Show: Star Trek; Enterprise
Episode
Particulars: S2EP8, “The Communicator”
Summary: Shortly
after Archer, Hoshi, and Malcolm return to Enterprise
after going down incognito to investigate a pre-warp planet, Malcolm
realizes to his horror that his communicator has gone missing, most likely
dropped on the planet. Since leaving behind advanced technology could impact
the development of the culture, Archer and Malcolm go back for it.
Unfortunately, it’s already been found, and soldiers wind up capturing them. Even
more unfortunately, the country if not the entire planet is currently on the
brink of war, so to the aliens (who aren’t given a species name), the two of
them are spies for the enemy group known as “The Alliance”. While Enterprise has to figure out how to
rescue them, Archer and Malcolm have to decide which is more important,
protecting the culture…or saving their lives.
Standalone
Thoughts: Much like “The Seventh”, this episode has a good idea but doesn’t
fully succeed at the execution. The concept of our heroes going down to a
pre-warp planet and making a mess of things (instead of the usual near misses
or surprisingly understanding locals) is definitely one that should be
explored, and this show, being set before the Prime Directive, is an excellent
place to do it. Yet while the lines and acting portraying this concept is
decent (especially the conversation about it at the end), something about it
doesn’t fully click for me. Maybe it’s the fact that most of the consequences
of their actions are theoretical instead of clear-cut, so it feels more like “tell
don’t show” and thus lessens the impact. Or maybe it’s because there’s not a
lot of tension when there probably should be. Realistically, though, it’s
probably a combination of both.
On a related note, the only other thing about this
episode that’s really worth discussing in full is Archer’s opinion on all this,
because I’m either missing something or it wasn’t fully thought through by the
writers. Shortly after being captured, Malcolm suggests they just tell the
truth about being from another world. Archer says that’s not a good idea and
tells him they should both say as little as possible. Later, when things have
managed to get worse, Archer brings up the idea again, and Malcolm reminds him
of Archer’s earlier position. At this point, it looks like Archer might have
changed his mind, because he waxes rhapsodic over the idea. But when Malcolm
chimes in and says that maybe revealing the truth will do the planet “a world
of good”, like the Vulcans did with Earth, Archer reminds him that the
circumstances are different and apparently reverts back to his earlier
position. I honestly can’t tell what the intent was here. Was Archer indulging
in a fantasy to try to cheer himself up? Was he actually tempted to do it, but
Malcolm’s comment suddenly reminded him of why they shouldn’t? Bakula plays the
whole scene with the same sincere tone, so it’s very difficult to tell if he actually
meant what he was saying about telling the truth or not. Maybe there was
supposed to be a significance to this, but in practice, it just leaves me
baffled.
As with so many Enterprise
episodes, there’s nothing actively wrong with this one, but it’s not
essential viewing and it’s not as strong as it could have been. It probably
wouldn’t have ever ranked among the best Enterprise
stories, but it probably would have been upper-middle instead of the middle
of the pack. And depending on how the rest of the show turns out, it’ll
probably wind up in the lower-middle when all is said and done. Of course, some
episodes have to be in that position
just due to the nature of ranking systems, but it’s never fun when that sort of
thing could have been avoided, however slightly.
How it Relates to
the Whole: We won’t be seeing this planet again, but we do learn in this
episode that the Enterprise still has
a Suliban ship in its possession after the events of “Shockwave”, which may
wind up coming into play later (though my memory is hazy on that). It also
continues to lay groundwork for the Prime Directive, so if nothing else, it has
a connection to later Star Trek lore.
Other: *There’s
something mildly amusing to me about the fact that the episode spends at least
fifteen seconds once it gets back from the credits showing us a montage of the
away team searching for the communicator in all the nooks and crannies. I think
it’s because it’s one step away from them looking for their keys, and you don’t
expect to see something so mundane in a science fiction show.
*By contrast, one thing that bugs me is that the
transporter is never mentioned as a possible way of extracting Malcolm and
Archer. Enterprise was probably too
high in orbit to reach them, but as I keep saying, two lines of dialogue
bringing up and dismissing the idea are all we need. I suppose it’s a subtle
way of showing us that the transporter isn’t as essential to this crew as it is
to other Star Trek crews, but given
that this is an emergency, the thought should have crossed someone’s mind.
*The little beat Malcolm gets in his last scene should be
amusing, but frankly I think it’s a bit too smarmy for my taste. Sure, it’s in
character for him, since he drops quips fairly regularly, but given everything
that happened this episode, it just doesn’t feel right for this particular
situation. If I had been Archer, I probably wouldn’t have been amused.
Badass Malcolm
Moment: Malcolm makes up a plausible excuse to explain away his human
anatomy in an attempt to avoid revealing the truth. This leads to problems both
short and long term, but he was
complimented for it by Archer and he does
say improvising isn’t his strong suit, so to come up with something like
that should be considered impressive. Though based on some of the things I’ve
seen him do, I feel he’s being just a little modest about the improvisation
thing.
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