Finale 1.0, Star Trek: Enterprise Almost Ends On “Terra Prime!”

The Good: Adequate acting, Pacing, Engaging plot progression
The Bad: Lighter on character development, Plot conceit of the Vulcan/Human hybrid
The Basics: The villainous Paxton prepares to destroy StarFleet Headquarters with his xenophobic organization “Terra Prime” in the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.


Leading up to a series finale, usually there are a number of threads that need to be cut to give viewers real closure. In the case of Star Trek: Enterprise, the series began a short arc in “Demons” (reviewed here!) that would help lead to the founding of the Federation within the series and present a story that menaced that founding. The concept was simple; Earth has been plagued by a rise of xenophobia in the year the Enterprise was stuck in The Expanse. “Terra Prime” does surprisingly little in the way of plot/character thread cutting, leaving a lot of burden on the final episode to bring any closure for viewers.

In order to truly appreciate “Terra Prime,” the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, one should see “Demons.” Aspects like the Array upon which much of the episode’s action takes place are introduced in “Demons.” Most of “Terra Prime” is a rescue operation and a reaction to a terrorist attack in the prior episode. That does not make the episode bad, but it does make it less accessible on its own.

When Paxton’s array destroys the colony on Mars, Nathan Samuel’s plans for the Federation seem to be scrapped. With the Vulcans and Andorians fearful of Paxton’s ultimatum to wipe out all alien life in the Earth system, the pressures to leave the Sol system intensifies. Archer works to find T’Pol and Tucker, who are held hostage by Paxton. Aboard the Array, Paxton extorts Tucker to improve the targeting array on the station. Reed turns to Harris to get information on how to destroy the Array while the Enterprise crew works to use a comet to get close to Mars and the Array.

With Mayweather refusing to believe the imprisoned Brooks, Reed, Mayweather, Archer and Phlox head to a comet that will otherwise destroy a Mars colony. T’Pol diagnoses Paxton with a disease treated through alien medicine and she works to keep her cloned daughter alive, despite a medical condition that she cannot diagnose. With Archer’s team infiltrating the Array, Archer squares off with Paxton in a desperate attempt to save StarFleet Headquarters. With enemies aboard the Enterprise, the chances of peace in the galaxy are menaced.

Writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens once again illustrate a keen knowledge of the Star Trek universe in “Terra Prime.” The pair, which penned a number of Star Trek novels that wonderfully tie together the disparate elements of the Star Trek universe, have a keen appreciation for the minutae of the Star Trek Universe. In “Terra Prime,” Nathan Samuels’s presence on the bridge while Sato is in command is a wonderful foreshadowing of every obnoxious ambassador to plague the Bridge in Star Trek!

The concept behind the terrorist organization Terra Prime is not a bad one, especially when Josiah describes his reason for joining the xenophobes – the idea that the Vulcans could have prevented World War III and did not. Unfortunately, the whole concept of the Vulcan/Human cloned child as a threat to the future of Earth is a pretty ridiculous conceit.

That said, the existence of Elizabeth, as the baby comes to be known, is a good opportunity for Tucker and T’Pol to bond. Given how much the relationship between T’Pol and Tucker has played out in the fourth season like a soap opera, it is refreshing to see the two bonding over a legitimate crisis together. The tragic element of the story is a compelling one and offers Connor Trinneer a good opportunity to perform. His final scene in the episode is wonderfully presented and the sadness he conveys is heart-wrenching. In that same scene Jolene Blalock finally lives up to all the potential playing a Vulcan character as she presents dispassion perfectly.

Unfortunately, that’s the most character development in “Terra Prime.” While trying to flesh out Sato, who is briefly given command, and Mayweather, who has to confront an ex-lover in prison, the episode falls flat. Mayweather’s adversary has no reasonable cause to trust that Mayweather is not the xenophobe that she is supposedly there to root out, making her a terrible intelligence agent.

Star Trek: Enterprise is not known for being overly quotable, but the final speech that Archer gives in front of the nascent Federation Council is a good one and it makes the episode, until the scene that follows it, feel like a true series finale to Star Trek Enterprise.

The biggest gaffe in “Terra Prime” is that the environmental suits worn in the episode are dramatically more advanced than those from “The Tholian Web” (reviewed here!) or the rest of the series.

[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 Harry Groener, please visit my reviews of:
About Schmidt
Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 3
"Sacred Ground" - Star Trek: Voyager
“Tin Man” - Star Trek: The Next Generation

6/10

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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So Much Reference! “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” Is An Enterprise Love Song To Star Trek!

The Good: Interesting character work for Archer, Good acting, Engaging plot progression
The Bad: It’s tough to get emotionally invested in the characters, Ridiculous-looking CG Gorn
The Basics: “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” concludes the prequel Mirror Universe story by having a Gorn hunt through the U.S.S. Defiant, which leads to the solidification of the Terran Empire in a clunky way.


As Star Trek: Enterprise was winding down, its producers had a choice to make: go out with a referential episode or an original arc. The final three episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise were a distinctly Enterprise story, but immediately before that it did a final arc that was tightly related to the original Star Trek. Following up on the Mirror Universe episode “In A Mirror Darkly” (reviewed here!), “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” was the final Enterprise episode that extensively referenced original Star Trek episodes.

“In A Mirror Darkly, Part II,” like its predecessor, is set entirely in the Mirror Universe that was introduced in “Mirror, Mirror” (reviewed here!). But, more than just presenting a straightforward story in the Mirror Universe, “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” weaves a story that is very much a love song to Star Trek. As such, the episode is enriched by viewers having seen “The Tholian Web” and “Arena” (reviewed here!). Because of how insular the Mirror Universe stories are and how the action of “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” is set on the U.S.S. Defiant from “our” universe, it’s actually possible to watch “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” on its own (without seeing the first part).

With the Enterprise destroyed and a skeleton crew having made it to the U.S.S. Defiant, Archer has Reed and Tucker get the weapons systems of the futuristic ship brought back on line. Destroying the Tholians with the Defiant’s weapons, Archer takes aboard their captives as slaves and sends the Defiant, at impulse, toward Imperial space. When Kelby is killed, Phlox discovers another alien is aboard the ship. Interrogating the alien slave, Archer learns that Sklaar the Gorn is loose on the ship and is sabotaging the Defiant. Archer plans to lead the assault team on the Gorn to recover the plasma regulators needed to get the Defiant up to warp.

When Reed and Archer lead teams to find the Gorn, the Gorn is killed and the Defiant is able to rendezvous with Fleet Admiral Black’s ship. Rescuing Admiral Black from a rebel attack, Archer is dismayed that the Admiral will not give him a battlefield promotion to Captain and the Defiant. Killing Black, Archer takes command and he demands StarFleet’s unconditional surrender. Admiral Gardner refuses to surrender and Archer heads toward Earth, with the U.S.S. Avenger at his side. Aboard the Avenger, Soval and T’Pol work to protect the Empire by saving the Emperor’s life. Phlox allies with T’Pol and Soval, but Tucker manages to get the power grid up and running, destroying the Avenger and setting Archer on a historic course toward Earth.

One of the fun things about every Mirror Universe episode – in Star Trek and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - is seeing how the normal universe characters are tweaked in the Mirror Universe. In “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II,” Archer suffers from a multiple personality disorder, seeing himself goading him into being more assertive. Dr. Phlox is sadistic and Soval is openly emotional and knows how to manipulate emotions. T’Pol is largely unchanged in the Mirror Universe as she is a principled, logical standing up for the greater good.

What does not work as well in “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” is the Gorn plot. The Gorn seems to be a gratuitous addition to the storyline, as if the writers were saying “See how many episodes of Star Trek we can allude to?!” But the conflict aboard the Defiant distracts from the larger conflict in the Mirror Universe and seems somewhat silly. Archer’s fight with the Gorn ends pretty abruptly and it does not lead to much of a consolidation of power aboard the Defiant (in fact, it is after that that Soval and T’Pol are able to sway Phlox to their side).

The computer-generated Gorn looks ridiculous; it is lit without respect to the elements in its environment, which is a pretty clumsy mistake. Oddly, the space battles which were also done with CG effects are pretty impressive.

The acting in “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” is good. Scott Bakula’s performance, in particular, stands out as he plays opposite himself (though director Martin V. Rush does not quite get the perspectives right in some shots, so one Archer is noticeably larger than the one he is standing behind!). Most of the rest of the main cast is not given as much to do to play with their warped versions of their characters, but what they are given they rise to the challenge of presenting in an interesting-enough fashion.

“In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” is neither the social revolution story of “Mirror, Mirror” or the usual bloodbath that Alternate Universe Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes were known for. Theoretically, “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II” is the story of the establishment of the tyrannical Empire which would evolve into the Empire seen in “Mirror, Mirror.”


The two biggest gaffes in “In A Mirror Darkly, Part II:”
2. In “Mirror, Mirror,” humans and Vulcans are allies; the origins of the Mirror Universe Empire is awkwardly presented with a rebellion from the outset and an inherent disparity in the power base of the two most powerful Federation/Empire races,
1. The Tholians, despite being 100 years prior to those seen in “The Tholian Web” (reviewed here!) use a vastly faster web-creation technology.

[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 Gregory Itzin, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Lincoln
The Ides Of March
The Change-Up
“The Shadows Of P’Jem” - Star Trek: Enterprise
Adaptation.
Original Sin
Evolution
"Critical Care" - Star Trek: Voyager
“Who Mourns For Morn?” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Dax” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

6/10

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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Simple Problems, Simple Solutions: “Favorite Son” Is More Mediocre Than Extraordinary.

The Good: Clever concept, Decent performance
The Bad: Where is Paris for the beginning of the episode?!, Predictable resolution, Somewhat limited make-up, Obvious ship reuses
The Basics: “Favorite Son” sets up conflicts and resolves them far too easily to be compelling or enduring television.


As I rewatch each episode of Star Trek: Voyager for review, there have been a few aspects of the show that I am catching this time around that I did not notice when the episodes were spread out during the original run. Primary among them is that there is a real relationship between Captain Janeway and Harry Kim that did not seem as obvious before. Harry Kim is quickly taken under the wing of Janeway and Janeway actually has some surprisingly maternal instincts toward Harry Kim.

With “Favorite Son,” a transition begins where Janeway stops protecting Kim as much as she did in the first two and a half seasons. While she takes some risks for Harry and gives him a huge benefit of the doubt at the outset of the episode, “Favorite Son” marks the transition where Janeway starts treating Kim like he is less special and, sadly, the character begins to slip into being more of a nonentity than he was in the first two seasons.

When Voyager enters the space of a seemingly peaceful race, Ensign Kim commandeers the controls and opens fire upon them. While the attack ends fast, Torres is severely wounded and Janeway relieves Kim of duty while Tuvok investigates Kim’s assertion that the friendly ship was anything but. Kim returns to his quarters, experiences memories and nightmares and awakens with strange markings on his face. Along with the markings and a strange sense of déjà vu, Harry Kim seems to know the area of space Voyager is now in and his hunch that the Nassari vessel was going to fire turns out to be a good hunch.

When more Nassari ships attack, Voyager is herded toward Taresia, which Kim recognizes. Harry Kim’s DNA begins breaking down and it becomes clear that he is Taresian and his return to Taresia begins to cause him to remember more and more aspects of the alien planet. Kim, Tuvok, Janeway and Paris beam down to discover Taresia is 90% female and Kim wrestles with the decision to leave Voyager and remain on his home planet.

“Favorite Son” has an interesting initial concept, but it quickly becomes distracted with elements that seem designed to kill time. While the marriage ceremony does help build Taresian culture, the drug scene seems a bit forced and like filler. More than that, much of “Favorite Son” is resolved in extraordinarily simplistic ways. Much of the last act is simply Harry realizing for himself what the Doctor tells Janeway in a prior scene. As the Taresians become more defensive, they establish a dampening field that obscures communications and blocks transporters. Despite it appearing initially impenetrable, Voyager simply flies closer to the planet – into the field – and suddenly the obstacle is completely overcome. Ultimately, this leads to a very unsatisfactory and easily-derived ending.

On the character front, “Favorite Son” is far more preoccupied with explaining itself than it is truly growing Harry Kim as a character. Kim does the standard Star Trek recap, in this case with Tom Paris, but it is a simple explanation for his experience, much like the rest of the episode is simplistic.

Paris’s presence at the climax and for a scene on Taresia highlights his absence at the outset of the episode. “Favorite Son” does not afford Paris the opportunity to express shock when Kim starts firing on an apparently benign Nassari vessel. Nor does Paris have the opportunity to try to stand up for Harry. There is a missing character element in the lack of a moment between Paris and Kim early in the episode.

One of the unfortunate aspects of “Favorite Son” is in the special effects. While the make-up is a remarkably limited effect – the Taresians are almost like Trill with broken up spot patterns. This is one of the least impressive make-up effects ever done in the Star Trek pantheon and it is accented by the quality of the make-up for the Nassari and Torres’s burns. Even worse are the starships. Anyone who is a devoted fan of the Star Trek franchise will easily recognize the Nassari ship as a recolored Romulan scout ship. With the Taresian ships, Star Trek: Voyager simply reuses the Miradorn Raider ship.

As far as the acting goes, Garrett Wang effectively carries “Favorite Son,” doing quite well both on his own and opposite the many female guest stars. In fact, Wang plays off Kelli Kirkland extraordinarily well. The two have decent on-screen chemistry. For science fiction fans, “Favorite Son” also has the novelty of including Kristanna Loken, who rose to fame in Terminator 3: The Rise Of The Machines (reviewed here!). Far from the badass she played in that, Loken is used to flirt with a Taresian male and provide a decent amount of exposition for the viewer.

Ultimately, “Favorite Son” is an initially ambitious episode in its concept that quickly mortgages that potential with easy answers and makes for an episode that is not unwatchable, but hardly superlative.

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

4.5/10

For other Star Trek reviews, be sure to visit my Star Trek Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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With A Strange Lack Of Fear, I Continue To Watch Star Trek: Voyager

The Good: Moments of concept, Michael McKean
The Bad: Most of the acting, Execution of plot, Utter lack of real character development
The Basics: In a solidly dull episode, Michael McKean appears as an incarnation of fear, but all the viewer has to fear here is losing interest.


Every now and then, I review something that is so derivative of something that has come before it that my knee jerk reaction is to simply rate it one-star and move on with my life. In the case of Star Trek: Voyager, I continue to find myself disappointed with how derivative the characters and storylines were of Star Trek: The Next Generation (reviewed here!). As I approached the end of the second season on VHS and hit the episode "The Thaw," I was ready for yet another bomb of an episode that I was on the fence about the star rating for. But then there's the final shots of the episode and it's just enough to pull it out of the complete toilet that my initial impression of this episode was being flushed down.

The U.S.S. Voyager, oblivious to its quest to returning home, stops at a planet where the inhabitants apparently died in an abrupt ice age approximately nineteen years prior. The arrival of the Voyager triggers a system that reveals the presence of cryogenically frozen people linked to a computer. Janeway sends Torres and Kim into the system to find out what happened. There, the two officers find the three natives of the planet being tortured by a clown who is the computer's manifestation of their fears and their suffering turns dark and unpleasant, a fate Torres and Kim seem doomed to share.

"The Thaw" is one of those unfortunate episodes that never quite lives up to its potential. I like the idea of the people trapped in a computer simulation while their bodies are frozen and being tormented. This idea was much more effectively rendered in The City Of Lost Children (reviewed here!). In "The Thaw," the script is not developed enough, the sets look cheap and the menace is never truly real. Indeed, on Star Trek, there were red shirts, people who beamed down and bit the dust. Star Trek: Voyager employs no such conceit and the menace is simply not there as a result; main characters are never killed in the Star Trek franchise in reality-bending situations. As a result, the menace only extends to the three aliens of the week and the truth is, who cares about them? This is Star Trek: Voyager, at the end of the episode, the ship will leave the planet and the crew will be on to their next adventure.

My point with this deconstructive rant is simple: this is an episode about fear and the nature of it and it's not at all scary. Instead, the Clown is more annoying than terrifying and the room where Kim and Torres are held is simply cheap looking. The result is that the concept of the episode is not well executed and the feel of the piece is more of a drag than anything near insightful.

The only thing that works is Janeway's ending monologue and the resolution to the episode, which I will not ruin for the viewer who is so bored they still feel the need to watch the rest of this piece.

Michael McKean, who was enjoying a resurgence of popularity when this was released thanks to Best In Show (reviewed here!) and an appearance on The X-Files, does well as the Clown. He's interesting to watch, but not as creepy or electrifying as he could be. Instead, McKean performs as well as the script and director will allow him to, resulting in a mediocre character.

Still, it's more than the viewer gets from anyone else this episode. Garrett Wang (Harry Kim) and Roxann Biggs-Dawson (B'Elanna Torres) appear on screen barely able to muster up the enthusiasm for the scenes that are supposedly nightmarish. Robert Picardo does his usual schtick (which I like), but provides nothing new or interesting for his character of the EMH. Kate Mulgrew does excellent work in the final moments of the episode, but outside that is pretty tame.

And that is a severe problem with "The Thaw." Janeway's presence in the episode is to deliver a rousing speech on the nature of fear to combat the Clown, but there is no frame of reference. Instead, she sits around for forty minutes, then leaps on with the words of wisdom. "The Thaw" would have been much better if it had attempted to develop any level of character here. In this case, the episode could have rocked completely had there been a parallel plot focusing on a mission that hinged on Janeway's overcoming her fears (flashbacks would have been wonderful, a la Lost). Instead, the episode is bogged down with substandard imagery to continue to re-establish the premise of the room Kim and Torres find themselves in.

Ultimately, this episode has little appeal even to fans of science fiction or fantasy. It is certainly not insightful enough to attract a general audience interested simply in human development stories. But hey, if you're interested in watching five people supposedly being tortured for an hour (I was more bored and that was the true torture of "The Thaw"), then maybe this is for you!

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

3.5/10

For other Star Trek reviews, check out my Star Trek Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Dr. Crusher's Biology Lesson: "The Host" Is Clever.

The Good: Interesting cultural and biological premise, Good acting, Intriguing character development.
The Bad: Staggering lack of biological knowledge in the Federation
The Basics: In “The Host,” a Dr. Crusher romance turns into a biology lesson about an intriguing joined species.


One of the most neglected characters in Star Trek The Next Generation is Dr. Crusher. As actress Gates McFadden, who plays Crusher, has openly stated in the past, "There will never be a Dr. Crusher movie." She's in the same boat as Uhura, Sulu and Chekov in Star Trek, a supporting player, though her cast is a bit more of an ensemble than Star Trek ever was. "The Host" is a Dr. Crusher episode and it is one of the few focusing on the Doctor that were ever made.

"The Host" finds Beverly very much infatuated with an ambassador named Odan. Odan and Dr. Crusher spend the beginning of the episode exclusively getting it on to the extent that one is forced to wonder when Odan actually does any work. While on his mission, however, Odan is critically wounded and it is revealed that his race, the Trill, are a joined species. This means that - for the purposes of this episode - that the Trill exist as a host and a symbiont. The symbiont is a wormlike creature that lives in the belly of the host. The host is dying, but the symbiont, Odan, may be transplanted and the best candidate on board . . . is Riker.

While "The Host" is apparently a Dr. Crusher episode, the episode fails to maintain that; once Riker gets the symbiont, Jonathan Frakes steals the show. And easily. For some time, Riker's character has been in decline and "The Host" illustrates yet again that Jonathan Frakes can act! Frakes plays the joined Riker Odan as an almost completely different character than Riker. He pulls off creating an entirely different body language for the character and watching Frakes here . . . he's mesmerizing.

That's not to say that Gates McFadden doesn't give a good performance. Her portrayal of Dr. Crusher in the final scene explores a melancholy area of Crusher that McFadden has not played up until this point. And she pulls it off quite well. The problem on the acting front is that Frakes is given vastly more to do as an actor while Gates is basically playing Crusher in a somewhat new situation. Crusher is still Crusher; Riker is not just Riker here.

The real disappointment of "The Host" is in its underlying premise. The idea of a joined species is a cool and intriguing one. How neat is it that there could be a part of oneself that outlives us and continues on for hundreds of years? This is a very intriguing concept for the audience. The problem is, the concept shouldn't be all that intriguing for the characters involved.

Dr. Crusher is just as surprised as the viewer to learn about the Trill being a joined species. Yet, the Trill are Federation members. Given that, how could ANY doctor in StarFleet not know about the Trill and their specific needs? It seems improbable and it seriously works to the detriment of the episode.

People who are not invested in the Star Trek universe will find this a minor detail and ought to enjoy the episode quite a bit. Indeed, this is one of the most intriguing races introduced in the Star Trek universe, no doubt the reason Star Trek Deep Space Nine added Dax to the crew roster. This is an interesting love story turned medical drama with a great deal of tension. All of the backstory elements - i.e. Riker and Troi's relationship - are explained enough that this is a remarkably accessible episode. Fans of Star Trek The Next Generation, though unsettled by this fairly obvious flaw in the episode will find much to enjoy, most notably Frakes' performance.

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

6/10

For other Star Trek episode and film reviews, please visit my index page on the subject for an organized listing!

© 2011, 2007, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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