Over the break, I re-watched season 3 of Enterprise (Mayweather: Star Trek – Enterprise!) Here’s my take…
Section 1: Slow but steady arc plotting
The Xindi: 6 (An adequate, but not great, introduction. Sets the tone, but uses way too many Trek conventions)
Anomaly: 9 (Nice all-action hour)
Extinction: 3 (Without a doubt, the worst episode of the season.)
Rajiin: 7
Impulse: 6.5 (Good of its kind. But I don’t like its kind. Ending was creepy.)
Exile: 6.5
The Shipment: 8
Much of this section was similar to the first two seasons – basically episodic adventure with a slight edginess, but nothing earthshattering. The Xindi arc, as well as the Trellium-D and spheres ‘n’ anomalies subarcs figure modestly in these episodes, but they are mostly in the background as setup for the adventure of the week. I’d rate these a tick higher than the first two seasons overall, but just a tick.
Section 2: Highly uneven
Twilight: 9.5 (Cool episode, slick CGI.)
North Star: 5.5 (By-the-numbers episode. Not great.)
Similitude: 9 (Good writing in the end, but plot conveniences and bad science brought it down. I did like how they avoided a shuttlepod chase scene of gratuitous actionness.)
Carpenter Street: 5
Chosen Realm: 5.5 (Doesn’t start badly, but degenerates into absurdity.)
Proving Ground: 8.5
Stratagem: 9.5 (Clever and well-written. Good acting by Degra, too.)
Harbinger: 7 (Some deft writing, and it has some character depth behind its levity. But it’s still a bit superficial.)
Doctor’s Orders: 8
Hatchery: 4.5 (Old, rehashed. Couldn’t watch it through a second time, though that was partly in eagerness to get to section three)
The November sweeps episodes – two winners, two losers – set the tone for this middle section of the season. There were several winners, but many bland or poor episodes as well. Arc development was minimal in many episodes, but I liked how the sphere-builders were introduced inobtrusively in “Chosen Realm”.
Section 3: Ending with a bang
Azati Prime: 10 (Big, bold action with big, bold CGI and big, bold music. Great fun.)
Damage: 10 (Archer’s “In the Pale Moonlight”, but no Garak to do the dirty work for him.)
The Forgotten: 8.5
E²: 7.5
The Council: 10 (Serious changes in the plot landscape with effective writing and direction. For some reason, reminds me of Dune.)
Countdown: 9.5 (Well-done, but somewhat rehashed from the previous episode)
Zero Hour: 7.5 (Falls back too much on action clichés, but well executed.)
“Azati Prime” kicks off this home stretch of episodes, which feature some of the best plot development and writing in this season, and indeed, the series. The two trilogies consisting of the first three and the last three episodes form a solid payoff for the season. Whatever torture they applied to the writers in this section, please continue. (Interestingly enough, season two also had a less pronounced uptick in the last third of its episodes, starting with “The Breach”)
Annoying cut-and-paste dialogue of the season:
Character 1: [blurts out some obscure reference]
Character 2: Huh?
Character 1: [explains the reference]
An example (from “Proving Ground”)
Archer: It’s a Bikini Atoll.
Shran: [gives a quizzical expression with matching antenna movements]
Archer: When my species first began experimenting with primitive nuclear weapons…
So Whaddabout Season Four?
I’m moderately optimistic about the ascendance of Manny Coto to the helm of the series. Of his episodes this year: “Similitude”, “Azati Prime”, and “The Council” were all stellar, and “Harbinger”’s strength was definitely in the writing; Coto did a good job considering the scenario he was given.
Season three showed the limitation of the season-long-arc format, though: to get a story through an entire year, a lot of filler or plot-dragging-out is required. DS9 got around this by having other ongoing situations alongside the Dominion war, such as the Bajor-Cardassia conflict and the Maquis. However, Enterprise hasn’t developed its universe well enough to pull that off, and so we got a good deal of filler this year. Another weakness is the necessity to recap every episode and the difficulty of introducing new viewers. So I’m optimistic about the several-episode-long story arcs planned for season four (I’m athelas and I approve this device).
What I’d like to see in season four is more development of the Enterprise-verse. No more new alien races are needed; just focus on the interactions between the known species (see what B5 did with only five and a half major species.) The Augment arc might be a fun action-filled plot, certainly better than a “Data visits the NX-01” that B&B may have pulled. The Vulcan civil war looks like a promising political story, though I’m wary of Coto’s intention of drawing parallels to the Iraq war. Trek has always been somewhat liberal, but this would be going off the deep end.
And by the way, for the Nazi-arc fearers out there, I’ve had a look at the few pages of script released on the web, and it looks…interesting. It will almost certainly be better than Voyager’s “Killing Game”.
