Day 340: Enterprise, The Forgotten

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S3EP20, “The Forgotten”

 Summary: Thanks to his actions in “Damage”, Archer manages to make it to the coordinates Degra secretly gave him, where he’s met by Degra and another Xindi, Jannar (Rick Worthy). Degra nearly completely believes Archer’s story about the Xindi and Humans uniting against a common enemy in the future, but Jannar insists on proof, which Archer attempts to give to the best of his ability. Meanwhile, Tucker has been tasked to write a letter to the parents of one of his engineering staff, who was killed during the battle in “Azati Prime”. He’s having trouble doing it, and it’s pretty obvious it’s for personal reasons. Of course, having Xindi walking around the ship relatively freely isn’t helping his mood any…

Standalone Thoughts: This is another episode where the writers cram in a lot, and while it thus feels a little overstuffed, it makes up for this by pulling together a lot of threads that were left dangling. Chief among them for me, as evidenced by my header, is finally explaining what happened to the Xindi from “Carpenter Street”. I mentioned in “Chosen Realm” that there was a chance that they were dead, but I wanted some confirmation of it. I finally got it, and I’m satisfied, though I still think they should have actually said something before now. The episode also pulls in material from “Chosen Realm” and “Harbinger” and makes them more than just motivation and a new threat for Enterprise respectively, which allows them, and “Chosen Realm” in particular, to actually feel like a key part of the arc in retrospect. I still don’t like “Chosen Realm” much, but I can’t deny that it’s important.

Continuity aside, the episode is also good because it explores things that really should be explored. It would have been very easy for Degra and the other Xindi to blindly accept what Archer was saying based on a little bit of proof (something that often solves conflicts in Star Trek), but the majority of the episode revolves around Archer doing his best to prove what he’s saying is true, and Jannar in particular being skeptical about it. It’s realistic, because you don’t start trusting a long-time enemy overnight, especially when something incredibly important is on the line. The episode also continues to show us that Enterprise is in bad shape, and reminds us that this sort of thing can take both a physical and an emotional toll on people, hence the subplot with Tucker. That being said, while the Tucker material is good and again feels realistic, something about it doesn’t quite click for me. I’m not sure if I think it needed more time to be explored (maybe even a whole episode dedicated to different characters coping with the situation), or if Tucker’s inevitable catharsis was a bit understated and thus underwhelming. Then again, maybe I’m just used to the big, overdramatic emotional breakdowns, so this felt weak by comparison.

While I’m not as enthusiastic about this episode as I am for episodes like “Damage” or “Proving Ground”, I’ll be the first to say that it’s pretty good. It’s got a bit of everything—action, tension, emotion—and it’s obvious that things are coming to a head. I doubt it will go on anybody’s list of favorite Enterprise episodes, but it overall handles the material well and makes you want to know what happens next, which is what really matters. Let’s see if the last four episodes of this season can keep up this trend.

How it Relates to the Whole: This episode’s primary goal is to set up the potential end to the Xindi conflict and solidify the alliance between Archer and Degra. It’s not as important an episode as, say, “Azati Prime”, but it’s essential setup for what’s to come, and thus extremely relevant. Plus, as I mentioned, it ties in episodes that had gone unaddressed for a long time, so I’m willing to give it more points on that basis alone.

Other: *There’s a nice little touch during Archer’s speech in the teaser. As the camera pans over the crew listening to him talk about loss and fighting despite it, one of the extras is wearing a neck brace, suggesting that he was one of the ones injured in the fight. It continues to drive home just how much of a pounding Enterprise took without being obvious about it, and I love details like that.

*I probably wouldn’t have noticed this if I hadn’t seen someone else bring it up on another site, but one of the guest stars in this episode (though I think he only gets a few lines) is Seth MacFarlane. MacFarlane, of course, is best known for creating and writing shows like Family Guy, so people who are fans of his work may wind up doing a double take when they see his name in the credits. Though given that he’s now involved with The Orville, a current TV show that apparently is an affectionate send-up of Star Trek (as you can guess, I know very little about it save through fandom osmosis), perhaps they won’t be quite as surprised anymore.

Badass Malcolm Moment: I should start by saying that this is the only episode (so far) where SFDebris has “awarded” the title of Annoying Character to Malcolm, though as I mentioned in my “Broken Bow” review, it was mostly because he was tired of a trope that was used. As you may have been able to guess, I’m turning around and giving the Badass Malcolm moment to the same scene, when Malcolm saves the ship at a great personal risk to himself. I’ll agree that the trope SFDebris took issue with is a bit clichéd, but still, saving the ship is badass, even if you were a bit stupid in the process. It is entirely possible to be both, after all.