Movies & TV Star Trek: Discovery

The Game Is Afoot — Star Trek: Discovery’s “Jinaal”

This week, the Discovery crew is off on a game-style quest.

By Keith R.A. DeCandido

|

Published on April 11, 2024

Credit: CBS / Paramount+

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Credit: CBS / Paramount+

If there was any doubt whatsoever that the fifth season of Discovery is a role-playing-game-style quest narrative, “Jinaal” beats those doubts to a pulp. We’ve definitely got ourselves a goal that will be found by our heroes being clever, by getting through traps, by figuring out riddles, and so on.

And it’s fun. Trek hasn’t really done this sort of straight-up game-style narrative before, certainly not on this scale, and while you can practically hear the dice rolling with each scene, it’s fun, dangit.

It helps that the episode does something that the Secret Hideout shows have been much better about than the previous wave of Trek TV shows, and that’s embracing the history on the microcosmic level as well as the macrocosmic. I love that they do things like last week’s use of the Promellians. The first wave of Trek spinoffs would have just made up an alien species rather than re-use one, but there’s no reason not to use one that’s already established. Especially since “Booby Trap” made it sound like the Promellians were a well-known extinct species, yet were only mentioned in that one TNG episode.

While this tendency can sometimes go overboard into the fan-wanky territory (cf. the third season of Picard), Discovery has generally made it work. This episode in particular makes very good use of Trek’s history, particularly the Trill both as developed on DS9 and also as seen on this show, particularly in “Forget Me Not.” And we also get some background on why the Progenitors’ technology was classified.

The clue on Trill is held by a joined Trill named Jinaal, whose current host is still alive on the world. It’s been eight centuries, and both host and symbiont are near the end of their lives—indeed, they’re clinging to life in part because nobody has approached them for their clue yet.

Discovery’s arrival is met with a riddle to prove that they figured out the clue on the Promellian necropolis last time—in particular that it initially appeared to lead to Betazed. Once Burnham provides that right answer, Jinaal’s current host is willing to talk to them, but the host who actually was there eight hundred years ago wants to talk directly to the Discovery crew. So they perform a zhiantara, first seen in DS9’s “Facets,” where prior hosts’ personalities can be temporarily downloaded into another person. The Guardians (including Gray, still apprenticing as a Guardian) perform the ceremony on Jinaal, transferring the older host into Culber.

As with “Facets”—and indeed every other science fiction story that involves characters getting a temporary new personality, a well Trek has dug into any number of times, from the original series’ “Return to Tomorrow” and “Turnabout Intruder” to TNG’s “The Schizoid Man” and “Masks” to DS9’s “Dramatis Personae” and “Our Man Bashir” to Voyager’s “Infinite Regress” and “Body and Soul” to Enterprise’s “The Crossing” and “Observer Effect”—this is at least partly an acting exercise for Wilson Cruz. And, to his credit, Cruz nails it, creating a fully realized character in Jinaal, who is crotchety, enigmatic, and more than a little manipulative.

He was a scientist who worked with the Romulan whose scout ship was found last week, along with a bunch of other scientists, after the Romulan found the Progenitors’ technology. This all happened at the height of the Dominion War, which—as we know from DS9—was a time of significant paranoia in the Alpha Quadrant. Because of that, and because of how dangerous the technology had the potential to be, the scientists all agreed to hide it and only have it be findable by someone who can figure out the clues and who could be counted on to use it for good.

Having this all happen during the Dominion War was very clever, as that was a time when worry about things like Changeling infiltration was at its height. And it’s remained a big secret since then simply because nobody knows where it is without the Romulan journal.

Besides his initial riddle and his general questioning of Burnham and Book about the state of the galaxy in the thirty-second century, there’s one final test. Jinaal claims to have hidden the next physical puzzle piece in a canyon occupied by a nasty predator animal that can cloak itself. Eventually, Burnham and Book realize that it isn’t just a big nasty creature attacking them, it’s a mother protecting its eggs. Once they realize that, they back off, which is what Jinaal was waiting for.

Having passed the compassion test, he gives them the final doodad. Culber then gets his body back and Jinaal can rest.

There are also three character-based subplots, two of which work nicely. Back at Federation HQ, Saru and T’Rina are about to announce their engagement, but Saru’s new career as an ambassador complicates matters for T’Rina’s chief aide, who advises Saru to convince his boss that they should postpone the engagement announcement. Saru goes along with this, thinking he’s protecting his fiancée, but T’Rina wastes no time in whupping him upside the head on that score. The Ni’Var President understands her staff’s need to be politically acute, but she refuses to let political concerns interfere with her personal life—a very logical decision, though logic and politics so rarely mix. It’s a nice little subplot, elevated, as usual, by brilliant performances by Doug Jones and Tara Rosling and their picture-perfect chemistry, as well as the script by Kyle Jarrow & Lauren Wilkinson, which illustrates the conflict potential when Saru’s compassion clashes with T’Rina’s logic.

On Discovery, Burnham charges her new first officer with getting to know the crew. Rayner resists this—he’s read their service records—but Burnham thinks there’s no substitute for talking to people. Rayner’s solution to this is to give each crewmember twenty words to tell him something about themselves that isn’t in their service record. It takes Tilly whupping him upside the head to remind him that his command style on the Antares isn’t going to work on Discovery. Mary Wiseman is particularly good here, showing us how far Tilly has come. (She’d better damn well be one of the stars of the upcoming Starfleet Academy series…)

The third character bit doesn’t quite work, mostly because it feels like some scenes are missing. Adira and Gray are reunited, and they apparently haven’t hardly talked since Gray went to Trill. Given the ease of holographic communication over absurd distances in the thirty-second century, this is surprising, but there it is. Gray and Adira are still obviously in love with each other and still are thrilled to see each other—but then they have a conversation that ends with them deciding to break up because the distance thing isn’t working. They’re both incredibly happy where they are. And yet, in the very last scene, they’re still hanging out on Trill, the mission itself long over. So are they broken up or not? It feels like there’s a scene or two missing there…

In that last scene, we find out that Mol, contrary to Discovery’s report that she and L’ak are on another world, is on Trill, having infiltrated the Guardians. That doesn’t bode well…[end-mark]

The post The Game Is Afoot — <i>Star Trek: Discovery</i>’s “Jinaal” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Babylon 5 Rewatch

Babylon 5 Rewatch: “Soul Hunter”

A mysterious alien ship almost crashes into the station, and things only get weirder from there…

By Keith R.A. DeCandido

|

Published on April 8, 2024

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“Soul Hunter”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Jim Johnston
Season 1, Episode 2
Production episode 102
Original air date: February 2, 1994

It was the dawn of the third age… Dr. Stephen Franklin reports on board, replacing Kyle, who is now working for the newly reelected President of Earth Alliance. His first patient is the sole occupant of a badly damaged ship that comes unexpectedly through the jump gate. Sinclair manages to wrangle the ship with a Starfury and a grappling line before it crashes into the station.

The sole occupant is an alien none of the Earth Alliance personnel recognize. Franklin works on him in the iso-lab where the atmosphere has been tailored to his needs. Delenn, however, recognizes him as a Soul Hunter, who is apparently the Minbari equivalent of the boogeyman. According to Delenn—who urges Sinclair to kill the Soul Hunter right there in the medbay—Soul Hunters are vultures who are attracted to death. They steal souls right at the moment of death. To Minbari, this is awful, as they believe that Minbari souls are melded together and reborn in the future.

The Soul Hunter—let’s call him “Rufus,” mostly because constantly typing “the Soul Hunter” to refer to him is annoying—wakes up at the same time that a shell-game grifter in downbelow is found out, chased down, and murdered. Rufus announces that he can sense the man’s impending death, and later Sinclair determines that Rufus woke up at the exact time of the grifter’s death.

Rufus then sits up and starts meditating and chanting, ignoring Sinclair’s questions—right up until Sinclair accuses him of being a thief. Rufus angrily retorts that his people preserve souls, they don’t steal them. They wish to preserve the great beings of society. The Minbari hate the Soul Hunters because they tried to save the soul of Dukhat, the great Minbari leader whose death precipitated the Earth-Minbari War. Sinclair informs Rufus that he must remain in the isolab until his ship is repaired, at which point he’s to leave the station.

After Franklin does the autopsy of the grifter, he and Ivanova supervise his body being cast out into space, as his family can’t afford to have him shipped home.

Delenn visits the medlab. She tells Rufus that she’ll tear his ship apart to find his collection of souls and free any Minbari souls she finds. Rufus tells her that he recognizes her as a Satai from the Grey Council, who was there when Dukhat died, and he wonders why she’s playing at being an ambassador when she’s so much more.

Rufus escapes, injuring one of Garibaldi’s security people in the process. A second Soul Hunter ship—this one intact—comes through the jumpgate. The second Soul Hunter—let’s call him Xavier—says that he’s here for Rufus, who is apparently deeply disturbed. After failing to preserve Dukhat’s soul, Rufus went a bit binky-bonkers, and is now killing people in order to preserve their souls. This is a violation of Soul Hunter law, and Xavier is here to arrest Rufus. Xavier is the one who damaged Rufus’ ship.

Rufus goes to N’Garath, a criminal kingpin in downbelow, who sells Rufus a level-five clearance that enables him to find and access Delenn’s quarters, all the better to kidnap her with.

Aided by Xavier, Sinclair, Garibaldi, and the security force search for Delenn. Xavier is able to sense Delenn’s impending death in a particular section, and, because he’s listed first in the opening credits, it’s Sinclair who finds Rufus and Delenn, the latter being slowly bled to death so that she’ll die semi-naturally and Rufus can take her soul.

Sinclair is able to stop Rufus by turning his soul-sucking machine on him, which kills him. Delenn is brought to the medlab, where she recovers, and Xavier departs, with Sinclair making it clear that Soul Hunters are not welcome on B5.

After she recovers, Delenn takes Rufus’ collection of souls and breaks the globes, releasing the souls.

Nothing’s the same anymore. Delenn’s line about how they (meaning the Minbari, or possibly the Grey Council) were right about Sinclair is another hint, along with the “hole in his mind” mentioned in “The Gathering,” that he’s important to the Minbari for some reason.

Ivanova is God. Ivanova’s deadpan and pessimism are both on full display in her interactions with Franklin.

The household god of frustration. Garibaldi’s security guard who is watching Rufus falls for the sick-prisoner trick and gets his ass kicked and his weapon taken, which probably got him fired.

If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn’s response to the presence of a Soul Hunter is to try to shoot him and to generally act batshit. We also get someone else who figures out that she’s part of the Grey Council, and just like G’Kar in “The Gathering,” she tries to kill him (though she did that part first…).

Looking ahead. Rufus sees what Delenn has planned for the future and is horrified. Delenn says before losing consciousness that the Minbari were right about Sinclair, the meaning of which will become clear before long…

Welcome aboard. The late great W. Morgan Sheppard plays Rufus, while John Snyder plays Xavier. Sheppard will return in “The Long, Twilight Struggle” in season 2 as a Narn warleader.

Trivial matters. This episode is Richard Biggs’ first appearance as Franklin. Though they are listed in the opening credits, we still have yet to see Bill Mumy or Caitlin Brown as, respectively, Lennier and Na’Toth.

This is the first mention of Dukhat, the great Minbari leader, whom we will later learn was Delenn’s mentor. It’s established that Dukhat’s death is what got the Earth-Minbari War started.

The echoes of all of our conversations.

“Typical human lifespan is almost a hundred years, but it’s barely a second compared to what’s out there. It wouldn’t be so bad if life didn’t take so long to figure out. Seems you just start to get it right, and then—it’s over.” 

“Doesn’t matter. If we live two hundred years, we’d still be human—we’d still make the same mistakes.”

“You’re a pessimist.”

“I’m Russian, Doctor.”

Franklin and Ivanova discussing philosophy.

The name of the place is Babylon 5. “The soul ends with death unless we act to preserve it.” Thirty years ago, I watched the first season of B5 and was not all that impressed. I don’t remember specifics, but I remember in particular finding each of the first two episodes to be awful.

On this rewatch, I actually really liked “Midnight on the Firing Line,” but “Soul Hunter” is, if anything, worse than I remember.

Part of what I dislike about the episode relates not so much to the episode itself, but the pre-show hype that B5 had online. Creator J. Michael Straczynski spent a great deal of time promoting the show in advance of its debut on the various online bulletin boards of the era, particularly GEnie and CompuServe, and one of the things that he said would be the hallmark of the show was that it would that it would be scientifically accurate, unlike most other screen science fiction.

And then we get this episode, which starts with a damaged ship coming through the jump gate that, somehow, is on a collision course for B5. At this point, my disbelief needs the Heimlich maneuver, because, as Douglas Adams reminded us, space is big—really big. There’s no reason for the jump gate to be all that close to the station. In fact, it makes sense for there to be a certain distance for safety reasons. Yet somehow, this badly damaged ship winds up on a collision course with the station—which is, in astronomical terms, incredibly tiny—and it’s so close that Sinclair is barely able to grapple it in time (after missing twice) to keep it from crashing.

After that, we get the entire concept of Soul Hunters, which is exactly the kind of fantastical thing that Straczynski was supposed to be avoiding. True, we’ve already got telepathy, which is equally fanciful, but the use of telepathy in science fiction is pretty well established, from Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man (which, as we’ll see, is a huge influence on the use of telepathy in B5)to Professor X and Jean Grey of the X-Men to the Ghosts in the StarCraft game, so one can forgive it a bit more readily.

But this episode presents the swiping and storing of souls as a real thing that Rufus does. Now, you can argue that it isn’t really what he’s doing—but he’s doing something. His soul-sucking vacuum cleaner enables him to see something in Delenn, so it obviously functions on some level. (Also, does he really need to carry that big-ass soul-sucking vacuum cleaner around every time he does this? Is that really practical?) Heck, the whole idea of “sensing death” is pretty much nonsense, too.

There’s some fun foreshadowing of the connection between Sinclair and the Minbari and of Delenn’s true purpose, and nobody ever went wrong casting W. Morgan Sheppard, but these are very minor good points in an episode that is just awful. It doesn’t help that there’s no sign of Andreas Katsulas or Peter Jurasik, and an episode without G’Kar and Mollari doesn’t bear thinking about.

Next week: “Born to the Purple.” [end-mark]

The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “Soul Hunter” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Star Trek: Discovery

Secrets, Sequels, and a Synth Named Fred — Star Trek: Discovery’s “Red Directive” & “Under the Twin Moons”

Reviewing the premiere episodes of Star Trek: Discovery’s fifth season — spoilers ahead!

By Keith R.A. DeCandido

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Published on April 4, 2024

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The start of the fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery is unique in many ways, but probably the biggest one is that it establishes that the same person will be in command of the U.S.S. Discovery for the second season in a row, which has never happened before. The hallmark of the inaugural show of the Paramount+ era of Trek has been a new captain every year: Lorca for season 1, Pike for season 2, Saru for season 3, and Burnham for season 4.

But Burnham’s still in charge in season 5. And that’s an indication that—for once—nothing has changed on Discovery. They’ve finally found a status quo, and it’s one that works.

So, of course, it’s the last season. Sigh.

There’s only one really significant change, and it doesn’t come to fruition until the end of the second of the two episodes that went live today: Saru is being promoted to the role of Federation Ambassador-at-Large, and so will no longer be Burnham’s Number One. This is a good move on several levels, as it never sat right with me that Saru took a subordinate position to Burnham on Discovery after doing such a good job as her captain in season 3. Not that Burnham didn’t also deserve the promotion, but Saru didn’t deserve a demotion, either. They made it work last year, mostly because Sonequa Martin-Green and Doug Jones make a really good team. But Saru is, bluntly, the best thing to come out of Discovery, and he deserves better.

And he’s getting it! Not only is he being promoted, but his relationship with T’Rina has deepened to the point that she hits him with a marriage proposal. Being Vulcan, she of course phrases the proposal in the most pedantic and bloodless manner possible, which Tara Rosling manages to make incredibly adorable.

Saru’s last mission comes from Kovich, a classified mission that’s a Red Directive. Not to be confused with other directives that are prime or omega, this one is not defined, but is obviously a shut-up-and-go-do-it-now-please mission that you go on and do not fuck around. (It’s Trek’s latest red thing. The original series had red alerts, redshirts, and the Red Hour, DS9 had Red Squad, the 2009 movie had red matter, and season 2 of this very show had the Red Angel.)

In this case, an eight-hundred-year-old Romulan ship has been found that has a Tan zhekran on it that needs to be retrieved. Established in Picard’s “The Impossible Box” as a Romulan puzzle box, this particular Tan zhekran has something very valuable and very classified on it. In fact, it’s so classified that even Vance doesn’t know the specifics.

Unfortunately, two ex-couriers named Mol and L’ak have gotten to the Romulan ship, and the Tan zhakren, first. Played by, respectively, Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis, I’m honestly not sure what to make of these two yet. I’m getting a Bonnie-and-Clyde vibe from the two of them that’s kind of a mix of Spike and Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Pumpkin and Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction, though as yet they’re nowhere near that level of interesting. (Their names are also interesting, as “moll” is a name given to a female companion to a criminal, and “L’ak” is similar to “lackey.” Makes you wonder if there’s a bad guy they’re working for…)

They take the Tan zhakren and some other stuff, and head out in their own ship, with Discovery and the U.S.S. Antares giving chase, a thrilling sequence that has Burnham in an EVA suit on the hull of L’ak and Mol’s ship, the Antares using a tractor beam, and a game of chicken among the participants. However, the ex-couriers get away, and do so in a manner that leaves dozens of warp trails behind, only one of which is the real one.

But Burnham knows this courier’s trick from her year as one between “That Hope is You” and “Far from Home,” and she puts in a call to the courier she knows best: Book.

Book is still doing his community service, helping out the worlds that were ravaged by the DMA last season. More to the point, this summoning is the first time Book and Burnham have spoken since the end of last season. Martin-Green and David Ajala continue to sparkle in their scenes together, but Book’s betrayal last season has twisted everything. The scenes are beautifully played and written, as Burnham and Book obviously still love each other deeply, but Burnham absolutely cannot trust Book anymore, and Book knows full well that he doesn’t deserve to be trusted, and it puts the pair of them in a weird place. That place remains weird, as Book stays on after the first episode, assigned by Vance his own self to be a consultant on the mission, since he knows how couriers think.

Book’s arrival signals the season story kicking in: chasing after the contents of the Tan zhekran. Mol and L’ak take the stuff they looted from the Romulan ship to a centuries-old Soong-style synth named Fred (which is fabulous). Fred has Data-like makeup, and his serial number is later established as starting with “AS” for Altan Soong, the cyberneticist son of Data’s creator, Noonien Soong, established in Picard’s “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1.”

Played with Spiner-esque curiosity-filled deadpan by J. Adam Brown, Fred is a collector of ancient things, and he’s thrilled at the twenty-fourth-century artifact. He’s also easily able to open the Tak zhekran, which contains a diary, written in Romulan. Being a synth, Fred is able to read the entire thing in half a second. He’s also not willing to pay a fair price—or, indeed, any price, and the negotiation turns into a fight, which ends with Fred and his security dead. (Why Fred doesn’t have the super-strength and speed seen in other synths like Data is left as an exercise for the viewer.)

Book figured out that Fred would be the fence in this little adventure, and so Discovery and Antares head there, but by the time they arrive, Fred’s dead, baby—Fred’s dead. Luckily, Fred is a synth, so they send the body up to Discovery, where between them, Stamets and Culber are able to extract his memory, including his speed-read of the diary. Which means they also have the text of the diary.

This is followed by another thrilling action piece, and it’s to the show’s credit that both action sequences in “Red Directive” are actually plot relevant. And character relevant, as in both sequences, we find out a lot about Antares Captain Rayner, played by new series regular Callum Keith Rennie, a Canadian actor who is, I believe, contractually obligated to appear in every show that films in Canada at least once. Rayner is a Starfleet captain of many years’ standing who is, in many ways, still acting like they’re in the middle of the Burn, when Starfleet was just trying to keep the tattered remains of the Federation together, unlike Burnham, who spent most of her life in the twenty-third-century version of the Federation.

That conflict comes to a head during the motorcycle chase through the desert at the climax of “Red Directive.” L’ak and Mol are heading to a cave system. The notion of phasering the caves to block off the entrance is floated, but there’s a 30% chance that it’ll cause an avalanche that will wipe out the city and kill thousands. Burnham rejects the plan, but Rayner thinks it’s worth the risk for a Red Directive mission and Antares fires on the caves. There’s no avalanche, and Rayner proudly declares, “70% for the win!”

But the problem is that they gave Mol and L’ak an idea. They do what bad guys have been doing in heroic fiction for ages: they cause an avalanche, meaning our heroes have to spend time saving lives, giving the bad guys the opportunity to escape.

That’s not the only consequence. The two ships are damaged when they both crash nose-first into the surface to break the avalanche and have to return to HQ for repairs. Rayner is the subject of an inquiry that includes Vance and Rillak (always good to see Chelah Horsdal as my favorite on-screen Federation President, whom I got to write a story for in Star Trek Explorer, cough cough). At first, he’s encouraged to retire, and he does lose his command, but Burnham convinces him to replace Saru as her first officer.

Before he can take over, Burnham and Saru have a final adventure together. Kovich has decided to read Burnham in on the full story. I said earlier that the season’s story is a chase, and that’s an appropriate way to refer to a season that is a sequel to TNG’s “The Chase.” The Romulan ship belonged to one of the background Romulan science officers in that episode, and he knows what the power source is of the Progenitors, the humanoid beings who apparently seeded the galaxy with humanoid life.

Now here’s where I have to confess that I really didn’t much like “The Chase,” as it was a giant wink at the viewer in desperate search of an interesting plot that it never found. I’ve got very little patience with taking the time to explain something that doesn’t need explaining, which is all “The Chase” was.

But since we do have the Progenitors (a term first heard from Kovich in “Red Directive”), it is also true that whatever they did to, in essence, create humanoid life is pretty powerful stuff, and is something that could be abused.

The diary leads them to a Promellian necropolis. (The Promellians were established as a long-extinct species in TNG’s “Booby Trap.”) This is a straight-up video-game adventure, as Burnham and Saru have to get through various security features and figure out puzzles and clues and things. And scripter Alan McElroy has a little fun, because you wonder if this is Saru’s swan song. I mean, he’s just accepted a marriage proposal, it’s his final mission, and he and Burnham have several conversations about the adventures they’ve had together, and you realize that Saru’s fulfilling every dead-meat cliché in the book. He’s the partner at the beginning of the cop buddy movie who’s one week from retirement and then gets killed to piss off the main character. We even find out he has a nifty nickname—coined by Reno and used by Book, he’s apparently referred to in his post-vahar’ai state as “Action Saru.” And it is the last season…

Luckily, McElroy is just toying with us. Saru not only survives, but proves his “Action Saru” chops by using his spines to blow up some of the security drones. And he’s returned to T’Rina in one piece, and with a new clue.

I’m liking this direction for the season. The stakes are high, but not a threat to the entirety of the galaxy as we know it. It’s a quest narrative of a type we’ve seen a thousand times before and twice at our weekly role-playing game, but we’ve seen it so often because, dammit, it works. More to the point, the threat isn’t so over-the-top insane with a high body count, as every other threat Discovery has thrown at us has been. It’s therefore a less exhausting storyline, which is all for the best.

The clue they find will send them to Trill, thus giving Adira a chance to be reunited with Gray.[end-mark]

The post Secrets, Sequels, and a Synth Named Fred — <i>Star Trek: Discovery</i>’s “Red Directive” & “Under the Twin Moons” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Babylon 5 Rewatch

Babylon 5 Rewatch: “Midnight on the Firing Line”

The Centauri agricultural colony on Ragesh III is the victim of a surprise attack!

By Keith R.A. DeCandido

|

Published on April 1, 2024

108

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“Midnight on the Firing Line”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Richard Compton
Season 1, Episode 1
Production episode 103
Original air date: January 26, 1994

It was the dawn of the third age… The Centauri agricultural colony on Ragesh III is the victim of a surprise attack, with the identity of the attackers left a mystery to the viewers.

On B5, new first officer Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova is informed of one of Sinclair’s eccentricities by Garibaldi, in this case that he spends some time every day in the observation dome with his link turned off. Ivanova goes to observation to inform him of the attack on Ragesh.

In the casino, Mollari tries to inveigle Garibaldi for a favor, but is interrupted by his new aide—also his entire staff—Vir Cotto, who informs him of the Ragesh attack. Mollari calls for an immediate emergency session of the council; he also receives apologetic condolences from Delenn and G’Kar, though Mollari is suspicious of the latter, despite his insistence on being ignorant of what has happened.

Ships in the area have been attacked by raiders. Garibaldi and one of his people take a couple of Starfuries out to investigate the latest attack.

New telepath Talia Winters reports in to Ivanova, who brushes her off.

Security footage comes in from Ragesh, revealing that the attacking ships are Narn, and they’re now occupying Ragesh. Mollari confronts G’Kar, and they almost come to blows. However, Mollari bumped into Winters en route to confronting G’Kar, and she was able to sense his murderous rage, so she warned security, who separate the ambassadors before they can kill each other. Later, in the ambassador’s quarters, Mollari apologizes to Sinclair, while the latter says that he’s agreed to call the emergency council session he wanted. However, Mollari has more skin in the game, as it were: his nephew Carn, is on Ragesh. Mollari pulled some strings to put him in charge of the agricultural colony in lieu of military service. He swears that if Carn dies, he will stop at nothing to go to war with the Narn.

Sinclair invites Kosh to attend the meeting, and he agrees to do so, but makes no commitment as to how he will behave.

Vir informs Mollari that the Centauri government has decided that there will be no response. Ragesh is too distant and too unimportant a part of the Republic to be worth dedicating the resources necessary to retake it. Mollari is livid and instructs Vir not to tell anyone what the government decided. He will try to talk the council into taking action against the Narn, and hope that the council’s action will embarrass his government into taking some as well.

Winters asks Garibaldi why Ivanova is being so standoffish. Garibaldi suggests meeting up with Ivanova at the bar when she’s off duty, and she might be more approachable. He also invites her to his quarters to share his “second favorite thing,” which sounds incredibly creepy.

G’Kar meets with Sinclair and making it clear that the Narn are out for Centauri blood, hoping to avenge their years of being subjugated by them. G’Kar also reminds Sinclair that the Narn sold weapons to Earth during their war with the Minbari, but Sinclair counters that the Narns will sell to anyone who’ll buy. The commander also is less than impressed with the Narns’ sneak attack on a civilian target.

Sinclair is instructed by a senator to abstain from the vote. There’s a presidential election about to happen, and Earth can’t afford to act as the galaxy’s police—at least not until after the election.

Garibaldi has turned up a connection among all the ships that were raided: they all bought their transport routes from the same company—which, it seems, has a leak. Sinclair decides to lead the Starfury contingent to protect what they believe to be the next target, leaving Ivanova to run the council meeting. Sinclair also tells her that he couldn’t find her to tell her the instructions from Earth, ahem ahem, so she’ll just have to vote yes to sanctions against the Narn…

In the council meeting, G’Kar reveals two things that kneecap Mollari’s plan. One is that he knows full well that the Centauri government’s official response is to do nothing. How can he ask the council to take an action his own government won’t take?

The second is the revelation that Ragesh was a Narn colony which was then taken from them by the Centauri when they conquered the Narn. The attack was simply taking back their world, and as “evidence” he provides a recording made by Mollari’s nephew Carn saying that they welcome their new Narn overlords and everything’s hunky dory and pay no attention to that gun to my head.

G’Kar moves that the motion to sanction Narn be dismissed, and it passes.

Sinclair and the Starfuries (totally the name of my next band) drive off the raiders, but doesn’t chase them, instead checking an asteroid field in the opposite direction, where he finds the command-and-control for the raiders.

There’s a Narn on that C&C base—as Sinclair said, the Narn will sell weapons to anyone. But they also leave someone behind to make sure they know how to use the weapons properly. That Narn also has data crystals that prove that—Carn’s testimony to the contrary—the attack on Ragesh was wholly unprovoked. Sinclair gives G’Kar an ultimatum: pull out of Ragesh, or he will show this evidence to the council. G’Kar chooses door #1.

Winters meets Ivanova in the bar, and the latter explains that her mother was a low-level telepath who refused to join Psi Corps. So she took the option of suppressing her telepathy with drugs. Those drugs changed her forever, and eventually drove her to suicide. So Ivanova is never likely to look kindly upon any member of the Corps.

Garibaldi has convinced Delenn to join him for his second favorite thing: a viewing of Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, complete with popcorn. It’s not clear what Delenn is more baffled by, the cartoon or the popcorn…

The episode ends with the announcement that President Luis Santiago has been reelected.

Nothing’s the same anymore. Sinclair is a legacy, as his family have served in the military going back to the Battle of Britain. His grandfather, also in EarthForce, advised his grandson to trust what you see over propaganda. Because of that, early on before it’s revealed who’s behind the attack on Ragesh, Sinclair believes firmly that the Minbari weren’t responsible, because what he saw during the Earth-Minbari War showed him that the Minbari would never engage in a surprise attack on a helpless target.

Ivanova is God. Ivanova says she’s voting for Marie Crane for Earth President over the incumbent Santiago because the latter has a weak chin and she doesn’t trust someone with a weak chin.

The household god of frustration. Garibaldi is, it turns out, a Daffy Duck fan. Despite this, he never once tells Mollari that he’s despicable…

In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Earth’s first alien contact was with the Centauri Republic. The Centauri made a lot of wild claims to what they perceived as gullible humans, including that humanity was an offshoot of the Centauri. (When Garibaldi reminds Mollari of this, Mollari dismisses it as a clerical error.)

Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. The Narn obviously targeted Ragesh to see how the Centauri would react. It’s a gambit designed to see if war is feasible. That the Centauri declined to respond likely meant it was a successful one, even though they had to give up Ragesh.

The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. Any humans who are discovered to be telepaths are given three choices: join the Psi Corps, go to prison, or have your telepathy tamped down by drugs.

The Shadowy Vorlons. Sinclair visits Kosh when he’s out of his encounter suit, but he’s hiding behind a screen, though something is glowing back there. Kosh also seems to teleport into his encounter suit…

Looking ahead. Mollari tells Sinclair that Centauri sometimes dream of the moment of their death. In Mollari’s case, it’ll be being strangled by G’Kar while he strangles G’Kar. He had the dream when he was young, and was gobsmacked when he first met G’Kar and recognized him from his prophetic dream. This event Mollari dreamt will be seen down the line, more than once…

Welcome aboard. Paul Hampton is back from “The Gathering” for his second and final appearance as the senator. Peter Trencher plays Carn.

Trivial matters. With Tamlyn Tomita, Johnny Sekka, and Patricia Tallman declining to return after “The Gathering,” we meet two of their replacements: Claudia Christian as the new first officer and Andrea Thompson as the new Psi Corps telepath. In addition, this episode marks the first appearance of Stephen Furst as Vir.

Richard Biggs, Bill Mumy, and Caitlin Brown are all listed in the opening credits as playing, respectively, Dr. Stephen Franklin, Lennier, and Na’Toth, but they do not appear and the episode gives no indication who they are.

Both Delenn and G’Kar have new makeup/facial prosthetics. In Delenn’s case, there’s less of it, as they’re no longer trying to make her look more masculine (or at least more androgynous), and just in general, she looks more “traditionally” feminine. G’Kar’s has simply been refined a bit, one hopes in a way that made it easier for Andreas Katsulas in the makeup chair…

This episode has the first reference to spoo, a meat dish popular among the Centauri and Narn (and also “oops” spelled backwards). J. Michael Straczynski also had a food called spoo in an episode of She-Ra: Princess of Power that he wrote.

The echoes of all of our conversations.

The name of the place is Babylon 5. “I’m in the middle of fifteen things, all of them annoying.” There are some ways in which this feels like a do-over of “The Gathering.” You’ve got character introductions (in this case to Ivanova, Vir, and Winters), you’ve got Garibaldi investigating things, you’ve got the senator telling Sinclair to do something he doesn’t want to do, you’ve got G’Kar and the Narn being the bad guys and plotting evil things of evil, you’ve got Sinclair bopping off on his own and leaving his first officer in charge of a council meeting, you’ve got a council meeting where, once again, G’Kar doesn’t apparently have a seat, instead leaving poor Andreas Katsulas to wander around during it.

And you’ve got epic rants from Mollari, though the Centauri gets much more focus here than he did in the pilot, which is all to the good given that Peter Jurasik was the best thing about the prior episode.

The Centauri/Narn conflict is one of the bedrocks of B5, and it is very much on display here. While G’Kar is still being written as a one-note mustache-twirling villain, Katsulas imbues him with a palpable sense of outrage and fury. He’s matched by Jurasik, whose anger both at the Narn for their surprise attack on a civilian target that includes his nephew and at his government for their spineless response drives the episode.

Stephen Furst’s Vir is another character like G’Kar who will improve as the series goes on, but his introduction, alas, creates very little impression beyond “oh look, it’s Flounder from Animal House with worse hair and sharper teeth!” (The Centauri had massive incisors initially, though that makeup choice was dropped after the first season or so, probably as a favor to the actors.)

By contrast, Claudia Christian creates an instant, excellent impression as Ivanova with her cynicism, her sarcasm, her fatalism, and her bluntness. Though she also has a tendency to speak without contractions in this first appearance which comes across as mannered, and which will also be dropped before long.

As for Winters, there’s nothing to really distinguish Andrea Thompson from Patricia Tallman’s Alexander beyond hair color, at least so far.

This is a stronger opening to the series than “The Gathering” was by far, setting up one of the show’s core conflicts as well as establishing some of the character dynamics. And Garibaldi is, at least, portrayed as competent in this one, actually solving the case and not faffing about the way he was last time, plus we get his Daffy Duck fandom, which is delightful.

Next week: “Soul Hunter.”[end-mark]

The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “Midnight on the Firing Line” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Babylon 5

Babylon 5 Rewatch: “The Gathering”

Keith R.A. DeCandido revisits the start of the Babylon 5 franchise

By Keith R.A. DeCandido

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Published on March 26, 2024

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“The Gathering”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Richard Compton
Season 1, Episode 0
Production episode 0
Original air date: February 22, 1993

It was the dawn of the third age… We open with Ambassador Londo Mollari’s voiceover setting the stage: the dawn of the third age of mankind, whatever that means, and how the last of the Babylon stations, Babylon 5, was the last best hope for peace. A station in neutral space constructed by the Earth Alliance and administered by their military, EarthForce, it is home to dozens of species, with the five major powers in this area of the galaxy represented: Earth Alliance, the Minbari Federation, the Centauri Republic, the Narn Regime, and the Vorlons. Tensions are high, as the Earth-Minbari War wasn’t that long ago, and the Narn used to be a subject species of the Centauri, but now are the ascendant power while the Centauri are a shadow of their former selves.

Lt. Commander Laurel Takashima, the first officer, is in Command & Control, overseeing a ship docking at the station. The security chief, Michael Garibaldi, calls C&C saying that the station commander is needed to greet a new arrival. Takashima says that he’s already on his way.

Sure enough, Commander Jeffrey Sinclair greets Lyta Alexander, a telepath from Psi Corps who will be working on the station, available to be hired. Sinclair tells her a bit about the station, taking her through the alien sector, where those species who require something other than Earth-normal atmosphere and/or gravity hang out.

Another person who arrived on the transport is a human named Del Varner. In fact, we saw him initially during Mollari’s voiceover, so we know he’ll be important….

Four of the five representatives are on the station: Delenn representing Minbar, Mollari representing the Centauri, G’Kar representing the Narn, and Sinclair reprsenting Earth. The fifth is en route: Kosh from the mysterious Vorlons, about whom very little is known. At one point, Sinclair joins Delenn in the Chinese garden, and she, to his surprise, provides all the intelligence the Minbari have on the Vorlons. It’s not much, but it’s more than Earth has…

G’Kar complains to Takashima about a Narn supply ship that is being denied docking. Takashima explains that the shipmaster has refused to consent to a weapons scan, and they can’t let the ship dock without that. G’Kar leaves in a huff. In fact, he leaves in a minute-and-a-huff.

Kosh’s ship arrives two days early. Also en route is the ship belonging to Sinclair’s girlfriend, a trader named Carolyn Sykes. Garibaldi asks G’Kar and Delenn to be at the docking bay to meet Kosh, but he’s having trouble tracking down Mollari—eventually finding him in the casino, losing a lot. Mollari asks Garibaldi for a loan (obviously not the first time he’s made that request), which Garibaldi refuses (obviously not the first time he’s said no). However, Varner offers to stake him.

G’Kar changes his mind, and tells Takashima to go ahead and do the weapons scan on the supply ship.

En route to meet Kosh, Sinclair’s elevator stalls out. By the time he makes it to the docking bay and meets Garibaldi, they find Kosh unconscious on the deck. Vorlons have to wear full-body encounter suits in order to interact with other species for reasons that nobody’s too clear on (which is par for the course with the Vorlons). Takashima reports that the Vorlons have stated in no uncertain terms that Kosh’s encounter suit is not to be removed. Dr. Benjamin Kyle is not happy, as he can’t treat his patient without removing the suit.

Sinclair instructs Kyle to open the suit, but to do it alone, with all monitors turned off. Kyle is bound by doctor-patient confidentiality not to reveal what he sees. Kyle’s subsequent examination reveals that Kosh was poisoned. But Kyle can’t determine where the poison was applied, nor what the poison is.

Sinclair locks down the station, and Garibaldi conducts an investigation. One of his prime suspects is Mollari, who wasn’t at the reception with Delenn and G’Kar.

G’Kar approaches Alexander after she finishes a job. The Narn have no telepaths, and they wish to produce some. G’Kar makes her an offer to help them do so, either by G’Kar and Alexander mating, or by cloning, which would be a much more complicated process. G’Kar will pay her more if they just mate.

Sinclair finally gets to have some mad, passionate nookie-nookie with Sykes. He also tells Sykes a bit of his personal history that he’d been avoiding telling her before: that he was part of the Battle of the Line, the final battle in the Earth-Minbari War, of which he was one of the few survivors. He was doing a kamikaze run at one Minbari ship, then he blacked out, and the next thing he knew, it was twenty-four hours later and the Minbari had inexplicably surrendered, ending the war.

Takashima and Kyle convince Alexander to perform a mind-scan on Kosh. She reluctantly does so, only to discover that Sinclair is the one who poisoned the ambassador by putting a skin tag on Kosh’s hand.

Garibaldi’s investigation leads to Varner, but checking his quarters reveals Varner’s dead body. Confusing the issue is that he’s been dead for days, even though he’s been sighted more recently.

Sinclair is temporarily removed from B5’s council, replaced by Takashima. After the council questions several witnesses, including Kyle, G’Kar moves that they turn Sinclair over to the Vorlons. Takashima votes no, Delenn abstains, while Mollari and G’Kar vote yes. But that tie is broken by the proxy vote the Vorlons provided to G’Kar, making it a majority yes vote.

The Vorlons will arrive in twelve hours. Mollari apologetically explains to Garibaldi that G’Kar blackmailed him into the yes vote. He had information about one of Mollari’s ancestors that would prove politically embarrassing to him.

G’Kar approaches Delenn about the possibility of a Minbari-Narn alliance. But when he mentions a rumored shadowy organization in the Minbari Federation called the Grey Council, Delenn immediately attacks G’Kar, nearly killing him, and making it clear that she’ll do worse if he ever even mentions the Grey Council again.

Another body is found, that of a technician who has been seen since his time of death. Kyle is working in the medical bay, having found an antidote to the poison, when he sees Alexander enter, and she starts sabotaging the medical equipment—and tossing Kyle across the medical bay when he tries to stop her. But then the real Alexander walks in, and the duplicate runs away.

It’s now clear what’s going on: Garibaldi has learned that Varner was a smuggler dealing in black-market tech. His most recent trip had him acquiring a changeling net, which would enable its wearer to look like anyone. The net would give off a lot of energy, so Sinclair has Takashima do a scan of major energy sources, and then blank out anything they know about—life support, lights, and so on—and the only one that isn’t accounted for is small and moving through a remote part of the station. Sinclair and Garibaldi suit up and go after it. At Takashima’s suggestion, they take a recorder that will document everything, so they have proof for the Vorlons.

Garibaldi is injured, but Sinclair manages to stop the assassin, after he has cycled through several different disguises (including Sinclair himself). Eventually, he’s revealed to be a Minbari, a member of their Warrior Caste. Before blowing himself up, he says that Sinclair has a hole in his mind. Later, Sinclair queries Delenn about that, but Delenn blows it off as a standard Minbari insult. The nervous look Delenn gets before saying that makes it obvious to the viewer (but, for some reason, not to Sinclair) that she’s lying.

Sinclair shares a drink with G’Kar, revealing that he knows that the changeling net was brought on the delayed Narn supply ship, which was why Varner had to come to the station to pick it up, and then provide it to the assassin. G’Kar says Sinclair has no proof; Sinclair counters that he put a nanotech tracker in the drink they just shared, so now Sinclair will always be able to follow G’Kar. Outraged, G’Kar once again leaves in a huff. Sinclair then reveals to Garibaldi that he was lying, but that’ll it’ll be fun watching G’Kar try to find the tracker that isn’t there in his intestinal tract.

The big hole made by the assassin is being fixed, Ambassador Kosh is up and about, Sinclair has been cleared, and the station is, as Takashima says, open for business.

Nothing’s the same anymore. Sinclair gets to hit several rough-and-tumble leader clichés, including the close friend whom he hires even though nobody else wants him, being accused of a crime he didn’t commit, and insisting on stopping the bad guy himself despite having an entire frickin staff under his command.

The household god of frustration. Garibaldi is established as difficult, having bounced from assignment to assignment. He also doesn’t exactly light the world on fire with his investigation, as most of the work is done by Kyle and by the assassin being seen disguised as Alexander when Alexander walked into the room.

If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn is surprisingly friendly to Sinclair, which he doesn’t expect, given the history between Earth and Minbar.

In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari is pretty broken, reduced to gambling and drinking and lamenting the days when the Centauri Republic was a super-power instead of a has-been power.

Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. G’Kar is a manipulative bad guy in this one, showing an impressive ruthlessness and a tiresome nastiness.

The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. We learn that humans have developed telepathy, and there’s a Psi-Corps that supervises and adminstrates telepathic activity. The rules regarding telepaths are very strict, including no unauthorized mind-scans.

The Shadowy Vorlons. Vorlons wear encounter suits at all times and “for security reasons” don’t allow them to be removed. Very little is known about them by anyone else on the station.

Looking ahead. The hole in Sinclair’s mind will become extremely important down the line.

No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Sinclair and Sykes are in a nice relationship; at one point Sykes tries to convince him to resign his commission and go off adventuring with her. He says he’ll think about it.

Also G’Kar tries to mate with Alexander in a scene that is eye-rolling and creepy all at the same time.

Welcome aboard. In this pilot movie, the only stars are Michael O’Hare (Sinclair), Tamlyn Tomita (Takashima), Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi), and Mira Furlan (Delenn). Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas are listed as guest stars, as are Blaire Baron (Sykes), Johnny Sekka (Kyle), and Patricia Tallman (Alexander), even though all were intended to be regular characters. In addition, John Fleck plays Varner and Paul Hampton plays the senator.

Hampton will return next time in “Midnight on the Firing Line.” Tallman will return in “Divided Loyalties” in season two.

Also Ed Wasser plays one of the C&C officers; he’ll return in the recurring role of Mr. Morden starting in “Signs and Portents” later in the first season.

Trivial matters. Two different versions of this exist in the world: the original as aired in 1993 and a re-edit that was released when the show moved to TNT in 1998. Some of those changes were to fix things that later became continuity errors, including G’Kar’s reference to his wife and Mollari’s referring to Sinclair as the last commander of the station in his opening voiceover. Others were simply tightening some scenes and including some scenes that were cut, including a confrontation Sinclair has with a smuggler and Sykes meeting with Delenn. Sinclair and Alexander’s trip through the alien sector was cut down, as there were (legitimate) complaints that it looked too much like a zoo. The music by Stewart Copeland was redone by Christopher Franke, who was the composer for the series. In the original, Tamlyn Tomita’s dialogue was redone and looped in when Warner Bros. complained that she sounded too harsh; the new version restores Tomita’s original performance. Finally, the biggest change was Kosh referring to the assassin disguised as Sinclair as “Entil’Zha Valen,” a reference that will pay off in the “War Without End” two-parter in season three.

Tomita, Blaire Baron, Johnny Sekka, and Patricia Tallman were all intended to be regulars, but they did not continue on the series for various reasons. Tomita was replaced by Claudia Christian’s Susan Ivanova, Baron by Julia Nickson-Soul’s Catherine Sakai, Sekka by Richard Biggs’ Dr. Franklin, and Tallman by Andrea Thompson’s Talia Winters. Tallman’s Alexander would, however, return to the show as a guest in seasons two and three and become a regular for seasons four and five. Plotlines originally intended for Takashima were transferred either to Ivanova or to Winters.

Delenn was originally intended to start out as a man, but would emerge from the chrysalis at the top of season two as a woman. But they couldn’t make Mira Furlan masculine enough, apparently, so they abandoned it and just had her be female all along.

Furlan’s and Andreas Katsulas’ makeup were both changed when the show went to series, as were the EarthForce uniforms.

“The Gathering” was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. The award went to Jurassic Park.

The echoes of all of our conversations.

The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Babylon 5 is open for business.” There are three things a pilot needs to introduce: the characters, the types of stories that will be told, and the setting. The latter is more challenging in the science fiction/fantasy genre because it’s the only genre in which the setting isn’t real. So in addition to everything else, you’ve got to build a world and make it convincing.

Whatever the flaws of “The Gathering”—and they are legion—it did that part of it beautifully. Creator/writer/co-executive producer J. Michael Straczynski gives us a fully realized future history. We get an Earth that’s a power, but not the biggest power. We get the ugly history between the Centauri and the Narn, with the latter having burst onto the scene after being subjugated by the former, while the Centauri themselves are much less than once they were. And there’s the history of the Earth-Minbari War, which left scars on both sides—as well as the complete confusion as to why the Minbari surrendered.

Surrounding this world-building is a story that’s a pretty straightforward whodunnit with tech and a script that can generously be called awkward. The moment where Alexander asked Sinclair why the station was called Babylon 5, I groaned. Thirty-one years later, that conversation remains the tin standard for awkward exposition, not aided by the fact that I kept thinking of the Swamp Castle litany in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (To this day, I always refer to Babylon 4 as having fallen into the swamp.)

That clunkiness of dialogue runs throughout, alas, not aided by performances that range from mediocre to uneven. Jerry Doyle’s Garibaldi is a walking, talking cliché of the maverick cop, Andreas Katsulas’ G’Kar is a mustache-twirling villain of the most ludicrous type (the scene where he proposes mating with Alexander is embarrassing), and Patricia Tallman’s Alexander ranges from stilted (her accusation of Sinclair comes across as a teenager throwing a tantrum) to excellent (her body language when she’s the disguised assassin is completely different, making it clear from jump that this isn’t really Alexander). All three characters will, of course, get better, but that just makes watching the early versions of them even more painful to watch. G’Kar especially—Katsulas was one of the finest actors of his time, always able to bring menace and nuance to his roles (which were almost always villainous to some degree or other), and G’Kar would certainly become a complex and tragic character as the show went on. But the G’Kar of “The Gathering” has muted menace and absolutely no nuance, and feels like an utter waste of Katsulas’ talent.

The leader of an ensemble needs to have a certain charisma in order for the ensemble to work, and sadly Michael O’Hare doesn’t quite have it. O’Hare is the type of actor who’s better off playing the sidekick or the helpmeet or the bad guy. (He played Colonel Jessup in the theatrical version of A Few Good Men on Broadway, and he was amazing. It was a hundred and eighty degrees from Jack Nicholson’s performance of the same role in the movie version, instead bringing a quiet, solid intensity.) He would’ve been perfect to play Garibaldi, truly.

Besides the world-building, the other way in which the pilot absolutely shines is in the character of Londo Mollari, brilliantly played by the great Peter Jurasik. In 1993, he was best known for his role of the squirrelly and slimy Sid the Snitch on Hill Street Blues and its short-lived spinoff Beverly Hills Buntz, which in no way prepared anyone for this. He magnificently brings the broken-down Centauri ambassador to life. The bit I quoted in “The echoes of all our conversations” above is a masterpiece, showing us how far the Centauri Republic in general and Mollari in particular have fallen.

Finally, there’s the CGI visual effects, which were groundbreaking at the time, and which I was dreading on this rewatch, as I feared they wouldn’t have aged well. And, well, they haven’t, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Mostly the biggest problem with the VFX is the same problem CGI continued to have up until 2010 or so: too bright and shiny and completely unable to convey mass. But it’s not fatal, and the CGI is well integrated.

Next week: “Midnight on the Firing Line.”[end-mark]

The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “The Gathering” appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Babylon 5

Introducing the Babylon 5 Rewatch

Welcome to a new weekly rewatch of J. Michael Straczynski’s groundbreaking science fiction series!

By Keith R.A. DeCandido

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Published on March 18, 2024

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Three decades ago, in the wake of the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation in first-run syndication, there was a plethora of shows that were released in that form—not beholden to a particular network, but sold to individual markets separately. Into that boom stepped Warner Bros., who formed a sort-of syndicated network: the Prime Time Entertainment Network, which would syndicate a series of shows to various markets: Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Pointman, Time Trax, a few miniseries, documentaries, and TV movies, and a science fiction show from the mind of J. Michael Straczynski: Babylon 5.

Straczynski had an ambitious plan: to do a science fiction show that would succeed on a reasonable budget and also that would tell a complete story—a novel in television form, as it were. While such serialized storytelling is de rigeur now, it was very rare on television in the 1990s, seen mostly in places like soap operas, as well as the occasional drama like Hill Street Blues.

B5 was planned as a five-year arc. Straczynski simplified budget concerns in two ways. One was to have the action all in the same location rather than hopping from planet to planet, as most screen science fiction shows did.

Another was to do the effects entirely via a process that is almost universal in the 2020s but which was virtually unheard of in the 1990s: Computer Generated Images. B5 was a pioneer in CGI, using the Video Toaster for the Amiga to create the visual effects rather than models and miniatures. This meant that episodes of B5 could be produced for less than half the budget of an episode of TNG.

B5 debuted in 1993 with a television movie, The Gathering. It had the misfortune to air the same week as the World Trade Center bombing in New York in 1993, which put the antenna atop the WTC out of commission, keeping the movie from being broadcast in certain parts of the New York metropolitan area. Despite this ratings hit, the movie did well enough for Warner Bros. to order a series, which debuted exactly thirty years ago on PTEN.

Straczynski’s five-year plan hit a few roadblocks, including losing his main protagonist. Series lead Michael O’Hare, who played the Babylon 5 station’s commanding officer Jeffrey Sinclair, was suffering from severe mental illness, and departed the show after the first season to seek treatment. (At O’Hare’s request, Straczynski kept the real reason for O’Hare’s departure secret until the actor’s death in 2012.)

Other real-world issues with various actors caused rewrites and rejiggers of the plotline, but perhaps the biggest was PTEN’s collapse in 1997, with B5 still in its fourth season. Straczynski wound up cramming a lot of the planned storyline for seasons four and five into season four—only to then have the show rescued by TNT (also at this stage owned by Warner Bros.’ parent company, Time Warner), which not only aired the fifth season, but also commissioned several TV movies and a spinoff series. Alas, the spinoff, Crusade, only lasted one season. Straczynski created another pilot movie, Legend of the Rangers, for what was then called the Sci-Fi Channel, but it was not picked up for a series.

In addition to being a CGI pioneer, Straczynski’s B5 was also an early forerunner of viral Internet marketing, using CompuServe, Usenet, and especially the GEnie bulletin board to create buzz for the show. In tribute to the support of the show prior to its airing on GEnie, Babylon 5 station’s coordinates were Grid Epsilon 470/18/22. Grid Epsilon was a reference to GE, the company that ran GEnie, while B5’s bulletin board was on page 470 (one of the three Science Fiction Roundtables, specifically the one dedicated to screen productions), category 18, topic 22. (Your humble rewatcher was a regular presence on GEnie in those days, under the username KEITH.D.)

In September 2021, Straczynski announced that he was rebooting B5. That’s still in development at the moment, delayed at least in part by the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023. Also in 2023, Warner Bros. released an animated film, The Road Home.

Partly in honor of this reboot, partly in honor of the TV series’ thirtieth anniversary, and partly because I’ve been wanting to rewatch the show for the first time since its initial airing, next Monday will kick off The Babylon 5 Rewatch here on Reactor. We’ll be covering everything, starting with The Gathering, continuing to the five seasons of the TV series, the one season of Crusade, and each of the various movies, from In the Beginning all the way to The Road Home. I might cover some ancillary material, too…

Like my rewatches of the first five Star Trek shows, of the 1966 Batman, and of the Stargate franchise, each entry will be broken down into categories. A few will be familiar, though most will be new.

It was the dawn of the third age… A summary of the plot.

Nothing’s the same anymore. Jeffrey Sinclair’s role in the story.

Get the hell out of our galaxy! John Sheridan’s role in the story.

I’m not subtle, I’m not pretty. Matthew Gideon’s role in the story.

Ivanova is God. Susan Ivanova’s role in the story.

Never work with your ex. Elizabeth Lochley’s role in the story.

The household god of frustration. Michael Garibaldi’s role in the story.

If you value your lives, be somewhere else. In general, the role of the Minbari in the story, as well as the specific roles of Delenn, Lennier, and the Grey Council.

In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… In general, the role of the Centauri Republic in the story, as well as the specific roles of Londo Mollari and Vir Cotto.

Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. In general, the role of the Narn Regime in the story, as well as the specific roles of G’Kar and Na’Toth.

We live for the one, we die for the one. In general, the role of the Rangers in the story, as well as the specific role of Marcus Cole.

The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. In general, the role of telepathy, telepaths, and Psi-Corps in the story, as well as the specific roles of Lyta Alexander, Talia Winters, John Matheson, and Alfred Bester.

Never contradict a technomage when he’s saving your life—again. In general, the role of technomages in the story, as well as the specific role of Galen.

The Shadowy Vorlons. The role played by one or both of the Shadows and the Vorlons, the two ancient foes whose conflict makes up the tapestry of much of the series, in the story, particularly the uses of Kosh and Morden.

Looking ahead. B5 made copious use of foreshadowing by way of flash-forwards and prophecies, and this category will show when they’re used, and also when they later come to fruition (often not in the way you expect).

No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. A chronicle of the romantic and/or sexual exploits seen in the story.

Welcome aboard. The guest stars in the story.

Trivial matters. Various bits of trivia, ephemera, connections, revelations, etc. seen in the story.

The echoes of all of our conversations. A particularly good quote from the story.

The name of the place is Babylon 5. A review of the story.

Note that this rewatch will not have a 1-10 rating of each story. My least favorite part of prior rewatches has been having that silly rating system, which removes all nuance from the words that appear above it. I inherited it from the first Star Trek Re-Watch that appeared on this site back from 2009-2011, so I reluctantly continued it through all the Trek rewatches. I managed to not have to use it for the Great Superhero Movie Rewatch or the Stargate Rewatch, and I’m just as happy to avoid it here.

It’s possible I will think of other categories to add. I tried to anticipate all the various changes we’ll see throughout the various series, but I may have missed something that is worth having its own category. And I’m aware that not every character gets their own category, and in response I’ll just say that Jim Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, William Riker, Miles O’Brien, Julian Bashir, and Chakotay are among the major characters in the Trek rewatches that didn’t get their own categories. It happens.

We’ll be back next week with The Gathering![end-mark]

The post Introducing the <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch appeared first on Reactor.

Rereads and Rewatches Star Trek

These Were the Voyages — Looking Back on 13 Years of Star Trek Rewatches

Thoughts on rewatching over five decades of Trek, from “The Cage” to “Star Trek Beyond”

By Keith R.A. DeCandido

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Published on March 4, 2024

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It all started in 2011, which, somehow, is thirteen years ago.

Well, strictly speaking, it started a couple of years earlier when Eugene Myers and Torie Atkinson commenced their rewatch of the original Star Trek on this here site. They did the first two seasons, but then moved on, and my fellow Trek scribes (and dear friends) Dayton Ward and David Mack stepped in to do the third season.

That finished in 2011, and the next logical step was to do The Next Generation. However, that was a much greater commitment—seven seasons’ worth of episodes rather than three, which would require two entries per week instead of one—and Dave and Dayton didn’t really have the time to devote to that. They recommended me, instead.

The transition from one to the other involved several different writers taking a look at each of the original-series movies, with Dayton, Dave, myself, the late great A.C. Crispin, and site staff writers Ryan Britt and Emmet Asher-Perrin all taking a look at each movie before I dove into Picard and the gang.

And what a long strange trip it’s been.

In 2011, I just was grateful for the work. While I was part of the regular stable of Trek fiction writers throughout the first decade of the millennium, editorial changes at Simon & Schuster following the economic crash of late 2008 resulted in me no longer being in that stable. And my other regular gig—scripting the Farscape comic books for BOOM! Studios in collaboration with that show’s creator Rockne S. O’Bannon—was also coming to an end. The opportunity to write two articles a week about one of my favorite subjects appealed greatly from both a professional and personal standpoint.

One of the first things I wanted to do was give my rewatches their own format and style distinct from what Eugene, Torie, Dave, and Dayton did. So I stole the format used by Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping for their various unauthorized guides to genre shows published in the 1990s by having the rewatches divided into various subsections, ideally with funny titles.

Because I wanted to have fun with this, dagnabbit.

I really wasn’t thinking ahead when I started in 2011, but when 2013 rolled around and I was into the seventh season, I had a decision to make. It was, mind you, a very easy decision. The TNG Rewatch entries had proven to be quite popular and were prompting nifty discussions in the comments.

(Let me pause here to once again sing the praises of the folks here at Reactor Magazine for having a comments section that belies the usual Internet truism to never read the comments. The beneath-the-article conversations on this site have been one of the best things about writing for this site the last baker’s dozen of years.)

So after we did a second movie marathon (with me and staff writers Emmet, Ryan, and Chris Lough each doing one of the TNG movies), I launched the Deep Space Nine Rewatch, which proved to be just as popular and full of nifty conversation. I also have to confess that some of my favorite pieces for this site were for the DS9 Rewatch, particularly the ones I wrote for two of the show’s finest episodes, “In the Pale Moonlight” and especially “Far Beyond the Stars.”

As I barrelled through the Dominion War that ended DS9 in 2015, however, I had another decision to make. I didn’t really want to move on to Voyager, as I was never a big fan of that particular spinoff. But it had been a few years since the original series rewatch, and my own takes on TNG and DS9 had been popular enough that I thought it was worth doing my own look at the original series, especially given that we were coming up on the show’s 50th anniversary in 2016. To make it stand out from what Eugene, Torie, Dave, and Dayton did, I had two additional features. I didn’t just cover the 80 episodes that were produced between 1964 and 1969 (counting “The Cage” in there). I also looked at the animated series released in 1973 and 1974 and all the movies featuring Kirk and the gang from 1979-1991 as well as the re-cast ones released between 2009 and 2016.

Once I finished that off—which included some lengthy discussions of the movies—I figured I was done. In 2017, I moved on to do the Superhero Movie Rewatch, which kept me going for some time. Plus, I still had Trek stuff to write about, as Discovery debuted that fall, and—having, at that point, written a ton about Trek for six years—I was excited to review new episodes as they came out, which I have done, not just for Discovery, but also Short Treks, Picard, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds, plus periodic pieces on the kids’ show Prodigy. (This will continue, as I’ll be reviewing the final season of Discovery when it debuts in April.)

And then 2019 was coming to a close, and my superhero movie rewatch was catching up to real-time. I found myself confronted with two facts: (1) 2020 was the twenty-fifth anniversary of Voyager’s debut. (2) A lot of people—mostly women who grew up in the 1990s and for whom Janeway was their captain—thought I wasn’t giving Voyager a fair shake.

So in January 2020, I started rewatching Voyager. This turned out to be a much more important thing than expected thanks to the apocalypse that started a couple of months later. For myself and for a lot of readers, having a new Voyager Rewatch twice a week was a welcome bit of consistency in a world that had gone completely batshit. Best of all, it was a very enjoyable experience for me to get to rewatch Voyager with fresh eyes.

Once I neared the end of 2021 and Voyager’s final season, my next step was inevitable. I’d rewatched all the other older shows and I’d reviewed all of the newer shows—to not do an Enterprise Rewatch would’ve just been silly. I needed to have a complete set, after all.

(To that end, I also needed to cover two more feature films. While I did all the movies with Kirk, Spock, et al, as part of the original series rewatch, I’d only covered First Contact of the TNG films. I included Generations as part of the original series rewatch, but that still left two unrewatched by self. Luckily, Picard’s third-season reunion of the TNG crew gave me the excuse I needed to do rewatches of both Insurrection and Nemesis in 2023.)

Now I’ve come to the end of that, and I find myself disappointed that it’s over—seriously, doing these rewatches has been tremendous fun—but also satisfied with the body of work that I’ve created. I especially love hearing that people are doing rewatches of their own and then reading my entries after each episode. Best of all, folks are still commenting on things I wrote over the entirety of the last thirteen years.

The most interesting part of the rewatches for me has been the revelations. I’ve been watching Star Trek since birth. I grew up on the reruns of the original series on Channel 11 in New York City, and eagerly consumed all the movies as they were released, was a devoted viewer of TNG and DS9, a somewhat less devoted viewer of Voyager and Enterprise, and now am an equally devoted viewer of the various new shows.

On top of that, I’ve been a professional Trek fiction writer since 1999, having written sixteen novels, thirteen novellas, ten short stories (with two more on the way), six comic books, one reference book, one RPG module, and a bunch of material for an RPG sourcebook.

I mention all that, not to show off, but to say that I know a lot about Trek. Despite this, each rewatch gave me new insights into the shows in question that I did not expect.

The original series. After decades of watching the show, I’d kind of settled into the notion that the first season was uneven but very good, the second season was the show at its best, and the third season was crap.

Rewatching it from 2015-2017 revealed two big things: one was that I was at once unfair to season one and too kind to season two. Both are uneven, both are very good—and in particular, I found that the second season moved away from one of the things that makes Trek unique and important. The first season wasn’t about scary monsters that had to be destroyed, but rather about people, even if they were alien: the salt vampire was the last of its kind trying to survive, the creature killing miners was a mother protecting her eggs, the Gorn invasion turned out to be the Gorn responding to an invasion, and so on. But in season two, it was all kill-the-monsters: the giant amoeba, the doomsday machine, the cloud creature, etc.

Also, while the third season was, indeed, terrible, it did have one thing going for it. Where most of the female characters in seasons one and two succumbed to the stereotypes of the era about the so-called fairer sex, the final year gave us some fantastic women: Elaan, Dr. Miranda Jones, Gem, Mara, Natira, Deela, Losira, Zarabeth.

The Next Generation. I went into my TNG Rewatch with the notion that Jonathan Frakes was a fairly limited actor and that Riker went from being conceived as the big action man while Picard was the cerebral captain to being Picard’s second banana in more ways than one. I also went into it with the notion that Geordi La Forge as a character was mostly harmless, the dorky engineer, created as a nice tribute to a fan. (George La Forge was a quadriplegic Trek fan who died in 1975; at David Gerrold’s instigation, the differently abled member of the Enterprise-D crew was named after him.)

I came out of my TNG Rewatch with a much greater appreciation of Frakes as an actor. He was superb in many of his spotlight episodes, most notably “Frame of Mind” and “The Pegasus,” plus he just had a general relaxed charisma that worked beautifully. The first season had way too much strutting and lookit-me-I’m-manly writing of the character, plus Frakes himself was wooden as hell in that first year—but so was most of the cast. Growing the beard for season two obviously relaxed him some, and he settled into a good character played by a much better actor.

As for La Forge, the character’s actions in “Booby Trap,” “Aquiel,” and most especially the morally repugnant “Galaxy’s Child” have aged very very badly. His treatment of Leah Brahms in the latter episode especially makes it hard to sympathize with the character in any way. I hasten to add that none of this is the fault of Burton, who is a national treasure.

Deep Space Nine. Of all the shows, DS9 is the one that had the least difference between how I felt about it when I started the rewatch in 2013 and when I finished it in 2015. I love DS9, it’s both my favorite of the Trek shows and, in my opinion, the strongest of them (though SNW is challenging it in the former category). Most of my feelings on the show—lots of good, some bad—didn’t change on rewatching.

However, there was one negative that came out of writing about the show for this site, and that’s this: the all-male writing staff really blew it by totally missing that they made Benjamin Sisko the product of a rape, then compounding the error by having all the characters being totally okay with it.

Voyager. The primary benefit of rewatching Voyager in 2020 and 2021 was to give the show a fair shake. As I just said two paragraphs ago, DS9 was Trek at its finest, and Voyager’s first five seasons had the misfortune of airing alongside DS9’s final five seasons, and it was bound to suffer from the comparison. Plus, I found it overwhelmingly frustrating that the show kept running away from its premise.

Knowing that going in, I was able to focus more this time on what the show was as opposed to what it wasn’t, and they did some damn fine individual episodes. Voyager was often brilliant at the execution of the high concept, and telling a cracking story in 42 minutes (or 84 for the two-parters).

I also came away from the rewatch with a much greater appreciation of Roxann Dawson as an actor. She created a wonderfully complex character in B’Elanna Torres, one who struggles with depression and anger issues, and is that rare half-human, half-alien character in Trek who doesn’t really embrace either side of her heritage, and finds herself lost because of it.

Enterprise. Alas, where my negative impressions of Voyager were ameliorated by my rewatch, the same cannot be said for the first Trek spinoff to fail in the marketplace. My lack of interest in Enterprise’s weekly portrayal of Mediocre White People Failing Upward in the early days of the millennium felt completely justified in the early 2020s.

But I did come away this time with one happier thought regarding the show, and that’s the work done by Jolene Blalock as T’Pol. Rick Berman-era Trek had a tropism for hiring women for their looks to then play complex characters who were nonetheless male-gazed like whoa, starting with Terry Farrell as Jadzia Dax, continuing to Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine. Blalock was the worst example, because at least Dax and Seven were written well, mostly, but Blalock was constantly being written in ways that pandered to the heterosexual-teenage-boy-who-wants-to-see-boobies demographic.

But Blalock did superb work to rise above that, and also to take advantage of the other way she was written, which was as the only grownup on the NX-01. T’Pol’s logic and experience saved the crew’s asses more than once.

50th anniversary. One other item I want to mention: In addition to the original series, I also rewatched another TV show that celebrated its golden anniversary in 2016: the Adam West Batman. To close out the 2016 calendar, I celebrated the double anniversary with four extras: The Green Hornet (produced by the same folks that did Batman), Incubus (a movie starring William Shatner that was entirely in the constructed language of Esperanto), preview shorts featuring Batgirl and Wonder Woman (again, produced by the same folks who did Batman), and finally a joint endeavor, the failed 1964 pilot for an Alexander the Great TV series starring Shatner and West. Had it gone to series, the pop-culture landscape would’ve been so different…

It has been a joy and a privilege to do these rewatches of the first five decades’ worth of Trek on the screen, from “The Cage” to Star Trek Beyond. And who knows? Maybe in a decade or so, I’ll think about doing a rewatch of Discovery…

In the meantime, on the 18th of March, I’ll be debuting my next big project for Reactor Magazine: a Babylon 5 Rewatch! 2024 marks the thirtieth anniversary of B5’s debut as a TV series (following the pilot that aired in 1993), and with creator J. Michael Straczynski planning a reboot, now seems the perfect time to look back at the original.[end-mark]

The post These Were the Voyages — Looking Back on 13 Years of <i>Star Trek</i> Rewatches appeared first on Reactor.

Column Star Trek

Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: Fourth Season Overview

A look back at the fourth and final season of Star Trek: Enterprise.

By Keith R.A. DeCandido

|

Published on February 5, 2024

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Star Trek: Enterprise Fourth Season
Original air dates: October 2004 – May 2005
Executive Producers: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Manny Coto

Captain’s log. Having saved Earth and stopped the Sphere-Builders from taking over the galaxy, Enterprise is diverted to 1944 Earth to do one last Temporal Cold War favor for Daniels, which apparently ends the entire thing, to the relief of both the crew and the viewership.

The scars of the mission to the Delphic Expanse take a while to heal, particularly for Archer and T’Pol, with the former reuniting with an old girlfriend (who’s also captain of the NX-02, Columbia), the latter by going home to Vulcan, where she winds up married to her long-affianced Koss in order to save her mother from political reprisal.

Some Augments that were taken out of stasis and raised by Arik Soong attack a Klngon ship, and Enterprise gets caught up in their and Soong’s attempts to create an empire for their genetically engineered selves, though it all goes to crap pretty quickly.

Forrest is killed when the Earth embassy on Vulcan is bombed, allegedly by Syrranites—radicals who are Surakian fundamentalists, as it were—but truly by a faction within High Command that is secretly in bed with the Romulans. The Syrranites have unearthed Surak’s katra and his writings. The former is put into Archer’s head by Syrran on his deathbed, and he’s then able to find the latter, causing a revolution on Vulcan and restoring mind-melds in the bargain.

After encounters with both the inventor of the transporter and some Organian scientists, Enterprise is asked to mediate the long-standing rivalry between Andoria and Tellar Prime—but the Romulans don’t like all this peace crap, and try to sabotage the talks with a remote-controlled ship with a holographic skin. This almost works, and Archer has to fight Shran to the almost-death in order to help move past it, then they work together to contact the Aenar the Romulans are using.

Klingons retrieve the Augment wreckage and are able to genetically engineer Klingons who are physically superior, but look human—but who also have a nasty disease. Phlox is kidnapped by the Klingons to try to fix it, and he does, but at the expense of giving millions of Klingons smooth foreheads, thus explaining a makeup change from 1979 for whatever reason.

Finally, Enterprise is caught up in the Terra Prime movement, which wants to remove all alien influence from Earth, and is doing it at the barrel of a gun. Archer and the gang stop their terrorist attack just in time for a Coalition of Planets to be formed.

Highest-rated episode: a tie between “Home” and “Babel One,” which both received 10s.

Lowest-rated episode: the absolute twaddle of “Bound” with a well-earned 0.

Most comments (as of this writing): “These are the Voyages…” a finale that still has people talking nineteen years later, with 44.

Fewest comments (as of this writing): At the moment, of the entries that have comments available, it’s “Terra Prime,” with a surprisingly low 11.

Favorite Can’t we just reverse the polarity? From “Affliction”: If the flow regulators are locked open, the warp core will breach if you drop out of warp, but if you go faster, the pressure is lessened. This is actually rather a spiffy bit of sabotage, akin to that which we saw in the movie Speed…

Favorite The gazelle speech: From “Observer Effect”: Archer sacrifices himself to try to save Tucker and Sato. He is also surprisingly unaffected by the corpse of his best friend sitting up and talking to him…

Favorite I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations: From “The Forge”: T’Pol has to remind Archer at one point that she is part of a species that evolved on Vulcan, so she’s way more suited to wander across the Forge than his human ass. One of the things she mentions is the nictitating membrane, or “inner eyelid,” something Spock needed the better part of a day to even remember he had…

Favorite Florida Man: From “Demons”: Florida Man Has Miracle Baby With Alien Lover!

Favorite Optimism, Captain! From “Divergence”: Phlox absolutely owns this episode, taking charge of the entire situation once he’s on the road to a cure, manipulating K’Vagh and Krell both with verve and aplomb.

Favorite Good boy, Porthos! From “The Forge”: When Archer expresses disbelief that Vulcan children have sehlats as pets, T’Pol reminds Archer about Porthos. Archer’s riposte is that Porthos won’t eat him if he’s late with dinner, to which T’Pol replies that Vulcan children are never late with their sehlat’s dinner. (Well, at least not twice, anyhow…)

Favorite Better Get MACO: From “Borderland”: Even though the Xindi crisis is over, there are still MACOs assigned to Enterprise. They guard Soong while he’s on the ship and Malik when he boards as well, and they prove as useless as ever in repelling a hostile boarding party, as the Augments take them down in seconds flat.

Favorite Ambassador Pointy: From “The Forge”: Soval is very obviously humbled by Forrest’s selfless gesture, and he rebels against the High Command from the minute they start accusing Andorians and Syrrannites of the bombing.

He also admits to being able to do mind-melds.

Favorite The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… From “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II”: Like Spock before him and Sarek after him, the MU version of Soval has a goatée. Tradition!

Favorite Blue meanies: From “Kir’Shara”: At one point, Kumari takes a hit intended for Enterprise, at which point Shran proclaims to Tucker that now Archer owes him two favors (the first for helping during “Zero Hour”).

Favorite Qapla’!: From “The Augments”: We meet two Klingon captains in this episode. One is incredibly gullible, the other incredibly incompetent. Not a banner day for the Empire, this…

Favorite No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: From “Bound”: I mean, where to start? The three Orion women turn all the human men (except for Tucker) into drooling idiots or posturing morons, or both. Plus T’Pol and Tucker finally decide to become a real couple after dancing around it for several years, and making us endure simply endless “Vulcan neuro-pressure” softcore porn scenes in season three…

Favorite More on this later… From “The Augments”: At the end of the episode, Soong thinks that he should abandon genetic engineering in favor of cybernetics and artificial intelligence, and muses that it may take a few generations to get it right, a hilariously clumsy bit of foreshadowing of the work of his descendent Noonien Soong in creating Data, Lore, and B-4.

In addition, Soong dismisses the story of Khan and his followers escaping Earth on Botany Bay as a myth, but it will be proven correct in the original series’ “Space Seed” (and again, after a fashion, in Star Trek Into Darkness) when Khan and his gaggle around found by Starfleet.

Favorite Welcome aboard: Several past recurring regulars make their obviously last appearances this season: Vaughn Armstrong as Forrest, Molly Brink as Talas, Jeffrey Combs as Shran, Jim Fitzpatrick as Williams, Gary Graham as Soval, John Fleck as Sillik, and Matt Winston as Daniels. This season also gives us a few new recurring regulars for the final go-round: Michael Reilly Burke as Koss, Joanna Cassidy as T’Les, Derek Magyar as Kelby, Ada Maris as Hernandez, and Eric Pierpoint as Harris.

Some folks who have made regular guest appearances in this era of Trek spinoffs also come back for one last hurrah: Lee Arenberg (“Babel One,” “United”), Cyia Batten (“Bound”), Kristin Bauer (“Divergence”), J. Paul Boehmer (“Storm Front”), J. Michael Flynn (“Babel One,” “United,” “The Aenar”), Robert Foxworth (“The Forge,” “Awakening,” “Kir’Shara”), Wayne Grace (“Divergence”), Brad Greenquist (“Affliction”), Harry Groener (“Demons,” “Terra Prime”), J.G. Hertzler (“Borderland”), Gregory Itzin (“In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II”), William Lucking (“Bound”), Christopher Neame (the “Storm Front” two-parter), Richard Riehle (“Cold Station 12,” “The Augments”), Mark Rolston (“The Augments”), John Rubinstein (“Awakening,” “Kir’Shara”), John Schuck (“Affliction,” “Divergence”), Joel Swetow (“Terra Prime”), Brian Thompson (“Babel One,” “United,” “The Aenar”), Marc Worden (“Affliction”), and Tom Wright (“Storm Front”).

Three actors get to play roles established on the original series: Kara Zediker as T’Pau (first seen and played by Celia Lovsky in “Amok Time,” appearing in “Awakening” and “Kir’Shara”), Bruce Gray as Surak (first seen and played by Barry Atwater in “The Savage Curtain,” appearing in “Awakening”), and Steve Rankin as Colonel Green (first seen and played by Phillip Pine in “The Savage Curtain,” appearing in “Demons”).

The “Storm Front” two-parter gave us some folks famous from other contemporary shows: Golden Brooks (Girlfriends), Steven R. Schirippa, and Joe Maruzzo (both from The Sopranos).

Other nifty guest stars include the great James Avery (“Affliction,” “Divergence”), WWE wrestler Big Show (“Borderland”), Adam Clark (“Demons,” “Terra Prime”), Bill Cobbs (“Daedalus”), Abby Brammell (“Borderland,” “Cold Station 12,” “The Augments”), Peter Mensah (“Demons,” “Terra Prime”), Michael Nouri (“The Forge”), Leslie Silva (“Daedalus”), and Peter Weller (“Demons,” “Terra Prime”).

And we have some folks better known for their roles on other Trek shows, starting with the amusing two-episode appearance of Jakc Donner (Tal from the original series’ “The Enterprise Incident”) as a Vulcan priest in “Home” and “Kir’Shara,” moving on to Brent Spiner (Data on TNG and Picard) playing his second of four members of the Soong clan, Arik, in “Borderland,” “Cold Station 12,” and “The Augments” (and also doing a vocal cameo as Data in “These are the Voyages…”), and concluding with Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis reprising their roles as Riker and Troi from TNG (and later Picard) in “These are the Voyages…”

But the best guest is the very very young Todd Stashwick, who will later go on to play Shaw in Picard season three, as a Vulcan-who’s-really-a-Romulan in “Kir’Shara.”

Favorite I’ve got faith… From “The Forge”:

Favorite Trivial matter: Probably the one for “Divergence,” with all its Klingon-y goodness…

It’s been a long road… “I’ve been told that people are calling us heroes.” On the one hand, this is the show Enterprise really should’ve been all along. After two years of giving us the most lackluster exploration of outer space imaginable and one year of a 9/11-inspired season-long arc that didn’t really work, they finally decided to embrace being a prequel and show the roots of what would come later.

What was most successful about the season was that they didn’t allow themselves to be constrained by the one-hour format. The season was a delightful mix of single episodes, and two- and three-parters, giving some stories the space they needed.

Unfortunately, the execution left a lot to be desired. They all started promising, with the Augment three-parter giving us Brent Spiner snark; the Vulcan three-parter giving us the attack on the embassy that killed Forrest, a devastating loss; the Andorian three-parter opened with Shran’s ship being destroyed and Archer trying to negotiate a fragile peace, ending the first episode with a brilliant cliffhanger; the Terra Prime two-parter, the Klingon two-parter, and the Mirror Universe two-parter all had excellent first episodes, as well.

And every single multipart storyline blew the ending. The Augment trilogy turned into nonsense with the Augment kids looking more like they should be arguing over what mousse product to use in their hair than being the vanguard of the next step in human evolution. Both the Vulcan trilogy and the Klingon two-parter expended a great deal of story energy fixing things that weren’t broken, giving unnecessary fan service at the expense of an engaging story. The MU diversion was just that, a diversion, and not as fun a one as it could have been, as Trek has dipped into the MU well way too often. And the fascinating political commentary of Terra Prime devolved into an action hour with a big ray gun pointed at Earth.

Probably the most successful story was the Andorian one, which would’ve made a fantastic two-parter. Alas, they tacked a third part on, and “The Aenar” adds almost nothing to the story that wasn’t already accomplished by the first two parts.

The standalone episodes run the gamut from brilliant (“Home,” a fantastic coda to the third season’s trauma) to dreadful (“Bound,” a throwback to the worst excesses of the original series).

And the season was bookended by two abject failures. First was pathetically ending the Temporal Cold War with SPACE NAZIS! and then ending the season and the series with a misbegotten disaster of a TNG crossover holodeck episode that fails as an Enterprise finale, fails as a parallel storyline to a rather good TNG episode, and just generally fails.

While the fourth season is better than the previous three, it’s too little, way too late. By the time the fall of 2004 rolled around, Enterprise had hemorrhaged viewers to the point that no matter what they did in season four, it wasn’t going to be seen by enough viewers to justify the expense of producing the show. Three years of Mediocre White People Failing Upward had not proven to be a winning story strategy, and the final season did little to ameliorate that. Excellent work by various guest stars—the likes of Spiner, Gary Graham (whose Soval was at his best this season), Jeffrey Combs, John Schuck, James Avery, Bill Cobbs, Harry Groener, Peter Weller, Joanna Cassidy, Michael Nouri, and Vaughn Armstrong all served to show up how incredibly lackluster the main cast was. No one more embodied this than Ada Maris, whose Captain Hernandez proved in three episodes to be far more charismatic and interesting a shipmaster than Scott Bakula was able to scrape together over four seasons.

Warp factor rating for the season: 5

This ends, not just the Enterprise Rewatch, but all the classic Trek rewatches that I’ve been doing for this site on and off since 2011. Later this month, I’m going to do a wrapup of the five rewatches of the original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. And keep an eye on Reactor for news of my next big project… [end-mark]

The post <i>Star Trek: Enterprise</i> Rewatch: Fourth Season Overview appeared first on Reactor.

Captain’s star log. We have jumped ahead six years to 2161. After ten years in service, Enterprise is going home to be decommissioned—and also to be present for the signing of the charter that will make the United Federation of Planets a thing. Archer is still struggling with his speech, while Mayweather and Sato are speculating about what they’ll do next.

Then we pan over to a side console, where William Riker is sitting in an NX-01 uniform. He orders the holodeck to freeze and save the program then end it. We revert to the Enterprise-D holodeck, and Riker’s holographic Enterprise uniform is replaced by his Starfleet uniform.

According to Riker’s personal log, Admiral Pressman has just come on board, and he’s agonizing over whether or not to confide in Picard about the real reasons for Pressman’s presence. Troi is the one who suggested re-creating the NX-01’s final mission on the holodeck to aid him in making the decision. Troi also, over dinner in Ten-Forward, suggests he skip ahead to when they’re contacted by the Andorian. She also suggests Riker take on the role of the ship’s chef, who was the closest they had to a ship’s counselor.

Back on the holodeck, Enterprise is hailed by Shran, which comes as something of a shock, as they believed that Shran died three years previous. Shran admits to having faked his death because, after he left the Imperial Guard, he got involved with some unsavory characters, who have kidnapped his daughter, Talla. He needs Archer’s help to get her back, and Archer owes him. T’Pol advises against acceding to Shran’s request, as they can’t risk being late for the charter signing (and Archer not being present to give his speech), but Archer does owe Shran…

They head to Rigel X. Chef was planning a final meal with everyone getting their favorite dish. Riker poses as Chef preparing those meals discussing life, the universe, and everything with the crew. Later Riker brings Troi on board the holodeck to show off the ship. They observe a conversation between Tucker and Reed, with the latter teasing the former about his continuing to perform routine maintenance on a ship that’s about to be mothballed. But Tucker unconvincingly claims that he practically built the engine singlehandedly, and will care for her to the end. Troi then indulges in some foreshadowing by saying how sad it is that Tucker won’t be coming home from this mission.

Troi goes off to have a session with Barclay, and Riker now cosplays as a MACO who goes on the mission to Rigel X. Archer comments on how appropriate it is that the last planet they’ll visit is also the first one they visited…

Shran and T’Pol meet with the bad guys, T’Pol having fabricated a fake of the jewel the kidnappers think Shran has stolen (he hasn’t, but they don’t believe him). Once they get Talla back, all hell breaks loose, as the fake jewel flashes some lights and the rest of the away team, who has been lying in ambush, fires on the bad guys.

Tucker almost falls to his death, but Archer saves him. They all get back to the ship and head off. Shran is happy to accept a lift to get them far away from the kidnappers, who can only go warp two.

Riker-as-Chef has more conversations with the crew, then Riker watches Archer and Tucker talk about the impending charter signing and what it means. Then T’Pol reports an intruder alert.

The aliens have caught up to Enterprise and boarded her, er, somehow, and demand Shran and Talla. Tucker throws himself into the notion of enabling them to signal Shran with an elaborate rewiring of things that is utterly unconvincing, but the aliens fall for it anyhow, and one big-ass explosion later, all the aliens and Tucker are all mortally wounded. Phlox tries to save Tucker’s life (no such effort is made to save the aliens), but he dies on the table.

Riker then breaks the chronological sequence by going back to before the intruder alert, when Tucker visited Chef to discuss the final meal.

T’Pol and Phlox are present backstage to wish Archer well on his speech (T’Pol having to adjust his neckline). Archer impulsively gives T’Pol a hug before going out and giving his speech.

Riker and Troi are seen in the back of the arena, talking about the historic speech and the charter signing that would lead to the Federation. Riker says he’s ready to talk to Picard about the Pegasus, and they exit the holodeck.

Thank you, Counselor Obvious. Troi is the one who suggests that Riker visit the holodeck to help him with the decision he’s agonizing over.

If I only had a brain… Data briefly speaks with Troi over the intercom about finishing a discussion they started, but Troi asks for a rain check, an idiom that Data struggles with.

The gazelle speech. Archer, typically, leaves writing his speech until the last minute and refuses to take credit for anything during it.

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol admits to Tucker that she will miss him after they’re no longer assigned to the same ship.

Florida Man. Florida Man Dies Hilariously Unconvincing Death!

Optimism, Captain! Phlox is unable to save Tucker after he’s in the middle of an explosion, and later is one of the last people to wish Archer well before his speech.

Blue meanies. Shran has left the Imperial Guard and faked his own death over the prior six years. He has mated with Jhamel and had a daughter, and apparently Archer hasn’t repaid all the favors he owes Shran…

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. T’Pol and Tucker’s relationship ended not long after it began, apparently, though they’re both mature enough adults to continue to serve on the same ship for the next six years.

I’ve got faith…

“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

–The final lines of the episode, spoken first by Picard, then by Kirk, and finally by Archer.

Welcome aboard. Recurring regular Jeffrey Combs is back as Shran, while Jonathan Schmook plays the alien kidnapper. While this is Combs’s last appearance as Shran, he will return on Lower Decks as AGIMUS in “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie.”

And, of course, the big guests are Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and an uncredited Brent Spiner as, respectively, Riker, Troi, and Data. The former two will next be seen in Picard’s “Nepenthe,” while the latter will next be seen in Picard’s “Remembrance.”

Trivial matters: The episode takes place simultaneously with the TNG episode “The Pegasus.”

While Jhamel is not seen, she is mentioned, and its made clear that the relationship with Shran hinted at in her appearance in “The Aenar” came to fruition.

This is the third straight Trek series finale, following DS9’s “What You Leave Behind” and Voyager’s “Endgame,” that is directed by Allan Kroeker.

Having written the lion’s share of the episodes from the first three seasons, this is the first (and, obviously, last) writing credit for Rick Berman and Brannon Braga in the fourth season.

After having one or two Trek TV shows in production consistently since 1987, there will be a gap of twelve years before the next one, when Discovery debuts in 2017. It will be four years before there is any kind of Trek screen production, the 2009 movie.

The novels Last Full Measure and The Good that Men Do, both by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin, establish that the holodeck program Riker was utilizing was not an accurate portrayal of history, with most of what was depicted therein actually taking place in 2155, not long after “Terra Prime.” This is uncovered by Nog and Jake Sisko after some Section 31 files are declassified in the early 25th century. In the novels, the characters point out several inconsistencies in the program that indicated that it was fake, all of which were complaints made by fans after the episode aired. They also established that Tucker’s death was a fake as well, a cover-up for him to engage in a long-term deep-cover mission.

Aside from Riker, Troi, and Data, this is the final appearance of everyone in it to date.

It’s been a long road… “I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.” I have often stated that the idea is far less important than the execution, and this is a prime example of that, because the idea here actually isn’t all that bad a one. It’s a nice idea, knowing that this was closing off the then-current era of Trek television, to tie it back to the show that started the era in question eighteen years earlier.

But holy crap, is the execution an unmitigated disaster.

I remember back in 2005 when they were talking about how Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis would be appearing in the Enterprise finale, my first thought was how cool it would be to have a framing sequence on the U.S.S. Titan with Captain Riker and his wife Commander Troi consulting the historical documents about Enterprise’s final mission.

So imagine my shock that they were instead appearing as Commander Riker and Counselor Troi on the U.S.S. Enterprise-D.

A lot of pixels have been lit on the subject of how terrible this is as the Enterprise finale (both Rick Berman and Brannon Braga have spent a lot of time at conventions and in interviews apologizing for it since 2005), and while I’m happy to add to it here, I do want to take a moment to say how this is also a complete and total failure as a parallel story to “The Pegasus,” which was one of the highlights of a very uneven final season of TNG. We’ll leave aside the fact that Frakes and Sirtis are very obviously ten years older than they were when they filmed “The Pegasus” (this is why I figured it would be a story of them on Titan), there is absolutely nowhere in the episode where any of this fits. There is simply no opportunity for Riker to go haring off to the holodeck for hours at a time to agonize over this decision. And then at the end, he resolutely decides to confide in Picard—which is something he does not do at any point. Well, at least not willingly—he only comes clean to Picard when he doesn’t have a choice at the episode’s climax.

And that’s only the start of what a dreadful finale this is. Just as Frakes and Sirtis very much look ten years older, the rest of the crew looks not at all to be six years older. No changes in hairstyle (well, okay, Jolene Blalock’s wig is a bit froofier, but that’s it), and neither Reed nor Mayweather nor Sato have been promoted after a decade of service, which is completely unconvincing.

After finally having Tucker and T’Pol come together as a couple bonding over their unexpected kid in “Demons” and “Terra Prime,” we’re told that their relationship apparently didn’t live out the year, as they’ve been broken up for six years. To call that disappointing is a major understatement, though it’s as nothing compared to the disappointment of Tucker’s “heroic” death, which is so clumsily constructed you can see the strings, and is one of the most ineptly written death scenes in television history. Connor Trinneer stops short of actually saying, “I have to have my death scene now!” but that’s the only saving grace of this ridiculous scene.

It is fitting that Enterprise has proven itself once again to be completely incapable of repelling boarders despite having Space Marines on board, as the aliens have free rein on the ship before Tucker blows them up.

Watching it again for the first time in nineteen years, the thing that annoyed me the most was, bizarrely, the scenes of Riker-as-Chef talking to the various crew. Not that the scenes themselves were bad—quite the opposite, they’re charming as hell, and easily the best parts of the episode—but this is something we should’ve been seeing all along. To find out now in the 97th and final episode that people talk to Chef about their troubles is leaving it way late. I’ve never been fond of the often-discussed-never-seen character trope in television, and the use of Chef in this episode is so much more interesting than the way he’d been used in the 96 previous episodes.

Berman and Braga spent their three years as show-runners making the early days of space exploration as bland and uninteresting as possible, and their final episode lives down to that standard in pretty much every way.

Warp factor rating: 1 [end-mark]

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Captain’s star log. After a summary of “Demons,” we get more of Paxton’s speechifying about the purity of humanity and the desire to get rid of alien influence. As an example of the horrible future that awaits them, he shows an image of the human/Vulcan hybrid baby. Because nothing says “humanity is doomed” like a cute little pointed-eared baby. Sure.

Sato is unable to jam the signal and unable to get through to Starfleet Command. Paxton has aimed the verteron array at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco. If all the aliens aren’t out of the solar system in twenty-four hours, he’ll fire on Starfleet HQ.

Enterprise returns to Earth after Paxton takes a potshot at the ship with the array.

Samuels meets with Soval and Andorian Ambassador Thoris. Apparently there are Terra Prime demonstrations outside both the Vulcan and Andorian embassies. Thoris wants to know why they haven’t left Earth yet.

Samuels travels to Enterprise. Their options are limited. Paxton has jiggered the array so that destroying it will also wipe out the Utopia colony. Plus destroying the array will set back the Mars terraforming project and also endanger the colony. Samuels wants Archer to destroy it anyhow—the greater good and all that—but Archer recommends taking a small tactical team to try to extract Tucker and T’Pol and the baby and stop Paxton. If it doesn’t work, then Enterprise will go ahead and fire on the array.

Paxton wants Tucker to refine the array. He just wants to destroy Starfleet HQ—as he says, he needs a scalpel, not a bludgeon. Right now, the array will wipe out half of San Francisco along with Starfleet. Paxton also lets Tucker and T’Pol meet their daughter, and T’Pol gets to spend time with her—but at gunpoint, as Paxton threatens T’Pol and the baby’s lives if Tucker doesn’t do as Paxton wants.

Paxton explains how he got Tucker and T’Pol’s genetic material: from the frozen samples that are on board Enterprise, making it clear that at least one person on Enterprise’s crew is a Terra Prime supporter.

While he works, Tucker talks with Greaves. Tucker didn’t like Vulcans all that much for a long time, but once he got to know some actual Vulcans, he changed his tune. Greaves admits that he’s never met any Vulcans, but he also blames them for the billions who died in World War III. When Tucker reminds him that first contact was after the war, Greaves reminds him that Earth was under observation by the Vulcans during the war. They could’ve stepped in and prevented it, but didn’t.

Reed meets with Harris, who provides intelligence about Mars that is useful: if they fly just ten meters above the surface, the sensors can’t detect them, as they’re still calibrated for the thinner atmosphere Mars had before terraforming began. But they’ll have to get to Mars first; Reed assures Harris that they have that in hand.

Tucker sabotages the array instead of improving it, because of course he does.

Mayweather flies Enterprise toward Mars while hiding in a comet, and then uses that comet to hide the shuttlepod. Before they take off, Gannet reveals to Mayweather that she’s not a Terra Prime spy, she’s a Starfleet Intelligence spy. But she hasn’t revealed herself because she still hasn’t found the actual Terra Prime spy on board. Mayweather doesn’t entirely believe her, and leaves her in the brig.

Tucker manages to escape captivity around the same time that a strike team that includes Archer, Reed, Mayweather, and Phlox (the latter because of the baby) invades the mining facility. When Archer arrives in the main control room, right when Paxton’s deadline hits, he contacts Sato, who was left in charge, and tells her to stand down, as they’ve taken over. Sato is grateful, as she was under significant pressure from Samuels to destroy the array.

Then a firefight ensues when Greaves fires on Tucker when Archer sends him to turn off the array. Reed shoots Greaves, Paxton shoots Reed, and so on. It finally ends with a window breaking, and Paxton setting the array to fire. However, Tucker’s sabotage worked: instead of Starfleet HQ, it fires semi-harmlessly into the San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge. (I say “semi-harmlessly” because I’m fairly certain some marine life did not get through that unscathed…)

The rescue almost didn’t get pulled off due to sabotage of the shuttlepod, which Mayweather discovers. At first they think that Kelby is responsible, but soon they trace it to Ensign Masaro, who shoots himself in the head rather than answer for his crimes.

The halfbreed baby, whom Tucker and T’Pol name Elizabeth after Tucker’s sister who was killed in the Xindi attack, does not survive, though Phlox’s autopsy determines that the cause is a flaw in Paxton’s cloning procedure and that Elizabeth would’ve survived if he hadn’t screwed that up, which means that future halfbreeds are definitely possible (which we already kinda knew…).

The conference to negotiate the formation of the Coalition of Planets is back on, Mayweather and Gannet have kissed and made up, and the delegates to the conference all agree to attend Elizabeth’s funeral.

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently the verteron array is being used to divert comets that strike the surface of Mars to the poles to aid in the ongoing terraforming of the red planet.

The gazelle speech. Archer gives a semi-rousing speech to the delegates to the conference reminding everyone how far humanity has come in the last century, from wondering if they were alone in the universe to starting the process of a major interplanetary alliance. It’s a bit better than the speech for which this rewatch section is named, I’ll give him that…

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol immediately starts to take care of Elizabeth from the moment Paxton locks her in a room with her.

Florida Man. Florida Man Saves The Day With Sabotage!

Optimism, Captain! Phlox admits to Archer that he originally took the assignment to Enterprise as a diversion, something to allow him to get away from the complications of family (which are way more complicated on Denobula Triaxa) for a few months. He never anticipated finding a new family, and he takes Elizabeth’s death particularly hard (as does everyone else).

Ambassador Pointy. Soval is, notably, the first person to stand and applaud Archer after his speech to the delegates.

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. After being informed by a tearful Tucker that Elizabeth could have survived with a better cloning procedure, T’Pol moves to hold his hand, leaving hope for the two of them in the future…

I’ve got faith…

Welcome aboard. Back from “Demons” are Harry Groener as Samuels, Peter Weller as Paxton, Eric Pierpoint as Samuels, Peter Mensah as Greaves, Adam Clark as Josiah, and Johanna Watts as Gannet. Back from “In a Mirror Darkly, Part II” are Gary Graham as Soval and Derek Magyar as Kelby. In addition, Joel Swetow makes his third appearance as an alien on Trek as Thoris, having previously played a Cardassian gul in DS9’s “Emissary” and a Yridian freighter captain in TNG’s “Firstborn.” Josh Holt plays Masaro.

Trivial matters: Strictly speaking, this marks the final real appearance of everyone in it, as the only ones we see again in the next episode are holodeck re-creations, and none of them have appeared again in any Trek production after that (at least not so far).

Though both had recurring roles on Enterprise (and both made guest appearances on prior Treks), this is the first time both Gary Graham and Eric Pierpoint have appeared in the same episode. The two were the leads on the tragically short-lived Alien Nation TV series.

This is also the final episode of Trek to be scored by Jay Chattaway, who used many of the same musicians as on the first Trek episode he scored, TNG’s “Tin Man,” which also guest-starred Harry Groener. Chattaway, who is now in his 70s, appears to have retired. The flute theme he created for TNG’s “The Inner Light” has continued to be a music cue on Picard.

An alternate history where Paxton’s movement was successful and Earth became isolationist in 2155 was explored by William Leisner in the short novel A Less Perfect Union in Myriad Universes: Infinity’s Prism.

The characters of Samuels, Soval, and Harris all appear in several post-finale Enterprise novels. Samuels is established as being the Prime Minister of Earth, a position he would retain through the Earth-Romulan War, and appears in The Good that Men Do and Kobayashi Maru by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin and The Romulan War duology by Martin. Soval continues his role as Vulcan ambassador in those same novels, as well as in regular rewatch commenter Christopher L. Bennett’s Rise of the Federation series. Harris appears in several of Bennett’s RotF books as well, continuing his work with Section 31.

Shran was originally supposed to play the role played instead by Joel Swetow, but they decided they wanted to use him for the finale instead. Why he couldn’t appear in both episodes is unclear.

It’s been a long road… “The final frontier begins in this hall.” This is a surprising letdown after a very promising first part. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main one is that Terra Prime’s actual plan was completely unconvincing to me. I mean, seriously, if you’re trying to effect permanent change to make Earth pure again, quite possibly the worst way to go about it is to engage in terrorist activities and trying to use a very cute baby as the face of evil.

Seriously, I found myself laughing out loud when Paxton finishes his Evil Speech of Evil by gravely saying that this is what the future will be and he shows us, um, a cute kid. Yeah, she’s got pointed ears, but that’s not a particularly big change. The whole thing might’ve worked better with a human/Andorian hybrid with antennae and blue skin or a human/Tellarite hybrid with porcine features or something that really looked like a halfbreed. But Elizabeth just looks like a cute baby with funky ears, and the reason why I’m emphasizing the cute is that most people’s reactions to a helpless and adorable little baby is to be protective and want to save it, not think that’s it’s the face of evil. (Of course, the reason why it’s a human/Vulcan hybrid is so we can have Maximum Tucker/T’Pol Angst, which is only not the feeblest development of their relationship by virtue of the existence of the endless “Vulcan neuro-pressure” scenes in season three…)

And then Paxton threatens, not an alien embassy, but Starfleet Headquarters, which is mostly full of humans. And also indirectly threatens the Mars colony, which is also full of humans.

But then it wouldn’t make for exciting enough television, I guess, to have Terra Prime politicians getting themselves elected to the government, have Terra Prime-sympathetic journalists (they almost went there with Gannet, but made her a spy instead, which, um, okay) pushing their agenda, and all the other things that would actually have a chance of working.

There are parts of the episode that work nicely. I especially like Greaves’s justification for his membership in Terra Prime: the Vulcans sat by and watched as World War III raged. That’s a brilliant bit of writing there, because you can absolutely see where Greaves is coming from. But it’s just one piece of dialogue swimming upstream against Peter Weller snarling and a big gun threatening Earth. Paxton should’ve been Joe McCarthy or Donald Trump, and instead he’s a Bond villain. Snore.

Also having Harris and the proto-Section 31 in this two-parter is a complete waste, yet another gratuitous use of the worst thing ever to happen to Star Trek as a franchise.

Archer gets a Mulligan on the gazelle speech, and it almost works. It’s certainly more hopeful and impressive than what he said at the top of season two, but it’s still in the bottom tier of Captain Speeches in Trek history.

Still and all, this would’ve made a nice series finale, with the moving toward an alliance, with the victory of unity over prejudice, with Tucker’s sad declaration that future human/Vulcan hybrids should be just fine, and with Phlox’s happier declaration that he found a new family on the NX-01.

But we get one more. Alas.

Warp factor rating: 6

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The Blue Beetle was originally created in 1939 by Will Eisner & Charles Nicholas during the first big wave of superhero comics, led mainly by Superman and Batman, but which also included the Sub-Mariner, Wonder Woman, Captain America, the Human Torch, Captain Marvel, the Angel, and tons and tons more—including the Beetle, who was published by Fox Comics. A policeman named Dan Garret, he took Vitamin 2X to give him “super-energy” and he fought crime. He was the first of three people to be called Blue Beetle, the third of whom got his own movie.

The Garret version of the Beetle not only starred in a comic book, but also in a comic strip and a radio serial. Fox Comics went out of business in the 1950s, when superhero comics had waned in popularity after the end of World War II. They sold the plates to Charlton Comics, who reprinted them, and then in 1964 Joe Gill, Bill Fraccio, & Tony Tallarico rebooted the character, turning Dan Garrett (sic) into a college professor who found a mystical Egyptian scarab that gave him super-powers.

In 1966, Steve Ditko revamped the character again, with Ted Kord—a genius inventor—taking over from Garrett, and using gadgets to fight crime. This was the version that was the basis of Nite Owl when Alan Moore rewrote the Charlton characters for Watchmen, with the mainline versions of the Charlton characters crossing over into the DC Universe following 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths event, thanks to DC buying the rights to Charlton’s characters.

Once incorporated into DC, Kord was changed by writer Len Wein from a young inventor into a billionaire industrialist, DC’s answer to Tony Stark. He was probably most prominent in the various Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis-written Justice League series that launched in 1987.

Kord was killed in the lead-up to Infinite Crisis in 2005 and a new Beetle was created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, & Cully Hammer: Jaime Reyes. Reyes went back to the Egyptian-scarab-gives-you-super-powers take on the character, albeit with the scarab now being an alien device. DC’s 2011 “New 52” event retconned Reyes into being the only Beetle, but the 2016 “Rebirth” storyline put both Garrett and Kord back in as Reyes’ predecessors.

Development of a Blue Beetle film starring Reyes began in 2018, originally positioned as one of several direct-to-HBO-Max DC films (which the later-cancelled Batgirl was also to be part of). However, the film—written by Mexican-born Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer and directed by Puerto Rican Ángel Manuel Soto—so impressed the suits at Warner Bros. that they made it a theatrical release. (Given the weirdness involving what is now just called Max, the movie was probably better off staying away from the streaming service.) The movie not only makes use of the Garrett and Kord backstories, but also incorporates stuff from The OMAC Project created by Greg Rucka & Jesús Salz in 2005. The One Man Army Corps is a project to create cybernetic super-soldiers instigated by President Lex Luthor in the comics. Here it’s repurposed as a Kord Industries project, masterminded by Ted Kord’s sister Victoria, who has taken over Kord Industries since Ted’s disappearance years ago.

Xolo Maridueña, one of the breakout stars of Cobra Kai, was cast as Jaime Reyes, and he was apparently Soto’s first choice, mostly on the strength of his work as Miguel Diaz on the martial arts show. The cast also includes Damián Alcázar and Elpidia Carillo as Jaime’s parents, George Lopez as his crazy uncle, Adriana Barraza as his grandmother, and Belissa Escobedo as his sister. In addition, Susan Sarandon plays Victoria, Bruna Marquezine plays Ted Kord’s daughter Jenny, and Raoul Max Trujillo plays Victoria’s henchman Ignacio Carapax, a.k.a. OMAC, based on both OMAC and on Carapax the Indestructible Man, one of Dan Garrett’s foes from the comics. In addition, Harvey Guillén takes a break from What We Do in the Shadows to play Victoria’s chief scientist.

The film did poorly in theatres, released as it was in the middle of the writers and actors strikes that prevented the cast from doing any publicity for it. The film has only the slightest connections to the DC Extended Universe, and James Gunn has said that he fully intends this iteration of the Beetle—with Maridueña playing him—to be part of his DC Universe going forward.

“Host overreacting”

Blue Beetle
Written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer
Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto
Produced by John Rickard, Zev Foreman
Original release date: August 18, 2023

In the Antarctic, an expedition by Kord Industries seems to have unearthed “the scarab,” which Victoria Kord has been look for for ages to make OMAC—the One Man Army Corps—project a success.

Jaime Reyes has graduated from college, and he’s met at the Palmera City Airport by his parents, Alberto and Rocio, his conspiracy-theorist uncle Rudy, his grandmother, and his younger sister Milagro. The family puts up a good front, but Milagro finally breaks the news: Alberto had to close down his shop, mostly because he had a heart attack, and because their income stream has lessened, they’re going to lose the house.

Jaime’s plans for graduate school to become a lawyer are dashed by the need to help the family make money. Milagro gets him a job as a domestic at the Kord mansion. While there, Jaime overhears a phone conversation between Victoria and a general singing the praises of OMAC, and then a physical conversation between Victoria and her niece, Jenny. Jenny is livid that Victoria is getting Kord Industries into weapons. The argument turns nasty, and Victoria’s chief of security, Lieutenant Ignacio Carapax, gets involved. Jaime—who is keeping lookout for Milagro, who is using the fancy bathroom they’re not allowed to use—tries to help her and gets him and Milagro fired for their trouble.

Jenny apologizes to Jaime and Milagro outside and tells Jaime to come by Kord Industries the next day and she’ll see about getting him a job there.

The entire family drives him to the job interview, embarrassing him rather aggressively with their love and affection. Jenny, meanwhile, is appalled to discover that Victoria has found the scarab. So she steals it, placing it in a fast-food box. Victoria’s chief scientist—whom she keeps calling “Sanchez,” and who keeps ignoring him when he tries to tell her that isn’t his name—discovers that the scarab is missing and calls for a lockdown.

Jaime sees Jenny and tries to talk to her, but she’s a bit distracted. And then the lockdown happens and she hands him the fast-food box, telling him not to open it, look at it, or touch it.

He takes it home (how he was able to leave a building in lockdown is left as an exercise for the viewer), and at the encouragement of his family, he opens it, looks at it, and touches it. Well, Rudy touches it first, as do several others, but it’s not until Jaime touches it that it activates.

First it attaches itself to his face, Alien face-hugger-like, then it crawls up his back and embeds itself in his spine (it does not go up his ass, Rudy’s insistence to the contrary), and then forms an entire bug-like exoskeleton around him, destroying his clothes. It then flies out through the roof and does a bunch of tests of flight and speed and other fun things, including at one point cutting a bus in half.

It finally sends him back home (making another hole in the roof) and then the suit disappears, leaving Jaime naked on the floor.

Jaime goes to Kord Industries in Rudy’s truck, only to find Jenny being assaulted by Carapax’s security people. Jaime rescues her (though his uncle’s truck is worse for wear, to Rudy’s great, and very loud, chagrin) and brings her home. Jenny explains that the scarab chooses a host, and specifically chose Jaime. Jenny says there’s a key that will help unlock some of the scarab’s secrets, but it’s in the Kord Tower and they need to steal it. Rudy has a gadget that will mess with security, beaming old episodes of El Chapulín Colorado into the security feed. Jenny is able to steal the key—which is a smartwatch that belonged to her father Ted—but Jaime winds up facing off against Carapax, who has a prototype OMAC cybernetic implant that gives him armor similar to Jaime’s exoskeleton. The fight is brutal, with Carapax willing to do much more harm than Jaime is, and they only get away because Rudy throws his gadget at Carapax’s head.

Jenny takes Jaime and Rudy to the mansion she grew up in. Jaime is worried that going to a family home isn’t the best place to hide from Jenny’s aunt, but Jenny insists that no one’s been there since she was eight. The smartwatch opens a secret passage, leading to a secret lair. To Rudy’s glee, he discovers that Ted Kord was the Blue Beetle, a superhero from before Jaime’s time. Rudy sees a ton of inventions, calling the lair like the Batcave, if Batman had ADHD. According to Ted’s files, as accessed by Rudy, the only way to lose the scarab is to die. Ted’s predecessor as Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, was the last person to wear the scarab, and it didn’t come off him until he died.

Jaime and Jenny also flirt a bit, but this is all interrupted by a Kord helicopter heading right toward Jaime’s neighborhood in Edge Key. Jaime summons the suit—which he now knows from their mental link is called Khaji-Da—and together they fly off to the house to find that Carapax’s commandoes have taken his family hostage. The Blue Beetle’s rescue attempt is successful, as the family is able to get away—with the exception of Alberto, who has a heart attack and dies. That distracts Jaime enough for Carapax to capture him.

The rest of the Reyes family is safe, at least, though their house is trashed. Jenny brings them back to her childhood home, where Ted’s old Bugship is still working. They fly it to an island near Cuba that the Kord family bought from Batista back in the mid-twentieth century, which is where Victoria has set up her OMAC factory. She just needs the code from the scarab. The code is transferred to Carapax, improving his OMAC armor by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, Jenny and the Reyes family are able to sabotage the base, including cutting the power at one point. Jaime is able to escape before Victoria can have him killed. Victoria orders her chief scientist to stop Jaime, calling him “Sanchez,” once again. Instead, he lets Jaime out, declares very loudly that his name is Doctor José Francisco Morales Rivera de la Cruz. Then, alas, Carapax kills him.

Jaime’s Nana proves to be very skilled with a very large gun (Rocio at one point comments that one of these days they need to tell Jaime and Milagro about Nana’s revolutionary past, to the kids’ horror), and between Nana’s big gun and the Blue Beetle armor, they make short work of the Kord thugs. However, the way Jaime is able to defeat Carapax is to remind him of his youth in Guatemala, of the fact that Victoria was responsible for his village being bombed, which killed his mother, and for experimenting on him. Carapax grabs Victoria and overloads his armor. The Reyes family and Jenny barely escape in the Bugship.

Jenny takes over Kord Industries. The Reyes family returns from Alberto’s funeral to support from the entire neighborhood. Jaime flies Jenny to her family’s house in the Blue Beetle armor.

With the tech in Ted’s old lair activated, a message comes in—from Ted, assuring Jenny and anyone else that he’s actually alive…

“Things don’t last—la familia, that’s forever”

It’s really too bad this movie got hit with the perfect storm of two strikes, which kneecapped promotion of it, and the general downward trend in theatre attendance post-2020, because it’s an absolute delight.

One thing I particularly love is that Jaime’s transformation happens in front of his entire family. There’s no ridiculous hiding of who he really is from his family to “protect” them or whatever rationalization has been used over the decades to justify heroes lying to their loved ones. No, the Reyes family is right there behind him all the way—whether it’s coming home from the airport, going to a job interview, or rescuing him from an evil industrialist.

The meme that characters of color aren’t “relatable” has come up in relation to this film (see also Ms. Marvel), and it’s so much horseshit. You’re trying to tell me that a college graduate who has to struggle to help support his family isn’t relatable? Overenthusiastic parents and a sweet grandmother who nonetheless brooks no bullshit isn’t relatable? A bratty younger sister and a crazy-ass uncle isn’t relatable? Please…

Xolo Maridueña’s easygoing charm, earnestness, and ability to take a punch both metaphorically and literally that has served him so well on Cobra Kai, all make him a perfect Jaime. And there’s not a single wrong note in any of the casting of his family, as everyone just nails it. (I’m a little iffy about Nana’s alleged past as a revolutionary in Mexico, as she’d have to be about 125 years old for that to work, timeline-wise, but whatever.) Even George Lopez’s hey-look-at-me-I’m-funny OTT act works with Rudy—mainly because, as I said, lots of people have that one crazy-ass uncle… (I have two. They’re twins.)

The movie also wears its influences on its sleeve, from its use of the entire lengthy history of the Beetle in ninety years’ worth of comics to several of the weapons Jaime has the Beetle armor create coming straight out of pop culture (a sword from Final Fantasy, a ray gun from The Fifth Element). I also must confess to loving the fact that the entire plot is catalyzed by Milagro’s desire to take a shit in a nice bathroom.

Indeed, the poor treatment of Latin Americans in this country (and by this country, via Carapax’s backstory, which even includes recordings of President Ronald Reagan talking about the U.S.’s involvement in Guatemala) is never forgotten. Victoria’s utter disregard for the brown people in her employ is cartoonish in many ways, but it’s also depressingly familiar. (Unfortunately, the awful sexism that is the reason why Victoria is so bitter—the company was given to Ted by their father, not her, even though she was the one who built the place with her father—is never really examined in any depth.)

I’m really glad that James Gunn is on the record as saying that this character will survive the transition from the DCEU to Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU, because we really need more of him.

That concludes the latest iteration of the Great Superhero Movie Rewatch. We’ll be back probably in the summer, where we’ll look at the late 2023 releases of The Marvels and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, as well as whatever films are released in early 2024.

Keith R.A. DeCandido has been writing about popular culture for this site since 2011, primarily but not exclusively writing about Star Trek and screen adaptations of superhero comics. He is also the author of more than 60 novels, more than 100 short stories, and around 50 comic books, both in a variety of licensed universes from Alien to Zorro, as well as in worlds of his own creation. Read his blog, follow him on Facebook, The Site Formerly Known As Twitter, Instagram, Threads, and Blue Sky, and follow him on YouTube and Patreon.

The post Ain’t Nothin’ But a Family Thing — Blue Beetle appeared first on Reactor.

Captain’s star log. On the moon, at the Orpheus Mining Facility, John Frederick Paxton, the mine’s owner, and a doctor named Mercer are checking up on a baby in an incubator, who’s been sick. The baby has the tapered ears of a Vulcan. We’re apparently supposed to just know that she’s a Vulcan-human hybrid, even though she only just looks Vulcan.

Enterprise has been summoned back to Earth to be present for the signing of a treaty that will lead to a Coalition of Planets, which will include Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar Prime, Coridan, and Denobula Triaxa. Earth’s Prime Minister, Nathan Samuels, is giving a press conference, with the various delegates and the Enterprise “senior staff” (everyone in the opening credits) observing.

The reception afterward includes some rather nasty bitching and moaning from Tucker about how Samuels didn’t give Enterprise credit for their part in this (the Andorians and Tellarites are pretty much only there because of Archer and the gang), and said bitching and moaning is particularly bitter toward Samuels. Archer, for his part, is happy to stay out of politics.

One of the reporters covering the event is named Gannet, and she and Mayweather used to be an item, presumably when he was at Starfleet Academy. It seems to have been an acrimonious split, though Gannet appears interested in rekindling things.

Samuels compliments Sato on the work she did improving the universal translator. Meanwhile, T’Pol quietly and politely agrees with Tucker that Enterprise is due more credit—but she’s interrupted by a medtech named Susan Khouri, who gives T’Pol a vial with a hair sample, says, “they’re going to kill her,” and collapses—only then does her coat fall open to reveal a nasty phase pistol wound.

Khouri eventually dies from her wounds. Phlox examines the follicle and shocks everyone by saying that (a) it’s a Vulcan-human hybrid, and (b) the person to whom this follicle belongs is the offspring of Tucker and T’Pol.

T’Pol maintains that she has never been pregnant (why she needs to insist that when a simple examination from Phlox would provide evidence of that is left as an exercise for the viewer). But she also maintains that this is not a hoax and that there is a child of theirs out there somewhere.

Archer discusses it with Sameuls, with the latter preferring to keep the news of the hybrid quiet. It’s a difficult time right now, and there’s a “Terra Prime” movement that has been growing since the Xindi attack, which wishes to isolate Earth from alien contamination.

Gannet shows up on Enterprise, saying she’s doing a story on the ship and asking Mayweather for a tour. They wind up making out in a shuttlepod, then take the party to his quarters.

Samuels has asked Archer to let Starfleet handle the investigation, but because Archer is the lead in a TV show, he is incapable of allowing people not in the opening credits to deal with things, so he has Reed contact Harris. Harris reminds Reed that Reed told Harris never to contact him again. Reed says he contacted Harris, which isn’t the same thing. Harris says that this means Reed is still working for him whether he likes it or not, a declaration that would have much more weight if this wasn’t the antepenultimate episode of the entire series. Harris reveals that Khouri is also part of Terra Prime.

On the moon, Paxton expresses concern to Mercer over Khouri’s betrayal, particularly that Mercer might also start feeling sympathy for the abomination. Mercer’s assurances that he’s loyal don’t sound all that convincing. Paxton also watches footage of Colonel Green from just after World War III where he’s advocating eugenics.

Phlox has Khouri’s autopsy report, and it includes a growth hormone used in low-gravity environments. It’s hardly ever used anymore since artificial gravity was invented, but it’s still used in a few places, like Orpheus on the moon—which is also, according to Harris’ intel, a hotbed of Terra Prime activity. Sato also reports that there’s a weird glitch in the universal translator.

On the moon, they’re cleaning up from a cave-in, and they find Mercer’s body, the victim of a carefully constructed “accident.”

T’Pol and Tucker go undercover as new employees of Orpheus. Tucker befriends a man named Josiah, who invites Tucker to a meeting of people who are sick of alien influence affecting Earth. Tucker goes to the meeting and is outed by Josiah at the same time that T’Pol is taken prisoner. They’re brought before Paxton, who identifies himself as the leader of Terra Prime. He plans to return Earth to its rightful owners. It’s not clear what role the hybrid child is supposed to play…

Archer, Reed, and Sato interrupt Mayweather and Gannet’s nookie because they’ve discovered that Gannet is a Terra Prime spy. She was listening in on all the universal translators, which triggered an ID protocol that Sato was able to trace. Gannet also made several trips to Orpheus, which were not, according to her editor, for a story as she claims. Gannet demands to have a lawyer, and Archer puts her in the brig, apologizing to a hurt Mayweather.

Paxton’s chief flunky Greaves pilots Orpheus off the surface of the moon and flies it to Mars, which surprises pretty much everyone. Archer orders Enterprise to go after them.

Orpheus lands on Mars near the verteron array that is used to divert comets. Paxton reconfigures it to fire on the moon, and declares that all non-humans must leave the Sol system or there will be more damage done.

To be continued…

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently, despite all the medical advances we’ve seen in the twenty-second century, somehow the ability to determine if a woman has ever been pregnant has been lost. (This is me, rolling my eyes…)

The gazelle speech. Archer seems to be the only member of his own crew who doesn’t mind that Samuels never mentions them in his speech. He’s just happy to see the Coalition of Planets becoming a thing.

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol somehow just knows that she has a daughter out there, even though she was never pregnant. Tucker goes along with this. Sort of.

Florida Man. Florida Man Has Miracle Baby With Alien Lover!

Optimism, Captain! Phlox is the one who moves the plot along by examining the hair follicle and examining Khouri’s autopsy.

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Mayweather and Gannet get very hot and heavy, and even start talking about future plans together right up until she’s arrested.

More on this later… The Coridan ambassador having a complaint about Tellarites and trade with the Orions mirrors a similar issue that comes up when Coridan applies for admission to the Federation a century hence in the original series’ “Journey to Babel.”

Also the baby seen at the top of the episode is the first-ever Vulcan-human hybrid, which we know will become a bit more common in the future, given that the most popular character in the entire franchise is a Vulcan-human hybrid…

I’ve got faith…

“It’s estimated that there are at least five thousand unregistered aliens on Earth. Now, another study puts that figure at ten thousand. This insanity is the direct result of our government’s policy and the enforcers of that policy, Starfleet! We need to send a message to the people in power.”

–Josiah, rabble-rousing with depressingly familiar rhetoric.

Welcome aboard. Eric Pierpoint returns as Harris, last seen in “Divergence.” Harry Groener, who previously played Tam Elbrun in TNG’s “Tin Man” and a magistrate in Voyager’s “Sacred Ground,” plays Samuels. Peter Weller plays Paxton; he will later play Alexander Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness. Patrick Fischler plays Mercer, Adam Clark plays Josiah, and Johanna Watts plays Gannet.

Steve Rankin plays Colonel Green in footage Paxton watches. Green previously appeared as an Excalbian re-creation in the original series’ “The Savage Curtain,” played by Phillip Pine. Rankin previously played a Romulan in TNG’s “The Enemy,” a Cardassian in DS9’s “Emissary,” and a Klingon in DS9’s “Invasive Procedures.”

And this week’s Robert Knepper moment is the appearance of the great Peter Mensah, whom I had completely forgot was in this two-parter as Greaves.

Pierpoint, Groener, Weller, Clark, Watts, and Mensah will all return next time in “Terra Prime.”

Trivial matters: Colonel Green was established in the original series’ “The Savage Curtain” as a fascist from the twenty-first century. He was remembered by Kirk as one of the greatest villains of human history. Here, he’s specifically tied to the chaos of World War III and its aftermath (as seen in the movie First Contact), and is seen advocating eugenic genocide to avoid humanity being horribly mutated by radiation in what was referred to in TNG’s “Encounter at Farpoint” as “the post-atomic horror.”

Green is also a major player in the novel Federation by Enterprise‘s co-producers Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and also appears in Federation: The First 150 Years by former Enterprise consulting producer David A. Goodman and “The Immortality Blues” by Marc Carlson in Strange New Worlds 9.

The Coalition of Planets is obviously a precursor to the Federation, which will be founded seven years after this episode.

This is the last of 29 Trek episodes directed by LeVar Burton, who also played Geordi La Forge on TNG, Voyager, and Picard and in four movies. Burton has continued to be active as a TV director, most recently having lensed several episodes of NCIS: Hawai‘i.

The Coridanite ambassador has a completely different appearance from the Coridanites seen in “Shadows of P’Jem” (and later in Discovery’s “Far from Home”). The novel The Good that Men Do by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin explains this as the ambassador wearing a ceremonial mask.

It’s been a long road… “Terra Prime forever!” This is a very effective episode generally, and one that has become more depressingly relevant as social commentary, as the rhetoric espoused by Paxton and Josiah is the same anti-other nonsense that’s been getting way too much play in this country about certain illegal immigrants and in the UK during the entire Brexit mishegoss, among many other places.

I’ve said this a lot during this rewatch, but this is the kind of story Enterprise should’ve been doing all along, and while it was nicely seeded in the bar brawl in “Home” particularly, the fact that it took until the penultimate storyline to cover it is annoying.

The Xindi attack especially is something that would prompt a subsection of humanity to go all xenophobic and isolationist. Not everyone, of course—what I especially like is that the rise of Terra Prime is concurrent with the advancing of the Coalition of Planets. Which is the way of things, sadly—progress is often met with violent regressives. Ending slavery led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. More recently, expansion of rights for non-heterosexuals has led to a rise in violence against them.

Josiah’s speech was especially mind-blowing to watch in 2024, as that speech resonates at least as much as it did nineteen years ago. (Though I’m sure writer Manny Coto was inspired by the anti-Muslim rhetoric flying about in the wake of 9/11.)

Peter Weller has aged nicely into the kind of person who is good at angry-white-guy roles (see also his turn in Star Trek Into Darkness, not to mention his recurring roles on Sons of Anarchy and The Last Ship). He absolutely nails Paxton’s confident arrogance here, making him a bad guy to be reckoned with.

The episode loses a few points for a couple of things that twigged me greatly. The first is, as mentioned above, the fact that T’Pol has to say to Tucker that she’s never been pregnant. Unless Vulcans gestate really really really fast, there’s no way T’Pol could’ve had a kid without anyone knowing, as the only time she was away from the ship for a significant period was between “Home” and “Borderland,” which was only a few weeks. And, again, we have the means to medically determine if a woman’s ever been pregnant now, so the notion that it’s not something that could be determined by Phlox waving a scanner over her is ludicrous.

Secondly, Enterprise continues to give us a united Earth that’s mostly Caucasian. Both the prime minister of Earth and the head of Terra Prime are WASPy white dudes. Worse, though, is that we do actually get a couple people of color in the guest cast this week—and they’re both bad guys! As wonderful as it is to see Peter Mensah, and as good as Adam Clark is, it would’ve been nice to see some Black folks who aren’t xenophobic terrorists. And the complete lack of Latin, Middle Easter, or Asian people (beyond Sato) remains tiresome. They even give poor Mayweather a subplot, but it’s all in service of his being duped by his ex, which is only a nominal improvement over how they usually ignore the ensign.

Still, this is one of Enterprise’s stronger social commentary episodes, and one that nicely shows the growing pains of Earth in the transition between World War III and the founding of the Federation.

Warp factor rating: 8

Keith R.A. DeCandido will be Author Guest of Honor at the inaugural ConVivial in Williamsburg, Virginia this weekend, alongside Music Guests of Honor HipHopMcDougal, Cosplay Guest of Honor Angela Pritchett, and Fan Guest of Honor Candi O’Rourke. Keith will be doing lots of programming, and also will be performing with the Boogie Knights for a few concerts. His full schedule will be posted to his blog soon.

The post Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: “Demons” appeared first on Reactor.

The third Guardians of the Galaxy film was, like so many films planned for 2020 and beyond, delayed, but in this case, it wasn’t due to the recent apocalypse, but rather because writer/director James Gunn had been fired, due to offensive old tweets coming to light. Eventually, Marvel Studios rehired Gunn, partly due to outcry from the cast of the Guardians films, but he was committed to The Suicide Squad at that point, so the film was not released until 2023, six years after Volume 2.

The conclusion to Gunn’s always-imagined trilogy of Guardians films, Volume 3 not only concludes the storyline that ran through Volumes 1 and 2, but also Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, as well as Thor: Love and Thunder and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.

The primary focus of the film was finally providing Rocket’s backstory, which also involves two major characters from Marvel’s comics history: the High Evolutionary and Adam Warlock.

In the comics, the High Evolutionary was created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby in 1966’s Thor #134. He was a British scientist from the 1930s named Herbert Wyndham who engaged in experiments on animals and humans—including on himself, making himself functionally immortal and powerful. He created a remote den of science on Wundagore Mountain, full of his “New Men,” who are evolved animals. (One such was an evolved cow named Bova, who helped raise Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.)

Adam Warlock was created as an artificial perfect human, known only as “Him,” in Fantastic Four #66-67 by Lee & Kirby in 1967, though he was developed as Adam Warlock by Roy Thomas & Gil Kane in the first several issues of Marvel Premiere in 1972. He was given that name by the High Evolutionary, who conscripted Warlock to protect the Counter-Earth he created. Warlock later would be involved in the conflicts with Thanos, and he also wears one of the infinity gems, the Soul Gem, which is one of the sources of his power. He has been part of the Guardians of the Galaxy in the comics, and also fought alongside the four-color versions of Gamora, Drax, Pip the Troll, Captain Marvel, Moondragon, the Silver Surfer, and others.

In the movie, both characters are established as aliens. This High Evolutionary, played by Chukwudi Iwuji, has also created a Counter-Earth, but only after he observed Earth as part of his ongoing attempt to create the perfect society. He also experiments on Earth animals (among them raccoons) and evolves them, much like his comics counterpart, though his experiments are somewhat more grotesque.

Warlock was seeded in the post-credits scene of Volume 2, created by the Sovereign, who are in this movie established as one of the species created by the High Evolutionary. Played by Will Poulter, Warlock still has a gem in his forehead like his comics counterpart, though it isn’t an infinity stone, obviously, since they were all destroyed in Endgame.

In addition, we get another comics mainstay, the Recorders. In the comics, they’re androids that are created by the Rigellians to observe and record the goings-on of the universe; here, they’re minions of the High Evolutionary (and they wear white instead of green).

Back from the Holiday Special are Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, Dave Bautista as Drax, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, Sean Gunn as Kraglin (and also the motion capture for Rocket; Gunn also provides the voice for the young Rocket in flashback), Maria Bakalova as the voice and motion capture of Cosmo the Spacedog, and (in a very brief hallucinatory cameo) Michael Rooker as Yondu. Back from Endgame is Zoe Saldaña as the alternate version of Gamora who came forward in time in that movie. Back from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 are Sylvester Stallone as Stakar Ogord, Elizabeth Debicki as the Sovereign leader Ayesha, Seth Green as the voice of Howard the Duck, Michael Rosenbaum as Martinex, and Gregg Henry as Jason Quill. Back from Guardians of the Galaxy is Christopher Fairbank as the Broker.

Debuting in this film, besides Iwuji and Poulter, are Linda Cardelini as the voice and motion capture of Lylla, Asim Chaudhry as the voice of Teefs, Mikaela Hoover as the voice of Floor, Kai Zen as Phyla, Judy Greer as the voice of the War Pig, Dee Bradley Baker as the voice of Blurp, and Daniela Melchior, Nathan Fillion, Pete Davidson, and Jennifer Holland as various employees of Orgocorp.

While the main storyline has concluded, the Guardians of the Galaxy are still a thing as of the end of the film, plus a card at the end says that Star Lord will return, though nothing specific has been announced quite yet…

“There is no God, that’s why I stepped in!”

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3
Written and directed by James Gunn
Produced by Kevin Feige
Original release date: May 5, 2023

We open with a flashback showing the High Evolutionary taking one of several raccoons taken from Earth and experimenting on him. In the present, Rocket is playing Radiohead’s “Creep” on Quill’s Zune and wandering around Knowhere, which—as established in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special—is now Guardians HQ and which has quite the community. Quill is drunk, and gets cranky at Rocket using his Zune right up until he passes out, muttering about how much he loves Gamora. We also see Kraglin and Cosmo having a contest, which mostly shows that Kraglin still is having trouble controlling Yondu’s arrow. Kraglin calls Cosmo a bad dog, and she is devastated, demanding that he take it back. Kraglin refuses to do so.

Then Adam Warlock—a powerful being created by the Sovereign specifically to take revenge on the Guardians—shows up to try to kidnap Rocket. He is driven away by the Guardians, though he does considerable physical damage to Knowhere, breaks Mantis’ arm, beats the living crap out of Drax and Nebula, and badly hurts Rocket.

Most everyone can be fixed by a medpack (or, in Nebula’s case, self-repair), but Rocket’s body refuses the medpack’s treatment for some reason. Nebula examines him and discovers that his body is trademarked and can only be treated by an authorized person with the passcode. They track the trademark to Orgocorp. With Rocket unconscious and on life-support in the medbay, the team takes off, leaving Kraglin and Cosmo to guard Knowhere. (Kraglin still refuses to recant his comment that Cosmo is a bad dog, to Cosmo’s great chagrin.)

They get through Orgorcorp’s shields, then rendezvous with the Ravagers, to Quill’s surprise. Nebula hired them to help break in. Gamora is now running with Stakar’s Ravager pack, to Quill’s further surprise. (Nebula didn’t tell him because she thought he’d freak out, which he proceeds to do, proving her right.) The Ravagers provide space suits and Orgocorp uniforms, and they then break into the biologically grown corporate HQ. They bluff their way past Orgocorp security (mostly by Quill and the chief of security bonding over the idiots they have to deal with on their team, in Quill’s case referring to Drax), and then get their hands on the data they need for Rocket by taking one of the clerks hostage. (Quill tries to charm her, which doesn’t even remotely work, so Gamora uses the threat of violence, which does.)

Throughout all this, Quill is being creepy and stupid toward Gamora, who is not the one he had a relationship with (though she’s pretty close to the Gamora he first met, who introduced herself to Quill by assaulting him). She keeps reminding him of this, to little avail.

They obtain the information, have a running firefight with security, and finally they make their getaway, with Groot flying the ship in to grab them.

The data they obtain has details on how Rocket came to be: he was one of many animals the High Evolutionary experimented on in his attempt to create the perfect species. Four of them—Batch 89—are placed in cages together. Besides Rocket, there’s Lylla, an otter with robotic arms, Floor, a rabbit with a weird mouthpiece, and Teefs, a walrus. (They have given themselves those names.) Rocket is also proving to be a prodigy, and is the only one of HE’s creations who has the capability for creative and inspirational thought. With Rocket’s breakthrough, HE thinks he can now create his perfect society. However, HE is ripshit over the fact that Rocket saw what the others didn’t, and at the fact that only he seems to have succeeded. He also breaks it to Rocket that he and his friends are not going to the new world he’s creating, as they had hoped.

Rocket, however, has been stealing bits and bobs every time he’s out of the cage, and now has constructed an electronic key for the cages. He frees Lylla—but before he can free the others, HE shoots Lylla, having predicted that Rocket might try something. Rocket completely loses it and attacks HE, tearing his face to ribbons. His security tires to stop him, and Teefs and Floor are caught in the crossfire. Rocket makes his way to a spaceship and escapes.

The Guardians are aghast at what was done to Rocket, as he never told them any of this. However, the passcode they need has been removed by a Recorder. Quill recognizes the Recorder who signed it out from passing him in the hall.

Quill decides to confront HE head on. Gamora thinks he’s insane, especially since it’s obviously a trap. Quill rationalizes that it’s not a trap if you know it’s coming, it’s a face-off. (He insists on that several times throughout the film. Nobody ever really buys it.) Gamora demands that they bring her back to the Ravagers, but they refuse, as time is of the essence.

Orgocorp security captures a Ravager who was keeping an eye on things. Ayesha tells Warlock to show him that they mean business while interrogating him, and Warlock incinerates him. Ayesha angrily points out that they can’t question a corpse. However, Gamora then contacts the Ravager for an exfil, and she blithely sends the coordinates, not realizing that it isn’t one of her fellow Ravagers on the line.

The Guardians arrive at Counter-Earth, a re-created Earth with evolved animals living like people in an American 1950s suburb. They manage to ingratiate themselves to the locals, despite a rather nasty language barrier, and they eventually determine that there’s a tower they have to go to. They also see a great deal of crime and yuckiness, belying the notion that this is a “perfect society.”

Quill leaves Mantis and Drax with the ship to keep an eye on Rocket and takes Groot and Nebula to HE’s tower. HE’s guards refuse to let Nebula enter, as no weapons are allowed, and Nebula’s arm is a weapon. Once they get inside, HE mostly ignores and dismisses them. He also sends a minion to kidnap Rocket from the ship. That attempted kidnapping is foiled by Gamora and Warlock, though the latter is there to kidnap Rocket for himself and Ayesha in order to ingratiate themselves with HE. Drax and Mantis are not present to protect Rocket because Drax decided he wanted to be in on the action, and stole a motorcycle and rides it to HE’s tower.

However, the tower isn’t a tower, it’s a ship, and HE is taking off and destroying Counter-Earth, as it’s a failed experiment. Once the destruction starts, Warlock abandons his quest to kidnap Rocket to try (and fail) to save Ayesha, who is disintegrated, as is the entire planet. Gamora manages to take off, at least.

Groot has a mess of weapons inside himself, and he and Quill get into a firefight with HE’s thugs, eventually diving off the ship as it’s taking off with the Recorder. Meanwhile, not knowing this has happened, Nebula, Drax, and Mantis board the ship as it’s taking off to rescue Quill and Groot. Instead, they encounter a whole mess of kids, HE’s latest attempt at creating a perfect species.

Quill gets the passcode from the Recorder and is able to finally heal Rocket. For his part, Rocket is ready to give up and sees Lylla, Teefs, and Floor in the midst of a white light. Lylla convinces him that it isn’t his time yet and Rocket comes back to life, after Quill performs CPR when the medpack proves inadequate.

Nebula is rather shocked to learn that Drax knows the local language, which would’ve been useful information to have earlier, but nobody actually asked him. She’s also shocked to find out that Quill isn’t on the ship to be rescued. HE then finds and captures Nebula, Drax, and Mantis, putting them in a dungeon with three Abilisks. However, Mantis is able to get through to the big scary monsters and the three literally ride the Abilisks to freedom.

Quill contacts Kraglin, who flies Knowhere to Counter-Earth to open up a second front on HE. Several of HE’s thugs attack Knowhere, but Kraglin finally is able to get good control of Yondu’s arrow, and takes out most of the bad guys—at least until the arrow gets stuck in a wall. However, Cosmo takes care of the last thug, and Kraglin finally admits that she is a good dog.

Quill, Gamora, Rocket, and Groot board HE’s ship, and eventually come across their teammates and their new mounts. The other Recorder tries to mutiny against HE, as his desire to acquire Rocket has become untenable, but he kills her and the rest of his bridge crew.

Our heroes free all the kids and also—at Rocket’s insistence—all the animals HE has taken, including a mess of baby raccoons. They even rescue Warlock, which surprises him, given all the damage he’s caused.

Rocket goes after HE, which might have been a mistake, but for the fact that his teammates—and Gamora—come after him. They make short work of HE, and then escape his ship. Everyone makes it except Quill, who goes back for his Zune and winds up trapped in space. However, Warlock rescues him.

Knowhere now has a massive community of children and animals. Nebula and Drax plan to stay on Knowhere to lead the community. Both Quill and Mantis leave as well, the former to go back to Earth for more than just a fight against Thanos or to kidnap Kevin Bacon, and to really reconnect with his grandfather; the latter to find herself after spending her whole life doing either what Ego wanted or what the Guardians wanted. Gamora returns to the Ravagers, leaving Rocket and Groot the only original Guardians left, with Quill ceding leadership to the evolved raccoon.

Rocket then plays “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + the Machine on Quill’s Zune, casting it to Knowhere’s PA system, and soon everyone is dancing to it. Meanwhile, Mantis rides off with the three Abilisks, and Quill returns to Earth and has a tearfully joyous reunion with his elderly grandfather.

We later see the new team in action: Rocket, Groot, Kraglin, Warlock, Cosmo, and one of the rescued children, Phyla.

“Quite a novel escape plan, jumping head-first into an exploding planet…”

The post-Endgame MCU films have very much been hit-or-miss, but this one definitely qualifies as one of the hits. Like the first film (and unlike the second), there’s a perfect balance of humor, action-adventure, and pathos.

What I especially love is that James Gunn understands how writing in a larger universe works. Indeed, it’s instructive to look at the different approach that Gunn took to that of Taika Waititi. Both were building off of the events of Endgame, but where Waititi disposed of every connection to that in about five minutes (writing out the Guardians as fast as he possibly could and having Thor back in perfect physical shape via a lame-ass training montage flashback), Gunn embraced the status quo he was given. (To be fair, Gunn was a consultant and producer on Infinity War and Endgame, so he had more skin in the game than Waititi, but still…) It bodes well for Gunn’s future as the guru of the DC Extended Universe (or whatever the hell they’re calling it).

It also helps that Gunn is a really good writer and director. And he understands that the heart of this team has always been Rocket and Groot, and that holds true here. This despite the fact that those two don’t have that much screen time, and most of Rocket’s is either in flashback to his time as part of the High Evolutionary’s Batch 89 or comatose in the present.

But the movie is very much about him, finally firing the Chekhov’s gun that was on the mantelpiece (Chekhov’s Gunn?) in the first movie when Rocket first was bare-chested and we saw all the implants in his back. And his story is both glorious (from a writing perspective) and awful (from a character one), bringing into focus his inability to trust people but also his desire to be part of a found family unit. His partnership with Groot, his teaming up with the rest of the gang in the first two movies, his allying with the Avengers during the blip in Endgame, all of it is him trying to re-create the dynamic he had with Lylla, Floor, and Teefs.

And yes, it’s predictable as hell, and you know it’s coming, and dammit if Gunn still didn’t make me tear up when HE shot Lylla. (On the other hand, I rolled my eyes at the white-light near-death experience Rocket had, which was just nonsense.)

Having said that, this is a team movie, not a Rocket Raccoon movie. (And I do love that Rocket finally calls himself that at the end. The character was originally created in 1976 by Bill Mantlo & the late great Keith Giffen as a tribute to the Beatles song “Rocky Raccoon.” He was even teamed up with Wal Rus, a tribute to the Fab Four’s “I Am the Walrus.”) Everyone gets a character arc here, from Quill finally getting over losing Gamora and accepting that this isn’t his Gamora with the Ravagers now and also finally going home; Drax getting to be a Dad again, after Ronan and Thanos took that from him, which set him instead on the course to becoming Drax the Destroyer; Nebula finding purpose as a hero that she never had as Thanos’ daughter; Kraglin finally getting the hang of the arrow; and Mantis coming into her own instead of just being the woo-woo chick. (Mantis also has one of the best lines in the movie when she berates Nebula for verbally abusing Drax, because he’s the only person in the group who doesn’t hate himself.)

Best of all, though, is Gamora. Gunn doesn’t sledgehammer everything back to the status quo like certain other directors I mentioned in the second paragraph of this review section. Recognizing that this really is a different Gamora, she never fully rejoins the team. Yes, she’s there, and eventually is even willing to work with them. But in the group hug at the end, she stays back away from it, and it isn’t until she returns to Stakar and the rest of the Ravagers that she celebrates. She’s found a family, it’s just not the titular family of this movie series.

As ever, the performances are fabulous. Even the small roles stand out beautifully: Maria Bakalova’s hurt pleading with Kraglin to take back that Cosmo is a bad dog; Nathan Fillion’s cynical civil servant; Elizabeth Debicki as an Ayesha who is desperately trying to regain the glory she had before the Guardians showed up in the last movie; and, of course, Chukwudi Iwuji, giving us a grandly operatic villain in the High Evolutionary.

It’s not perfect, of course. While the pacing is much better than it was last time, it—like many of Gunn’s movies, truth be told—goes on just a hair too long. Counter-Earth being a 1950s American suburb is a spectacular failure of imagination and triumph of lazy storytelling. And while I admit to a certain bias as someone who has never liked the character of Adam Warlock, turning him into a whiny teenager borders on character assassination of a long-standing Marvel hero (though he does, at least, get a redemption arc).

Still, this is at once a great ending to the story, a perfect setup for more stories in the future, and—most important—a very good movie on its own. As with the others, music plays a huge role, from Rocket’s depression-listen to “Creep” at the start to the perfect use of Heart’s “Crazy on You” when Warlock attacks to the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” as the soundtrack to a fight scene to the glorious catharsis of all of Knowhere dancing to “The Dog Days are Over.”

Next week, we go back to the DC universe with Blue Beetle.

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s next big novel project is Supernatural Crimes Unit, about a division of NYPD that handles crimes involves magic and monsters, which will be published in either late 2024 or early 2025 by the Weird Tales Presents imprint of Blackstone Publishing.

The post “It really is good to have friends” — Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 appeared first on Reactor.

After a string of movies that were, at best, uneven in terms of quality and/or financial success, and all of which were incredibly serious and dramatic and heavy, 2019’s Shazam! (along with 2018’s Aquaman) proved to a breath of fresh air in the DC Extended Universe that kicked off six years earlier with Man of Steel. A sequel was green-lit almost instantly.

Like so many films, the Shazam! sequel, subtitled Fury of the Gods, was delayed by the apocalypse of 2020, as filming was originally scheduled to start in the summer of that year. However, contrary to expectations when it was announced that Dwayne Johnson was also starring in the title role of a Black Adam film, Black Adam is not the villain in this one. And, contrary to the expectations set by the closing of Shazam!, Doctor Sivana and Mr. Mind aren’t, either.

Indeed, there is no mention or reference to Black Adam anywhere in this film beyond a brief reference to the Justice Society in the mid-credits scene (a scene that was originally intended to be at the end of Black Adam, but Johnson nixed it). Sivana and Mr. Mind at least make an after-credits cameo, promising their return in a third film. That third film’s likelihood is not known, given that the film itself did poorly at the box office (as have many big-budget films in these post-pandemic times), not to mention the reorganization of the DCEU under James Gunn and Peter Safran (though the latter is also the producer of the the Shazam! and Aquaman films, as well as The Suicide Squad).

Having eschewed the character’s three primary comics villains, the story instead leaned into Shazam’s mythical roots by having the antagonists be the three daughters of Atlas from Greek lore. They cast the great Dame Helen Mirren and the amazing Lucy Liu as two of them, with Rachel Zegler, fresh off her Golden Globe Award-winning turn as Maria in 2021’s West Side Story, as the third sister.

Back from Shazam! are Zachary Levi and Asher Angel as the two versions of Billy Batson, Jack Dylan Grazer and Adam Brody as the two versions of Freddy Freeman, Ross Butler and Ian Chen as the two versions of Eugene Choi, D.J. Cotrona and Jovan Armand as the two versions of Pedro Peña, Meagan Good and Faithe Herman as the two versions of Darla Dudley, Grace Caroline Currey as both versions of Mary Bromfield (the only one of the Shazam family who isn’t played by two different actors, with Michelle Borth not returning despite having signed a multi-picture deal), Marta Milans and Cooper Adams as foster parents Rosa and Victor Vásquez, Mark Strong as Sivana, and director David F. Sandberg as the voice of Mr. Mind (the latter two in a post-credits scene).

Back from Black Adam are Djimon Honsou as the wizard and Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt. Back from the Peacemaker TV series is Steve Agee as John Economos. Back from Wonder Woman 1984 is Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Also in this film are Rizwan Manji as a docent, Diedrich Bader as a teacher, P.J. Byrne as a pediatrician, and Michael Gray—who played Billy Batson in The Shazam/Isis Hour in the 1970s—as a civilian who calls Billy “Captain Marvel.”

With the DCEU in flux, as stated before, it’s unclear what the future of Shazam! films even is.

“Fun is for children, dear—we are at war!”

Shazam!: Fury of the Gods
Written by Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan
Directed by David F. Sandberg
Produced by Peter Safran
Original release date: March 17, 2023

In Greece, a docent is giving a tour of an exhibit, which includes the two pieces of the wizard’s staff, which Billy Batson broke in Shazam! The docent comments that it was found in a garbage dump in Philadelphia. Two people dressed in ancient armor break into the case containing the staff, which inexplicably doesn’t set off any alarms. A security guard runs in from another room, but one of the two people, Kalypso, uses her godly powers to hypnotize the guard into causing chaos. That chaos spreads through the gallery, which is soon locked down by museum security. The other thief, Hespera, turns all the people in the gallery to stone.

The sisters return to the Realm of the Gods, where they have imprisoned the wizard. They force him to repair the staff, though a splinter of it winds up under the wizard’s fingernail. Now the sisters need to find the seed of the tree, and they must also be ready for the wizard’s champion.

Said champion is visiting his pediatrician—who, of course, doesn’t recognize him—and attempting to get psychological help from him. He and the other members of the family, who have been dubbed “the Philadelphia Fiascoes” by the media due to their varying levels of competence, have continued to try to protect the city. We see them engage in a rescue at the Benjamin Franklin Bridge—while they fail to keep the bridge from collapsing, they do save everyone’s lives.

Later, in the Rock of Eternity—a realm the family can access through any door, and which also has multiple doors leading to various places—Billy does a post-game analysis, which the others are barely interested in. Indeed, the family is bristling under Billy’s almost smothering leadership, and his insistence on the one rule of “all or none,” that they will do everything together.

Billy is also concerned because he’s coming up on eighteen, which means he’ll age out of the foster care program. Mary has already aged out, and she’s been working and paying rent while going to college. Billy thinks that’s silly—Wonder Woman doesn’t work, at least he doesn’t think she does—but Mary insists on helping the Vásquezes out.

A dream Billy has about a date with Wonder Woman is interrupted by the wizard, who has used the splinter of the staff to contact Billy through his dream and warn him about the daughters of Atlas.

At school, Freddy meets a new girl named Anne, and they’re both very taken with each other. Two bullies try to hit on Anne, and Freddy interpolates himself in, despite the risk. The bullies bend his crutch and threaten to toss him into the garbage can before a teacher intervenes. (Said teacher assures Freddy that he took up residence in that garbage can when he attended the school.) Anne is impressed by his bravado, and also queries him about the reference to him by the bullies as “Thundercrack Make-a-Wish.” Freddy explains that a couple superheroes sat at lunch with him a while back, as seen at the end of Shazam! Billy interrupts Freddy having lunch with Anne at that very table to say they need to have a family meeting.

Billy shares the dream with the rest of the family, and Pedro reveals that there’s a library, complete with a sentient pen (whom Pedro has named “Steve”) that knows everything. Eugene is a bit put out that Pedro never mentioned this, since he’s been exploring the various doors and figuring out where they go.

With Steve’s help they do some research, and discover that the staff that Billy broke and tossed away (and subsequently forgot all about until now) was what kept the gods imprisoned by the council of wizards. The wizards were able to confer the power of the gods to others, which is when the family finally learns what “Shazam” is an acronym for.

(The fact that Solomon isn’t a god is not mentioned, though Mary has to correct Billy’s mispronunciation of the Biblical king as “Solo Man.”)

They also discover that there are three daughters of Atlas—and one of them looks just like the girl Freddy was talking to at school.

Freddy has taken Anne—whose full name is Anthea—to the roof of the school, which is a place he goes to think, in lieu of attending the family meeting. Freddy then “calls” his alter-ego on the phone, and then he “appears” and talks up how great Freddy is to Anne.

However, it’s a trap. Kalypso zaps Freddy with the staff, and he reverts to his kid form. The teacher from earlier comes to the roof to see what the commotion is about, and Kalypso makes him walk off the roof to his death.

The rest of the family arrives, but they are unable to save Freddy. Hespera puts a magical dome around the city, which keeps Billy from getting to Freddy. The sisters return to the Realm of the Gods and toss Freddy into the same cell as the wizard.

Darla learns that you can write a letter to the gods using parchment they have in the library, folded into the form of a bird. They send a bird letter to Hespera—which Steve transcribes literally, thus leading to great confusion on Hespera’s part when she reads it—asking for an exchange.

Billy and Hespera meet at an outdoor restaurant, and while the meeting starts cordially, Hespera makes it clear that she will not tolerate her and her family’s powers being stolen by a bunch of children. She and Kalypso fight the family with Kalypso zapping Pedro with the staff, reverting him to kid form as well. However, the family does manage to defeat Hespera and bring her to the Rock of Eternity. The new plan is to exchange Hespera for Freddy—but it turns out that Hespera got captured on purpose, as the seed of the tree of life is in the Rock of Eternity.

With no more use for the wizard or Freddy, the sisters toss them into the pit with Ladon the dragon. However, Anthea rescues them, enabling them to escape.

When Hespera returns with the seed, the sisters argue over its disposition. Hespera and Anthea want to restore the Realm of the Gods, but Kalypso wants to plant the seed on Earth, which will cause tremendous chaos and death. Freddy and the wizard—who are having trouble finding the egress—discover this and try to steal the seed. While Freddy’s attempted stealthy theft is found out, he does manage to touch the staff with his crutch and say “Shazam!” which restores his powers.

The family tries to figure out which door Hespera might have taken when she absconded with the seed. When they go for one door, Eugene says not to bother, it’s just a big maze, and Mary reminds them that the labyrinth is a thing in Greek myth.

Sure enough, that’s the door to the Realm of the Gods. Billy and the rest of the family show up and take the staff and the seed. Kalypso takes the staff back, but the family escapes with the seed. Kalypso frees Ladon. The family run back to the Rock of Eternity and then into the house proper, waking up the Vásquezes to reveal that they’re really the Philadelpha Fiascoes. (Pedro also reveals that he’s gay, which everyone already knew, to Pedro’s surprise.) Ladon destroys the house and goes on a rampage, zapping each of the family in turn save for Billy and Mary. Mary tries to fly off with the seed, but Kalypso zaps her, and she plummets to the Earth. Billy saves her, but now Kalypso has the seed.

Kalypso rides Ladon to Citizens Bank Park and plants the seed, which causes all manner of creatures from myth to appear. Hespera and Anthea are appalled, but Kalypso has Ladon stab Hespera in the heart and then takes Anthea’s powers away.

All kinds of creatures from mythology—minotaurs, cyclopses, etc.—show up on the streets of Philadelphia. The Vásquezes and the now-de-powered family do their best to help. When they ask Steve for help, the pen writes that the monsters are all scared of unicorns, who can be lured with ambrosia. Darla—who loves unicorns—hits on the notion of luring one with Skittles, which works. The unicorn then summons other unicorns, and the family ride the unicorns into battle, goring the creatures right and left.

Billy, meanwhile, comes up with a plan when he realizes that his lightning powers charge up the staff. He’s going to overload the staff, turning it into a bomb; but he needs the dying Hespera’s help. She agrees to compress the dome so it only covers Citizens Bank Park. Billy lures Kalypso and Ladon there, and then he zaps the hell out of the staff, with the final blast coming from the lightning strike that occurs when he says, “Shazam!”

There’s a huge explosion, taking out Kalypso, Ladon, and Billy. The staff is now inert.

They bury Billy in the Realm of the Gods, but then Wonder Woman shows up (Billy had written her a bird letter, also). She is able to re-power the staff and bring Billy back to life.

The family rebuild the house (with a new sign that says, “No Shazamming in the house”). Anthea intends to rebuild the Realm of the Gods, but she wants to spend time on Earth, too, to get to know humanity. She and Freddy are also dating. The wizard also shows up and takes the staff back for safekeeping—he, too, intends to spend some time on Earth.

At some indeterminate future point, Billy is in a remote location zapping bottles for some reason, and John Economos and Emilia Harcourt of Task Force X try to recruit him for the Justice Society. Since that’s not the one with Wonder Woman, Billy isn’t interested. He also thinks that having a Justice Society and a Justice League is unnecessarily confusing…

Finally, Mr. Mind shows up at Doctor Sivana’s cell in the asylum. Sivana is pissed that it’s been two years with no movement on Mr. Mind’s big plan; Mr. Mind points out that he’s a tiny worm and he doesn’t move that fast. But soon!

“There’s only so many minotaurs I can run over with this van”

First of all, let me say that, holy cow, was this movie not filmed in Philadelphia. My wife is from the Philly area, and I’ve been lots of times, and I also go to Atlanta pretty regularly (for Dragon Con, among other reasons), and it’s so incredibly blindingly obvious that they filmed this movie in the latter and not the former.

Anyhow, the biggest problem I had with Shazam! was the disconnect between the character Zachary Levi was playing and the character Asher Angel was playing, which was a problem insofar as they were supposed to be the same person. Angel gave us a nuanced, damaged teenager, while Levi was playing a dim-witted goofball.

It is therefore disappointing—but not at all surprising—that they leaned more heavily on Levi (who is, after all, the star of the show), and relegated Angel’s role to a glorified cameo with screen time that can be numbered in minutes.

The problem is a script that desperately wants to address issues of anxiety over abandonment, but which (a) doesn’t really get into it in anywhere near the depth as the first movie did, and (b) is very much not in the wheelhouse of the persona Levi has created for the protagonist.

Honestly, (a) is the bigger issue here. The first film had a depth of feeling and of character that is wholly missing from this sequel. More to the point, the first film was very much about the power (both positive and negative) of family, where Fury of the Gods just talks about family without really getting into it in any meaningful way.

Worse, the movie is unwilling to commit itself to being the Shazam family film that the climax of the prior film promised. Instead, the movie goes out of its way to marginalize and/or write out the rest of the family in order to make sure that Billy does all the cool stuff. (Freddy does a lot of cool stuff, too, but it’s all almost entirely as teen Freddy, not super-powered Freddy. And I will say that the banter between him and Djimon Honsou’s all-out-of-fucks-to-give wizard is one of the film’s high points.) The worst is in the fight against Hespera where the daughter of Atlas wraps Mary and Darla in electrical wire and they just sit there helpless. For whatever reason, Hespera doesn’t do the same to Billy and Billy gets to save the two girls. Sigh. Worse, we barely see the fightin’ unicorns, which promises to be a crowning moment of awesome, but it only lasts for a second before we cut back to Billy, and then the next time we see them is when Billy has saved the day and all the creatures disappear.

Speaking of Hespera, one of the joys of watching this movie is watching Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu do their Evil Sisters of Evil act. The pair of them are obviously having a grand old time, and they definitely make for excellent bad guys. And I have to admit to laughing my ass off when Mirren solemnly reads the letter from the family, which includes every digression and weird thought and correction transcribed literally.

As a straight-up superhero story, this works, as the plot actually follows nicely from the character’s mythological roots and the events of the previous film. But as a movie about a family of superheroes, it’s far less than it should’ve been.

We’re gonna be taking the rest of the year off for the holidays. We’ll be back on the 3rd of January 2024 with Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. May you all have a safe and fabulous season and a joyous new year!

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s recent work includes short stories in the magazine Star Trek Explorer (issues #8 and 9) and in the anthologies Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, Joe Ledger: Unbreakable, and The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny.

The post “We’re gonna need more Skittles” — Shazam!: Fury of the Gods appeared first on Reactor.

Captain’s star log. After a summary of Part I, we see Archer ordering T’Pol, Tucker, and Reed on the bridge of the Defiant, trying desperately to break free of the docking clamps in the Tholian dock. But once they accomplish that, the Tholians ensnare them in their web, and the Mirror Universe one engages way faster than the last one we saw…

Tucker and T’Pol get weapons back online, at which point Defiant is able to blast its way out of the web. They make a run for it, picking up Enterprise’s escape pods along the way.

Archer tasks Tucker with fixing the warp drive, which they rather desperately need. At T’Pol’s suggestion, Tucker is to employ the slaves the Tholians had on board. Archer also makes it clear to T’Pol that he doesn’t trust her, and is only leaving her alive because he needs her help to get Defiant up and running. T’Pol assures him that she is loyal to him now with Forrest’s death. She also informs him that Forrest had ordered T’Pol to kill Archer while on this away mission.

Because the original away team came over in EVA suits, they all change into uniforms that are available on Defiant. Archer wears the green variant tunic for a captain, while T’Pol, Reed, Tucker, and Mayweather all wear Defiant uniforms as well (T’Pol in blue, the other three all in red). The remaining crew who were rescued from the escape pods stay in their Enterprise uniforms.

Sato comes to Archer in the captain’s quarters. Archer has summoned up the database from the Defiant’s native universe, and he taunts Sato with her counterpart’s history—including who she married and how she dies, which Sato expresses no interest in knowing. Sato in turn calls up Archer’s records, and is amused to see that the mainline Archer is way more successful, having actually gotten to captain the Enterprise. Sato says that the brass will have to give him a command now, and Archer points out that he has a command: Defiant.

Kelby discovers a bit of sabotage, and is then killed by a reptilian creature. After torturing one of the slaves, they discover that Kelby was killed by the slaves’ overseer: a Gorn named Slar.

They track Slar to a Jefferies tube, but the Gorn has laid a trap, which badly injures Reed and a MACO. Archer and another MACO are able to stop the Gorn, mostly by increasing the gravity where Slar is standing so he’s pinned. Archer then repeatedly shoots him.

Recovering the parts that Slar stole, Tucker is able to get the warp drive going, and—against T’Pol’s recommendation, as they are fewer than fifty people trying to crew a ship that’s meant to have a complement of over four hundred—rendezvouses with the assault fleet.

The flagship of said fleet, the I.S.S. Avenger, is under attack by rebels, a fleet of Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites. Defiant shows up and makes short work of the other ships. Archer pointedly destroys the Vulcan ship just to annoy T’Pol and then lets the Andorian ship go so they can tell their rebel friends about the Empire’s shiny new ship.

Admiral Black and his first mate, Soval (who, of course, has a goatée), come over to Defiant. Black is impressed and promises that Archer will get his own command for this. When Archer reminds him that he has a command, Black laughs derisively at his naïveté and says they’ll be taking Defiant back to Earth and tearing it to pieces so they can reverse-engineer it. Nobody will be commanding this ship.

Not liking that idea, and also concerned that Black will take credit for obtaining the Defiant, Archer kills Black. He then makes a rousing speech in Avenger’s shuttle bay making it clear that he’s going to use Defiant to engage in a coup against the emperor.

T’Pol goes to Soval’s quarters to recruit him to her plan to oust Archer and destroy Defiant—but not until she’s downloaded the schematics so the rebels can build a new one. Soval reluctantly agrees.

Archer and Sato’s pillow talk includes her speculating about what it takes to be an emperor’s consort (and Archer saying she doing fine so far) and Archer deciding to expel all the aliens from Defiant (though Sato talks him into keeping Phlox).

T’Pol goes to the bridge to get Defiant’s schematics. Shortly after that, Archer has her put off the ship to Avenger (along, presumably, with other non-Denobulan aliens).

Phlox is later summoned to Avenger for a medical emergency, but it’s a ruse by Soval and T’Pol, who recruit Phlox to their cause. They both claim to be loyal to the Empire, but they don’t want to see Archer in charge. Phlox eventually agrees.

Sato discovers T’Pol’s downloading of the schematics, and beams over to Avenger to take her into custody, which she does after the Obligatory Catfight.

Soval takes over Avenger’s bridge, aided by an Andorian and an Orion. Soval also talks Phlox through Defiant’s sabotage. However, Tucker catches Phlox in the act and stops him, reversing the sabotage, enabling Defiant to destroy Avenger.

Archer continues to Earth, where he informs Admiral Gardner that there’s a new sheriff in town, as it were. Later, Archer and Sato have a post-coital conversation where he tells her to wipe out the database of the other universe, as it’s too tempting a target to the rebels or to someone like T’Pol. Archer then drinks from the glass Sato has handed him, only to belatedly realize that it contains some rather nasty pharmaceuticals. As he loses consciousness, he sees Sato and Mayweather—his trusted bodyguard—kissing.

Sato then goes to the bridge as they enter orbit of Earth, and she announces herself to Gardner as Empress Hoshi Sato and for them to await further instructions.

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Slar steals two parts from Kelby, without which Tucker can’t repair the warp drive.

The gazelle speech. After seeing the service record of the mainline Archer, the captain continues to hallucinate the NX-01 captain, who regularly taunts him and goads him to bolder actions, including killing Black and leading the team to search for Slar himself.

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. Despite her words to Archer that Forrest’s orders are no longer valid, she spends pretty much the entire episode trying to carry them out…

Florida Man. Florida Man Is A Miracle Worker In Any Universe!

Optimism, Captain! Phlox isn’t interested in helping T’Pol and Soval foment rebellion until he realizes he may get rewarded for it by the emperor with many concubines. Wah-HEY!

 No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Archer and Sato spend a good chunk of the episode in bed together, only to discover at the end that she and Mayweather are plotting behind his back. Also during the Obligatory Catfight between T’Pol and Sato, they each make pointed comments about the others’ sexual conquests, Sato about Tucker, T’Pol about Archer.

The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… Like Spock before him and Sarek after him, the MU version of Soval has a goatée. Tradition!

More on this later… T’Pol comments that, while it may take centuries, humans will pay for their arrogance—we already know from DS9’s “Crossover” (and that show’s subsequent MU episodes) that she’s right.

I’ve got faith…

“Perhaps it was a pet owned by the original crew.”

“Unless one of them owned a velociraptor, I find it extremely unlikely.”

–Archer and Phlox speculating about who or what killed Kelby.

Welcome aboard. Recurring regulars Gary Graham and Derek Magyar are back as the MU versions of Soval and Kelby, respectively; both will return as their mainline selves in “Terra Prime.”

John Mahon plays the MU version of Gardner. While the mainline version has been mentioned several times—in passing in “Shadows of P’Jem” and “First Flight,” and then being established as Forrest’s replacement as Commander, Starfleet following the latter’s death in “The Forge”—only his MU counterpart has ever been seen onscreen.

The late great character actor Gregory Itzin plays the last of his five Trek roles as Black, having previously appeared in “Shadows of P’Jem” as a Vulcan captain, twice on DS9 as a Klaestron politician in “Dax” and as a thief in “Who Mourns for Morn?” and on Voyager as a Dinaali doctor in “Critical Care.”

Finally, for the first time on Enterprise, Majel Barrett lent her voice to the Defiant computer, using the same vocal style she did on the original series when she voiced the Enterprise computer. With this appearance, she voiced Starfleet computers on all the Trek TV shows that aired in her lifetime.

Trivial matters: This, obviously, continues from “In a Mirror, Darkly,” and also serves as both a prequel to the original series’ “Mirror, Mirror” and a sequel to the original series’ “The Tholian Web.”

It was during production of this episode that the cast and crew learned that UPN would not be renewing the show for a fifth season.

Part of why the episode was two parts was to amortize the cost of re-creating the Defiant over two episodes’ budgets.

This is the only episode of the show called Enterprise in which no scenes take place on a ship called Enterprise.

Phlox at one point comments that Earth’s literature is different in the mainline universe from what he’s read in the MU, indicating that the MU has been parallel but nastier going back centuries. Writer Mike Sussman has credited a similar conversation in the TNG novel Dark Mirror by Diane Duane, in which the Enterprise-D crew travelled to the MU, as the inspiration for that.

The details of Sato and Archer’s lives in the mainline universe were created for the screen graphic, and parts of them were visible in high-def if you pause and squint. Archer in particular is listed as having gone on to serve as an admiral, as Starfleet’s Chief of Staff, as Earth’s ambassador to Andoria, as a member of the Federation Council, and eventually Federation President.

Sussman had a notion for a fifth-season MU episode, had the show been renewed. He collaborated with Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore for a novel version of it, Age of the Empress, which appeared in the Mirror Universe: Glass Empires trade paperback, and which picked up right from this episode, with Empress Sato consolidating her power. An additional followup story, “Nobunaga” by David Stern, appeared in the Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows anthology.

Because there was still a hope when writing this of a fifth season, Sussman left the final fates of Reed, Phlox, and Archer vague so they might be available for a later episode.

The presence of the Defiant in the MU will be a plot point when the U.S.S. Discovery visits the MU in its first season, which takes place a century after this.

It’s been a long road… “One day, humanity will pay for its arrogance.” Parts of this episode are enjoyable as hell. And parts of it are just awful.

Among the enjoyable parts: Archer manipulating the artificial gravity to stop the Gorn, which is one of those “why don’t they do this more often?” things. Phlox’s discourse on the less brutal nature of Earth literature in the mainline universe is a delight, with the additional amusing comment that Shakespeare is just as dreary in both universes. Sato’s takeover at the end from a gobsmacked Archer is beautifully played, with a scene that director Marvin V. Rush lensed very similarly to the scene in the “Queen of Heaven” episode of I, Claudius when Castor dies of poison and watches his wife Livilla kiss Sejanus (played by Sir Patrick Stewart).

And Gregory Itzin oozes corrupt menace as Black. It’s funny, I remembered his part as being much larger from the times I watched this episode previously (both when it first aired in 2005 and when I was rewatching episodes in preparation for my own MU fiction), but he’s only really in two scenes, which is a pity, as the episode could’ve used more of him.

It certainly could’ve used less of John Mahon’s unsubtle performance as Gardner, which is one of the awful bits. So is the CGI Gorn, which just comes across as fan-service filler, with the added lack-of-bonus of reminding us all of the mediocre state of CGI in 2005. (At the time, CGI was absolutely horrible at conveying mass. It worked for things that were light and airy or ethereal, like Species 8472 on Voyager or the Kaminoans in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, but not for things that needed to convey physically threatening menace. See also the 2003 Hulk movie.)

Also the story ends just as it’s getting good. Sato making her move makes for a fine twist, but it makes for a lousy ending, because it’s by far the most interesting thing that’s happened in the episode, and it begs for a followup. (At least we got one in the Glass Empires trade paperback…) On the one hand, it seems to be a belated apology for how little screen time Sato and Mayweather have gotten by having them be on top in the end. On the other hand, it’s not the real Sato and Mayweather, and it doesn’t happen until the end. So while it’s an attempt to make up for their being marginalized, they wind up still being marginalized…

However, the worst thing about this episode is the same as the worst thing about the last one: Scott Bakula is just horrible as the sneering MU Archer. The script leans into it a little bit, as he’s very obviously batshit and out of his depth here, but even so, it’s just painful to watch him. Bakula comes across like a teenager who’s never been on stage before try to act but not quite getting it right.

The two-parter is a fun diversion, and it’s nifty to see the re-creation of the Constitution-class ships as a nostalgia hit, but it doesn’t really hold together, and, as with the first part, loses a lot on rewatching.

Warp factor rating: 5

This is the final Enterprise Rewatch entry for 2023. We’ll be taking the holidays off, then be back on the 8th of January 2024 with “Demons.” Here’s hoping everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday and a joyous new year.

Keith R.A. DeCandido urges everyone to pick up Star Trek Explorer #9, which has, among other things, Keith’s new Discovery short story “Work Worth Doing,” which explores the backstory of Federation President Laira Rillak. It’s the first Discovery story to appear in the magazine.

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Having already broken his trend of never doing sequels, director Peyton Reed was brought back a second time to do a third film starring Paul Rudd as Scott Lang. Like the second film, it was billed as an Ant-Man & The Wasp film, with Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne, fighting alongside Lang’s Ant-Man as the Wasp. But unlike the last two films, this one wouldn’t be a caper film…

The previous two films established the Quantum Realm, and the QR was also a plot driver for Avengers: Endgame, as the QR was used as a gateway to time travel for the “time-heists” in that film.

Screenwriter Jeff Loveness—who wrote the film during the apocalypse of 2020, with the movie’s filming time delayed by the lockdown—provided a story that took place almost entirely with the QR and which explored what Janet van Dyne did during the three decades she was trapped in the QR (established in Ant-Man) until she was rescued by Scott, Hope, and her husband Henry Pym (which happened in Ant-Man & The Wasp).

That backstory includes a detailed exploration of the world that exists deep in the QR—deeper even than Pym was ever able to explore in the past—and also introduces one of Marvel’s most enduring villains, Kang the Conqueror.

Kang first appeared in 1963’s Fantastic Four #19 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby as Rama-Tut, a conqueror from the future who subjugated ancient Egypt. The identity of Kang was established in 1964’s Avengers #8 by Lee & Kirby, as an older version of Rama-Tut, and later the Avengers foe Immortus, ruler of the Limbo realm outside time and space—who debuted in 1964’s Avengers #10 by Lee & Kirby—was retconned into being an older version of Kang. The character has had other identities, among them the Scarlet Centurion (first seen in 1968’s Avengers Annual #2 by Roy Thomas, Don Heck, & Werner Roth), Iron Lad (2005’s Young Avengers #1 by Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, & John Dell), Kid Immortus (2013’s FF #8 by Matt Fraction & Mike Allred), and Mister Gryphon (2015’s All-New All-Different Avengers #1 by Mark Waid & Adam Kubert).

Along with Ultron, Korvac, and the various incarnations of the Masters of Evil, Kang is one of the Avengers’ primary villains, and his introduction into the MCU was nigh-inevitable, especially once the series started embracing time travel and alternate timelines. The character was first seen in the Loki TV series, where he’s been given some more identities: He Who Remains and Victor Timely.

The expanded QR is very similar to the Microverse, introduced in 1963’s Fantastic Four #16 by Lee & Kirby, which was later home to the Micronauts—a toy tie-in of Marvel’s that was very popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In addition, this movie introduces the villain M.O.D.O.K. to the MCU. Originally the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing when he first appeared in 1967’s Tales of Suspense #94 by Lee & Kirby to fight Captain America as part of Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M., a subdivision of Hydra), M.O.D.O.K. was a person A.I.M. experimented on to make him more intelligent, but it resulted in a freakishly enlarged head and a stunted body, so he needed a hoverchair. For some reason, Loveness decided to meld Darren Cross, the bad guy from Ant-Man who was sent to the QR by Scott Lang in that film, with M.O.D.O.K. (now the Mechanized Organism, etc. etc.).

Back from Endgame are Rudd as Scott, Lilly as Hope, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, and Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet. Back from Loki season one are Jonathan Majors as various versions of Kang, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, and Owen Wilson as Mobius M. Mobius (the latter two in a post-credits scene that later was revealed to be part of the Loki episode “1893”). Back from Ant-Man are Corey Stoll as Cross and Gregg Turkington as Dale the Baskin-Robbins store manager who fired Scott. Back from WandaVision is Randall Park as Agent Jimmy Woo. New to this film are Kathryn Newton as Cassie Lang (the third to play the role after Abby Ryder Fortson in the prior two Ant-Man films and Emma Fuhrman in Endgame), David Dastmalchian as Veb (Dastmalchian appeared in the prior two films as Kurt), Katy O’Brian as Jentorra (a version of the character from the comics who was a member of the Micronauts), William Jackson Harper as Quaz, Bill Murray as Lord Krylar, and musician Mark Oliver Everett as a guy who asks Scott to take a selfie with his dog. Everett is the son of Hugh Everett III, the physicist who originated the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory, which is pretty much the basis of every MCU film since Endgame.

Majors, Hiddleston, and Wilson will next appear in Loki season two. One assumes that at least some of Rudd, Lilly, Pfeiffer, Douglas, and/or Newton will appear in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and/or Avengers: Secret Wars.

“Looking out for the little guy”

Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania
Written by Jeff Loveness
Directed by Peyton Reed
Produced by Kevin Feige, Stephen Broussard
Original release date: February 17, 2023

We open with Scott Lang doing a reading at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco of his best-selling memoir Looking Out for the Little Guy (while “Welcome Back” by John Sebastian plays on the soundtrack). We also see him in his daily life, being stopped by passers-by and being asked to take selfies, and getting free coffee and pastry from a coffee shop owner who thinks he’s Spider-Man. We also learn that Hope van Dyne has taken over her father’s company, now called PymVanDyne, and is using Pym Particles to do good in the world. (We also see Scott and Hope having lunch at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, because they can.)

His reading ends with a phone call from a police precinct. His daughter Cassie has been arrested at a protest of the treatment of homeless people, of which there are many post–Blip. (She also used a Pym Particle widget to shrink a cop car.) Scott is appalled to realize that this isn’t Cassie’s first time being arrested. Scott’s attempt to rebuke her is met with a rather pointed reply that at least Cassie is trying to help people. Since helping save the world from Thanos, all Scott has done is book tours. At least she’s trying to do some good.

It eventually comes out that she’s been doing some science with Hank and Hope’s help, to the surprise of both Scott and Janet. She’s figured out a way—with the help of an army of ants—to create a sort of satellite for the Quantum Realm. She can beam a signal into the QR and then they can properly map it without having to actually go there.

Janet—who has refused to discuss in any detail what she did in the QR for thirty years—grows incredibly apprehensive, and tells Cassie to shut the device off. However, it turns back on by itself and opens up a portal to the QR that sucks all five of them in.

They find themselves deep in the QR, far deeper than Scott, Hank, or Hope have gone during their sojourns to the QR. They’re also separated. Hank, Janet, and Hope find each other, and Scott and Cassie find each other, but the two groups are far apart. Hank keeps hearing weird things in his earpiece. That’ll probably be important later….

Janet uses her knowledge of the area to track down a nomad, who provides them with a mount and with protective clothing to blend in. They go to a bar that you know was described in the script as “just like the Mos Eisley Cantina,” where Janet asks to see Krylar.

Meanwhile Scott and Cassie are captured by a group of refugees, led by a woman named Jentorra, and whose number also includes a goopy being named Veb—if you drink a bit of his oozy body, you can understand any language—and a telepath named Quaz. (Quaz doesn’t like being a telepath, as people are disgusting.) They’re on the run from the conqueror, who removed them from their homes. They travel in ambulatory armed buildings. (Scott is blown away by this and exclaims, “Your buildings are alive?” to which Veb, appalled, replies, “Yours are dead?”)

Upon learning that Scott and Cassie are from the same place as the hated Janet van Dyne, Jentorra wants them gone. She says that the conqueror will burn the world to find them. And just then, some ships arrive with Quantumnauts, robotic foot soldiers, who attack the refugees.

Krylar shows up at the bar—he’s Lord Krylar now, apparently—and it soon becomes clear that he and Janet had a thing going for a while during her exile, and that they fought against the conqueror together. He orders a drink that has a small creature in it, which you’re supposed to both drink and eat (thus killing the creature). To Janet’s horror, Krylar is now working for the conqueror and he’s summoned Quantumnauts to capture them. The trio fight back, with Hank enlarging one of the drinks so that the creature can now eat people instead of the other way around, and one chows down on Krylar.

Hope takes care of the Quantumnauts while Janet and Hank hotwire Krylar’s ship, and they make their escape.

Scott didn’t want to get involved in local politics—Cassie does—but once it becomes clear that they’re in danger, they help the refugees fight. To Scott’s shock, Cassie also has a super-suit, and they help Jentorra, Quaz, Veb, and the rest fight back. However, these Quantumnauts are led by M.O.D.O.K., a genetically modified version of Darren Cross, who was exiled to the QR by Scott two movies ago. Cross is the one who got Cassie’s signal and reflected it back to bring them all here. He’s working for the conqueror, and he captures Scott and Cassie.

Janet finally tells all. Years ago, she saw a one-person ship crash, and she saved the life of the pilot, who is called Kang. They bonded while trying to fix his ship. The ship operates by the power of thought, and once they get it working and Janet touches a component, she sees in her mind what Kang has done, how many universes he’s destroyed, how many worlds he’s conquered. He didn’t crash in the QR by accident, he was exiled here for his crimes.

She takes his ship’s drive and shrinks it down, then, when he catches up to her, makes it incredibly huge, and therefore unusable. However, thanks to her, his suit was fixed, and he is able to conquer the QR. She tried fighting back, but when the opportunity to go home presented itself, she left.

Kang comes to Scott with an offer: steal back his ship’s drive. If he does, he can take them all home and he also will be free. If he doesn’t, he’ll kill Cassie in front of Scott and make him relive that moment over and over again. Scott’s attempt to threaten Kang with being an Avenger and having summoned other Avengers falls on unimpressed ears, as Kang has killed many Avengers in many different timelines. (At one point, he asks if Scott is the one with the hammer. Scott allows as how that’s Thor, and they get mixed up a lot, what with being the same body type, ahem ahem…)

Scott goes to the drive, which requires him to dive deeper (and get smaller), but once he’s at the core, which he needs to shrink, other versions of him start to appear. These are all other possible Scott Langs, all but one of whom are still Ant-Man (the exception still works for Baskin-Robbins). At first, the infinite Langs start to overwhelm him, but they all rally behind him at the notion of saving Cassie’s life.

Hope also arrives and dives into the core, though she’s there to get it away from Kang. She’s able to rescue Scott and together they shrink the engine. Kang then destroys the ship, captures Janet, leaves Scott and Hope in the wastes, and Cassie remains a prisoner. Hank survives the destruction of the ship and is rescued by the ants who were building things for Cassie. They arrived in the QR thousands of years earlier, thanks to the QR’s weird time thingie, so they’ve evolved into major badasses.

Kang restores his ship to its full glory, then gets on a holographic PA to announce that he’s about to go conquering some more places.

Cassie escapes, and frees Jentorra. Together they barge in on Kang’s announcement to rally the troops.

The refugees attack, as do Ant-Man and the Wasp. Cassie and Jentorra also fight, with Cassie getting into it with Cross/M.O.D.O.K. While they’re easily able to take care of the Quantumnauts, Kang himself is another story. At one point, Kang derisively tells them that he’s Kang and “you just talk to ants.”

At which point, Hank and his army of evolved ants show up and kick his ass. They’re aided, not just by the refugees, but also Cross, whom Cassie has convinced to switch sides by telling him not to be a dick. Cross dies in the effort, but he helps save the day.

Janet is able to use Kang’s ship to open a portal back to Earth. Hank, Janet, Hope, and Cassie make it through, but Kang—his suit trashed—stops Scott from going through. Fisticuffs ensue, and Scott does not do well (especially after Kang smashes his helmet), but then Hope comes back through the portal and makes extremely short work of Kang, eventually knocking him into the engine, consuming him, which also wipes out the portal. However, Cassie is able to reopen the portal, because she’s just that awesome, and they go home.

Scott is worried because Kang said that he needs to escape the QR to keep something much worse from happening. Scott is worried that if the bad thing happens, it’ll be all his fault. But then he brushes it off…

In Limbo, three other Kang variants—who look a lot like Immortus, Rama-Tut, and the Scarlet Centurion from the comics—discuss that the exile was killed, and not by one of them, and that “they” are now touching the multiverse, and they need to be stopped.

In 1893, Loki shows Mobius M. Mobius a presentation by Victor Timely, who is a dead ringer for He Who Remains—and of Kang.

“It’s never over”

There was a way for this to be a good film—and parts of it are absolutely fabulous—but overall, it’s a massive disappointment on several different levels.

First, let’s start with the inexplicable folding together of Darren Cross and M.O.D.O.K., which starts with the even more inexplicable decision to do a literal interpretation of M.O.D.O.K. in live action. While big giant heads look really cool in a comic book, it’s pretty much impossible to make them look anything but doofy in live action. This is why the MCU versions of Arnim Zola and the Kree Supreme Intelligence weren’t big giant heads, and they should’ve taken that instinct to M.O.D.O.K.

And Corey Stoll goes from being a mediocre villain to a pathetic villain, and it’s not really an improvement. His presence as it stands adds nothing to the storyline.

The storyline itself is just all wrong for this particular corner of the franchise. Setting up the next big bad is not really in the wheelhouse of the Langs and the Pyms and the van Dynes of the MCU. Kang is too powerful a foe for these guys anyhow, which is why they needed to bring in a deus ex formicidae at the end to defeat him.

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And it wasn’t necessary! The basic notion of Ant-Man and the Wasp (both old and new) going to the Quantum Realm to stop a bad guy there could work. In fact, up until Jonathan Majors started sucking all the air out of the room, that movie was what we got, and it was an interesting and fun one. But the comics are full of bad guys they could’ve used (for example, Psycho Man, though he’d need a better name, or a non-Hasbro-owned version of Baron Karza, like they did for Fu Manchu in Shang-Chi). Hell, they could’ve used the one they had! Darren Cross could’ve been the conqueror, having used his super-science to take over the QR. Then you still have the personal hit, because Scott Lang would’ve been the one to have sent him to the QR in the first place.

But that would’ve required a heroic male character to do something wrong in this movie, and scripter Jeff Loveness doesn’t seem to be interested in that. Every single screwup by a good guy in this movie is committed by either Cassie or Janet. Cassie’s device is what catalyzes the plot, and Janet feels guilty for unleashing Kang (which isn’t really her fault) and then abandoning the QR completely (which kinda is). It’s left to Scott and Hank to save the day and rescue them. It’s not a good look, though I suppose I should be grateful that Janet at least lived to the end of this film, which bucks the appalling trend of recent MCU films of killing off its recurring women.

I didn’t mention Hope in that previous paragraph, and that’s one of this movie’s biggest flaws. While she does get a crowning moment of awesome in the climax, saving Scott from being beaten to death by Kang, it’s one of her few major contributions to the film. Mostly she sits around saying, “Mom!” a lot. For a movie whose primary title is Ant-Man & The Wasp, there’s damn little of the latter character in it.

On top of that, there’s so much missing from this movie: no Luis, or the rest of X-Con Security, and no Maggie. Doing an Ant-Man movie without Michael Peña is a crime against humanity, quite frankly, and Cassie’s mother deserves to be part of the story as well.

Good acting can cover a multitude of sins, and luckily this has plenty of that, at least. The five heroes are all fantastic, from the magnificent father-daughter banter between Paul Rudd and Kathryn Newton to the endless scratchy sarcasm from Michael Douglas, to Michelle Pfeiffer beautifully playing Janet’s free-floating guilt. (Evangeline Lilly creates no impression due to not having enough screen time. See above.) Jonathan Majors is incredibly mannered, but he makes it work, and his Kang is legitimately scary as a bad guy—plus, he also skillfully carries the weight of his knowledge of the (much) bigger picture. The movie also has superb support from three great actors in Katy O’Brian (also magnificent in The Mandalorian, as well as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Black Lightning), William Jackson Harper (who will always be Chidi on The Good Place to me, but who absolutely kills it as the weary telepath), and David Dastmalchian (whose bodily-orifice-obsessed Veb gets some of the best lines). Plus you’ve got Bill Murray at his absolute Bill Murray-est, letter-perfect as the ultra-skeevy Lord Krylar.

Next week, we switch over to a DC-based sequel with Shazam!: Fury of the Gods.

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s most recent work includes short stories in the magazine Star Trek Explorer (issues #8 and 9) and in the anthologies Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, Joe Ledger: Unbreakable, and The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny.

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Captain’s star log. We open in Bozeman, Montana in 2063, the familiar tableau from First Contact of a Vulcan ship landing and making the titular contact with Earth. But then Cochrane whips out a pistol and shoots the Vulcan and the humans board the ship and take it over. Yup, we’re in the Mirror Universe…

We jump to 2155 and see the I.S.S. Enterprise, under the command of Captain Max Forrest, heading to a rendezvous with the assault fleet. Major Malcolm Reed and Doctor Phlox show Forrest and his first officer, Commander Jonathan Archer, their new toy: the agony booth, a much more effective disciplinary tool than what they’ve been using. They’re testing it on a Tellarite crew member, and Reed can’t even recall what it was the Tellarite did to deserve being tortured.

Archer reiterates a request he made to Forrest to go to Tholian space. Archer has received intelligence of a technology in their territory that will give them an edge against the rebels. Forrest refuses, and threatens Archer with the agony booth if he doesn’t shut up about it.

The captain’s woman, Hoshi Sato, joins Forrest in his quarters and distracts him from work. Forrest reveals that the Terran Empire is having trouble putting the rebellion, despite the official reports to the contrary.

On his way to the bridge, Forrest is ambushed, his MACO bodyguard killed, by Reed and Sergeant Travis Mayweather. Archer is taking command, ordering Forrest to be put in the brig, not killed. (Reed wants very much to kill the captain.) Archer insists he has orders from Starfleet to enter Tholian space and retrieve the technology they believe is there. Neither Second Officer T’Pol nor Sato know of any such communiqués, but Archer insists he got it on a private channel. Archer promotes T’Pol to first officer and orders her to pull a Suliban cloaking device out of storage and to help Chief Engineer Tucker install it.

Archer promotes Mayweather to be his personal bodyguard, and also makes it clear that he’s keeping Forrest alive in order to get Sato to cooperate with him, starting with her sending a message to Admiral Gardner.

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Enterprise finds the warp signature Archer is looking for, but they’re also ambushed by a one-person Tholian craft. They exchange weapons fire, and the Tholian tries to self-destruct to avoid capture, which the transporter renders a failure. The Tholian is beamed to the decon chamber, where Phlox indulges in torture. The prisoner eventually reveals that the Terran ship they captured is in the Ventaak system.

Heading there, the cloak is overloaded. Archer looks into it, including asking Forrest if he is responsible. Or maybe Admiral Black’s spy on board did it. Forrest points out that, if Black sent a spy, Forrest wouldn’t have the first clue who it was.

Reed then provides evidence that Tucker was responsible, which leads to Tucker being put in the agony booth for four hours.

T’Pol frees Forrest and he takes the ship back—but Archer anticipated that. Enterprise is locked into a course to the Ventaak system, and no one can change it. Not even Archer, who installed a random code to lock it out. It will take T’Pol weeks to decrypt it.

Forrest puts Archer in the agony booth, but releases him on Admiral Gardner’s orders. The admiral was intrigued by Archer’s data and wants Forrest to continue to pursue it. Archer briefs the senior staff, explaining that the Tholians created an interphasic rift that led to a parallel universe. They lured a ship through with a phony distress call. According to Archer’s intelligence—gained from a slave of the Tholians—the ship was quantum dated and it’s not just from another timeline, but from a hundred years in the future.

Archer is to lead the away team onto the ship. Forrest orders T’Pol to accompany him and make sure he doesn’t make it back alive. Tucker confronts T’Pol about how he suffered in the agony booth for no reason, but T’Pol reveals that she mind-melded with him to mentally force him to sabotage the cloak, and then did another mind-meld so he’d forget. So he really was guilty, even if he doesn’t remember it.

The Tholian prisoner is able to send a distress call biologically, so Phlox is forced to sedate it. But it fights past the sedation, leading Phlox to kill it—but not before it gets a message out.

Sure enough, Enterprise is attacked, but since they’ve arrived at their destination, Forrest has control again. The Tholians, however, make short work of Enterprise.

Meanwhile, Archer and his landing party are on the U.S.S. Defiant, where they find the corpses of the crew who succumbed to the brain-damaging effects of interphase. And then they’re forced to watch as Forrest orders the crew to abandon ship and Enterprise itself blows up.

To be continued…

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently MU Starfleet doesn’t shield as well against delta rays as the mainline universe’s Starfleet, as Tucker is disfigured by multiple exposure to such.

The gazelle speech. The MU Archer is not particularly ambitious, but that may have been an act to get Forrest to trust him. Either way, he shows plenty of ambition and gumption here, and Forrest and T’Pol are both gobsmacked by it.

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol is perfectly happy to use mind-control on Tucker, and also use him for sex, in order to remain loyal to Forrest.

Florida Man. Florida Man Victim Of Mind Control By Alien Seductress!

Optimism, Captain! Phlox helped design the agony booth and made sure to make it a pan-species torture device, and also one that would have long-term efficacy by working on different nerve clusters.

Good boy, Porthos! In the MU, Porthos is a snarly rottweiler.

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Let’s see, we’ve got Sato going from sleeping with Archer to sleeping with Forrest to going back to sleeping with Archer, we’ve got T’Pol using Tucker to help her through pon farr, and we’ve got the sexualized women’s Starfleet uniforms from the original series’ “Mirror, Mirror.”

The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… After Zefram Cochrane’s successful warp flight, Vulcan made first contact, as they did in the mainline universe, but this time Terrans kill the Vulcan pilot and take over his ship.

Also T’Pol declares that the Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that there are no parallel universes, because of course they have.

More on this later… This episode tells the other side of the story of the original series’ “The Tholian Web,” establishing that the Defiant was lured by a distress call into the interphasic rift, which was caused by the MU’s Tholians doing crazy-ass experiments.

In addition, we learn that the agony booth that was used on the I.S.S. Enterprise in “Mirror, Mirror” was invented by Phlox and Reed.

I’ve got faith…

“They call this ‘progress’.”

“There’s something to be said for a good old-fashioned flogging.”

–Archer and Forrest discussing the agony booth.

Welcome aboard. Vaughn Armstrong returns for what is his final Trek appearance to date as the MU Forrest, while Franc Ross plays the big bearded guy who leads the charge against the Vulcan ship in the teaser. James Cromwell and Cully Fredrickson appear via archive footage from First Contact as Zefram Cochrane and the Vulcan captain, respectively, though stuntman Steve Blalock plays the Vulcan captain when he gets shot.

Trivial matters: This is the first of two parts, to be continued next week. It’s also the seventh episode to involve the MU, following the original series’ “Mirror, Mirror,” which introduced the concept, and the DS9 epsiodes “Crossover,” “Through the Looking Glass,” “Shattered Mirror,” “Resurrection,” and “The Emperor’s New Cloak.” It’ll be seen again when the U.S.S. Discovery winds up in the MU at the end of “Into the Forest I Go,” and stays there through “Despite Yourself,” “The Wolf Inside,” “Vaulting Ambition,” and “What’s Past is Prologue,” with a version of it also showing up in the “Terra Firma” two-parter.

This is the first episode to take place entirely in the MU, a distinction it and Part 2 will retain until Discovery’s “Despite Yourself.” This two-parter is the only MU story to date that has no characters from the mainline universe in it. (Well, no living ones, since technically the corpses they find on Defiant are from the mainline universe, but you know what I mean…)

The MU has appeared in tons of tie-in fiction: see the Trivial Matters sections for both “Mirror, Mirror” and “Crossover” for a detailed listing.

The teaser mixes footage from First Contact with new material.

The opening credits are redone, with different music (thank goodness) and visuals that emphasize Earth’s history of warfare. Archival historical footage was used, as well as bits from the 1980s TV series Call to Glory, the 1927 film Wings, the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October, the 2000 film U-571, and the 2005 film The Jacket, as well as battle scenes from Enterprise and Voyager.

In addition to being a prequel to “Mirror, Mirror” and the other MU episodes, this serves as a sequel to the original series’ “The Tholian Web.” The two crew members on the bridge are an attempt to re-create the two corpses on the bridge in that 1968 episode, though it’s not quite accurate. For one thing, the Defiant crew have a different logo on their uniform, even though they had the same delta as Enterprise crew in the original series episode. (The notion of different ships with different insignia was only seen in the second season. In seasons one and three, everyone had the same insignia on their uniforms.)

This is the first full appearance of a Tholian, after only seeing the head of one in “The Tholian Web,” and not seeing a specific (only their ship) in “Future Tense.” Amusingly, the original conception of “Future Tense” was for the Defiant to be the ship they found.

It’s been a long road… “Will you kindly die?” I find myself less enthusiastic about this two-parter than I was when I first watched it when it debuted in 2005, or when I watched it again a couple years later when I was gearing up to write my own fiction in the MU. I think at least part of it is that I’m well and truly sick of the MU at this point. DS9’s forays into the MU were a case of diminishing returns prior to this, ditto Discovery’s subsequent to this.

But I think the biggie is that the MU doesn’t really bear rewatching. On first watch, you get the novelty of seeing familiar characters in new roles, but once you know that’s coming that novelty has worn off. While dramatic fiction about horrible people can work—shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and The Shield, e.g.—they work because the characters have depth and complexity.

MU Trek characters have no depth to speak of. That’s part of the point, as mentioned by Spock in the very first MU episode in 1967 with his line about how civilized folk can pretend to be barbarians more easily than the other way ’round.

Having said that, “In a Mirror, Darkly” does have more than a few redeeming features, the two biggest being at the episode’s commencement. The reworking of the denouement of First Contact is a masterpiece, and I can’t say enough wonderful things about the opening credits. I mean, anything that gets that fucking song out of there is automatically an improvement, and the choices in visuals are inspired, showing us the much more warlike Earth of this timeline.

It’s great to see Vaughn Armstrong back, and I like that he’s very similar to the mainline Forrest in terms of temperament, but he’s still a cruel bastard, as is fitting for a Terran Empire shipmaster. Connor Trinneer beautifully plays the beaten-down engineer, Jolene Blalock and Linda Park nicely dig their teeth into the more manipulative characters they’re playing (and Blalock looks so much better with the long hair), and John Billingsley and Dominic Keating are effectively nasty as the sadistic versions of Phlox and Reed.

The weak link here is Scott Bakula, and this will come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed Bakula’s career, because even at his best, he’s always been horrible at playing angry mean people. Probably the worst acting in his career prior to 2001 was in the Quantum Leap two-part Lee Harvey Oswald episode, where Oswald’s personality was bleeding into Sam Beckett’s, and Bakula was just dreadful. (That storyline had plenty of other problems too, as it was less a story than an excuse for producer Donald P. Bellisario to give a middle finger to JFK assassination conspiracy theories in general and Oliver Stone’s JFK movie in particular.)

And he’s just awful here, looking less like a conniving MU Starfleet officer and more like a teenager who just got cut from the football team. The only moment that works is his fuck-you to the just-freed Forrest when the latter finds out that Archer locked Enterprise on course. His “The bridge is yours” to Forrest is his best (and arguably only good) moment in the episode.

Warp factor rating: 6

Keith R.A. DeCandido urges everyone to pick up Star Trek Explorer #9, which has, among other things, Keith’s new Discovery short story “Work Worth Doing,” which explores the backstory of Federation President Laira Rillak. It’s the first Discovery story to appear in the magazine.

The post Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: “In a Mirror, Darkly” (Part I) appeared first on Reactor.

The 2013 adaptation of Peter Lenkov, Lucas Marangon, & Randy Emberlin’s 2001 comic book R.I.P.D. tanked like a big giant tanking thing, despite having an impressive cast (Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Mary Louise Parker). However, in 2011, while the movie was being filmed, Dark Horse Comics put out a second R.I.P.D. miniseries, Rise of the Damned by Jeremy Barlow & Tony Parker, that was an extended flashback to Roy Pulsipher’s first mission for the Rest In Peace Department in the nineteenth century.

For reasons passing understanding, a loose adaptation of that miniseries was released as a direct-to-home-video film in 2022.

Ironically, the 2011 comic book this film is based on redrew Pulsipher and his modern-day partner Nick to look like Bridges and Reynolds, respectively, and also altered the world-building to include elements of the movie, like the R.I.P.D. officers looking like other people when on Earth (which was not part of the original comic book).

But this adaptation, which was released eleven years later, didn’t include any of the cast members from the original film (from the looks of the production, they didn’t have the budget to afford any of them). Jeffrey Donovan replaces Bridges as Pulsipher, while Kerry Knuppe replaces Parker as the Proctor of the R.I.P.D. The rest of the cast includes Australian actor Penelope Mitchell putting on a comedy French accent as Jeanne d’Arc (replacing a male Puritan named Crispin Mather in the comic), Jake Choi as Slim, Richard Brake as Otis and the demon possessing him, and Rachel Adedeji and Evlyne Oyedokun as the avatars of Pulsipher and Jeanne, respectively.

The movie was released with very little fanfare on home video. Your humble rewatcher only found out about it by accident when his wife stumbled across it while looking for something to watch on Netflix.

“Message Royceph-ed!”

R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned
Written by Andrew Klein and Paul Leyden
Directed by Paul Leyden
Produced by Ogden Gavanski
Original release date: November 15, 2022

A man named Otis Clairborne is in a tapped-out gold mine in 1876, which he’s sure still has some gold in it. His pickaxe gets through the ground and exposes a portal to hell, which leads to Otis being possessed.

Marshal Roycephus Pulsipher is welcoming his daughter Charlotte home on a train, and less welcoming of her fiancé Angus. Pulsipher’s arguing with Charlotte over her taste in men is interrupted by the Samuels boys—who are on wanted posters all around the area—attacking the train. During the attack, Pulsipher shoots one of the Sameuls boys in the head, but is then shot and killed himself.

He winds up at the Rest In Peace Department, where he is deputized and signs a contract to become an enforcer for the R.I.P.D. to send deados back to hell. He is partnered with a French swordswoman who is very obviously Jeanne d’Arc (a.k.a. Joan of Arc). Both Pulsipher and Jeanne declare that they don’t want a partner—Jeanne specifically says she doesn’t need a fourth, as she already has the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as eternal companions.

People are being kidnapped, and one of the victims is Angus. While Pulsipher doesn’t think much of Angus, he does make Charlotte happy, so he wants to rescue him. Jeanne, however, wants to stick to the mission and find out what’s happening in the mine. Pulsipher is also confused by the fact that their intelligence is that three of the four Samuels brothers were captured, because there should only be three Samuels boys left after Pulsipher shot one in the head.

Pulsipher is also nonplussed to learn that people on Earth see him and Jeanne as two Black women, and also that if he tries to speak to a loved one, all they’ll hear is gibberish. (This is tested when Pulsipher’s childhood friend arrives at his grave.)

Against Jeanne’s urging, Pulsipher goes after the stage that’s bringing the three captured Samuels boys to court. Jeanne reluctantly goes along, and they’re both shocked to see the one that Pulsipher shot in the head still alive and kicking. And the brothers have the ouroborous brand on their chest that indicates that they’re deados.

They send two of the Samuels boys back to hell, but the adopted brother, Slim, who is Asian, is kept alive for questioning. He says he doesn’t know what they’re doing up in the mine, but they’re all kidnapping people for some guy named Otis who wants bodies for more deados to possess. Otis also apparently has a gun like the one the R.I.P.D. officers are issued, which shocks Jeanne, as those things don’t generally get out.

Dragging Slim along behind them, Pulsipher and Jeanne ride to the town near the mine only to find it nearly deserted. En route, Slim is spectacularly annoying, and Pulsipher shoots him with his regular gun (which has no permanent effect on deados, but it does hurt). However, he does it so much that Slim gets used to it, and it loses its efficacy, so he just keeps being spectacularly annoying.

They get a room at a hotel, somehow convincing the manager to rent to them despite the “NO COLOREDS ALLOWED” sign, which Pulsipher rips down and demands that the manger burn—to which he acquiesces for no reason that the script bothers to provide.

The hotel’s maid talks about how people keep disappearing, and also there’s some weird gas or something coming from the mine. Pulsipher and Jeanne are ambushed by the remaining Samuels boys and are brought to the mine. They’re put in a cell with Angus, who is wearing a mask, as are most of the people who’ve been kidnapped, who are digging to make the hole Otis made at the top of the film bigger.

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Otis has an R.I.P.D. officer working for him, which explains where he got the gun. She reveals that Jeanne is Joan of Arc, which is presented as if it’s supposed to be some sort of surprise revelation. At one point, Pulsipher tries to query Angus about what he thinks of his fiancée’s now-deceased father, and for some reason, Angus tells this Black woman he’s never met about how much he respects Pulsipher.

Slim—who has been insisting all along that he’s not as bad as other deados, and he’s only been going along with his adoptive brothers because he didn’t have a choice—springs Jeanne and Pulsipher.

Jeanne has a small vial that contains the tears of Christ, which is the only thing that can seal the hole Otis is digging and send the souls back to hell. But it’s awash in hellfire, and Jeanne has a deep aversion to fire, as she still remembers every moment of being burned at the stake. So she gives Pulsipher the vial. Pulsipher inexplicably decides that Jeanne getting over her fear of fire is more important than saving the world, and leaves the vial with her and then goes to face Otis on his own.

The portal to hell opens up for realsies. The human victims all keep their eyes shut, as deados can only possess you if you’re looking at them. Somehow, they run out of the mine with their eyes shut without once tripping over anything or bumping into anything.

Pulsipher gets his ass kicked by Otis, who is not affected by R.I.P.D. weaponry like the other deados. Jeanne gets over her fear and dumps most of the tears of Christ into the fire, which closes the portal and sucks away all the deados. But Otis remains. It turns out that he’s not just any demon or lost soul, he’s Astaroth, Satan’s right hand. He beats the crap out of both Pulsipher and Jeanne, but Pulsipher hits on the idea of replacing the holy water in the rounds shot by his R.I.P.D. gun with the remaining tears of Christ. That sends Astaroth back to hell.

There’s a final bit of business with the mayor of the town, who apparently is the one who really killed Pulsipher, and then framed Slim for it. Then they attend the wedding between Charlotte and Angus, and once it’s done, all Pulsipher’s words are gibberish to Angus as well as Charlotte, because his soul now views Angus as a loved one.

Pulsipher talks about how he’s done with this whole being an R.I.P.D. officer thing, at which point Jeanne tells him he should’ve read the contract he signed, as he’s committed to R.I.P.D. for a hundred years.

“If I start quoting the Bible, Butterfield will die of old age”

There are movies out there that are entertaining even if they’re terrible, kind of a so-bad-it’s-good thing. Or maybe it’s such a train wreck that it’s fun to pick apart the ludicrousness.

We’re not so lucky with this totally inexplicable sequel that is somehow worse than 2013’s R.I.P.D. It feels like it was written by someone whose entire knowledge of Westerns comes from seeing stills from Sergio Leone films and having watched Silverado as a kid, but not really remembering it all that well. (The climax also feels like it was written by someone who thought it would be cool to combine the climaxes of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.) It feels like it was directed by someone who never got the memo that people can move while they’re being filmed, as this is one of the most un-kinetic movies I’ve ever seen. And apparently it had a budget that would make Roger Corman say, “Hey maybe we could spend a few more bucks.”

Jeffrey Donovan is a good actor, mostly, but watching him here is painful, as he only occasionally remembers that he’s playing a character who’s supposed to age into Jeff Bridges (though dead people don’t age, but whatever). Richard Brake has a fantastic voice, but it’s doing all the work, as he has no real presence to go with it. (He also is responsible for one of the more unintentionally funny things in the film, as at one point he’s chuckling mildly, and the captioning reads “[maniacal laughter].” Brake doesn’t have “maniacal laughter” in his toolbox, alas.)

The movie tries to sell us a good-parts version of the Old West. The only sop to racism is Pulsipher once saying that it might be difficult for them to get information when they’re disguised as Black women and the hotel that doesn’t allow Black people (and in 1876, that sign wouldn’t have had as nice a word as “coloreds” on it). Also nobody smokes or drinks. I mean, okay, stark realism isn’t something you expect from a movie about dead souls escaping hell to possess the living, but still…

Worse is that it takes what was actually an entertaining (if underwritten) comic book and removes just about everything interesting in it. The only improvement is replacing the Puritan Crispin Mather with the devout Jeanne d’Arc, but not nearly enough is done with that, either. (Also Jeanne wouldn’t have had long hair.) But the comic book it adapts had the big-ass demon (called Lucifage rather than Astaroth) actually not be the real bad guy—instead it was a dead soul who had his sights set on killing God. And there was a nice twist at the end which would’ve been a much cooler ending than a weak-kneed bit of closure for Pulsipher with the person who killed him and a boring wedding between Pulsipher’s charisma-free daughter and the nonentity she loves.

Next week, we dive into 2023 with the launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 5: Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.

Keith R.A. DeCandido has a Weird Western story coming out in December: “The Legend of Long-Ears,” a team-up between Bass Reeves and Calamity Jane that will be in The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny: Tales of a Very Weird West, edited by Jonathan Maberry, which can be ordered from Outland Entertainment.

The post Because Nobody Demanded It… — R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned appeared first on Reactor.

Captain’s star log. While en route to Berengaria to scout locations for a starbase, an Orion pirate ship intercepts them. The pirate captain, Harrad-Sar, wishes to discuss business with Archer on his ship. Archer, Reed, and two MACOs beam over (Reed expressing great apprehension).

Harrad-Sar does pleasure before business, giving them fancy food and drink, and then introducing the entertainment: three scantily clad Orion women—Navaar, D’Nesh, and Maras—who dance seductively and who have a very specific effect on Archer, Reed, and the two (male) MACOs.

Then he proposes his business plan: they’ve discovered a world that has magnesite. But he doesn’t have the infrastructure to exploit it. He’s willing to give this world to Earth in exchange for ten percent of the profits from a mining operation. Archer is willing to give it a look. Harrad-Sar also gives him a gift: the three women.

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Reed shows the trio to their quarters, with the women constantly speaking in double entendres, and Reed sweating a lot and thumphering around nervously. The women’s presence is disruptive to say the least. The human men start acting out in aggressive and territorial (and testosterone-laden) ways. The human women are all getting headaches. Meanwhile, T’Pol is unaffected and Phlox’s sleep cycle is being disrupted.

D’Nesh focuses on Kelby as the object of her attention, and Kelby starts acting like a complete asshole—aided by his resentment over Tucker still being on board instead of back on Columbia where he belongs. Navaar, meanwhile, goes after Archer, going so far as to kiss him before he’s summoned to the bridge.

They arrive at the planet, which is defended by a wussy science ship whose weapons don’t even affect Enterprise. Archer is ready to destroy the ship, but Reed refuses the order to fire, as it will destroy them. The ship then moves off, ending the argument.

D’Nesh and Kelby engage in pillow talk during which the former convinces the latter to do anything for her. He then engages in sabotage, until Tucker discovers it and stops Kelby by beating him up.

Phlox has determined the cause of the problems: the women are emitting pheremones. They give men an adrenaline surge and give women headaches (to eliminate competition). T’Pol is unaffected—but so is Tucker. Turns out that the mental link they share after having sex (which is why they’ve appeared in each other’s daydreams) also has given Tucker an immunity to pheremones. (How a telepathic connection blocks a biochemical reaction is left as an exercise for the viewer.)

The women are imprisoned in the decon chamber for everyone’s protection, and a search of their quarters turns up a communications device, with which they’ve been talking to Harrad-Sar. Navaar nearly gets Archer to release them, but T’Pol drags him back to his senses.

Harrad-Sar shows up and contacts them, revealing that there’s a bounty on Archer’s head, and this mission’s objective was to gain it. The Orions easily disable Enterprise, which is still in bad shape from Kelby’s sabotage, and Harrad-Sar starts to tow it. He also reveals that he’s the slave, and Navaar, D’Nesh, and Maras are the ones really in charge.

The three women got their guards to open up the door to the decon chamber, and they come to the bridge and use their super-duper pheremones to get Archer to give her command—and also put T’Pol in the brig. Tucker then shows up and shoots Archer, Reed, and Mayweather. Then he enacts his and T’Pol’s plan (which Archer had approved before he got his brain all mushed by pheremones) to lose the Orions’ tow. This works. The women are sent back to the ship.

Tucker pretends to be heading back to Columbia until he manipulates T’Pol into admitting that she wants him to stay, even going so far as to kiss him. Only then does Tucker reveal that he put in a request to transfer back to Enterprise three days earlier. (Why Hernandez accepted the request is left as an exercise for the viewer. As is why T’Pol didn’t then sock him in the jaw for being a manipulative ass.)

The gazelle speech. Archer justifies to Reed his initial willingness to beam over and talk to Harrad-Sar by saying, rather sadly, “Anything to have one less hostile species out there.”

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol makes a couple of sardonic jokes in sickbay, prompting Archer to comment that she’s picking up Tucker’s bad habits.

Florida Man. Florida Man Assaults Replacement.

Optimism, Captain! Phlox has to mainline stimulants to keep from falling asleep at the hands of Orion pheremones.

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. I mean, where to start? The three Orion women turn all the human men (except for Tucker) into drooling idiots or posturing morons, or both. Plus T’Pol and Tucker finally decide to become a real couple after dancing around it for several years, and making us endure simply endless “Vulcan neuro-pressure” softcore porn scenes in season three…

More on this later… Berengaria VII was established in the original series’ “This Side of Paradise,” where Spock mentioned seeing a dragon on that world.

I’ve got faith…

“What are you trying to do?”

“Get them out of my head. The pain helps—you should try it.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“When I was on my parents’ ship, we picked up some Deltans once. Their ship was having engine trouble.”

“I don’t know that species.”

“The females are unbelievably attractive. Very open about… I was fifteen—I couldn’t think straight, could barely breathe. Only thing that got me through it was weight training with my dad. He said if I was exhausted—idle hands and all that.”

“Well, did it help?”

“Helped my biceps…”

–Reed and Mayweather in the gym discussing the Orion women.

Welcome aboard. Two recurring regulars from DS9 return for this one: William Lucking (who played Furel in “Shakaar,” “The Darkness and the Light,” and “Ties of Blood and Water”) plays Haraad-Sar, while Cyia Batten (who was the first of three actors who played Tora Ziyal, in “Indiscretion” and “Return to Grace,” and who also played Irina in Voyager’s “Drive”) plays Navaar. The other two Orion women are played by Crystal Allen and Menina Fortunato. In addition, recurring regular Derek Magyar is back as Kelby; we’ll next see him playing Kelby’s Mirror Universe counterpart in “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II.”

Trivial matters: Tucker and T’Pol had sex in “Harbinger.” Tucker transferred to Columbia between “The Aenar” and “Affliction,” but returned to Enterprise for reasons of plot in “Divergence,” and stuck around for more reasons of plot. Enterprise encountered an Orion slave auction, almost losing nine crew to slavery, in “Borderland.”

This episode establishes that—contrary to the implications of the original series’ “The Cage,” with Boyce’s mention of “green animal women,” as well as the entirely male Orion crews seen in the animated series’ “The Pirates of Orion,” not to mention the slave auction in “Borderland”—Orion society is female-dominated.

Mayweather discusses Deltans, who were seen in The Motion Picture in the person of Ilia, and who also exude sexual pheremones that adversely affect humans. This is the first time since that 1979 movie that Deltans—who are the most Gene Roddenberry creation ever—have been mentioned. They will appear again in Picard’s “The Star Gazer.”

Harrad-Sar mentions the Gorn, who were established in the original series’ “Arena,” and who will be seen two weeks hence in the Mirror Universe in “In a Mirror Darkly, Part II,” and have been seen throughout Strange New Worlds.

While Berengaria VII still hasn’t been actually visited onscreen, it has shown up in several works of tie-in fiction, most notably in the Romulan War novel Beneath the Raptor’s Wing by Michael A. Martin, in which—as indicated by this episode—it becamse the site of a starbase. The character of Elias Vaughn, who appeared in numerous novels, including many of the post-finale DS9 stories as the first officer of Deep Space 9 under Kira Nerys, was established as being born on Berengaria.

The female-dominated Orion society has been seen in more depth on Lower Decks in the twenty-fourth century and Discovery in the thirty-second.

It’s been a long road… “The Syndicate wants your head, Captain.” This storyline was hoary and stupid in 1966 when it was called “Mudd’s Women,” and it’s pretty much inexcusable in 2005 and nigh-unwatchable in 2023.

One of my biggest problems with Enterprise when it aired was that, watching it, I felt like it was being written as if the previous thirty years of television didn’t exist. This episode exemplifies that belief. I suspect that writer Manny Coto was going for some kind of retro thing, penning a script that felt like an episode of the original series. But there’s a thin line between retro and dated, and “Bound” trips over that line and falls flat on its face.

Watching this putrid episode is just a chore and a half, from the squirmy sweaty Archer and Reed trying hard not to drool over Cyia Batten, Crystal Allen, and Menina Fortunato slinking around while painted green to watching Kelby and Archer act like total idiots to everyone sitting around sickbay and having a hearty laugh at how the Vulcan is acting more human despite her protests. And yes, that was a trope of the original series, but it was also a general trope of television at the time, and it’s aged really badly. It’s particularly ridiculous in this episode in which the Enterprise crew have committed some appalling acts, from Kelby’s sabotage to Tucker beating the shit out of Kelby to Archer nearly blowing up a ship that was not a threat to Tucker shooting half the bridge crew. And yes, there were pheremones involved, but after all that, there really should be an inquiry and investigation, not a bunch of people sitting around sickbay giggling at T’Pol making a funny.

And then we have Tucker lying to T’Pol in order to manipulate her into saying out loud that she has the hots for Tucker and wants him to stay, and only then admitting that he put in for the transfer three days earlier. That should be enough for T’Pol to change her mind about wanting him to stay right there…

The closest this episode comes to a vague attempt at the possibility of a something remotely resembling a redeeming feature is the revelation that the women are the true power and the men are slaves. Orion women just pretend to be slaves. Mind you, the episode isn’t at all interested in exploring what this means, it’s just in it for the gotcha moment, the Big! Amazing! Twist! You! Didn’t! See! Coming! without any consideration given to whether or not the twist actually makes sense.

More than that, though is that this revelation a) makes no sense for Harrad-Sar to reveal to Archer in the least, and b) changes absolutely nothing about the episode. If Harrad-Sar was the one in charge and the women really were slaves, not a single element of the plot would alter even a little bit.

It’s a total waste of William Lucking; it’s not entirely a waste of Batten, Allen, and Fortunato as, at the very least, they’re fun to look at if you’re sexually attracted to women. But this episode is a pathetic embarrassment that just makes it clear that this show deserved to be cancelled.

Warp factor rating: 0

Keith R.A. DeCandido urges everyone to pick up Star Trek Explorer #9, which has, among other things, Keith’s new Discovery short story “Work Worth Doing,” which explores the backstory of Federation President Laira Rillak. It’s the first Discovery story to appear in the magazine.

The post Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: “Bound” appeared first on Reactor.

Captain’s star log. After getting the highlights from “Affliction,” we learn that Columbia is going to rendezvous with going-zoom-fast Enterprise because Tucker needs to be on board to fix the engines. (Why Tucker can’t just relay instructions over comm lines is left as an exercise for the viewer.) Archer springs Reed from the brig to supervise the physical transfer of Tucker from Columbia to Enterprise on a tether while both are at warp five-plus.

They manage it, though the tether is lost, and Tucker is rather shocked when MACOs escort Reed to the brig when it’s done. Tucker does a hard reboot of the engines, which will only work if Columbia wraps its warp field around Enterprise so they can stay at ludicrous speed.

Tucker pulls it off, because he’s just that awesome. Archer asks Columbia to stick around.

On Qu’vat, Antaak visits Phlox in his cell, where he’s been beaten. Antaak has discovered a weakness in the virus that may enable them to cure it. Phlox points out that K’Vagh won’t let them work on a cure, he just wants Klingon Augments. Antaak replies that they don’t have to tell him what they’re doing…

Columbia joins Enterprise on the search for Phlox. Archer—who has gone through Reed’s correspondences—asks about this Harris guy he’s been talking to. He was with Starfleet Security up until a few years ago, but now he’s off the grid. Reed is unable to speak further on the subject beyond the fact that he worked for Harris once.

Tucker agrees to help Kelby with repairs. He and T’Pol lie to each other when they ask if the other is sleeping okay.

On Qu’vat, Antaak and Phlox discuss family, with the former revealing that he was disowned when he chose to become a physician. The Bird-of-Prey returns, with Laneth reporting that Enterprise was destroyed and that K’Vagh’s son Marab was captured by the humans and therefore died without honor. (This, boys and girls, is why you always stick around to make sure there’s a body. Or blown-up ship.)

Phlox claims to K’Vagh that he’s found the “off switch” that will deactivate the virus and make Augments. K’Vagh then reports that to General Krell, who says that the project has been shut down. Krell’s fleet will arrive in three days, and K’Vagh has until then to prove that he has valuable research that’s worth sparing the plague-ridden colony.

K’Vagh reveals that his son, Laneth, and the others who sabotaged Enterprise were volunteers on whom the Augment treatments were tried after they ran out of prisoners to experiment on. Those volunteers are now getting sicker, and Laneth complains of how she felt fear when she was on Enterprise. She worries that even with the enhanced strength and intelligence, if they survive, they’ll be outcasts because of how they look and act.

Phlox is able to narrow it down to four possible treatments. In the lab, he’d need a week to determine which was the cure. Since they don’t have that kind of time, they have to test them on Antaak, K’Vagh, and two of K’Vagh’s warriors.

Harris contacts Archer, insisting that Phlox is on an important mission, which Archer calls bullshit on, as you don’t assault and kidnap someone to send them on a mission. Harris refers to “the Charter, Article 14, Section 31,” ahem ahem, and that what Phlox is doing is necessary for the stability of the quadrant. Archer continues to call bullshit. Archer then goes to Reed, showing him the medical scans that show that Marab has been experimented on. Reed admits that he was ordered to delay Enterprise from finding Phlox because he was needed to find a cure. He doesn’t know where they might be taken, but Reed does know that Starfleet Intelligence has reports of a medical research facility on Qu’vat. Archer restores Reed to duty, and they head to Qu’vat, Columbia hanging back in reserve.

Harris then contacts Krell, with a report that the Klingon saboteurs failed to stop Enterprise. Krell tells Harris to just order them home, but he doesn’t have that authority, so Krell intends to destroy them. Harris poutily says that wasn’t the arrangement and Krell laughs in his face for being so naïve.

On Qu’vat, K’Vagh is the one who has the cure. Antaak is philosophical about dying from a plague that’s pretty much his fault, but Phlox thinks he’ll be able to synthesize a cure in time to save him (and, presumably, the two guards).

Enterprise arrives at Qu’vat, with Archer and Marab beaming down. K’Vagh is surprised first that Enterprise is intact and his son is alive, and also that Phlox was working on a cure, not perfecting the Augment genome. Archer wants to take Phlox back, but the doctor is very close to perfecting the cure, and he just needs more time.

That time is in short supply, as Krell’s fleet has arrived. Enterprise and Columbia engage the fleet, and while the firefight is going on in orbit, Phlox uses Archer to speed up the process, as he needs human antibodies to finish the cure, and it would go faster by injecting Archer with it. Archer makes all kinds of silly faces (and also gets some minor cranial ridges) and then Phlox has a cure. He then beams a canister with the virus onto Krell’s flagship, and tells the general that, if he destroys the colony, he and his entire crew will die of the virus.

Krell reluctantly stands down. The cure for the virus has one rather major side effect: loss of cranial ridges. Antaak grumps that his own targ won’t recognize him now, and now millions of Klingons who contracted the Augment-enhanced Levodian flu will be human-looking. And it will be inherited, so they’ll pass it on to their children.

Tucker says he’ll remain on board for a bit to help Kelby with repairs. Archer thanks Hernandez for the help, with the latter wondering how Archer survived without her all these years. Archer also still has vestigial cranial ridges, and a craving for gagh, which Phlox insists will pass.

Harris contacts Reed to say that everything came out more or less okay. Reed says he quits and never to contact him again. Harris all but laughs in his face.

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Tucker does a good old-fashioned hard reboot and reset to factory settings to get rid of the virus. Why he needs to come over to the ship himself and do this simple thing that tech support always tells you to do is (once again) left as an exercise for the viewer.

The gazelle speech. Archer gets to squirm in a chair and make funny face and get minor cranial ridges.

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol is in charge during the firefight in orbit, and is a nice calm presence, teaming up with Hernandez to kick all the butt.

Florida Man. Florida Man Does Crazy-Ass Space Walk.

Optimism, Captain! Phlox absolutely owns this episode, taking charge of the entire situation once he’s on the road to a cure, manipulating K’Vagh and Krell both with verve and aplomb.

Good boy, Porthos! Porthos is down in the dumps because Phlox is missing, though Archer suspect that he more misses the fact that Phlox sometimes sneaks him cheese from a stash in sickbay.

Qapla’! General Krell collaborated with Harris and Section 31 for his own reasons. Harris was stupid enough to let him.

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Neither Tucker nor T’Pol are willing to admit that they’re getting into each other’s dreams. It’s really kind of silly.

More on this later… We officially have an explanation for why the Klingons we saw on the original and animated series looked so different from the Klingons after that. And the seeds for an explanation of why we’ve seen none since then (and why the three we’ve seen in both modes, Kor, Kang, and Koloth, are like that) are sown as well, though that has not been explicated on screen. (See Trivial Matters below.)

I’ve got faith…

“I need a little more time to cure this plague!”

“Cure? You were supposed to perfect the Augment genome!”

“I lied.”

–Phlox saying “Bazinga!” to K’Vagh.

 Welcome aboard. Back from “Affliction” are Ada Maris as Hernandez, James Avery as K’Vagh, John Schuck as Antaak, Terrell Tilford as Marab, and Eric Pierpoint as Harris. Pierpoint will return in the “Demons”/“Terra Prime” two-parter.

Also appearing are prior Trek guests Kristin Bauer as Laneth, having previously played one of Quark’s fantasy women in DS9’s “If Wishes Were Horses”; and Wayne Grace as Krell, having previously played a different Klingon, Torak, in TNG’s “Aquiel” and a horny Cardassian legate in DS9’s “Wrongs Darker than Death or Night.”

Trivial matters: This is the second of two parts, continuing from “Affliction.”

Following this episode, the Klingon Language Institute provided terms for the two types of Klingons: QuchHa’ (“the unhappy ones”) for those without cranial ridges and HemQuch (“the proud forehead”) for those with.

This episode establishes that millions of Klingons are QuchHa’ following this, and that they’re considered inferior to some degree or other. This is by way, not only of explaining the Klingons we saw in the original series, but why we never saw mixed crews, as it makes sense that all QuchHa’ in the Klingon Defense Force would be segregated. It also retcons the less-than-honorable behavior of some of those Klingons in the original series, if they weren’t considered “proper” Klingons.

Prior to this two-parter, various works of tie-in fiction proposed all manner of explanations for the discrepancy between types of Klingon, all of which were superseded by new onscreen evidence. John M. Ford’s The Final Reflection posited that Klingons created “fusions” of Klingons with other species, humans among them. The My Brother’s Keeper trilogy by Michael Jan Friedman posited that the Klingons with cranial ridges were a new species created via genetic engineering. Several works that came out pre-Enterprise, notably the graphic novel Debt of Honor by Chris Claremont & Adam Hughes, posited that there were two different species of Klingons, with the smooth-headed ones being ascendant during the original series, but became outcasts by the movie era.

This is the first Trek episode directed by David Barrett. He’ll return to the franchise to direct two episodes of Discovery, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” and “Saints of Imperfection.” Barrett’s father, Stan, played a small role in the original series’ “All Our Yesterdays.”

While Kelby is mentioned several times, Derek Magyar doesn’t appear.

Reed’s determination to not do anything for Harris anymore will last all of four episodes, as our heroes will once again deal with him in “Demons.”

The other half of this story, to wit, how the Klingons got their grooves back, as it were, was told in the Star Trek: Excelsior novel Forged in Fire by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin, which also served as a prequel to DS9’s “Blood Oath.” The novel focused on Hikaru Sulu, Kor, Kang, Koloth, and Curzon Dax, establishing the relationship the latter four of them would develop, and part of the plot explains how the QuchHa’ were eliminated (as evidenced by those three Klingons having cranial ridges in the twenty-fourth century). The novel also connects in an interesting way to the original series’ “The Omega Glory.”

The Columbia is not seen again onscreen, but is featured in the Romulan War novel Beneath the Raptor’s Wing by Martin, the Destiny trilogy by David Mack, and Federation: The First 150 Years by David A. Goodman.

It’s been a long road… “My own targ won’t recognize me!” Parts of this episode are excellent, especially the climax where Phlox basically owns everyone. It starts with Archer and K’Vagh arguing over who gets Phlox and the doctor barging in and saying that he can speak for himself, thank you, and from that moment forward, he’s totally in charge, and it’s fabulous. Some of John Billingsley’s best work is in the back half of this episode.

So much of the rest of the episode is pointless filler, though. The lengthy sequence where Tucker gets on a tether between two ships travelling way way way faster than light and shimmies between them is visually pretty nifty, but at no point does anyone explain why Tucker can’t just explain what he’s doing and walk Kelby and/or T’Pol through it over video chat. Especially given how long the transfer takes.

The entire subplot with Harris and Reed and Section 31 is just so much sound and fury signifying nothing, especially since Harris is so unbelievably stupid in this. I mean, his original notion of having Reed sabotage Enterprise was idiotic, because all it was going to do was call attention to the conspiracy. If Harris had just told Reed to hide the fact that the sensor grid was down when Phlox was kidnapped, maybe I could see it, but all of this extra sabotage just shone a light on the conspiracy. And then Krell turned out not to be trustworthy, which any idiot could’ve seen coming, but Harris is obviously not just any idiot.

In the comments section of my “Affliction” rewatch, the reader “mr_d” pointed out that, for all of Section 31’s protestations that they’re necessary, protestations that are echoed by people who are fans of the use of 31 in Trek (a number that will never, under any circumstances, include me), they’re actually not very good at what they do. This two-parter is a classic example, as they don’t do anything particularly useful here. In fact, the first question that comes to mind when you realize that there was conversation between Earth and Kronos on the subject should’ve been the same thing Phlox said when he was kidnapped: why not just ask for help?

Ultimately, it’s more filler for a two-parter that doesn’t have enough story for two parts, and really is only in service of explaining something that didn’t really require an explanation. It certainly didn’t require taking two episodes out of a season to explain it. While the end result is still eminently watchable, thanks to the continued wonderfulness of putting Billingsley, John Schuck, and James Avery in a room together, it still feels like paperwork masquerading as a story.

Warp factor rating: 6

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s most recent work includes several short stories: “Prezzo” in Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, a story about Italian immigrants in 1930s New York City and monsters; “Know Thyself Deathless” in Double Trouble: An Anthology of Two-Fisted Team-Ups (which he co-edited with Jonathan Maberry), teaming H. Rider Haggard’s She with the Yoruba goddess Egungun-oya; “Another Dead Body on the Corner” in Joe Ledger: Unbreakable, featuring Ledger in his days as a Baltimore homicide cop; “What Do You Want From Me, I’m Old” in The Four ???? of the Apocalypse (which he co-edited with Wrenn Simms), about the four septuagenarians of the apocalypse; “The Legend of Long-Ears” in The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny, a Weird Western tale of Bass Reeves and Calamity Jane; and “The Kellidian Kidnapping” and “Work Worth Doing” in the two most recent issues of Star Trek Explorer, the former a Voyager story featuring Tuvok, the latter the backstory for Discovery’s President Rillak.

The post Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: “Divergence” appeared first on Reactor.

The Good

The absolute best thing, bar none, about season four is the recurrence of T’Lyn, magnificently voiced by the great Gabrielle Ruiz. The Vulcan science officer’s deadpan is the perfect contrast to the spectacularly manic main four, and she has proven to play beautifully off of three of the four regulars. (We haven’t really seen her team up with Rutherford yet.) She gives good command advice to Boimler in “In the Cradle of Vexilon,” she’s a useful helpmeet on the Orion adventure that she joins Mariner and Tendi for in “Something Borrowed, Something Green,” and the ongoing relationship that develops between the super-serious T’Lyn and the goofily dorky Tendi is just epic. Plus, T’Lyn has arguably the funniest line of the entire season, though its humor can only really be appreciated in context and with Ruiz’s voice: “Ah—it is a volcano.”

In past seasons, Captain Freeman has been somewhat inconsistently portrayed, depending on the needs of the plot. Sometimes she’s the Trek equivalent of the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert. Sometimes she’s a brilliant captain. Sometimes she has to carry the idiot ball in order to make the joke work. But this season, she’s mostly been what all Starfleet captains should be, even the ones on the crappy ships: a badass. From her reconstructing the planetary computer in “In the Cradle of Vexilon” to her brilliant negotiating with Grand Nagus Rom in “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place” to her dramatic rescue of her daughter in “Old Friends, New Planet,” Freeman has been much more in the mode of Trek‘s fabulous captains this year.

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The looks into the lower decks of Ferengi, Klingon, Romulan, Orion, and Bynar ships has been a delight.

In general, the looks into the Orion society we’ve gotten, mostly in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” and “Old Friends, New Planet,” has been very enlightening, a long overdue look at a culture that goes back to “The Cage” in 1964 and which has had very little done with it outside of a really terrible Enterprise episode before now. (We’ve gotten some on Discovery, ‘tis true, but that’s all been in the far future, and mostly focused on the Emerald Chain as a criminal organization, not much—at least not yet—on Orion culture as such.)

The AGIMUS-Peanut Hamper pairing in “A Few Badgeys More” proved to be an absolute delight. Having them turn into besties who are less interested in planetary conquest and more interested in being with the ones they love is, at once, hilarious and also completely true to Trek’s core ethos. Plus no one ever went wrong making use of Jeffrey Combs or Kether Donohue, and they’re both fantastic.

“Caves” was quite possibly the best piece of Trek satire the show has done, doing a hilarious riff on the franchise’s tropism for cave sets, and nailing several other clichés at the same time, all the while telling a story that’s a very Trekkish tale of friendship and solving problems through talking rather than violence.

Moopsy! “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee” gives us the most adorable psychotic monster ever in Moopsy! Moopsy is fabulous! (Okay, Moopsy is crazy-dangerous, but still…) Moopsy!

The Bad

On the one hand, Mariner gets some character development this season, but while this should be good, it feels like we’ve gone over this territory before. We know Mariner has had trauma in her life that would explain her constant self-sabotage (the death of a dear friend on the U.S.S. Quito, as established in “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”), but they decided to insert another trauma on top of that, one that was never mentioned before: her best friend at the Academy was Sito Jaxa, from TNG’s “The First Duty” and (of course) “Lower Decks.” Sito’s death in the latter episode did a number on Mariner, and while her coming to terms with it in “Old Friends, New Planet” indicates that she’ll do better, we’ve had indications of that before. And Mariner has constantly backslid. It’s grown tiresome. (For an alternate take on Mariner, check out the brilliant Jaime Babb’s “How I Learned to Love Beckett Mariner” on this here site…)

While it was entertaining to see all kinds of ships get zapped by what turns out to be Nick Locarno’s zappy thing from Nova Fleet, the actual resolution of that plotline was a major disappointment. First of all, they fooled me, at least, into thinking it was Badgey responsible, and while that’s mostly on me, the execution in “A Few Badgeys More” could’ve been clearer. Also the fact that the ships weren’t destroyed, but instead somehow the top brass of each ship was exiled and the lower-decks folk put in charge and part of Nova Fleet strained credulity to the breaking point. It wasn’t clear where Locarno got all his wonderful toys or how they worked or, well, anything. It was just dumb.

The rivalry between Rutherford and Livik that we saw in “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee” was kinda weak-sauce, but if it became a recurring thing, it could’ve worked. But we didn’t see it again until “Old Friends, New Planet,” when their argument was resolved by the stupid Mark Twain thing.

SPEAKING OF THAT, oh my goodness was the stupid Mark Twain thing stupid. Introduced in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” as a method of resolving arguments by having both sides cosplay as Samuel Clemens on a holodeck re-creation of his steamship the A.B. Chambers, it was incredibly dumb in that episode, and even dumber when it was brought back for the finale. Especially since most people’s impersonations of Clemens sound more like a mix of Colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn than the famous author…

This is technically a good thing, but I’m putting it under “bad” because it lasted for three years: there is no way, none, that officers in Starfleet would be quartered in open bunks in an open-access hallway. Even on modern submarines, which are the poster children for holy-shit-we-don’t-have-enough-space, officers get at least a modicum of privacy. It is patently absurd that on a starship that has a theoretically unlimited power source (the annihilation of matter and antimatter) they can’t spare some space for officers to have private bunks. So while it’s good that they finally allowed our heroes to have, y’know, walls in their sleeping quarters this season, it’s fixing something that should never have been there in the first place.

Not nearly enough of T’Ana, Shaxs, or Kimolu and Matt. Though what we did get of them was, as always, fabulous.

Moopsy!

The Spectacularly Nerdy

The Ferengi are allied with the Federation! This is the perfect accomplishment of the Grand Nagus Rom regime. We already know that the Ferengi are part of the Federation in the thirty-second century thanks to Discovery, and there’s something incredibly appropriate about seeing that process start on LD of all places, and especially by having Rom and Leeta forge that alliance. Plus Max Grodénchik and Chase Masterson get to reprise their roles, joining the legion of past Trek folk who have voiced their characters on LD.

Speaking of that, we also had Robert Duncan McNeill coming back for the second time on LD, this time to voice his other Trek character, Locarno. In addition, they dragged Shannon Fill out of retirement to again voice Cadet Sito Jaxa in flashback, also getting Wil Wheaton to reprise the role of Cadet Wes Crusher in that same flashback. Plus we finally get to see poor Cadet Josh Albert, whose death drove the plot of “The First Duty,” but whom we never actually saw until “Old Friends, New Planet.”

“Twovix” is made up almost entirely of Voyager references, from the merging of crewmembers from “Tuvix” to getting versions of the salamanders that Janeway and Paris turned into in “Threshold” to the Borg to the macrovirus from “Macrocosm” to Dr. Chaotica from the various Captain Proton holodeck episodes to the clown from “The Thaw” to (for some stupid-ass reason) Michael Sullivan from the two stupid-ass Irish stereotype holodeck episodes that were stupid-ass. (Though strangely, not a single actor from Voyager was used to voice a character in the episode.)

In addition, “Twovix” sorta-kinda crosses over with Picard season three, as the latter established that Voyager was in the Fleet Museum at the turn of the twenty-fifth century (twenty years after this episode), and “Twovix” is when the ship was officially made into a museum piece, with the Fleet Museum being its eventual destination after its inaugural display on Earth.

Finally, having the Ferengi put in a paywall in order to disarm the Genesis Device was just perfection itself.

Moopsy!

Like season two, this one ends in a cliffhanger, with Tendi going off to become the Mistress of the Winter Constellations once again. One assumes that this will be reversed like, y’know, almost every other time a main castmember leaves the ship (including on this show, viz. Boimler’s promotion and transfer to Titan at the end of season one). Besides, T’Lyn finally broke down and agreed to be Tendi’s science bestie—she has to come back!

There’s lots of stuff I didn’t cover in this overview (like, I didn’t even mention Goodgey…), so please feel free to tell me in the comments what you thought was good, bad, and/or spectacularly nerdy!

Moopsy!

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s most recent work includes several short stories: “Prezzo” in Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, a story about Italian immigrants in 1930s New York City and monsters; “Know Thyself Deathless” in Double Trouble: An Anthology of Two-Fisted Team-Ups (which he co-edited with Jonathan Maberry), teaming H. Rider Haggard’s She with the Yoruba goddess Egungun-oya; “Another Dead Body on the Corner” in Joe Ledger: Unbreakable, featuring Ledger in his days as a Baltimore homicide cop; “What Do You Want From Me, I’m Old” in The Four ???? of the Apocalypse (which he co-edited with Wrenn Simms), about the four septuagenarians of the apocalypse; “The Legend of Long-Ears” in The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny, a Weird Western tale of Bass Reeves and Calamity Jane; and “The Kellidian Kidnapping” and “Work Worth Doing” in the two most recent issues of Star Trek Explorer, the former a Voyager story featuring Tuvok, the latter the backstory for Discovery’s President Rillak.

The post The Good, the Bad, and the Spectacularly Nerdy — Star Trek: Lower Decks Fourth Season Overview appeared first on Reactor.

Captain’s star log. At the Qu’vat colony, a scientist named Antaak is conducting experiments under the direction of General K’Vagh. K’Vagh brings in a prisoner, who insists that he see the magistrate, but his protests are ignored as Antaak injects him with something that causes him great pain—and which also makes his cranial ridges disappear…

Enterprise is returning to Earth for the launch of her sister ship, Columbia, and also bid adieu to Tucker, who is transferring to NX-02 to take over as chief engineer. T’Pol confronts Tucker, who insists that he’s not transferring because of her. She looks skeptical, as does everyone in the audience.

Phlox and Sato depart from a meal at Madame Chang’s, which has become much more popular since they last visited Earth, which Sato takes rueful credit for. She spread the word far and wide as only a communications officer can about how fabulous the place is. They’re jumped by some aliens; Sato tries to fight back using the black belt in aikido that we only recently found out she has, but she’s clubbed on the head from behind and the kidnappers take the doctor away. She hears the aliens speak in another language right before she loses consciousness.

Archer and Reed arrive at the scene and talk to the investigating officer for Starfleet Security, Commander Collins. Sato doesn’t remember what the kidnappers said before she fell unconscious. Collins also mentions Phlox’s prior assault in a bar, but Reed recalls them being a bunch of dumb drunks, unlikely to have planned something like this six months later. They also picked up ionization disturbances that could be from a transporter—something not a lot of people have access to.

On Columbia, Tucker is working his new staff pretty hard, to the point that several have requested transfers. Hernandez has denied them, as she needs people. She also gently berates Tucker twice, first for reporting to engineering before reporting to her (he says he wanted to see what the lay of the land was before talking to her) and second for not switching out the patch on his uniform to a Columbia one.

On Archer’s orders (and with his coaching, since he learned some stuff from Surak’s katra), T’Pol initiates a mind-meld with Sato, which enables her to recall what was said by the attackers. Sato and T’Pol both recognize the language as Rigelian—and, it turns out, a Rigelian freighter left orbit of Earth two hours after Phlox was kidnapped, and its trajectory does not match its flight plan.

Reed tries to check the satellite network over Earth to see if transporter activity was detected in the area, but the grid was down for maintenance right then. When Reed tries to contact Starfleet Operations to ask about that, he instead gets Harris, a black-leather-clad operative for whom Reed used to work. The pair meet in person in San Francisco, where Harris makes it clear that Reed still answers to him, even though he doesn’t work for his “section” anymore (gee, think maybe it’s the thirty-first section????).

Phlox is brought to Antaak by K’Vagh. Antaak and Phlox met at a medical conference, though Antaak was disguised as a Mazarite at the time (Klingon physicians were—perhaps not surprisingly—not invited to the conference). They need Phlox’s help. There is a strain of Levodian flu that is threatening to devastate the empire. They’ve already had to wipe out the population of an entire planet to try to contain the virus. Phlox—who is disgusted at being kidnapped and at the Klingons’ medical practices—initially refuses to be Antaak’s lab assistant. But K’Vagh makes it clear that Antaak is to be his assistant.

On Columbia, Tucker has dinner with Hernandez, who wonders why he changed his mind about leaving Enterprise. He even said in an interview after the Xindi crisis that he couldn’t imagine serving on any other ship. Tucker says he was getting too familiar on Enterprise and while he has friends there, he feels there’s value in working with colleagues instead of friends. This is almost convincing.

On Enterprise, T’Pol is meditating. Mentally, she’s on a virtual plane of existence, one that is basically a big white space. Tucker shows up there, to both of their surprise. He was daydreaming on Columbia. Tucker criticizes her choice in mental vacations, as he thinks it should be a beach in Florida or the Fire Plains on Vulcan.

Enterprise catches up to the freighter, but it’s been destroyed. All the corpses they find are Rigelian. Reed reports that he can’t identify the signature of the weapons used on the freighter, but we see his viewscreen and know that that’s a lie. Archer orders that the black box be retrieved.

On Qu’vat, Phlox tries to convince Antaak to go public with this and ask for help. The IME would be more than willing to provide resources. Antaak says that they already have the IME’s entire database, which K’Vagh had stolen. K’Vagh brings in a person infected with the virus, but is at Stage 1—it doesn’t become contagious until Stage 3. Antaak moves to euthanize the patient, but Phlox stops him, saying that’s barbaric. While they’re arguing, K’Vagh casually takes out his disruptor and kills the patient, ending the argument.

On Enterprise, Reed contacts Harris on a secure channel and expresses his consternation with lying to his captain, and proposes the notion of reading Archer in on what’s going on. Harris thinks he’s adorable and encourages him instead to tell Archer that Orion raiders hit the Rigelians.

Enterprise comes under attack, cutting short Reed’s conversation. A Klingon ship is attacking them, and a boarding party transports over, all of whom are bereft of cranial ridges. They commit sabotage on the computer, and then most of them retreat; one, Marab, is shot by a MACO, and they have to leave him behind. The Klingon ship warps away; Mayweather is unable to pursue, as helm control is nonresponsive.

Archer and T’Pol are shocked to realize that, though the prisoner looks human, he is biologically Klingon. Warp drive is down and it will take at least six hours to repair. T’Pol also reports that the black box from the Rigelian freighter has been erased. Archer orders T’Pol and Sato to try to reconstruct the data.

On Qu’vat, Phlox is appalled to realize that there’s human Augment DNA in the flu virus. The other shoe drops: Antaak was trying to create Klingon Augments, using Augment embryos they salvaged from the wreckage of the ship Soong and the Augments stole. K’Vagh says that they couldn’t allow an inferior species (humans) to create super-soldiers. Phlox points out that they were relics of a time before Earth banned genetic engineering, and K’Vagh sneers and says he didn’t believe the Vulcans when they said that, either.

However, the experiments didn’t go well. Initially it was fine, and while the Klingons lost their cranial ridges, they did become stronger and smarter—but then their neural pathways degraded, and they died horrible deaths. One of the test subjects had the Levodian flu and the Augment DNA mutated the virus into this nasty-ass strain that is now threatening to wipe out the Empire. Phlox is more than a little peeved that they left that out of the information they provided him initially.

On Enterprise, while working on the recorder, Sato asks if there are residual effects from the mind-meld, because she had a dream about meeting Tucker in a big white space—basically, exactly what happened when T’Pol meditated and Tucker daydreamt—which disturbs T’Pol a bit, especially since Sato says the dream had a romantic quality to it.

Unfortunately, their investigation reveals that the recorder was erased on Enterprise by a microdyne coupler, which was last accessed by Reed. This leads Archer to have T’Pol double-check Reed’s analysis of the weapons signatures on the freighter, and it turns out to definitely be Klingons, not maybe being Orion, as Reed said. Reed refuses to explain himself, and Archer is forced to throw him into the brig.

On Qu’vat, K’Vagh makes it clear that Phlox has a timetable. The doctor counters that he needs weeks to work on this, but they only have five days before a fleet will arrive to wipe out this colony to contain the virus. (Phlox also points out that they should’ve kidnapped Arik Soong, not him, but Antaak says he was too well guarded to abduct.)

Antaak suggests sustaining the Augment DNA so that the Klingons who are enhanced don’t die horribly. Succeeding in the original experiment would probably convince the High Council to hold off on wiping the colony out. Phlox, however, refuses to go along with that, and he’s taken away at disruptor-point.

On Earth, Columbia successfully launches from drydock.

On Enterprise, Marab is thrown into the brig next to Reed. Marab tells Reed that he’s lucky to be alive—on a Klingon ship, lying to the captain is punishable by death. Reed also says that he is working toward the same goal as Marab: a cure.

The ship shudders. Apparently Marab and the rest of the boarding party sabotaged the warp drive. The matter/antimatter intermix chamber is malfunctioning. Increasing speed alleviates the pressure on the flow regulators, which are locked open, so Mayweather puts his foot on the gas. But they can’t sustain ludicrous speed for very long…

To be continued…

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? If the flow regulators are locked open, the warp core will breach if you drop out of warp, but if you go faster, the pressure is lessened. This is actually rather a spiffy bit of sabotage, akin to that which we saw in the movie Speed…

The gazelle speech. Archer gets to coach T’Pol in how to initiate a mind-meld, as he picked up a few things after having a couple of Vulcan katras embedded in his brain meats for four days.

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol gets to initiate her first mind-meld and also learns that she and Tucker have a mental link.

Florida Man. Florida Man In Denial Over Why He Requested A Transfer.

Optimism, Captain! Phlox is kidnapped by Klingons because he was awesome at a conference. He’s willing to work with his kidnappers when it comes to curing Klingons of a deadly flu bug, but draws the line at creating Klingon Augments.

Better get MACO. The MACOs are, as usual, completely ineffectual in repelling boarders, though at least one of them is able to get them a prisoner, at the price of being shot himself.

Also when Reed is tossed in the brig, Archer has a MACO do it rather than a member of Reed’s security staff, which is considerate.

Qapla’! The Klingon High Council is revolted by the notion of human Augments, and want to try to do to themselves what was done to the humans in the past. It doesn’t go particularly well.

We also see Klingon medicine at its worst, as their “quarantine” measures involve utter destruction of all patients. 

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Tucker insists that he’s not transferring off Enterprise because of T’Pol, even though they’re obviously connected enough to be mindlinked.

More on this later… While the phrase “Section 31” is never used in this episode, it’s obvious that the organization that Harris belongs to (and that Reed used to be affiliated with) is supposed to be an early version of that black ops organization introduced in DS9’s “Inquisition,” and seen (sigh) far too often in Trek since.

Also, this two-parter finally provides an explanation for the discrepancy between what Klingons looked like in the original and animated series, and what they have looked like in every other Trek production.

I’ve got faith…

“I don’t know who’s in charge of your mess hall, but he’d give the Chef on Enterprise a run for his money.”

“I stole him from the Republic. Captain Jennings said I could have anything I wanted when I left, so I took his cook.”

–Tucker and Hernandez chatting over dinner in the Captain’s Mess.

Welcome aboard. Several Trek veterans are back in this one: John Schuck as Antaak, having previously played a different Klingon, the ambassador in The Voyage Home and The Undiscovered Country, as well as a Cardassian legate in DS9’s “The Maquis, Part II” and a member of the chorus in Voyager’s “Muse.” Eric Pierpoint as Harris, having previously played an Eska hunter in “Rogue Planet,” an Iyaaran in TNG’s “Liaisons,” Captain Sanders in DS9’s “For the Uniform,” and the mythical Klingon figure Kortar in Voyager’s “Barge of the Dead.” Brad Greenquist as the Rigelian kidnapper, having previously played Khata’n Zshaar in “Dawn,” Demmas in Voyager’s “Warlord,” and Krit in DS9’s “Who Mourns for Morn?” And Marc Worden as the doomed prisoner in the teaser, having previously played Worf’s son Alexander in DS9’s “Sons and Daughters” and “You Are Cordially Invited.”

Ada Maris officially makes Hernandez recurring, returning from “Home.” Derek Magyar debuts the recurring role of Kelby. Terrell Tilford plays Marab, Kate McNeil plays Collins, and Seth MacFarlane makes another appearance as an engineer being ordered around by Tucker, though it’s unclear whether or not he’s the same unfortunate who got chewed out by Tucker in “The Forgotten.”

And finally, the great James Avery plays K’Vagh, and the amazing thing is that it took so long to cast him as a Klingon, as he’s perfect in every way.

Shuck, Avery, Maris, Pierpoint, and Tilford will return in “Divergence” next time. Magyar will return in “Bound.”

Trivial matters: This is the first of a two-parter that will conclude in “Divergence,” and was specifically done to address the discrepancy between how Klingons looked in screen productions made between 1967 and 1974 and how they looked in all screen productions made since 1979.

Tucker requested a transfer to Columbia at the end of “The Aenar.”

Phlox was previously attacked while visiting Earth in “Home.” That episode also established that Madame Chang’s was Phlox’s favorite source of egg drop soup, and Sato went there on the doctor’s recommendation.

Collins says that assaults against aliens are rare, a statement belied by both Phlox’s previous assault in “Home” and the events forthcoming in “Demons” and “Terra Prime.”

Sato was established as having a black belt in aikido in “Observer Effect.”

Archer held the katras of both Syrran and Surak for several days from the end of “The Forge,” through to “Awakening” and “Kir’Shara.”

T’Pol took Tucker to the Fire Plains on Vulcan in “Home.”

The Klingon ship stolen by the Augments was blown up over Qu’vat in “The Augments.”

Antaak references the Hur’q invasion, which was established as a long-ago event in which Kronos was pillaged in DS9’s “The Sword of Kahless.”

Hernandez’s previous assignment, the Republic, appears in The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm by Michael A. Martin.

This is the first time Section 31 has appeared outside of DS9. But it will continue to appear on this show, in Star Trek Into Darkness, and on both Discovery and Picard for no compellingly good reason.

It’s been a long road… “Given the choice between honor and saving lives, I choose the latter.” On the one hand, this two-parter doesn’t have any particularly good reason to exist. I’ve never had much patience with storylines that try to explain something in-universe that has a very good out-of-the-box explanation. And honestly, the previous time they addressed the discrepancy between original/animated series Klingons and all the other Klingons, in DS9’s “Trials and Tribble-ations,” was, to my mind, sufficient. Worf just said, “It is a long story” and “We do not discuss it with outsiders,” and that’s it. That’s all we needed.

Having said that, unlike some other examples of this breed—like TNG’s “The Chase”—this is a genuinely compelling story. If they did have to come up with an explanation for smooth-headed Klingons, having it be the result of trying to create Klingon Augments based on the genetically engineered humans was, frankly, a stroke of genius.

And the storyline created around it is genuinely compelling. Honestly, the whole storyline is worth it to have three actors of the calibre of John Billingsley, John Schuck, and James Avery in a room together for large chunks of it. Avery in particular is magnificent, bringing a calm and efficient brutality to the role of K’Vagh.

Ada Maris gives us in Hernandez a wonderful shipmaster. I love how even-tempered and friendly she is without ever once losing her authority or command presence. It’s a magnificently low-key charismatic performance, continuing the good work she did in “Home.” Honestly, given how lackluster Scott Bakula has been in the role of Archer all this time, one longs for the alternate universe where the NX-01 was commanded by Hernandez as played by Maris.

The episode loses points for the insertion of Section 31 bullshit. Leaving aside that the whole concept of 31 is idiotic and a blight on the franchise that has metastasized into a cancer (though I will admit to it making more sense on twenty-second-century Earth than it does in the twenty-fourth-century Federation), it’s just there to pad out the plot and create artificial conflict between Archer and Reed.

Warp factor rating: 8

Keith R.A. DeCandido will be an author guest at Philcon 2023, where he and Wrenn Simms will have the official launch of their anthology The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, which they’re publishing through their very-small press, WhysperWude. Several of the authors who contributed to the anthology will be present as well, and it will be part of the eSpec Books/WhysperWude launch party Saturday night at the con. Keith and Wrenn will also have a table in the dealer room where they’ll be selling and signing Keith’s books, as well as some of Wrenn’s craft items. Keith’s full schedule can be found here.

The post Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: “Affliction” appeared first on Reactor.

Captain’s star log. After getting the highlights of “Babel One” and “United,” we go to Romulus, where Vrax is tearing Valdore a new asshole for his mission achieving the exact opposite of the effect intended. Valdore is hilariously obtuse in this conversation, insisting that it’s just a setback, not a disaster, and all he has to do is have the drone ship destroy Enterprise and everything will be fine, and the alliance will fall apart and Vrax will become First Consul. Vrax thinks it’s far more likely that he’ll be executed…

Gral and his delegation have returned to Tellar Prime, but Shran has elected to stay on Enterprise to help Archer and the gang hunt the drone ship. (The disposition of Shran’s surviving crew is left as an exercise for the viewer.)

T’Pol has examined the readings Tucker and Reed took while on the drone ship, and determined that the drone is controlled via telepresence, and can be done from light-years away. They have a brainscan of the remote pilot, and Phlox doesn’t recognize the species, but says that it’s someone related to the Andorians, though not precisely Andorian. T’Pol and Tucker are tasked with constructing a telepresence device that can interfere with the control of the Romulan ship.

On Romulus, Valdore orders the damage done by Tucker and Reed to be repaired, and to prepare to send a second drone ship out with the first. Nijil expresses concern over the pilot’s well-being, as he’s mentally exhausted from his efforts and it’ll be even worse when he has to control two ships. Valdore ignores those concerns, ordering the stimulants to be increased regardless of the consequences. Given that those consequences include the pilot’s death, Valdore’s lack of concern is pretty short-sighted, but whatever.

Shran has had the brainscan examined by Andoria and they have confirmed that the pattern belongs to an Aenar. They’re a subspecies of Andorians, with pale skin rather than blue, and who are blind and telepathic. They were believed to be mythical until they were encountered fifty years earlier. They’re reclusive and pacifistic, and unlikely to have constructed the drone ship nor used it. However, Archer has Mayweather change course to Andoria.

T’Pol and Tucker are working on constructing the telepresence device, even though Tucker is fatigued as hell—he’s not completely recovered from his ordeal on the drone ship. But his engineering skills are needed. He talks about how he almost died and how it made him feel and tries to get T’Pol to discuss how she felt when she thought she was going to die. Her answer is—of course—clinical, disappointing him.

The Aenar live in an area protected by a dampening field. Archer and Shran beam down to find them. While searching, an ice floor gives out under Shran and he falls, an icicle impaling his leg. Conveniently, an Aenar finds them, and they are brought to a hospital.

Nijil informs Valdore that the pilot is resting and will be ready to pilot both drone ships. Valdore tells Nijil the story of how he used to be a senator—and Vrax was both a friend and colleague—but he was expelled after challenging the policy of unlimited expansion. (How he managed to become a flag officer in the military after being a disgraced politician is not explained.)

T’Pol and Tucker argue over who should test the telepresence device, with T’Pol winning the argument because (a) she’s telepathic and he isn’t and (b) she outranks him. Later, she tries to make up with him, saying she appreciates his concern, and also expressing worry that his concern is interfering with his duties. Tucker insists his concerns are purely professional. Neither T’Pol nor the viewers believe this bullshit for a nanosecond.

The Aenar have a very loose collective, and someone is designated Speaker when a leader is required. A woman named Lissan gets the job and she asks Archer and Shran why they’ve come to the Aenar’s home. Archer allows himself to be telepathically scanned by Lissan. An Aenar named Gareb disappeared a year before—he was assumed to have been killed, but his body was never found. It’s possible that he was kidnapped instead and is being used by the Romulans.

Later, a woman named Jhamel approaches Shran. She’s never seen a blue-skinned Andorian before. They talk, and she reveals that Gareb is her brother. She has been having recurring nightmares involving him.

T’Pol tests the device. She is able to use it for a brief time before it starts to do serious damage to her, at which point Phlox unplugs her from it. Still, it’s an encouraging first try.

Lissan refuses to assist Archer and Shran is any acts of destruction, but Jhamel volunteers to go to Enterprise. Lissan tries to stop her, but Jhamel allows Lissan to read her mind. When she sees that Jhamel is motivated purely by a desire to save her brother, Lissan relents and allows her to beam to Enterprise.

Gareb is plugged back into the telepresence unit on Romulus. Nijil apologizes to the Aenar as he does so. The two drone ships are launched by Gareb and fly out of Romulan space.

Enterprise receives a report that the cargo ship Ticonderoga is missing. As soon as Archer, Shran, and Jhamel are on board, they head there, Archer ordering Reed to upgrade the targeting scanners.

Jhamel tests the telepresence device, and while she lasts longer than T’Pol, she eventually suffers the same issues only worse. Phlox is forced to sedate her.

The Ticonderoga has been destroyed. Archer orders T’Pol to try to trace the drone ship’s warp signature. Phlox advises that Jhamel may not be able to use the telepresence device.

Enterprise finds a Tellarite freighter that refuses to identify itself. They exchange fire with Enterprise, and it soon loses its “skin” and is revealed to be one of the drone ships. Jhamel senses Gareb’s presence and insists on using the device despite the risks.

The beating Enterprise is taking gets worse when an Andorian battle cruiser shows up—which turns out to be the other drone. Jhamel plugs herself in and is able to make contact with Gareb. Gareb is gobsmacked—he was told by the Romulans that he was the last surviving Aenar and was forced to fly the drones. Emboldened by the news that his people still live, Gareb has the two drone ships turn on each other.

Furious, Valdore kills Gareb even as Enterprise finishes the job and blows up both ships.

Returning to Andoria, Shran and Jhamel prepare to beam down. Jhamel is grateful that she was able to be there for Gareb and not leave him to die alone—and also die knowing that his people weren’t wiped out. Shran also says to Archer that their paths may not cross any time soon, as he’s unlikely to be given another ship after losing the last one. Archer offers to help in any way he can.

Tucker requests a transfer, insisting that he’s been distracted. Despite Archer being his best friend, he refuses to spell out his reasons for wanting off the ship, only saying that he needs to transfer. Columbia has tried to poach him twice, and he’s turned them down, but now he’s willing to go over to the new ship. Archer reluctantly agrees only when Tucker asks as a friend to acquiesce.

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently, Tucker and Reed got enough data from the drone for T’Pol and Tucker to build a telepresence device that will partially interfere with the one on Romulus. Also, while T’Pol is good at theory, she needs Tucker’s mechanical smarts to put it together, which he proves by telling her that one component works better if you strip off the duranite caps. “Don’t ask me why—they just do.”

The gazelle speech. Lissan says that Archer’s mind has many facets and some of them are in conflict. Shran snidely says that that explains a lot, while my first response was a very skeptical, “Really?” Of course, it could be that there are still remnants of Surak and Syrran in there…

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol is purely focused on duty and her job. If she’s got any residual feelings for Tucker, she gives absolutely no indication of it, which annoys the fuck out of Tucker.

Florida Man. Florida Man Can’t Get Alien Lover Off Mind.

Optimism, Captain! Tucker tries to blame Phlox for his issues, since he was the one who suggested neuropressure back in “The Xindi,” which is what got Tucker and T’Pol started on their emotional roller-coaster. Phlox refuses delivery of that blame, as he was just trying to get Tucker aid in sleeping. (Plus, of course, you could argue that it really got started when Tucker talked T’Pol into trying pecan pie way back in “Breaking the Ice.”)

Phlox is also very reluctant to allow Jhamel to use the telepresence device.

Better get MACO. Reed wants Archer and Shran to take a squadron of MACOs with them to find the Aenar, but they decline, as that would be too provocative.

Blue meanies. Andoria is an ice planet and Shran goes on at great length about how fabulous the cold is. Archer is less than impressed.

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Sparks fly between Shran and Jhamel, and we’ll find out in “These are the Voyages…” that they become a couple and have a daughter.

Meanwhile, Tucker is sufficiently distracted by his feelings for T’Pol, and her total lack of interest in responding in any way, shape, or form to those feelings, that he asks for a transfer.

I’ve got faith…

“What’s it like, your ship?”

“Warm.”

–Jhamel asking a reasonable question and Archer giving an answer that’s colored by the fact that he’s in minus-28-degree weather.

Welcome aboard. Back from “United” are Jeffrey Combs as Shran, Brian Thompson as Valdore, J. Michael Flynn (who, bizarrely, is uncredited for this appearance, even though he was credited in his prior two appearances) as Nijil, Geno Silva as Vrax, and Scott Allen Rinker as Gareb. We’ve also got Alexandra Lydon as Jhamel and Alicia Adams as Lissan. Combs will return in “These are the Voyages…”

Trivial matters: The is the final part of Enterprise’s final three-parter, continuing from “Babel One” and “United.”

When asked by Tucker about a near-death experience that had a profound impact on T’Pol, she mentions the attack on the control sphere in the Delphic Expanse in “Zero Hour.”

A deleted scene—which can be found on the season 4 DVD of Enterprise—has Valdore and Vrax arrested and being taken into custody by Vrax’s two Reman bodyguards.

This is the first appearance of Andoria (referred to as Andor on DS9) on screen. It is established as being the moon of a gas giant.

While Jhamel won’t be seen onscreen again, her relationship with Shran is developed in the various post-finale Enterprise novels by Michael A. Martin, Andy Mangels, and Christopher L. Bennett.

Both Valdore and Nijil play major roles in the post-finale Enterprise novels The Good that Men Do and Kobayashi Maru by Mangels & Martin and in the Romulan War duology by Martin.

Vrax is established as eventually rising to the praetorship in the twenty-third century, and as the one who ordered the mission in the original series’ “Balance of Terror,” in the Vanguard series by David Mack, Dayton Ward, & Kevin Dilmore, as well as in the novella “The First Peer” by Ward & Dilmore in Seven Deadly Sins.

This episode is the last of thirty-one episodes of Trek directed by Mike Vejar, and the penultimate directorial endeavor of his career, at least according to IMDB. The only credit of his that postdates this one is directing an episode of JAG from April 2005.

The notion of Andoria as an ice planet comes from various Trek role-playing games from both FASA and Last Unicorn. Manny Coto, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and André Bormanis in this and the previous episode mined a lot of the RPG material, particularly Last Unicorn’s Among the Clans, for the Andorian world-building.

In 2001, before Enterprise debuted (indeed, the books were planned before Enterprise was even announced), the Star Trek fiction, primarily in the post-finale DS9 novels, started its own world-building of the Andorians, including taking advantage of the line of dialogue in TNG’s “Data’s Day” that Andorians marry in groups of four to establish that the Andorians have four sexes. At the time, Rick Berman had been on the record more than once as saying that they wouldn’t be using the Andorians on Trek because aliens with antennae are silly (a position he obviously eventually reversed). The fiction continued to use a lot of the world-building they’d done even after Enterprise aired, mostly by trying to reconcile the two.

The existence of the Aenar retroactively provides a fix for a coloring mistake in the animated episode “Yesteryear,” as the Andorian Thelin had pale rather than blue skin. The short novel The Chimes at Midnight by Geoff Trowbridge in Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions (which told the story of the alternate timeline where Spock died as a seven-year-old) established that Thelin was half-Aenar.

It’s been a long road… “I didn’t see the sun until I was fifteen.” As a general rule, I’m fond of aftermath stories—the big things are cool, but I’m often more compelled by what happens next, about the recovery from the big thing.

But sometimes, the story ends at a certain point for a reason. “United” brought everything to a satisfying conclusion, with Andoria and Tellar Prime allies and with those two, humans, and Vulcans all working together against the Romulans.

This third part doesn’t really add a hell of a lot to the story. And what it does add is certainly some passable world-building. But we’re only just learning about Andorians, and this episode that takes us to Andoria doesn’t tell us hardly anything about mainstream Andorian society, focusing instead on the Aenar for whatever reason.

On top of that, the Romulans come across like total doofuses here. In the teaser, Vrax puts into words what was clear from “United”: the drone ship has had the opposite of the intended effect. Valdore’s imbecilic solution is to send out another drone ship, ’cause that’ll totally work! Then he expresses no concern for the health of the only pilot he has for these two drone ships, which makes even less sense.

For that matter, why is he going around kidnapping Aenar when it was established in Nemesis that Remans are telepathic? They’re slave labor anyhow, and they’re right there on the next planet over…

Putting Scott Bakula and Jeffrey Combs together always is fun, and despite the tiresome insistence of the unthinking morons in the writers room to continue to have him use the racist epithet “pinkskin,” Shran remains a delight, and one of Enterprise’s best contributions to the Trek pantheon. But ultimately, this episode feels like an awkwardly tacked on third part to something that would’ve been better off as a two-parter.

Warp factor rating: 6

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s latest work is The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, co-edited by him and Wrenn Simms, on sale now from Whysper Wude. It features alternate takes on the end-of-the-world quartet, such as the four PTA Moms of the apocalypse, the four cats of the apocalypse, the four Hollywood executives of the apocalypse, the four lawyers of the apocalypse, and so on. Among the contributors are Star Trek scribes David Gerrold, David Mack, Peter David, Derek Tyler Attico, Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, and Aaron Rosenberg, as well as New York Times best-sellers Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, and Jody Lynn Nye, and tons more.

The post Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: “The Aenar” appeared first on Reactor.

On last week’s “The Inner Fight,” we found out that Sito was one of Mariner’s best friends at the Academy, and that her death in “Lower Decks” is one of the primary factors behind Mariner’s constant self-sabotage. “Lower Decks” showed us what happened to Sito after “The First Duty,” and TNG’s “Journey’s End” did the same for Wes Crusher. And now we get the full story of what happened to the ringleader, Nick Locarno.

The episode starts with a flashback to Starfleet Academy thirteen years ago, as we see four of the five members of Nova Squadron talking about doing a Kolvoord Starburst. We actually see Joshua Albert for the first time, as he was already dead by the time “The First Duty” started. Not only is Robert Duncan McNeill back to voice Locarno (as he was for the character’s cameo last week), but Wil Wheaton and Shannon Fill return to voice Wes and Sito, respectively. (There is no sign or mention of Cadet Hajar.)

The best part of this opening scene, though, is seeing Mariner from thirteen years ago. She’s an eager young cadet, geebling at Sito about how wonderful her classes are. What’s especially hilarious is that she sounds exactly like Boimler in this scene. She’s quickly abandoned, though, because Nova Squadron has to go off and do important things (and also illegal things).

One of the flaws of “The First Duty” was that we had no real context for the veneration of Nova Squadron that led to their arrogantly deciding to do a dangerous, illegal maneuver, which then got one of their squadron killed. Thirty-one years later, we finally get at least some context, with both Wes and Albert expressing concern, and Locarno running right over them and saying everything will be fine.

In the present day, Locarno has been attacking various ships, sending the command crews into exile (as we saw last week) and giving the lower ranks a chance to take over. They’ve all gathered in a single star system, which is protected by a Trynar Shield, about which we learn nothing beyond that it’s a stupid name (which Mariner, of course, points out) and that it’s very powerful. In honor of the group of cadets who did something stupid and committed manslaughter, Locarno has named his independent group “Nova Fleet.”

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Locarno has invited any lower ranks who want to join Nova Fleet to do so. He insists it’s a collective where those lower-decks folks won’t have to take stupid orders from annoying top brass. That insistence doesn’t last very long, mind you, as Locarno is pretty quickly giving orders and expecting the others to obey him—which most of them don’t wanna…

There are two wild cards in Locarno’s plan. One is that one of the ships he went after—the Ferengi, as seen in “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place”—had a Genesis Device, which Locarno is now using as his leverage to keep people out of his haven.

The other is Mariner. Locarno assumes that Mariner will eagerly join Nova Fleet, because she’s remained lower-ranking because she hates what the brass want her to do—and what they made Sito do. But Mariner has matured a lot since—well, last week, and understands that Sito died because she believed in Starfleet.

And so she grabs the Genesis Device and buggers off in the U.S.S. Passaro, a Starfleet ship that is part of Locarno’s fleet, using her mother’s command codes to take over.

Mariner commits her act of rebellion against her kidnapper while he’s on an open subspace channel to, basically, the entire Alpha Quadrant, so everyone knows what she’s done. Including the Cerritos. Freeman wants to go save her daughter, but Admiral Doofus tells her to stand fast. Because so many different nations are represented by Locarno’s band of merry ensigns, it’s a diplomatic hot potato.

Freeman, however, is not willing to sit still when her daughter’s in danger. So she disobeys orders and decides to go rescue her. Tendi has a notion on how to do that: they go to her sister D’Erika and ask for a warship. D’Erika refuses, so Tendi challenges her to barter by combat! If Tendi wins, they get an Orion warship; if D’Erika wins, she gets the Cerritos.

Just a couple of days ago, in my rewatch of Enterprise’s “United,” I was wishing for a moratorium on fights to the death where nobody dies, and then this happens on LD. Le sigh. At least this one was played for laughs, and it actually amused the hell out of me. Tendi and D’Erika each got to pick a champion. D’Erika picks a big and strong Orion woman. While Shaxs, Ransom, and Kayshon are all flexing their muscles and ready to jump in, Tendi instead picks Migleemo.

In true Tendi fashion, this was a clever move, because it turns out that the Orion bruiser in question has a brutal allergy to feathers, and she collapses. That’s the good news. The bad news is that she collapses right on top of Migleemo, so she still wins the fight.

Tendi, though, has a backup plan: she offers herself in place of the Cerritos. D’Erika will consolidate her power if she has the Mistress of the Winter Constellations at her side, so she agrees. Tendi will return home after Mariner is rescued.

D’Erika has one final fuck-you for her sister, though: she provides a warship, yes, but it’s old, clapped-out, and non-functioning. Undeterred, our heroes tow the warship to Nova Fleet and ram it into the Trynar Shield. That brings it down long enough for Freeman to pilot a shuttle through and rescue Mariner.

For her part, Mariner uses the Passaro to play cat-and-mouse with various ships in Locarno’s fleet, not just fighting, but also sowing dissent. It’s fun watching her talk to the Genesis Device, which she makes her honorary first officer and refers to as “GD” throughout, mostly so she has someone to talk to while she’s on the run.

In the end, of course, it’s a final confrontation between her and Locarno. Backed into a corner, Mariner starts the countdown on the Genesis Device. Locarno tries to deactivate it, Mariner tries to stop him, then she’s beamed away by Freeman. Locarno manages to enter the deactivation sequence—

—and then the Ferengi computer program that is running the device asks for two bars of latinum to continue. Locarno’s final words are, “They put a paywall on a bomb?”

Of course they did! It’s the Ferengi!

I have to admit to laughing my ass off at that part. That was just so perfect, and completely in character. I love that Locarno was able to deactivate the bomb, because despite what most dramatic fiction would have you believe, bombs are actually fairly easy to disable if you know what you’re doing. But of course the Ferengi would require payment to finish the process!

It’s brilliant, a perfect LD ending, as it’s still very Trek, but also quite funny.

The rest of the episode is—fine? I dunno, I think the concept was a lot more interesting than the execution. It’s a nifty idea—and very fitting for the show—to have Locarno gather a bunch of lower ranks to form a fleet of lower-decks folks, but the execution doesn’t really go anywhere particularly interesting. The Locarno-Mariner interactions are fun, but the rest of Nova Fleet doesn’t entirely work. I mean, sure, it’s a fun notion, but do we really believe that all the low-ranking folks thought it was a good idea to take over? Would they really all be united in getting into Nova Fleet? I mean, sure, the Ferengi, but I can’t see a plurality of Romulans or the Klingons, or anyone who’s part of a military going along with this. Some would, sure, but—I dunno, I just didn’t really buy that they’d all rally ’round this random human dude who got cashiered out of Starfleet for getting someone killed while doing something phenomenally stupid.

However, it was fun to watch Mariner dash about staying one step ahead of Nova Fleet. And it was fun to watch Tendi work her Orion magic to save her friend.

As a finale, this episode works beautifully. Besides resolving the mystery ship thing that’s been running through the whole season, as well as Mariner’s ongoing difficulties with being promoted, it picks up on the Genesis Device from “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place” and the Tendi family drama from “Something Borrowed, Something Green.” We even get a resolution for T’Lyn, as this season’s events have shown her that she fits in on the Cerritos and wishes to stay rather than return to the Vulcan fleet. She’s even willing to be Tendi’s science bestie.

Alas, that will have to wait, as Tendi has to fulfill her end of the bargain with D’Erika. (Despite the fact that her sister screwed them with the crap-shit warship.) It’s not quite a cliffhanger, but the season is left hanging with Tendi’s fate, as we end with her returning home and Boimler, Mariner, Rutherford, and T’Lyn all not happy to see her go. (Especially Rutherford.)

However, the show’s been renewed for a fifth season, so we will find out what happens next. Hopefully some time in 2024….

Random thoughts

• I’m pleased to report that the “resemblance” between Locarno and Tom Paris (whom the Cerritos crew met in “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”) was lampshaded. When he appears on the Cerritos viewscreen, Rutherford says he looks just like Paris, and Boimler says, “I don’t see it.” Perfect…

• Boimler also gets to sit in the command chair, as he’s put in charge of the bridge while Freeman, Ransom, and Shaxs are all in the shuttle flying through the Trynar Shield after the Orion ship smashes through it. Boimler’s presence in the command chair also serves to confuse and annoy Admiral Doofus when he calls.

• Like every other Star Trek character who disobeys orders to further the plot (Spock in “The Menagerie,” Picard in Insurrection, Sisko in “The Die is Cast,” Seven in “Prey,” Archer in “First Flight”), Freeman suffers no consequences for her violation of regulations, even though it should get her court-martialed and kicked out of the fleet. Lather, rinse, repeat, and at least Admiral Doofus has a good excuse for letting her off the hook: she successfully opened relations with the Orions.

• Yes, I know Admiral Doofus is really named Vassery, but I feel my name for him is more appropriate.

• When the Genesis Device is detonated, the visual effect of its immediate aftermath looks exactly like it did at the end of The Wrath of Khan. Mariner’s cat-and-mouse games with Nova Fleet in the Passaro had several visual cues reminiscent of the Enterprise and Reliant’s gadding about in the nebula in that movie as well.

• The Passaro was named after Fabio Passaro, one of the digital artists who did a lot of CGI work on various ships for LD, who sadly died a year ago.

• Seriously, what about Hajar? I mean, fine, maybe you couldn’t get Walker Brandt to do the voice for whatever reason (though she’s still working and is doing lots of voiceover work), but have her there at least…

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s latest work is The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, an anthology published by WhysperWude, the very small press started by Keith and Wrenn Simms, who also co-edited the book. The anthology features alternate takes on the end-of-the-world avatars—the four PTA Moms of the apocalypse, the four lawyers of the apocalypse, the four cats of the apocalypse, the four cheerleaders of the apocalypse, etc.—by more than a score of authors, among them fellow Trek scribes David Gerrold, Derek Tyler Attico, David Mack, Peter David, Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, and Aaron Rosenberg; New York Times best-selling authors Seanan McGuire, Jody Lynn Nye, and Jonathan Maberry; and tons more. Ordering links and the full table of contents can be found here.

The post The Last Duty — Star Trek: Lower Decks: “Old Friends, New Planets” appeared first on Reactor.

Captain’s star log. After getting a summary of “Babel One,” we see Tucker and Reed being bounced around the drone ship. However, they are now approaching their next target, so Valdore orders the bouncy maneuvers to cease, and for the holographic skin to be that of Enterprise. Thus disguised, it ambushes a Rigellian ship, destroying it, but making sure they have time to send a distress call first.

On Enterprise, Archer learns of the attack on the Rigellian ship and that the Rigellians are calling for his arrest. T’Pol and Mayweather tell him that they’ve come up with a way to detect the drone ship with a sensor grid, but it would require 128 ships.

Shran tries to cheer Talas up in sickbay. While the shot that she was hit with was just a graze, it was with a phase pistol set to kill. Talas doesn’t buy Shran’s reassurances that she’ll be all right and begs him to avenge her.

Archer approaches Shran about a plan to use Starfleet, Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite ships to find the drone. Before he can even get the plan out of his mouth, Shran says that he’s fine with any plan Archer has as long as it allows him to kill Tellarites. This puts a damper on Archer’s optimism.

On Romulus, Senator Vrax shows up with two Reman commandos and expressing displeasure with the drone ship being adrift following its destruction of the Rigellian ship. Valdore assures him that the auto-repair system is working just fine and the drone will be underway soon. The senator tells Valdore that they cannot allow the drone to fall into Vulcan hands, as they’ll recognize the propulsion system as being Romulan in design. Valdore says there’s nothing to worry about, but Vrax makes it clear that he’ll declare the mission a success to the rest of the senate, but only if he brings the drone home as soon as it’s repaired.

Starfleet is sending some ships, but they’ll take a while to get there. The only ship that’s as fast as Enterprise—the NX-02, Columbia—is still in drydock with engine trouble. Vulcan can only spare twenty-three ships, as they’re in turmoil following High Command’s disbanding. They have to get the Andorians and Tellarites on board to make this work. Since humans are the only people that all three species get along with, Archer thinks they can coordinate this. If not, the Romulans will view this as a success and come back in greater numbers.

Tucker is able to finally find a life support system and get it running, so they can take off their helmets. They figure the ship is automated, so they try to figure out ways to stop it. Eventually, they’re able to take the warp drive offline, which brings the ship to a stop. Tucker goes to a service junction where there are more controls and starts messing with the ship some more.

On Romulus, Nijil reports that one of the humans has moved to the service junction and is sabotaging the warp drive. It’ll take the auto-repair more time to fix it than Vrax has given them. On Valdore’s order, Tucker is sealed inside the service junction, which Nijil floods with coolant. Tucker—who stupidly left his helmet on the bridge—starts to cough and collapse from the radiation.

Archer convinces Shran and Gral to put aside their differences, because if they don’t, the Romulans get exactly what they want. They agree, and provide communication codes to each other so they can coordinate the search grid. When Shran provides the codes to Archer, the pair of them discuss the illustrations on Archer’s ready-room wall, which are all previous vessels with the name Enterprise. Shran says that the Kumari was named for the first ice-cutter to circumnavigate Andoria. They speculate that future ships might be named Enterprise and Kumari if they accomplish great things together, and they shake hands.

Reed tries to save Tucker, to no avail. Finally, against Tucker’s orders, Reed restores the warp drive. Valdore then opens the door to the service junction—but as soon as Reed enters (with the helmet to Tucker’s EVA suit), Valdore seals them both in. Reed then recommends that they move very far from the bridge, though he doesn’t explicitly say why, as Valdore is likely still listening. Reed left a phase pistol on overload in a console on the bridge. They open an access hatch port and start moving.

Phlox informs Shran that Talas has died. The doctor tried everything, but was unable to save her. Shran interrupts a meeting between Archer and Gral to challenge Gral’s aide to a duel of honor. As Sato later informs Archer, the Ushaan is a fight to the death with ushaan-tors, ice-cutting blades that Andorians play with as children. Gral’s aide wouldn’t last five seconds—not that Gral is even allowing him to participate. This means the Andorians won’t stay with the sensor grid.

However, Sato finds a loophole: there is a right of substitution. Archer will fight in the aide’s place. Shran doesn’t wish to fight Archer, but he has already lost his love and his ship—if he doesn’t avenge Talas’ death, he will lose face in the eyes of his surviving crew.

Sato and Mayweather pore over the (lengthy) literature on the Ushaan, looking for ways for Archer to survive this. T’Pol tries to talk Archer out of it, but the captain explains that he’s the only expendable person: if Shran or Gral’s aide are killed, it’ll just raise tensions and kill the alliance. If Archer is killed, it’s no big deal—T’Pol can take over as captain, the Andorians and Tellarites will both be happy, and they can get back to fighting the Romulans.

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The fight begins—the combatants have ushaan-tors in one hand and gauntlets that can serve as shields in the other. The gauntlets are linked by a long chain that tethers the fighters to each other. Shran mostly has the upper hand—with Archer boasting that he’s just letting Shran do better to look good to his soldiers—and then Archer manages to wrap the chain around Shran’s neck.

Then he cuts off one of Shran’s antennae. This actually fulfills the criteria for the Ushaan, as it ends when a combatant can no longer defend themselves. The loss of balance that comes with losing an antenna qualifies. Honor is fulfilled, nobody died, and they can get on with the mission.

The sensor grid finds the drone ship, and Enterprise heads there. They arrive to find what appears to be a Vulcan ship, but it has the same power signature as the drone ship. The two ships exchange fire, with Archer urging Tucker and Reed to move closer to the hull so they can beam them out. That doesn’t work—the ship is moving around too much for T’Pol to get a lock.

On Romulus, Nijil is just waiting for the warp drive to finish auto-repairing.

Tucker and Reed blow a hatch and are floating freely in space, but now Enterprise has sustained sufficient damage that they still can’t get a transporter lock.

The Romulan ship warps away. Enterprise is able to rescue Tucker and Reed now, but the drone ship is gone. When they’re changing out of their EVA suits, Tucker reluctantly says that he has to put Reed on report for disobeying orders. This outrages Reed, who did save their lives. Tucker strings him along for several seconds before making it clear that he’s joking. Reed is not amused…

Once the drone ship is safely inside the Romulan border, they disconnect the remote pilot from the controls. When they remove the helmet we see what looks like an Andorian, albeit a blind albino one…

To be continued…

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Mayweather comes up with a fancy-shmancy sensor grid to find the drone ship.

Also, the drone ship doesn’t have inertial dampeners working in order to bounce Tucker and Reed around the ship. This should pulverize them against the hull…

The gazelle speech. Archer shows impressive political acumen and capacity for self-sacrifice by recognizing that his dying is virtually the only way for the Ushaan to play out in such a way that preserves the very fragile alliance that is barely holding together as it is…

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol is not sanguine about Archer’s prospects in the fight, and feels that losing him is too big a price to pay.

Florida Man. Florida Man Repays Armory Officer For Saving His Life By Playing Practical Joke.

Optimism, Captain! Phlox tries to do everything he can to save Talas, but is unsuccessful. He also has advice for Archer on how to survive the fight.

Blue meanies. Apparently Andoria is covered in ice (we’ll see more of that next week). The ushaan-tor is an ice-cutting blade, and the Andorians have sea-faring vessels that are referred to as ice-cutters. Also we meet our first Aenar in the person of the remote pilot, though we don’t know he’s an Aenar, yet.

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Shran tells Talas that Phlox has a crush on her, by way of explaining why she’s still in sickbay even though he said her wounds were superficial. Her loss devastates him.

More on this later… T’Pol says that a Vulcan saying is “One man can summon the future.” In the original series’ “Mirror, Mirror,” the alternate Spock said, “One man cannot summon the future.”

Also, Archer’s conversations with Shran (about future ships named after their vessels) and T’Pol (about humans’ ability to bring people together) presage the Federation that is to come. And Archer mentions the possibility of thousands of Romulan ships attacking, which presages the Earth-Romulan War that we’ve known is imminent since the original series’ “Balance of Terror.”

I’ve got faith…

“You should’ve cut off my head.”

“I considered it, but I still need your help.”

–Shran and Archer after fighting to the not-death.

Welcome aboard. Back from “Babel One” are Jeffrey Combs as Shran, Brian Thompson as Valdore, Lee Arenberg as Gral, J. Michael Flynn as Nijil, and Molly Brink as Talas. We’ve also got Geno Silva as Vrax. Combs, Thompson, Flynn, and Silva will be back next time in “The Aenar.”

Trivial matters: The is the second part of Enterprise’s final three-parter, continuing from “Babel One,” and concluding in “The Aenar.”

The Columbia was first referenced in “The Expanse” and was established as still being in drydock in “Home.” It’ll finally be launched in “Affliction.”

T’Pol mentions that T’Pau is now in a position of authority on Vulcan, as was implied by the ending of “Kir’Shara,” which is also when High Command was disbanded.

This is chronologically the first cooperative endeavor among the four founding species of the Federation: humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites.

This is only the second appearance of Remans since their introduction in Nemesis.

This is the last of sixty-two episodes of Trek directed by longtime producer David Livingston, whose first-ever directing credit was TNG’s “The Mind’s Eye” in 1991. It’s also his final screen directing credit, and indeed, his only IMDB credit that is more recent than working on Enterprise is two episodes as a producer on Threshold (which Enterprise co-creator Brannon Braga was show-runner for).

“United” was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie, or Special. It lost to HBO’s The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

It’s been a long road… “You’re good at building things, I’m good at blowing them up.” I really need there to be a moratorium on fights to the death in which neither of the combatants actually dies. One of the reasons why TNG’s “Reunion” was effective was because Worf really did kill Duras. But most of the time on television, including on the various Treks, nominal fights to the death do not end with any fatalities (also true of far too many suicide missions, which is also why the ending of TNG’s “Lower Decks” was so powerful).

It’s too bad, because having Yet Another Tiresome Fight To The Death (one which doesn’t even have cool fight music like the iconic score the original series gave the Spock-Kirk fight in “Amok Time”) is the only real blot on this powerful episode. It’s especially nice having scripters like Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens who understand how pacing works, as we not only have a teaser that genuinely teases—with the drone ship taking on Enterprise’s image to blow up an innocent Rigellian ship—but we also have Archer slicing downward toward Shran’s head before going to an act break, a genuine bit of suspense. Not that we were really expecting Archer to behead Shran, but hey, Shran is a guest star, not an opening-credits regular, so you never know…

It’s obvious the Ushaan was put in the script to up the action quotient, and I must confess to liking the tethered-fighters aspect of the Ushaan, an aspect of the setup that Archer does a good job of exploiting for his own gain. But the episode doesn’t actually need it. The back-and-forth of sabotage and threats between the Romulans and the Enterprise away team on the drone ship is very compelling, as is watching Archer try to hold the nascent alliance together with both hands. I particularly like that Archer doesn’t try to break up the fight between Shran and Gral after they trade insults, preferring instead to talk to them and remind them that they’re acting like idiots—more to the point, exactly the type of idiots that services the Romulans’ cause.

I also really like that the Romulans only don’t succeed to the degree they’d hoped because of human ingenuity and compassion. Last week, their deception is uncovered really only because Enterprise diverted to respond to Shran’s distress call. This week, the Romulans are confident that they won’t be discovered as long as the Vulcans don’t capture the drone ship—but the joke’s on them, because Enterprise figured out it was them in “Babel One.” And, more directly, Tucker and Reed do a wonderful job of being sand in the machinery of the Romulan ship.

Plus we get the first true murmurings of a United Federation of Planets, with ships from Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar Prime all uniting (ahem) in the common goal of stopping the Romulans. Which is especially heartening, since the entire objective of the drone ship was to sow discontent and division….

Warp factor rating: 8

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s latest work is The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, co-edited by him and Wrenn Simms, on sale today from WhysperWude. It features alternate takes on the end-of-the-world quartet, such as the four PTA Moms of the apocalypse, the four cats of the apocalypse, the four Hollywood executives of the apocalypse, the four lawyers of the apocalypse, and so on. Among the contributors are Star Trek scribes David Gerrold, David Mack, Peter David, Derek Tyler Attico, Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, and Aaron Rosenberg, as well as New York Times best-sellers Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, and Jody Lynn Nye, and tons more.

The post Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: “United” appeared first on Reactor.

McNeill would, a couple of years later, be cast as Tom Paris in Voyager, a character with a nearly identical backstory, while Locarno was never heard from again.

Until now.

Before we go any further, I need to do a formal mea culpa, as I completely and totally misread what was going on in “A Few Badgeys More.” I genuinely thought that Badgey was behind the mysterious ship that’s been attacking various vessels all season. I should’ve known better—if nothing else, the trend in television these days is for all important events to come to a head in the season finale.

Which is nicely set up this week. In what turns out to be the first of a two-parter, we learn that the little ship that’s going around zapping bigger ships is kidnapping former Starfleet officers. These now-civilians need to be tracked down and brought into protective custody. The Cerritos is tasked with finding Locarno.

Not on that particular mission is Mariner. Freeman is worried that Mariner’s getting out of control with putting herself in danger, so she and Ransom ask her fellow lower-deckers to go with her on a mission that will keep her safe.

I really adore the scene where Freeman asks the various lieutenants for help with her daughter. The Freeman-Mariner relationship has been a complicated one, to say the least, and mostly has been used for comedy, but this scene is a very touching example of a perfect combination of a captain worried about a member of her crew and a mother worried about her daughter, and going to her friends and colleagues for help.

Because this is a television show, the simple mission Tendi suggests of adjusting a weather satellite goes horribly horribly wrong. Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and T’Lyn take a shuttle to the satellite, having convinced Mariner that it will be incredibly dangerous and hugely risky. Mariner is, of course, massively disappointed when it turns out to be routine maintenance—right up until the Klingon Bird-of-Prey decloaks…

The Klingon ship makes short work of the shuttle, but the away team beams down to the surface of the planet, which is full of nasty storms and showers of glass and other fun stuff. But of real interest is the collection of beings stranded on the world and trying to survive: Romulans, Ferengi, Klingons, Orions, Cardassians, and Bynars. Familiar-looking ones, as these are the crews of the ships that were attacked by the mystery vessel (well, except for the Cardassians). Some of them are collaborating, but mostly they’re fighting amongst themselves.

The single funniest part of the episode to me was the Romulan and the Ferengi. We see the Romulan attack the Ferengi, but a native creature is stalking them. As it gets closer, we see the Romulan muttering, “Just a little closer,” and then the creature is snared by a bear-trap. The Ferengi then jumps triumphantly to his feet and says, “I told you it would work!” The Romulan’s reply: “Yes, yes, you’re so smart. Now shut up and help me kill this thing before it gets free.” I mostly loved it because whoever voiced the Romulan sounded just like Peter Falk in The Princess Bride when he said, “Yes, you’re very smart, now shut up.”

Anyhow, Mariner insists on fighting her way through, well, everything. When the rest of the away team tries to get her to slow her roll, she grumbles and says they should get some sleep and continue in the morning. They all fall asleep, and then Mariner gets up and goes off on her own, looking for a fight.

She gets one with Ma’ah. He not only survived the attack, like the others on the planet, but the Klingon vessel in orbit is his ship. Ma’ah says that his crew betrayed him and stranded him here along with the others. (Recall in “Twovix” that we didn’t see the results of Ma’ah’s ship being fired upon the way we did with the others.) Since the Bird-of-Prey is apparently standing guard on the planet, it would seem to be involved in some way.

Ma’ah and Mariner start to fight, but they’re interrupted by a glass shower. They take refuge in a cave (with surprisingly little complaining from Mariner, given the animus she expressed toward caves last week), and wait it out.

While there, we get some backstory on Mariner. In the abstract, this backstory makes sense, but I found myself disappointed by it on several levels.

Okay, first off, the fact that this never came up before is more than a little unconvincing, especially given that we’re in season three and we’ve already gotten plenty of Mariner’s backstory already.

Secondly, the actual backstory is this: one of Mariner’s classmates at the Academy was Sito Jaxa. So yes, the lead character in Lower Decks has backstory with one of the prominent guest stars in the TNG episode “Lower Decks.” In a show that gets way too meta on a good day, this is the meta-iest meta in the history of meta-ness.

And thirdly, the exposition is surprisingly light on details. Again, this is a show that references and sub-references constantly, but this time, they went light on that, and it’s too far in the other direction. The whole scene is written as if everyone watching it will know and/or remember who “Sito” is, and that’s not an assumption they should be making. It’s not even a question of knowing the audience, because (a) at least some of the audience wasn’t even born yet when “Lower Decks” aired, and (b) there’s so much Star Trek that it’s impossible for a single human to perfectly recall every detail of every episode and movie.

Of course, Sito is also connected to Locarno, which ties things together even more bizarrely. While Mariner and the gang are stranded, the Cerritos has proceeded to an independent world full of mercenaries and bounty hunters and freebooters and such. This half of the plot works beautifully because it plays into one of LD’s strengths. The show is often at its best when it tells Trek comedy stories as opposed to comedy stories that happen to be in the Trek setting.

In this case, we see Freeman seeming to be making a complete fool of herself. She confidently talks about how she aced her “Hoodlums and Racketeers” seminar at the Academy, and then makes a total pig’s ear out of trying to be a hoodlum and racketeer in order to get information about Locarno. When she does finally get in, she antagonizes the information broker to the point where he gives the information to a bounty hunter just to spite Freeman.

Once they leave the bar, Freeman reveals to a crestfallen Shaxs and Rutherford that it was all a setup. Freeman leaned into the distrust of Starfleet that they would have in this particular wretched hive of scum and villainy (sorry, wrong franchise…), to the point that they’d happily give the information to the bounty hunter—who was truly Billups in disguise. It’s a beautifully done bait-and-switch, and a relief to see. Freeman’s level of competence has varied wildly depending on the needs of the plot, and I prefer it when she’s actually good at her job. She’s very good at it here, and it’s done in a manner that’s genuinely funny, as befits a comedy show.

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However, when they get to Locarno’s location, they see all kinds of plans and such for the very ship that they’re looking for.

Back on the planet, Mariner is able to convince the various aliens to work together to try to get off the planet instead of against each other fighting for resources. She is aided in this by Ma’ah, who argues convincingly alongside her, and Tendi, who is able to get the Orions to back off and not kill them just by showing up. (The Orions immediately genuflect before the Mistress of the Winter Constellations, and as absurd as it all is, I still love the fact that the sweet, science-loving Tendi is also this Orion badass.)

Tendi is also the one who comes up with the plan to adjust the relay station for the orbital weather satellite to make it a distress call. Ma’ah makes an amendment to the plan, knowing that his ship is up there and will probably try to destroy the distress call. Once they come into the atmosphere to blow up the relay station, the various aliens leap on board and break in and take over the ship, Ma’ah killing the captain himself, thus putting himself back in charge.

In the midst of all that, Mariner was beamed away. They assumed it was to the Klingon ship, but she’s not there. Instead, as we find out in the closing shot before the “TO BE CONTINUED…” caption, she’s been taken by Nick Locarno.

Amusingly, Locarno looks like what McNeill looks like now. When Paris appeared in “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris,” he looked like he did on Voyager (keep in mind that LD takes place only a few years after “Endgame”), but Locarno’s had a harder life, I guess…

It will be interesting to see where this goes. But we have to wait a week.

Random thoughts

• The episode’s title is a riff on the famous TNG episode “The Inner Light,” though it has no connection to that episode beyond the pun.

• The other former Starfleet officers being tracked down are Beverly Crusher, who was established as having left Starfleet some time shortly after Nemesis in Picard’s “The Next Generation”; Seven of Nine, who was established in Picard’s “Hide and Seek” as not being allowed into Starfleet following Voyager’s return to the Alpha Quadrant; and Thomas Riker, William Riker’s transporter twin, introduced in TNG‘s “Second Chances,” and who was established as quitting Starfleet and joining the Maquis in DS9’s “Defiant.” Riker is the most interesting of those, as he was last known to be in a Cardassian prison…

• Boimler is massively disappointed that the Cerritos doesn’t get to track down Beverly, as apparently Boims has a crush on Crusher. (Sorry…) At one point, he’s dreaming about Crusher teaching him to tap dance (which we saw Crusher teaching Data how to do in TNG’s “Data’s Day”).

• The bar where Freeman gets the information about Locarno is called “Mudd’s,” presumably a tribute to Harcourt Fenton Mudd, the rogue played by Roger C. Carmel and Rainn Wilson, seen in the original series’ “Mudd’s Women,” “I, Mudd,” and the animated “Mudd’s Passion,” as well as Discovery’s “Choose Your Pain” and “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” and the Short Trek “The Escape Artist.”

• The information broker looks very much like the puppet used by Balok to speak for him in a threatening manner (with Ted Cassidy’s voice) in the original series’ “The Corbomite Maneuver.” The broker also talks like Balok did through most of that episode. Freeman, as part of her con, assumes that it’s a puppet, and she only stops shaking him when Rutherford’s implants make it clear that it’s a living being.

• Locarno has only made one appearance in Trek fiction prior to this, in the Seven Deadly Sins anthology in 2010, specifically in the novella “Revenant” by Marc D. Giller, which focused on the sin of gluttony via the Borg. Locarno in the story is part of a team of privateers that boards a Starfleet vessel that’s been assimilated.

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s latest work is The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, an anthology published by WhysperWude, the very small press started by Keith and Wrenn Simms, who also co-edited the book. The anthology features alternate takes on the end-of-the-world avatars—the four PTA Moms of the apocalypse, the four lawyers of the apocalypse, the four cats of the apocalypse, the four cheerleaders of the apocalypse, etc.—by more than a score of authors, among them fellow Trek scribes David Gerrold, Derek Tyler Attico, David Mack, Peter David, Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, and Aaron Rosenberg; New York Times best-selling authors Seanan McGuire, Jody Lynn Nye, and Jonathan Maberry; and tons more. Ordering links and the full table of contents can be found here.

The post “Klingons do not hug!” — Star Trek: Lower Decks: “The Inner Fight” appeared first on Reactor.

Captain’s star log. We open with the Andorian ship Kumari, commanded by Shran, being pounded to pieces by what appears to be a Tellarite ship, Shran is forced to abandon ship ahead of the warp core going boom.

Enterprise is being tasked with escorting Ambassador Gral of the Tellarites to a peace conference on Babel. Because Tellarites like to argue and insult people as part of normal conversation, Sato practices a conversation with Archer that involves lots of both of those things—but we don’t know that at first, so it just looks like Sato and Archer are being mean to each other for no reason.

Because the route between Tellar Prime and Babel involves going through Andorian space, and because Earth is mediating the peace talks, Starfleet gets the job of taxi service, since the Andorians are less likely to fire on a Starfleet ship than a Tellarite one. (Tucker expresses annoyance at that, as they’re supposed to be explorers.) Archer endears himself to Gral by being nasty to him when he comes on board. However, Gral is also skeptical of the humans’ ability to be impartial in these negotiations given the role the Andorians played in saving Earth from the Xindi.

Enterprise picks up Shran’s distress call. Mayweather confirms that there are no Andorian ships in range of the communiqué, but it will only cost Enterprise two hours to divert. Archer gives the order and has Sato inform Babel that they’ll be late.

They find the debris of the Kumari, and rescue nineteen of the eighty-six people on board. Among the casualties are the Andorian ambassador and his staff, who was being brought to Babel by Shran. Shran—already pissed about the loss of his ship and many of his crew—is ripshit to learn that there are Tellarites on board.

It doesn’t make sense to Archer that the Tellarites would agree to Earth helping out with peace talks, going so far as to have Enterprise transport Gral, and then attack the Andorians. However, the Kumari was definitely attacked by Tellarite particle weapons, and the sensor logs show that it was a Tellarite ship that attacked them. When shown this evidence, Gral denies it, saying it must be fabricated, as his people would never attack when there’s peace talks scheduled—though the Babel conference has been postponed indefinitely after all this.

Confusing the matter further, an Andorian ship attacks Enterprise. It ignores Shran’s request to stand down, and when Shran provides a method of destroying their shields, it doesn’t work.

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The ship retreats, its power grid fluctuating, but not due to anything Enterprise did. Gral is convinced that this is all an elaborate setup by the Andorians, that the Kumari was deliberately destroyed to frame the Tellarites, while Shran thinks the Tellarite ambassador is lying to cover up his people’s cowardly attack.

Complicating matters is that T’Pol’s scans reveal that the Tellarite ship that attacked the Kumari and the Andorian ship that attacked Enterprise each have the exact same power signatures. Which is unlikely.

An attempt by Archer to get Gral and Shran to talk it out fails miserably, as the two almost come to blows.

Enterprise can detect the Andorian ship’s warp trail, and so they follow it. Shran’s not happy about that, but if they continue to Andoria, they’ll lose the trail.

We cut to a darkened space that looks like the bridge of a ship. In the center is a being covered in a helmet and gloves that hide the person’s identity, though that person seems to be controlling everything. In charge are two Romulans, Admiral Valdore and a scientist named Nijil. They detect a vessel approaching: Enterprise, which has tracked the ship that attacked them to a different-looking ship with an unknown configuration. T’Pol’s scans a whole mess of subspace transceivers, multispectral emitters, and no life support, and she’s not sure what to make of it.

A team beams over, including Tucker, Reed, and two MACOs. Tucker tries to get life support online while Reed and the MACOs explore the ship.

Nijil reports to Valdore that the propulsion matrix on the ship is still not operational. Valdore orders Nijil to prepare to destroy the ship, as they can’t let it fall into Starfleet’s hands.

The away team is tossed around the corridors while the ship fires on Enterprise. Archer tries to beam back the away team, but the hull plating of the enemy vessel has been reinforced and they can only beam out one at a time. After beaming the MACOs off first, weapons fire damages the transporter catastrophically.

Archer has no choice but to run so they can lick their wounds, leaving Tucker and Reed behind, but promising to come back for them. Those two have their own problems, as Reed’s air hose is compromised and he only has a bit of air left in his tank now. Tucker shares some of his, but they need to find more air. Tucker can’t find anything that even remotely looks like it controls life support. They work their way to the bridge, figuring that, at least, must have life support…

Archer has Mayweather take the upgraded injectors out for a spin, and get all the way up to warp 5.06 before they lose the ship. Based on the readings the away team sent back, T’Pol hypothesizes that this might be a Romulan ship, as there are some broad similarities to the Romulan minefield they were in. Archer and T’Pol speculate as to why the Romulans would try to sabotage the peace conference.

Shran is suspicious of Gral, still, and thinks Archer is being naïve. He and Talas manage to get past the MACO guarding their quarters by beating him up after an attempt to seduce him fails miserably. They go to Gral’s quarters and interrogate him at riflepoint.

Nijil detects a panel being opened manually. Valdore orders internal sensors to be activated, and they see Tucker and Reed. After Valdore confirms that there are no inertial dampeners on the ship, he orders evasive maneuvers, which tosses Tucker and Reed all around.

T’Pol and Sato determine that the emitters on the Romulan ship’s hull are holographic projectors, which enable them to look like any other ship, and their weapons have tri-phasic emitters that enable them to mimic the signatures of other types of energy weapons.

A security alert sounds from Shran and Talas’ escape, and Archer and the MACOs show up at Gral’s quarters and get the Andorians to drop their weapons. A Tellarite aide then grabs Talas’ weapon and shoots her, only for Archer to shoot him right back.

Tucker and Reed finally make it to the bridge—which looks just like where Valdore and Nijil are, but it’s empty and also without life support.

We cut to Valdore and Nijil in what seems to be the bridge, but which is actually a room in a building on Romulus.

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Tucker finds oxygen to put into Reed’s air tank so he can breathe. Here’s the problem: tanks in EVA suits (and scuba suits) don’t have oxygen in them, they have air in them, which is only twenty-one percent oxygen. Breathing pure oxygen is damaging. Mind you, most folks who write dramatic fiction get this completely wrong, but a) it’s still wrong and should be called out especially when b) the episode is co-written by the guy whose first job in the franchise was as the science advisor.

The gazelle speech. Archer speculates that the Romulans see that peace is developing in their little corner of the galaxy—the Andorians and Vulcans are talking, and now the Andorians and Tellarites are talking, plus Earth avoided a war with the Xindi. He thinks that maybe the Romulans don’t like that idea, and fear an alliance.

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. Koss informs T’Pol that their marriage is officially dissolved.

Florida Man. Florida Man Not Present When Ship Goes Faster Than Warp 5.

Good boy, Porthos! Tellarites apparently consider canines a delicacy. Sato warns Archer to keep Porthos away from the ambassador’s delegation.

Better get MACO. The MACO’s job is to protect the crew. Therefore, they should never have allowed themselves to be beamed off first. But they don’t have speaking parts, so they don’t get to be stranded.

Meantime, the MACO guarding Shran and Talas thankfully doesn’t even come close to falling for Talas’ seduction attempt, and he puts up a good fight against her, as well.

Blue meanies. The Andorians and Tellarites have been at odds for quite some time, but they were on the way to peace before the Kumari’s destruction—and even before that, there wasn’t a huge amount of trust there…

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. It takes all of half a second for the news of T’Pol’s divorce to fly through the ship’s grapevine, and while they’re trapped on the Romulan ship, Reed asks Tucker what his intentions are now that T’Pol’s a free agent again. It’s unclear, thanks to the helmet of his EVA suit, whether or not he waggles his eyebrows when he asks.

In addition, Shran and Talas are now a couple, the latter having put the moves on her commander. Shran says he had a choice between taking her as a lover or arresting her for assaulting a superior officer. Wah-HEY!

More on this later… The rivalry between Andorians and Tellarites was baked into their very first appearance in the original series’ “Journey to Babel.” Speaking of that episode, it was the one that established Babel as a neutral planet for negotiating purposes, though in both the 1967 episode and the 2005 one, we never see the ship actually making it to Babel…

I’ve got faith…

“I’m told this ship is the pride of Starfleet. I find it small and unimpressive.”

“Funny—I was about to say the same thing about you.”

–Gral and Archer making Tellarite small talk.

Welcome aboard. A whole lot of Trek veterans in this one. We start with recurring regulars Jeffrey Combs as Shran (back from “Kir’Shara”) and Molly Brink as Talas (back from “Proving Ground”).

The others are all in new roles. Brian Thompson plays Valdore; he was previously Klag in TNG’s “A Matter of Honor,” Inglatu in DS9’s “Rules of Acquisition,” Toman’torax in DS9’s “To the Death,” and another Klingon in Generations. Lee Arenberg plays Gral; he previously played three different Ferengi (one of whom was also named Gral) in DS9’s “The Nagus,” TNG’s “Force of Nature,” and TNG’s “Bloodlines,” and also a Malon in Voyager’s “Juggernaut.” And J. Michael Flynn plays Nijil; he previously played a Mazarite in “Fallen Hero” and an Angosian in TNG’s “The Hunted.”

All of the above will be back next time in “United.”

In addition, stuntman Jermaine Soto gets a few lines of dialogue as the MACO that Talas fails to seduce.

Trivial matters: The is the first of Enterprise’s last three-parter, continuing next time in “United” and concluding in “The Aenar.”

Shran came to Earth’s aid against the Xindi in “Zero Hour.” Koss agreed to dissolve his and T’Pol’s marriage in “Kir’Shara.” Enterprise first encountered Romulan technology in “Minefield.” The NX-01 got upgrades to the vessel, including their shiny new injectors that get them over warp 5, in “Home.”

Archer and Shran share a drink from the supply of Andorian ale that Shran gave to Archer in “Proving Ground.”

This episode had a record low number of viewers. Several days after it aired, UPN announced that the show would not be renewed for a fifth season.

It’s been a long road… “We seem to keep running into each other, Captain.” It’s funny, the Andorians and Tellarites were considered important to Trek lore in ancillary fiction for years thanks primarily to “Journey to Babel.” But once new Trek started being produced on the regular in 1979, the Andorians and Tellarites were barely a factor onscreen—at least until 2001. What’s fascinating is how little there was to go on. One of the things Enterprise has done supremely well is flesh out the Andorians based, mostly, only on the (excellent) performance of Reggie Nalder as Shras in that original series episode.

Tellarites have been seen less often prior to this, mainly only in “Bounty,” and that was a story that gave us very little about Tellarite culture. (Indeed, the two Tellarites in that episode were painfully generic.)

It was a surprise that Enterprise initially gave us, not an Andorian-Tellarite conflict, but rather an Andorian-Vulcan one. It’s not until this episode that we finally get the rivalry between the blue folks with antennae and the folks who look somewhat porcine that “Journey to Babel” established.

And it’s one of Enterprise’s best episodes, in part because it does what a prequel series can do well.

One of the dangers of doing a prequel to a science fiction show is that the notion of what the future will look like changes. Hell, it’s a danger of doing a science fiction show generally. In the 1960s, hand-held communicators and video conferencing both looked incredibly futuristic, but a plurality of humans had devices that looked like communicators by the time this episode of Enterprise aired, and video conferencing is an everyday occurrence in 2023. In the 1990s, the handheld padds used by the crews of the Enterprise-D, Deep Space 9, and Voyager looked incredibly futuristic, and now it looks quaint to watch them all handing iPads to each other.

And when Paul Schneider wrote “Balance of Terror” in 1966, it made sense to posit a war in the future between Earth and Romulus where there was no visual communication and no contact between the two species that fought. But in 2005, that notion was ridiculous, at least in part due to the march of technology in the real world that made a lack of visual communication a step backward.

Enter “Babel One,” which provides a lovely notion as to how that might work while also giving us one of the single most effective cliffhanger endings in Trek history: remote-controlled ships. It’s beautifully set up, too, as throughout the episode things seem a bit off with the orders Valdore is giving to Nijil. Why are there no inertial dampeners? Why does he have to turn the internal sensors on? Why is he going to blow up the ship if he’s in it? (That, at least, you figure is the Romulan willingness to fall on their proverbial swords, which we saw in their very first appearance in “Balance…”) But once we pull back from the “bridge” and see that Valdore, Nijil, and their helmeted mystery person are all in a room on Romulus, it all comes together and makes sense.

And the episode leading up to that cliffhanger is also excellent. Enterprise is at its best when it’s showing Earth stumbling its way into being a major player in the forming of the Federation, and this episode is a magnificent culmination of the (annoyingly few) episodes that have had that theme, starting with “The Andorian Incident” and “Shadows of P’Jem,” continuing in particular to “Cease Fire,” and most recently with the Vulcan trilogy. Earth has already played a role in easing tensions between the Vulcans and Andorians, not to mention standing up to the Klingons a few times and helping usher in a new era on Vulcan. Now we see them specifically requested to be in the middle of negotiations between Andoria and Tellar Prime.

The episode also provides a nice retcon that makes Sarek less of a racist. In “Journey to Babel,” Sarek commented, “Tellarites do not argue for reasons—they simply argue.” It’s a pretty horrid remark, all told, but this episode makes it clear that Sarek isn’t engaging in racial stereotyping, but rather in cultural observation. As established in the hilarious scene between Sato and Archer after the opening credits, arguing and insulting people really is how Tellarites communicate.

Speaking of the opening credits, kudos to writers Mike Sussman and André Bormanis for giving us a vanishingly rare occurrence: a teaser of an Enterprise episode that actually teases the episode! Opening with Shran’s ship going all asplodey with Shran angrily giving the order to abandon ship is a much better way to lead into the long road that leads from there to here than the show’s usual.

The plot involves the Romulans, who do not want to see peace in the galaxy, as their empire is much more likely to be successful if the other powers remain at each others’ throats. So they use an experimental ship to sabotage the peace talks. What I especially like is that it would’ve worked but for Enterprise’s compassion. Only the fact that Enterprise rescued Shran and the other survivors is what enables the holoship’s deception to be exposed. Shran’s presence on Enterprise is what makes it abundantly clear that the “Andorian” ship that attacks the NX-01 is not what it seems, given that they ignore Shran’s communiqué and aren’t vulnerable where an Andorian ship of that class should be.

Even with that, Valdore’s plan almost works. Several Andorians and one Tellarite get shot on Enterprise before Archer’s able to even come close to restoring order, and the lack of trust between Shran and Gral is palpable. Throughout the episode, Gral is convinced that Archer is conspiring with Shran against him, and Shran is convinced that Gral is fooling Archer. Meanwhile, Archer’s trying to get at the truth, and the only one acting like a grownup. Which, I gotta say, is a very nice change from first-season Archer, who was usually the least like a grownup in a situation. One suspects that the trauma of the Xindi mishegoss—not to mention sharing his brain meats with Surak’s katra—did him some good.

For the third time, Enterprise has commenced a three-parter with a strong opening. Next week we’ll see if the Andorian trilogy will do a better job of living up to its opening than the Augment trilogy or the Vulcan trilogy…

Warp factor rating: 10

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s latest work is The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, co-edited by him and Wrenn Simms, on sale today from Whysper Wude. It features alternate takes on the end-of-the-world quartet, such as the four PTA Moms of the apocalypse, the four cats of the apocalypse, the four Hollywood executives of the apocalypse, the four lawyers of the apocalypse, and so on. Among the contributors are Star Trek scribes David Gerrold, David Mack, Peter David, Derek Tyler Attico, Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, and Aaron Rosenberg, as well as New York Times best-sellers Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, and Jody Lynn Nye, and tons more.

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The spinoffs from 1987-2005 mostly went the soundstage route with occasional forays into location shooting. One soundstage was dubbed “Planet Hell” by the cast and crew, as it was a barren area that didn’t look like much of anything. (Voyager even used the name onscreen in “Parturition”).

And they went to caves. Lots and lots of caves. So of course, Lower Decks must make fun of that…

The current crop of Trek shows we’ve gotten since 2017 have generally been able to create more elaborate alien worlds thanks to either being animated (LD, Prodigy) or using virtual sets (Discovery, SNW, and, to a way way way lesser degree, as they spent most of their money on actor salaries, Picard). The difference is marked, as a comparison between, for example, DS9’s rendition of the Trill symbiote caves in “Equilibrium” and Discovery’s rendition of same in “Forget Me Not.”

Animation, of course, can really go crazy with the new worlds, thus completely obviating the need for boring cave sets.

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Unless, of course, you want to make fun of them!

Once again, we have an episode that LD is tailor-made to do, as that budget-necessary reliance on cave sets that we especially saw on TNG (“Final Mission”), DS9 (“Rocks and Shoals”), Voyager (“Phage”), and Enterprise (“Terra Nova”—and these are all just random examples I picked off the top of my head, I could’ve several for each show) led to a lot of clichés. Blocked communications. Cave-ins. Being trapped with unknown life forms. And so on.

“Caves” beautifully plays on all these notions, mostly through Mariner. The line I used for the headline of this article particularly had me laughing my ass off. Mariner is dreading a cave mission, complaining that they all look alike, there’s always things that go wrong, and that it seems like a third of their missions are in caves. That last is particularly amusing because it sometimes felt that way in the 1990s, and it also hasn’t actually been the case with the Cerritos missions we’ve seen, because, being animated, they don’t need to fall back on cave sets to amortize costs…

Of course, just making fun of Trek clichés that have accreted over the decades isn’t actually a story. The story being told here is very much about our four main characters and their relationship, and it does a lovely job with that.

Since being promoted to junior-grade lieutenant, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford haven’t been able to spend as much time together, as they’ve been on other assignments both on and off the ship. This mission to investigate moss in a cave is their first time together on duty in ages.

When the inevitable happens and tectonic activity on the planet (that the Cerritos doesn’t detect until it’s too late) causes a cave-in that traps the away team, the four try to talk about past missions in caves to help them out.

In the process, they find out things about each other they did not expect. Rutherford had a baby (sort of), which he then raised with T’Ana on one such cave mission. Boimler wound up bonding with Levy when they were trapped in a cave. Mariner similarly bonded with the members of Delta Shift. Each of these stories prove to be revelations, making the other three angry that the fourth didn’t tell them about this major thing in their lives.

Poor Tendi, meanwhile, keeps trying to tell the story of when the four of them were trapped in a turbolift shortly after she signed on, but Mariner repeatedly cuts her off because that’s a trapped-in-a-turbolift story, not a trapped-in-a-cave story, and therefore not relevant.

As they’re telling these stories, they’re being menaced, because of course they are. In this case, it’s green moss. At first they think it’s a kind of bioluminescent moss—and it is, but it’s also growing. Eventually it’s going to completely consume the enclosed area they’re stuck in and smother the away team.

Just as they’re about to be completely smothered, just as they’ve finished yelling at each other for keeping secrets from their closest friends—the moss speaks!

It wants to hear the turbolift story.

And so Tendi gets to tell her story also, and it’s not even really relevant to how to get out, it’s just a fond memory she has. It was right after she reported on board in the premiere episode, “Second Contact.” The episode ended with the four of them sharing a celebratory drink, and we pick up after that. The ship is still in bad shape after the rage virus that infected the crew in that episode, and the quartet wind up stuck in a turbolift for hours before Billups and Shaxs can get them out.

In the present, the foursome realize that they are allowed to have other things going on in their lives and can make other friends. It won’t change the fact that they’re all best friends. The green moss is touched by their friendship, and asks for some more stories.

The theme of forming friendship bonds runs through all the stories. Mariner and the folks on Delta Shift are able to put aside their differences. Boimler actually becomes sorta-kinda friends with Levy. And Rutherford helps raise a kid and almost bonds with T’Ana, plus they make first contact.

Okay, it’s not really a kid Rutherford and T’Ana raise. They’re being shown the caves by an alien who is killed by a cave creature, but when they die, they place themselves in a host body that gives birth to a newborn in whom the alien lives on. However, the cave creature turned out to be a mother protecting her young, and when she sees Rutherford and T’Ana caring for the reborn alien, she’s willing to show them a way out and not kill them. It’s very sweet. Plus pairing the eternally optimistic Rutherford with the eternally cynical T’Ana is comedy gold.

Mariner’s story has a bit that I actually liked despite the cruelty. The youngest member of the away team breaks his leg in the crash. The stuff they need to fix the shuttle is in a weird force field that ages you. He’s the only one who’s young enough to be able to make it before he gets too infirm—but then his leg shatters completely and falls off. Once they save themselves (another member of the team goes the long way around, is made younger, and gets the stuff), they all go back to the shuttle, but leave the leg behind. Mariner fobs it off, saying that sickbay will grow him a new one.

Which makes sense. Twenty-fourth-century medical technology is capable of growing biosynthetic body parts (see Nog’s leg and Picard’s heart), so it really shouldn’t be that big a deal to lose a leg like that when you know you’re on your way back to a starship’s sickbay. Having said that, the rest of the away team is remarkably unconcerned with the fact that one of their own is hurt, though that is sadly on-brand for Mariner.

The only one of the stories I have a significant issue with is Boimler’s, Levy’s conspiracy shtick was cute as a bit of parody when it was first introduced in “No Small Parts.” But what made it funny is that it made fun of conspiracy theorists we see in the world now. The problem is, such theorists are doing things like storming the capital and trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power in a democracy. I mean, it’s fine when Levy is saying, “The Dominion War didn’t happen!” when you know he’s full of it and nobody takes him seriously, and it shows the nut jobs he’s parodying out to be the ridiculous people they are (since we know full well that the Dominion War did happen, what with it taking up two full seasons of a TV show…).

But in Boimler’s tale of him and Levy in a cave, the latter is going on at great length about how they’re being studied by Vendorians who are testing them to make sure they’re moral enough, and a whole lot of other nonsense that Boimler rightly decries as absurd—

—except it all turns out to be true! The Vendorians really are secretly testing them! Which is funny from a writing perspective, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth, because it softens the satire and lets the thing being satirized off the hook.

In general, though, the message of this episode is that everything will be fine if you just talk to each other and be nice to each other. Which, let’s face it, has always been the primary message of Star Trek. So bravo!

Random thoughts

• Each of the stories has a riff on something that Trek has done at least once before beyond just being stuck in a cave.

• Boimler’s story includes Vendorians (introduced in the animated episode “The Survivor”) and Starfleet personnel being tested in bizarre ways (the original series’ “Arena,” “The Gamesters of Triskelion,” “Spectre of the Gun,” and “The Savage Curtain,” TNG’s “Encounter at Farpoint,” “Hide and Q,” “Q Who,” “Where Silence Has Lease,” “Allegiance,” “All Good Things…” and turned on its ear a bit in DS9’s “Move Along Home”).

• Mariner’s story has a shuttle that needs to be repaired to escape (the original series’ “The Galileo Seven,” Voyager’s “Muse”) with the thing they need to get at surrounded by a weird technobabble field (TNG’s “Final Mission”) that causes people to rapidly age (the original series’ “The Deadly Years,” TNG’s “Unnatural Selection”) and de-age (the animated series’ “The Counter-Clock Incident,” TNG’s “Rascals”).

• Rutherford’s story includes a man getting pregnant (Enterprise’s “Unexpected”), a monster that turns out to be just a mother protecting her young (the original series’ “The Devil in the Dark”), and an unlikely pair thrust unexpectedly into the role of caring for a newborn while trapped on a planet (Voyager’s “Parturition”).

• Tendi’s story has people trapped in a turbolift for far longer than expected, and coming to bond after some initial hardships (TNG’s “Disaster,” Short Treks’ “Q & A”).

• And, of course, the whole cave thing has been done so many times (besides the ones I listed earlier, there’s the original series’ “The Cage” and “Friday’s Child,” TNG’s “Silicon Avatar” and “The Enemy,” DS9’s “The Circle,” “Improbable Cause,” “The Maquis, Part II,” and “Heart of Stone,” Voyager’s “Caretaker” and “Blood Fever,” Enterprise‘s “Dawn,” the movie Insurrection, etc., etc., ad nauseum). 

Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a guest at Anime Banzai at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah this weekend, alongside Star Trek: Prodigy voice actor Bonnie Gordon, as well as a bunch of voice actors and artists and writers and cosplayers and performers. He’ll have a table where he’ll be signing and selling books, and also will be doing some programming. His full schedule is here.

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Captain’s star log. Reed and Mayweather are playing chess in the mess hall, but it soon becomes clear that it isn’t really them. They’ve been possessed by a couple of Organians, who have set up to observe this particular planet. They rather ominously say that someone always dies when they come here.

Tucker and Sato are returning to Enterprise in a shuttlepod when Tucker starts coughing uncontrollably and then collapses. He and Sato are taken to decon, and Sato starts coughing as soon as Tucker is settled in decon. They’re both quarantined until Phlox can figure out what’s going on—challenging that is that scanners aren’t picking up anything at all. None of the other landing parties showed any signs of being infected.

The two Organians discuss other species that have come to the planet, including Cardassians and Klingons. Both of the latter killed the patients—the Klingons before they ever came on board, the Cardassians after but before they could infect everyone else. One Organian points out that, while it’s true that the humans let the infected onto their ship, they kept them isolated.

The Organian possessing Mayweather goes to decon to ask Tucker and Sato how they’re feeling, but all he does is creep them out and they close the blind in the window. The one possessing Reed similarly questions Phlox on the pretext of going to sickbay for a headache, but Phlox assumes it’s because Reed is being overly cautious with regards to ship’s security and kicks him out.

Phlox eventually figures out that it’s a silicon-based virus. Archer doesn’t see how that could’ve developed on an M-Class world, but Phlox theorizes that a meteor could’ve struck the surface carrying it. That would also explain why only one landing party contracted it. Unfortunately, there’s no match for it in any of the records, so Phlox is flying blind—and Tucker and Sato only have about five hours to live…

The Organians discuss the humans’ progress: They’re not abandoning the infected crew, which means they’ll probably all die. One Organian thinks that Archer is simply not bright enough to realize the danger they’re in, while the other believes that he’s showing loyalty and compassion. They switch to Phlox and T’Pol, as Archer’s decisions are based on their work (T’Pol is assisting Phlox in his search for a cure).

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Tucker and Sato are keeping each other occupied with stories about themselves. Each admits to being envious of the other’s talents. Sato also tells the story of how she got kicked out of Starfleet Training because she broke the arm of the training officer when he broke up their poker game. She wound up able to join Starfleet anyhow because they were in rather desperate need of linguists.

The Organians check on Tucker and Sato while possessing Phlox and T’Pol. After creeping out the patients some more, they return to sickbay where they see that the pair are making minimal progress. After the Organians return to Mayweather and Reed, Phlox and T’Pol—with no memory of having been possessed—see that their latest test has failed, but also there are indicators that ionizing radiation will destroy the virus. The problem is, the amount needed to eradicate it would kill a human. Still, it’s a start…

Enterprise detects a crater near where Tucker and Sato were on the surface, and it’s also near the Klingon dump site. It’s possible the Klingons also got the virus. Archer contacts Starfleet Command to try to get in touch with the Klingons through diplomatic channels, but they later discover the debris from a Klingon shuttle. Archer is guessing (correctly) that the Klingons just killed the patients.

Sato becomes delirious and is able to use her linguistic skills to break the code on the decon chamber lock and escape, all the while muttering in multiple languages. She makes it all the way to an airlock before Tucker talks her down and gets her back into decon. Phlox suggests sedating both of them.

Reed and Mayweather are on duty on the bridge, so the Organians are going about their usual duties. The one in Mayweather urges his colleague to cure the humans. They’ve made all the observations they need to, and they didn’t come here to watch people suffer. The Reed Organian disagrees. They can’t really have this discussion on the bridge, so they transfer to somewhere more private: the sedated forms of Tucker and Sato.

As their argument continues, Phlox notices that the patients are awake and talking, which is impossible given the amount of sedative they were given. He scans them and detects non-human brainwave patterns superimposed over those of Tucker and Sato. Once the Organians realize they’ve been seen, they leave the patients and transfer to Archer and T’Pol and confront Phlox. They explain that they’re observing how the virus affects the visitors to this planet. Phlox is disgusted at their callousness toward their subjects, and also at how blithely they alter people’s memories (since nobody remembers being possessed—the Archer Organian comments that memories are ridiculously easy for them to manipulate).

The Organians continue to discuss the matter. The cure that Phlox is working on is one that others have developed—but not until after the infected die. The senior Organian (the one who’s been in Reed most of the time) is unimpressed with the humans and doesn’t think they’re any more special than the ones who developed the cure too late. The younger one (who’s been mostly in Mayweather) disagrees.

Phlox can modulate the radiation enough not to kill the patients, but only if he uses the medical scanner in sickbay. They expand the quarantine zone to include sickbay and the corridors between it and decon. Phlox and Archer get into EVA suits and bring the pair from decon to sickbay. Unfortunately, Sato goes into cardiac arrest. They can’t use the equipment to revive her in EVA suits, but Archer won’t let Phlox expose himself, as they need a doctor right now more than a captain, so he removes his gloves and follows Phlox’s directions.

Alas, their heroic efforts aren’t heroic enough, as both Tucker and Sato die—and now Archer, too, is infected. As the Reed Organian said at the beginning of the episode, someone always dies.

However, the younger Organian decides to tell Archer what’s going on by possessing Tucker’s corpse. The other Organian angrily possesses Sato’s corpse to try to stop him. Archer gives a very high-handed (but justified) speech about how morally depraved it is to know that there’s a deadly virus on a planet and not tell anyone about it. Archer’s plea for compassion convinces the Organians to cure all three of them—since they got their observational findings either way—and they do so, but also erase Archer’s memories of the Organians themselves. The two, back in in Reed and Mayweather, agree that this particular test is no longer feasible, and that they should prepare for first contact with humans in five thousand years or so…

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Archer leaves a warning buoy on the planet so that future folks won’t get infected, and you’re telling me nobody else ever did that before?????

The gazelle speech. Archer sacrifices himself to try to save Tucker and Sato. He is also surprisingly unaffected by the corpse of his best friend sitting up and talking to him…

I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol assists Phlox in his search for a cure, and she’s the one who first notices that ionizing radiation may be the key.

Florida Man. Florida Man Gets Sick, Dies, Becomes a Zombie, Is Resurrected, Remembers Almost None of It.

Optimism, Captain! Phlox is absolutely disgusted by the Organians’ behavior, and isn’t shy about expressing it.

Qapla’! Tucker and Sato had the unenviable task of going through Klingon garbage. The Klingons who last visited the world also had some of their crew succumb to the virus, but the Klingons just kept them on their shuttle and blew it up.

More on this later… The Organians will later be seen in the original series’ “Errand of Mercy” to be trying to avoid the Federation-Klingon conflict by pretending to be peaceful colonists on a world desired by both sides in their war. Eventually, they reveal themselves and force the war to stop.

I’ve got faith…

“You ever see The Andromeda Strain?”

“Strain of what?”

“No, it’s a movie, mid-twentieth century.”

“Let me guess—Dr. Andromeda builds a monster and it kills him in the end?”

“It’s about an extraterrestrial disease.”

“All your movies are the same—I can’t keep the stories straight.”

— Tucker and Sato killing time while waiting to die.

Welcome aboard. No guest stars in this one. However, every member of the opening-credits cast does double duty as one of the Organians, with Dominic Keating, Jolene Blalock, and Linda Park playing the senior Organian and Anthony Montgomery, Scott Bakula, Connor Trinneer, and John Billingsley playing the junior.

Trivial matters: The Organians have also been seen in various works of tie-in fiction, among them the novels Spock Must Die! by James Blish, Trek to Madworld by Stephen Goldin, The Buried Age by regular commenter Christopher L. Bennett, The Romulan Way by Diane Duane & Peter Morwood, and the Q-Continuum trilogy by Greg Cox; the short story “Reflections” by Dayton Ward in Strange New Worlds; the comic books Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment #1-5 by D.C. Fontana, Derek Chester, and Gordon Purcell (IDW), The Q Conflict #1-6 by Scott & David Tipton and David Messina (IDW), Deep Space Nine: Blood and Honor by Mark Lenard, Leonard Kirk, Ken Penders, and Terry Pallot (Malibu), Star Trek #1-4 by Mike W. Barr, Tom Sutton, and Ricardo Villagran (DC), and Star Trek #13 by Len Wein & Alberto Giolitti (Gold Key); and the RPG module All Our Yesterdays: The Time Travel Sourcebook (Last Unicorn).

Tucker references the movie version of The Andromeda Strain, which was directed by Robert Wise, who also directed The Motion Picture. The image of the virus is also of the same hexagonal design as the one in that movie. Tucker claims it’s “mid-twentieth century,” which is not exactly true, as it came out in 1971, and he also completely fails to mention that it was a novel first, written by Michael Crichton.

Sato speaks, at various points, German, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, French, Turkish, Arabic, and Klingon. It’s also established in this episode that Sato is a black belt in aikido.

The Organians mention the Cardassians, who were also seen in “Dead Stop,” though there has been no formal contact between them and humans yet.

It’s been a long road… “How many have to die before you admit humans are different?” In physics, the observer effect is the notion that the act of observing something still can affect and change it. That’s the theme of the episode, though the fact that neither Phlox nor Archer pointed this out to the Organians when they were talking to them is a rather major omission. Indeed, their presence affected the events of the episode, however subtly, which is something you’d think an advanced lifeform would notice…

Also, this entire episode is based on a misreading of “Errand of Mercy.” The Organians basically were hiding from the humans and Klingons and hoping they’d go away quickly and leave them alone. They only stopped the war when it became clear they wouldn’t go anywhere. They came out and said that mortal forms were disgusting to them and would you go away, please?

So to see them running tests on corporeal mortals is at odds with the get-off-my-lawn, not-in-my-backyard mien they showed in “Errand of Mercy.” Still, this could be a different faction of Organians from Ayelborne, Claymare, and Trefayne.

In any case, this episode is perfectly fine. It’s a good use of the bottle-show format, using the Organians’ non-corporeality to save money on guest stars by having them possess the crew. It’s to the credit of all the actors and to director Mike Vejar that you can tell every single time someone is possessed, from the very first scene when Reed and Mayweather don’t sound at all like themselves. Even better, you can always tell which one is the hidebound older Organian and which is the questioning younger one.

Points also to this episode for reminding us that Sato is something of a badass, what with her aikido black belt, her having been kicked out of Starfleet training, and her ability to break the ship’s lockout codes. Thought it’s also kind of sad that it took until the show’s 86th episode to get this stuff.

One of the episode’s biggest flaws is the ending. I simply didn’t buy that Archer’s speech was sufficient to convince the elder Organian to let the younger one have his way. John Billingsley’s outrage in the earlier scene when the Organians reveal themselves to him is far more compelling and convincing than Scott Bakula’s somnabulant speechifying. He practically might as well have said, “They’re in the opening credits, they can’t die!” which would have been about as convincing…

Warp factor rating: 6 

Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a guest at Anime Banzai at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah this weekend, alongside Star Trek: Prodigy voice actor Bonnie Gordon, as well as a bunch of voice actors and artists and writers and cosplayers and performers. He’ll have a table where he’ll be signing and selling books, and also will be doing some programming. His full schedule is here.

The post Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: “Observer Effect” appeared first on Reactor.

My own theory, posed during my review of “Twovix” and “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee,” has been that it’s AGIMUS and Peanut Hamper having merged and wreaking havoc. Was I right? Let’s find out…

Amusingly, the episode in which the culprit was revealed is also an episode that prominently features the return of both AGIMUS (voiced by the great Jeffrey Combs) and Peanut Hamper (voiced by the equally great Kether Donohue). But it’s not them—it’s Badgey!

Harken back to the third-season finale, “The Stars at Night,” which had a post-credits scene that shows the device hosting Badgey being tractored into a ship. Turns out it was a Drookmani ship, and Badgey didn’t waste a nanosecond in taking over the vessel. Since then, he’s been bopping around the quadrant hitting ships.

The Bynar ship being targeted, though, was for a very specific reason: it happened to be in a location proximate to the Cerritos, because the psychotic AI has some unfinished business with his “father,” Rutherford.

Sure enough, Starfleet sends the Cerritos due to that proximity, but neither Tendi nor Boimler are going with, as they have other business back on Earth at the Daystrom Institute. Peanut Hamper has been a model citizen and is up for parole, and Tendi’s presence has been requested at the parole hearing. Meanwhile AGIMUS claims to have information about the attack on the Bynar ship, but will only share this information with Boimler, whom he views as his nemesis.

The Badgey portion of this plot manages to hit several Trek clichés, notably two tropes from the original series, to wit, the splitting of a being into “good” and “evil” components (“The Enemy Within”), as well as somehow talking an artificial intelligence into imploding (“The Changeling,” “I, Mudd,” “Return of the Archons,” etc.).

It starts with Rutherford pulling a Data-in-Nemesis and doing a space walk to put himself into Badgey’s clutches in the hopes that he’ll spare the Cerritos. Mariner goes along because Tawny Newsome is the first listed in the opening credits and she needed something to do. (Having said that, just barreling along to join Rutherford is pretty on-brand for Mariner, but she really doesn’t serve any purpose at any point in the episode.)

First, Rutherford tries to appeal to Badgey’s good side, but that just results in the split into good and evil—or, rather good and bad, as the bad part is still called Badgey, but the good part is called, I kid you not, Goodgey. I suppose they couldn’t resist.

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Then he tries to appeal to logic, but that just results in another split into a third being: Logicey. (Despite how it’s spelled, it’s pronounced with a hard C. Maybe it should be “Logickey”? No, then it sounds like it’s the key to logic…)

So we go from “The Enemy Within” to Farscape’s “My Three Crichtons,” as there are now three Badgeys competing for dominance, and each split makes Badgey that much more evil, as he’s functioning without good and without logic.

Which only leaves Rutherford with one solution, and it’s a very Trek one, one that we’ve also seen before, most recently in Picard’s “Surrender”: he gives Badgey love. He hugs him and shows compassion and gives love and forgives him his sins, and it’s a lovely moment.

And it doesn’t entirely work, because Badgey’s goodness is in Goodgey and his logic is in Logicey, and now he’s going to upload himself to every single computer in the Federation and then he’ll take over the world! Um, that is, galaxy!

Except that level of awareness of the universe brings enlightenment and yet another Trek standby, ascension to a higher plane of existence (which we’ve already seen in “Moist Vessel,” and which was also seen versions of in the original series’ “Errand of Mercy,” TNG’s “Transfigurations,” and Voyager’s “The Gift”). Badgey becomes a higher being of pure energy, thus sparing the Federation computers from his infiltration.

Meanwhile, we see AGIMUS in group therapy for psychotic AIs, which, um, looks just like a twenty-first-century group session, complete with folding chairs in a circle, and goodness gracious, can’t we show a little imagination? I mean, okay, it’s part of the joke that it’s just like a group session that’s familiar to the audience, but with evil computers. But still…

AGIMUS and Peanut Hamper are also working together in the prison garden, a scene that I swear makes me think of a tableau in Arkham Asylum with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. Which is fine! That made it funnier! Anyhow, the two are plotting evilly. AGIMUS has switched his menacing red-orange light into a sky-blue one in order to fool people into thinking he’s good and compassionate now. Meanwhile, Peanut Hamper has been practicing her fake speech for the parole board. AGIMUS has an escape plan, and once she’s on parole and he’s freed himself, they’re going to meet up and find a planet to take over.

At first, the plan goes swimmingly. AGIMUS convinces Boimler to take him to some drones he left behind, as they’ve recorded what happened to the Bynar ship. Meantime, Tendi waxes rhapsodic about how heartfelt Peanut Hamper’s speech was to the parole board, and they granted it. Tendi and Boimler take AGIMUS in their shuttle, but the AI manages to take over the shuttle and imprison the two lieutenants.

But when they arrive at the rendezvous, AGIMUS is disheartened to learn that Peanut Hamper isn’t there. At first, he cackles madly, proud of the fact that she double-crossed him like a true creature of evil. However, it soon becomes clear that without her, AGIMUS’s heart isn’t really in it. He tries taking over a planet, which he does in nothing flat, but it brings no joy for him. Instead, he seeks out Peanut Hamper, and finds her reunited with her Exocomp family.

Turns out that Peanut Hamper’s fake speech wasn’t as fake as she’d intended, as she realized while giving it to the parole board that every word was true. (This has the fortuitous side effect of making Tendi not look so bad. When she carried on about how great Peanut Hamper’s speech was, you think Tendi’s a fool for falling for Peanut Hamper’s nonsense, but it turns out that Tendi saw the sincerity that Peanut Hamper herself didn’t expect.) She’d rather be at home with her family than out conquering worlds with AGIMUS. For his part, AGIMUS was only really interested in going out to conquer worlds again because he was going to be doing it with his friend. Doing it alone was empty.

Thus we once again have a wonderfully Trekkish solution to the problem. The friendship that developed between AGIMUS and Peanut Hamper has been good for both of them, and led them down a road of compassion. The bit at the end when Peanut Hamper introduces AGIMUS to her parents is adorable. And then, of course, Boimler and Tendi have to take AGIMUS back to the Daystrom Institute.

As you may have gathered, the DNA of lots of other Trek productions are present in this episode (as well as from a few other sources). I didn’t even mention all of them—for example, AGIMUS noticing Boimler’s promotion to lieutenant junior-grade is very reminiscent of Khan’s learning that Kirk has been promoted to admiral in The Wrath of Khan (one of the best things about Ricardo Montalban’s performance in that movie is the way he sneers the word “admiral” throughout the film). But that’s not a critique! It takes all those familiar tropes and weaves them together into a very entertaining episode. We get three of the show’s best creations in the three evil AIs all not only returning, but finding some measure of redemption. It helps that Combs, Donohue, and Jack McBrayer (as the various Badgeys) do fantastic voice work. Combs is especially fabulous (as usual), showing AGIMUS’s conflict between good and evil (the same conflict is writ more literal with Badgey, of course). And I especially like that, after “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption,” we’re primed for Peanut Hamper to go back to being a selfish shit, so it’s nice to see that this redemption actually took, unlike the fake one in the third-season episode.

This is exactly the kind of story LD does best: a humorous take on Trek, but one that still lives up to its ideals and themes. There’s still some twenty-first-century life stuff unconvincingly brought forward to the Trek universe (parole hearings, the group session), but I can live with that when the rest of the episode is as entertaining as this.

Random Thoughts

• Badgey was introduced in “Terminal Provocations,” and returned to enact revenge on Rutherford in “No Small Parts.” AGIMUS was introduced in “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie.” Peanut Hamper was introduced in “No Small Parts,” and returned in “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption,” at the end of which she met AGIMUS and their beautiful friendship was begun.

• We do find out that the ships weren’t completely vaporized, but instead broken into bits for the Drookmani and Badgey to salvage. What isn’t at all clear (and which I hope will be made so in a future episode) is what happened to the crews. Given that the ships were still broken up, they’re probably dead, but maybe not? As I said, it’s not at all clear, and I hope there’s some clarity on that soon, as that’s a lot of death…

• The title is a riff on the Western movie For a Few Dollars More, the sequel to A Fistful of Dollars. Amusingly, TNG did a title riff on the earlier film, “A Fistful of Datas,” which was also about an AI that propagated, in that case with multiple images of Data on the holodeck.

• Another one of the evil AIs in the group session is named Lord Tyranokillicus, which is, simply put, the best name ever. Bravo.

• At the beginning and end of the episode, Rutherford is experimenting with putting an old-fashioned grappler (like the ones used on the NX-01 on Enterprise, which took place before Earth developed tractor beams) on a shuttlecraft. Alas, it isn’t as precise as one might like, first ripping off Tendi’s uniform top, then leaving Boimler hanging upside down from the bulkhead.

• At the end, while Logicey is horribly murdered by Badgey, Goodgey remains, with Rutherford insisting that he won’t turn evil. The other three are not entirely convinced of this…

• Bynars were introduced in the TNG episode “11001001.” This marks only their second appearance onscreen, though the society was seen in more depth in the Starfleet Corps of Engineers series of novellas that ran from 2000-2007 (which was edited by your humble reviewer). One of the main characters was a Bynar whose bondmate died, but who chose to remain a “singleton,” which ostracized him from mainstream Bynar society. Bynaus was explored in the novella 10 is Better Than 01 by Heather Jarman.

• As Badgey ascends, we get to see the koala again! The koala has already been mentioned as part of ascension in “Moist Vessel,” and seen by people having near-death experiences, including Boimler (in both “First First Contact” and “In the Cradle of Vexilon”) and Stevens (“Mining the Mind’s Mines”). It was also visible in the animated opening credits of SNW’s “Those Old Scientists.” At this point, I think the koala should start showing up in every Trek show, just to keep the gag going…

Keith R.A. DeCandido’s latest work is “Prezzo,” a new story that appears in Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, an anthology celebrating the centennial of Weird Tales magazine, edited by Jonathan Maberry. The anthology, which is on sale now in hardcover, eBook, and audio, includes new stories by Scott Sigler, Laurell K. Hamilton, R.L. Stine, James Aquilone, Hailey Piper, Blake Northcott, and Dana Fredsti; new poetry by Linda D. Addison, Owl Goingback, Marge Simon, Jessica McHugh, Anne Walsh Miller, and Michael A. Arnzen; essays by Lisa Morton, Lisa Diane Kastner, Charles R. Rutledge, James A. Moore, Henry L. Herz, and Jacopo della Quercia & Christopher Neumann; and reprints of classic stories by H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov & Frederik Pohl, Victor LaValle, Usman Malik, Karin Tidbeck, Allison V. Harding, and Tennessee Williams.

The post “Does co-conspirating mean nothing anymore?” — Star Trek: Lower Decks: “A Few Badgeys More” appeared first on Reactor.