Archer is a prisoner on the Klingon homeworld. He is put on trial as an enemy of the Klingon Empire, accused of willfully aiding Klingon rebels trying to overthrow the Empire. Archer's only ally is his advocate, Kolos (J. G. Hertzler). But in a system of justice where the accused are considered guilty unless proven innocent, Kolos has no interest in offering a defense, leaving Archer seemingly condemned before the charges are even read...
CHARACTERS
Capt. Archer: Scott Bakula gets to spend most of the episode beat up, disheveled, and frustrated - all of which play to his acting strengths, making this one of the more effective Archer episodes of the season. Even if he might save his life, it's not in Archer's character to stand mute for charges that he does not consider valid. He remains prone to judging societies based on tangential contact with them. He admits to having thought of all Klingons as warriors, and is genuinely surprised when Kolos tells him that there are multiple classes in Klingon society. He insists that the refugees are "good people," though we never see enough of the refugees to actually know that they are anything other than simply desperate people.
Kolos: The episode's only other major player is Kolos, Archer's jaded Klingon advocate. Through Kolos, we learn a lot more about pre-TOS Klingon society. The ascendance of the warrior class was a relatively recent phenomenon, for example, with Kolos recalling a time when genuine honor existed among all classes, rather than a simple thirst for "victory - any victory."
For all the cries about Enterprise muddling continuity, here we see a genuine look at the drift toward the war-like TOS and movie Klingons. Effectively, Klingon society experienced a radical rightward shift sometime prior to Enterprise, which continued through the time of the original series. This makes the still-aggressive, but less blatantly warlike Next Generation Klingons less of a radical departure, and more of a natural societal correction. A society will only drift so far to an extreme before it begins drifting back to center. It's a development I like, and perhaps the most interesting addition Enterprise has made to the Trek mythos. It fits perfectly with what we've seen in other series, and expands the context of the various Klingon portrayals beyond what had been seen before.
THOUGHTS
The plot of the episode has strong parallels with Star Trek VI, basically fleshing out the "trial" section of that movie into a full episode. It also adopts some of the structure of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. It's hardly a radical structure for a television episode; the Rashomon-style episode has been a mainstay of television shows since at least the mid-1970's, if not earlier.
But if there's nothing Earth-shatteringly inventive, it is at least a well-told story. The flashbacks are well-integrated into the courtroom narrative. What I like best about the two flashback sequences - the Klingon captain's and Archer's - is that they complement each other. I have no sense that Capt. Duras is deliberately lying when he makes Archer out to be militant and aggressive. Duras probably genuinely perceived the encounter the way he relates it. I would have liked some of the Rashomon sense - that Archer's version was also less than completely accurate, and also filtered through his perceptions - but that would probably be asking too much of a single episode.
James L. Conway directs with a highly visual eye, making good use of lighting and depth to create genuine atmosphere. With excellent performances by Bakula, J. G. Hertzler, and John Vickery, as well as an interesting expansion of what we knew of Klingon history, this is one of the second season's better episodes.
Rating: 8/10.
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