4-21. Terra Prime.

THE PLOT

Paxton (Peter Weller) has gained control of an array on Mars, used to divert comets, and has turned it into a weapon. He has issued a public ultimatum: All non-humans must leave the solar system, or he will begin targetting non-human strongholds, starting with Starfleet Command. 

Enterprise has been given orders to destroy the array. But Archer has an alternative plan. He is going to use an approaching comet to camouflage the ship, then send a small team down to the surface to free Trip, T'Pol, and the baby, and to defeat Terra Prime. But Archer hasn't planned for one contigency - a spy aboard his ship!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: Gets to make another really bad speech. I'm not sure whether Scott Bakula is bad at delivering speeches, or whether his stiff delivery of Archer's speeches throughout the series is meant to be a character trait. Either way, "Archer makes a speech" has been reason to cringe from pretty much the very beginning. Much better is his confrontation with Paxton, in which he refuses to rise to the bait when the terrorist uses his father to try to put him off-guard. Archer is much less easily provoked than in the beginning, and remains focused in the face of jibes that would have set the Archer of Broken Bow into an uncontrolled fury.

T'Pol: When she sees the baby, her maternal instincts take over. She becomes fiercely protective, declaring that she will not allow Paxton to harm the child. When the baby's health begins failing, she attempts to use a scan she made of Paxton's DNA to coerce him into letting them go. The attempt fails, but it's a strong effort.

Trip: Connor Trinneer does some excellent acting at the end, bringing real emotion to a scene that could have come across stiffly if badly performed. Trip gets a good episode in general, cannily distracting his guard in what appears to be an attempt at sabotaging the array. His plan goes further than that. He knows Paxton will detect the sabotage, but his real agenda is to smuggle back to his cell a tool that helps him to break out. He meets up with Archer's team, on their way in, and provides valuable help in foiling Paxton's plan.

Reed: For the second time in this 2-parter, Reed makes contact with his former section chief, gaining information that helps Archer to resolve the situation and get Trip and T'Pol out alive. This would seem to put Reed back in the debt of his former employer - something which would probably have been used to interesting effect, if the series had gotten a fifth season.

Mayweather: He does not believe Gannet when she pleads her innocence to him, and insists that the real spy for Terra Prime is a crew member. He accuses her of trying to manipulate him, then heads straight off to pilot the mission. When the shuttlepod becomes the victim of sabotage, Mayweather switches to manual and successfully pilots the shuttle in, grinning at the challenge of flying the ship entirely on his own judgment, with no computer guidance. His joy at this moment is a nice payoff to his talk about the shuttlepod in the first part, a good bit of character writing for someone who usually doesn't get that kind of attention.

Hoshi: With Archer, T'Pol, Trip, Reed, Phlox, and Mayweather all off the ship, command ofEnterprise falls to Hoshi. Which, come to think of it, isn't a bad parallel with Mirror Hoshi's triumph in the last 2-parter. Her growing confidence allows her to trust both Archer and her instincts.  She resists pressure to fire on the array, allowing the landing party time to complete the mission. Fortunately, neither the writing nor Linda Park allow her to become Super!Hoshi! She is more confident than the young woman who "jumped at every engine noise," but her underlying fear remains visible even as she exercises her command.

Villain of the Week: The only really new wrinkle added to Paxton is a certain hypocrisy, both in his admiration of the unlamented Col. Green and in his xenophobia. It turns out that he would not have met Col. Green's standards of purity, because it is alien technology that is keeping him alive... a secret he carefully keeps from his followers. Beyond that, Paxton is a fairly shallow character, though he is again given credibility by Peter Weller's performance. 


THOUGHTS

The final "real" episode of Enterprise is a good one.  This episode is not only a strong conclusion to the Terra Prime arc, it is a very reasonable finale all-around. Writers Manny Coto, Judith Reeves-Stevens, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens were probably aware that this would be the series' last hurrah, and that Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were going to use the very last episode as a button on the franchise rather than as a proper close to this specific series.  Thus, they have crafted a script that gives every character a moment - something relatively unusual for Enterprise.

Hoshi gets to be put in charge, Mayweather gets some characterization, Reed makes a deal with his former Section, Phlox gets a steady supporting role, and the three leads all get healthy screen time. This is done without really drawing attention to itself. It's not boxes being checked off - Every character has something to do to advance the specific story. I wish that could have happened more often on this series, but it's nice to see in the crew's final adventure.

I also like that the last major threat the NX-01 must overcome is a group of humans. Star Trek always basically stood for humanity overcoming its own limitations and narrow-mindedness. I tend to believe more in Babylon 5's philosophy: that we'll take all our flaws to the stars with us. But having the Enterprise, in its last proper outing, outwitting and overcoming a group that effectively represents human ignorance is a nice embodiment of this franchise's principles. It's also a good story for a prequel. Sure, violent xenophobia and homegrown terrorism is largely a thing of the past by Kirk's time, let alone Picard's... but Archer still has to deal with the last, desperate attempt by these demagogues to thrust their agenda on humanity through a violent ultimatum.

Terra Prime is a noticeably better episode than Demons, making it this season's only multi-parter whose resolution outshines its set-up.  Overall, this is one of the "smaller" feeling multi-parters. But it's also one of the most accomplished, in terms of controlled plotting. All the different components are used, and almost every individual element ends up working, albeit some more strongly than others. Terra Prime also makes Demons a better episode in retrospect, raising the arc as a whole.

Or to put it more succinctly: Good stuff.


Rating: 9/10.

Overall Rating for Terra Prime arc: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Demons
Next Episode: These Are the Voyages

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4-20. Demons.

THE PLOT

The Enterprise crew is attending a conference involving several of the species they have met, with a goal of forming a coalition of worlds. It's an ambitious project. But no sooner has Minister Nathan Samuels (Harry Groener) made his speech than a woman stumbles in, passing a hair sample to T'Pol and telling her that "they're going to kill her." The woman collapses, revealing that she has been shot by a phase pistol.

Phlox tests the hair, and determines that it belongs to a half-human, half-Vulcan infant. The child is identified as being that of Trip and T'Pol - despite the fact that T'Pol has never been pregnant. The dead woman was a member of Terra Prime, a human separatist group that had a resurgence following the Xindi attack. 

With Minister Samuels wanting to keep things quiet, Archer decides that his crew will need to launch their own investigation.  He sends Trip and T'Pol to infiltrate the moonbase that is Terra Prime's headquarters.  But Archer is a step behind, and it all too soon becomes clear that Trip and T'Pol are walking into a trap!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: Manny Coto's script showcases his competence as ship's captain: In a public setting, he makes sure that the unenthusiastic Trip knows that he's expected to be on good behavior for the cameras; when the human/Vulcan DNA is explicitly linked to his crew, he uses Reed's Section 31 connection to keep the investigation alive; finally, he adjusts his plans quickly when he learns that he's sent his people into a trap.  All of this is good, giving Archer plenty to do without allowing him to overshadow the entire story, as has been the case too many times this season.

Trip: While I believe his shock at learning of his daughter, his befuddlement over how it might be possible seems odd. Cloning is a scientific possibility now, never mind more than a hundred years hence. His suspicion of T'Pol feels more like a plot device than a natural extension of his established character, and his attempts to infiltrate a separatist group by making a few vaguely xenophobic comments to a random miner seem, frankly, laughable. Not Trip's best episode, despite solid work by Connor Trinneer.

Hot Earth Babe of the Week: Gannet Brooks (Johanna Watts) is an ambitious reporter who shares a history with Mayweather. She uses that history to get herself aboard Enterprise, ostensibly to do a story on the ship from the point-of-view of the crew. It isn't long before she makes it clear that she wants to rekindle her old relationship with Mayweather, sparking doubts in Travis as to whether or not he really wants to continue his time in space.

Pompous Earth Bureaucrat of the Week: Harry Groener, one-time evil mayor of Sunnydale/giant snake, is a serpentine politician again, though this time without the evil.  Minister Samuels is extremely ambitious, which may be just what is called for. His proposed coalition is a clear stepping stone toward the Federation of Planets that will eventually form. But he is self-serving. His speech makes no mention of Enterprise and its crew, reserving all glory for himself. His reluctance to share the Terra Prime investigation with Archer has a connection with a skeleton from his own past, as well.

Villain of the Week: John Frederick Paxton (Peter Weller) is a mining industrialist who acts as the leader of Terra Prime. He was once a student of history. But his studies led him to admire a generally hated genocidal figure from the aftermath of World War III, and his clashes with the accepted view of history led him to turn his back on academia and instead pursue terrorism. Peter Weller plays his scenes with a conviction that helps sell even some of the more ludicrous moments, including his cliffhanger-inducing masterplan to hold the entire solar system hostage with a big freakin' laser (paging Dr. Evil?). I should add that Paxton didn't start seeming ridiculous to me until the moment I began typing this paragraph - which means both script and actor do their job of making his convictions seem credible in-context.


THOUGHTS

The final 2-parter of the series begins, following up on the one remaining loose end from Home - the rising xenophobia on Earth in the wake of the Xindi attack.

Even without a particularly easy-to-spot plot twist, I would have been surprised had Trip and T'Pol been able to successfully infiltrate the mining colony. After all, hasn't it been established as early on as Breaking the Ice that the ship's command staff are effectively celebrities? Their faces would be on the air regularly - something the beginning of the episode reminds us of! Imagine Neil Armstrong trying to infiltrate the mob just after the moon landing. That's basically this plan in a nutshell.

This obvious logic gaffe aside, Demons is a good episode. It perhaps feels a bit padded, with the Gannet/Mayweather material and even the Trip/T'Pol mine infiltration taking up at least twice as much screentime as is actually needed. But it's an interesting story, effectively set up. The story feeds on what we've seen before, particularly in Home.  The episode also benefits from strong production values and effective guest turns by Harry Groener and Peter Weller. 

The success of the full story will entirely depend on Part Two. But as an opening installment, Demons does its job well.


Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: In a Mirror Darkly, Part II
Next Episode: Terra Prime

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