Enterprise has been trundling through the Delphic Expanse for six weeks with only minor anomaly problems in search of the Xindi. Then Archer and company come across a mining colony where a member of the race works and they attempt to acquire information from him.
Okay: exciting relaunch of Enterprise. Has it worked? Well, maybe it’s too early to say with a degree of certainty. There’s a lot here that shows signs of someone sitting down and putting some thought in, but there are also some major problems that still don’t seem to have been addressed. Firstly: the theme tune. Now, I never really had a problem with it; indeed, I quite liked it. But for some reason someone decided it should be altered to match Enterprise’s beefier, tougher image. So why is it now a gnat’s crotchet away from being a country and western number? Before it matched the series, now it just makes it laughable from the start. If they wanted something tougher, why not score an entirely new theme tune? Babylon 5 managed to alter its one every season without any worries, why can’t Trek give it a go?
But how about the story itself? Well, it’s all a bit familiar. Archer and Trip go to a planet, they get captured, they enlist the aid of the Xindi they’re after to escape, it fails, a bunch of people from Enterprise drop by (literally, which is quite a clever entrance manoeuvre considering they’re in CAVES, for crying out loud) and come to the rescue. The changes are as follows: there are some marines on board who are rough, tough and ready to get some alien ass. There’s a lot more special effects work, notably the alien council that bookends the story and some of the exterior shots. Trip is quite irritable and more violent. T’Pol has a new uniform that shows off her breasts better.
Now, how many of these are going to make a blind bit of difference to the show? The marines are basically cannon fodder so that the writers can finally kill some members of the crew, the effects are pretty but unlikely to prove anything much to the passing viewer, and T’Pol’s cleavage can’t be a source of hot, sexy excitement because she’s a Vulcan. The only thing that improves things a little is Trip’s attitude, as his troubled nature after the death of his sister adds another dimension to his character and starts the crew on their way towards being battle-hardened and tougher.
Other than that, the plot is horribly familiar as much from Trek as from a whole host of other genre show variations. From the second Archer and Trip drop by, you know they’re going to be captured, there’ll be an escape and it won’t work, and that the Xindi will somehow die without giving them much information. You know there’ll be some friction from the marine contingent, even though after six weeks you’d think they might have got used to them before now, and you know they’ll prove their worth in the end. It’s just painfully by the numbers and hardly the radical new approach we might have hoped for.
On top of all this, the whole gung ho ‘let’s kill some aliens’ is the worst kind of idea, supporting the idea of making war on another race with the alleged justification of ‘they started it’, while people around the world are condemning exactly these kinds of decisions. Star Trek was always meant to show man’s humanity to man and alien races, with peace and unity and Earth trying to make peace first. All we have here is a basic revenge attack, and you get the impression that the franchise has finally left Gene Roddenberry’s legacy in the dirt for the sake of ratings-winning blasting action. It’s about the characters, it’s about the people, it’s about putting differences aside. Maybe this point will be made later in the season, but at the moment it’s a long way from anyone working on this show’s mind.
**
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