THE PLOT
With the Tellarites and Andorians having made an alliance for the first time in history, the Romulan mission to destabilize their region of space has backfired badly. But the Romulans have a last push to salvage the situation. A second drone ship is ready. As soon as the first drone is repaired and the pilot is recovered, both ships will launch with a mission to destroy Enterprise!
Meanwhile, T'Pol has traced the drone's brainwave patterns. The closest known match is Andorian, but Shran corrects that statement. The brainwave is actually that of an Aenar, an Andorian subspecies that lives in the coldest part of the planet. Archer and Shran beam down to make contact with the reclusive Aenar, to try to identify the drone pilot. They find Jhamel (Alexandra Lydon), the sister of the Aenar who was abducted by the Romulans. She wants to go with them to help her brother. But the Aenar elders oppose this plan, and are willing to use their telepathic abilities to keep Archer and Shran from finding the way out to return to Enterprise!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Archer: A bit less in the foreground in this episode than has been the case, though he and Jeffrey Combs continue to show how well they play opposite each other. Beyond that, Archer is in "captain" mode for the entire episode, with other characters being allowed the spotlight for a change.
T'Pol: Though it's clearly conveyed to the viewers that she still has feelings for Trip, she is determined not to show it. Working closely with Trip on the telepathy chair, she focuses with absolute intensity on the work. She insists on performing multiple experiments to see if the chair works, even when it becomes clear that it isn't safe.
Trip: After the battle with the drones, he discovers that there was a very minor problem with the chair he constructed. He worries that his feelings for T'Pol are distracting him from his work. This leads to a genuinely very good scene with Archer, which ends the episode on a cliffhanger of a different sort - an emotional one, which leaves us wondering what will happen with Trip now.
Shran: Though he doesn't get anything as intense as the "blood" scene in United, Jeffrey Combs continues to impress. I like the way he plays Shran's loss of balance. Both before and after the accident scene, Combs remembers that he is off-balance and walks just a bit off-kilter, as though constantly dizzy. He is harsh in his dealings with the Aenar, but surprisingly compassionate in his one-on-one conversation with Jhamel. As the episode goes along, seeds are planted for a potential romance with the Aenar girl, one which we probably would have seen blossom had the series survived.
Hot Alien Space Babe of the Week: Alexandra Lydon is Jhamel, the Aenar who agrees to go with Archer and Shran to try to help her brother. She seems to know early on that the most she can really do is help to stop him from causing further destruction. She works as a character for two reasons: First, because she is rebelling against her culture, eager to see something beyond the Aenar city. Second, because Lydon is very appealing, and the bond she forms with Shran is convincing even with limited screen time to develop it. Though the Aenar themselves are not particularly interesting, Jhamel, is a character who would have been well worth a return visit.
Romulans: Valdore (Brian Thompson) reflects that all Romulans are soldiers, "from the moment (they) are born." He recalls when he was a senator, how he made the mistake of questioning whether conquest was truly in the best long-term interests of the Empire, and how he was expelled for daring to question. He does not tell that story to evoke sympathy, but as an object lesson: If you're a Romulan, you're a soldier. Forget that at your peril. Refreshingly, this look at the character's more thoughtful side does not result in him abruptly renouncing warfare or anything. He is just as ruthless at the end as he was at the beginning. What the scene does accomplish is to make Valdore into something more than just a 2-dimensional baddie, so that we feel for him when he faces the inevitable price of failure at the end.
THOUGHTS
The conclusion to the "Alliance" arc, The Aenar isn't nearly as good as the two preceding installments. It feels as if there was maybe another episode in here. Perhaps, given that the initial drone plot was resolved last episode, this should have been broken up into two 2-parters, with one or two standalone episodes separating them?
I'd readily trade the likes of Daedalus for more screen time to flesh out the Aenar as a culture. Let Archer and Shran's visit to the Aenar city be a full episode. Have a second episode devoted to the confrontation with the drones. In that way, both plot strands could be effectively explored. As it stands, both end up feeling rushed, with easy resolutions to the problems. The Aenar don't want Jhamel leaving the city? Simple: Jhamel tells them she wants to go, and they say, "Oh, okay then." Trip's jerry-rigged chair could cause brain damage? Simple: Jhamel says, "I want to try again," and everything's fine. The drones are too powerful for Enterprise? Simple... Well, I'll leave off spoiling the end, save to say that it's basically predictable.
There is still a lot to enjoy in The Aenar. It's never dull and it never feels like a throwaway - which immediately puts it ahead of most of Season Two. Mike Vejar's direction is as confident as ever, and the series continues to excel at using CGI to establish genuinely beautiful-looking alien environments. The underground city of the Aenar is downright gorgeous, and would not be visually out of place in a feature film. Finally, it is nice to have an episode in which the emotional center is not Archer, but instead Shran.
It's vaguely unsatisfying, though, and I put that down to the rushed pace and the overall predictability. It's barely a conclusion to the arc, most of which seemed to be concluded at the end of United. It's also not a terribly satisfying episode on its own. There's no sense of jeopardy, and the stakes feel much smaller. It's adequate entertainment, but it could have been and should have been so much better.
Rating: 6/10.
Overall Rating for the "Alliance" arc: 8/10.
Previous Episode: United
Next Episode: Affliction
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