“Exile”
Written by Phyllis Strong
Directed by Roxann Dawson
Season 3, Episode 6
Production episode 058
Original air date: October 15, 2003
Date: unknown
Captain’s star log. An alien makes telepathic contact with Sato. At first she thinks she’s hallucinating, the stress of their situation starting to get to her, especially since neither Phlox nor Reed can find any medical or scientific reason why she’s hearing someone whispering her name and seeing shadowy figures in her quarters.
T’Pol has been analyzing the sensor data on the anomalies, both from Enterprise and the Xindi database, and she theorizes that the anomalies might be caused by gravimetric waves from the sphere crossing with the gravimetric waves from another sphere. She’s been able to triangulate the rough location of this theoretical second sphere. Archer, excited, sets a course.
On T’Pol’s orders, Sato goes to the command center to translate more of the Xindi database. Once again, the telepathic contact is made, and this time it’s more detailed. She sees images of his planet and of herself on the command center screens, and then she is seemingly transported to what looks like a medieval castle. The alien, who appears human and calls himself Tarquin, offers to help them in their mission. (At one point, he also gave himself the appearance of Phlox.)
Archer decides to take a shot, and heads to the coordinates. Archer, Sato, and Reed take a shuttlepod down to meet Tarquin, who turns out to be more alien-looking than he let on. He was only expecting Sato, but he greets the others with equal friendliness.
His telepathy allows him to read telepathic imprints that people leave behind on objects they’ve manipulated. If they have something of the Xindi’s, he can, with a few days’ meditation and work, provide information about them. Archer gives him a piece of the device that attacked Earth in “The Expanse.”
Tarquin, however, asks that Sato stay to keep him company over those few days. Archer is reluctant, but Sato is willing to volunteer to stay behind to hang out with him. He’s all alone on the planet. Archer promises to be back in a few days after they’ve checked out the other sphere.
Apparently, Tarquin’s telepathy only works directly brain-to-brain, as it were, on a select few people, people who have the right kind of mind. Sato is one such. Telepaths are rare on Tarquin’s world, and those who have the ability are exiled. He’s been living here for centuries, though he has sufficient technology to want for nothing—except company. He’s able to re-create some Earth food using his food synthesizer, based on what he’s read in Sato’s mind. They talk a lot about Sato’s life and feelings, and she can’t help but notice how little he talks about his life. He shows her a crystal that helps amplify his telepathy to allow him to reach out for light-years, which is how he found Sato. She tries it, and gets flashes of memories from assorted past adventures, as well as a view of a Xindi-Reptilian. He also gives her a book that is from whoever lived on the planet in the distant past. When Tarquin is working, Sato translates and reads the book.
As Enterprise approaches the sphere, the anomalies pound the crap out of the ship. It quickly becomes clear—especially when a slice of the saucer’s hull is ripped off—that Enterprise can’t approach this sphere. So they take the trellium they mined last week and use it to coat the hull of one of the shuttlepods. Archer and Tucker head into the cloaking field, and make it out the other side, then land on the sphere. There’s some damage that Tucker has to go EVA to fix, and he accidentally activates the port thruster, which sends the shuttle careening into space. Archer and Tucker have to destroy the thruster in question so the shuttle will crash back to the sphere hull. It does that, skidding toward them, yet they don’t move, because they’re TV characters, and they know that it’ll stop skidding two feet before it hits them. Sure.
Tarquin has advised Sato not to go outside, as the wind is nasty, but the real reason is that he’s buried the last several people who’ve been his companion on this world. Sato is appalled, and makes it clear that her visit is temporary. Tarquin tries to appeal to the sense of loneliness that she feels even on a starship, though how he’s supposed to convince her to cure loneliness by spending all her time with just one other person on a whole planet is not clear.
Enterprise heads back to pick up Sato, now armed with a shit-ton of data from the sphere. On the planet, Archer approaches Sato and says that Tarquin will only provide the information he’s gotten from the Xindi tech if she remains with him for a time. Sato reluctantly agrees, but when Archer won’t even let her go back to ship to collect her things and brief the new alpha-shift communications officer, she realizes that Tarquin is pulling a fast one by psionically posing as Archer. She confronts him, again refusing to stay, and threatening to destroy the crystal. Tarquin does agree to let her leave, but refuses to provide the information he’s learned from the Xindi tech.
Enterprise picks up Sato and buggers off. Archer’s pissed about Tarquin, but at least they got Sato back and have lots of cool sphere data. Pursuant to that, T’Pol now has a map of the anomalies, and her initial theory was both right and wrong—there is more than one sphere, but there’s also more than two. Based on the map of the anomalies she’s been able to compile, there are approximately fifty of them.
Tarquin contacts Sato, to her annoyance. He promises that this is the last time he’ll reach out to her. He provides the coordinates for a colony on which the Xindi built the weapon, and where they are likely building their bigger one. He changed his mind about sharing the intel with them because their mission is dangerous, and he doesn’t want to see Sato hurt. Sato passes those coordinates on to a suddenly very excited Archer…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? When T’Pol theorizes that there are fifty or so spheres, all creating a mess of anomalies, Archer realizes that the spheres may have created the Delphic Expanse…
The gazelle speech. Instead of being grim and nasty Archer, this week he’s closer to his old self, mainly because they’re doing science and finding stuff out. It’s heartening.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol has been burning the midnight oil in the command center studying the Xindi database, likely because she’s still having nightmares from her trellium poisoning in “Impulse.”
Speaking of that, Archer tells her to stay away from the launch bay while Tucker fits one of the shuttles with trellium, and Jolene Blalock gives a heartfelt “Indeed” worthy of Teal’c…
Florida Man. Florida Man Makes First Ever Anomaly-Proof Shuttlepod!
Optimism, Captain! Tarquin poses as Phlox at one point, and it’s creepy as hell….
Better get MACO. For some inexplicable reason, Archer leaves Sato alone on a planet with an alien they just met. The whole reason why you have, not just a security detail, but the MACOs on the ship is to protect the crew, so why the hell didn’t he leave a MACO or four with her?
I’ve got faith…
“Sometimes, I don’t know what is worse—being alone, or having to bury the people I’ve come to care about.”
–Tarquin, failing his saving roll vs. empathy.
Welcome aboard. The only guest is Maury Sterling as Tarquin.
Trivial matters: This is Phyllis Strong’s first solo writing effort for Trek—all her previous writing for both Voyager and Enterprise was in collaboration with Mike Sussman.
When she uses the crystal, Sato sees images from, among other places, “Sleeping Dogs,” “Judgment,” and “The Communicator.”
This was the first episode of any Trek series to be aired in high-definition, a practice that was becoming more and more commonplace across the first decade of the millennium.
It’s been a long road… “The next time you invite someone for a visit, you might want to let them know that you’re looking for a lifelong companion.” This is almost an excellent episode, for all that it wears its influences—it’s pretty much Beauty and the Beast and Phantom of the Opera—on, not just its sleeve, but on the whole damn shirt.
Buy the Book
Dead Country
Thankfully, the story avoids the biggest problem with B&tB in particular, which is that it’s a rather creepy case of Stockholm Syndrome disguised as a romantic comedy, which has always sat poorly with me. (Even back in 1991 when the Disney animated version came out, I kept thinking, “But he kidnapped her! It’s not true love, it’s a damn felony!”) But even though Sato thankfully at no point gives in to Tarquin’s desire to keep her prisoner, there are so many little things that threw me out of the story. For starters, Archer just left her alone on the planet with this telepathic rando without any protection beyond a phase pistol. Seriously, why are the MACOs even there if they can’t provide security for a bridge officer stuck on a strange planet?
And then Sato is so nervous about being with this strange alien that she gads about the place in a tank top and shorts the whole time. Because the producers of Enterprise are never happier than when they’re sexualizing their female characters.
The biggest problem is that Maury Sterling is pretty nowhere as Tarquin. He isn’t charming enough to make Sato’s being willing to hang out with him convincing, and he isn’t menacing enough to make the reveal that he’s a predator land very well. (Also: he’s got a whole planet to himself, why does he put the graves of his previous hostages so close to the castle where the next victims can find it like Sato does?)
The Enterprise half of the plot is both useful for moving the seasonal arc along and only occasionally interesting. Finding out that there are tons more spheres is very important to the overall plot, but getting there is not half the fun. For one thing, why isn’t Mayweather the one piloting the shuttlepod into the cloaking field? This is the second episode in a row where the ace pilot isn’t doing the job that requires ace piloting, and when the ace pilot is the only person of color in the main cast and he’s being set aside for the white dude, it’s not a good look. For another, the whole setting off the port thruster and having to shoot down the shuttle is such obvious filler, it’s sad.
Linda Park is excellent as always, and she does well with the spotlight, and hey, at least it’s not as dreadful as “Vanishing Point.” But this should’ve been a stronger episode, and it was done in by bad guest casting and several failures of scripting.
Warp factor rating: 5
Keith R.A. DeCandido is also reviewing the new episodes of Star Trek: Picard as they are released on Paramount+, and in anticipation of that, he also rewatched the movies Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis on this here site, right before his review of Picard’s “The Next Generation.” His review of Picard’s “Disengage” went up last week, and his review of “Seventeen Seconds” will go up on Thursday.
I think because, for all that he’s a deeply selfish and manipulative individual, Tarquin was and remains deeply attached to those with whom he shared his telepathic bond, to the point where he could no more imagine NOT having them as close to his person as they are close to his heart than he could imagine smashing his ‘crystal ball’.
It also bears pointing out that we know too little about his previous companions to be certain that they were only victims from start to finish: while Hoshi refused his offer, there’s no guarantee that every single one of the others would find it equally unattractive (Though there’s also no guarantee that every single one of those old relationships was a happy one).
Personally, I feel that botched psychic con-job was a bit of a cop-out: as though elements in the writing staff started thinking “Wait, do we need a villain? We maybe need a villain. Let’s make the psychic guy a villain” rather than being willing to stay the course and make this episode a study in the pathos that follows when Beast finds his Beauty, but fails to make the relationship work – not every princess finds the pea, after all.
Ach, almost forgot to add this – for my money the strangest bit in this episode was Ensign Sato being pestered by a psychic without going to T’Pol (the resident ‘Esper’ and a colleague with whom she’s been shown to be quite friendly in the past) for advice.
Admittedly T’Pol is having Serious Issues all her own, some of them potentially touching on her psychic defences.
“Exile” is another weird sidebar, the sort of episode that feels like it was left over from script development for season 2 and had a few tweaks to tie it into the Xindi narrative.
As for the lack of MACOs, Tarquin did make it clear that Hoshi staying alone was his condition for helping them with the Xindi business. Archer resisted, and Hoshi convinced him she was willing to take the chance. And as a telepath, Tarquin could presumably have sensed if Archer had, say, sent down a shuttle of MACOs to wait nearby just in case.
I was remined of the look-and-feel of several TOS episodes, notably Catspaw, An alien, inexplicably living on an otherwise uninhabited planet, with a house way too big for a single occupant. That alien tries to cause one crewmember to abandon the ship. Some exploration of character before it becomes a confrontation …
In addition to _Catspaw_, I was reminded somewhat of the Squire of Gothos
The whole “Gothic romance in space” thing is more successful here than it was the last time they tried it in “Sub Rosa”, but it still feels pretty blatantly like another kind of story transposed into a sci-fi setting. Just a bit more self-awareness and this could be an episode of Futurama. Still, they give episodes to Hoshi so rarely that I’m grateful even so (as for walking around the castle in a tank top and shorts, if they’re going to have her out of uniform, I kind of wish that they had committed to the bit and contrived to dress her in a flowing white gown or the like).
And I liked revelation about the spheres! This was the point at which I actually started to care about the mystery of the Delphic Expanse, even if the actual hunt for the Xindi still hasn’t become interesting.
Christopher: Archer could have left a few MACOs in a shuttle in orbit, or in system.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Given how marginalized both Hoshi and Travis became in these last two seasons, I’m glad we got at least one spotlight episode for her during the Xindi arc, even if it is a pretty forgettable one for the most part.
I like Sterling enough, though this is one episode where they could have used Leland Orser’s talents, given his own turn as a creepy loner in a VOY episode years before – and it’s not as if Trek never reused guest actors on different small parts before (Sterling himself fared better as the tech guy on Homeland, years later). Someone like him in the role instead might have given the episode a little more weight in retrospect.
As for why Archer wouldn’t deploy MACOs on this guy’s planet, I think at this point Archer is aware he’s not in a position of power. They’re a single ship in the middle of a hostile and unpredictable region. He doesn’t know the extent of Tarquin’s talents, therefore he’s in a pretty weak negotiating position. And he wouldn’t try and sneak MACOs without his knowledge either. Archer is too old school to try subterfuge.
At the very least, we get development of the overall greater arc with more details on the spheres that make up the expanse. Also, I believe this was the first episode with Manny Coto involved as a producer. Little did we know back then he’d end up in charge of the show.
“Do you really expect me to spend the rest of my life on a desolate world with someone I’ve known less than two days?”
A vague Beauty and the Beast tale, although there’s very little chance of the heroine falling in love with her host and deciding to stay with him. Any episode centring on the always appealing Hoshi has got a few things going for it and Tarquin has very soulful eyes that make him easy to sympathise with, no matter how inappropriate his requests of her. Even though he becomes more antagonistic towards the end in order to provide a dramatic climax (a plot beat that the summary…skips over entirely?), it’s hard to truly hate him: He is, after all, very much a victim of circumstances, exiled simply for being born. As satisfying as it is to see Hoshi go badass on him when he makes the mistake of threatening her friends, the idea of being left in complete isolation for the rest of his life is clearly horrifying to him.
Archer and Tucker’s shenanigans on the sphere are a bit silly and inconsequential (as pointed out, they seem to realise that their plot armour is in full effect as they just stand there waiting for the CGI shuttle to miraculously grind to a halt just before hitting him), but the plotline turns out to have big repercussions. It’s been a while since I’ve seen this season, so I’m enjoying seeing how the show slowly teases out it’s reveals and adds to what we’ve learned before. By the end, Archer and T’Pol have learned that the situation is far bigger than either of them expected, and that they have another mystery alongside the question of what the Xindi are up to, while also giving Enterprise a way to survive this expanse that has been so lethal to others by having the crew use their brains and find a way to chart and predict the anomalies.
T’Pol’s purple outfit makes its first “real” appearance. Mayweather has no on screen dialogue: We hear his voice over the intercom at one point but he’s silent during the bridge scenes, when he’s even there. (The unnamed officer manning Hoshi’s usual post has more dialogue than him!) Kind of ironic that this happens in an episode that suggests he’s the one Sato would miss the most. (Tarquin’s Fake Archer gives himself away by knowing she wants to say goodbye to Travis without her saying so.) Tarquin mentions Sato nearly leaving Enterprise early in the mission, as seen in ‘Fight or Flee’. Hoshi mentions “over 80” people on Enterprise, suggesting that, despite the MACOs joining the crew, the complement isn’t much larger than it was pre-Expanse. (Presumably a lot of the old crew disembarked at Earth.)
I kinda like this episode. Linda Park is really good in it (why did they not use her more in Enterprise?!) and there’s lots of suitable ambiguity about Tarquin. His character is insulated and lonely, he doesn’t have a society or a community to reinforce correct behaviour. He’s creepy because nobody has shown him how to behave, and that makes him totally unpredictable.
It’s an interesting episode, quite different to what has come before on Trek. The only comparable episode I can think of is Sub Rosa but this one is much less silly and moves the Xindi/Sphere arc forward.
Cap-mjb: Crew numbers are very “flexible” on Star Trek; during Voyager there was not a prearranged crew number for the writers to use in dialogue, so the writers made up a new number whenever they needed to mention it. Probably the same was true for Enterprise.
Enterprise has actually been far more consistent about the crew complement than Voyager ever was.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Chu Lee: Voyager was certainly notorious for that, but during the first two seasons, Enterprise was pretty consistent on the fact there was 83 crewmembers. (The only wrinkle is that the initial figure presumably included Daniels and it’s not clear when they got a replacement for him.) As I indicated, there’s a clear explanation for the figure here, but I’ll be keeping an eye on it going forwards. (“Over 80” is also fairly vague, and it’s possible Hoshi just isn’t used to the expanded crew if there are a dozen or so more than 80.)
So she should cover head to toe in her leisure time to avoid provoking him (although his interest was more for her mind than her body anyway)? Probably you are right and the producers selected the outfit for “sexy” purposes, but I really wish to think that by the 23th century the women feel free to wear whatever they find comfortable without the fear that someone will attack them and somehow it would be their fault because they “asked for it”.
@13/Salix: Hear, hear. Not every culture automatically associates skin with sexuality. In Japan, people bathe together regularly and it isn’t seen as sexual (public bath houses do tend to have separate facilities for men and women, but not always). And Hoshi was a professor in Brazil, a culture that tends to have a casual attitude toward scanty clothing and nudity, presumably due in part to its warm climate, but is fairly conservative in its sexual mores (at least in our century). In “Broken Bow,” Hoshi taught students in Brazil while dressed like this, which is slightly more revealing than what she wore with Tarquin. (Which is a dress, not a tank top and shorts.) So I see no reason why she wouldn’t have felt comfortable dressing that way.
Not to speak for Krad, but I think his riff on Sato’s wardrobe choices were also meant to note that the show-runners rarely missed an opportunity to put an attractive woman in scant or tight clothing for our viewing pleasure. In fact he pointed that out himself in the same paragraph.
Not the best episode, but at least the longer season arc was starting to go someplace.
@15/fullyfunctional: Salix already acknowledged that aspect of it in their post, but that doesn’t negate their point. There’s a difference between speculating about the producers’ decisions and making assumptions about the beliefs and attitudes of the character within the story.
I thought it was pretty obvious from what I wrote that I was talking about the producers’ decisions, not the character’s, and I certainly agree with Salix’s larger point, but — to be clear — I was dinging the costuming choice, not the character’s choice.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The trailer and description of this episode never moved me to actually watch it: “Beauty and the Beast” on “Star Trek” and focused on Hoshi. It just sounds super boring and inconsequential (even if it moves the Xindi arc along). Sounds like by this review I’m not missing all that much either.
“when the ace pilot is the only person of color in the main cast”
Does Sato not also count? =)
While the accidental shuttle thruster ignition was so obviously filler, I found it amusing as something we’d never seen in a Star Trek episode before. It was an extremely well done scene on the special effects side of things, I thought.
I’m with krad on Hoshi’s dress: I had the exact same thought when I watched: “Why is Hoshi in a sexy dress for no compellingly good reason? Oh, that’s right. The producers never miss an opportunity to get the female characters clothed as little as possible.
It wasn’t that Hoshi wore the dress, it’s that the producers had her wear it (not that I’m complaining. Your Seven of Nines and T’Pols are great, but my heart is with the Ezri Daxes and Hoshi Satos. I digress…)
No I’m sorry, there was no way I’m leaving a member of my crew alone with some weird alien rando, I don’t care what the stakes are. I’m not pimping out my crew to maybe get useful information.
Seriously, that’s got to be like dereliction of duty or something.
And then Archer’s log just says ” Welp, Hoshi came back but didn’t get anything”, not “Hoshi was creeped on by an alien creeper creep who was willing to kill the whole ship to have her, but she’s safely back on board. I’m a dumbass for letting her do it, and it’s amazing I’m somehow Captain of this ship.”
Linda Park as always does her best with the nonsense she’s given; kudos to her.
Oh, Archer and Tucker dick around on another sphere. Why didn’t Travis fly the shuttle? Or the ship during an emergency situation?
Yeah, I got nothing.
@22. “Archer and Tucker dick around on another sphere. Why didn’t Travis fly the shuttle? Or the ship during an emergency situation?”
I made the same point about last week’s episode, impulse. It’s a wonder Archer thinks he needs a helmsman at all since he’ll bend over backwards to avoid giving him anything to do.
I’d seen this episode before but not before learning about the “Bluebeard’s wives” trope. It’s Bluebeard!!!!
Fair points on both sides about Hoshi’s clothing choices while staying with Tarquin. But none of you seem to have noticed that Hoshi was also wearing high heeled slippers, when she was supposedly dressing “comfortably.”
While watching this again recently I kept wondering why Tarquin didn’t just leave his exile planet? Since he had the technology to shut down ships, seems he could’ve gotten one in the past to give him a ride. Or ask Enterprise for asylum, since he’s a prisoner of conscience for simply being born a mutant. He was manipulative & creepy, without much conception of boundaries, but his desperation made sense & he wasn’t unsympathetic.
How cruel were his people to exile him to another planet by himself, with no other telepaths or even a caretaker? There was clearly other telepaths, and another one is alluded to in a later episode. I was also annoyed nobody on Enterprise gave him the consideration they gave other adversarial species, especially after he followed through on what he said he’d do for them despite Hoshi leaving. That he wanted to keep Hoshi safe even though they ditched him redeemed him in my eyes. But no “hey Tarquin, thanks for that selfless act that has probably saved our mission & our people. If we survive this we’ll come back for you & take you to a more populated star sector so you’re not so alone.”