Star
Trek: Enterprise has effectively been transformed into
a mini-series. Each episode is only an installment of the
overall story. But unlike most mini-series, this one has stretched
FAR BEYOND sweeps week.
We
pick up the tale as the Enterprise races to meet Degra,
the Xindi council member. His character has morphed considerably
over the past half dozen episodes. He started as a diabolical
militaristic engineer who helped design a weapon that killed
seven million humans. However, tiny seeds of guilt have
blossomed in his heart, growing into a flourishing tree
of peace. Well, his character growth may not be that
dramatic, but it certainly is worthy of some word picture.
Captain
Archer attempts to convince Degra the Xindi council has
been lied to by time traveling alternate universe aliens.
While Degra reviews Archer's evidence, a plasma conduit
on the Enterprise erupts. Trip and Reed rush to stop the
fountain of hot green plasma, while Degra stands on the
bridge like a casual observer. Later he just chills in astrometrics,
while Trip gives him a penny's worth of thoughts about the
Xindi and their terrorist actions.
Degra has
earned an awful lot of sudden trust if he can stand on an
enemy's ship without a security team or any noticeable precautions.
Guilt does funny things to people. T'Pol, however, is suffering
from more then just guilt. More then even Trillium D abuse.
She's suffering from AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL SYNDROME.
It's
a fatal disease which forces message-driven content down
the throats of viewers. The outcome, however, will undoubtedly
be a transformation of her character. At the start of the
season the writers talked about letting more of T'Pol's
emotions leak through her crisp Vulcan shell. If they didn't
want an emotionally restricted character on the show, then
they should not have written in a Vulcan. To fix this, they're
rewriting her character in a very unnatural and annoying
fashion. Look forward to T'Pol expressing her newfound emotional
abilities in episodes to come. Basically, she'll be a human
with pointy… ears.
This
will, of course, make Trip an extra happy man. Their neural
pressure sessions have grown way past the point that steamy
makes an adequate adjective. And with T'Pol's use of passion,
Trip could be in for more then just neural pressure (again).
But
this week his attention has turned to a rather touching
subplot. Asked to write a condolences letter to the parents
of a fallen crewmember, Trip is forced to deal with the
loss of his friends and sister in a very real way. This
has been an excellent opportunity for Connor Trinneer to
show off some of his finer acting abilities.
Most
of "The Forgotten" was spent bouncing around the ship, highlighting
bits and pieces of the crew's relationships. Just another
day in space fighting alien terrorists. And in the grand
scheme of the series, "The Forgotten" will most likely become
just that.
Next
week's episode boasts that it's an episode for all time,
but it smells like a plot from Voyager. Enterprise
will run into their future descendants. The second generation
crew, sons and daughters of Archer, Phlox and T'Pol, meet
their parents in a bizarre universe collision. Will the
Galileo 7 make an appearance? Editor Derek McCaw has just
doubled his bet.
Until
next week, let's. score this week's episode on the alien
rating scale…
Paxans
They erased the minds of Picard's crew but accidentally
left behind little clues. Not able to turn down a mystery
the crew rediscovered the Paxans and were almost annihilated.
But who remembers them, really?
