THE PLOT
Archer and T'Pol have found the Syrranites, T'Pau (Kara Zediker) among them. T'Pau reveals that the Vulcan who guided them across the desert was actually Syrran, the group's leader. Before he died, Syrran melded with Archer - passing along the ancient katra of Surak, the father of Vulcan logic. Now Archer must use Surak's knowledge to complete Syrran's quest, a search for an ancient Vulcan artifact known as the kir'shara.
Meanwhile, the Vulcan High Command, led by the imperious V'las (Robert Foxworth), is planning a devastating strike against the Syrranites' sanctuary in The Forge. But first V'las has to get Enterprise to withdraw from orbit - by force, if necessary!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Archer: His distrust of Vulcans remains evident, and he is not pleased to learn that he is now the carrier of Surak's katra. He does not fully trust T'Pau, though he quickly comes around to believing that neither she nor the Syrranites had anything to do with the embassy bombing.
T'Pol: I like that T'Pol calls her mother on T'Pau's behavior, directly stating that T'Pau's willingness to force Archer into a dangerous ritual is just as much a perversion of Surak's teachings as the High Command's actions have been. She is disappointed in her mother's participation with a group she views as dangerous extremists.
Trip: As in past episodes, when placed in command of Enterprise, Trip does a creditable job. He has already pushed Soval to do what's necessary to identify the bomber. Here, he collaborates with the Vulcan on a plan to recover Archer and T'Pol, while dealing with V'loss. When he is unable to get V'las to accept Enterprise's presence in Vulcan's orbit, he simply observes that there's "not a lot he can do about it," and moves on to the next task. He would probably have been right, if V'las didn't become so downright obsessive about staging a Syrranite massacre.
Ambassador Soval: "There is a great deal that needs to be said," he grits to the High Command when he is called before them, "But no one is willing to listen." This arc is serving Gary Graham's performance exceptionally well. He gets some particularly good scenes opposite Trip, with the emotional engineer making a natural foil for Soval's stoicism. I didn't buy Soval's thinly-motivated choice to hold onto a particular piece of information until the cliffhanger, however.
The Vulcans: Surak's katra allows us a glimpse of the planet's violent past. We see from Surak's distant vantage the explosions and devastation in the desert, then later the radioactive rains falling on Vulcan. Surak urges Archer to do what is necessary to prevent this history from repeating itself. This seems almost over-the-top, until we see that V'las actually is planning not only a massacre of some dissidents, but a full-fledged, interplanetary war. Refreshingly, we do see others in the High Command starting to question his actions, though the High Command seems (not entirely plausibly) to lack any mechanism for stopping a leader who is becoming unhinged.
Villain of the Week: Robert Foxworth trots out his bad guy routine again as V'las, who is emerging as by far the least interesting aspect of this arc. Instead of a culture of corruption within the Vulcan High Command, we see that the root of the problem is all down to a single bad guy who harbors an almost comical bloodlust against the Syrranites. As of yet, we have no indication of why he feels such a need to wipe the Syrranites out now, using means so violent that they are certain to raise questions even among Vulcans. This keeps him from seeming like a genuine ruthless politician, and makes him seem more like... Well, a calmer version of Malik. I hope there's a bit more shading and actual motivation for his acts in Part 3.
SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT...
Syrran possessed Surak's katra long before Archer did, and he was in the desert for years searching for this artifact. He plants that katra on Archer just before he dies... and Archer can go through a life-threatening procedure, then pop up and find the elusive artifact within about 5 minutes! Maybe Syrran really liked the desert and was stretching out his search a bit? Otherwise, that thread of the plot is just a little hard to swallow.
THOUGHTS
The increasingly irrational acts of V'las keep this from being as strong an installment as The Forge, but it's still a good episode. The scenes involing the Vulcan High Command are the episode's weakest. Fortunately, V'las is more there to drive the external threat, the mechanisms of the plot, rather than to act as a focus for our interest. The meat of the episode takes place among the Syrranites, and these scenes are interesting.
I appreciated that T'Pau is not portrayed in purely heroic terms. She clearly has the same disdain for humans that the High Command shares, and is perfectly willing to risk Archer's life simply to ensure that Surak's katra won't be inside an unworthy human. This feels in line with the old woman we meet in Amok Time, who is sufficiently annoyed at Spock bringing humans to a Vulcan ritual that she deliberately withholds information about the nature of the ritual until it is too late.
Ultimately, Awakening works because of the strength of the Syrranite plot strand and the entertainment of the Trip/Soval scenes. This 3-parter remains on-track to be a series highlight - but it's going to be up to Part Three to see if it will reach its potential.
Rating: 8/10.
Previous Episode: The Forge
Next Episode: Kir'Shara
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