for even after her mind meld with T'Pau, she seemed an emotional mess. It gave her some nice moments---with her mother, with Archer, and with her husband, who turns out to be a good guy after all, and T'Pol is moved but he can't accept her admiration---a very nice touch. But she also seemed irrationally petulant and even possessive towards Archer at times. She needs some consistency now.
The regular cast showed their ensemble instincts in these arcs. There was good ensemble work as the crew tried to function without Archer in the first arc and most of the third. The basketball game was a brief but very nice touch. Each actor had significant moments over the 9 episodes, though a kind of hierarchy remains: Archer, Trip and T'Pol, then Phlox and Reed, then Hoshi and Travis.
Despite this and uneven writing in the past, individually the actors all seem to be finding colors for their characters. Scott Bacula is becoming a more naturalistic version of Shatner in how he moves stories forward with his energy, authority and machismo. It seems that the future may bring more TNG-style showcase episodes or arcs for the other characters. In past years the other regular actors--John Billingsley, Jolene Blalock, Conner Trinneer, Dominic Keating, Linda Park and Anthony Montgomery--have shown the ability to carry scenes and work with one another to carry episodes. All they need is good stories and good writing.
And apropos of nothing that happened in these episodes, look for a solution in coming weeks to why the original series Klingons look different than the Klingons before and after it. This is just a hunch.
Such "continuity" problems can be fun to play with as writing challenges, and they can generate stories. But the inherent problems of a prequel series remains: you may create as many continuity problems as you solve. The aforementioned transporter effect is one, and here we have a brief (or briefly glimpsed), private ceremony to extract Surak's katra from Archer, but in Kirk's time (in Star Trek III) the priestess says the ceremony to extract the katra hasn't been performed "since ages past, and then only in legend." I suppose this could be finessed by the difference in the two situations, with the Spock regenerated on the Genesis planet as essentially a empty vessel. But these problems are likely to crop up from time to time. They will likely inspire the creativity of posters on the Trek BBSs.
High points: the Kir' Shara display in the Council chamber---a nice emotional high. T'Pol's final scenes with her husband, and with her mother. Surak showing Archer the mushroom cloud.
Awkward moments: the ceiling beams start to fall before the explosion goes off when Reed and Mayweather set off the remaining bomb, and one of the Vulcan soldiers begins to convulse before he hits the electrical field created by the minerals in the rocks. And that's sure not much.
I watched the first moments of the first episode ("The Forge"), with almost a sigh of relief as well as appreciation. With writers Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens, we are in very good hands. The opening dialogue between Admiral Forrest and Soval is the best written, most succinct dialogue I can recall in all of Enterprise. There is equally good dialogue between Archer and T'Pol.
The Forge and the Awakening, along with the Vulcan scenes that introduced T'Pol's mother, T'Les, show surer hands in Vulcan dialogue. I noticed that, when confronted with an accusation, these Vulcans (notably Soval and T'Les) were straightforward in their response, without any of the emotional denial or "whataya mean by that?' comebacks of humans in confrontation.
I was sorry to see T'Les die, although that scene was a very good one, an acting triumph for Joanna Cassidy and especially Jolene Blalock. I'd be cautious about killing off too many subsidiary characters, though. It begins to feel formulaic, and future possibilities for these characters are ended. Subsidiary characters invented for the purpose of a single story (for instance, Spock's parents) can generate more story---these characters are greatly responsible for the richness of the ST universe.
In the Awakening everyone is hot blooded. The Vulcan leader of the High Council, the young T'Pau, and Archer, when he confronts the woman he believes killed Admiral Forrest, is angry and belligerent. Though more in control, the ambassador is operating out of deep feeling. The coolest head, ironically, seems to be Trip. He's fairly passive at being in charge, at first just disbelieving that Vulcans would attack the Enterprise, and then withdrawing only after the advice of the ambassador. But he's credible, especially when he admits doubts but agrees he's doing what he thinks Archer would do, and he does it resolutely.
Gary Graham gets to strut his stuff in this arc. Actors can be amazing---here's a guy cast apparently for a bit part who is given this opportunity and runs with it. The writers don't do him any favors by tasking him with making credible the sudden revelation of the Andorian invasion plot, but they do give him a strong character arc, and one more classic scene: aboard Enterprise, Trip is asking Soval why he's suddenly helping humans instead of criticizing them. Having been posted on earth for so long, he says, "I developed an affinity for your people." "You did a pretty good job of hiding it," Trip says. And to Trip's delight, Soval replies in all sincerity, "Thank you." It's a Spock moment, written and performed perfectly.
Kara Zediker as T'Pau did a good, nuanced job, too. It seems the formidable great priestess of TOS was once quite a fox.
The central metaphor of this arc, a surprise to no one, is the war in Iraq. The Vulcan leader V'las is GW Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld rolled into one giant head. V'las's WMD excuse to launch a pre-emptive strike is the Xindi weaponry that the Andorians also don't have. His lines, "Sooner or later the Andorians will make use of this technology. Is it logical for us to wait for that day?" is a virtual paraphrase of the we can't wait for "the smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud" rhetoric of Bush and Condi Rice, and their later insistence that the Iraq invasion was justified because of Saddam's desire to develop weapons. Like Malik, and our sociopathic administration, he sets up a situation and then says, "This is the only way," meaning that innocents will die to further his ambition, ideology and agenda. For anybody who misses the references, there's dialogue like, "We're in the desert. There's a storm." The Syranites are referred to several times as "insurgents." (More about this in "The Arc of Arcs.")
There might even be a subtle political parody here. It seems that in the so-called real world the group of militarists behind the Iraq invasion policy call themselves the Vulcans---a reference to the god of fire rather than to Star Trek. So in this arc, some Star Trek Vulcans sound a lot like some D.C. Vulcans.
As for the planet Vulcan, we see a bit more of it, and there's visual continuity with previous glimpses, the enhanced DVD Star Trek: The Motion Picture scenes especially. The Reeves-Stevens obviously know even more about Vulcan from the novels they've written and read that describe it more in detail. I believe this was the first time that we saw a Vulcan cityscape?
Making the ordeal a trek through the desert was certainly appropriate, not only for the earth associations with the desert religions (Christianity, Judaism, Muslim) but with the nature of the planet Vulcan. Not only is the name associated with fire and heat, but once upon a time the existence of a planet Vulcan in our solar system was theorized, even closer to the sun than Mercury (as a way to account for an apparent discrepancy in Mercury's orbit.) Anyway, they did good planet work---even the caves seemed different.
Though there are even more twists and turns in this arc, some seem forced. But in terms of writing to create tension and forward momentum, these multiple conflicts and multiple jeopardy pay off in dramatic tension and excitement. Add in an effective contemporary metaphor, the furthering of Vulcan history, the tie-ins with the rest of Star Trek and more loose ends of Enterprise past tied up, this arc whets the appetite for the future.
What's going to happen in the future? I hope the effects of carrying Surak's katra on Archer's sudden ability to toss Vulcans around and use the neck pinch are addressed in the next episode or two. Maybe with some joke about Archer no longer being able to do the neck pinch.
Archer's character has gone through a lot from last season to these 9 episodes. It will be interesting to see what he's like now, after having Surak in his head. The effects of all this on T'Pol need to be defined, too. There was less indication of what direction this will take, for even after her mind meld with T'Pau, she seemed an emotional mess. It gave her some nice moments---with her mother, with Archer, and with her husband, who turns out to be a good guy after all, and T'Pol is moved but he can't accept her admiration---a very nice touch. But she also seemed irrationally petulant and even possessive towards Archer at times. She needs some consistency now.
The regular cast showed their ensemble instincts in these arcs. There was good ensemble work as the crew tried to function without Archer in the first arc and most of the third. The basketball game was a brief but very nice touch. Each actor had significant moments over the 9 episodes, though a kind of hierarchy remains: Archer, Trip and T'Pol, then Phlox and Reed, then Hoshi and Travis.
Despite this and uneven writing in the past, individually the actors all seem to be finding colors for their characters. Scott Bacula is becoming a more naturalistic version of Shatner in how he moves stories forward with his energy, authority and machismo. It seems that the future may bring more TNG-style showcase episodes or arcs for the other characters. In past years the other regular actors--John Billingsley, Jolene Blalock, Conner Trinneer, Dominic Keating, Linda Park and Anthony Montgomery--have shown the ability to carry scenes and work with one another to carry episodes. All they need is good stories and good writing.
And apropos of nothing that happened in these episodes, look for a solution in coming weeks to why the original series Klingons look different than the Klingons before and after it. This is just a hunch.
Such "continuity" problems can be fun to play with as writing challenges, and they can generate stories. But the inherent problems of a prequel series remains: you may create as many continuity problems as you solve. The aforementioned transporter effect is one, and here we have a brief (or briefly glimpsed), private ceremony to extract Surak's katra from Archer, but in Kirk's time (in Star Trek III) the priestess says the ceremony to extract the katra hasn't been performed "since ages past, and then only in legend." I suppose this could be finessed by the difference in the two situations, with the Spock regenerated on the Genesis planet as essentially a empty vessel. But these problems are likely to crop up from time to time. They will likely inspire the creativity of posters on the Trek BBSs.
High points: the Kir' Shara display in the Council chamber---a nice emotional high. T'Pol's final scenes with her husband, and with her mother. Surak showing Archer the mushroom cloud.
Awkward moments: the ceiling beams start to fall before the explosion goes off when Reed and Mayweather set off the remaining bomb, and one of the Vulcan soldiers begins to convulse before he hits the electrical field created by the minerals in the rocks. And that's sure not much.
Arc of Arcs
Is there an overarching theme (as opposed to an over-Archering theme) to these episodes: an arc of arcs? Yes, I think so, even if it wasn't entirely designed to be.
The shadow of 9-11 and Iraq hover over everything, and join the original engagement with issues of war and peace, and attitudes towards the alien and the unknown, that have always characterized Star Trek.
That arc of these arcs centers on the meaning of "xenophobia." The word itself is used in "Home" to explain earth's reaction to the Xindi attack and threat. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a xenophobe is "unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples." For foreign or strangers, read also: alien.
That's what alien means: the ultimate foreigner. The prefix Xen (as in xenoblast, xenogenic, xenograft) means "foreign." It's pretty close to Xindi.
Xenophobia often arises in a population when it feels threatened or has been attacked. So after 9-11, anybody looking remotely Arab (including people from India, Hawaii, anybody with dark hair) could find themselves in danger, and some were attacked without provocation. Then France wouldn't join enthusiastically in the Iraq misadventure, and suddenly the French had cooties, and we got a U.S. Congress establishing Freedom Fries.
In the Enterprise universe, humanity has become xenophobic after the Xindi terrorist attack, and we get a scene of intergalactic racism in a bar, which spills over into an attack on Starfleet for making contact with strange new worlds, and letting them know where earth is so they can come attack it. Trip, Reed and Mayweather defend Phlox.
Yet later in that episode ("Home"), Archer himself echoes some of the barfighters' sentiments, without the racial prejudice: that maybe earth shouldn't be out exploring space and attracting dangerous aliens. He earlier uttered without apparent irony one of the more deceptive Bush phrases justifying his xenophobic "we're Good, they are Evil" stance, when he said that some species "don't share our values." That's Bush's reasoning for why al Qeada attacked America, simplistic at best and pernicious in effect. Terrorism is not defensible, but it's well known that people in the Third World and especially in the Middle East have legitimate grievances, and the political situation in Iraq is much more complex than a battle against insurgents who "hate our freedom." It's actually what Bush thinks---that he and his true believers have the right to attack anybody who doesn't "share their values," which apparently means letting Halliburton run their country.
The idea of xenophobia echoes through these arcs. The other side of xenophobia is a belief in ideological, religious and racial purity, and so the leader of the aliens in Storm Front who are helping the Nazis, talks about their common dream to perfect their respective races. (Pretty funny coming from a guy with a face like his, but that's our prejudice.) The theme of racial superiority continues in the Augments, who believe themselves to be a genetically engineered Master Race.
Racism and prejudice as domestic forms of xenophobia comes through in Storm Front, when Archer sees the Nazi invasion from the point of view of an African American in the 1940s.
The Vulcans are dealing with their own xenophobia, emphasized by the conflict between those who believe in Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, and the High Council leader who provokes a war to further reunification of Vulcans and Romulans, linked by race.
Surak's influence on Archer may heal his xenophobia, and the triumph of the Syranites seems to mean the Vulcans will be dealing with theirs. This is a very appropriate theme for our times, as well as for the times created by Enterprise stories over three years plus 9 episodes.
Star Trek has always taken conflict seriously. Who really is the enemy, and why? What you do depends on your answers to these questions. Star Trek captains have always defended their ships and crew, and innocent life. They did not succumb to revenge---though even Captain Picard was tempted. The best Trek makes careful distinctions, and honors nuance---that word that some tried to make into an accusation of indecision in the recent U.S. election campaign. That's a very dangerous (and illogical) provocation, and the best Trek has always said so.
Home
Is there an overarching theme (as opposed to an over-Archering theme) to these episodes: an arc of arcs? Yes, I think so, even if it wasn't entirely designed to be.
The shadow of 9-11 and Iraq hover over everything, and join the original engagement with issues of war and peace, and attitudes towards the alien and the unknown, that have always characterized Star Trek.
That arc of these arcs centers on the meaning of "xenophobia." The word itself is used in "Home" to explain earth's reaction to the Xindi attack and threat. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a xenophobe is "unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples." For foreign or strangers, read also: alien.
That's what alien means: the ultimate foreigner. The prefix Xen (as in xenoblast, xenogenic, xenograft) means "foreign." It's pretty close to Xindi.
Xenophobia often arises in a population when it feels threatened or has been attacked. So after 9-11, anybody looking remotely Arab (including people from India, Hawaii, anybody with dark hair) could find themselves in danger, and some were attacked without provocation. Then France wouldn't join enthusiastically in the Iraq misadventure, and suddenly the French had cooties, and we got a U.S. Congress establishing Freedom Fries.
In the Enterprise universe, humanity has become xenophobic after the Xindi terrorist attack, and we get a scene of intergalactic racism in a bar, which spills over into an attack on Starfleet for making contact with strange new worlds, and letting them know where earth is so they can come attack it. Trip, Reed and Mayweather defend Phlox.
Yet later in that episode ("Home"), Archer himself echoes some of the barfighters' sentiments, without the racial prejudice: that maybe earth shouldn't be out exploring space and attracting dangerous aliens. He earlier uttered without apparent irony one of the more deceptive Bush phrases justifying his xenophobic "we're Good, they are Evil" stance, when he said that some species "don't share our values." That's Bush's reasoning for why al Qeada attacked America, simplistic at best and pernicious in effect. Terrorism is not defensible, but it's well known that people in the Third World and especially in the Middle East have legitimate grievances, and the political situation in Iraq is much more complex than a battle against insurgents who "hate our freedom." It's actually what Bush thinks---that he and his true believers have the right to attack anybody who doesn't "share their values," which apparently means letting Halliburton run their country.
The idea of xenophobia echoes through these arcs. The other side of xenophobia is a belief in ideological, religious and racial purity, and so the leader of the aliens in Storm Front who are helping the Nazis, talks about their common dream to perfect their respective races. (Pretty funny coming from a guy with a face like his, but that's our prejudice.) The theme of racial superiority continues in the Augments, who believe themselves to be a genetically engineered Master Race.
Racism and prejudice as domestic forms of xenophobia comes through in Storm Front, when Archer sees the Nazi invasion from the point of view of an African American in the 1940s.
The Vulcans are dealing with their own xenophobia, emphasized by the conflict between those who believe in Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, and the High Council leader who provokes a war to further reunification of Vulcans and Romulans, linked by race.
Surak's influence on Archer may heal his xenophobia, and the triumph of the Syranites seems to mean the Vulcans will be dealing with theirs. This is a very appropriate theme for our times, as well as for the times created by Enterprise stories over three years plus 9 episodes.
Star Trek has always taken conflict seriously. Who really is the enemy, and why? What you do depends on your answers to these questions. Star Trek captains have always defended their ships and crew, and innocent life. They did not succumb to revenge---though even Captain Picard was tempted. The best Trek makes careful distinctions, and honors nuance---that word that some tried to make into an accusation of indecision in the recent U.S. election campaign. That's a very dangerous (and illogical) provocation, and the best Trek has always said so.
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