The
Star Trek franchise has always boldly explored the human condition
while teaching good morals and life lessons. The lesson this
week? Even in space people are forced to deal with automated
telemarketers.
However,
in the future telemarketers don't just leave bizarre messages
on your answering machine, they also have gigantic robot arms,
complete with industrial replicates perfect for fixing broken
star ships. And in the future, humans become really gullible.
At least
Captain Archer had a "bad feeling" about letting an unmanned
alien space station repair Enterprise. But his gut didn't
start talking until about 25 minutes into the show. Granted,
Archer didn't get to see the trailer for this weeks episode,
thus sneaking a peak of a dead Lt. Mayweather, so he wasn't
screaming at the screen like the rest of us, "DON'T GO IN
THERE." Maybe he just forgot to trust his instincts.
Suspension
of memory seemed to be rampant this week. Here's a good question.
WHERE WERE THE VULCANS? Every other week the humans
are beating Vulcan ships off like flies. The pointy-eared
logic lovin' fools have been constantly pestering Enterprise.
No one even excused the Vulcans by saying "The nearest Vulcan
ship is 10 months away - detained at a Trek Convention," or
something. But if the characters remembered everything every
time then there wouldn't be much of a story.
Things
were never the same between Trip and Reed after the
incident in the decontamination chamber.
These
two moments of memory lapse can be quickly overlooked when
compared to the amazing detail included in Dead Stop.
The amount of consistency could make this week's episode part
2 from last week's, when an ancient Romulan mine field blasted
a chunk from the saucer section, and the crew was forced to
release a panel of the hull plating to escape a second mine's
destruction. So let's give credit where credit is due: at
least the writers remember what they wrote last week.
And so
are technical directors. The alien ship displayed a holographic
readout of the Enterprise and its needed repairs, with the
mine-damaged section in red. A closer look revealed a second
patch of red, where the panel of hull plating was released.
And if that wasn't impressive enough, Commander Trip made
a callback to the pilot episode, when he scratched the paint
with a shuttle pod.
It's
as if all the minds of the Enterprise creative staff
have been woven together in some sort of bioelectric interface.
Speaking
of minds woven together in some sort of bioelectric interface,
we've sort of met the builders of the repair station before.
In the episode Fight or Flight, Captain Archer and
crew found an alien ship that had been attacked and its crew
subjected to a gruesome harvesting experiment (oddly enough,
Hoshi referenced that episode as the first time she'd seen
dead people - probably to subliminally remind us, or pay homage
to Bruce Willis). The aliens who harvested the ship tried
to attack Enterprise but never revealed their faces. At the
time, some fans that write Enterprise reviews for Fanboyplanet.com
suspected these aliens to be Romulans - but have since changed
my mind - ah, his mind - their minds…damn this being coy.
But we
probably won't find out more about these guys next week, because
we're taking a night to enjoy watching T'Pol and Captain Archer
explore the pains and pleasure of sexual tension. Captain
Archer is in for a bad time - little does he know Vulcans
are only in the mood once every seven years.
And so
Enterprise forges on to further our understanding of
life, living and sexual frustration.
