During
the 1990's, humanity was tested by the Eugenics War. You remember,
right? World powers created super armies led by such unforgettable
warlords as Khan Noonian Singh. It was all over the news…
Original
Star Trek's Space Seed detailed the horrific
events when Khan tried to take over the old school Enterprise.
We all remember that Kirk plopped Khan down on some remote
planet, and then showed up 20 years later to do Star Trek
II.
The 90's
came and went and thankfully there was a fast food war but
no Eugenics War. However, reality shouldn't change the Star
Trek universe. Star Trek is, admittedly, a parallel
universe, different from our own. So when Khan was launched
into space in 1996 the crew of Voyager should not have been
able to zoom back in time to Earth. Thankfully, we're not
reviewing Voyager here.
Just how
far off is Enterprise? Starting with the pilot episode,
the show has been screwing up the time line. But that's to
justify new alien races and events never before mentioned
on Star Trek, not to rewrite the continuity… Or
is it?
It's really
hard to believe that America in the year 2004, just years
after the Eugenics War, would look anything like our America.
(And we're not even going to go into the fact that by now
the US is part of a world union, or that there are now 52
states - TNG: The Royale). But Archer and T'Pol both
find themselves transported to Detroit, Michigan to look for
some Xindi reptilian terrorists. And everything looks just
fine.
"Carpenter
Street," while only featuring three regular cast members
(Mayweather, Hoshi, Phlox and Reed never make it on screen)
is the first episode of the season guest starring Lt. Daniels.
He's the 30th century time traveler assigned to watch over
Enterprise, and Archer's only informant on the temporal cold
war… which by now is probably a room temperature temporal
war.
We've
gone ten episodes without checking in on the Temporal War
that got Enterprise into Xindi land to begin with. It's just
been Xindi, Xindi, Xindi, cowboys and Xindi all season long.
It's nice
to revisit the continuity line that got the series off in
the first place. And this episode marks the death of T'Pol's
unexplainable disbelief in time travel. Seeing is believing.
Or at least time traveling is believing.
In the
past/present/futurepast, Archer and T'Pol discover there are
some advantages of being from the future.
For example,
stealing cars and tricking ATMs is really easy with a tricorder.
But there must be something in the air of the Detroit 2004
because it instantly makes Vulcan dialogue more Vulcan. The
word logic pops out every other sentence. And simple tasks
are explained in great detail.
Sure,
it's funny to hear T'Pol question the operating procedures
of a truck, but her vocabulary changes way too much to make
these scenes work.
Maybe
she's suffering from time jump lag. That would explain why
she's never seen someone smoke a cigarette before. She lived
on Earth for years, and she never saw a picture of someone
smoking? And when they were on the cowboy world no one lit
up then, either? Riiiiight.
When the
crew was on the cowboy world the camera work reflected the
change of scenery. Same thing happened here… in Detroit.
There is a lot of hand held action, and almost unnatural pushes
(or zooms) on people's faces. Instead of cutting different
shots, an entire scene is taken from one roll. It gives it
that sort of NYPD Blue feel. And it's as out of place
as T'Pol's dialogue.
One redeeming
element is the character Loomis. The performance by Leland
Orser seems unsettled - like he's trying to be a serious Owen
Wilson. But some of the subtle character logic is amusing.
Contracted by the Xindi, Loomis uses his day job at the blood
bank to hunt down 8 different people with 8 different blood
types. He profiles them, tricks them, knocks them out, and
then drags them into the Xindi warehouse where their blood
is used to create a biological weapon.
So he
chooses his victims based on accessibility. Prostitutes that
walk the street are easy to pick up. A guy on a wheel chair
is easy to roll around. One of the two best scenes is him
scanning the files choosing his next target and skipping over
people who live on the 9th story of their building.
The other
good scene is when T'Pol and Archer finish their mission -
just seconds after their departure from Trip's p.o.v. - and
the cargo bay is filled with all the time line artifacts.
Anything from the 22nd century Archer and T'Pol tagged is
dragged back with them to their rightful place in time. Those
30th century time travelers may leap with efficiency, but
walking into a cargo bay will never be as cool as the DeLorean.
But now
Archer has one of the two weapons the Xindi were going to
create to destroy humanity. They also have three more reptilian
Xindi and a handful of their technology. This should change
the direction of their hunt for the weapon.
The hunt,
however, will not continue till the New Year. Just like last
year, in episode 10 we meet Daniels and then take the rest
of the year off, with new episodes starting in January.
Before
we go boldly into the New Year this week's episode, on the
Alien Species Scale, scores an…
