Day 353: Enterprise, Kir'Shara

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S4EP9, “Kir’Shara”

 Summary: When we last left our heroes, Archer had been tasked by Surak’s katra to find the Kir’Shara, which is (are?) the original writings of Surak, which could change Vulcan society as everyone knows it. Having found it at the end of “Awakening”, Archer, T’Pol, and a Syrannite named T’Pau (Kara Zediker) now have to try to bring it to the capital and confront the High Command with it, not an easy task when V’Las is trying to wipe all Syrannites from the face of the planet. Meanwhile, Enterprise has learned that the Vulcans are planning an attack on Andoria, having been led to believe by V’Las that they have Xindi technology that they plan to use on Vulcan. Hoping to prevent a war, Tucker works with Soval to find and warn the Andorians. Or rather, one Andorian in particular…

Standalone Thoughts: Much like “Shockwave, Part 2”, this episode has two plots, one of which is decent and the other of which is borderline bad. The decent plot is the stuff surrounding the Andorians, primarily because of Jeffrey Combs and Shran’s ambiguous loyalties. The plot revolving around the Vulcans, meanwhile, is absolutely baffling to me. I understand on an intellectual level what’s happening, but the actual plot is being obscured by a combination of happening too fast and being surrounded by unnecessary material. Or rather, material that’s really good in theory, but is just glossed over in practice. I like the suggestion that having Surak’s katra is causing Archer to reevaluate his opinions on the Vulcans, perhaps dissolving his prejudices against them once and for all, but we only get one brief conversation discussing that. Similarly, there’s some potential in T’Pol initially being distrustful of the Syrannites but slowly starting to realize their ideas have merit, but she seems to flip from “I disapprove of this” to “I support this” without any warning. Trying to cram all of this into (if we’re being generous) twenty-one minutes is a recipe for disaster, and the results kind of speak for themselves. The broad strokes of this arc are great, but the writers apparently struggled with the details. Either that, or they had a suspicion their time was running out and did the best they could under the circumstances.

From my perspective, this arc probably would have worked best as a four-parter. Part One could have basically been the same as what we saw in “The Forge”. Part Two could be similar to “Awakening”, but end at the point where Archer sets out to find the Kir’Shara, while the Enterprise tries to find out what’s going on with the High Command, perhaps using Soval as their man on the inside. Part Three could be the hunt for the Kir’Shara, allowing us more time to explore the ideas I talked about above, offering up more motivation for V’Las, and having the Enterprise discover the planned attack on Andoria. And Part Four could still contain all the Andorian stuff from this episode and Archer bringing the Kir’Shara to the capital, but now it would hopefully be a smoother viewing experience, since the other plot threads would have had time to develop and could now come to a natural conclusion, perhaps all tying into each other. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20, so the best I can do is acknowledge what good there was and wish it (both the arc and the season) could have been given the treatment it deserved.

How it Relates to the Whole: I’m not one hundred percent positive, but I’m pretty sure the events of this episode will be somewhat connected to the next arc. At the very least, it’s almost guaranteed to be mentioned in passing. Aside from that, there’s some resolution of small plot threads (notably from “Home” and “Stigma”), a change in Vulcan-Human dynamics, a hint of the future of Vulcan lifestyles, and most importantly, the setup of a future conflict that, due to the show’s cancellation, never quite came to fruition. That may have been for the best, though; depending on what else the show did with it before the end, it may have created a nightmare of continuity problems.

Other: *I will say this for the episode; after giving the impression that he was in over his head as Acting Captain in “The Seventh”, Tucker displays a lot more confidence today, while giving us a few hints that he doesn’t quite have the full Captain mindset just yet. I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but at least it’s a fun little detail for plot continuity fans.

*Shran claims near the end of the episode that Archer now owes him two favors, because Shran’s assisted Archer/the Enterprise twice. However, I feel like warning the Andorians of an impending attack and thus preventing a larger, bloodier conflict should be considered paying back a favor and then some. Though I’m sure Shran would find some way to say that doesn’t count.

Badass Malcolm Moment: Sadly, Malcolm’s role in this episode is limited to either doing his job (aka giving reports and firing on stuff), or questioning Tucker’s decisions in a professional manner. The best I’ve got is that Malcolm’s the one to report to Tucker that Soval has gone missing, and since we have no indication on how they realized this, I choose to believe Malcolm somehow spotted that something was amiss and quickly started looking into it. Much like the main storylines, this episode didn’t give me much to work with in this regard.