Showing posts with label Sphere Builders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sphere Builders. Show all posts

Sunday, October 16, 2011

3-24. Zero Hour.


THE PLOT

The Reptilians have successfully armed the weapon, and are on their way to Earth. Archer has taken command of Degra's ship, which can navigate the vortex and can move faster than the Reptilians. His plan is to beam a team aboard the weapon, to destroy it from the inside.

Meanwhile, T'Pol takes command of Enterprise for its last mission within The Expanse. She will make good on Archer's promise to the Acquatics to break the Sphere Builder's hold over The Expanse by destroying one of the key Spheres in the network. But this time, the Sphere Builders will do more than just observe the outcome...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: The usual grim determination and self-sacrifice. Scott Bakula is terrific, as he has been most of this season. Had the series been cancelled here, this would not have been a bad final bow for either the character or the actor. Thankfully, it's not quite the end of the series yet. Hopefully, Bakula's performance will continue to impress as it has since late Season Two, without slipping back to the intermittent awkward stiffness of the first season-and-a-half.

T'Pol: She no longer seems to be trying very hard to hide her new emotions.  I'm still not sure I like the plot turn of giving T'Pol a full set of emotions.  To me, this misses the point of having a Vulcan character.  That said, I do like that T'Pol is gradually becoming comfortable in expressing them. It should also make for some interesting developments when she has to interact with Vulcans again in the future.

Dr. Phlox: Is able to create a compound that will allow the ship's crew to survive for up to 15 minutes in the space surrounding the Sphere. He is firm that at that point, the crew will begin to die. Though as a doctor he is devoted to life, when the Sphere Builders infiltrate the ship directly, he uses the knowledge he gleaned from the captive Sphere Builder to help the marines and ship security fight back against them. He also gets a couple of terrific quieter moments opposite T'Pol, scenes that bring out the best in both of these characters and actors.

Hoshi: Her ordeal has left her very weak. Her first scene of the episode sees her in almost a fugue state.  She is simultaneously trying to decipher the weapon schematics for Archer, paralyzed with guilt over her failure to jump before the parasites she was injected with stopped her, and flashing back to being a prisoner of the Reptilians. She stabilizes after that scene, and does well during the mission, particularly when called upon to remember a critical sequence from memory.

The Xindi: The Reptilians are now open about wanting to dominate all of the Xindi. By the episode's end, the Insectoids have realized the Reptilians' duplicity and joined with the rest of the Xindi council. With only the Reptilians holding out, and the leader of the humanoids observing that they will eventually have to come back to the council, it would seem that Archer has accomplished what the Sphere Builders failed to do: He has unified the Xindi.


ZAP THE REDSHIRT!

An unspecified number of marines meet their makers when the Sphere Builders attack Enterprise. An additional two marines go into the weapon, but don't come out again.


THOUGHTS

And so the season-long Xindi arc... ends on a cliffhanger!?

In fairness, the story of the Xindi weapon is resolved. The cliffhanger is more of a tag at the end of the story - Less a case of the episode going unresolved than of the complication for the next season premiere being introduced at the end of this one. I'd assume that if the series had been cancelled here (a distinct possibility) that they'd have simply cut the episode a little shorter, ending with the arrival at Earth before it became apparent anything was wrong, probably with some stock footage of Starfleet headquarters and maybe a voice over from Bakula to close out the series. Thankfully, it did get renewed one last time, allowing for one of the more bizarre season cliffhangers I can recall. At the very least, I'm interested in knowing what happens next!

The episode itself is another good one. Berman and Braga return to the writers' chair, for yet another reminder that whatever people may have thought of them as showrunners, they are solid writers. The pace is relentless, with the cuts back and forth from the weapon to Enterprise's complications around the Sphere provoking strong tension. Before the action, Berman and Braga pause to allow Crewman Daniels to give Archer a glimpse of the future, a faraway glance at the founding of the Federation. It's a scene I suspect we'll be seeing again, with a little closer a view next time.

The episode does lack the multiple emotional layers of some of the previous episodes.  This is a flat-out action piece, with no subtext to speak of.  But that's not really a flaw.  After a season's worth of build, this is our climax.  It may come in the form of big action scenes and bigger explosions, but it's quite satisfying in doing so.  And the epilogue (pre-cliffhanger) manages to evoke a fair amount of emotion.

It's also great fun to see Shran again. I wasn't expecting that. It would be even better if his credit could have been held back to the end credits, to make his arrival a genuine surprise. Still, his entrance is well done, particularly his triumphant cry of, "Tell Archer... Now he owes me!"


Rating: 8/10.




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Monday, October 10, 2011

3-23. Countdown.


THE PLOT

The Reptilians have taken the Xindi weapon, but they don't have all the codes needed to activate it. What they do have is Hoshi - whose linguistics skills in the Xindi council chamber convinced the Reptilian leader that she will also be able to decrypt the other races' codes. Hoshi initially resists, until all resistance is made useless by the injection of some Wrath of Khan-like parasites directly into her brain.

Archer manages to convince the Aquatics to join the Humanoids and Arboreals in chasing down the weapon and battling the Reptilians and Insectoids. But Archer's newfound alliance may not be strong enough to stop them when the Sphere Builders decide that the time has come to intervene directly!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: Scott Bakula shifts his acting gears to "grim determination" and more or less keeps them there for the entire episode. Archer is largely left barking orders or demands from the Enterprise bridge while other characters get the bulk of the action, but his intensity does set the tone and anchor the episode's sense of urgency.

T'Pol/Trip: They continue their awkward progression toward the relationship that their E2 counterparts had before/parallel to them. Trip has noticed T'Pol's more emotional behavior. Though an outburst from her does put him on the defensive, when she admits her turmoil he instantly offers his support.

Reed: Gets another very good episode, particularly in his scenes with Hayes. His emotion following the death of Hawkins is further followed up on, as he confesses to Hayes that he knows that Hawkins was his responsibility. It's an admission that gains him a measure of respect from Hayes, and the two men seem to end this episode as friends.

Hoshi: Tries very hard to resist the Reptilians' attempts to use her to activate the weapon. Even when she is injected with the parasites, she manages to resist long enough to add another layer of encryption to the weapon's arming sequence, further delaying deployment. When this is discovered and a further "procedure" is ordered, she attempts to kill herself - though she hesitates, and the next wave of parasites forestalls all further resistance.

The Xindi: The Reptilians are now the outright villains, allying themselves with the Sphere Builders for the promise that they will be the rulers of the remaining Xindi. Any sense that the leader of the Reptilians still believes that he is acting in self-defense or doing what is right for the Xindi overall is totally abandoned. He is now The Villain, and all he needs is to twirl a mustache and kick a puppy (in Hoshi, he already gets to tie down and torture a damsel in distress) to complete the image.


ZAP THE REDSHIRT!

Major Hayes is brought back, after being barely referenced in the very eventful run of episodes that followed his last appearance. This time, he leads a mission to infiltrate the weapon and retrieve Hoshi. Naturally, he meets a suitably heroic end, complete with John Wayne-style last words of advice to Reed... which advice, as far as I could tell, Reed entirely ignores when putting together his new infiltration squad at the episode's end. Anyway, farewell Major Hayes. I'd like to say I'd miss you, but since you were never more than a 2-dimensional stereotype to start with, I'm afraid I'd by lying.


THOUGHTS

Countdown is not as outstanding an episode as The Council was. The script is less layered, with less of a sense of fully-rounded characters making weighty decisions and misjudgments perfectly in keeping with their nature. It's more of a straight action piece.

That said, it is a very good action piece, particularly once the action really gets going in the second half. The momentum of past episodes is kept running, and events barely pause to allow for breath. A lack of time for reflection and an absence of some of the shaded characterization of some of the previous episodes keep it from being as good as the Azati Prime trilogy or The Council. But in a run of shows that have ranged from "very good" to "outstanding," Countdown shouldn't be dismissed merely for falling on the "good" side of that scale.

The current run of episodes is easily the best Enterprise has seen, it is among the best of Trek - provided, that is, that the finale doesn't blow it.


Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: The Council


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Sunday, October 9, 2011

3-22. The Council.


THE PLOT

Degra escorts Enterprise to the Xindi council, where he promises that Archer will have the opportunity to present his evidence against the Sphere Builders. The Reptilians and Insectoids would as soon destroy both Archer and Enterprise as listen to him, but the other three Xindi species join forces to enforce the issue. Archer has already secured the trust of two of the Xindi races. Now he'll need to win a third vote to stop the weapon from being deployed. With the Reptilians and Insectoids entrenched against him, his only hope is to focus his evidence on the Acquatics.

Meanwhile, T'Pol, Reed, and Mayweather lead a mission into the closest sphere. They penetrate the sphere's camouflaged entrance. But there are other defenses waiting for them...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: It's fortunate that this mission came after he had already been blundering around in space for two years. The Archer of Season One, or even early Season Two, would have made a hash of things. This Archer is able to act as a strategist with Degra to persuade the council. He quickly ascertains that the Reptilians and Insectoids are a lost cause, and urges Degra to focus on convincing the Acquatics, in order to get the third of the five needed votes to stop the weapon.

Trip: Has difficulty working with Degra, but manages to be "cooperative," if hostile, in preparing the Sphere Builder's pod to be used as evidence for the Council. He later does make peace with Degra - something I would have preferred him not do, because it would have been more dramatically interesting for Trip to remain hostile, but I suppose the writers did not care to jeopardize his standing as the most easily relatable of the regulars.

Reed: When Random Marine Hawkins dies on the mission to the sphere, Reed has a private meltdown. "We've become too comfortable with losing people!" he declares. He draws on his military background when he reveals that "acceptable losses" for any mission are 20%... a percentage that, with Hawkins' death, Enterprise has now exceeded.

Hoshi: Emerges from the periphery to get a fairly good episode. She has become passably comfortable with the primary languages of both the Acquatics and the Insectoids, making her invaluable to Archer in the Council. She takes a moment as they fly in to appreciate the beauty of the Avian architecture, and has a couple of amusing exchanges with Archer on the way to the council chamber.

Degra: He is now absolutely convinced of Archer's claims against the Sphere Builders. When one of the Sphere Builders tries to convince him to change his course, Degra harshly rejects her, telling her, "You were never worthy of my faith." He also swears to Archer that he will be on his side at all times in the council chamber - a promise he makes good on.

The Xindi: After their home world was destroyed, they were saved from extinction by the Sphere Builders. Degra tells Archer that the Builders are all but worshipped in Xindi society. The leader of the Reptilians seems to be particularly under their sway, threatening his own lieutenant when he dares to so much as question "The Guardians."


ZAP THE REDSHIRT!

Reed selects a marine named Hawkins to accompany the shuttle team into the Sphere. That means the Away Team consists of T'Pol, Reed, Mayweather, and Hawkins. Guess which one ends up losing an argument with a robotic claw?


THOUGHTS

David Livingston directs this episode. I mention this at the start because I was thoroughly impressed with the way this episode was directed. The music, effects, design, and performances... They are all good individually, and Livingston puts them together so that they feed on each other. I said way back in my Season One reviews that Enterprise was easily the strongest of the Trek shows visually.  This episode not only reminds me of how impressed I was by the early episodes' effects, but enhances that with real craftsmanship. I'd compare it to cinema... but lately, most of the directing work I've seen in recent bigscreen movies falls well short of this level of accomplishment.

The episode grabs attention from the opening shots, as we see the Sphere Builders communicating amongst themselves. We see them one Builder at a time, speaking inside a white void. The images seem to vaguely overlap, creating an otherworldly atmosphere. It's an arresting opener, one that declares up-front that this will be a visually stylish episode.

It also has a lot of momentum. The entire season has been building to this point, and there's a sense throughout that everything is now important. It ends with another strong action sequence, one that recalls the teaser for Twilight. As it cut away to black, I found myself very glad to be able to just move ahead to the next episode. Waiting for the resolution would have made for a very long week.


Rating: 9/10



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Sunday, August 21, 2011

3-20. The Forgotten.


THE PLOT

As Enterprise continues to limp along, stolen warp coil in place, Archer makes his rendezvous with Degra. He shows Degra and another member of the Xindi council the evidence he has gathered about the reptilian bio-weapon and the spheres.  He tries to convince these two council members the Sphere Builders are the real enemy of both humans and Xindi. But the negotiations are complicated when serious damage to the Enterprise leaves the ship all but helpless in space - just as a Xindi reptilian ship finds them!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: After a season of trying deceptions and ruthless gambits and making violent decisions, here Archer decides to... tell the truth. He deals with Degra in a completely honest manner, showing him the evidence the Enterprise has gathered within the Expanse. He openly admits that wiping Degra's memory was probably not a good way to earn the other man's trust. Here, he provides nothing but the truth, and trusts that Degra will realize that his earlier "misdeeds" were necessary. His openness pays off, and the scenes between Archer and Degra are consistently the best in a very good episode.

T'Pol: Continues to wrestle with the emotions brought to the surface by the Trellium. She finds her inability to suppress them to be overwhelming, and actually tells Trip that she envies humans their ability to deal with emotions. Though I continue to be uncertain about this direction for her character (her early scene with Phlox, restating exposition from the last episode, was more than a little tiresome), Blalock does well with the material. T'Pol actually doesn't do badly in dealing with her emotions, managing to retain professionalism and judgment in dealing with an exhausted Trip, and giving him some needed emotional support at the end.

Trip: In the wake of the attack, Trip has worked himself to the point of exhaustion. When T'Pol asks him how long it's been since he's slept, his estimate is two days. Connor Trinneer does an excellent job at showing a Trip running purely on adrenaline. At the same time, he is reacting to another loss, of a young woman who worked with him in Engineering. It's clear that this girl reminded him of his sister, or at least that her death has made her remind him of his sister. That and his lack of rest brings his anger toward the Xindi back to the surface, making him openly hostile to Degra. This is an effective plot thread, though it would be more effective if Crewman Taylor had been someone we had gotten to know, rather than simply being one of Trip's largely offscreen crew.

Dr. Phlox: Gets another terrific scene, in which he relieves Trip of duty and orders him to get some sleep. He first tries reason, pointing out to Trip how much worse off the ship will be if Trip works himself past the point of collapse. Then he simply pulls rank, ordering Trip to get some sleep, and then waiting - much like a parent or teacher with a recalcitrant teen - until he actually sees Trip leave for his quarters before going on to his appointment with the captain.

Degra: His guilt, when confronted with Trip's anger, is tangible, but it doesn't stop him from dealing honestly and occasionally bluntly with Archer. I was relieved that there was no reconciliation between Degra and Trip in this episode, and I actually hope there won't be such a reconciliation in the future. More interesting still is the episode's climax, in which Degra is pushed into making the same sort of tough-minded decision that Archer has been making repeatedly this season.

The Xindi: Though Degra's companion Xindi council member is more skeptical of Archer than Degra, he is open to reason. Like Degra, he recognizes that the Sphere Builders must have their own agenda. As Archer presents more and more evidence, he finally agrees that the council should hear the humans' case. As the episode ends, we are left with a divided Xindi. The insectoids and reptilians will clearly want war; the mammalian Xindi will clearly want peace. It will be up to the acquatics which way the council ends up going. Me? I'm still holding out hope that the intriguing mention of the avian Xindi way back in The Shipment might come into play by the season's end.


THOUGHTS

The end of the trilogy of episodes that began with Azati Prime, The Forgotten is fully up to the quality of its two predecessors. These three episodes form by far the strongest run that the series has seen to date, and the momentum is left running as we move toward the season's end.

It's striking how much this season is post-9/11 Star Trek, in a way that the first two seasons (which actually were post-9/11) were not. The parallels between the Xindi attack and the attack on the World Trade Center are blindingly obvious, of course. But there's also the changed state of the crew. Archer, dealing with the need to make harder and tougher decisions than in the past, sometimes compromising his own values. Trip, in a state of post-traumatic stress, which becomes particularly vivid in this episode as a new loss brings his old loss to the surface.

Crew and ship remain badly scarred at the show's end. As Archer says goodbye to Degra, we can see the bruises from the reptilians' beating beginning to yellow, a particularly effective bit of makeup. The ship still looks like it's falling apart from the inside, a far cry from the gleaming corridors of the past. The dim lighting and claustrophobic atmosphere all combine to make this a technically impressive episode, and dramatically effective at the same time.


Rating: 9/10.



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Saturday, August 20, 2011

3-18. Azati Prime.


THE PLOT

The Enterprise finally reaches Azati Prime, where the Xindi weapon is all but ready. Trip and Mayweather use the insectoid shuttle to fly through the Xindi defenses and locate the weapon. The two return with scans showing their target is vulnerable to a shuttle attack from within - but that such a mission would be strictly one-way.

Archer insists on volunteering himself for this suicide run. But before he can leave, the time-travelling Daniels whisks him off to the future, giving him information about the Sphere Builders.  Daniels urges him to abandon his one-way mission and to make peace with the Xindi instead. Archer refuses, insisting that the weapon is too close to completion to try diplomacy at this point. But when he is found out and captured by the Xindi, he uses Daniels' information to arrange a meeting with Degra, desperate to convince the Xindi scientist that his people were misled.

Degra seems surprisingly receptive, but it may already be too late. The reptilians have located Enterprise in the space around Azati Prime.  Fighers have now been launched.  Their mission?  Destroy Enterprise!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: With Enterprise in scanning distance of a Xindi outpost, Archer makes the hard but necessary decision, and orders it destroyed. We see that these kinds of decisions - torturing prisoners, ordering the death of Trip's clone, ordering the deaths of these Xindi - weigh heavily on him. He seems almost relieved to take command of a suicide mission, waving off other volunteers by stating that he will not watch anyone else die. When captured, he uses his knowledge of Degra to arrange a meeting with the Xindi scientist.  He makes a good enough case for humanity not being the Xindi's enemy that Degra and the other Xindi council member are left feeling less than sanguine about the reptilians.

T'Pol: Accepting that Vulcans have been defined in this series (and indeed most of Trek) as beings who suppress their emotions, rather than actually lacking them, she nevertheless comes across as too emotional in this episode. Her blurting out that she does not want Archer to die, or excusing herself and shedding a single quiet tear in the ready room... That was fine, I had no problem with that much. But when she shuts herself away later, all but ignoring her duties, or when she snaps at a very reasonable Trip just before the Xindi attack - Those moments felt like a stretch. Not enough of one for me to deduct a point from the episode's score, particularly given that Jolene Blalock plays what she's given extremely well. But T'Pol's behavior in these scenes seems out of character. At least she snaps fully back to herself once the ship is under attack.

Degra: His characterization from Strategem is directly followed up on. We continue to see the mixed feelings with which he regards the weapon. On the one hand, he wants desperately to secure the future of his race and particularly of his children. On the other hand, he reflects his doubts as to how future Xindi generations will remember their actions. When Archer gives him an alternative explanation - that the future vision the Xindi were shown was a lie - he clearly wants to believe. At this point, it seems all but certain that Degra will emerge as a significant ally.

The Xindi: "The council is fracturing," we are told. This is consistent with what we saw in the season's early episodes, with the different Xindi races seeming very confrontational with each other. I do wish we could have seen some of this fracturing first-hand. Maybe we could have had a full episode entirely from the Xindi point of view? Ah, well. In any case, it seems clear that the reptilians are driving the Xindi on the warpath. By the episode's end, Degra and the other council member seem a lot less trusting of them, which I suspect will be followed up in the next episode.


THOUGHTS

Wow.

After a couple filler episodes of varying quality, the arc goes into what I'm assuming is its final act with the arrival at Azati Prime. Obviously, some of the season's budget was being saved for just this moment. Everything gets put into overdrive this episode. The result is the best Enterprise episode since Twilight.

Manny Coto's script does an excellent job of utilizing the many plot threads of the season. The sphere builders, an aspect of the season which really came into focus with Harbinger, are once again central. Daniels confronts Archer with the truth of the Sohere Builders and ties them into the lie used to put the Xindi on a war footing with Earth. Archer also references the things he has seen, done, and ordered over the course of the season when explaining why he is so willing to sacrifice himself. The plot even justifies Hatchery, as the insectoid shuttle gained in that rather weak episode is critical to this episode.

Coto, whom I'd currently place in a dead heat with Mike Sussman for the title of Enterprise's best writer, shares Sussman's expertise at structure. This is an extremely well put-together script. It gains momentum at the start, and just builds and builds to a finish in which everything seems lost. I doubt anyone saw the episode fade out without a howl at frustration, and I will be going straight from writing this review back to the DVD to continue watching.


Rating: 10/10. Outstanding.



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Saturday, July 9, 2011

3-16. Doctor's Orders.


THE PLOT

Encountering a distorted area of space directly on their path to Azati Prime, the Enterprise crew have only one option. The crew is placed into a coma to avoid neurological damage. Dr. Phlox, whose Denobulan physiology makes him immune to the effects of this space, is left to run the ship alone during its 4-day journey through the affected area.

The first two days go by easily enough. Phlox is able to catch up on his correspondence. He checks on the crew and the engines regularly. Then he hears a strange sound. At first, he tries to dismiss it. But as the sound recurs, he begins to suspect that someone else is on the ship.


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: Well aware of the burdens of command by this point, Archer confesses to Phlox that there are very few people, even among his officers, with whom he would entrust the ship. He then goes on to say that Phlox is one of them. His confidence shows that he has come to recognize the sound judgment and strength of the ship's doctor.

T'Pol: Anything we learn about T'Pol in this episode is subject to a certain skepticism. Still, her claim at Vulcans' preference for solitude, and her statement that a couple of days without the crew around is "a welcome respite" for her, are both statements that ring true. Beyond that, Jolene Blalock does a good job of playing a T'Pol that is (at least initially) close enough to the real thing to make us briefly wonder if she is or isn't real, and then to play a T'Pol who is entertainingly different than the regular one.

Trip: As chief engineer of a ship that is a prototype, it should come as no surprise that Trip is extremely wary of leaving the care of the ship and specifically its warp core to someone with no engineering background. He flatly tells Phlox to wake him if something happens that Phlox can't handle, acknowledging that doing so might kill him, because "if it's a choice between saving (him) and saving the ship..."

Dr. Phlox: Does not react very well to solitude. When talking about his home world with T'Pol, he wistfully recalls what a crowded place it is, not by necessity but by choice. Denobulans are a very social race, and it doesn't take long being alone on the ship for that fact alone to start working on Phlox. John Billingsley is excellent, as usual - probably the only one of the series' regulars who really could carry an episode such as this.


THOUGHTS

I've long since come to look forward to the Phlox-centric episodes. As I've remarked many times, John Billingsley has been the cast standout from very early on and Phlox is a genuinely interesting character even on the page.

This episode is a good one, but it's not a great one. It's very difficult to pull off an episode that is all but a two-hander, and the pace does flag, particularly during the first half. Chris Black's script is well-constructed, though. When T'Pol appears, it's odd, because the first part of the episode seemed to hammer home that Phlox was alone on the ship. But T'Pol's not human, so it seems just barely possible that she would be awake as well and simply keeping to herself and her duties. Then the script has T'Pol feed Phlox (and us) information that directly conflicts with what we had already heard - namely, that T'Pol was meant to check the engines, when we clearly saw Trip showing him the engines and emphasizing how important it was that Phlox wake him if anything went wrong. That in itself forces us to reflect that, if T'Pol was going to remain awake, of course she would be the one monitoring the engines.

From that point on, I was left suspecting that "T'Pol" is some sort of changeling or projection created by invaders. As Phlox investigates the ship, becoming more increasingly certain that the ship has been invaded, his continued confiding in "T'Pol" raises tension even further. When they are investigating a storage area, and T'Pol steps out from behind a container Phlox is about to inspect shaking her head, I was certain that the invaders were hiding right there.

Though this really isn't an arc episode, its plot elements do fit very well with the previous episode. The spheres' makers are creating these distortions, and the distortion fields are growing even as Enterprise gets closer to its goal. At this point, the season is clearly building to a confrontation - but I'm starting to suspect that the major battle won't be against the Xindi.


Rating: 7/10.





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Sunday, June 19, 2011

3-15. Harbinger.

THE PLOT

The Enterprise encounters an enormous space anomaly, in the center of which is a shuttlecraft with one life sign. Archer orders the use of the grappler to pull the shuttle out, which ends up pulling the Enterprise into the anomaly's field. Trip gets the ship out again, and the shuttle is pulled into the docking bay - revealing a humanoid alien.

Though Phlox quickly determines that the alien is dying, the being cries out to be returned to the distortion field. As T'Pol determines that the anomaly was directly at the center of the influence of five spheres, and hypothezises that the alien was some sort of test subject by the makers of the spheres, Archer determines to find some answers.


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: Bakula gets one great, angry scene. It's a scene that has nothing to do with the alien plot, and instead connects with a subplot involving Reed and Major Hayes (Steven Culp). After the two men turn a sparring session into an all-out brawl, they both end up injured. Archer lays into them, reminding them of exactly how precarious a situation the Enterprise is in, and that he cannot afford for two key officers to regress "to the level of five year olds!" Archer's fury at the pair of them is extremely well-played, and the scene ends on a very amusing note.

For the most part, this is not an Archer-heavy episode. We do see him puzzling with T'Pol over the nature of the alien, and the connection between the spheres and the anomalies. We also see, for the second time this season, that he isn't above using torture to force answers from a subject, in this case denying the alien pain medication until he gives Archer some answers. It's an interesting element to Archer's post-Xindi characterization, particularly since he has not otherwise abandoned his previous moral principles. It does have me hoping that some of his "extreme" tactics with prisoners end up costing him something by the end, though.

T'Pol/Trip: The seeds of a Trip/T'Pol relationship were laid down back in Season One... and then mostly ignored through Season Two, before being teased through the "peekaboo" neuropressure sessions throughout this season. This episode sees that line finally crossed, after T'Pol becomes visibly jealous over Trip's friendship with an attractive female marine who grew up not far from Trip's hometown. T'Pol then quickly backpedals, finding a way to make her dalliance with Trip into something "logical" and appropriate for a Vulcan scientist. I strongly suspect, however, that neither she nor Trip will be able to entirely return to their previous relationship.

Reed/Hayes: The season premiere showed Reed reacting very badly to Major Hayes (Steven Culp), the leader of the marines, seeing Hayes' every suggestion as an attempt to undermine his authority. That is picked back up on here, and expanded upon. Trip's MACO friend compares notes with Trip about Hayes vs. Reed, and they come to the conclusion that both men are cut from the same cloth. Which means that both Hayes and Reed want to be in charge, inevitably straining their interactions. Writer Manny Coto does load the script a bit, in that Reed is in this case reacting very badly to an entirely sensible suggestion by Hayes, and there is more than a whiff of cliche about the way in which the two men settle their differences (a big brawl). Still, the two characters have been constructed in such a way that the cliche rings true. My only quibble is more with the season than the episode: namely, that the Reed/Hayes conflict would mean more if we had seen more of this conflict - and Hayes, for that matter - throughout the season.


THOUGHTS

Though the main hook of the season is the race for the Xindi weapon, a secondary arc has been developing in the background - the spheres, the anomalies, the makers of the spheres that form the Expanse. In many respects, it's actually a more interesting storyline than the Xindi one (it's not like we don't know Archer & company are going to stop them from destroying Earth). This is a genuine mystery. Why was the Expanse created, and who created it? What are the nature of the spheres? It's been built up in the background, in episodes such as Anomaly, Exile, and Chosen Realm, and this episode sees that background arc click into focus, and connect to the Xindi arc. It's an interesting reveal, one which renews some of the arc's momentum just at the point at which that momentum was starting to sag.

Harbinger is Manny Coto's third Enterprise script, and he follows up on substantial elements from his first two scripts, Similitude and Chosen Realm. He took over as showrunner in Season Four, and I'm quickly appreciating why. He has a strong grasp of all the regular characters. Despite his first scripts coming smack in the middle of a season-long arc, he has had no apparent trouble balancing and advancing the elements of that arc while still telling interesting stories. He doesn't quite have the instinctive structural mastery of Mike Sussman, but he is already developing into one of the best Enterprise writers.

Harbinger is the weakest of Coto's three episodes to date, mainly because it lacks a tight focus. This is more of a character-based episode, with the relationships between Trip and T'Pol and Reed and Hayes getting more screentime than the alien plot. We see the Enterprise following up on Degra's clue, we see Hayes and Reed sparring over enhanced combat training for the crew. Basically, it's an episode that collects side plots and character beats - a mid season "transitional" episode, which preps viewers for the final run of episodes as we near the season finale. I enjoyed the episode largely because I enjoyed seeing those character interactions, but this isn't one that's going to sear itself into any viewer's memory.


Rating: 6/10



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