Show: Star Trek; Enterprise
Episode
Particulars: S4EP22, “These are the Voyages…”
Standalone
Thoughts: I have heard that almost nobody, actor or audience member, likes
this finale. And although I often go against the grain, I’m in complete
agreement with the majority this time. Instead of giving the Enterprise crew one last hurrah, they
have to share the screen with TNG,
which won’t do anything to quiet the negative comparisons between it and the
other Trek shows. They do something
with one of the main characters that’s completely pointless; the claim is that
it’s supposed to relate somehow to Riker’s conflict, but I can’t exactly see
how. Most of the main characters get less screentime than Riker and Troi do. Despite
six years supposedly passing, no mention is made of events that happened during
those six years—one would think the Romulan war would merit a reference or two.
And for every heartfelt moment (Malcolm and Tucker reminiscing on the past in a
way that could easily apply to the show itself), there’s a smarmy one (Archer
talking about “the next generation”). I’ve stated numerous times that I love
callbacks to previous Trek shows, but
this isn’t a callback, it’s a takeover, and I feel like Enterprise fans who also like TNG
aren’t pleased by this either.
There really isn’t much that’s redeeming about the
episode. Right from the first minute, things are off, with the characters
wearing new uniforms, the ladies sporting new hairstyles, and the bridge looking
slightly different. Before you can fully adjust to that, you see Riker sitting
on the bridge before revealing that this whole thing is a holoprogram, thus
giving you a sense of what you’re in for. Apparently, this aired the same night
as “Terra Prime”, thus giving a sort of two-hour finale (though they’re
considered separate episodes, which is good for my purposes); I can only
imagine how baffled and then increasingly angry audiences were at the time.
The thing is, I could actually see this being a decent
enough ending, albeit with a lot of
tweaking. Obviously, you cut the TNG stuff
entirely, but opening the story with Enterprise
about to be decommissioned might actually work. I’d open with Archer
dictating a log to let us know about the time jump; yes, it’s “tell don’t
show”, but it’s a quick and easy way to ease us into the idea. Then, we
actually get discussions of everything that’s happened in those six years. Maybe
even show some “flashbacks” if the budget allows for it. Give us a sense that
there have been more than cosmetic changes to the ship and crew, such as
following through with that Season Five idea of having Shran be a member of the
crew. End the episode with the birth of the Federation, and then have the
characters all say goodbye, moving on to the futures they’d discussed earlier
in the episode. Maybe have it end with Archer looking at the model he painted
with his dad all those years ago (and was our first glimpse of Enterprise the show), and deciding it
needs touching up, so he sits down and starts painting it. Do it right, and it
could be the same sort of bittersweet that DS9’s
“What You Leave Behind” was. Instead, we got…this.
Fortunately, as time has passed, at least one of the
writers/executive producers has stated that this finale was a mistake, which is
at least a small comfort. That being said, I strongly suggest that not only do
you not watch this episode, you basically strip it from the canon. All it’s
going to do is make you angry and possibly taint your memories of the show,
which it absolutely doesn’t deserve. Do yourself a favor and pretend this
episode never happened. That’s what I’m going
to do once I’m done with this review.
How it Relates to
the Whole: The episode makes references to several events that we saw
throughout the show, from the big (having Enterprise’s
last mission be the same place they went to in “Broken Bow”) to the small
(a reference to an incident in “The Forgotten”). It also shows us the birth of
the Federation, though at the moment they’re still calling it a coalition. And
finally, it tries to draw parallels between this last mission and what was
going on in the TNG episode “The
Pegasus”, with dubious success. However, with the possible exception of the inclusion
of Shran (complete with a nod to events in “The Aenar”), I don’t consider any
of this “real”. I’ll acknowledge the references, but I won’t stand by them.
Other: *During
the first shot of the TNG Enterprise, the look of the stars passing them by is absolutely
awful. They all seem to be moving at different speeds, to the point where it
creates a disorienting 3-D effect. After years of just having the stars streak
by the ship, what exactly went wrong here? Though I will admit, it’s
appropriate given everything else that’s messed up about this episode…
*The Enterprise apparently
took on some of the same modifications that the Columbia had in the six year gap between “Terra Prime” and their
last mission. They now have that odd rack of computers, but they wisely ditched
the lights that pulse with the warp core. I’m guessing Tucker took one look at
that and then contacted Starfleet to chew them out over the decision to include
them in the first place.
*Archer calls visiting Rigel X, the planet they visited
in “Broken Bow” and now the planet where they’re going to have their final
mission, “poetic justice”. That is absolutely the wrong word for this context;
“full circle” is so much better. You’d think the actual writers of the episode
would have picked up on that.
*My final Enterprise
review wouldn’t be complete without complaining about Hoshi, but I think
it’s particularly justified in this case. As Riker (in the guise of Chef) is
asking the various characters about Tucker, he asks if Hoshi ever found him
attractive. In addition to giving Tucker a backstory that seems incredibly
implausible (SFDebris was certainly left gobsmacked), she also declares “[He]
never cared much about languages, could barely speak English”. Look, I’ll
suggest that Tucker has redneck tendencies along with everyone else, but I
never once thought that he wasn’t speaking perfectly understandable English
(besides the occasional foray into technobabble). Hoshi basically just insulted
her superior officer in a major way, or at the very least, insulted people from
the South. And this was your first
choice for Communications officer, Archer?
*Season wrapup: Finale aside, the season is pretty mixed
for me. I love all the references to other Trek
elements, but the episodes some of those references were contained in
weren’t very good. I don’t know if that was because the writing was poor or
because they suspected they were getting cancelled and thus had to cram
everything in instead of giving it time to breathe, but it does impact the
viewing experience. I actually may consider it the worst of the four seasons,
which will probably come as a surprise to people. While the acting, action, and
ideas were good, the execution often left a lot to be desired. For all my
complaints about the first half of Season Three, at least I was aware that I
would have liked the episodes that were pointless to the arc if they’d been
shown in a different context. That’s harder to do in Season Four. I want to
stress that I didn’t dislike rewatching Season Four…I just don’t think it’s
quite the improvement that people claim it is.
*Show wrapup: I always maintained after my first
watchthrough that Enterprise was good
from the start and got better as it went along. Looking at it with a more
critical eye, I need to modify that opinion a bit. I will still say that
Seasons One and Two aren’t anywhere near as bad as people make them out to be;
Season One had that pleasantly watchable quality that I mentioned quite a few
times, and Season Two had some really good episodes. Seasons Three and Four, on
the other hand, have taken a hit in my estimation. I admire what they were
trying to do in both cases, but it didn’t always succeed. When it worked, it
worked well, but when it didn’t, it was frustrating.
Would I still recommend watching the show, despite all
that? Yes. I will continue to defend Enterprise
to people and recommend they give it a chance, despite its reputation. Trek fans will probably enjoy all the
references (though since they won’t have the same impact on first-timers to the
franchise, I’d probably save Enterprise until
they’ve seen a good amount of TOS, at
least). Sci-fi fans can find enjoyable elements. And while the characterization
admittedly isn’t the greatest—Mayweather seems like a perfectly nice guy, but
we know very little about him by the end of the show—there’s enough there for
people to latch onto and enjoy. Certainly I did that with a certain someone…
Badass Malcolm
Moment: First off, on a semi-related note, allow me to link you to Dominic Keating’s version of Enterprise’s theme song. There’s at least one line in there that I can one hundred percent get
behind.
As for the episode itself, Malcolm, like most of the
cast, doesn’t get much to do in this episode, but I was amused to note that,
outside of the context of discussing his problem or touring the NX-01, the only time Riker brings up a
member of the Enterprise crew is when
he notes that Malcolm is shorter than he expected. That’s obviously not the
badass moment; the badass moment is that Riker goes on to say “You expect
larger than life people to be larger than life”, which implies that Malcolm
went down in history and is well-remembered. And why not? After perfecting the
forcefield, inventing Red Alert, suggesting new protocols for the transporter
that probably became standard, and saving the ship and/or Archer at least ten
times over the course of the show, he deserves to be remembered and
acknowledged. That’s part of the reason why this entry existed in the first
place, after all.
Godspeed, Lieutenant. You’ve earned that
chair.
After the Fact
Update: In addition to all the other problems this episode has, the Memory
Alpha entry on it reveals that it doesn’t even maintain continuity with what
happened in “The Pegasus”. So add one more fault to its list of sins. I would,
however, recommend you read through the “Reception” section, to read quotes
showing writer/creator Brannon Braga going from supportive to ashamed of the episode. The schadenfreude is delightful.
***
And with that, TV-366 comes to a close. This was
admittedly one of the worst ways I could end the project, but I always knew I
wanted to revisit Enterprise, and after
my original plans fell through after I gave up on Poirot, I didn’t want to go back to Star Trek after such a short detour. Besides, even if the episode
is terrible, the title is at least appropriate.
My final thoughts on this project as a whole will be in a
separate post if you’re curious or thinking about doing a similar project.
After that, this blog will remain up for as long as the internet/Blogger will
allow. I’ll check back to look for comments occasionally, but I probably won’t
update it again, focusing my attention on my movie review blog. So let me say
here and now…thank you to everyone who read this blog, whether you read
everything or only looked at the shows/episodes you were interested in. And to
those of you who somehow stumble across this in the future…I hope it inspires
you to check the shows out for yourself. All of them, even Poirot, are worth a look.
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