When will
they learn? You don't go down to an alien planet in a section
of the galaxy where the laws of physics are different and
bad alien dudes swarm like killer bees! Period
...
...
Well we
really can't end there, can we?
After
a quick and mysterious teaser, we come back from commercials
to find Trip continuing his "sessions" with T'Pol.
In the season opener it was an excuse for the two of them
to get naked. This week it's just Trip - sorry, guys. And
we learn something valuable about the future: they don't wear
socks!
Archer's
blood thirst for the Xindi brings the crew to a tropical planet
where he believes he'll be one step closer to the aliens who
are terrorizing Earth. Unfortunately when Enterprise knocks,
no one is home. Archer, T'Pol, the armory office Reed, and
the linguist Hoshi form a landing party. (Why is the linguist
part of an away mission on an empty planet… ?) They find
burned bodies and a scorched landscape around a broken alien
vessel.
Suddenly,
everyone goes alien werewolf. The night sky seems to transform
the crew instantly into fleshly lizard people with long hair,
big eyes, and giant swelling air sacks on their necks. T'Pol,
of course, is immune.
Back on
Enterprise Dr. Phlox tries to persuade Trip to stay off the
surface for fear they would be transformed, too. But don't
worry, says Trip, we'll be wearing space suits…
WAIT
A SECOND HERE -
People
have been miraculously transformed to the point that they're
not even registering as humans in a matter of minutes. And
they can assume bio suits will protect them? There is more
on a planet than atmosphere. Gravity, for example. Light.
How about radiation?
Yes, yes,
if they don't explore the show would be boring - but they're
not on a mission of exploration and fact finding. They're
hunting for terrorists! Some precautions might be nice.
But before
we go interjecting logic let's look at some of the bonuses
of this episode. The performances by Bakula, Keating and Park
(Archer, Reed and Hoshi) are very impressive. The Star
Trek casting folks have a long list of people that do
creature aliens really well. The same group shows up as different
aliens on different episodes. At first glance you'd think
three of these actors replaced the stars when they became
alien werewolves. But they actually were played by the stars
themselves. Their movements and odd alien voices are believable
and very captivating.
And thanks
to Hoshi being among them, T'Pol has the tools to communicate
with them and their newly learned alien language (that's why
the linguist tagged along - ohhhhh). Once they start speaking
English the alien stars aren't as interesting - but still
the mystery of why they transformed keeps the plot moving
along.
It's revealed
that the people who formerly ruled this planet suddenly couldn't
reproduce. So they fashioned a virus that altered aliens'
DNA to their own, in order to repopulate their species. The
virus spread like an epidemic, and local worlds, afraid of
it spreading, work to destroy all those exposed to it. One
of these neighboring planets finds Enterprise has infected
crew members, and threatens to destroy everyone in the name
of quarantine.
During
negotiations Trip delivers a speech so balanced and reasoned
it could've come from Picard's mouth himself. He's able to
keep the aggressors at bay long enough to beam the away team
back to Enterprise - which is saying something when the transporter
is just as likely to work as it is to twist your molecules
into a biochemical jambalaya.
Dr. Phlox
is fortunate enough to create a vaccine for the virus, and
Archer, now in original human form, gives it freely to the
alien aggressors. Totally in volition of the prime directive.
Which is OK, because there isn't a prime directive, yet. Then
again, even Kirk tried to steal the Romulan cloaking device.
Just before
the credits roll Archer has Phlox keep the last of the virus
on ice, to preserve the memory of the people who created it.
A fitting gesture, since they're afraid the human race could
be wiped out. But also a very dangerous one. Knowing how the
writers for Enterprise love to re-incorporate mistakes, we
just might see the deadly mutagen again (but next time everyone
will become Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).
On my
new species ratings scale this week's episode scores an …
Old
School Ferengi. The first time we met the Ferengi
they bounced all around, sniffed things, and contorted their
hands and necks as they talked. And most fitting: one of the
first Ferengi ever was none other than Armin Shimerman - who
later played the leading role Quark, on Deep Space Nine.
Next week
on Enterprise:
The naked knob is turned up to eleven when a super bi-sexual
bi-species, bi-everything sex slave is turned loose on the
crew. This makes up for the past two weeks where no one's
been naked.
WAIT
A SECOND HERE - 
