Show: Star Trek; Enterprise
Episode
Particulars: S3EP22, “The Council”
Standalone
Thoughts: As with "E2”, I mostly like this
episode. There’s a good ramping up of tension, various victories and setbacks, and
some exciting action right at the very end to close out the episode and make
you want to see more. It even makes reference to some of the subplots, which is
a nice bonus. That all being said, there are two issues I have with the
content, so those are what’s going to get the most attention.
My first issue is one that’s been hinted at throughout
the season, but really becomes obvious here. There are five Xindi races—humanoids,
arboreals (aka humanoid sloths), aquatics, insectoids, and reptilians. The insectoids
and reptilians have the most monsterlike/villainous designs…and sure enough,
they’re the ones who are most opposed to making peace with Humans. It just
feels like such a lazy cliché, and I would have preferred if one of the other
races were the bad guys, just to shake things up. It doesn’t diminish my
enjoyment, really, but it does irk me.
My other problem has to do with Hoshi. Archer brings her
into the council chambers to act as a translator so he can understand the
insectoids and the aquatics (who have spoken with subtitles every time we’ve
seen them). I can accept that, although it does kind of undermine the intent of
the universal translator. What I’m not so happy with is that instead of just
murmuring the translation in Archer’s ear, she acts as though she’s speaking
for the insectoids/aquatics, and the scene makes it look like the other Xindi are
responding to her instead of to their fellow Xindi. And we know they don’t need
a translator because there’s a scene in this very same episode where the groups
talk to each other and understand the languages perfectly. It might not have
been the episode’s intent, but it kind of looks like Hoshi’s being put into the
spotlight and showing off how amazing her skills are. The events at the end of
the episode don’t help, though I’ll need to be reminded of where they’re going
with this. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it did feel somewhat off for
me.
As I said at the start of this section, though, this is a
perfectly fine episode, and those two issues didn’t ruin it for me as a whole.
It’s certainly keeping the pace going and contains a lot of interesting material,
and I’m looking forward to being reminded of how it all concludes. It’s just
that sometimes it’s easier to talk about the flaws than the successes.
How it Relates to
the Whole: Things have unquestionably come to a head at the end of the
episode, with alliances forged, others broken, information gathered, and
threats to the crew. Therefore, the last two episodes of this season will be
dedicated to dealing with what happened here. As for longer term consequences,
we’ll have to wait and see.
Other: *In a
brief return to my old fashion roundups, the outfits of the “sphere builders”
are simultaneously ridiculous and kind of pretty;
The iron bands that look inches away from digging into
her skin leave something to be desired, but the leaf-like whorls across the
rest of the suit are nice. They look even better on the two other sphere
builders we see (whose outfits are silver and gold), but we don’t really get a
good shot of those. I’m not sure if I classify this as a good or bad fashion
choice, but you have to admit it’s striking.
*Speaking of the sphere builders, the realm they normally
occupy is a white void, where things are mostly obscured and people can change
positions in a blink of an eye. Why do I get the feeling the tech crew was
inspired by the realm of the Prophets from Deep
Space Nine when they came up with this? Though that does lead to some
interesting thoughts about the two groups being related. Is it possible that
the sphere builders are an offshoot of the Pah-Wraiths…?
Badass Malcolm
Moment: The choice is clear this time; Malcolm’s involvement in the mission
to the sphere to gather more data on the sphere builders. If you need a more
specific moment, I’ll go with him laying down covering fire to let T’Pol get
away with the information, especially now that he knows what will happen if he
fails (and is running the risk of being targeted thanks to his weapons fire). I
really admire and appreciate the lack of hesitation. As if that wasn’t obvious
by now…
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