Show: Star Trek; Enterprise
Episode
Particulars: S4EP20, “Demons”
Summary: The Enterprise has returned to Earth to be
present for a conference that will, if all goes well, form a Coalition of
Planets. Before things can really begin, though, a woman staggers into the
building where it’s taking place, gives T’Pol a vial containing a lock of hair,
and then collapses, revealing a phaser blast in her abdomen. Some investigating
on multiple fronts reveals that the woman was part of a Xenophobic group known
as Terra Prime…and that the hair came from a Vulcan-Human hybrid baby, whose parents are
Tucker and T’Pol. In-between watching the Enterprise
crew try to get to the bottom of all this, we get to see Terra Prime’s
leader, John Paxton (Peter Weller) discuss his plans for the future of Humankind
in very nebulous terms, though it’s not hard to tell that he’s up to no good. Though
the fact that he has his base of operations on the moon probably should have
been a tipoff as well; it’s a classic supervillain location.
Standalone
Thoughts: This is another episode that can’t be properly judged until we
get the payoff. Right now, Paxton’s exact plans are unclear, especially as far
as the baby is concerned, so while it’s currently got some mystery to it, it
could all be ruined by the reveal. It’s also uncertain if characters like chairman of the conference Nathan
Samuels (Harry Groener) or Gannet Brooks (Johanna Watts), a reporter and Mayweather’s old
girlfriend, are going to have bigger parts to play in the second half of the
story; it feels like they will, Samuels especially, but there’s no guarantee of
that. There’s definitely potential here, but I’m not as enthusiastic about it
as I was about “The Forge”, partly because of the current unknowns and
partially because of the biggest thing that stands out about the episode.
That something is the very obvious preaching regarding
people being racist, or rather xenophobic, towards the aliens. It’s of course
presented as a bad thing, but there’s no subtlety to it, like there was in “Detained”.
The villains are of the mustache twirling variety, and the various discussions
about the subject are clearly designed for maximum axe-grinding. About the only
thing I’ll give the showrunners credit for is that two of the Terra Prime
figures who have large scenes are black, thus making the scenario a slightly less
blatant parallel to white supremacy, but the intent is still hard to miss, so
this is damning with faint praise.
The episode manages to avoid being preachy enough for me
to outright dislike it, but it’s certainly low on my list of Season Four episodes,
lower to lower-middle tier for the show as a whole, and possibly the lowest on
the list of openings for the Season Four mini-arcs (though I think the
arrogance and exposition from “Borderland” annoyed me more). It’s also made me
a little wary of what to expect in part two, but given that the augment arc wound
up improving, I’m not dismissing the whole thing just yet. Let’s just see where
things go tomorrow.
How it Relates to
the Whole: By this point, the cast and crew knew the show was being
cancelled, so they didn’t have to set things up for future stories. I feel like
they tried anyway, though, with more discussion (in a roundabout way) of Tucker
and T’Pol’s relationship, offering up some characterization for Mayweather, and
hinting that they were going to do more with Malcolm and Harris. More power to
them for that, even if it was in the
vain hope that the studio would change their minds. On the Trek lore front, the Coalition is obviously a prelude to the
Federation, which may have always been the intent of the writers but could just
have been the closest they could get to the actual Federation given the
cancellation. There’s one other thing that references future events as well,
but I’ll talk about that one more tomorrow…
Other: *Paxton
has a discussion with one of his underlings (Peter Mensah) about Terra Prime’s
goals and how they’ll be viewed by history. The acting and the dialogue are
actually pretty good, and in other circumstances, it would have been a great
example of grey morality (I could see Sisko having a similar conversation with
someone after the events of “In the Pale Moonlight”), but it’s prefaced by material
that’s blatantly meant to be evil, so the impact is lost somewhat. This is
highlighted all the more because the conversation happens when the underling
walks in on Paxton watching an old speech given by Colonel Green (Steve Rankin).
Not only is Green advocating killing off people infected by radiation sickness
at the close of WWIII, he’s wearing an outfit that looks practically identical
to the ones Section 31 wear, which is to say Naziesque. Make your message a
little more heavy-handed, why don’t you?
*This episode makes official something that attentive
fans might have noticed; shuttlepods are being phased out in favor of
transporters. All throughout Season Four, people were generally beaming places
instead of taking a shuttlepod. It’s a little abrupt on the one hand, but it’s
also a good example of “show don’t tell” (until it was spelled out in this
episode) and does nicely foreshadow the future Trek eras, when transporters are the norm. It’s a nice bit of
continuity, both for Enterprise and
the Trek franchise as a whole, and as
we all know by now, I like things like that.
Badass Malcolm
Moment: While trying to figure out how to proceed with their investigation,
Phlox mentions a medical detail he noticed. It’s eventually determined that
that detail can relate to people who work on a mining colony on the moon. At
this point, Malcolm reveals that not only is he aware that there’s a fair
amount of people who belong to Terra Prime on that colony, but he knows
Mayweather has a friend there and suggests that they use him to sneak people
inside to do a little undercover work, thus setting up future events of the
episode. I don’t know when or how he got this information, but the fact that he
was able to immediately recall it (especially the part about Mayweather’s
friend) and come up with a plan based around it speaks volumes of how observant
and adaptable he is. Both Harris and Archer chose their men well.
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