ENT Episode - Demons

I go with using Tucker and T'Pol for undercover work. Two of the most famous faces on Earth, trying to covertly infiltrate an organisation that has target them specifically to create their child. Yeah, that makes sense.

Plus - everybody is so amazed that Paxton is willing to go to warp within a solar system. The idea that this is dangerous crops up every once in a while in Trek. But just look at Borderland for instance, the NX-01 goes to warp within literally seconds of pulling out of Spacedock in Earth orbit! Why is it suddenly surprising that Paxton can do something similar?

Great Moment :

Seeing the conference. The Federation rises...

Body Count :

Two - the woman who died of phase pistol wound and the doctor who was killed on the moon. T'Pol is shot but not injured.

Factoid :

We learn a little about Colonel Green, seen as an Excalbian recreation in "The Savage Curtain". There he was said to be known for attacking his enemies whilst negotiating with them. Here we find that he exterminated millions of people who were suffering from radiation sickness after World War III, supposedly with the aim of reducing long term sickness.

Quote :

"With this Coalition of Planets we seek to strengthen our bonds of friendship, render permanent the peace that now exists among us for the ongoing exploration of our galaxy. Let us dedicate ourselves to these worthy goals so that future generations can look back upon this moment with pride and eternal gratitude." - Samuels in his opening speech.

Plotline

Enterprise is recalled to Earth to attend negotiations being held between many of the different alien species with an aim to forming an alliance between them. At the opening ceremony a woman staggers in, handing a lock of hair to T'Pol and telling her "they are going to kill her" before collapsing and dying of a phase pistol wound. On investigation the hair proves to be from a Vulcan/Human hybrid - a child who is the offspring of Tucker and T'Pol! Archer launches an investigation into "Terra Prime", a shadowy xenophobic organisation based on Earth's moon which the woman had been a part of. But when Tucker and T'Pol visit the moon they are quickly captured by Terra Prime, and witness a daring raid intended to force all aliens to leave the Sol system forever.

Analysis

Not so keen on this one. It's interesting to see talks being held on Earth that are obviously one of the first steps toward the formation of the Federation six years from now - though there certainly seemed to be an awful lot of different species involved, given that "Azati Prime" stated that there were only four founding members of the Federation. Presumably the others held off joining until a few years later for some reason.

The introduction of a Trip/T'Pol child is an interesting and rather bizarre twist. It's hard to judge it properly since they don't really tell you anything about it. I can only speculate that Paxton is planning on using it for some nefarious research purposes. Creating a bio weapon of some sort to use against Vulcans sprung to mind, but that doesn't really make a lot of sense. Trip's reaction to it was a little surprising - surely by now he can't really believe that T'Pol would lie to him about this? And why is it such a big mystery for everybody that such a child could exist, when we know things like genetic engineering and cloning technology are around? Surely you only need a couple of DNA samples and a laboratory to produce such a child. They mystery would be who and why, not how.

Playing up Xenophobic Humans is also quite interesting. Really you would expect such things to be rapidly receding into history by now, given that Earth doesn't have war or poverty anymore. These are the traditional breeding ground for such nonsensical fanaticism, and it's a little odd that it could grow significantly without them. But that's not such a big deal, really. I'm thinking of Terra Prime as being the last gasp of xenophobia, a gathering of the few left who think that way in these more enlightened times.

It's unpleasant to see Section 31 raise it's ugly head again, but I'm not going to rant about that because it was only brief and didn't have much effect on the overall story.

The episode's biggest problem comes in the efforts to infiltrate the moon. They're trying to find a xenophobic organisation, one which they know has obtained a child who is the offspring of Trip and T'Pol. So who do they send to work undercover? Trip and T'Pol! For one, as Enterprise crewmembers these two are famous across the Earth, so hardly suitably to do any uncover work. And even if that were not so, if Terra Prime is in any way involved with their child, then surely it at least would have to know who they are! You could hardly pick two worse choices for secret undercover work, and it reeks of using main characters for something in the story simply because they are main characters.

Reed's girlfriend was a little obvious. The first time she started talking to Mayweather I thought "Evil. Got to be evil." It's not that it was particularly telegraphed in advance or anything though. There's a general rule in television shows that you never introduce a character who serves no purpose, certainly not one who gets many minutes of screen time. As such, there simply had to be something more to her than being Mayweather's ex girlfriend. And how refreshing is it to see a baddie who actually demands to see their lawyer?

After last week's bedroom gymnastics between Hoshi and Archer, the show continues to be a little more risqué than usual for Trek, showing Mayweather in bed with Gannet. All I have to say about that is - she keeps her underwear on during sex? Hmmmm.

The last five minutes are a bit of an oddity. The flying warp speed mining station is a little hard to accept. I suppose there's nothing inherently impossible about it, but watching that sequence made me think I was in a James Bond movie all of a sudden. I kept waiting for Paxton to sit in a big leather chair and start stroking a white cat.

The verteron cannon on Mars is a bit odd. Are comets really such a problem that there has to be a massive energy cannon on Mars to divert them? And this thing has serious firepower - the blast on the moon was at least five hundred kilometres across when we cut away from it. It wouldn't so much 'divert' a comet as 'blow it into a trillion little pieces'. Though it seemed awful easy for Paxton to take over it - a weapon this powerful and all you have to do is clamp a robot arm onto a pipe and you're in? Still, maybe his company built the thing so he had all the security codes or something.

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Last updated : 12 May 2005