The holidays are over. All the Christmas cookies
and rump roast are long gone. The last seconds of 2003 have
been counted away, but it just doesn't seem like the New Year
until a new episode of Enterprise hits the air.
And there's
no better way to work off those holiday pounds then getting
right back into the ol' exercise program. And Enterprise
has done that, too. Archer and crew pick up this year where
they left off - searching for the Xindi Terrorists in the
Delphic Expanse.
This week,
however, the crew of the Enterprise learns the Xindi aren't
the only extremists in the sector. A crew of Triannon zealots
hijack the Enterprise in an attempt to eliminate those who
oppose their religious views.
And who
says Star Trek is just a silly kids show? From galactic
terrorists to holy wars, this show has got more action than
Alias.
The Triannon
send out a phony distress signal and Archer takes the bait.
Once on board, Triannon leader D'Jamat meets the Captain in
sickbay. Apparently these aliens read ahead on Earth customs,
because he shakes Archer's hand like it's the intergalactic
greeting. Maybe it's one of those universal pleasantries…
like dinner. D'Jamat joins Archer and T'Pol for a glass of
wine and some Earth food.
The Triannon call the Delphic
expanse the chosen realm and believe the Makers - god-like
people - visited this region and built the spheres to alter
reality into a sort of paradise for their return, at which
time all who believe in the Makers will be rewarded and the
others condemned.
T'Pol
believes they're full of crap.
And she
quickly turns dinner into a good old-fashioned heated debate
between religion and science. Wouldn't T'Pol be more reserved
then to argue directly with a man and his faith? No matter
how absurd his beliefs seemed to her - she should know not
to argue. It's just not logical to try to convince someone
their religion is wrong over dinner. Especially when this
man is a guest. Maybe the humans are rubbing off on her more
than she can admit.
But T'Pol
is unable to convince D'Jamat that science is better than
then faith, and he places his followers at key positions all
over Enterprise. Each one is armed with a needle full of an
organic substance that once injected into their blood causes
them to explode.
This is
a whole lot more clever than the Klingons on The Next Generation
who dismantled the cool parts of their uniforms and built
a phaser. And it's a whole lot more disturbing.
Archer
turns over control of the ship to the Triannons, but tells
his engineer, Trip, "This isn't over." And the nightmare
continues. D'Jamat reveals to Archer they're using Enterprise
to eliminate the heretics of their faith - those people who
believe the Chosen Realm was built in ten days instead of
the traditional nine. Furthermore, for desecrating a sphere
Archer must select one member of his crew for execution.
He's so
clever. Archer chooses himself for the execution. And he convinces
D'Jamat to let him use the humane method of evaporation. (Really
the transporter device.) Since the Triannon haven't seen this
technology, when Archer beams away they believe he's been
dismantled on a molecular level, but really he's been sent
to another portion of the ship to regain control. SO CLEVER!
He's able
to get away with it because T'Pol runs the controls. And upstairs
on the bridge, Mayweather continues to man the helm. So the
Triannon know how to shake hands but they can't operate an
alien space craft.
But they
do know how to work its computers. D'Jamat reads through Archer's
logs, calls up all the data on the spheres and then deletes
them. You'd think that a giant starship, with a computer processor
powerful enough to do massive computations would be able to
back files up better. (mmm...Windows NCC-1701...) But instead
we assume all the data on the Xindi spheres is now gone.
At this
point we're straining our memories to call up what the spheres
have to do with this year's storyline. This whole search for
the Xindi thing has become more complicated than Lord
of the Rings. Fortunately the Triannon's faith reminds
us the spheres are responsible for the bizarre anomalies that
plague the Delphic Expanse, and the Xindi use them to hide
their weapon of mass destruction.
All of
this will, undoubtedly, come to some grand conclusion by the
end of the season. Maybe we'll even see the return of the
supposed Makers.
Of course
they'll be bad aliens. It seems that on Star Trek any
time there is a god it turns out to be a lie. With the VERY
happy exception of Deep Space Nine, in which the Prophets,
or wormhole aliens, acted as benevolent gods to the Bajoran
people. That (to my recollection) is the only Star Trek
story where a spiritual theme didn't take an ugly turn.
Archer
has faith, however, in his ability to kick the Triannon off
his ship. And he does, just as they're about to eliminate
a troupe of "heretics."
The Triannon
are then dumped back on their home world, which has undergone
some serious changes. The entire planet has been eradicated
due to their religious war. Another fine tribute to old school
Trek. This is very reminiscent of when Kirk dropped
the checkered faced guys on their planet to be the last fighters
in their race war. ("Let That Be Your Last Battlefield")
The difference
here is that Enterprise zooms away and leaves D'Jamat to contemplate
his extremist views.
Deep.
Next week
the plot thickens… as has been the norm. And we have
the return of the Andorians! More than likely they've collected
the same data that D'Jamat deleted. Or maybe they just have
a really good copy of Norton Unerase. Last season Enterprise
was beaten up beyond repair and then the next week luckily
found an automated space garage. We'll see if the Andorians
have the same convenient fix.
Until
then we'll chalk this week's episode up on the new alien species
rating scale as…
Fake
god (Star Trek V)
As Kirk said, "What does god need with a starship?"
And really what does god need with Enterprise NX-01? If D'Jamat
had thought about it the Makers could have just sent an anomaly
to kill the heretics if they really didn't' want them. Why
did he need a starship?
Just to
be clear, however, this episode was far more entertaining
then Star Trek V…
