LizstarTrek - Enterprise Season 2 episodes 15 - 19

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

Stigma - ENT 1/10

Are you ready for YET ANOTHER EPISODE with an alien of the week who’s REALLY horny for Trip for no fucking reason while he continues to be a dumbass at her? Oh boy, AM I!

The episode starts with Phlox telling her the treatment is no longer working and she might die, so they need to contact the Vulcans for help. What’s this for? Well, we’ll see. Meanwhile, one of Phlox’s wives is here to help them install a microscope or something. She’s friendly, and is CLEARLY attracted to Trip for, once again, reasons I do NOT understand. Oh wait, I do understand. Trip is Berman’s self insert character, and so all the women have to want to fuck him. She’s coming on strong, and I like a woman who knows what she wants, but it’s the fact it’s Trip, AND Trip has gotten SO MUCH action. He’s had like, 5 alien women want to bone down so far. We’re halfway through season 2. Riker had maybe that many women in seven fucking seasons, and he’s Riker.

Phlox meets with some Vulcans, who make it clear that they do not want to discuss the disease, Pa’nar Syndrome. Phlox is doing some lies to obfuscate why he wants the info, but they’re pretty sus. They explain that the disease only affects a small subculture of Vulcans that they do not tolerate nor condone.

…

Is this the AIDs episode

I am going to fucking scream. I am going to Morb. NO ONE WILL BE SAFE FROM MY MORBING.

So I’m not against an episode about HIV in theory. It’s an important topic and one that should be discussed about how terrible the AIDs epidemic was, and how mistreated people were by people who decided they knew what was right and correct. But I do not trust Enterprise, and I do not trust Berman. And I am right to. Cause this already fucking reeks.

Cause, first of all, you do not write an episode about how serious and debilitating the AIDs epidemic was while also having the B-plot be how horny an alien is for your fucking self insert. Second of all, Berman is notably a raging homophobe. But it’s okay because it’s not like T’Pol is gay. INSTEAD, SHE WAS SEXUALLY ASSAULTED AND GIVEN THE DISEASE THAT WAY.

NO ONE IS SAFE.

Pa’nar Syndrome is contracted by improper mind melds. This is also introducing a lot of lore about mind melds. You know how we’ve had four series with a bunch of mind melding, and it’s always been a normal regular thing all Vulcans can do? Forget that. It’s disgusting behavior that no Vulcan tolerates, and only a small minority can even do it.

The Vulcans find out T’Pol has it, and when Archer finds out, he’s pissed he wasn’t told. Dude, you do know what doctor patient confidentiality is right? Phlox straight up calls him out on it and he ignores it. Lovely. But for his credit, he does clean his shit up once he finds out what’s up. She was sexually assaulted, given this disease, and if the high command finds out they might fire her. Cause intolerance. It’s not logical, by ANY means, and you cannot use logic to argue for this kind of intolerance. GOD I hate what they did with Vulcans in this fucking show, holy SHIT they are awful.

A Vulcan sneaks some research to T’Pol. Why? Not cause prejudice is WRONG, of course. It’s cause he’s actually part of the minority. Of course. It’s only bad when you’re affected by it.

I really can’t stress how fucking awful the Vulcans are with this, they are so poorly written with no care for logic or consistancy. We need to start a temporal cold war, go back in time, and remove Rick Berman from power.

You may notice I’ve not been talking about the B-plot at all. That’s cause its bad. Trip is of course a fucking prejudiced idiot who doesn’t understand other cultures and is like “YOU CAN ONLY DATE ONE PERSON THAT’S WEIRD” and he refuses to talk with Phlox until WAY too late in the episode cause he’s a fucking idiot who refuses to talk to his friends or understand other cultures.

When he DOES talk to Phlox about it, finally, he’s like “I was told to never fuck another man’s wife and I can’t change that”. Of course, it’s all about the WOMAN in this. Phlox LITERALLY says “Your loss”, which is funny. Fucking conservative southern man hangups.

Neli made this image which is good.

They get a hearing about the ethics of her being fired over this. T’Pol refuses to mention that she got it via rape, because she doesn’t want to contribute to stigmas against the minority that can do this. That’s fair.

The only good scene in this entire episode is the one where Archer straight up says “WOW you all are bigoted, what the fuck is wrong with you”. He doesn’t call them out about how illogical it is, but of course it is. T’Pol is going to be fired anyway, but then the one gay vulcan on the council, the one who snuck info to her earlier, comes out and defends her. The others IMMEDIATELY turn on him, and then he lets slip that she was raped, even though she made him promise not to. So yeah, throwing gay people under the bus is bad, but a gay person can throw himself and his people under the bus, that’s fine. He’s fired, of course, but T’Pol is protected from being fired. The end.

Holy fucking shit I hated this so god damn much. 44 MILLION PEOPLE DID NOT FUCKING DIE FOR THIS.

Cease Fire - ENT 9/10

Oh thank GOD, Shran is here. The Andorians are fighting the Vulcans, and taking very heavy casualties. But the Vulcans say they want a cease fire. The Andorians, of course, do not trust them, because Vulcans are well known for being awful. But he has an idea. Someone who can be a good mediator. A Pink Skin, as he calls them. Which feels like a slur.

Archer gets the call. He thinks the Vulcans want him as the ambassador, and he IS basically the closest Earth has to an ambassador, which is weird. When he gets there, the Vulcan ambassador hates that he’s there, cause he’s fucking horrible. And he demands Archer take a spy down so that they can make the treaty go in Vulcan’s favor. Archer of course refuses to do that, and takes T’Pol instead.

Hey look, it’s Suzie Plakson, the actor who played K’Ehleyr, the hottest woman in space.

So what’s the problem here? Well, years ago, Andorians came and started to terraform this D-class planet, smaller than Earth’s moon. It has dangerous radiation and is a shitty awful rock. But the Vulcans saw them moving closer to their territory, and decided to claim it as well, for defensive purposes, and annexed it during a war years ago. So they’re obviously in the wrong, right? This is obviously Vulcan aggression.

The Andorians are testy and annoyed. They don’t trust Archer much, except for Shran, who is pretty okay with Archer by this point. Shran, for what its worth, is VERY willing to talk and try and work things out. His second in command is very aggressive, but he shuts her down. All he wants is the planet back, which they annexed in a war long ago. Archer agrees to try and get Ambassador Soval, the shithead he is, to come down and talk directly, not someone who can deflect and say “I’ll go to my superiors”. So he gets Soval to come down, and they’re shot down, not clear by who. It was almost certainly the Vulcans. Either that or the aggressive second in command.

Shran, for what its worth, thinks its his second in command. But he still gives her direct orders to go and recover them and keep them safe. Yeah, alright man.

Meanwhile, the Andorians have some reinforcements arriving in a ship. The Vulcans and Andorians move towards each other to fight… when Trip makes an order. Move the Enterprise between them. Holy shit, a good Trip moment?? He goes “I will fire upon ANYONE who make an aggressive move. Let’s not start a war today, folks.”

Okay, yeah, it was the second in command. A shame. Shran gets there, sees that Archer is fighting her, and after some talking, thankfully believes Archer and has her arrested. She’s like “There are many others who feel the way I do. We need to kill the Vulcans for what they’ve done”. Shran says he intends to make a stand, and prove himself as honorable. No more killing.

Shran has some VERY good lines. Archer: “I believe I’ve heard that compromises are what happens when both parties are disassisfied.” Shran: “Then these talks have been EXTREMELY successful. Welp, drink with me, to our mutual disatisfaction.”

This was just straight up a good episode. More of this please.

Future Tense - ENT 6/10

Enterprise finds a random damaged ship out in the middle of nowhere. A stealth ship that bounces all scans, no engine, a fused hatch, and a dead human inside. Perhaps Zefram Cochrane, who canonically disappeared and reappeared in TOS? No obviously not, we know that. But who? Weirder still, the ship appears… bigger on the inside than the outside.

Holy SHIT, it’s a Dr. Who crossover.

While Trip and Reed are deep in temporal nonsense, the Suliban show up. Oh god dammit, it’s a temporal cold war episode. The Suliban demand the ship, Archer says “nah”, and they fight. But somehow some Suliban sneak on board and try to vent the launch bay, even while Trip and Reed are in there. But they manage to shake them off, for now.

Meanwhile, Phlox finds out our dead friend is human, yes…. but part Vulcan. And also a few other things. MANY generations of interspecies breeding. Humans gonna fuck aliens, thats just what we do.

They look at some of the Future Notes they still have from whats his face, and find out its a future ship. Meanwhile, Archer and T’Pol are super hung up on the idea of Humans and Vulcans breeding, because of y’know, the sexual tension.

Anyways another ship shows up. It’s a ship that’s not immediately recognizable… but T’Pol knows what it is. A Tholian ship. Holy SHIT, the Tholians??? Been excited to see them! I know that Enterprise has some Tholians, and a Gorn, and I’ve been wanting that for ages. I doubt it’ll be as exciting as it is in my mind. The Tholian communicates with squeaks and squeals, and then a robot voice. It’s very Orz-y. It’s like “Archer, we are here to retrieve the vessel. It is dangerous for you.” and then when Archer says no, they try and tractor Enterprise, but fuck off unhappily when Archer threatens to destroy the ship. Archer is making NO friends today.

Good weird star trek moment where Reed and Trip are doing work on the ship, and then the scene keeps happening over and over, as soon as they open the hatch. They eventually realize it, and it’s kinda funny. At first I was like “Weird glitch in the video- oh”. The ship is releasing some unknown radiation, like the Tholians said. Whoops! Might be dangerous. T’Pol wants that ship gone, or destroyed. Archer wants to keep it so they can take a more active part in this temporal cold war. T’Pol says that is a very, very bad idea. I agree. That means we’d get more Temporal Cold War episodes.

They’re chased by some Suliban, but thankfully a Vulcan cruiser is nearby to help. They flee to them, injured and limping, aaaand the ship is damaged. By the Tholians. Uh oh. The Tholians make quick work of the Suliban, and Archer plans a surprise for them. He and Reed set up a fucking nuke inside the ship, though time keeps resetting so they have to get faster and faster at setting up this nuke. They send it out, aaaaand the warhead has been neutralized. So much for THAT plan. Then, all things related to the ship disappear, and the Tholians just dip.

The episode kinda just fizzles and ends, but not before Archer makes one more comment about Vulcans and Humans fucking. You just can’t get off this, can you man?

This was fine, I just don’t care about temporal cold war shit, or T’parcher, or whatever the ship is called. Archol?

Canamar - ENT 5/10

The shuttle Archer and Trip (of course its more Trip) were using is found floating dead in space. Turns out they were abducted. Some aliens assumed Archer and Trip were smuggling and are sending them to Canamar, a notorious penal colony. The guards keep shocking them whenever they want cause they’re cops. The criminals aren’t much better.

Enterprise finds them, and gets them released. Unfortuantely, this happens RIGHT before a prison riot and the criminals take over the ship. Suddenly, its Con Air. Archer plays this new prison riot well, basically taking the role of “Yeah I was a smuggler all along”. The lead criminal here is a guy named Kuroda Lor-ehn. He used to be at this jail, Canamar, which they were all being taken to. He is not going back. Ever. He is NEVER going back.

Some ships find the transport vessel and try to take them out, but with Trips help, they manage to escape. Obviously, Archer and Trip are NOT happy they’re doing this, and when Kuroda orders Archer, at gun point, to blow up the enemy ships, he refuses. He’s only wanted for smuggling, not murder.

Archer gets on Kuroda’s good side. He offers to work with Trip and Archer, and tells his story. He was arrested even though he was innocent and thrown in a shitty jail for 5 years. That started him on his path to darkness. I wonder what this episode thinks about the jailing system. The answer is, not much. I don’t think they thought very hard abotu the politics of this at all.

Kuroda doesn’t plan to release any of the other prisoners. He’ll have the ship incinerated, while they get out scot free. Wow, what a dick. So now Archer has even MORE lives that he has to save. They just keep piling em up on this guy. Time to try and take the ship. Trip has the Nausicaan, Archer has the grizzled veteran murderer. Evenly matched, for sure. Obviously it doesn’t work, but the next attempt works, with Enterprise people bursting in to save everyone, just as the shuttle’s orbit starts to decay and kill everyone. Kuroda has one last Trekian fight with Archer. WHY is he? He could just go with them? Because this makes it easier to leave him to die in the ship, of course. Archer wins by using the tools of the oppressors to defeat him, and then Kuroda dies, rather dying than going back to prison.

Archer yells at the ambassador and tells him to fuck off, and he sits there sulking like “but our arrest first ask questions later policy always works ):”

This was… functional.

The Crossing - ENT 2/10

Enterprise is unceremoneously eaten by a giant whale-shark ship. It’s very blue. They send a shuttle pod out to try and explode the inside of the ship. Inside are these weird floating ghost thingies. One of them possesses Trip for a few seconds, weirding everyone out. They take him back, and it SEEMS fine, but soon he’s acting very strangely. Getting confused, acting like others are his superior officer, wandering off.

They find Tucker, who’s eating, and is like “Y’all gotta TRY this, have you?” “Uh, it’s called bread.” Turns out he’s been fully taken over by the wisps outside, which he is fine with being called. He says Tucker will be back, he just wanted to experience this. Archer is very, VERY aggressive about this. “I want my crewman back and I want my ship released!” I mean, dude, this is a first contact situation, and the wisps are NOT aggresive, they went “He’s having a good time and we just wanted to experience what it was like to have bodies”. But Archer is like “FUCK YOU GIVE ME MY CREWMAN”.

The worst part is he’ll be proven right by the end of this episode. And the moral of the story will be that it’s right to be xenophobic and not trust other cultures.

This series is the worst, and I think it can all be pointed to the politics of its era. 9/11 era USA. It’s dangerous. Archer is like “Maybe T’Pol is right and I’m being xenophobic because they’re so different”, literally a few episodes after he claimed that Humanity left bigotry behind long ago. But again, he’s proven right.

More wisps move in and are less…. cooperative than the first. He’s also like “You should join the crossing with us and try to be male”. T’Pol is like “I’ve never thought about it”, because being trans doesn’t exist in the 22nd century. As more people are taken over, they need to find out who’s themselves and who’s not. So now its The Thing, but we know Phlox can’t be taken, he’s apparently incompatable. They find a way to scan for taken crewmen, and also find out, kinda by accident, that the Catwalk is a space they can’t get into, due to its plating.

T’Pol believes she can resist the wisps, and goes out of the Catwalk to try and stop them. They immediately try to take her, but she DOES resist. This also means she can read them, and knows their plan. Okay, why can’t Tucker… whatever. So, their ship is dying, and they need to move to hosts. They can’t just live in space. But uh, they’re not in the ship anymore?? They have to move from the ship to the vacuum of space. And apparently being in a corpse is the same as being in the vacuum of space. Hmm. I think this is dumb and poorly written.

At least this episode gives Phlox more to do, cause he’s the only one who can easily wander through the ship. Anyways it turns out that Tucker has actually been taken, and is now aware of their plan and is going to stop them. They have scanners that tell them if someone’s taken? What the fuck?

Tucker goes to fight Phlox, and it’s cool to see Phlox fight. He releases a gas which will apparently knock the wisps out of him. He succeeds and knocks the wisps out of everyone, who go to… space. This episode is dumb. They try to leave, but the ship persues them, ready to eat them again. So they blow the ship up, killing every single one of the alien wisps.

SUCCESSFUL FIRST CONTACT. But it’s okay, they were The Other, and were violent and trying to take over the ship.

This episode was fine from like, a watching sense, but its theming legit disgusts me, and I can’t read it as anything else. Star Trek is a political show that represents things. It’s not just a monster show with evil things that want to kill people. There are reasons, and in TNG, they would have found a way to communicate with the aliens and help fix their ship, or there would have been internal wisp conflict where they work with THEM. Not in this episode! They’re just all evil! We can kill them though and not think about it, because everyone who comes into conflict with us is an enemy that we can just forget is sapient!

Fuck this shit. I am really disliking Enterprise, a lot.