Welcome
back to the show we actually enjoy. After two boring and or
confusing episodes, Archer and crew set out on an adventure
worthy of the title Enterprise.
Since
the crew of NX-01 are the first humans to ever go exploring
the final frontier, they are apt to make stupid mistakes.
And the very stupid mistake of losing your cell phone served
as the premise for this week's episode.
While
exploring a pre-warp world, Commander Tucker drops his communicator
at a bar, and the locals believe it's a device used by their
warring neighbors. When Archer and Tucker return to the planet
to get it back they are trapped and sent to a compound by
the local government. They are then interrogated, and treated
as war spies.
We've
seen this sort of thing before. Trek characters have been
integrating with alien people and making some mistake since
the first series. (Most notably in A Piece of the Action,
which ends with a communicator getting left behind. -- Editor)
But since the Enterprise prequel universe is set before quick
and easy dermal surgery, the crew is forced to use the modern
method of disguise: latex.
It's rather
funny to watch characters on Star Trek peeling layers
of latex off their faces. It's like a behind the scenes glimpse
of what they do to Worf after a ten hour shoot. Except these
aliens don't look like cool Klingons, but more like a colony
of Frankensteins.
Still,
we've grown accustomed to generic aliens. Sure, this pre-warp
world is inhabited by people who have different faces and
different guts, but they are still Americans. Every culture
in the galaxy must go through the same timeline as Earth.
And all of them have the same world struggles, with the same
cultural differences, political battles, and the like.
This is
very annoying. The Next Generation explained away why
the entire galaxy is inhabited by "humanoids," but
they didn't explain why every culture is the same. Every world
seems to have taverns, streets and military compounds. Every
world has political leaders, weapons of destruction, and nations
at war. Every world has the same set of etiquette, greetings,
and universal understandings. There are rare cases from episode
to episode, but for the most part the planets are all the
same. On every Star Trek show.
It would
be nice if Enterprise could actually go into the final
frontier, and meet people who act differently. Every world
should be filled with mysterious alien people, not Americans
with latex.
Besides
the mono-cultural views, Communicator was a top-notch
adventure. Next week an unknown disease strikes the Enterprise,
and everyone gets really sick. The original Star Trek, and
TNG also encountered a disease in space, in The Naked Time
and The Naked Now. In both, everyone got a little heated
(this is one of the two times Data got it on).
Let's
see if Enterprise will be inflicted with a sexy parasite.
And with the way Archer and T'Pol have been behaving this
season, I'll bet ten bucks they will experience "sexual
frustration" again. Even if they disease doesn't get
them drunk, they'll be alone on the ship, and hormones will
rise.
Ten bucks.
Any takers?
(I'll
bet ten bucks next week Kevin Miller experiences "sexual
frustration" again. -- Editor)
