Opening The Final Arc: “Demons” Starts The End Of Star Trek: Enterprise.

The Good: Decent acting, Good effects, Plot progression
The Bad: Very light on character!
The Basics: “Demons” finds the Enterprise back at Earth, where a xenophobic organization is planning to undermine the burgeoning Federation.


As Star Trek: Enterprise moved toward its inevitable end, the writers of the series tried to bring the show into focus and make a concrete goal for the show. Just as one of the explicit goals of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was to have the Bajorans join the Federation (though the plot fell by the wayside in everything but the novelization of the final episode!), the prequel series to Star Trek was largely building to the founding of the Federation. Given that the usual seven year arc of a Star Trek series was cut dramatically when Star Trek: Enterprise underperformed, the full development of the Federation in the wake of the Romulan War could not be shown. Thus, the final three-episode arc of the fourth season had to do all it could to lay the framework of the Federation and end the journey of the NX-01 Enterprise.

The final arc started with “Demons” and outside an oblique reference to the original Star Trek in the form of Colonel Green – who was referenced as a historical figure in “The Savage Curtain” (reviewed here!) – the episode works hard to establish its own story and history. This is not an arc that relies at all on knowledge of the Star Trek franchise and that makes it much easier to accept.

In a secret facility on the moon, a man notes that a baby (who appears Vulcan) represents the potential for disaster to the goals of their mysterious organization. On Earth, at a conference where Nathan Samuels announces the ambitious goal of a permanent alliance between the Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, and humans, the Enterprise crew feels their place in history is being neglected. When a woman barges into the conference and dies, she brings evidence with her of a Vulcan/human hybrid . . . who is the genetic daughter of T’Pol and Tucker. When Samuels tells Archer that xenophobia on Earth has grown in the wake of the Xindi attack, Archer has Reed contact Harris. Harris lets Reed know that the xenophobic organization Terra Prime is behind killing Susan and that Samuels was once a part of it.

While a reporter friend of Montgomery’s returns to his life and comes aboard the Enterprise to interview him, Tucker and T’Pol head toward the mining base on the moon to find more information on their alleged daughter. But when Gannet Brooks is exposed as a Terra Prime spy and Tucker is trapped by Terra Prime members on the Orpheus base, it appears that the peace between various alien races is going to be undermined.

While “Demons” happens decades before the birth of Spock, it contains a Vulcan/Human hybrid. Ostensibly, the child is just bait, but the story is murky enough to create an entity that should not exist in the Star Trek mythos. That said, “Demons” does a good job of telling its own story that is unique to this franchise without undermining all that came before it (and after). The concept of Terra Prime was alluded to briefly in “Home” (reviewed here!) when Phlox was attacked on Earth, but fleshing it out makes for a pretty compelling story.

What “Demons” is light on is character development. The story hinges on T’Pol and Tucker being instantly attached to their mystery baby (whose origins remain a mystery) and Tucker spends most of the episode believing T’Pol has lied to him when she tells him she was never pregnant with his child. But the disbelief in T’Pol is poorly presented, as is T’Pol’s faith-based assertion that she feels from the first moment she heard about the baby that it truly is her daughter with Tucker. “Demons” is so concerned with weaving the initial plot threads for the final arc that it fails to make any sort of compelling character journey. Indeed, the character who has the best chance to expand upon who they have been is Travis Mayweather. As Brooks interviews Mayweather, an entire retcon character arc is created for a relationship between the two that helped Mayweather reach for the stars. This contradicts Mayweather’s earlier characterization in that he never was in one place long enough to make friends or relationships outside his freighter family, but it gives Anthony Montgomery his final substantive scenes of the series.

“Demons” features a number of notable guest performers. Harry Groener returns to the Star Trek franchise, this time as Nathan Samuels and the role has potential to be more than just a Mayor-esque politician character and Groener plays him entirely humorlessly. Peter Weller opens and closes the episode as the menacing John Frederick Paxton, a disciple of Colonel Green’s philosophies. Weller’s performance is fine, but it makes it impossible for fans of the franchise to believe his character of Admiral Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!) is anything but a villain. Weller has the same bearing in both roles.

Ultimately, “Demons” is a fine beginning to the final arc and as Star Trek Enterprise stands on its own two feet at its climax, the foundation is solidly set by this episode.

The biggest gaffe in “Demons” is the reference to a Verteron array. Verteron particles were discovered in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and were referenced as the previously unknown particles that allowed the wormhole to be stable. As a result, “Demons” should not have a device that uses the particle, which would not be discovered for another two hundred years!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete Fourth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Patrick Fischler, please check out my reviews of:
One For The Money
Red State
Lost - Season 5
Something’s Gotta Give
Mulholland Drive

5.5/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Inverse Into Darkness: “The Augments” Closes The Arc Well!

The Good: Decent acting, Moments of character, Plot moves along well
The Bad: Some continuity issues, Somewhat predictable plot development/twists
The Basics: The Star Trek: Enterprise arc featuring “The Augments” ends with the enemy attacking the Klingons to precipitate a war that will bring them breathing room.


With there being so much disappointment from fans over last year’s Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!), one of the surprises was how few complaints came up relative to Star Trek: Enterprise. Combining a plotline with Augments and Klingons was something that had already happened in Star Trek: Enterprise. “The Augments” is an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise that would have been unaltered by the timeline change in Star Trek Into Darkness and thus should have been referenced, at the very least.

There is no way to discuss “The Augments” without revealing details from “Borderland” (reviewed here!) and “Cold Station 12” (reviewed here!), as “The Augments” is the third part of the story arc. The episode also makes an explicit reference to Kahn Noonien Singh and the Botany Bay from “Space Seed” (reviewed here!), which opens a small can of worms for fans; in “Cold Station 12” Archer has explicit genetic records of individual Augments, but Soong says records were destroyed. It seems pretty ridiculous that records of individual heritage would survive, but records pertaining to the creation and launch of a ship would be so thoroughly destroyed.

With the controls in Cold Station 12 about to go offline, releasing deadly pathogens throughout, and the Augments escaped in their stolen Klingon Bird Of Prey, Archer finds himself in a dire situation. Blowing himself out into space so that the transporter can be used before the pathogens are released, Archer is wounded but escapes Cold Station 12. Catching up to the Augments, Soong keeps the Enterprise at bay by dropping the Denobulan shuttle it stole into the atmosphere of a nearby planet, forcing them to rescue the Denobulans. As Soong works to modify the genes of the Augment fetuses, Malik becomes much more aggressive.

When Malik menaces a nearby Klingon colony with the biological plagues he took from Cold Station 12, Soong is effectively deposed. Archer bluffs his way into Klingon space in order to pursue the Augments. Aided by Persis, Soong escapes the Klingon ship and when he is recovered by the Enterprise, he lets Archer know about the plagues stolen by Malik. As the Enterprise pursues Malik’s ship, Malik turns on Persis, killing her for her betrayal.

“The Augments” has Trip and T’Pol actually wrestling with the consequences of T’Pol marrying in “Home” (reviewed here!). Tucker reluctantly admits he is proud of T’Pol and seeing him swallow his feelings is somewhat hearbreaking. T’Pol, for her part, presents a more logical front than she did during pretty much the entire third season. The return of a dispassionate Vulcan plays well against the emotionalism that Malik presents as the episode’s primary adversary.

The episode has some charm in it with Archer bluffing the Klingon vessel. Archer thinks on his feet in the way viewers expect a StarFleet Captain to. As well, Arik Soong finally illustrates well the humanity he is alluded to having. Soong is desperate to undo the negative perception of Augments while at the same time pursuing the research of the geneticists who precipitated the Eugenics Wars. In “The Augments,” Dr. Soong lives up to his potential as an ethical scientist who does not want to cause unnecessary loss of life. Moreover, here he finally tries to rewrite the bad genetic code left over from the Eugenics Wars. That plays well to the character and the continuity.

The acting in “The Augments” is universally good. Brent Spiner shines as Dr. Soong and he brings a little more depth to a guest character. Spiner manages to infuse an undertone of desperation into many of Soong’s lines and that makes the character seem more like a misguided man trying to make good than a legitimate villain. At the other end of the spectrum is Alec Newman as Malik. Newman is almost constantly angry, which fits that character wonderfully. Malik is the natural successor to Khan and Newman plays him like a young version of that villain, which plays perfectly for the character.

Despite the decent aspects, “The Augments” is still pretty light on character development. The episode is more plot-based and struggling to resolve the prior two episodes than it is concerned with growing any of the characters from Star Trek: Enterprise. The episode is entertaining (the nod to Khan’s death near the end of the episode is fun for the fans!), but it lacks resonance in that it is devoid of larger themes to make the episode mean anything to anyone who was not already a fan of the series.

The three biggest gaffes in “The Augments:”
3. Fooling the Klingons with a phony warp signature is a technique not developed until Star Trek: The Next Generation,
2. Dr. Soong takes the Augments toward the Briar Patch, which was in Star Trek: Insurrection (reviewed here!). Given that the Son’a are a force in the Dominion War and how far away the war front is from the core of Federation space, the Briar Patch should not be anywhere near as close to Earth or Klingon Space as it is in “The Augments,”
1. Dr. Soong was aboard a Klingon Bird Of Prey and its wreckage could easily have been salvaged and returned to StarFleet space. As a result, there is absolutely no good reason why StarFleet would not have recovered it or employed Soong to provide them with the tactical information he gleaned from the vessel and thus know how to read Klingon controls long before Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (reviewed here!).

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete Fourth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Richard Riehle, please visit my reviews of:
Girl Meets Boy
Bridesmaids
Bandits
Aaah! Zombies!!
Office Space
"Spirit Folk" - Star Trek: Voyager
"Fair Haven" - Star Trek: Voyager
“Becoming, Part I” - Buffy The Vampire Slayer
“The Inner Light” - Star Trek: The Next Generation

7/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Light On Character, “The Forgotten” Still Succeeds!

The Good: Moments of character, Generally decent acting, Good plot continuation
The Bad: Thematically heavy-handed on the Tucker/Taylor front.
The Basics: “The Forgotten” has Tucker coming apart at the seams trying to hold the Enterprise together while Archer negotiates with Degra and Jannar to stop them from deploying the Xindi weapon.


Continuing a heavily serialized storyline is a risk for any television series, but when a show truly commits to it, it can pay off wonderfully. With the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise, by the time “The Forgotten” was produced, the show was floundering, so the producers redoubled their efforts to tighten the story arc. As a result, “The Forgotten” plays significantly less well for those who have not seen “Azati Prime” (reviewed here!) and “Damage” (reviewed here!). “The Forgotten” is a direct follow-up to those episodes and while it might be largely plot-based, it is still entertaining and well-presented.

While “The Forgotten” has minimal character development for the main characters of Star Trek: Enterprise, there is some evolution for the character T’Pol and there is a decent amount of expansion for the adversaries Degra and Jannar. While the initiating incident for T’Pol’s continued degradation might have been one of the more contrived messes of the third season, the idea of sustaining the consequences to it plays well in “The Forgotten.” As well, having both Degra and Jannar appear as genuine leaders and men of reason makes the episode flow well.

Following the attack that left eighteen aboard Enterprise dead, the Enterprise is still severely damaged and Archer pushes Tucker to get as many repairs done before the Enterprise has to make a rendezvous with Degra in ten hours. T’Pol meets with Phlox, who reveals that her Trellium poisoning might make her susceptible to emotions for the rest of her life. When the Enterprise arrives for its meeting with Degra, it encounters a spatial anomaly before Degra’s ship arrives and has the Enterprise follow to a safe point, near one of the Spheres. When Archer confirms that the Xindi weapon is not currently being launched, he brings Degra and the Xindi Arboreal Jannar aboard. While they want proof of his time traveling abilities, he is only able to show them the corpses of the Xindi Reptiles brought back from Earth’s past.

When Archer brings Degra and Jannar to the Xindi toxin he recovered in the past, Degra seems convinced, but Jannar remains skeptical. Phlox relieves the exhausted Tucker before Archer has him share information with the two Xindi about the transdimensional alien that visited and died aboard the Enterprise. That seems to shake Degra, though Jannar wants something much more tangible. When Tucker confronts Degra about the weapon he built, the contrast between him and Archer is tangible. As Archer works to gain Degra’s trust, Reed and Tucker have to go out onto the surface of the Enterprise to fix a plasma conduit rupture before the ship is destroyed.

On the character front, “The Forgotten” has Archer getting more and more desperate, but retaining a level head for conversation the way one tends to expect Star Trek captains to behave. The more significant character arcs are Tucker and T’Pol. Tucker has not slept in two days, since the attack and his exhaustion during the repairs leads him to hallucinate. As Tucker agonizes over writing a letter to the family of an engineer who died in the attack, his character wrestles with a great deal of guilt over the death of his sister. That leads Tucker to his outburst with Degra and in addition to being good television. The only thing that could have strengthened this arc would have been if Taylor (the dead crewman) had actually been featured in prior episodes.

T’Pol’s arc in the episode is a bit more subtle. She shows genuine concern for Tucker and the idea that she might be stuck with emotions is an intriguing twist. Actress Jolene Blalock starts playing T’Pol with more facial expressions and with obvious concern in her eyes whenever she delivers lines about characters being in peril.

“The Forgotten” is also notable in that it features a cameo appearance from Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy (volume ten is reviewed here!). Sadly, though, it is a “blink and you miss it” appearance. More impressive is the performance by Randy Oglesby as Degra. As the episode progresses, Oglesby is given an opportunity to play the character as shaken and when he transitions the character from disturbed to resolved, it comes across completely organically. Oglesby is a wonderful actor and having the long arc to play Degra allows him to illustrate more range than he has on any of his other Star Trek guest starring roles.

“The Forgotten” has some decent special effects for the starships, but the computer generated people on the hull of the Enterprise move awkwardly. It is not enough to sink the episode, but it hardly enhances the episode.

The biggest gaffe in “The Forgotten” is that the Enterprise suffers from a plasma fire, which threatens the ship. It is venting a fire into space, but in “Disaster” (reviewed here!), the plasma fire clearly needs air to burn. In “The Forgotten,” the plasma fire burns out into space in a way that it ought not to.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the penultimate season here!
Thanks!]

8.5/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Trading Sex Appeal For Spare Organs, “Similitude” Is Anything But Heavy-handed.

The Good: Good acting, Good philosophy, Decent special effects
The Bad: Undermines character conflict and philosophy with incongruent characterizations, Derivative plot
The Basics: “Similitude” is a missed opportunity for Star Trek: Enterprise to rise to a strong medical ethics story as it fills out the episode with increased character details and forced conflict.


When it comes to television series’s, there is something to be said for how a show gets rid of characters. Killing off a main character is a tricky thing and the necessity of removing a main cast member usually seems to come from actors choosing to leave the series. In the Star Trek franchise, outside the original Star Trek, there has been a main cast casualty in each series. In the case of Star Trek: Enterprise, that casualty comes exceptionally late in the series, though “Similitude” would immediately have viewers believe otherwise.

“Similitude” tries to make a character death with meaning, though it is painfully similar to Star Trek Nemesis’s inclusion of B-4; Data’s sacrifice means less considering there is already another Soong-type android with his memories on the Enterprise. In true Star Trek fashion, there is an ethical dilemma and fans of the Star Trek franchise will recognize a number of similarities to “Ethics” (reviewed here!) as well as Star Trek: Nemesis (reviewed here!).

Opening with a funeral for Trip Tucker, the episode flashes back to two weeks prior when Tucker was giving T’Pol a foot massage. Tucker tells T’Pol about a warp field experiment he is planning on running and the next day, the Enterprise performs the test. The test is successful up until the warp core destabilizes and there is an explosion. In stabilizing the warp drive, Tucker is caught in an explosion and soon after, Archer informs T’Pol that Tucker is in a coma. As Phlox is concerned that Tucker will not awaken from the coma unaided, he proposes using one of his little lifeforms in Sickbay to create a Lyserian mimetic symbiont, a clone.

Despite T’Pol’s ethical reservations, Archer approves the procedure. After four days, Phlox lets the child, Sim, out of his care. Archer takes Sim to the cargo bay to fly around the radio-control test ship, which Sim crashes. Archer explains the situation (mostly) to Sim as Sim continues to rapidly grow, though subsequent interactions with T’Pol and Reed are met with indifference and excitement. While the Enterprise is trapped in an area of space where particulate matter is building up on the ship and Sim uses Tucker’s memories and experiences to create a risky method of getting the Enterprise out of its predicament. As crewmembers become invested in Sim, the ethical issues surrounding the way he is to be used to save Trip’s life come to the forefront.

“Similitude” features four performers playing Trip Tucker and Sim and they do fine. The young actor Adam Taylor Gordon plays the young version of Tucker in a surprisingly good manner. He has the character’s swagger and sense of eagerness that defines Tucker’s cocky nature.

The character struggle in “Similitude” is essentially between Archer, Sim, and T’Pol. Archer’s view is that he is all about saving Tucker. In fact, Archer is anything but compassionate to Sim, so he comes across as something of a jerk, as opposed to a man doing anything he can to save his best friend. Sim comes to a point where he starts debating his own existence and that plays well. Sim makes the strong argument for an inherent right to live and it is compelling. As for T’Pol, she quietly emotes a longing for Sim that she has not exhibited with Trip. The subtle emotionalism is present throughout the episode and there is some merit to that.

Unfortunately, it comes on the heels of yet another scene where Trip and T’Pol are being physically intimate (their body positions are suggestive, though they entirely clothed and the acts are not overtly sexual). But “Similitude” has an underlying sexual tension that feels especially cheap in an episode that could be nailing home strong points on the importance and value of life. Instead, the salacious and obvious way T’Pol and Trip and later T’Pol and Sim are thrown together undermines the magnitude of the philosophical argument.

On the plot front, there is a further derivative quality to “Similitude.” The revelation from Sim to T’Pol is virtually identical to how Odo spoiled his younger self’s interest to Kira in “Children Of Time” (reviewed here!). Beyond that, the spatial anomaly is one of the simpler ones in the franchise and the contradictions in style and substance do not result in an overly satisfying episode.

“Similitude” had potential and, especially devoid of any hype for the idea of killing Tucker, is one of the bigger missed opportunities of the season.

The three biggest gaffes in “Similitude:”
3. Given how many casualties there have been in the Star Trek universe, why has no one else ever used a Lyserian mimetic symbiont since?!,
2. Given the nature of the spatial anomaly in “Similitude,” the one in “Imaginary Friend” (reviewed here!) should have been nothing to deal with,
1. The idea of cloning for organs should not have been such an audacious idea in “Ethics” . . . two hundred years later, if Phlox was essentially doing the same thing in this episode!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the penultimate season here!
Thanks!]

5.5/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Recreating Absurdity: “Extinction” Continues A Bad Star Trek Trend.

The Good: Moments of physical performance
The Bad: Terrible concept, effects, plot, Lack of character development
The Basics: “Extinction” is a lousy Star Trek: Enterprise episode that recreates elements of two terrible episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager and manages to make them worse!


For as much as I love the Star Trek franchise, the various series’ of Star Trek have a bad tendency to reuse some of their worst ideas. It does not take a very scholarly interpretation to see that Star Trek: The Motion Picture (reviewed here!) bears a strong resemblance to “The Changeling” (reviewed here!) and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (reviewed here!) is just “The Way To Eden” (reviewed here!) redressed. Neither “The Changeling” nor “The Way To Eden” has ever been called one of the most popular episodes (both have, at various points, been in the bottom ten Star Trek episodes when fans have been surveyed). With Star Trek: Enterprise, Brannon Braga’s obsession with ignoring the original Star Trek seems like it might have made it easy for him to not make the same mistake.

And yet, with “Extinction,” Star Trek: Enterprise seems to prove the franchise will just keep making the same mistakes. Ironically, considering the mutation-special “Threshold” (reviewed here!) from Star Trek: Voyager and how poorly it was received by the critics and fans, it is ironic that Braga would make another mutation episode. “Extinction,” though, has even less appeal and emotional resonance than “Threshold.”

After an alien is burned alive on an alien planet, Charles Tucker visits T’Pol in her quarters for more meditative therapy. Their session is interrupted by Archer, who informs T’Pol he may have found a planet visited by the Arboreal Xindi. Detecting a ship, Reed, T’Pol, Archer, and Sato take a shuttlepod down to the surface. There, the Away Team begins to mutate into another form of life. Acting on instinct, Sato, Archer, and Reed attack T’Pol (whose mutations are occurring at a slower rate).

Tucker – smartly wearing an environmental suit – is saved from an attack by the mutated Archer by T’Pol. Recovering Reed, Tucker returns to the Enterprise where Dr. Phlox determines that with T’Pol’s K-cells, he can synthesize an antibody to restore the mutated crew members. When two alien ships return to the planet and menace Enterprise, Tucker is put in an untenable position. While Archer dreams of a city on the planet, the visiting alien Tret tells Phlox about how the virus was created as a weapon and Phlox works to counteract its effects.

“Extinction” lacks the emotional tether of similar mutation episodes in the Star Trek franchise. After an act of three actors leaping around spouting gibberish, the universal translator kicks in and instead of anything remotely character-centered, “Extinction” uses the dialogue for excessive plot exposition. The mutated Archer becomes obsessed with finding a city which – through his dreams – he is able to actually find (although not in the condition he recalled).

“Extinction” lacks any genuine character development outside the first five minutes. It is hardly developing the characters to have T’Pol and Tucker continue their meditations. Instead, it just seems like a cheap excuse to have Connor Trinneer take off his shirt.

The special effects in “Extinction” are a wash. While the make-up effects are good, the CG transformation of the characters as they mutate are pretty terrible and the computer-generated effects do not hold up on high definition. Even worse, the bluescreen shots are painfully obvious.

“Extinction” also features a number of serious continuity or detail errors. How much DNA does a Vulcan really leave from taking a bite out of a peach?! Cracking the faceplate on Tucker’s helmet does not leave him infected, yet a small tear on the arm of one of the aliens’ environmental suits is excuse enough to execute him!? Even more disturbing; Archer begins harvesting biological weapons and his weak assertions to Phlox hold up with the doctor! Moreover, what is the point of having only one vial-sized stasis compartment?! The prop department truly fell down for creating something sensible for “Extinction.” Archer, Reed, and Sato act completely animalistic, but they understand complicated concepts like dreams and once the universal translator comes online, they speak in sufficiently articulate ways to make it absolute nonsense that they would act like animals in the prior scenes.

The only points I can muster up for “Extinction” come from the physical acting of Linda Park and Scott Bakula. Bakula transforms his entire bearing into an animalistic one and the abrupt, weird, movements are completely different from his usual performance. Similarly, Linda Park stands around in one of the least organic or sensible postures of any Star Trek performer ever and that convinces the viewer she actually has been completely transformed.

Sadly, it is not enough to sell the episode or convince the viewer of the “reality” of the episode.

The biggest gaffe in “Extinction,” relative to the rest of the Star Trek franchise is: Given how similar these conditions are, the mutation from “Genesis” (reviewed here!) should have been cured in about five minutes by any of Dr. Crusher’s nurses.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the penultimate season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Roger R. Cross, please visit my reviews of:
X2
The Chronicles Of Riddick
World Trade Center

1/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Archer’s Backstory Is Fleshed Out With Minimal Character In “First Flight”

The Good: Fills in a gap in the Star Trek Universe’s history, Fleshes out Archer’s backstory all right.
The Bad: No real character development, Not exciting or terribly engaging, Nothing stellar on the acting front.
The Basics: “First Flight” is a great example of how sometimes less is more as Archer’s backstory gains a story, but it is hardly an exciting or realistic chapter in his life.


There is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” aspect to prequels and flashback episodes in a show that show characters from a series as they existed before the pilot episode of their series may be some of the most problematic episodes a series can do. The reason for there being a prejudice against flashback episodes is simple: such episodes might create fan satisfaction in that they get the thrill of seeing how their beloved characters met or achieve a new appreciation for the characters they love by seeing them at an earlier stage of development, but truly sophisticated works have to tell a story that both illustrates how the character became the person fans are familiar with while still making their eventual position in the primary narrative make sense. Sadly, Enterprise is not a terribly sophisticated series and their flashback episode “First Flight” which details an early adventure with Jonathan Archer (and Trip Tucker) only exposes how sloppy such an episode can be.

The crux of the issue with “First Flight” is simple: nothing significant is revealed about Jonathan Archer’s character and the episode makes it far, far more unlikely that Jonathan Archer would never be given a starship to command as a result of its content. Far from expanding Jonathan Archer’s character, “First Flight” feels very much like Captain Archer . . . the early years, as opposed to Commander Archer’s misadventure. Unlike an episode like Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Tapestry” (reviewed here!), which clearly illustrated how young Lieutenant Jean-Luc Picard nearly died at the hands of an alien, which led him to change from a brash young man into an adult who was much more hesitant to taking risks, “First Flight” does not stretch Scott Bakula to play Jonathan Archer in any meaningfully different way than he has always played Captain Archer. The result is a thoroughly uninspired episode.

Opening with Archer, Tucker, and T’Pol debating the possible existence of a dark matter nebula near Enterprise’s current position, Archer is saddened with news from Earth A.G. Robinson has died. Somber and clearly in mourning, Archer prepares to explore the dark matter nebula in a shuttlepod on his own when T’Pol bullies her way into accompanying him. In the shuttle, Archer tells T’Pol of the historic Warp Three program that he was a part of. When the NX Project was building test ships to break the Warp Two and Warp Three barriers (for humans), Archer was one of the final candidates for the NX test flight. Commodore Forrest, however, informs him that his rival, Commander A.G. Robinson has been tapped to fly the historic flight instead.

Jealous that someone else has been tapped to fly the ship with his father’s experimental warp engine design, Archer watches in horror as A.G. Robinson loses the NX Alpha Test Ship after pushing it up to Warp 2.1. While Robinson survives, the Vulcan Advisory Council recommends StarFleet stop its tests and Forrest reluctantly agrees. After Robinson argues that pilot error is not to blame for the destruction of the Alpha test ship and postulates that Archer’s father’s design caused the destruction and set the program back, Archer and Robinson have a fistfight and then team up to go rogue. In stealing the Beta Test Ship, the two men work together to break the Warp 2.5 barrier. As Archer reminisces about the past, he and T’Pol explore what Archer believes is a Dark Matter nebula and he becomes determined to prove it exists, despite the fact that it is not visible!

“First Flight” undermines the already shaky premise of Enterprise by making it utterly unrealistic that Jonathan Archer would ever have been in a position to take command of Enterprise. Forrest, who is the archetype for the StarFleet admirals, appears to have rewarded Archer’s insubordination and youthful aggression with the command of the first Warp Five vessel. “First Flight” makes it seem entirely unlikely that StarFleet was a viable organization at its inception. After all, this episode forces viewers to accept that there was no better choice for command of the first human ship than a guy clinging to petty jealousy who would get into a bar brawl because someone spoke bad about his father. After the events of this episode, Jonathan Archer should have reasonably been kicked out of the service.

Moreover, the idea that T’Pol has no idea what happened in the story Archer is telling her makes no sense considering that Forrest is accompanied for all of the important scenes by the two Vulcan observers to the Warp Three program. T’Pol claims to have studied all of the StarFleet warp trial records, but that there is no record whatsoever of this flight makes no sense.

“First Flight” is similarly devoid of character development or interesting performances. Scott Bakula portrays Archer without any change, even a nuance of difference, between the past and present scenes. Even Vaughn Armstrong’s portrayal of Forrest is more laid-back than he usually appears. Jolene Blalock is once again caught smirking and Connor Trinneer similarly gives viewers nothing new as Trip Tucker.

In the end, “First Flight” illustrates the folly of going back to an earlier point in a story when important character developments are not respected. That makes it a poor episode and generally unremarkable television.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete Second Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophmore season here!
Thanks!]

2/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Only Original To The Non-Fans: “Cogenitor.”

The Good: Decent acting, Special effects, General concept
The Bad: Entirely recycled plot
The Basics: Obvious and already-done, “Cogenitor” is a ridiculous oversimplification of gender issues and nothing that fans of the Star Trek franchise have not already been familiar with.


When it comes to Star Trek as metaphor, the only thing more insulting about Enterprise than when it completely neglects to present a plot that is smart and conceptually complex enough to include a metaphoric level is when the series simply recycles a metaphoric plot. Only those who are not fans of the rest of the Star Trek franchise will find the Enterprise episode “Cogenitor” to be at all original. After all, “Cogenitor” is an unfortunately cheap retread of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Outcast” (reviewed here!). While “The Outcast” used a genderless race as a metaphor for homosexuality and sexual identification, “Cogenitor” finds an alien race that has three genders and that is used to tell a story of gender equality rights that is not at all impressive.

Despite the issues with the plot and recycled metaphor of “Cogenitor,” there is a real simple thrill for genre fans in this episode: it marks one of the last on-screen appearances of the great Andreas Katsulas, who played G’Kar on Babylon 5 (reviewed here!). Presented here with minimal make-up, Katsulas plays a Vissian Captain and lends his strong bearing and amazing voice to make Drennik appear to be a fully-realized and credible alien captain.

The Enterprise arrives at a hyper-giant star where they discover another ship, which is able to get much closer to the phenomenon than they are. The ship is Vissian and they are technologically advanced compared to the humans on the StarFleet vessel. As Reed works with familiarizing himself with the visiting women and Archer explores with the Vissian Captain Drennik, Tucker becomes intrigued by the Vissian engineer’s family. The Chief Engineer’s family includes a Cogenitor, a third gender who is used for reproducing in Vissian society. Tucker begins to become concerned with how the Cogenitor is treated and comes to believe that it is treated poorly.

After teaching the Cogenitor how to read, Tucker begins to advocate for the Cogenitor’s rights. While Reed gets fresh with another Vissian and Archer is thrilled to explore a spatial phenomenon no other human has ever seen before, Tucker throws himself into a social upheaval when the Vissians discover the Cogenitor has learned to read. The Cogenitor asks for asylum and Archer returns to the Enterprise to find that the Cogenitor is asking for rights of its own.

“Cogenitor” has a truly wonderful performance by Andreas Katsulas and he plays off Scott Bakula’s Archer incredibly well. The debate that comes up as a result of Tucker’s meddling is well-presented, though the fact that it takes Archer a scene to stand up against what could easily be interpreted as sexual slavery is somewhat appalling.

What makes no real sense is the cultural design of the Vissians. The Cogenitors represent approximately 3% of Vissian society. Because they are necessary for Vissian reproduction, it seems strange that they would not be treated as cherished members of society instead of chattel. Given how enlightened the rest of Vissian culture appears to be, it seems strange that Drennik and the Vissians would resist the idea of giving Cogenitors equal rights. In other words, “Cogenitor” seems like a forced moral issue instead of an organic one.

As a result, much of the rest of “Cogenitor” and the moralizing seems pedantic and overdone, as opposed to realistic or engaging.

That said, Connor Trinneer gives one of his best performances of the series as Trip. He is emotionally well-rounded in the role and for a change, Trip does not dumb or unsophisticated. In fact, it is a rare thing that Tucker is given the chance to shine as a moral and well-rounded character who is layered and complex. Trinneer rises to the challenge and that is refreshing to see.

“Cogenitor” also makes decent use of the special effects on the series. The episode has a pretty cool spatial phenomenon and the Vissian ships, though looking like a derivation of the Kazon ships, look very different from many of the familiar Star Trek ships!

Ultimately, “Cogenitor” seems like another desperate, late in the second season attempt to get back the audience that made Star Trek into a worldwide phenomenon (which the Enterprise producers were happy to mortgage at the outset of the series) and it is unfortunately far too close to other episodes to truly excite the viewer.

The three biggest gaffes in “Cogenitor:”
3. The Vissians are yet another alien race living in the heart of what will be Federation space that are never seen again in the Star Trek franchise,
2. Reed mentions some of the technology on Enterprise works on multiphasic technology, but that technology is being developed in “Suspicions” (reviewed here!) in Star Trek: The Next Generation,
1. In Star Trek: The Next Generation the periodic table of elements is vastly expanded from what it is now. However, it is nowhere near as big as having 270 (or more) elements, which the Vissians mention they have discovered and utilize. How the Federation and StarFleet have not made such a leap in two hundred years is utterly inconceivable.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete Second Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophmore season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with F.J. Rio, please check out my reviews of:
“Repentance” - Star Trek: Voyager
“The Ship” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Hard Time” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Starship Down” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

5.5/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ridiculous And Unbalanced, The Galoob Geordi La Forge Figure Is Unimpressive!

The Good: General sculpt (it’s obvious who it is)
The Bad: Overproduced, Unbalanced, Lousy accessories, Terrible coloring and detailing, Virtually everything.
The Basics: Geordi La Forge, in his first season only incarnation is made into one of the most basic and ridiculous Star Trek: The Next Generation action figures.


Back in the day, Galoob actually had the license to Star Trek The Next Generation action figures. Those first figures were exceptionally primitive, like on par with the 1980s Star Wars action figures from Kenner.

One of the four most common Galoob Star Trek: The Next Generation figures which was a pegwarmer for years while it was out was their take on Lieutenant Geordi La Forge. Geordi La Forge, who is a staple of the Star Trek franchise was so poorly presented that even fans of the popular character tend to shy away from this toy and avoid it even now!

Basics

The Star Trek: The Next Generation 1988 Collection of action figures contained six figures (though two were quite rare and another four were later released) and it focused on the essential characters and villains of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Enormously overproduced even then, Lt. Geordi La Forge was one of four figures that was so common by 1989, most toy stores were trying (unsuccessfully) to blow their stock out in the dollar bins. Geordi La Forge suffered additionally because by the time the figure came out, the second season of the show was already on the air and Geordi La Forge had a new uniform and new position, so he no longer looked like this figure!

The Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge figure is the Navigation and Helm branch officer as he appeared in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (reviewed here!). Geordi La Forge is wearing the maroon command and helm uniform. Across his eyes is the metal VISOR.

Standing three and a half inches tall, this is a poor likeness of Lieutenant Geordi La Forge immortalized in plastic. The character is molded in a generic standing position that makes him look like he is in a coffin. He is molded with a phaser in his left hand, so he is ready for combat, so long as it is straight in front of him! This Geordi La Forge figure has a terrible level of detailing, with the head being disproportionately small compared with the rest of his body. As well, the uniform detailing is poor with accents like the piping on the pants and shoulders not being painted on. To add further insult to collectors, some of the painting is sloppy like the communicator pin, which is not even fully filled in on mine! Geordi La Forge's face is a generic, neutral expression that contains no emotions, which (admittedly) is made harder by the VISOR over his eyes. Geordi La Forge is also monotonally colored, so there is no depth or shading realism to the figure’s features. He is obviously the blind navigator, but the molding and paint details are so minimal that his hair looks like a helmet as opposed to a head!

Accessories

Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge comes with only one accessory, considering that the phaser is molded into his one hand. That accessory is a tricorder and it comes with a strap that was never used on the actual tricorders on Star Trek The Next Generation. Instead, this looks like a generic phone from the late 1980s hanging on a plastic string. The accessory is light on molding details, looking nothing like a tricorder, and is absent any coloring details. As such, it is just a slightly gray plastic piece that hangs from the figure’s shoulder.

Playability

Lieutenant Geordi La Forge is terrible as a toy, for several reasons outside just its sculpt. First, Geordi La Forge has terrible balance, light articulation and the molded phaser limits the play options as one whole hand is unavailable for posing or holding items (if there had been more accessories), unless one wants to have Geordi La Forge shooting someone. This was pretty lousy as one of the few playsets Galoob produced was a shuttlecraft and it is hard to imagine Geordi La Forge effectively navigating that craft if he only had one hand available to do it with! Lieutenant Geordi La Forge is endowed with six points of articulation: groin socket, shoulders, neck, and waist. All of the joints are simple swivel joints. As a result, the neck turns left to right, for example, but the head cannot nod. Similarly, the shoulders are not ball and socket joints and only rotate.

Geordi La Forge, unfortunately, is topheavy with his broad chest and as a result is poorly balanced. This Geordi La Forge tips over and I’ve not found a way to get him to stand unless one has him leaning back from the waist, so it looks like he is doing a groin thrust! This is a terribly balanced toy and the inability to stand is the final nail in the coffin for this figure.

Collectibility

Galoob mass produced the four figures from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and made the others exceptionally rare. Geordi La Forge was one of the four ultracommon figures and this Geordi La Forge is beyond worthless. Found loose for less than a dollar these days, this Geordi La Forge can often be found for less than $3.00 Mint on card! Galoob flooded the market with these figures and they are almost impossible to use as investment pieces.

Overview

The Lieutenant Geordi La Forge Star Trek: The Next Generation figure from Galoob is one of the few that is truly worth avoiding.

For other Star Trek toys, please check out my reviews of:
Playmates Star Trek: Generations Klingon Bird Of Prey
Burger King Sulu talking inaction figure
Vina The Orion Slave Woman figure from Playmates

1/10

For other toy reviews, please visit my Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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LeVar Burton Tries To Give Mayweather Some Character In “Fortunate Son.”

The Good: Ethics of Archer, Moments of character
The Bad: Absolutely no emotional ramifications to the episode’s conflict, Some incredibly stiff acting
The Basics: “Fortunate Son” has Enterprise encountering a cargo ship which compels Archer to aid them against the Nausicaans and their own worst elements.


Sometimes, the only thing worse than Star Trek: Enterprise creating episodes that mess with the overall continuity of the Star Trek franchise is when it does an episode that feels like it has absolutely no consequence or meaning . . . either in the franchise or within the series itself. “Fortunate Son” is one of those episodes.

I understand how “Fortunate Son” got made: Ensign Travis Mayweather needed a story that explored his character and to the credit of writer James Duff, the episode creates a culture for the Boomers, the space-bound humans who have no real ties to Earth or any planet. The crew of the cargo ship Fortunate is characterized as having their own feelings, thoughts, and culture, so despite their reprehensible actions, they seem to have their own code of ethics. While there seem to be some strange parallels between the humans and their raider conflict in “Fortunate Son” with the bigot humans and raiders in the first season of Babylon 5 (reviewed here!), the main strike against “Fortunate Son” is just that it has a low sense of consequence or importance. As my wife noted as the episode neared its climax, “Why do we care?!”

The cargo ship Fortunate comes under fire from an alien ship, after the Captain and First Officer throw around a football on their cargo deck. Enterprise is reassigned to respond to their distress call by StarFleet’s Admiral Forrest. Arriving at the Fortunate, the Enterprise crew docks and tries to provide them with assistance. Archer, Phlox, T’Pol, and Mayweather try to repair the Fortunate and Mayweather bonds with First Officer Matthew Ryan. T’Pol, however, discovers that the human crew of the Fortunate is hiding a Nausicaan aboard their ship.

Confronting Ryan, Archer threatens to remove all of the components Trip used to repair the Fortunate and he and an Away Team return to the human cargo ship to rescue the captured Nausicaan pirate. When Ryan shoots a hole in the hull and sets the cargo container adrift, Enterprise loses the Fortunate to save the Away Team. When the Fortunate is surrounded by Nausicaan pirate ships, Ryan must decide whether or not to cling to his prejudice and get his revenge or evolve and surrender his prisoner.

“Fortunate Son” is an Enterprise episode that actually feels like the StarFleet crew is evolved enough to fit into the Star Trek franchise. Beyond the moralizing of Archer and Mayweather, though, the episode has surprisingly little going for it. In the larger context, Admiral Forrest has Enterprise deploying subspace relays, which is a nice touch for communications throughout the Federation, though it seems odd that there is no delay in his transmission to Archer in “Fortunate Son.”

The episode accomplishes the goal of fleshing out Ensign Mayweather and establishing a cargo ship (Boomer) culture. Mayweather has a loyalty to his home ship, the Horizon, and he clearly misses his family, which is still there. Moreover, in his conversation with Ryan, Mayweather reveals a sense of history for the Boomers, which is a nice touch.

Unfortunately, the acting in “Fortunate Son” is nothing spectacular. Actor Lawrence Monoson returns to the franchise, having performed in “The Storyteller” (reviewed here!), but he is incredibly stiff initially. In fact, the actors telegraph the conflict from their first appearance in the episode. As she frequently does, Jolene Blalock smirks through much of her performance in “Fortunate Son.”

Also, the episode has a pretty huge continuity problem that is just ridiculously stupid: on the shuttlepod headed to Fortunate, Dr. Phlox performs a scan that determines how many life forms are on the cargo ship. He begins to feel like the incompetent doctor on Arrested Development when he does not reveal to the crew that there is a Nausicaan life form on the Horizon and he has been wounded. The episode seriously fails to address this gaping issue.

Ultimately, “Fortunate Son” is an inconsequential and somewhat dull episode where the guest characters are put in real peril and the viewer does not care about them, so it adds up to nothing significant.

The biggest gaffe in “Fortunate Son:”
Yet again, the Nausicaans appear with a significant presence, despite the fact that the Orions were the original Star Trek pirates. The Nausicaans should not have a presence this close to Earth. Moreover, the Nausicaans have always been characterized as big, brutish, dumb thugs. In “Fortunate Son,” they are remarkably articulate, subtle, and (despite some violent tendencies) cultured.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the premiere season here!
Thanks!]

4/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Getting The Most Out Of The Creepy Cave Budget, “Terra Nova” Moves Enterprise Back And Forward.

The Good: General concept, Moments of guest performance
The Bad: Specific acting issues, Huge continuity problem, Mood
The Basics: In “Terra Nova,” writer Antoinette Stella essentially rewrites “Miri” and creates another huge continuity problem in Enterprise.


Sometimes, when the writers of Star Trek episodes create something new, they make what came before make much less sense than it ought to. So, for example, in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Wounded” (reviewed here!), the Cardassians are introduced and in doing so, the character reference how hostilities between the Federation and Cardassia have only recently ended. In writing the episode that way, the series undermined itself because it made no sense that the U.S.S. Enterprise, the most powerful ship in StarFleet (with the ability to disable a Cardassian warship with about two phaser hits) would have been tasked with an exploratory mission, as opposed to ending the war with Cardassia with expediency. In a similar way, “Terra Nova” makes the meandering mission of Enterprise make no real sense.

“Terra Nova” is an exploration/rescue mission story and given that Enterprise has been out in the galaxy for months at this point, if the mystery of the Terra Nova colony was such a compelling thing, why wouldn’t that have been the very first thing they went out to do?! In the context of “Terra Nova,” no one sufficiently answers T’Pol’s question of why other humans didn’t go after the colony before now.

Enterprise is closing in on Terra Nova, a lost human colony that stopped communicating with Earth some seventy-five years prior. When the ship arrives, they detect no life signs and they bring down a shuttlepod to investigate the colony. There, they discover primitive creatures, living in the caves, who shoot Reed. T’Pol reveals that the creatures are human.

Archer begins to negotiate with the filthy creatures living in the caves for Reed’s return. Dr. Phlox determines that the subterranean humans are suffering from lung cancer and other cellular decay and in healing them, the crew solves the mystery of the lost colony.

“Terra Nova” is a terrible episode from beginning to end. The acting is stiff and the plot is ridiculous and while director LeVar Burton gives it a good try, he can’t save the problems that come from a lame script. In fact, this is another episode where the quality of the seasoned guest actors (most notably Erick Avari) overshadow the regular performers. In his first moments on screen, Anthony Montgomery (Travis Mayweather) looks and sounds like he is reading his lines off cue cards. And from a script perspective, the resolution to the episode – which has Mayweather assigned to write up the mission report – makes no sense when his character sits out the bulk of the episode.

“Terra Nova” bears a strong resemblance to “Miri” (reviewed here!) and it is yet another episode where the producers go for trying to scare the audience (failing to do so in a compelling way) and they use the cave sets. Apparently, the Enterprise scanners absolutely suck because yet again, the scanners fail to find human life signs until it is plot-convenient and then they discover a whole separate group of colonists on a planet where one would think they should have stuck out like a sore thumb.

The episode further suffers from the regression of the human characters. Nadet is seventy years old and had a childhood on the colony before it was destroyed, so the language she spoke should have been pretty close to normal English. They claim not to like humans (which is fine), but in trying to prove to the Novans that they are human, it does not occur to Archer to do the obvious: give them a shower. The Novans are just dirty humans who live underground. Washing them off and standing next to them would pretty much prove to them that they are human, too . . .

“Terra Nova” is one of the first big failures of Enterprise where the biggest problems are within the episode itself, as opposed to how it fits into the larger Star Trek franchise. The plot is mediocre, the acting is terrible and there is no sensible character development (though there is another reference to Mayweather as a “Boomer”), making it a boring dud that starts with a terribly unengaging teaser.

The three biggest gaffes in “Terra Nova:”
3. Once again, Vulcans are characterized as remarkably ignorant. Why would T’Pol, a science officer, not learn anything about human colonization efforts before getting on a ship with them?!
2. Dr. Phlox is explicitly called a Denobulan, a race never before (or after) seen in the Star Trek franchise . . . or even referenced, so . . . what the hell happened to them?!
1. Given that the set-up is virtually identical to “This Side Of Paradise” (reviewed here!), the plot of “Terra Nova” makes it unsurprising that the Enterprise crew (decades later) would discover that lost colony alive and well.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the premiere season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Erick Avari, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Charlie Wilson's War
Heroes - Season 1
Daredevil
Mr. Deeds
The Mummy
ID4: Independence Day
"Dr. Strangechild" - VR.5
"Destiny" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"Unification, Part 1" - Star Trek: The Next Generation

1/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Voyager’s Crew Begins To Disembark In “Homestead!”

The Good: Interesting character moment, Decent-enough acting
The Bad: Light on plot developments
The Basics: Neelix is thrilled to encounter Talaxians who have established a colony in an asteroid belt, causing him a personal quandary in “Homestead.”


I recall being on the road in the early 2000s on the convention circuit as a dealer and I did a slew of conventions with Robert Picardo and Ethan Philips. Sometimes, at the smaller shows, I was the only dealer outside the convention promoter in the room! So, I got to hear Robert Picardo and Ethan Philips speak at length frequently about their experiences on Star Trek: Voyager. I recall Ethan Philips saying very vociferously that he was never getting into the Neelix make-up ever again. I told a friend of mine that and he shrugged it off and suggested that Philips was probably just angling for a raise should they ever request he appear in one of the Star Trek films. Seeing “Homestead,” though, it is hard to see how Neelix would be integrated into any such future film.

“Homestead” continues the trend begun in “Imperfection” (reviewed here!), which saw the departure of the Borg children. This time, though, Voyager sees a more significant crewmember disembarking the ship for good and it is a bittersweet departure, but not a tragic one.

While celebrating First Contact Day on Voyager (a holiday Neelix and Naomi Wildman have invented), Chakotay detects lifesigns on a nearby asteroid. The lifesigns are Talaxian and finding Talaxians so far from home surprises them all. Neelix eagerly joins Tuvok and Paris on the Delta Flyer to go investigate the asteroid, but the small ship is shot down by mining charges from another race. Inside the asteroid, Neelix is rescued by the Talaxian colonists, but is segregated from the other two. While Janeway communicates with the race that is mining the asteroid field, Neelix meets with the young son of one of the Talaxians, Brax.


Brax reminds Neelix of himself at a young age and he tries to keep the boy from getting into trouble with his mother, Dexa, whom he is attracted to. Neelix quickly becomes embroiled in the conflict between the Talaxian colonists and the miners and he helps them take a stand against the miners, who are evicting the Talaxians from their asteroid colony. In standing with the Talaxians, Neelix begins to feel a kinship for his people that tugs at him to stay with the Talaxian colony.

Neelix is a character who had an interesting amount of potential at the outset of Star Trek: Voyager, but the writers lost focus with for a large part of the series. In the third season, Neelix lost his initial ship function in “Fair Trade” (reviewed here!) and he became an “Ambassador” for Voyager, which was a role he erratically served in. More often than not, he was simply a babysitter for Naomi Wildman and the ship’s cook. Even so, there were several episodes of the series which used Neelix to present a deeper theme and really stretched Ethan Philips as an actor. Those anomalous episodes presented a very human side of Neelix, but did not so much utilize the character in a way that illustrated his function on the ship.

“Homestead” explores Neelix as a Talaxian and gives the characters on Voyager a chance to show their appreciation for the role he has played up until now and it redirects the character in a way that is surprisingly satisfying. The character conflict in “Homestead” is primarily an internal conflict for a character who is far from home and who gets the chance to be among his people. There is a romantic subplot which is developed as well as one can in a single forty-three minute episode.

Ethan Philips and guest star Julianne Christie (Dexa) have decent on-screen chemistry and their relationship in the episode is presented as plausible enough. Christie is able to emote quite a bit beneath her make-up and that sells the brief relationship her character and Philips’s have. But the real moment of chemistry and acting prowess comes in a brief scene between Tuvok and Neelix. In that scene, Tim Russ presents Tuvok in a way that clearly illustrates his character cares about Neelix. Knowing how little Russ and Philips actually enjoyed each other on-set, that Russ could portray a soft spot for Neelix, the moment that is essentially their “good-bye” is very satisfying for fans of the series.

“Homestead” is a good episode for the fans, but it is not an episode where much happens at all. Instead, it is a chance for the fans to have an emotionally satisfying sense of closure for one of the more likable, but unnecessary characters for the final arc of the show. Very little happens in “Homestead,” save Neelix rising to become the soldier he never was on Tellax the write-off of the character is good, but not extraordinary, and it is virtually meaningless to anyone who is not already invested in the character of Neelix and his journey on Star Trek: Voyager.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Voyager - The Complete Seventh Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the final season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Rob LaBelle, please visit my reviews of:
Hot Tub Time Machine
Watchmen
“Mr. Monk And The Candidate” - Monk
“False Profits” - Star Trek: Voyager
“Faces” - Star Trek: Voyager

6.5/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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