THE PLOT
Hoshi is contacted by Tarquin (Maury Sterling), an alien telepath. Tarquin directs her to the planet on which he lives, alone and isolated, an exile from his own people for the crime of being a telepath. He offers her and Archer a deal. In exchange for a few days of Hoshi's company, he will work with the wreckage of the Xindi weapon to find out all the information his abilities can gather about their plans.
Archer's first instinct is to refuse. He can see all too clearly the "inappropriate" nature of Tarquin's interest in Hoshi. But Hoshi thinks the potential rewards are worth the risk. As Archer and Enterprise take a few days' detour to investigate a region of space where T'Pol is certain they will find a second Sphere, Hoshi is left with Tarquin. It isn't long before she discovers that he wants much more than a few days' respite from his isolation. He wants her to stay permanently - and will do anything in his power to make that happen!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Archer: He can sense all the things wrong with leaving his most vulnerable crew member alone on a deserted planet with Tarquin. But faced with the opportunity to gather more intelligence about the Xindi, he allows Hoshi to take the risk against his own better judgment.
Hoshi: The season's first (probably only) Hoshi-centric episode. As someone who quite likes both character and actress, I always find the Hoshi episodes to be good news. With a believable mix of abilities and neuroses, she's the most human of the supporting cast. This made her chronic underuse in Season Two all the more frustrating to me. That same underuse was apparently noticed by the writers, who try to explain away her lack of interaction with others by having Tarquin observe that she "feels isolated" on a ship full of other people. I'm not buying it (she interacted plenty during Season One), but given that she's been much better used thus far in Season Three, I'll let them have the retcon.
Despite the Beauty & the Beast allusions littered throughout the episode, I appreciated that the writers never actually have Hoshi develop a bond with Tarquin. The few scenes in which she lets her guard down a little with him (notably the scene with the psychic-enhancing globe) always end with her raising her guard even more, as he continues to prove himself untrustworthy.
Guest Star of the Week: Maury Sterling is Tarquin, the telepath who tries very hard to form a bond with Hoshi. Refreshingly, he is not evil. He genuinely has no desire to harm anyone. However, he is desperately lonely, and senses a compatible mind in Hoshi - and that makes him dangerous, because he will do just about anything to get Hoshi to stay. He lures her to him by projecting himself as a handsome human male, tries to trick her into staying permanently by projecting himself as Archer, and finally tries to get her to stay under duress. Still, once he calms down, he does honor the terms of his agreement with Hoshi and Archer, and provides some intelligence - though I can't help but wonder if he's holding some back, in hopes of trading more information for more time with the object of his affections.
THOUGHTS
I'm of two minds on breaking up the writing team of Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong. On the one hand, most of Season Two's strongest episodes that weren't written by Berman & Braga were written by them. As a writing team, they worked well collaboratively, and turned out episodes that worked both as good sci-fi action fare and as good Star Trek. On the other hand, their individually-scripted episodes thus far this season have also been effective... and if they're working individually, they should be able to write twice as many episodes.
The Exile is another good episode. As ever, Strong shows a natural aptitude for dramatic structure. Both the "A" plot and the "B" plot are effectively structured, with each scene moving the respective stories forward. Cuts from one story strand to the other are well-judged, with each cutaway coming at a moment that keeps it all feeling like part of a single episode. The Hoshi plot is definitely the "A" plot, but the Archer/Trip plot is given enough time to make an impact.
Direction by Roxann Dawson is effective. She makes good use of CGI effects, both when establishing Tarquin's fairy tale-like palace prison and when landing Archer and Trip on the second sphere. She also uses some practical directing tricks to good effect. A bit in which we jump from "real Phlox" to Tarquin speaking through Phlox" via a 360-degree turn of the camera would not have been outside the abilities of a director in the 1930's, or the 1920's for that matter. But Dawson knows when it's time to use CGI for impact, and when impact can be more successfully achieved by using a simple camera trick. It helps that John Billingsley effectively varies his delivery to make this moment as creepy as possible.
With an effective ending sting which basically acts as a teaser for the next installment of the ongoing Xindi arc, and no overwhelming weaknesses, this is another very strong episode. In Season Two, this would have been among the strongest of the season. In the much-better Season Three, it's still comfortably above average.
Rating: 7/10.
Hoshi is contacted by Tarquin (Maury Sterling), an alien telepath. Tarquin directs her to the planet on which he lives, alone and isolated, an exile from his own people for the crime of being a telepath. He offers her and Archer a deal. In exchange for a few days of Hoshi's company, he will work with the wreckage of the Xindi weapon to find out all the information his abilities can gather about their plans.
Archer's first instinct is to refuse. He can see all too clearly the "inappropriate" nature of Tarquin's interest in Hoshi. But Hoshi thinks the potential rewards are worth the risk. As Archer and Enterprise take a few days' detour to investigate a region of space where T'Pol is certain they will find a second Sphere, Hoshi is left with Tarquin. It isn't long before she discovers that he wants much more than a few days' respite from his isolation. He wants her to stay permanently - and will do anything in his power to make that happen!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Archer: He can sense all the things wrong with leaving his most vulnerable crew member alone on a deserted planet with Tarquin. But faced with the opportunity to gather more intelligence about the Xindi, he allows Hoshi to take the risk against his own better judgment.
Hoshi: The season's first (probably only) Hoshi-centric episode. As someone who quite likes both character and actress, I always find the Hoshi episodes to be good news. With a believable mix of abilities and neuroses, she's the most human of the supporting cast. This made her chronic underuse in Season Two all the more frustrating to me. That same underuse was apparently noticed by the writers, who try to explain away her lack of interaction with others by having Tarquin observe that she "feels isolated" on a ship full of other people. I'm not buying it (she interacted plenty during Season One), but given that she's been much better used thus far in Season Three, I'll let them have the retcon.
Despite the Beauty & the Beast allusions littered throughout the episode, I appreciated that the writers never actually have Hoshi develop a bond with Tarquin. The few scenes in which she lets her guard down a little with him (notably the scene with the psychic-enhancing globe) always end with her raising her guard even more, as he continues to prove himself untrustworthy.
Guest Star of the Week: Maury Sterling is Tarquin, the telepath who tries very hard to form a bond with Hoshi. Refreshingly, he is not evil. He genuinely has no desire to harm anyone. However, he is desperately lonely, and senses a compatible mind in Hoshi - and that makes him dangerous, because he will do just about anything to get Hoshi to stay. He lures her to him by projecting himself as a handsome human male, tries to trick her into staying permanently by projecting himself as Archer, and finally tries to get her to stay under duress. Still, once he calms down, he does honor the terms of his agreement with Hoshi and Archer, and provides some intelligence - though I can't help but wonder if he's holding some back, in hopes of trading more information for more time with the object of his affections.
THOUGHTS
I'm of two minds on breaking up the writing team of Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong. On the one hand, most of Season Two's strongest episodes that weren't written by Berman & Braga were written by them. As a writing team, they worked well collaboratively, and turned out episodes that worked both as good sci-fi action fare and as good Star Trek. On the other hand, their individually-scripted episodes thus far this season have also been effective... and if they're working individually, they should be able to write twice as many episodes.
The Exile is another good episode. As ever, Strong shows a natural aptitude for dramatic structure. Both the "A" plot and the "B" plot are effectively structured, with each scene moving the respective stories forward. Cuts from one story strand to the other are well-judged, with each cutaway coming at a moment that keeps it all feeling like part of a single episode. The Hoshi plot is definitely the "A" plot, but the Archer/Trip plot is given enough time to make an impact.
Direction by Roxann Dawson is effective. She makes good use of CGI effects, both when establishing Tarquin's fairy tale-like palace prison and when landing Archer and Trip on the second sphere. She also uses some practical directing tricks to good effect. A bit in which we jump from "real Phlox" to Tarquin speaking through Phlox" via a 360-degree turn of the camera would not have been outside the abilities of a director in the 1930's, or the 1920's for that matter. But Dawson knows when it's time to use CGI for impact, and when impact can be more successfully achieved by using a simple camera trick. It helps that John Billingsley effectively varies his delivery to make this moment as creepy as possible.
With an effective ending sting which basically acts as a teaser for the next installment of the ongoing Xindi arc, and no overwhelming weaknesses, this is another very strong episode. In Season Two, this would have been among the strongest of the season. In the much-better Season Three, it's still comfortably above average.
Rating: 7/10.
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