THE PLOT
The Enterprise is dead in space, with its entire crew unconscious, as they receive boarders: a Ferengi crew, looking for acqusitions. The crew's captain resuscitates Archer and interrogates him for the location of the ship's vault. After seeing that these aliens will not believe the truth, Archer crafts a plan to create discord among their ranks, by pitting them against each other for the contents of an elusive (and nonexistant) store of gold bars. Meanwhile, Trip - saved from the knockout agent by being in decontamination - and T'Pol assist Archer in making this deception a reality.
CHARACTERS
Capt. Archer: On Quantum Leap, Scott Bakula regularly got to show his abilities at comedy, often giving his sharpest performances when allowed to cut loose. On Enterprise, his role as ship's captain has constrained him considerably more. It is little surprise to see Bakula having a whale of a time with a comic episode. Archer is getting better and better at thinking on his feet. Here, he sizes up the Ferengi's essential character very quickly, and spins it instantly to his advantage.
T'Pol: Long since fully integrated into the crew, she partners seamlessly with Trip to make Archer's plan work. She seems to enjoy playing the seductress with the hapless Krem, and also briefly teases the captain with his own words about her before finally freeing him. Blalock does perhaps push this humorous characterization a bit to the edge, given that Vulcans are supposed to aggressively repress their emotions. But I thought she stayed just the right edge of that line most of the time, and - like Bakula - she seemed to rather enjoy playing comedy, for a change.
Trip: Very resourceful in this episode. He knows well enough, once he gets himself out of decontamination, to stay out of the aliens' sight while surreptitiously making contact with Archer. When Krem shows a little too much interest in T'Pol, he hides, but lingers close by in case Krem crosses any lines, showing his protectiveness of her.
Villain of the Week: Within Trek chronology, this episode marks the first appearance of the Ferengi, here unnamed (presumably to keep it just barely consistent that, more than a century later, the Federation still didn't know what Ferengi looked like). Thankfully, the episode doesn't go the early TNG route of trying to make the Ferengi sinister - which never worked. Instead, they are largely comic villains, clearly outmatched in wits by the Enterprise crew. Krem is essentially Quark's put-upon brother from Deep Space 9, though his interest in T'Pol does have an unsavory element to it. Ulis is Quark, pure greed, only without the inherent likability. Muk is the most purely villainous of the lot, with a clear violent streak... but even he never really appears to be a threat to the regulars. Essentially, it's the Three Stooges as baddies (well, plus the extra one, who has no discernable character).
THOUGHTS
Enterprise's first outright comedy episode is surprisingly successful, in my opinion. I was initially unsure what to expect, with an extended opening from the Ferengi viewpoint, with all dialogue in Ferengi. Only when Archer was revived did I realize that yes, it was going to be a comic episode. From there, it built steadily, getting more and more amusing as it went, until I was totally caught up in the absurdity of the situation as one of the Ferengi attempts to interrogate Porthos while admiring the size of the beagle's lobes.
Jeffrey Combs returns to the series, this time as the hapless Krem. This role allows him to toss away the angry characterization he brought to Shran, and just go with the humor. It's nice to see Combs' comic skills put to good use, and he and Bakula play particularly well off each other.
I do wonder if the other regulars beyond the three leads were a bit annoyed at an episode that literally has them lying around doing nothing for the whole hour. That said, I think it was the right choice to limit the "revived" regular cast to just Archer, T'Pol, and Trip. With three humans and four Ferengi, the conflicts and interplay is kept tightly focused, in a way that would not have been possible had Reed and Hoshi and Phlox and Mayweather been thrown into the mix as well.
It is surprising to find such an outright comedic script from the writing team behind Dear Doctor. Then again, this pair also wrote Breaking the Ice, which did have some nice comic touches (such as the Vulcan snowman). In any case, Maria and Andre Jacquemetton now have three distinctly different episodes to their credit, all three of which I've enjoyed thoroughly. They have definitely become writers whose names I look forward to seeing on Enterprise scripts, as it appears that they have a real feel for these characters that some of the other, more generic scriptwriters lack.
Extremely silly (and bizarre that Archer never thinks to find out the name of this alien race), but fun. And no, I don't care one whit if it potentially conflicts with TNG's The Last Outpost - Sorry, but I somehow just can't get worked up about an enjoyable hour of television causing continuity problems with a genuinely terrible episode made more than a decade previously.
Rating: 7/10
Previous Episode: Rogue Planet
Next Episode: Oasis
Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Enterprise
Review Index
No comments:
Post a Comment