Let's ignore
the countless episodes of Star Trek ripped off by this
week's installment of Enterprise. A human and an alien
are trapped on a planet together and forced to get along or
die.
Look into
this shiny silver thing.
FLASH
--
Enterprise
Dawn
original airdate: 01-08-03
This week's episode of Enterprise was a brand new premise
never done by any other show!
Trip tests
the new autopilot upgrades in a tight network of moons, when
suddenly an alien scout ship fires on him, splashing them
both down on one of the moons. Though Trip attempts to fix
his transceiver to speak with Enterprise, the alien who shot
him down steals it.
Our man
Trip hunts down the alien's camp and tricks the green-skinned
lizard man into leaving the transceiver unguarded. But instead
of just snatching up all the pieces of his valuable radio,
Trip hangs around and appears to try and fix it. Or maybe
he was collecting all the broken parts, and when he heard
the lizard man return he threw it back on the ground. This
was not clear.
What is
clear was the hostile nature of the alien. Zho'Khaan (Gregg
Henry) fires on Trip and forces him to fix the transceiver.
And Trip, without the aid of a universal translator, is still
able to understand key phrases such as "try any funny
business and you're dead." This must be a universal saying,
something every culture in the galaxy uses as bad dialogue
in their TV shows.
Meanwhile,
Brad Greenquist as Khata'n Zshaar, Zho'Khaan's superior, uses
his booming voice and fascinating mannerisms to intimidate
the crew of Enterprise. Archer wants to work with him to find
their crew members, and Khata'n Zshaar just wants to tear
his body into pieces.
On the
surface of the desert moon Trip is cut and Zho'Khaan uses
his magical lizard spit to instantly regenerate his skin.
Trip has a habit of swapping bodily fluids with green-skinned
aliens. Last season he got pregnant after fooling around on
a holodeck, and now a humanoid dilophosaurus gives him the
kiss of life. He gets around.
Once Trip
gets the transceiver working, he unties Zho'Khaan to help
him carry it up the mountain, where it will have a better
chance of sending a signal to Enterprise. Unfortunately the
only help Zho'Khaan offers is a good old fashion ass cleaning.
They fight until they are literally shoving each other around
on the ground, too tired to throw punches. Being the cowboy
he is, Trip still offers a chance to Zho' to help him.
Here's
where things get sticky. As the sun rises the moon warms up
to a cool 170 degrees, and neither Zho' or Trip will last
too long. Zho's body begins to enter cellular decay so transporting
him isn't an option. Again being the cowboy he is, Trip doesn't
want to leave without his buddy. He risks his life waiting
for the aliens to alter their shuttle pod to fly safely through
the moon's atmosphere and rescue them.
Here are
some plans no one thought of:
1. Beam
down water for Zho to drink and regain health enough to be
transported.
2. Beam down shelter to block out the 170 degrees of death.
3. Beam down Zho's relatives to spit on him till he got better.
Sure the
transporter isn't that reliable, but it still works.
Hey look
at that shiny thing.
FLASH
--
Enterprise
Dawn
original airdate: 01-08-03
This week's episode of Enterprise featured a very interesting
race of aliens. Last season was heavy with cool new villains
every week - but this year we haven't run into that many new
bad guys. With great performances from Brad Greenquist as
Khata'n Zshaar we can look forward to more appearances of
the green-skinned, defensive, deceiving, health spitting aliens*.
Until
then, buy Men In Black II on DVD, available at Amazon.com.
*and
no I don't know how to spell their names so I'm not even going
to try.
