Of all the five Star Trek television series, Enterprise is the red-headed stepchild, the four-season failure (with no write-in campaign), the killer of the original franchise. Yet there's something about this show, this Star Trek that isn't Star Trek, that is worth investigating further. Either that, or I've been playing Star Trek Online too much.
First Contact
The Enterprise finds itself orbiting a Class-M planet, the first Earth-like world humanity has encountered out of the solar system. The crew is overjoyed at the prospect of reliving memories of their distant homeworld - all except Subcommander T'Pol, who disapproves of the humans' visiting the planet before conducting a full range of tests.
Maybe she's right. An away team spends the night on the uninhabited planet and starts seeing things, hearing things. As the situation deteriorates and paranoia sets in, Captain Archer is forced to call off a rescue attempt as high-winds prevent a shuttlecraft from landing. The away team retreat to a cave for safety, but the danger is only just beginning.
Standing On The Shoulders of Giants
It must be a tradition in Star Trek series to have an early episode where crewmembers act irrationally after suffering infection. The original series gave us "The Naked Time" in 1966 only four episodes into its run, and The Next Generation returned the favor in less time with 1987's "The Naked Now". Fittingly for Enterprise, the effects are less drunken flirting and swashbuckling, and much more unnerving, scarier, creepier. A grittier feel for a grittier show.
Badly Going Where None Of Us Want To Go
But the same mistakes are made from Enterprise's preceding episodes. Trip Tucker and T'Pol come within a breath of killing each other, and both characters remain so unlikeable you wish they'd gone ahead and done it. T'Pol goes so far out of her way to be aloof and distant from her human shipmates that it shoots the inevitable character development in the foot because we can see it coming so far off, and waiting for it to get here is pure agony.
Despite Enterprise wanting to be a tougher, "Not-your-daddy's-Star Trek", it still plays "Strange New World" safe. After the crewmembers are inoculated, lessons are learned about trust and suspicion, and everybody lives happily ever after - the same conclusion of 90% of Star Trek episodes and movies that preceded it. I understand that the show's producers didn't want to kill off a redshirt without showing the crew grieving, but to have Ethan Novakovich (Henri Lubatti) survive after Dr. Phlox solemnly declared the ensign on death's door - the latter one of the better moments of the story - relegates "Strange New World" to one of those thousands of TV episodes where someone is in sight of the pearly gates, only to make it back in time for the closing credits.
Verdict: Guilty
It's disappointing, because while "Strange New World" has moments where Enterprise could carve itself its own niche in the Star Trek universe, the predictable ending and painful, utterly painful characterization of T'Pol and Tucker makes this a letdown.
Enterprise, "Strange New World": 3/5. What should have, and could have been a genuinely good story for this new crew is instead the same old, same old.
Michael Perera - The only rule in writing is honesty. If you're honest, the words will write themselves.
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