THE PLOT
The Enterprise's voyage brings it to Terra Nova. No, not the high-stakes test used in some U. S. middle schools, but rather the first Earth colony set up outside the Earth's solar system, in the time before warp technology. The colony fell out of contact with Earth about two generations earlier, and its fate has remained a mystery ever since.
What the Enterprise crew discover is a planet whose atmosphere is permeated with low-level radiation: harmless in the short term, but lethal given any long-term exposure. They do discover the descendants of the original colonists, however, alive and living in a network of caves near the original colony. The Terra Novans are hostile and suspicious, however, their fractured knowledge of their ancestors just enough to believe that "humans" (they don't realize that they, themselves, are human) destroyed the colony and drove them underground.
Now Archer must make the colony's leaders understand their shared heritage - a task given great urgency when Reed is injured and held captive within the caves, and even more urgency when Dr. Phlox discovers that the ground water in the caves has become contaminated, and that the Terra Novans will die within a few years if they aren't moved soon!
CHARACTERS
This plays out like a recycled Next Generation or Voyager script. Archer is entirely interchangeable with Picard or Janeway here. T'Pol might as well be Tuvok or Data; Reed might as well be Riker; Mayweather might as well be wallpaper. As such, I'm not going to waste my time talking about the characters this time out. There aren't any character revelations, or even any interesting character beats.
THOUGHTS
Oh, dear. When I asked, in my review of Strange New World, when this show was going to start sucking, I meant it rhetorically. I certainly wasn't prompting the next disc to loudly answer, "RIGHT NOW!!!"
This was even worse than Unexpected. Much worse, in fact. This is the first Enterprise episode that feels like a stale retread of the kind of episodes that made Next Generation "filler" episodes and Voyager often painful. The heroic captain must talk uncooperative natives around to learning the error of their ways, saving these simple folk from themselves. Of course, he gets to display a bit of heroism at a critical point, thus winning the natives' trust and saving the day for everyone. Yippee!
Zzzz...
Honestly, I'd rather Archer had taken T'Pol's suggestion and transplanted the Terra Novans by force. That would have been consistent with Archer's character flaws, and possibly would have created consequences that would have pointed the way toward the need for the establishment of the Prime Directive. It might have taken this tired concept and done something interesting with it, by showing the crew doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Most of all, it would have had the potential of turning this into an episode of Enterprise. If I want to watch a "Picard (or Janeway) Displays Superior Morality (Again)" filler episode, I could easily rent episodes of those series. Enterprise sold itself on the promise of being a very different Trek. This episode is the same old stuff, only staler.
Too many more like this might well stop my Enterprise voyage short. That said, I do hold out some hope for The Andorian Incident - but I think I'll take refuge in the cheesy, safely entertaining confines of TOS before I attempt it. This was just... really, really, really bad.
Rating: 2/10. "Let That Be Your Last Next Generation Episode."
Previous Episode: Unexpected
Next Episode: The Andorian Incident
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