“Azati Prime”
Written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga and Manny Coto
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 3, Episode 18
Production episode 070
Original air date: March 3, 2004
Date: unknown
Captain’s star log. Enterprise finally arrives at Azati Prime, Archer ordering the ship to hide behind a planetoid. There’s a detection grid protecting Azati Prime, and they observe Degra’s ship going through it. On that ship, Degra and his staff are toasting the completion of the weapon, even though they admit it’s a bit skeevy to toast the imminent destruction of a planet. When Degra meets with the council, the Primate councillor and Jannar congratulate him, though Dolim is parsimonious with congratulations. The other two councillors, who involve much more expensive special effects, are not present…
After it becomes clear that Enterprise will never be able to penetrate the detection grid, they go with Plan B: use the Insectoid shuttle they salvaged last episode to get through. Mayweather and Tucker learn how to fly the thing, aided by Sato’s translations. They take it to Azati Prime, bluffing their way past a patrol with a bullshit story about navigational failure, and discover that the weapons construction facility is underwater.
While waiting for Tucker and Mayweather to return, the planetoid’s orbit takes them into scanning range of a tiny outpost that they didn’t realize was there. Archer reluctantly is forced to destroy it (and its three inhabitants) before they can alert the Xindi to Enterprise’s presence.
When Tucker and Mayweather return, Reed examines the sensor data and is able to work out a way to destroy the weapon. It’s a one-way mission, though. Mayweather volunteers, as the only one who can actually fly the Insectoid shuttle. Archer, however, insists that he be the one to do it.
Mayweather gives him a crash course (ahem) in how to fly the ship, then Archer gives a big speech telling them to go back to being explorers when this is all over, and then enters the turbolift—
Buy the Book
The Archive Undying
—to find his ass dragged to the future by Daniels again. The Temporal Agent has brought Archer aboard the Federation Starship Enterprise, NCC-1701-J, in the twenty-sixth century. The Xindi are members of the Federation in the twenty-sixth century, and they’re fighting a war against the Sphere-Builders, who are transdimensional beings. Daniels doesn’t want Archer to go on a suicide mission because he’s too important to history. Archer—likely cranky about all the nonsense Daniels has already put him through—tells him to go jump in a lake. Daniels relents, but gives Archer a Xindi heirloom belonging to an Enterprise-J crewmember—it might help him convince the Xindi not to destroy Earth.
When he returns to the twenty-second century, Archer is surprised to find that T’Pol agrees with Daniels. T’Pol admits, in a surprising moment of emotion, that she doesn’t want Archer to die.
Archer flies off in the Insectoid shuttle, but is unsuccessful in his mission: instead of blowing up the weapon, he’s captured. Dolim interrogates him via torture, which doesn’t work, Archer instead being a smartass. He also demands to speak with Degra, providing the name of Degra’s third child. Degra, surprised that this human he has no memory of meeting knows his newest kid’s name, agrees to speak to him.
Dolim, meanwhile, investigates the fact that the outpost on the system’s edge has mysteriously gone quiet…
Archer gives Degra the heirloom Daniels gave him, and also describes his and T’Pol’s mission to Earth’s past in graphic detail, including the Reptilians building a bioweapon. Degra is starting to have doubts—as are Jannar and the Primate councillor. Dolim, however, insists on continuing.
Reptilian ships attack Enterprise, pounding the holy crap out of it, with multiple casualties…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently the Xindi also have the bullshit capability of “quantum dating” which can show that something’s from the future, erm, somehow.
The gazelle speech. Archer insists on being the one to fly the suicide mission, which other characters object to because they don’t know that he’s the star of a TV show and therefore can’t die.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. More evidence of T’Pol’s fracturing emotional control, both in her outburst to Archer saying she doesn’t want him to die, and also kicking Tucker out of the ready room when she’s in there sulking.
Florida Man. Florida Man Volunteers For Suicide Mission, Is Denied.
Good boy, Porthos! Archer leaves Porthos with Phlox, which only makes sense, since the two of them bonded like crazy just a couple of episodes ago…
The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… T’Pol FINALLY admits that time travel is a real thing, having apparently been convinced by traveling in time to twenty-first-century Detroit. It’s a testament to what a stubborn ass she’s been on the subject that Archer is genuinely surprised that she feels that way even after getting experiential evidence of time travel…
More on this later… The Federation Starship Enterprise, introduced in “The Cage,” and seen captained by Pike (SNW, the original series’ “The Cage” and “The Menagerie,” season 2 of Discovery), Kirk (the original series and several movies), Decker (The Motion Picture), and Spock (The Wrath of Khan) had the registry NCC-1701. At the end of The Voyage Home, a new Enterprise was constructed (the original having gone boom in The Search for Spock) and it had the registry of NCC-1701-A, seen subsequently in The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country. That set a precedent that has been continued through several spinoffs. The Enterprise-B was seen in Generations; the Enterprise-C in TNG’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise”; the Enterprise-D throughout TNG, in Generations, and in Picard’s “Vox” and “The Last Generation”; the Enterprise-E in First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis; the Enterprise-F in “Vox”; and the Enterprise-G in “The Last Generation.” The ship Daniels brings Archer to is the Enterprise-J in the twenty-sixth century, which means they’ll go through the G, H, and I before commissioning the J in a hundred-plus (obviously very tumultuous) years…
I’ve got faith… “I’m going to ask all of you to think back to the day when this ship was first launched—we were explorers then. When all this is over, when Earth is safe, I want you to get back to that job. There are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy—we’ve only explored a tiny fraction. You have a lot of work to do. Of all the captains who will sit in this chair, I can’t imagine any of them being more proud than I am right now.”
Archer being profound and stuff just before his suicide mission.
Welcome aboard. It’s recurring character theatre! Back from “Carpenter Street” is Matt Winston as Daniels. Back from “Stratagem” is Randy Oglesby as Degra. Back from “Proving Ground” are Scott MacDonald as Dolim, Rick Worthy as Jannar, and Tucker Smallwood as the Primate councillor. Winston will return in “Zero Hour.” Oglesby, MacDonald, Worthy, and Smallwood will all return in the very next episode, “Damage.”
Trivial matters: Daniels sent Archer and T’Pol into the past to stop the Reptilians from building a bioweapon in “Carpenter Street.”
Archer found out all kinds of personal info about Degra when they tricked him into thinking it was three years in the future in “Stratagem,” and also erased his memory, which is why Archer is unfamiliar to him.
Enterprise got their hands on an Insectoid shuttle in “Hatchery.”
Phlox was alone with Porthos for a significant amount of time in “Doctor’s Orders.”
Procyon V, the site of the battle Daniels brings Archer to, is also seen in the Star Trek Online: Future Proof mission “Ragnarok.”
It’s been a long road… “Patience is for the dead!” I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that this story arc would’ve worked way better in half the season instead of all of it, as this arrival at Azati Prime would’ve been significantly more effective around eight or nine episodes into the season instead of eighteen. Mostly because my response to seeing Enterprise arrive at the titular planet was, “Finally!” Getting to this stage of the story should inspire excitement, not exasperation…
While this is far from a perfect episode, it’s also the culmination of a lot of prior episodes, and it delivers in terms of story, in terms of excitement, in terms of suspense, and in terms of character. Allan Kroeker is entirely the right person to direct this, as he keeps the pace brisk, the performances excellent, and the action beautifully filmed.
I like how this brings everything to a head, both the long-term plotline of Enterprise trying to stop the Xindi from blowing up Earth, and the shorter-term journey to Azati Prime that we’ve been waiting for since “Stratagem.”
I love how Archer’s continued response to violent interrogation is to be a smartass (cf. “The Andorian Incident,” “Detained”), and I like how Scott Bakula plays his desperation in trying to convince Degra (whom he knows is not an entirely bad person), Jannar, and the Primate councillor (for fuck’s sake, why the hell couldn’t they give Tucker Smallwood’s character a damn name?????) that they’re on the wrong path. Randy Oglesby in particular continues his excellent work in showing Degra’s moral struggle that we started to see in “Stratagem.”
I did not like yet more Temporal Cold War foolishness, and while it’s not really Matt Winston’s fault that he’s playing an incredibly tiresome character, it really has gotten to the point where seeing Daniels onscreen is cause for wailing, moaning, and throwing rotten tomatoes at the screen.
I like that Mayweather was immediately the first to volunteer for the suicide mission—which only made sense, given that he’s the only one who could fly the ship—but I hate what came immediately after. First Tucker says it should be a senior officer who flies the shuttle. (What? What? No, dumbass, it should be someone who can skillfully fly the fershlugginer shuttle!) Then Archer sets his jaw and says he’s doing it. Now Archer is an accomplished pilot, but the notion that there’s enough time to train him strains credulity, especially with the ticking clock of when the Xindi will discover that their outpost has gone quiet.
I’m reserving judgment on the destruction of the base and the murder of three innocent Xindi, because there isn’t really time for Archer to have to deal with the moral consequences of that action in the episode itself, and I know that the very next episode will deal with those moral issues in more depth. But it’s still something that didn’t sit right with me, partly because, yes, it was murder, and partly because it wasn’t all that tactically sound an action. My first thought when Archer ordered the outpost destroyed was, “What happens when they don’t check in?” And sure enough, the outpost going quiet was just as dangerous to Enterprise as the outpost communicating their presence would’ve been, with the added lack-of-bonus of Archer murdering three innocent people.
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be at Horror on Main at the Hunt Valley Inn in Cockeysville, Maryland (north of Baltimore) this weekend. He’ll be at the eSpec Books table in the vendor room, and also be doing a reading on Saturday at 2pm in Salon A.
Did you note the exact words of our dear doctor?
Archer: “Just don’t harvest any part of him.”
Phlox: “Oh, I doubt that will be necessary.”
If Phlox should ever need some spare parts for his bat, all bets are off!
And there is one advantage to putting this close to the season finale. It is not totally impossible that the captain might be replaced in the next season. Unlikely, sure, but more possible than mid-season. Remember that Enterprise came after Babylon 5. (Before the body count of GoT, of course …)
With Starfleet averaging one Enterprise per decade in the late 24th Century, I wonder if they decide to put the name into temporary retirement after the G. It’s especially hilarious when you think about all the TOS movie-era ships that were still in use during TNG and DS9, suggesting that with proper refits, a ship-of-the-line could remain operational for nearly a century.
I remember being frustrated with this one because I felt that the entire Xindi arc could have been brought to a close if they’d just let Mayweather do something for once. I also liked the continuity tie-in with Enterprise-J when it came out, but now I just find it kind of tiresome.
I remember thinking this was pretty good, along with the rest of the climactic arc. But I have trouble thinking of specific things to say about these episodes, since they were kind of running together for me by this point, due to the more serialized approach.
@1/o.m.: “Remember that Enterprise came after Babylon 5.”
B5 was by no means the first series to replace its lead actor/character. Just for one example, Mission: Impossible replaced Steven Hill with Peter Graves after its debut season in 1966-7, contemporaneous with Star Trek. The British Robin of Sherwood in the ’80s replaced Michael Praed’s Robin of Locksley with Jason Connery’s Robert of Huntingdon in the third season. Then there’s the original 1971 Kamen Rider from Japan. Its original lead broke his leg doing a stunt in episode 10, so there were about 3 episodes where he barely appeared out of costume, and then he was replaced by a new character with the same powers for about half the series, and then he came back a few times to partner with his replacement before finally taking over again as the lead. And that was before they started doing a new series with a new lead character every year, as is the standard for Japanese tokusatsu series.
I’m not saying T’Pol finally being obliged to relinquish her safety valve (Being able to say “Time travel is scientifically impossible” and believe it) is directly related to her descent into emotional instability, but a pet theory needs walkies just like every other beloved friend.
Speaking of which, I’m beginning to suspect that putting Doc Phlox & Porthos together may be key part of the magic formula for making me like (even love) an episode of ENTERPRISE, but I really do like “Azati Prime” “Doctor’s Orders” and “A Night in Sickbay”.
It doesn’t hurt that this is an unusually quotable episode (“Patience is for the Dead!” may now be my favourite line in the entire series: man, that Reptilian makes a wonderful Heavy of the Piece), with Jonathan Archer finally managing to haul out an excellent Big **** Speech (and delivering at least one delightful burn on his interrogators to boot).
While not quite perfect* it’s an extremely good piece of work and not afraid to really land some blows on Our Heroes (That bit where Captain Archer decides to be ruthless, first with those Xindi observers and then with himself, only to be find his Grand Plan falling to pieces is quite beautifully tragic – especially given his attempt to refuse Daniel’s offer of a better future in order to to get the job done).
*My reaction to Captain Archer’s bombardment order was to ask “Captain Archer, sir, have you been listening to Mr Reed’s opinions on MACOs a little too often?”
Not sure about the Xindi in the listening post being “innocent”. After all, they are presumably a military unit guarding a facility where they are building a weapon to destroy Earth, and where they have already launched one major attack from already. They were a valid military target. The tactical sense of destroying the outpost may have been questionable, but it isn’t like letting them report in was a better option for staying hidden. (My biggest issue was actually that the listening post had no way to communicate without a direct line of sight, which it only has once every few hours while the planetoid rotates, which kind of defeats the purpose of having such a post act as an early warning system.) Not that I am advocating they kill every enemy soldier they get the chance to, but given the circumstances, I certainly wouldn’t call it murder either.
o.m.: I probably should’ve included that for an “Optimism, Captain!” entry, yeah…………….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I disagree that “Azati Prime” should have happened around episode 8 or 9. I think the slow burn to episode 18 gave the writers time to work out the season and experiment with various threads, keeping things partially episodic, while also trying to sort out what works and what doesn’t – especially when you consider most of these writers (besides Chris Black and Manny Coto) had little to no experience with serialized storytelling. And what comes after “Azati Prime” is what I consider by far the most high-quality consistent run any Trek show has ever had when it comes to serialized storytelling, even more so than DS9’s early attempts during the Dominion War. Picard and Discovery should take lessons from this.
The episode itself is almost all setup for the big finish. And it finally delivers on what Brannon Braga has been aiming for Trek ever since Voyager’s second or third season: the Year of Hell arc. In essence, we finally get it – no time travel reset button or offscreen repairs out of this one. It’s no secret most of the Trek writers, Braga and Coto included, are big fans of Wrath of Khan. But instead of aping the big vengeful villain aspect or the big personal sacrifice side of the story, they go for the other big tentpole aspect of that film: the casualties. You couldn’t do the Xindi arc and have the NX-01 venture into an unknown region far away from home, cut off from any support, without showing the long-term consequences. Going in full military mode guns blazing was always going to yield mass casualties.
In 2003/04, that more or less created an immediate real-world parallel in the way US troops went into Iraq without any long term planning and ended up losing thousands to roadside bombs in the following years.
What we get during the final act is the most brutal action sequence with more destruction and carnage any Berman-era Trek show has had since DS9’s “Changing Face of Evil”. I remember first seeing this years ago. The scene of engineering being torn apart and one of the engineers engulfed in flames had me borderline sick to my stomach. Same when the Xindi tear the outer hull apart with officers being blown out into space. You wouldn’t get this on TNG or even DS9. TNG’s “Q Who?” only mentions the lost 18 lost crewmembers when the Borg vivisect their hull. DS9 edges closer to that level of carnage with the Defiant being blown apart. But ENT actually shows the visceral impact of the whole thing (it kinda had to after Nemesis raised the bar over a year before when Shinzon blew out their viewscreen). It’s by far my favorite cliffhanger ending of any Trek show before or since (as good as “Best of Both Worlds”, in my opinion). By far Allan Kroeker’s finest work in his 9 year involvement with Trek.
And then there’s the soundtrack. Berman easing up on the music restrictions over these past couple of seasons had a welcome effect. This is easily Jay Chattaway’s most expressive and creative work since 1992 or so. Put this up against his 1997 battle score for DS9’s Call to Arms. It’s not even close, especially those last silent couple of minutes free of dialogue.
And the Archer side of things is just as strong. Bakula is at his best when Archer is resisting interrogation. All the threads come together. We finally establish that the Xindi will become part of the Federation, and thanks to the Reptilians, we have Degra and the other Xindi beginning to second guess their motivations.
As for destroying the outpost, I agree destroying it was likely just as damaging to their mission as it would have been had they left it intact. But then again, what choice did they have? If they hadn’t done something, they would have been picked up on sensors, and they didn’t know just much firepower the Xindi could bring. They made a choice with what little info they had under a tremendous amount of pressure and a narrowing timeframe. It’s a devil’s choice. They made one based on fear, and as pointed out, we will be seeing the consequences.
P.S. – @krad: you left out Robert April from the NCC-1701 Captain roster in the info section.
As always, we welcome constructive and helpful feedback, as long as it’s expressed in a civil manner; no need to make things personal. You can see our full Moderation Policy here.
Trinya was not “his new kid”, they lost the child during the pregnancy.
THAT’s why it hit home with Degra.
For years I’ve really liked this episode; not just because it generally is a superb one in acting, pacing, and action, but for the attention to detail in a few places. One is how big the planet-busting Weapon is and how the subspecies of the Xindi that has the expertise in building anything that large would be the Aquatics, meaning that it being underwater serves its purpose to conceal it and make the construction process far easier for the Aquatics. Whether intended or not, it is a cool idea. Between an Arboreal colony providing kemocite, Degra (a Xindi-Primate) designing it, the Reptilians crewing it(or at least the one-man prototype) and the Aquatics possibly building it, it also makes that each Xindi species had a stake in the creation of the Weapon.
On the topic of Archer piloting the shuttle:
For a while, I was wondering why the hell Archer would be so dead set on flying the suicide mission to destroy the Weapon. Then, an idea hit me as I was watching DS9’s “In the Pale Moonlight” that, unlike Sisko, Archer decided that he couldn’t live with the choices he made in the Expanse and seized on the necessity of the shuttle being manned as his “out.” If memory serves, he says as much to Mayweather in the shuttle as he is being shown how to pilot it. I do feel like he learned to pilot it a bit too quickly, and all I can really come up with is that it’s easier to learn how to fly something when you have someone who’s flown it before showing you the ropes.
About destroying the Xindi outpost; it was definitely a “damned if we do, damned if we don’t” moment, and destroying it probably bought Enterprise a little more time to come up with a plan and execute it, but that still doesn’t excuse cold-blooded murder.
Daniels being Daniels and doing his timey-wimey stuff with Archer is a bit “eh” for me. Though writing this makes me wonder if Archer refusing not to go on his suicide trip so adamantly to Daniels led to the latter tipping off the Xindi about what the former would do. Possibly in the hopes that in combination with the medallion Daniels gives him, Archer would survive and resolve things peacefully..
You nailed it for me, Eduardo Jencarelli: I remember watching in horror as Enterprise is beaten to holy hell, crew members being blown out into space as the outer hull is ripped apart, and the ship literally falling down over people’s heads. In first-run, there were several weeks between “Azati Prime” and “Damage”, so I had those images in my mind that entire time.
I actually had to mentally prepare myself to watch this one again, as the scenes of death, destruction, and carnage are still a gut-punch for me nineteen years on.
Last year I took Fridays off for Long Service Leave and watched the entirety of Enterprise for the first time. I enjoyed it, warts and all, and especially felt the echoes of 9/11 and its aftermath throughout almost the entire run. But the cliffhanger to this episode really knocked my socks off and made me really appreciate the impact that it had: all those episodes where they had come through by the skin of their teeth, the compromises they made to what they wanted to achieve, genuinely showed that this was a less “enlightened” Starfleet than what I was used to.
But seeing the Enterprise floating “mostly dead” in space at the end of this episode was an utter shock and the fact that the casualties were as massive as they were was a massive game-changer for this series: the reality that they couldn’t fix this without some kind of massive reset was what made the last few episodes of the series quite nail-biting
IIRC “quantum dating” figures in CLB’s DTI books as characters deal with various aspects of time travel and alternate realities
@15/wiredog: Yes, I did try to tackle the absurdity of “quantum dating” in the DTI books, but my handwave explanation for how it works is hardly any less absurd.
Wouldn’t the future that Daniels showed Archer just be one possible future, not necessarily one that is written in stone? I ask this only because the Enterprise-J is, in my opinion, just the worst. I’d like to have some hope that it is simply never built.
This was were the season started to get good for me, personally. At the time I really loved the BSG-esque stories, like this episode, next week, and many from DS9. Since then, having grudgingly matured…well, I still like these episodes, and I still love me some ship-exploding combat, but I also have grown to love the talky episodes like “Measure of a Man,” “Darmok” or “Inner Light”.
Regarding Archer’s decision to destroy the outpost, I legitimately think that debate is the point of it. If you think it was 100% the right call, I get that. If you think it was completely unjustified murder, I get that too. Forget about seeing at as shades of grey, I find myself somehow agreeing 100% with two contradictory points! I think the point of stuff like that (or Sisko’s Romulan scam, or next week’s episode) is to show that sometimes people still have to make hard choices, between multiple crappy options. If I want to watch week after week of those hard choices, I don’t think Star Trek is the venue, I’ll watch BSG instead, but I do think Trek is big enough to tell those stories too. I mean, this is the universe that gave us the Kobayashi Maru!
Lastly, since I’ve finally caught up to the the current episodes, there’s something I’ve been wanting to say as I read through the seasons, about the first Xindi attack. I know that KRAD and the comments have discussed this a lot, and forgive me if I missed someone else saying this, but I have it in my mind that the more aggressive Xindi, the Reptillians and Insectoids, pushed to attack Earth as soon as possible, under any circumstances, to force the rest into a situation they couldn’t back out of. As these reviews have worked through the season, I now realize this is just my headcannon, that I picked up somewhere, but I thought it went like this:
The Xinxi-L and Xindi-I are skeptical that other “soft” council members will stay angry/scarred enough to carry through the attack, as they realize how long the weapon will take to build. Seizing on the need to test of small version, and also to test the vortex thingy, they push hard to test both on Earth, and lock the council into war, thinking that no enemy will be willing to make peace with them after 7 million dead, and the council will have no choice but to carry the war through to completion.
There’s probably something I’ve missed that precludes it from being true, though.
One thought that occurred to me while contemplating the Xindi’s planet-smasher: could it’s massive overkill factor have been partly based on the Council wanting the option to shatter one of the Spheres found throughout the Expanse?
I think it’s mentioned that the Xindi of the 22nd century aren’t particularly alarmed by these devices, but the notion did occur to me that SOMEBODY wanted a weapon at least theoretically capable of smashing these technological enigmas with a single shot – as a ‘just in case’ contingency – and used the Anti Earth weapons programme as an excuse to do some experimentation.
Alternatively, they may have just brushed up against one of the numerous technological terrors of the STAR TREK universe long before the Feseration did and sought to arm themselves accordingly…
@18/Tim – I agree that the rather decision to do a trail-run attack on Earth, while boneheaded from a strategic standpoint, actually makes some sense as a political decision by a committee. The insistence on a weapon capable not just of wiping out all life on Earth, but on blowing it to atoms, also makes some sense in terms of political showmanship.
I love getting to see the exterior of the ship getting damaged. So many times it is just announced “hull breach on deck 7” (likely due to budgetary/effects constraints). A really effective cliffhanger as the Xindi are still firing even with Enterprise in that state. It gives a sense they really are aiming to destroy the ship rather than disable it. Usually have to watch the next episode straight after when rewatching.
This would have been a better episode without the Temporal Agent meddling, which always feels like a deus ex machina to me.
@21/MDog – As I recall, Enterprise went on hiatus for a couple of months immediately after this one aired. It was very frustrating.
Oh good! Another temporal cold war episo…..zzzzzzz
I love ST Enterprise. I thought if people would just give it a chance, they would too.
@18, 19, 20
I’ve been thinking about the question of “why attack Earth with a small prototype and warn the Humans about their plans” for a while, though have yet to share anything on what I’ve come up with. We know that, later in the season, there’s another version of Enterprise that’s been wandering the Expanse for a century Dolim interrogated Archer on how many ships Earth had in the Expanse. It could be that the Council were operating under the assumption that humanity was far more advanced and had a substantial presence in the Expanse for that century and, according to the “Guardians,” already knew of you and were planning to wipe you out. In that case, why not attack the homeworld of your enemy if they already knew who and where you were? Undoubtedly, the scans of Earth being nowhere near as advanced as thought would have raised some eyebrows for the more reluctant members of the Council, but nothing substantial to go against the word of your vaunted Guardians or sway the zealous and/or stubborn Council members.
@26/FRT: “In that case, why not attack the homeworld of your enemy if they already knew who and where you were?”
That’s got it backward. If it were just about a single attack, fine. But the problem is that the test attack spoiled the surprise of the real attack planned for a year later, and gave Earth a chance to prevent that attack, which is exactly what ultimately happened. If you want to build a superweapon that annihilates your enemy, it’s better not to give them advance warning that it’s coming.
As others have argued in earlier posts, the only way the test attack on Earth makes any sense is if Earth doesn’t know who sent it, because then they have no power to retaliate and prevent the larger attack (although it’s still a bad idea because it gives them a year to build up defenses, to investigate and try to identify the attacker, etc.).
jaimebabb: You recall correctly. “Azati Prime” premiered at the beginning of March, while “Damage” didn’t debut until the end of April.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@13/DanteHopkins: Let’s not forget that the whole situation also brings out the best in the crew, and the insane pressure forces them to do their best job in 3 seasons. Even though they’re surrounded and being pounded to oblivion, Reed still manages to destroy one Xindi vessel with a torpedo – they’re not going down without a fight. And T’Pol manages to barely hold it together in a situation that all but pushes her to lose it completely. The crew is permanently changed by this, and they never approach a situation with that season 1 naiveté again. There’s definitely a feeling of cautiousness from here on, and throughout season 4 as well.
I forgot they captured the Insectoid shuttle. I guess Hatchery wasn’t entirely pointless after all. At any rate, I remember being disappointed that Mayweather wasn’t given the opportunity to do his job, since the character got so little development, but then I guess the reason the writers didn’t want to let him do the mission is because he was so underdeveloped. It’s just annoying to me that the only black character on the show got so ignored, since I know how important characters like LaForge and Sisko were to my black friend’s enjoyment of Star Trek (practically the only scifi/fantasy franchise he enjoyed).
29/Eduardo: The comment section is glitching for me, and I was trying to add more to my comment and could not.
I was going to add, with that said, this is when shit got real for the crew of the NX-01. There was no magic reset button to make the ship (or the crew, or anything, really) like it was before, so the crew of Enterprise had to really pull together. The ship was repaired next season, but indeed the crew never felt like the newbies they were in those first two seasons. The remainder of this season is probably some of the best of this series.
I had to type this in my notes and paste it into the comments.
“We may not know who the real enemy is.”
Finally a Manny Coto script that hits the mark! It feels like we see all sides of Archer here. He’s abrupt and on edge at times, he’s ruthlessly pragmatic when ordering the deaths of the Xindi outpost crew but clearly sick of having to make decisions like that afterwards (Shades of him ordering the Borgified scientists killed in ‘Regeneration’? He also mentions sending Sim to his death in ‘Similitude’), he shows his human side as a captain when he refuses to let anyone do a job he won’t do himself, he takes great delight in baiting the intractable Dolim, but his diplomatic side comes out when faced with Degra and “Depac”. Some of his attitudes aren’t exactly that of a leader but frankly, I long ago tired of the vaguely feudal idea we’ve been stuck with since TNG that the captain is the most valuable person on the ship and should be protected at all costs. (Which even gets mentioned here, even if Archer does ignore it.) Is the captain really more valuable than a good engineer or pilot? It feels like Tucker could do Archer’s job a lot better than Archer could do Tucker’s.
There’s good character moments for other crew as well. Reed looks disturbingly pleased at blowing up a group of defenceless Xindi, Sato gets tired of T’Pol micromanaging, and while Phlox only gets one scene, it’s a touching one of agreeing to look after Porthos. T’Pol blurting out that she doesn’t want Archer to die is as fond of him as she’s ever been. Some of her odd behaviour here will be explained next episode but she actually doesn’t too bad a job of commanding: She deals with Tucker’s attempted intervention with cold efficiency, and her plan to go in alone to negotiate is probably the best option available at that moment. It’s only at the end, when she seems unable to come up with a better plan than “Sit here and get blown up”, that her command ability is lacking.
There’s an awful lot of character work and back story for the non-regulars here as well. Archer talks as though his knowledge about Degra’s children was gained in ‘Stratagem’, although we didn’t see the conversation on-screen and it seems unlikely given that Archer only found out the names of his other two children just before the deception was discovered. (Did they get it from his correspondence, or from the disc Daniels provided?) His recalling Degra’s regret at the deaths on Earth (repeated here) is accurate, however. Degra and his colleagues refer to a mysterious “she” and we learn for the first time that the Reptillians’ actions in ‘Carpenter Street’ weren’t sanctioned by the council. Daniels makes the first explicit reference to the Sphere Builders, with the alien from ‘Harbinger’ identified as one of them. He makes it sound as though they can simply see possible futures, which doesn’t quite match what Future Guy said about them, and presumably they can move people or objects through time in normal space if they were responsible for the incursion in ‘Carpenter Street’. (See also the fact part of the Xindi weapon came from the future, as seen in ‘The Expanse’.)
It’s perhaps lucky that the future Daniels shows us here, with an Enterprise-J active in the mid 26th century, won’t happen given the events at the end of the season: Given that Picard just established that Starfleet burned through Enterprises and went from D to G in only about forty years, it’s hard to believe there’s only another three in the following 150 years!
@32/cap-mjb: “Given that… Starfleet burned through Enterprises and went from D to G in only about forty years, it’s hard to believe there’s only another three in the following 150 years!”
There were only two between 2151 and 2285.
And their lifespans are highly variable. The original 1701 lasted 40 years, A was inexplicably retired after only 6 or so years, B and C lasted for about half a century between them, D made it less than 8 years, E made it at least 13 years, and I gather F was in service for maybe 20 years according to backstory. There was also a gap of more than 80 years between NX-01 and NCC-1701, and a gap of nearly 20 years between C and D.
The Brutal Gut Punch episode. Watching NX-01 get cut to pieces like that is eternally visceral. To the point that the council calling off their attack dogs does nothing to relieve the tension and stress. This is essentially what the Enterprise C would go through two centuries later, but with no reprieve.
On the watch station, I suppose they could’ve jammed them, or tried to knock out their power, but it’s a war. I can’t see the decision to destroy the post as murder either. And it ultimately only slightly delayed the inevitable.
It is one of Archer’s best moments managing to break through to Degra. I am curious what Daniels wanted Archer to actually do though.
Amazing episode with so many strengths. Without a reset button (like Voyager) and with few crew deaths to date, that have not been treated casually (like TNG, much of the time), the losses seem much more meaningful. The episode was well paced and very watchable. This is my first watch so I am looking forward to seeing the next episode tonight.
Downs: the theme music sounds more preposterous with each episode. It is just so wrong in tone. I hope this is not heretical but I wish it could be removed and replaced.
Small stuff:
When Degra asks to be left alone with the captain he should not then need to tell the second Xindi to leave as he’s already asked to be alone. I know this is nothing compared to Discovery where the President herself does not know the difference between ‘flout’ and ‘flaunt’.
Really glad to see T’Pol’s eyebrows back as they should be. In the previous two episodes her human brows were clearly visible which I found quite distracting.