Day 339: Enterprise, Damage

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S3EP18, “Damage”

 Summary: At the end of last episode, the Enterprise was seconds away from getting utterly destroyed by some Xindi ships. At the start of this episode, Degra, who has been informed by Archer of the events of the future, recalls the ships and arranges secretly for Archer to be sent back to Enterprise while he and some of the other council members try to determine what to do with this new information. Enterprise has survived, but is severely damaged, and they lost over a dozen people in the attack. There’s also something going on with T’Pol, who’s displaying much more emotion than usual and is showing signs of addiction (I won’t tell you to what in this entry, but if you look back over my previous reviews, you might be able to guess). Things are so bad that they don’t even have warp capability, which proves to be a problem when Hoshi discovers a coded message for Archer that translates out to a location and a date three days from now. With a chance to stop the Xindi from attacking Earth so close at hand, Archer realizes that the old adage is right; desperate times call for desperate measures.

Standalone Thoughts: This is an episode where you can tell that everybody, especially the tech guys, went all out. Instead of just having the usual damage reports and a few extras in the background working on something to indicate that the ship was hurt and needs repair, all of Enterprise looks ruined, both inside and outside. Characters have to keep walking over or brushing past debris, and most of the rooms are dark, suggesting the lighting system went out and it’s not a high priority to get fixed (which is understandable). My favorite touch is the fact that the artwork on the wall of Archer’s ready room, depicting the evolution of travel, has been knocked loose and is lying diagonally across the wall now; it’s both a nice detail and somewhat symbolic of the situation. The whole thing really brings home just how bad the situation is, and also tells us that, in a fight between the Enterprise and a full Xindi force, the Enterprise would almost certainly lose. In other words, it raises the stakes and actually means it instead of just paying lip service to it (a common problem in all of Star Trek, not just this arc).

Obviously, the ship being in such bad shape is great for atmosphere, and the best part is, the writers and tech guys don’t just stick with one mood. T’Pol’s material goes for a more unnerving vibe (not quite horror, though), while Archer’s plot uses the setting to convey sadness, stoicism (everyone’s continuing to do their jobs despite the limitations), and in the second half of the episode, moral darkness. There’s a magnificent scene between Phlox and Archer that really drives that last one home, which allows us to understand exactly why Archer is doing what he’s doing, but acknowledges via music, set dressing, and especially lighting that the episode isn’t condoning what’s about to happen.

The scene also is a good example of my next point, which is that the acting is amazing too. Bakula really allows us to get why Archer is taking this step, while also offering hints of his inner turmoil. Blalock, aided and abetted by the technical work, makes her withdrawal symptoms and the lengths she’ll go to to get a fix very believable (at least from my inexperienced with drug addiction perspective). And Billigsley’s involvement in both plots serves both of them well, even if all Phlox mostly does is just listen and offer a little advice. The episode probably could have been fine if it just relied on the technical stuff to do the heavy lifting, but the acting puts it over the top to a great episode. It’s not always the most comfortable viewing, but the intent was to make you a little uncomfortable, and that just means the showrunners did it very, very right.

How it Relates to the Whole: The Enterprise gets a new goal to work towards, T’Pol’s been set on a path that provides some interesting character opportunities, and a new wrinkle has been officially added to the Xindi dynamic. Mood and morality is the name of the game this episode, but it’s still pretty important plot-wise too.

Other: *Another single today. Archer asks Phlox if he’s ever done anything he felt was unethical during the time he’s been a doctor, and Phlox answers “twice”. I had two reactions to this. One was wondering if those were supposed to be callbacks to events from prior episodes, or if that was a hook for future material. The other was “I’m sure SFDebris had a field day with that line. Phlox may not have thought some of his actions were unethical, but I bet SFDebris did.” I’m somewhere in the middle of the two opinions; Phlox has generally tried to do what’s right and best for the patient (“Dear Doctor”, as established, is a complicated situation), but there have been times where he does things that he’s perfectly fine with but that I disagree with. My old favorite “Silent Enemy” springs to mind…

Badass Malcolm Moment: For a tactical officer, Malcolm sure seemed pretty knowledgeable about what was going on in the aftermath of the fight. Casualties, damaged systems, things that were being repaired and how long they’d take to be operational again…it’s not that impressive in the grand scheme of things, but I admire the fact that he’s aware of all this information and (apparently) keeping tabs on how things are going. While I’m sure every Starfleet officer has to learn to do things like this, Malcolm’s the one we see doing the bulk of it, and it just reaffirms my belief that he’d make an excellent captain. Though I’ll freely admit some of that is just wishful thinking on my part.