Day 334: Enterprise, Stratagem

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S3EP14, “Stratagem”

Note: I’m doing something extremely unorthodox this time around and just labeling this entire review, including the summary, a SPOILER review. It probably isn’t necessary—particularly trope savvy people will figure out the direction the episode’s going by the eight minute mark—but those who would rather discover things as they unfold deserve the chance to find things out for themselves. For those of you who won’t be continuing this review, see you in the next one.

 Summary: Degra (Randy Oglesby), the Xindi scientist who’s been primarily responsible for making the weapon that will destroy Earth (we’ve seen him a few times prior to now), wakes up on a small vessel that’s coming under fire. His only companion is Archer, who tells him that they’ve been in a Xindi prison for three years, and they’ve got the grey hair and identification tattoos to prove it. Archer also informs him that one of the Xindi torture techniques has caused him to lose his memory, hence why he doesn’t recognize Archer, and that Archer can help Degra reunite with his family if Degra will give him the necessary information. As you can probably guess, this is all an elaborate trick by the Enterprise to try to get the location of the weapon out of him. You kind of have to admire the lengths they went to for it, honestly.

Standalone Thoughts: This episode is very solid in a lot of ways, enough that I’d call it good (albeit not one of my all-time favorites). If you want something to chew on, the story offers up some grey morality and the question of how ethical it is to pull a ruse like this to get information. If you’re here for plot, there’s no question that this is advancing the Xindi arc, and being pretty creative about it to boot. If you want action, there’s a fair bit scattered here and there, and the climax is especially good in that regard. For the most part, therefore, I think the episode is good. But there’s one big issue that drags down my opinion, and unfortunately, I’m not sure how to fix it.

Said issue is the way the story unfolds. The teaser gets our attention by being in an entirely different setting, and being so hectic that we share Degra’s confusion as to what’s going on. It goes on just a little too long giving us some exposition, but it’s fine because we’re curious as to what’s happening. As I said above, we suspect this is all a ruse by the eight minute mark—there’s no way Earth was destroyed offscreen, not to mention it’s still around in Kirk’s era—and we get confirmation at the sixteen minute mark that this is all a simulation. That’s where we hit the first snag, in my opinion. I think it might have been slightly more interesting to have spent the first half of the episode in the simulation, having things unfold for us the way they do for Degra, thus allowing the reveal to have even more of an impact. But then we get the big problem; assuming you want to open with the simulation underway, how do you show the audience how the characters got to that point? If nothing else, you need to explain how the crew got their hands on Degra. A big exposition dump would be a mistake, and having Archer explain it while presenting it as a flashback to the audience might feel a bit clunky. It would be a lot less clunky than what we actually got, though, which is to just abruptly cut from Archer discussing how things are going with T’Pol to the events of the past, with just a “Three Days Earlier” intertitle to let us know what’s happened. The scenes don’t flow naturally by doing that, and it interrupts the action in a major way. Like I said, though, I don’t know how to fix the problem, but the way it was presented definitely wasn’t the way to go.

Despite that (admittedly big) problem, I think it’s safe to say that with this episode and “Proving Ground”, we’ve pretty much hit the point in the arc where every episode is going to be relevant, and finally becomes more what I remembered the whole season as being. There are two episodes where the Xindi take more of a backseat, but I consider them as breaks in the action to let things breathe a little, so I won’t hold that aspect against the show (though if the episodes aren’t particularly well-executed, that’ll be a different matter). As it stands, there’s a good chance that from here on out, Season Three will earn its reputation as being better than the previous two seasons. Here’s hoping that’s right.

How it Relates to the Whole: Enterprise makes an even greater stride in locating the weapon, and Degra has now becomes a major player in the arc instead of just appearing occasionally as the “face” of the weapon. I’d say this episode is pretty important in the grand scheme of things.

Other: *Everything was tight enough that there wasn’t much miscellaneous material to comment on. We’ll see if the next episode continues that trend.

Badass Malcolm Moment: Malcolm generally doesn’t play a direct role in the events of this episode, but he’s instrumental to it in two ways. One, he disables the engines on Degra’s ship, thus giving them access to Degra. And two, he points out that they need to get all the little details right if their plan has any chance of working. I’m sure someone else would have brought it up if he hadn’t, but the fact is that he was the one to bring it up, so he’ll be the one I’m giving the credit to.