Day 329: Enterprise, North Star

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S3EP9, “North Star”

 Summary: The Enterprise has found something unexpected in the Expanse; a colony of Humans who live as though it’s still the era of the Wild West. Sending down a disguised away team to investigate, it gradually comes out that the Humans were abducted by a race called the Skagarans to be used as a labor force, but the Humans overthrew them and subsequently treated them as second class citizens. In the process of learning more, Archer winds up arrested along with the local schoolmarm (Emily Bergl), and decides he needs to do something about this situation. It’s not certain if he makes his move at high noon, but I’d be willing to bet that he did.

Standalone Thoughts: After I railed against the way things were going in “Twilight”, you’d think I wouldn’t like this episode much either. And while it continues to not progress the Xindi arc (in fact, the Xindi are mentioned only a handful of times), I’m actually mostly okay with it. Part of this is because I knew going into it that it was an unrelated episode and was therefore prepared to judge it on its own merits, whereas I was under the impression that the other episodes were advancing the arc, so they wound up feeling like letdowns. “North Star” could still be annoying to first-time viewers who just want the Enterprise to get a move on in finding the Xindi, especially since it’s an even bigger deviation from the norm than the other episodes, but I think it will still be fun for some people. Which ties into the other reason why I kind of like this episode; it fully commits to the Western theme, and since I like Westerns as a genre, it’s fun to see characters I like interacting with that milieu. It’s even more amusing when the sci-fi tropes and the Western tropes combine, particularly during the climax. Though I am a touch disappointed that Malcolm didn’t get to wear any Western gear—I bet he’d look great with a black hat and a six-shooter.

As always, though, I do have a few complaints. First, I find it hard to believe that this society has remained stuck in the Western era for three hundred years. Sure, they don’t have the same resources Earth did, but surely there were some inventors who would have been working on variations of electricity and railroads. But they can’t have made much progress for the conceit of the episode to work, so that’s the least of my problems. Second, the whole conflict between the Humans and the Skagarans keeps teetering on the edge of going into “message” territory, and may cross that line for some people. It never quite got there for me, but I did notice it enough to be wary. Third, and on a related note, there’s a revelation three-quarters of the way through that serves no purpose whatsoever, and may actually weaken the character involved a little. And my fourth and biggest problem is that Archer considers the possibility of trying to bring these settlers back to Earth, but both he and the episode barely seem to consider the consequences of this. Leaving aside the potential Prime Directive issues (it’s a muddled case, not to mention that the Prime Directive doesn’t technically exist yet), he doesn’t even seem to have considered the culture shock. I figure the scenario would play out somewhat like Brave New World did, so Archer’s apparent thought that everything would turn out fine strikes me as wishful thinking. Fortunately, this is mostly glossed over by the episode, so it’s more of a problem if you wind up thinking about it for too long. And at least the episode reaches a reasonable enough compromise at the end.

If you’re able to divorce this episode from the Xindi arc, you’ll probably enjoy yourself. I think it would be easier to judge on its own merits if it had appeared in Seasons One or Two, but even so, this is a fun romp that is a nice break from the heavier content of previous episodes (even the ones that contribute nothing to the arc had a more serious tone). On my end, it made me feel a little less frustrated with Season Three’s direction and willing to continue to hold out hope that it improves as we go on. Though I’ll need to get through the next mostly unrelated episode before I can really start judging that…

How it Relates to the Whole: Although there are some lines of dialogue that suggest there may be a return visit to this planet, that doesn’t wind up happening, and as I said in the above section, it doesn’t have anything to do with the arc either. But at least it’s entertaining for what it is.

Other: *Another single observation; Tucker’s harmonica makes a reappearance after being used for humor in “Precious Cargo”. Not the sort of continuity I expected (or prefer), but I’ll take it.

Badass Malcolm Moment: It was an easy choice this time; Malcolm does something during the inevitable shootout that’s both amusing and sensible (as the person who made a youtube video [warning; possible spoilers for future events in the sidebar] of the moment said, it’s surprising that this trick isn’t used more often). Malcolm’s little shrug at the end combined with his expression is just the icing on the cake.