Day 314: Enterprise, Horizon

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S2EP20, “Horizon”

 Summary: As the Enterprise is heading over to examine an unusual stellar phenomenon, Mayweather asks Archer if he could take a short leave to go visit his family’s cargo ship, The Horizon, while Enterprise is making its scans. Archer agrees, but tragedy strikes before they arrive at the rendezvous; Mayweather’s father passed away several months ago, and he’s only now just learning about it. Mayweather’s prepared to soldier through and spend time with the rest of his family, but his brother Paul (Corey Mendell Parker) has now taken command of the Horizon, and the lingering resentment about Mayweather joining Starfleet instead of sticking with hauling freight is generating tension between the two of them. Cue the sentimental music as Mayweather has to discuss the merits of duty over family and vice versa.

Standalone Thoughts: Although this episode isn’t quite as strong as the streak of episodes we’ve been having since “Cease Fire”, I’d say it’s still on par with most of the episodes from Season One, so while it’s a drop in quality, it’s not a major one. As for the reason for the drop, I think it has to do with the lack of conflict. Sure, there’s a space combat scene near the end of the episode, but the “bad guys” haven’t been all that established, so it’s harder to be invested. Other than that, the closest thing we get to conflict is a lot of the family squabbles that you see in other Star Trek episodes, or indeed the average heartwarming family story. They do try to shake it up by having both sides of the argument (Mayweather thinks Paul isn’t showing good leadership skills, Paul thinks with some justification that Mayweather has put career over family) be reasonable, but it’s all a pretty familiar drama that hits most of the usual beats. It’s decently acted and the setting is a little different, but once all the characters have been established, you can probably guess how it’s all going to play out.

The other reason this episode isn’t as strong as the ones that came before is the inclusion of a mostly pointless subplot involving T’Pol, which can basically be summed up as “T’Pol has to be convinced to go watch a movie”. If you want to look at it purely from a character development perspective, it’s not bad, especially since it follows up on events from “The Catwalk” and might also be continuing to further the attempted Archer/T’Pol romance. However, in practice, it has even less conflict than the main plot, doesn’t seem to have much of a resolution (in fact it could be argued that there was a setup and no payoff), and doesn’t contribute anything to the story except to give the other characters more screentime. If there’s some sort of continuation of this idea in later episodes, I’ll change my opinion somewhat, but I have my doubts as to how much this is going to come up again in later material. Ah, well, at least it involves movies, and I’ll rarely complain about that.

How it Relates to the Whole: I believe there may be one more story involving Mayweather’s family and the Horizon, though I’m not positive about that. Otherwise, the only other contribution to later events is a reference to the situation on TNG, where starships are full of families and there’s a ship’s counselor to help things along. Well, that’s the theory, anyway.

Other: *Just one today; I do like the fact that most of the crew of the Horizon wear different outfits from day to day. You get so used to everybody wearing the same uniforms on the starships that it’s a little refreshing to see some variety.

Badass Malcolm Moment: Malcolm doesn’t do much in this episode, but it turns out that some of his weapons innovations have been memorable (and effective) enough that Mayweather proposes using them on the Horizon. If Malcolm’s going to leave an impact on the world, I’m guessing that’s the sort of thing he’d like to be remembered for.