3-2. Anomaly.

"Mercy is not a quality that will serve you well in the Expanse, Captain!"


THE PLOT

As the Enterprise moves deeper into the Expanse, the spacial anomalies cause greater and greater effects on the ship. When one anomaly costs them both warp and weapons power, they are left temporarily defenseless.

That's when the Osaarians come, using superior transporter technology to beam into the ship and attack, stealing everything they can lay their hands on before running off again. Archer, Trip, and the marines fight back, and capture a prisoner (Robert Rusler). Then, once the ship's engines are operational again, they pursue.

They follow the Osaarians' trail through a cloaking field, and find an ancient Sphere that the pirates are using to store their ill-gotten gains. But this turns from a simple recovery of stolen property into something more when the crew discovers that among the ships these pirates attacked was a Xindi vessel. One which left a lot of information in the Osaarians' database...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: Wow. Archer has a scene in this episode that is unlike anything seen from a Star Trek captain in any Trek series or movie before. When he learns of the link between the pirates and the Xindi, all the anger he's been carrying comes out in one fiercely focused and controlled act, as he interrogates his prisoner. In an airlock. While it's decompressing. The scene is startling, because it's completely unlike anything Archer would have been willing to do before. It's also very disturbing, and deliberately so given that we go to commercial on Archer's very grim face at the end of this scene.

Trip: He continues to have difficulty sleeping, and it's now starting to affect his work as he injures himself while making a misjudgment. The ongoing anger of the past two episodes is settling, but leaving in its place a lingering bitterness. The eternally kind and good-humored Trip is now a pessimist, looking on the ship's current mission as "a one-way trip." At least he seems willing to start working with T'Pol regularly to help ease his sleep issues.

Hoshi: Gets a solid supporting role this episode, as she recognizes Xindi symbols among the material in the Sphere. She is also able to download (most of) a Xindi database from the Osaarians' computers.


ZAP THE REDSHIRT!

Enterprise gets its very first confirmed redshirt with Crewman Fuller, killed during the Osaarians' attack. Trip voices his suspicion that though they've been lucky so far in avoiding casualties, Fuller "won't be the last" to die on this mission.


THOUGHTS

Another good show in a run of good shows. It's a shame they waited until the brink of cancellation for this new direction. If they had shifted gears sooner - say, right at the start of Season Two - it might have made a huge difference in how this series is regarded.

As with the last episode, the plot itself is not that far removed from what we had been seeing. Enterprise is attacked by space pirates. Again. But the new setting of The Expanse, and the complications that come with that new setting, make a big difference in how dangerous the situation feels.

There is more excellent CGI here, as the Enterprise passes through a cloaking field to discover the Sphere. The Osaarians may be using it, but they obviously did not create it, nor did they create the cloaking field. The Sphere's presence and properties raise more interesting questions about the Expanse.

The episode ends with Enterprise having gotten more information about the Xindi, and with Archer viewing that information with an obsessed look on his face. With his face reflected in the green lighting, and in light of some of his actions during the episode, the effect is disturbing. This episode shows us that Archer and Enterprise really are willing to do "whatever it takes" in pursuit of their new mission - and there's something just a little bit frightening about that thought


Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: The Xindi
Next Episode: Extinction

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3-1. The Xindi.

THE PLOT

Travelling deeper into the Expanse, the Enterprise follows up a clue from a freighter which takes them to a mining planet. They have been told that one of the miners is a Xindi, and try to bargain with the seedy mine manager (an enjoyably disgusting Stephen McHattie) to talk to the man. But once they are in the mine's lower levels, they discover that the manager has his own agenda - to lure Enterprise into an attack and enslave the ship's entire crew for additional workers!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: He's still on edge in this episode.  There's a sense that Archer is now perpetually holding back a fierce rage that wasn't there before. He always had a temper, but now there's something genuinely volatile beneath the surface. The increased edginess suits Bakula's performance, allowing our lead to help set the new tone of this series in a way that wasn't necessarily true before.

T'Pol: Asked by Phlox to help Trip, she shows surprising tact and delicacy in getting Trip to submit to "Vulcan neuropressure." She first tries to make Trip believe that he is helping her. When that doesn't work, she tells him the truth, then gets Trip to submit rather than prove that he is too stubborn to compromise.

Trip: He's still holding back a lot of rage following his sister's death. He is a little too eager to threaten violence against the Xindi prisoner. Combined with his lack of sleep and his eagerness to resort to drugs to help him sleep, there's a sense that Trip may be in a dangerous place. It would be interesting to see that developed.

Reed: The opening scenes find his position and Archer's from last season's Minefield reversed. Then, Reed wanted Archer to be more formal and militaristic. Now, when Reed is urging caution, Archer snaps at him and establishes a more crisp and military tone. Reed got what he wanted... via the worst possible route. Reed also has a minor turf fight with the commander of the space marines (Steven Culp), which could turn into either a friendship or a rivalry between the two characters, depending on how the season develops.

Dr. Phlox: With the other characters all in an edgier, angrier place, it's reassuring to see Phlox be pretty much the same person he was last season. He's still eternally cheerful, serious about his duties, and using all means at his disposal to see to both the physical and mental well-being of the crew. He is not traumatized - nor should he be, since his planet did not get attacked. Hoshi's one character scene also sees her behaving very much the same as she always has, reminding us that not everyone goes to a dark place in the face of traumas.


THOUGHTS

The title sequence gets a slight facelift, with "Star Trek" now added to the title. Probably a sign of desperation - a network executive figured that sticking the Star Trek in the series title might get the show a handful more viewers. I actually preferred the title being just Enterprise, but it's hardly a substantial change. More irritating is the change to the title music. A change was appropriate, given the change in tone of the series itself. But the new title music should be something darker and grimmer, perhaps an orchestral score.  If they felt they absolutely had to stick with a rock song, they should at least have switched to a darker tune. Instead, they simply "jazzed up" the existing song, in a way that makes it quite grating to listen to.

As to the episode itself, it is another good one. There are some forced elements. Hoshi introduces herself to the marine detachment... a marine detachment that has been, per the previous episode, on the ship for months at this point!  I understand the reason for this scene, as none of these characters had been created yet, let alone actors hired, when the second season finale was shot. But it does make a "ping" against my suspension of disbelief.  A scene in which they interact with Hoshi and are already familiar with her would achieve the same thing in a less jarring way.

On the plus side, the marines are promising additions to a cast that's been in serious need of some non-command staff characters. With veteran television actors like Daniel Dae Kim and Steven Culp, it seems a good bet that these characters will have a role to play in the new season. This episode sees them in action, and sees some limited interaction between them and the regulars. One hopes for more of this as the season develops.

The episode's standalone plot (a breakout from a slave mine) is not terribly far removed from the types of stories we saw in Season Two. But the overall arc gives extra focus and purpose to the regulars' actions. Also, the execution is more textured. This mine is not a generic Trek prison, but a genuinely grimy place, peopled by nasty individuals. Archer and Trip are downright brutal in their treatment of both the mine manager and the Xindi they are there to meet. The Xindi's final actions may help to pull Archer back from going too far in that direction, as he is genuinely surprised to find that the man held up his end of the bargain in the end.

The episode is well-directed.  It's also well-scripted by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, who use the standalone plot to establish a "new normal" for the crew, probably as a cue to writers for the rest of the season. CGI effects are used to create a more alien planet for the mine than most of the planets we've seen to date. Also, the brief scenes in the Xindi council chamber are effectively alien, and the set-up of this heavily divided council offers a lot of potential for future episodes.


Rating: 7/10. A promising start to the reformatted Enterprise.

Previous Episode: The Expanse
Next Episode: Anomaly

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2-26. The Expanse.

THE PLOT

An alien probe drops into Earth's orbit, cutting a thick line of destruction that runs from Florida to Venezuala. Enterprise is recalled to Earth to help study the situation.

Their trip back home is interrupted by a visit from the Suliban. Silik takes Archer aboard his ship for a meeting with his contact from the future, who tells Archer that the attack was orchestrated by a rival and carried out by an alien race known as the Xindi. Archer persuades Admiral Forrest to let him chase this lead into an area of space known as the Delphic Expanse. But the Vulcan Ambassador, Soval, warns Archer that previous expeditions into the Expanse have resulted in horrors, and urges him against this course - at the same time ordering T'Pol to leave Enterprise and return to Vulcan for reassignment!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Archer: I've commented in earlier reviews how well Scott Bakula plays anger. Here, we have an episode in which Archer is on a slow burn through the entire run. He isn't actively shouting at people, but there's a definite tension in him in pretty much every scene, even the quieter moments. When Duras continues to attack Enterprise late in the episode, Archer is less inclined to talk and more inclined to resort to his ship's upgraded weaponry than he normally would be - which, along with his vow to Trip to do "whatever is necessary" once inside the Expanse, points to an Archer who's going to be even more volatile than usual in Season Three.

T'Pol: Put in the position of having to decide between her loyalty to the Vulcan High Command and her loyalty to Archer. Previous episodes leave very little doubt as to what choice she will make, but this is where she finally has to choose one, and let the other door close - probably forever.

Trip: Of the three leads, Trip is by far the most human, so it makes sense that he will be the one to have lost somebody in the attack. He gets a couple of very effective scenes with Reed, a quiet one in which he stands at the edge of the crater that was once his home and recalls where his sister's house and the town movie theater were while staring out into nothing, and an angry one in which he snaps at Reed when the other man encourages him to have a memorial service. He can't have such a service - not because of the lack of a body or because his sister "wasn't much into" such things, but because he's not ready to move on. This could lead Trip in an interesting direction in future episodes.

Dr. Phlox: He doesn't share the human characters' emotional reaction to the attack, nor does he have to make any substantial choice as T'Pol does. He stays because he's the ship's doctor, and he knows he will be needed. There's no other pull on his loyalties, so it is not a difficult decision. We do see his loyalty to the ship and his medical ethics when he reacts with evident anger to the Vulcan psychiatrist who is trying to examine Archer under false pretenses in Phlox's sickbay - in many ways, the inverse of the situation Phlox found himself facing in Stigma. He also has a quietly excellent scene with T'Pol, a conversation which pushes T'Pol further toward the decision we all know she will end up making.


THOUGHTS

Enterprise's second season comes to an explosive and surprising climax. I had heard that the second season finale was a change of direction for the too-often directionless series, and this episode certainly lives up to that reputation.

The Expanse opens with a probe dropping into Earth's orbit and cutting a swath of destruction with no warning and no reason given. The casualty figures start high (around a million) and are revised upward throughout the episode. The action takes place over a matter of months, as the regulars prepare for a mission completely unlike the one they have been carrying out. One major character is forced to make a choice about where her loyalties lie, another is given a trauma that will likely impact his future actions. It's the kind of episode that recalls Commander Sinclair's line at the end of Babylon 5's first season finale: "Nothing's the same anymore."

The Expanse works as a change of direction for the series, in that it creates a situation which cannot be simply "gotten over" in an episode or two. Short of going back in time to prevent the attack from ever having taken place (and I will take back every sympathetic word I've ever written about Berman and Braga if that ends up being the resolution), there is no way to hit the "reset" button on this situation. At the same time, it builds on many of the series' ongoing tensions. The Suliban and the Temporal Cold War are touched upon, as are the relations with the Klingsons and the Vulcans. It's not just a shift in direction, it's a shift in direction that uses what has gone before, leaving it all still feeling like part of the same series.

Equally important, it's a genuinely good piece of television. All of the major actors are given at least one scene, with only the terminally underused Hoshi and Mayweather given nothing to do. CGI work is excellent, from the opening attack to the edge of the abyss against which Trip stands while giving Reed a "tour" of his home town, to the expanse itself. The script is well-structured, with the quieter character scenes interspersed with a nicely ominous build-up about The Expanse itself, and some Klingon shenanigans on-hand to provide some action.

This is an episode where pretty much everything works, and I would point to this and Cogenitor being my only "10's" of the season as a suitable response to the "Berman/Braga are the devil!" hysteria within Trek fandom. They have their faults as showrunners, but they remain good television writers, something that fandom seems far too eager to forget far too often.


Rating: 10/10.

Previous Episode: Bounty

Next Episode: The Xindi

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