Day 303: Enterprise, Singularity

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S2EP9, “Singularity”

 Summary: Nearly everyone on Enterprise has fallen unconscious, with only T’Pol lucid enough to explain in a log what’s happened. Two days earlier, Enterprise decided to investigate a black hole that was in a trinary star system, an unusual phenomenon. As they were making their way there (at impulse for safety reasons), the entire crew started acting strangely. Among other things, Archer became more focused on writing a preface for a biography about his father than captaining the ship, Phlox refused to believe Mayweather when told Mayweather just had a headache and started running a wide battery of tests, and Tucker interpreted “see if you can make the Captain’s chair a little more comfortable” to mean “turn the chair into a command center, complete with cupholder”.  Only T’Pol seemed immune to the effects, but that’s not going to do her much good. If she can’t figure out the cause and get the crew to safety, either the ship’s going to be destroyed, or most of the crew will die. No pressure or anything.

Standalone Thoughts: While I wouldn’t say this episode reaches the same level of quality as other Enterprise episodes I’ve deemed really good, like “Dead Stop” or “Detained”, I will applaud the writers for taking a premise that sounds ridiculous and actually making it work as drama instead of comedy, intentional or otherwise. After all, if you heard the pitch “something makes the crew become obsessed over trivial things”, and some of the examples given were “Hoshi wants to get a soup recipe exactly right” and “Tucker wants to improve a chair”, it wouldn’t exactly sound like very serious material. But the combination of a punchy teaser (a rarity for this show so far), tense music, and performances that show that the actors were playing this dead straight all prevent it from tipping into “funny for all the wrong reasons” territory. Sure, it’s still a bit silly if you think about it in depth, but when you’re watching it, it’s not nearly as wacky as a description makes it sound.

Really, I only have two minor complaints about the episode. One, T’Pol manages to get one member of the crew to snap out of the obsessive haze way too easily, and with no real explanation of why it worked. And two, we never do find out why the crew started passing out. We never even see any of them fall unconscious (well, except for two, but those don’t count), so it just seems like it was done to make the climax more dramatic. Come on, guys, technobabble is a staple of Star Trek; you couldn’t come up with one sentence to justify things? Those quibbles aside, however, I think this is a pretty good episode, not quite as classic sci-fi as “Dead Stop” but at least working with an unusual concept. And for once, it’s actually kind of important, as you’ll see in the next section.

How it Relates to the Whole: Another piece of Star Trek slots into place in today’s episode, though it still isn’t quite what we’re used to. There are a few references to previous episodes tossed in here and there, but this is obviously the most important thing. And as a bonus, it’s going to become a regular part of Enterprise, too, so this isn’t just a knowing wink to the fans.

Other: *I have to give massive credit to someone on the technical crew in this episode. The several times we look at computer screens, the text is appropriate for the situation (a menu in the galley, the text of Archer’s preface, etc.). I appreciate that someone took the time to make actual text, instead of just using random words or sneaking in a page of classical literature. It helps make the world feel more lived-in.

*At one point, T’Pol says the phrase “I’d be happy to”. I almost glossed over it, but then it occurred to me; would that be a phrase the Vulcans use, especially since they seem to repress all emotions and not just the bad ones? It makes me wonder if this is a sign that T’Pol’s been hanging around humans long enough to pick up and use their idioms without knowing it. Or maybe the writers put it into the script without thinking of the implications. Well, at least we have an in-universe explanation for it…?

*T’Pol states very clearly in this episode that Vulcans have sensitive hearing. This of course makes sense and has possibly been a part of Vulcan lore since the Original Series days (I’m not positive on this score), but it does make me wonder why T’Pol wasn’t able to hear that squeak under the floorboards that I mentioned in “Fight or Flight”. I don’t think it was all in Archer’s head, so…

Badass Malcolm Moment: Remember that major piece of Trek that I mentioned above? Malcolm invented it, and based on what we see in this episode, he did it single-handedly. This sort of thing is why I think Malcolm deserves way more credit than he gets.