Okay, so, I've never watched this show before, on principle. I didn't think a prequel to the franchise was a very good idea, nor did I think they should start a series so soon after Voyager ended. So I'll admit I'm not too familiar with this series, even if I am pretty knowledgeable about the entire franchise, having seen every episode ofTOS, TNG, and Voyager, as well as every movie except for Generations, again on principle, that principle being that I thought it was stupid to have Kirk in the movie but not the rest of the bridge crew. What I'm trying to say is, I'm sure I'll make a couple mistakes here, so I apologize in advance. I also want to say that I'm really excited to do a recap of a show that is bound to be better than my regular one. So let the fun begin!
Previously on Enterprise: a whole bunch of ships kicked the Enterprise's ass. People died. Archer told some guy that if he destroyed Earth, he'd be eliminating his own species, then told T'Pol he may have gotten through to one of the Xindi. That Xindi talks to a whole bunch of other weird, bitchy aliens. T'Pol tells Phlox that she has a drug problem. Trip's sister died when Florida got rocked.
As the Enterprise soars through the heavens, Archer addresses his crew. He tells them that at least the ship is still in one piece. And sorry about the dead eighteen crewmen. Trip, T'Pol, and that English guy who looks like Martin Short look on. And apparently, in the future, it is no longer bad manners to not shower before a funeral or whatever this is supposed to be. Archer says they will accomplish their mission for the people of Earth and for the eighteen dead people.
And then…
Sara M's roommate, Kristophe: What is this?
Sara M: I think it's a commercial for allergy medication.
Kristophe: No…I think it's the theme song!
Sara M: Ew, what?
Kristophe: No, it is! Look, here come the credits.
Sara M: What the fucking fuck happened? This sucks!
Kristophe: I thought Star Trek shows always had a really awesome orchestral opening.
Sara M: Oh, gross, it actually gets worse as it proceeds!
Kristophe: What is he singing?
Sara M: "Faith…of the heart"? Oh, no!
Kristophe: Do you think it's too late to back out of subbing for this show?
And I thought I had it bad with my regular show's theme song.
Trip tells Archer that they found all the missing crewmen. Archer reacts to this news by asking if their weapons are working. They are. Archer says they should get going. Trip suggests taking some time off to make some repairs and take a couple showers. T'Pol and Archer say there's no time: Degra is meeting them soon. Trip thinks it's a trap. Archer doesn't care. As Trip leaves, Archer tells him to write a letter to dead Taylor's parents. Trip tries to fob the assignment off on someone else, but Archer's having none of that, even when Trip points out that he's too busy making the ship go to write letters. "It doesn't have to be long!" Archer spits, the corners of his mouth turned way down. Wow, Archer sucks.
T'Pol wanders into Sickbay, then tries to leave. But Dr. Phlox sees her. Phlox monitors T'Pol with a high-tech didgeridoo and says there are only trace amounts of drugs in her system. T'Pol says she's still having a hard time controlling her emotions. Phlox tells a long story about genies that somehow relates to this, then says that T'Pol may never regain full control over her emotions. T'Pol looks like she's about to cry, so I guess she's right about the not-being-able-to-control-her-emotions thing.
On the bridge, the minority cast of the show are given one or two lines each as Archer waits for Degra's ship to approach. Meanwhile, there's a shower of sparks erupting from the wall behind Archer. That's cool. If 7th Heaven had showers of sparks in the back of all of its sets, it would be a much more entertaining show. The ship starts shaking a lot, and T'Pol says they've entered a "dense field." Down at Engineering, lightning bolts come flying out of control panels. Trip runs to a comm panel and yells at Archer, who tells him to shut it. On the bridge, more stuff blows up. Archer gives the command to leave, at which point a ship appears and hails them. It's Degra! The Enterprise follows the Degra ship for a while, then Degra comes onscreen. He orders Archer to come aboard his ship, for they have much to discuss.
Now Archer's on the Degra ship. Degra sits a cool-looking glass table. Some hairy guy stands in the corner. He tells Archer that Degra was able to free Archer from "the Aquatics" and stop the Xindi from attacking the Enterprise. We get a closer look at Degra's hair, and damn! He has got something special going on there. There's like five tufts of hair around his skull, several centimeters in front of his receding hairline, and Degra grew them out and brushed them back to form some kind of quasi-corn-row comb-over. Does he really think he's fooling anyone? Archer says that everything he said is true, but Other Guy won't take his word for it. Archer invites them both to his ship for proof. But first, he wants to know when "The Weapon" is going to be launched. Other Guy says that's up to The Council. Degra says it won't be for several days at least, and they'll do what they can to stop them if Archer is telling the truth.
T'Pol grabs some food from the rations line and takes a seat with Trip. She complains that she's been given pepperoni pizza. I don't know what her problem is with that, but maybe Vulcans can't eat Italian or something. ["I believe they're vegetarians." -- Sars] Whatever it is, Trip is less than sympathetic, because he's got problems of his own: he still has to write a letter to Taylor's family. T'Pol says she's sure they'll appreciate that. Trip says they probably won't, since their daughter is dead. It turns out that Trip hasn't slept in two days, so T'Pol tells him to go to bed. Trip says he doesn't have time to sleep. Then something blows up, and Trip and T'Pol spring into action.
Somewhere else on the ship, some guy is holding his fairly damaged arm while another guy uses a future fire extinguisher to douse the fire. Trip and T'Pol run in and deal with things. Well, Trip deals with things. T'Pol kind of sits there. Trip summons Phlox to see to the injured guy, then says that it's a good thing he wasn't sleeping.
Meanwhile, there's a small hull breach.
Archer and his Xindi friends are in the space morgue. Archer pulls open some drawers to reveal three funky-looking aliens. Degra and the Other Guy recognize them; Archer says he found them on Earth in the past, about to release a bio-weapon. Degra seems to believe Archer, but Other Guy is slightly more dubious. He needs more evidence.
Archer leads the small group to a room full of security devices. Eventually, he extracts a small canister. Degra holds it while Archer explains that it contains the bio-weapon toxin. Degra's like, "Uh, then I'd rather not be holding this, thanks." Archer says that Degra's engineers can check it out all they want. Other Guy says that all this proves is that the "Reptilians" disobeyed The Council. It doesn't prove Archer's assertions that the Xindi have been misled by "trans-dimensional" aliens. Archer grabs the canister from Degra and puts it back in its chamber, apparently deciding that he's going to take his toys and go home.
Trip screams at Seth MacFarlane for inserting himself into a television show when he has no discernible acting ability. Phlox runs up and says that T'Pol told on Trip, and now Phlox is ordering him to get six hours of sleep. Trip says he'll give him two. Phlox says six. Trip says three. Phlox says four and that's final. Trip agrees, saying that he'll never buy a car from Phlox. Which shouldn't be too difficult to accomplish, since I was under the impression that cars no longer existed in the future. So this is roughly comparable to me telling Sars to never sell me a butter-churner. Trip and Phlox have a brief standoff, and then Trip leaves to go to bed. And, hopefully, to take a shower.
The hull breach gets worse. How has no one noticed this yet?
Phlox shows the Xindi a collage of pictures of a guy who looks like he's been out in the sun too long. Degra asks how the guy died; Archer says he had "some kind of cellular degeneration." In that case, he may want to consider switching to Verizon, which purports to offer the best coverage of any provider in America. Phlox says the alien died because he was from a different dimension with completely different physical laws, and so he could not exist in our universe. Archer says that the aliens were building "spheres" that would transform our universe into one that was hospitable to them, and the dead alien must have been a test subject. In which case, I think those spheres need some improvements. And the complete and total implausibility of this little storyline may have already been covered, but…no. I'm no Stephen Hawking, but I did take one quantum physics class, and I managed to pay enough attention in it to know that this is impossible. Something from another dimension cannot conceive of our dimension, let alone be able to build a device that would change it. Anyway, Degra and the Other Guy realize that if the trans-dimensional aliens get their way, everyone in this dimension will die. So the humans and the Xindi have to work together. But if the Xindi destroy all humans, then they'll all be killed too.
Trip gets some sleep, but it's not too peaceful. He gets up and looks through some section of the ship that has seen better days. It's Taylor's room, or what's left of it. Trip looks through her things until he is interrupted by Taylor. He's surprised to see her, since he thought she was dead. Then he realizes that he's having a dream. And even in his dreams, he hasn't taken a shower. Taylor asks Trip about his letter to her parents; Trip says he isn't doing too well with it. Wow, that sucks: you have a dream where you get to talk to a dead friend, and all that person does is nag you? Now Taylor's pissed, because she thinks that Trip's having trouble because he can't think of anything to say about her, and after all she's done for the Enterprise. Taylor makes a couple suggestions, at which Trip gets visibly uncomfortable. She asks him if it's asking too much for him to remember her; he says it is. She demands to know why, and Trip wakes up.
Other Guy and Degra are having a lover's quarrel because Degra believes Archer and Other Guy doesn't. Other Guy says that he doesn't know why they should trust Archer over the lady from the future when she's helped them many times and Archer's helped them…never. Degra thinks Future Lady may have her own agenda. Other Guy agrees, but doesn't think they have enough proof to convince The Council. As Degra goes to see Archer, Other Guy tells him not to let his guilty conscience over building the weapon that took out half of Florida cloud his judgement. Degra chooses not to respond. Other Guy chooses to stand around showing off his impressive buckteeth. He kind of looks like a cross between Worf and that nerdy girl you always made fun of in elementary school.
T'Pol tries to show Degra some stuff on a viewscreen, but it isn't working. Hey, T'Pol's sporting a new outfit! How did she have time to change, but not to at least run a Wet-Nap over her face? Girl's got dirt blotches the size of my fist! Trip's there, too, trying to fix the viewscreen. And make a few digs at Degra for killing his sister and seven million other people. Trip wonders if Degra watched as Florida was destroyed, and if he enjoyed it. As Trip starts telling him about his sister, Archer enters, and T'Pol yells at Trip to shut it. Archer invites Degra into his ready room, and Degra takes off. Archer tells Trip to "stick to the job at hand," and leaves. T'Pol starts in with Trip that he isn't helping them win Degra's trust, at which Trip slams his tool case shut and leaves.
Well, the hull breach is still going on, and now it's spewing green fire. Maybe this will finally get someone's attention.
And it did. Trip says a warp plasma conduit ruptured. Degra volunteers to help out; Trip responds that they can handle it themselves. He says there are manual cut-offs, but they can only be accessed outside, and they're located very close to the green fire. Well, now, that is just plain poor structural engineering. Shame on whoever built this ship. Martin Short and Trip volunteer themselves to go out and fix things. They leave, prompting Archer to step up and furrow his brow for no reason. What's with this guy?
Martin Short and Trip are outside in their cute little space suits. A poorly-done CGI effect shows us the action from afar. I shouldn't complain, though: this is a real treat for me, considering that my regular show considers a split screen to be the haute couture of special effects. Trip orders Martin to open a panel while he goes to the other cut-off switch. Martin's having trouble opening his panel, while Trip's slides open effortlessly. Martin tries the time-honored "bang on it 'til it works" approach to fixing mechanical problems, but it's no good. Trip suggests using his "plasma torch" to open the panel. Does everything on this show run on plasma?
Martin whips out his "plasma torch" and shoots it at the panel. He says it will take a while. On the ship, T'Pol says they have less than six minutes before the giant green fire actually causes some real damage. The green fire roars its agreement, which is strange, since I always thought stuff in space made no sound. But I guess the green fire and Russell Watson managed to get around that particular law of physics.
Hey, check it out: it's one of the show's regular cast members who never gets any lines! And she's got a line! Sadly, I blinked and missed it. T'Pol tells Archer that Martin's too close to the fire, and his space suit can't compensate for the heat. Trip looks to be about the same distance from the fire, but he's fine, so I guess he got the good space suit. Archer orders Martin back into the ship before he dies. Martin won't do it. He finally gets the panel open by lifting the errant piece of metal off the ship and tossing it away. I hope he's prepared to pay the no-doubt-stiff space-littering fine.
Archer again orders Martin back into the ship; Martin says he can't hear Archer because he's "breaking up." Then he makes some static-y sounds with his mouth and says only every other word of his sentence, to really make it believable. Trip tells Martin to turn some lever thing ninety degrees, which Martin manages to do right before he loses consciousness. Trip alerts Phlox to meet them in the airlock, and Archer and Degra decide to go too.
In the airlock, Phlox grabs Martin and takes off for Sickbay. Degra says he hopes Martin will be all right. Trip questions the logic of Degra caring about one human when he had no problem killing seven million of them. Archer yells at Trip to shut up, and he and Degra leave, Degra taking a minute to pause and reflect about what Trip's words have taught him.
Degra and Archer compare notes about the spheres, until Archer decides that two seconds of work is plenty and tries to chat. He apologizes for Trip; Degra says that he really never expected to meet anyone who suffered because of him. He thought the attack was necessary at the time. Archer says he knows, and they've had this conversation before. Degra tells Archer he has an "impressive facility for deception." Archer wonders if maybe screwing around with Degra's memory wasn't the best way to earn his trust. Then they get back to work on sphere-tracking. Degra says the Xindi know very little about the inside of the spheres, to which Archer provides him with some exclusive pictures, taken from one of the damaged spheres he found. Degra marvels over the scans, saying that they are "remarkably detailed" for a military vessel. Archer's all, "That's because this ship used to be a scientific vessel until your people attacked us." Degra says it could be one again. And maybe the showers will work, too!
Trip tries to write that letter. His first attempt is bland and devoid of personality. He tries again, and this one's a little better, but then Martin (who has apparently fully recovered from his health problems of one scene ago) comes over the intercom with a ship-wide alert, and Trip has to go. He never told the computer to stop recording. The Taylors are going to get one long, confusing message, kind of like when you call someone, and they don't answer the phone fast enough, so their machine picks up, but then they pick up a different phone so you talk to them and your whole conversation gets recorded by the answering machine as a message. Kind of like that. Sort of.
Archer and Degra run onto the bridge. Archer asks what's going on. T'Pol says they've detected another ship; it's the Reptilians. Degra says he has no idea how they followed him. We see a close-up shot of the Reptilian ship, and is it seriously shaped like a snake? I mean, seriously? What are they, Cobra Command?
On the Other Guy's ship, a silly Reptilian is demanding to see Degra. Other Guy tries to cover for him, then starts yelling at Cobra Commander for developing a bio-weapon when they were specifically told not to. Cobra Commander demands that Degra talk to him. Other Guy whines to Degra on the Enterprise that the Reptilians are going to kill them all if they don't do as he says. Martin tells Archer that they have no chance against the Reptilians. So Archer asks Degra to help out. He says that both of their ships, and Degra's familiarity with the Reptilian ship, should help them disable it. Degra does not want to attack his own Xindi people.
The Degra ship, now with Degra aboard, detaches itself from the Enterprise. On the viewscreen, Cobra Commander tells them to attach themselves to his "starboard docking port." Either that's some kind of Xindi pick-up line, or Degra's in trouble. Or both. Degra asks for Cobra Commander's word that his crew will not be punished. Cobra Commander does not give it.
On the Enterprise, the crew watches the Degra ship approach the Reptilian ship. Suddenly, the Degra ship fires on the Reptilians, knocking out their shields. The Enterprise fires its photon torpedoes at the Reptilians, and then both the Degra ship and the Enterprise fire phasers until the Reptilians' weapons have been knocked out. Archer and the bridge crew are psyched, but wait: Degra is charging his weapons again! He fires on the Reptilians, and they blow up. Degra hails the Enterprise all, "Uh…whoops. But I really had to do it."
T'Pol wanders along a beat-up hallway, holding a large metal drum. She finds Trip fixing something and says the metal drum, which contains some portable power cells courtesy of the Xindi, will help him. T'Pol asks if she can help. Trip says Taylor could have helped, but she's dead. Then he kicks the metal barrel, and that has got to be a few broken phalanges right there. He points out to T'Pol that they're near where Taylor was found, and every time he tries to write that letter, all he does is think about his sister. He's spent the last nine months trying to convince himself that she was just one of the seven million who died, and not someone he knew personally. But he really can't, so he starts crying. T'Pol doesn't really know what to do, so she puts a hand on his shoulder. Trip says he envies Vulcans for not having emotions. T'Pol says Vulcans feel the loss of someone important, but they're not able to "give in" to their emotions. She envies humans for being able to do that. Trip cries some more. I think it's kind of lame that they put a Vulcan on this show and decided to sort of give her feelings. Couldn't they have just made her a human if they wanted her to have emotions? Is it really that hard to write for a Vulcan character without giving them emotions? TOS never had a problem writing for Spock.
Degra tells Archer to speak to The Council personally and show them his evidence. He thinks they'll believe him. Archer doesn't think he'll convince the Reptilians, and Degra tells him to be more concerned about "the Aquatics." I don't even want to know what that race is all about. Degra thinks Archer can still sway the majority, and that's all he'll need. He gives Archer directions to the meeting place, but it's weeks away. Degra says there's a "shorter route" through a subspace corridor. But to get there, they'll have to go through a nebula, and this nebula is filled with a "hostile species" that are sure to create suspense week. Archer extends his hand, and Degra shakes it, which was really quite a gesture, considering that Archer's hand has got to be pretty rank by now, what with all the not showering.
Trip gives the letter one more go. He tells the Taylors that he wanted to add his "personal condolences," then says that he's been putting off writing to them for "a while." Which should make them feel tons better about things, I'm sure. Trip goes on to say that he couldn't believe that someone "so young" with "so much promise" could just die. But now he's over that, and says that Taylor was very important to him and she was his friend. And he won't forget her. Which is probably one of the only comforting things you can say to someone who's just suffered a loss like that, really. Then Trip looks at a picture of his sister and says "goodbye, Elizabeth," and I hope he cut that last part out before he sent it off to the Taylors. Because that would probably not be quite so comforting.
week: "Meet the descendants of Enterprise!" Do you think Archer's grandkids will furrow as much as he does, or is that a recessive gene? Will the minority characters get an actual storyline with actual character development? Will Keckler make me a burrito when I visit her to collect my reward for doing this recap? Will it be a steak or a chicken burrito? And will it come with a side of refried beans, which I enjoy very much?