Show: Star Trek; Enterprise
Episode
Particulars: S1EP21, “Vox Sola”
Standalone
Thoughts: I’ll start with the good news. The whole concept of the alien of
this episode is a neat one, from the design (even if the CGI is obvious and
dated now) to the psychic elements to the noises it makes. Plus, the scenes
with it have really good atmosphere. Unfortunately, this isn’t explored to its
fullest potential (there were some setups that weren’t paid off), nor do we
ever fully get an explanation for what it is, how it wound up in space, or why
it did what it did (Phlox provides one explanation, but it could very easily be
interpreted another way entirely, which was the theory I subscribed to this
time around). What makes all this worse is what
this content is being neglected for.
I mentioned in both “Fight or Flight” and “Sleeping Dogs”
that Hoshi’s character development made sense on paper, but didn’t always play
out particularly well in practice. Never was this more obvious than in this
episode. Had this episode happened earlier in the season, ideally between the
two aforementioned episodes, it might have been more tolerable and showed some
character growth, but instead, it feels like Hoshi has not only made no
progress at all, she’s gone backwards. In the previous episodes, she was
skittish and unsure of herself. Here, she’s outright whiny, basically
back-talking T’Pol in a way that just manages to avoid crossing the line into
insubordination. In fact, she spends the majority of the episode feeling sorry
for herself, and only pulls herself out of it thanks to yet another pep talk from T’Pol. Said pep
talk involves a nice (albeit clichéd) sentiment, but it doesn’t work in this
context because a) Hoshi’s actions this episode seem to contradict what T’Pol
is saying, and b) given what we’ve seen of her whenever she’s the focus, it
doesn’t feel like it applies to Hoshi as a whole either. Yes, it works if we
just accept what the script tells us, but it’s called “show, don’t tell” for a
reason. I’ve been trying to give Hoshi the benefit of the doubt, but this
episode makes it really hard to sympathize with her. And since she’s a pretty
important part of the story, that can make large sections of the episode a bit
frustrating to watch.
All that being said, this isn’t a bad episode. All the
characters except Hoshi are very good, and the episode has a decent blend of
action, humor, tension, and drama. As with most of Season One so far, it’s
watchable and has good material, it’s just that some parts wind up bringing
things down. In this case, though, as annoyed as the Hoshi material makes me,
there’s enough there to make me willing to rewatch it now and again. It’s
probably in the lower middle of the pack quality-wise, but the less objective
part of me finds it entertaining enough to be satisfied. Damning with faint
praise, but praise nevertheless.
How it Relates to
the Whole: Another piece of Star Trek
tech is introduced in this episode, though I don’t know how prevalent it
will be in Enterprise specifically.
While the alien entity that is the focus of this episode never shows up again,
the other race we meet, the Kreetassans, will be making another appearance.
Unfortunately, that episode is generally considered the worst episode of Enterprise, though that’s not entirely their
fault. As always, though, we’ll get there in due course.
Other: *We’d
gotten a hint or two prior to this episode (“Strange New World” springs to
mind), but today’s episode makes it very clear that Archer has an interest in
Water Polo. I don’t believe this is ever important in the grand scheme of
things, but it’s a character moment that’s a semi-recurring element, and thus
worth mentioning.
*Before everything really kicks off, Malcolm and
Mayweather are discussing the weekly movie that’s going to be shown, which is The Wages of Fear. The first time I
watched the episode, I was just moving to pause the TV to make a snarky comment
about how Malcolm should appreciate the movie because it involves nitroglycerin
and explosions, when Mayweather said “You’ll like it. Things blow up.” and
Malcolm immediately became interested when before he was lukewarm about it. I
was both amused and kind of exasperated that the show itself was really
doubling down on Malcolm’s obsession with weapons and explosions, especially
this early in the show. However, I’ve seen from rewatching it that that was
always there, which suggests the writers were having some trouble figuring out
what to do with him. But I’ve also learned to forgive a lot of this, because…
Badass Malcolm
Moment: Malcolm is brilliant in this episode. He whips up something to try
to defeat the creature in “a few minutes”, stands his ground and argues various
points very well (but knows when to concede), and manages to perfect the
forcefield, something that will become a staple of future Star Trek series, under immense pressure and time constraints, when
Starfleet has been working on the problem for five years. However, his best
moment comes even earlier in the episode. If Malcolm has traces of
Flanderization, he makes up for it here by subverting another classic trope,
one named after another Star Trek character;
The Worf Effect. When Archer, Tucker, Malcolm, and a random security guy go
down to the cargo bay to investigate the problem, it seemed inevitable on my first
viewing that both Malcolm and the redshirt would wind up getting caught and/or
beaten up, to the point where I said aloud “Oh, God, I know where this is going.” Then the entity manages
to ensnare everyone except Malcolm,
and I was left spluttering in disbelief and admiration. I’ve always maintained
that this episode is Malcolm’s finest hour, and I see no reason to change that
opinion. Though of course, that doesn’t mean he won’t continue to be amazing as
the show continues…
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