LizstarTrek - Enterprise Season 1 episodes 13 - 16
Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!
IT’S BEEN A LOOOOONG ROOOOOAAAD
Dear Doctor - ENT 9/10
YAY A PHLOX EPISODE! Phlox is so extremely the best character in this show its not even funny, so giving him an episode ABOUT him should be great! Right?
Phlox has a wide collection of animals he keeps in his lab, which he takes care of lovingly. He’s wonderful, I love him. He’s been getting messages from a Human friend who helped him get accustomed to life on Earth, and they’re doing a penpal thing. So he’s basically writing to him about his day to day life. Phlox is very good with living on a Human ship, but he’s NOT Human, and it’s easy to kinda forget that. But he gets along very well. There’s also a crewman with a big crush on him. I don’t blame her.
They meet some aliens who are dying from a disease, and Archer conscripts Phlox to help cure them. Phlox is like “Obviously I want to help but I’m worried that he’s putting 4 billion peoples’ lives on my shoulders”. It becomes worse when he finds out the disease is actually genetic, and that makes it MUCH harder to stamp out.
There’s also some stuff about how this planet has two species with seperate cultures, that did NOT kill each other. Rare. One are the Valakians, one are the Menk. The humans view it as bad, the “lesser advanced” species is kinda kept in camps and used for manual labor, but the species is happy and safe and fed so they’re happy.
The aliens, the Valakians, ask for ftl technology so they can go meet more aliens and ask for more help. Archer is like “they are NOT ready” and kinda hates he’s being put in the spot of the Vulcans. It’s interesting, actually.
Phlox is like “I’ve made a cure but I don’t know if it’s right to save these people, cause it could effect the future of the Menk”. Archer literally goes “one day we might make a doctrine about what to do in a situation like this. We might call it a Prime Directive, even. But that’s not this day, so we have to decide now not to play god”, and decides not to cure the disease but help nudge them in the right direction and give them medicine to ease the symptoms so they can develop a cure themselves.
This was just straight up a good Trek episode. Interesting moral and setup, said well cause of the Phlox narration, doesn’t give you the answer but lets you kinda sit on it.
Sleeping Dogs - ENT 7.5/10
While lookin’ at a class 9 gas giant they find a damaged ship sinking into the atmosphere, with some life signs on board. They go down to try and help out, but they only have an hour before the ship sinks too far. T’Pol, Hoshi, and Reed are going to help them, and Reed has a bad cold.
They get on the ship and quickly find out, whoops, it’s Klingon. Reed wants to save them, T’Pol is like “they would not want you to do that, and if they wake up and find us, we’re dead.” Well, one comes out, finds them, beats the shit out of Reed and then steals the shuttle and runs off, leaving the others stranded on her ship. Rude. The Enterprise captures her quickly, and heads into the Gas Giant themselves to rescue them.
That plan falls apart quickly, as the ship starts groaning. It’s a Submarine episode, yay! Enterprise backs out, and now they really have one plan Get the Klingon to help them.
That’s not gonna be easy.
Hoshi has a freakout, understandable, and T’Pol holds her hand and tries to meditate with her. I did not expect to ship these two but damn, they got chemistry. Of course I’m over here shipping the ONLY TWO WOMEN ON THE ENTERPRISE TOGETHER but look, it works.
Archer starts thinking like a Klingon, and uses that knowledge to play the Klingon against herself. He convinces her, and they go down JUST to find that they’re LITERALLY blowing themselves up to try and move upwards in the Gas Giant. They rescue the Klingons, who IMMEDIATELY prepare to open fire for the indignity of being saved. Archer punches him right back in the nose, metaphorically, and he runs with his tail tucked between his legs. The episode ends with the three of them, T’Pol, Hoshi, and Reed, sitting in decon, relaxing.
Shadows of P’Jem - ENT 7.5/10
We’ve FINALLY got a sequel to the Andorian episode! Admiral Forrest is talking with a Vulcan about the situation from that episode. Forrest is like “Dude no offence but you DID literally break a treaty” and the Vulcan is like “truly it is a shame you are too EMOTIONAL to understand it’s fine to break treaties when we do it”, then announces the Vulcans are pulling out of Earth.
Archer gets the news and delivers it to T’Pol. P’Jem got blown up by the Andorians, and the Vulcans are coming to pick T’Pol up. He tells T’Pol this is CLEARLY an emotional reaction from the High Command, who just wants to punish someone. And T’Pol is the easiest target.
Archer takes her on one last mission, to go exploring a nearby system and meet the people there. They are IMMEDIATELY attacked and captured by what appear to be rebels. The government of this place is “propped up” by the Vulcans, so they immediately assume T’Pol is the captain. She lies and claims she is to get heat off of Archer. I think I’m sensing a theme.
Trip throws a hissy fit and is angry about what’s going on. I don’t like Trip, why is he here and in charge so often? It’s like if season 1 Paris replaced all his horniness with more idignant insults and was also the 2nd in command. Anyways, the Vulcans show up, declare they are taking over the situation, are gonna go in guns blazing so that they, quote “discourage this kind of behavior in the future”. The Vulcans are, as usual, fucking awful in this, but Trip being Trip really really doesn’t help. It’s a really dick vs assholes situation over here.
Trip and Reed are IMMEDIATELY captured while trying to rescue T’Pol and Archer. Of course. But it’s NOT from the rebels… it’s the Andorians!!! They’ve been listening and watching and are like “Yeah you were being led into a trap, and also if you DO go through with the hostage demands they’ll just kill your captain anyway. But we know these people, and we repay our debts”. Thy’lek Shran is here! I might just keep calling him Jeffry Combs.
Any attempt to resolve this with subterfuge with the Andorians is shot when the Vulcans come and Uhura Maneuver the whole thing, killing everyone they can. T’Pol is shot and injured diving in front of a bullet meant for the Vulcan leader, and Shran straight up tells him “YOU should be dying, not her”. Damn, he’s kinda fucking awesome???
The Vulcan Captain begrudgingly agrees to talk to the high council about letting her stay.
There’s a thing I realized here. There’s good Vulcan writing, like T’Pol gently going “Oh, I cannot leave. It would be violating doctors orders” at the end. Writing where the Vulcan is a hardass, but in a way that hints at the humanity inside. And then there’s bad Vulcan writing, where the Vulcan is a racist.
Shuttlepod One - ENT 5/10
Reed and Trip are doing some exploration and find something weird on an asteroid… the Star Ship Enterprise, wrecked and crashed.
Meanwhile, ON the Enterprise, they area talking aobut how there was a recent problem where a launch bay door got blown off, but it’s all fine :) Oops, Reed and Trip think the Enterprise blew up cause they found a single door. Unfortunately a lot of their systems are down due to other problems. They can only move at impulse, and have ten days of air. They set a course for the closest base, though they’re not gonna get CLOSE before they die. So they’re kinda just preparing for death.
Reed is getting morose and depressed and spending his last 9 days writing apocalypse logs. Trip is pissed off about how cynical he is and how he has to be his room mate for 9 days here.
Reed wakes up and finds himself in the med bay, where T’Pol professes her love for him for all his selfless acts to save Trip or whatever the fuck. Yeah, keep trying to imply Reed is straight, y’all. Obviously it’s a dream. But even for a fake dream, it is SHOCKINGLY unromantic. Reed keeps saying “stinky” as if thats romantic. What the fuck? Is this a gay man thing?
Anyways this episode is just these two men BARELY hiding their contempt for each other, arguing as they’re about to die. I’m reminded of other episodes that have this dynamic, like the DS9 one with Odo and Quark, and this is nowhere NEAR close to that, because Reed is okay but not super interesting and I straight up do not like Trip.
They turn off the heat to conserve air. Did you know that the cold isn’t the problem in space, it’s the heat? Anyways, they get a message from Enterprise who say “hey we found you, we’re on our way” but they’re moving at warp 2 cause they think it’s fine. It’s not fine. I think this episode would hit bigger if we didn’t know the Enterprise was fine right at the start, and we were unsure? I mean obviously it was fine, cause thats how a show works, but you know. They blow up their engine to light a flare to hint “hey come here faster”
ACTUALLY good Trip moment? He tries to kill himself to double the oxygen for Reed. Reed holds a fucking gun at him, on stun, refusing to let him. They go together, or they go alone.
Obviously they go together, saved. Reed makes a pass at T’Pol. She shoots that shit right down. She has a date to go to with Hoshi, after all. This episode wasn’t bad but eh.