Day 324: Enterprise, Rajiin

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S3EP4, “Rajiin”

 Summary: When the Enterprise arrives at a trading center in an attempt to get some trellium-D to coat the ship and protect it from anomalies, they wind up getting more than they bargained for. Not only is the trellium a synthesized version that’s very unstable (and they’ll have to make themselves), but apparently some Xindi passed that way a few days ago. When Archer investigates, he can’t get anything out of the merchants, but a beautiful slave girl called Rajiin (Nikita Ager) seems interested in him and winds up accompanying him back to the ship. It’s fairly obvious she has motives other than attraction or escape from a bad situation, but what those motives are aren’t entirely clear. Well, they aren’t clear to the crew; the audience may be a different matter.

Standalone Thoughts: On the one hand, this episode is finally advancing the Xindi arc, and that’s all to the good. On the other, so much is crammed into the episode that it winds up feeling disjointed, complete with a very abrupt ending. This is aided and abetted by the fact that it becomes obvious to the audience within a few minutes of meeting her that Rajiin has evil motives, but it takes at least ten minutes for the episode to confirm it, and even longer before the characters actively realize it. Sure, this sort of thing is a staple of Star Trek, but given the situation Enterprise is currently in, wouldn’t it make sense for them to be a little suspicious?

Then there’s the return of the pacing issues. We have ten minutes before Rajiin is introduced, then a bunch of miscellaneous things happen before the crew finally catches on to Rajiin being an enemy at around the thirty minute mark, which leaves about ten minutes. And then everything happens all at once; I won’t spoil the details, but suffice it to say things happen way too quickly. This is clearly a case where they should have spread the story out over two episodes—have this episode end when they realize Rajiin is a threat and capture her, and then take those last ten minutes and stretch them out into their own episode, allowing some of the developments to happen more naturally. Besides, if you did that you could probably cut “Extinction” to make room for it, and I’m all for that.

Looking at the episode as a whole, I would say that the content is decent, but the way it was all put together, especially the last act, brings the episode down. I’d ultimately rank it higher than “Anomaly”, but I’d still consider it lower-tier Enterprise. And while I know the arc gets better from here, I have to admit it hasn’t gotten off to a stellar start. Here’s hoping they find their way relatively soon.

How it Relates to the Whole: The ending of the episode makes it pretty obvious that there’s going to be a followup to the main events of this episode, though I don’t remember how this particular plot point is resolved. There’s also some progress being made on the Enterprise acquiring trellium-D and more interactions between Tucker and T’Pol, both of which will be important in different ways. It’s definitely an important episode…it’s just a messily executed one.

Other: *Although Kellie Waymire, the actress playing crewman Cutler, died during Enterprise’s first season, her character is mentioned in this episode as still being around. It’s an interesting decision that I’m not entirely sure what to make of, and I’ll be curious to see if this happens in later episodes.

*The planet the Enterprise visits for the trellium is ninety-nine percent water, and the trading post they visit (if both the establishing shot and Memory Alpha are any indication) is basically a floating city made up of ships, barges, and platforms. I bring this up less to mention the worldbuilding and more because I feel like this would have been an interesting opportunity to call back to Malcolm’s aquaphobia, but sadly nothing comes of it. Then again, this is something only obsessives like me would notice…

Badass Malcolm Moment: Once Rajiin is finally revealed to be up to no good, security teams are dispatched to find her, with Malcolm naturally leading one of them. Also naturally, he’s very alert and careful, but the part I like best is his series of hand signals telling his men where to go, done over the course of a few seconds before he’s on the move again. As I’ve said, quiet competence gets me every time, and this is a literal example of the form. And if there’s one thing that can add icing on the cake, it’s wordplay like that.

After the Fact Update: I got my answer about crewman Cutler a lot sooner than I anticipated. According to Memory Alpha, Waymire actually died shortly after this episode aired, and they removed all mentions of her character entirely from that point forward. Given that she has no appearances or mentions in Season Two, you can forgive my confusion for thinking she passed away back in Season One. Though why she didn’t merit even a mention in Season Two is something of a mystery.