4-6. The Augments.

THE PLOT

Dr. Soong and his augments have successfully taken the augment embryos from Cold Station 12. Archer and his crew only barely have time to save themselves from Malik's final trap, allowing Soong another substantial head start before they can pursue.

Soong crosses into Klingon space, setting course for a new hiding place to give his embryos a chance to mature. But Malik does not wish to simply run and hide, and hatches a scheme to pit the Klingons at war with Earth by launching a bio-weapon against a Klingon colony!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: There's a rather amusing scene in which Archer uses the Universal Translator to impersonate a Klingon. He chooses his words carefully to be as belligerent and dismissive as possible, and manages to pull off the bluff. Compare with the Archer who blathered near-incoherently at the Klingon captain in Unexpected and nearly got the Enterprise destroyed for his troubles, and it shows how far experience has taken him.

T'Pol/Trip: The interaction between these two has become strained. Trip doesn't behave with any hostility toward T'Pol, and he does understand why she went through her marriage, but he has been avoiding her. When T'Pol finally confronts him about that, Trip explains himself well.  He shows genuine grace when he stammers out telling T'Pol that though he hated what she did, he was proud of her for doing it. Trinneer and Blalock do an excellent job with this scene, a good character moment in a largely action-intensive episode.

Dr. Soong: Spends much of the episode in denial about the precariousness of his position. He expects his "children" to obey his orders without question, and he treats Malik very much like a recalcitrant child. He is snapped out of his denial only when it becomes clear that Malik and the other augments intend to start a war between Earth and the Klingons. Brent Spiner remains very good in this role, and his performance has easily been the highlight of these three episodes.

Villain of the Week: Having already achieved full-fledged psychotic status in the last episode, there really isn't anyplace further to take Alec Newman's Malik. As a result, his character here is simply more of the same, only ever more violent. He does appear to have an inexplicable ability to survive an exploding ship, though, given his presence in a frankly bizarre ending sting.


THOUGHTS

Last episode's cliffhanger is rather quickly tied up, though the spectacle of Archer being beamed aboard while being hurled out of the station into space is an eye-popping visual.

This episode is not as good as Cold Station 12 was. There's nothing here as gripping as the scene from last episode, when Malik exposed one hostage to a contagion in order to force information out of another hostage. Still, with Mike Sussman in the writer's chair, we are assured of solid story structure and plenty of forward momentum. The climax, as Enterprise arrives just as the bio-weapon is released, is an effective suspense bit. It also seems clear that this subplot exists to lay groundwork for a future arc involving the Klingons, so I wasn't certain the Enterprise would actually succeed in stopping the weapon's release.

Not everything works. The not-quite-ending sting with Malik somehow appearing on Enterprise to attack Soong is as silly as it is unnecessary. Malik's character, which showed signs of being 3-dimensional in the previous two installments, devolves into a simple "one note psycho," and his scenes quickly become tedious. Still, the fast pace and strength of the overall arc carries the episode over such speed bumps, and I feel generous enough toward the full arc to award solid marks:


Rating: 7/10.

Overall Rating for "The Augments" arc: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Cold Station 12

Next Episode: The Forge

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