Day 304: Enterprise, Vanishing Point

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S2EP10, “Vanishing Point”

 Summary: When a bad storm shows up on a planet where Hoshi and Tucker are doing some exploring, Enterprise has no choice but to beam them up, despite Hoshi’s reservations. They both materialize without incident, but Hoshi doesn’t feel quite right afterwards. Then things start getting weird; the crew slowly begins to become oblivious to her presence, she has trouble doing her job, and most troubling of all, she has flashes where she becomes translucent. There’s unquestionably a problem, but now Hoshi has an even bigger one—how is she going to signal the crew that she needs help?

Standalone Thoughts: This is another episode that’s difficult to review, because it has a very different feel when you know what’s coming vs. when you see it for the first time. So unfortunately, if I’m going to discuss this properly, this is going to have to be a SPOILER review. Most of the other sections should be ok, but skip this section if you’d rather discover things for yourself. Short version, though; it’s an idea worth exploring that was slightly undermined by the ending.

*And now for the longer explanation…*

When you watch this episode for the first time, it works pretty well. It feels like something that’s worth exploring; what was it like when the transporter was new technology? It’s completely believable that things could go wrong in that period that had been ironed out by the time of the original series, so Hoshi’s plight, while a little reminiscent of the TNG episode “The Next Phase”, makes sense from that perspective. Plus, her condition happens gradually enough that it really does feel like an exploration of transporter mishaps. Therefore, you assume that the episode is going to end with the crew figuring out what’s going on and reversing it, which is the natural conclusion to events and might even contribute a bit to Star Trek lore.

Then Hoshi starts hearing whispers, and if you listen closely (or are genre savvy), you start to get a sinking feeling of what’s really going on. Sure enough, it turns out this entire episode was all taking place in Hoshi’s head, and what’s more, it all apparently happened in the space of a few seconds. As a result, on rewatches, the episode feels like it serves no purpose, except perhaps as a look into Hoshi’s psyche. But while I’m sure psychologists could make something of it, I don’t think that’s a credible theory from a layman’s perspective. All the characters generally act too much like their normal selves, when you’d expect some changes if we were meant to see this from Hoshi’s perspective. Plus, given how driven to self-doubt Hoshi’s been portrayed as up to now, you’d think more of the characters would have been more critical than sympathetic to her. There’s just enough ambiguity that I can’t state for certain there aren’t some subtle changes in performance to hint that it’s all in her head, but it feels enough like a normal episode most of the time that the intent (if that was the intent) is somewhat lost.

While this episode still maintains the “watchable” quality of Enterprise episodes, even on subsequent viewings, it’s definitely one of the weaker showings when all is said and done. It’s also more skippable than usual, since very little is relevant and it wasn’t even “real”. You may enjoy it if you’re a Hoshi fan, but in general, it’s forgettable at best and irritating at worst. Well, they can’t all be winners.

How it Relates to the Whole: Unless you want to argue that this episode is helping to make the transporter as important to Enterprise as it is to the other Star Trek shows, I’d say this episode doesn’t add much to the show except for letting us see more of Hoshi’s character. And depending on how you feel about her, that might not particularly appeal.

Other: *Nothing really jumped out today. Hopefully we’ll get more in the next episode.

Badass Malcolm Moment: Malcolm is proving surprisingly adept at the transporter. He not only takes on the role of transporter chief again, but we’re reminded that he’s currently the only one of the main cast who’s been “beamed” more than once, and we learn that he’s working on new transporter protocols, which suggest he has more than a basic grasp of engineering. He’s turning more and more into a Renaissance man by the episode, and I’m absolutely fine with that.