Day 348: Enterprise, Borderland

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S4EP4, “Borderland”

 Summary: Tensions rise between humans and Klingons when a group of humans attacks a Klingon ship, kills the entire crew, and commandeers the ship for themselves. An examination of the DNA of the attackers reveals them to have been genetically engineered, and Starfleet immediately knows who’s partially responsible for this; Arik Soong (Brent Spiner), a genius who stole twenty embryos left over from the Eugenics Wars and is currently locked up. Transferred into Archer’s care so they can stop his “children” (also known as augments), Soong and the Enterprise go searching for them, but run into trouble when they pass through Orion space. Specifically, nine crew members, including T’Pol, are kidnapped to be sold as slaves, and Soong and Archer are going to have to work together to get them back. Not that Archer particularly wants to do that, of course.

Standalone Thoughts: Two things stand out to me about this episode. One is that it has a somewhat disjointed feel. Although we know how Soong and the augments are connected, the scenes with him and the scenes with them mostly don’t have any correlation to each other, so it can sometimes feel like we’re watching bits from two different episodes. It doesn’t help that Soong’s material feels more like psychological mind games, while the augment scenes feel like a soap opera, since so much of it revolves around two of the male augments competing for dominance and the love of a woman. Then, in the middle of all this, the Orions/Orion Syndicate show up, and a third of the episode is dedicated to trying to get their people back. Again, it does eventually tie in to the “genetically engineered” stuff, but it feels like a detour most of the time. It has some good moments, but it’s a detour nonetheless.

The other thing is of course the appearance of Brent Spiner as Soong. It’s a callback that probably makes a lot of Star Trek fans very excited, and I think I was intrigued the first time I saw this episode, but right now I’m decidedly “meh” on the subject. It’s obvious from context that neither we or the characters are supposed to like Soong much, but it falls into the trap (and I’m sure there’s a punchier trope name for it) where a character may be deliberately written to be annoying/insufferable/what have you, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to watch. So it’s hard for me to tell if I’m supposed to love to hate Soong or if it’s just a matter of me personally finding him annoying. Though I will say that I don’t think Spiner’s doing a very good job at the moment of playing those aforementioned psychological mind games; the intent is there, but I don’t really sense any cunning or manipulation behind the words. Heck, Archer pulls a trick that’s far smarter than anything Soong does in this episode. We’ll see if things get better as the story goes on, but at the moment, I’m not holding my breath.

There’s definitely potential in this story, especially since there’s a very good chance we’re going to get the trope of our group of heroes having to work together to outfox opponents who are smarter and stronger than they are. At the moment, though, it’s not off to a particularly strong start. Whether it’s due to having to do a lot of exposition or a problem at the writing or acting level remains to be seen.

How it Relates to the Whole: Moreso than any other season, Season Four is when this category has to be considered both in terms of how it connects up to Enterprise and how it fits in with the franchise as a whole. In the former category, not only are there two more episodes directly tied into this, but I believe another mini-arc winds up being connected to it as well later on. There’s also a reference that’s both a nod to classic Trek and may have been an inspiration for a later episode. As for the franchise connection, not only do we have the appearance of genetically engineered humans and a discussion about the practice (which alludes to both Khan from TOS and to a lesser extent Bashir from DS9), but we also have Soong, and both his name and the actor should give you a pretty good sense of what’s eventually going to be referenced…

Other: *Although we only see him for a minute or two, the voice of the captain of the Klingon ship makes him instantly recognizable as J.G. Hertzler, back to play a Klingon once again. I don’t believe he’s supposed to be Kolos from “Judgment”, though; not only would it be weird for a lawyer to have changed careers and become a ship captain, but I think more attention would have been paid to that fact, given Enterprise’s (general) well-handling of their continuity.

*We find out that Soong got his genetically engineered “family” from a place called Cold Station 12, where they kept embryos from the Eugenics wars as well as “a stockpile of infectious diseases”. To which my immediate response is “Why???” Is this like the reason why we still keep a sample of smallpox around just in case something goes wrong and we need a cure? Even if that’s the case, though, is it really wise to keep them all in one place? What happens if something goes catastrophically wrong and several of the diseases get out at once? And even if there’s a good reason for keeping the diseases around, why would they want to keep the embryos if they’d banned genetic engineering? Perhaps some of these questions will be answered in future episodes, but for now, it feels like this was a station dreamed up by Admiral Plot Device.

*When Soong comes aboard the Enterprise, he’s met by T’Pol and Malcolm, and makes snarky comments to both of them. His comments to T’Pol are basically “We have a lot in common because we both look down on humans.” His comment to Malcolm? To quote directly, “I’ve heard of you, but I don’t recognize your face. You’re not getting your fair share of publicity.” He may be a jerk, but he’s got a point; as I’ve mentioned many times before, Malcolm doesn’t get the recognition he deserves. I also wonder if this might not have been a meta commentary on the fact that Keating and most of his other co-stars were overshadowed by Bakula, Blalock, and Trinneer, who were supposed to be the “big three” of the show. Either way, I couldn’t help but smirk a bit when I heard that line.

Badass Malcolm Moment: Malcolm’s mostly relegated to the background today, but he does have a standoff at one point where he doesn’t show any fear or hesitation. It’s got the same feel as the material I loved in “The Andorian Incident”, and thus it was the obvious choice.

After the Fact Update: Among the repairs and upgrades given to Enterprise is a new Captain’s chair, and Tucker warns Archer not to push a certain button. You’d be forgiven for thinking this is a Chekov’s Gun, but if Memory Alpha is to be believed, it’s just a joking reference to the chair’s previous use (a new Captain’s chair in Star Trek: Nemesis, where that button activates a seatbelt). It’s possible that the writers will decide to do something different with it before the end of the season, but since Memory Alpha probably would have mentioned that, I’m not expecting anything.