“Borderland”
Written by Ken LaZebnik
Directed by David Livingston
Season 4, Episode 4
Production episode 080
Original air date: October 29, 2004
Date: May 17, 2154
Captain’s star log. A Klingon Bird-of-Prey captures a transport shuttle containing two humans. The humans are taken prisoner but then they suddenly attack the Klingons, killing the entire crew and taking over the ship.
Archer visits Dr. Arik Soong in his prison cell on Earth. Archer informs him that the Klingons are hopping mad. The bodies of the Klingon crew, which were sent out into space, had traces of human DNA—specifically humans who were genetically augmented.
Twenty years ago, Soong, a proponent of genetic engineering even though it’s illegal, stole twenty embryos of genetically engineered humans—Augments—left over from the Eugenics Wars. Ten years ago, he was arrested for that theft (among other crimes), but refused to reveal where the embryos were. It turns out that he unfroze them and raised them, at least until he was arrested. And now they’re taking over Klingon ships.
Archer’s orders are to take Soong along on a mission to find the Augments. Soong doesn’t particularly want to go, but he isn’t given a choice, either. He’s outfitted with a transponder that will enable Enterprise to track him anywhere.
Enterprise has been repaired and refit, complete with comfy new chair for Archer on the bridge. They set out for the Borderland, an area between Klingon and Orion space.
Upon arrival, two Orion interceptors attack and use transporters to kidnap nine members of the crew, including T’Pol. They’re placed in prison cells, with neurolytic restraints placed on their necks. A Tellarite pays really good money for T’Pol.
Soong has a relationship with the Orions—he used them to get supplies—and he can get them onto Verex III, the nearest slave processing station. But he can’t get the crew out. Archer says one step at a time.
On the Klingon ship, the Augments’ leader, Raakin, is not happy with Malik for enacting this plan to take over the ship. Malik tries to get Persis on his side, but Persis is dating Raakin and she later tells Raakin that Malik is plotting against him. But that turns out to be a double bluff, as it prompts Raakin to try to take out Malik, only to discover that Malik has already turned the other Augments to his side. Malik successfully takes over as leader, killing Raakin.
Archer is able to buy Pierce, and also bribes the Orion guard to deactivate the restraint but leave it attached. Once back on Enterprise, Phlox is able to remove the restraint and our heroes are able to determine the code that will deactivate all the restraints. Archer and Soong go back to the surface and do so, causing a major-ass riot. T’Pol takes advantage of the opportunity to kick the Orion slaver in the nuts.
However, Soong escapes in the confusion, using a cattle prod belonging to one of the Orion overseers to deactivate his transponder. However, Archer still has the remote control to Soong’s handcuffs. He cuffs Soong, hampering the scientist’s movements. Then, when Soong is using his cuffed hands as a handle to pull himself up a wall, Archer undoes the cuffs, causing Soong to fall down and be recaptured.
Archer accuses Soong of having planned the whole thing. Soong neither confirms nor denies, but instead tries to appeal to Archer’s better nature. Genetic engineering could have saved his father, who died of a very painful disease. Soong also says that his Augments are the future of humanity.
Enterprise is again attacked by Orions, but a Klingon Bird-of-Prey drives them off. It’s, of course, Malik’s BOP, and he boards the ship and, after briefly pretending to talk and be reasonable, Malik takes Archer hostage, has his people board the ship and free Soong, and then bugger off with their “father.” On the way out the docking port, Soong recommends that Archer go home and learn how to speak Klingon.
To be continued…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Soong is not allowed any manner of electronic devices after he used a padd to open all the doors in the prison.
The gazelle speech. After all the angst in “Home,” Archer is happy to be back on the bridge of Enterprise surrounded by his trusted crew. It’s actually kind of sweet. He also very cleverly uses Soong’s handcuffs against him when chasing him.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol has officially joined Starfleet and is now a commander. Archer gives her a compass as a present.
Because the standard Starfleet uniform isn’t sufficiently male-gaze-y for the producers of this particular TV show, she still wears more form-fitting outfits that accentuate her figure and are also in brighter colors.
Florida Man. Florida Man Rebounds From Girlfriend’s Rejection By Rebuilding Captain’s Chair.
Optimism, Captain! While Phlox doesn’t agree with the human ban on genetic engineering—Denobulans have been doing genetic engineering for ages—he doesn’t think much of Soong, either.
The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… The Vulcans are attempting a diplomatic solution with the Klingons.
Buy the Book
System Collapse
Qapla’! The Klingons are threatening war with Earth because some humans that don’t claim Earth citizenship (and vice versa) stole a ship and killed their crew. Sure.
Better get MACO. 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.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Tucker asks T’Pol how the honeymoon went, and is inexplicably surprised to learn that Vulcans don’t really honeymoon, and somewhat less inexplicably surprised that she spent the aftermath of her wedding meditating on Mount Seleya alone. A romantic, she ain’t, at least not with Koss…
More on this later… This three-parter serves to partially explain why the genetic engineering ban remains a thing into the twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries (as seen in SNW’s “Ghosts of Illyria” and “Ad Astra per Aspera” and DS9’s “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?” respectively). It doesn’t do it very well, but the whole notion was dumb to begin with…
I’ve got faith…
“We can’t let past mistakes hold us back.”
“It’s your responsibility as a scientist to learn from past mistakes.”
“Now what makes you think I haven’t?”
“I can read.”
–Soong and Phlox arguing ethics.
Welcome aboard. Alec Newman (Malik), Abby Brammell (Persis), and Joel West (Raakin) play the Augments with speaking parts. WWE wrestler Big Show plays the Orion slaver, Dave Power plays Pierce, Bobbi Sue Luther plays the Orion slave woman, Dayo Ade plays the Klingon weapons officer, and old pal J.G. Hertzler makes a surprisingly brief guest turn as the Klingon captain, his third Klingon after Kolos in “Judgment” and Martok on DS9 and Lower Decks. Hertzler has also played the Saratoga captain in DS9’s “Emissary,” Rittenhouse in DS9’s “Far Beyond the Stars,” Laas in DS9’s “Chimera,” a Hirogen in Voyager’s “Tsunkatse,” and a Drookmani captain in LD’s “Terminal Provocations” and “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption.”
The big guest, of course, is Brent Spiner, playing another member of the Soong family, Arik, having previously played Soong’s descendant, Noonian, in TNG’s “Brothers,” “Birthright, Part I,” and “Inheritance.” Spiner will later play one of Arik’s ancestors, Adam, in season two of Picard, as well as another of his descendants, Altan, in Picard’s “Et in Arcadia Ego” two-parter and “The Bounty.” Spiner, of course, is best known for playing Data on TNG and Picard. He also played Lore in TNG’s “Datalore,” “Brothers,” and the “Descent” two-parter and in Picard’s “The Bounty,” “Dominion,” and “Surrender,” and he played B-4 in Nemesis.
Newman, Brammell, and Spiner will return in the next episode, “Cold Station 12.”
Trivial matters: This kicks off a three-part story, only the second three-parter in Trek history up to this point (following DS9’s “The Homecoming,” “The Circle,” and “The Siege”), but which will form the template for much of the first two-thirds of Enterprise’s fourth season, as this is the first of three three-parters over the course of the following dozen or so episodes.
The Eugenics Wars were established in the original series’ “Space Seed,” with this episode establishing the term “Augments” to refer to the genetically engineered humans seen in that episode, led by Khan Noonien Singh. Earth’s ban on genetic engineering in order to prevent another Eugenics War was established in DS9’s “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?”
It will be revealed in Picard’s “Farewell” that Soong’s ancestor Adam was involved with the development of the Augments who started the Eugenics Wars, among them Khan.
Big Show is the third WWE wrestler to appear on Trek since UPN acquired the rights to that wrestling federation’s broadcasts. The others were Tiny Lister in “Broken Bow” and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in Voyager’s “Tsunkatse.”
This episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Stunt Coordination.
It’s been a long road… “If you don’t sell as a slave, I will sell you as food.” On the one hand, I love that Enterprise chose to embrace the more flexible storytelling notions of two- and three-parters in this fourth season. It gives some of the stories more room to breathe.
On the other hand, this story is kind of nowhere.
It manages to be a fun hour, which is entirely on the back of a snottily charismatic performance by Brent Spiner. For all that his most famous role is as a placid, deadpan android, Spiner’s best mode as an actor (when he’s not playing a Starfleet android, anyhow) is as a snide jerk. Soong’s acid commentary throughout the episode livens things considerably.
And they need livening, as the scenes he’s not in are pretty leaden. The worst is the casting and writing of the Augments. In 1967, the producers of “Space Seed” understood that the harbingers of a world war would include people from all around the world: Khan’s people were of multiple ethnicities. This was missed in 1982’s The Wrath of Khan when Nicholas Meyer inexplicably decided to make all of Khan’s people be blond-haired and blue-eyed (and also way too young).
In 2004, the producers of “Borderland” paid more attention to the 1982 movie than the 1967 episode, giving us three spectacularly boring white people as our primary Augments. Worse, these supposedly superior beings are doing a tired love-triangle dance that had whiskers on it when Sir Thomas Malory compiled La Morte d’Arthur in the fifteenth century.
I’m not familiar with the work of Alec Newman or Joel West outside this storyline, but I’ve seen Abby Brammell in other things, and she wasn’t dreadful, so I’m willing to give Newman and West the benefit of the doubt that they were failed by poorly written parts, but man, all three of them are incredibly nowhere.
Still, the episode sets things up nicely for the remainder of the story, and I especially love the way Archer was able to use the remote-controlled handcuffs (which were established within seconds of Soong first appearing on screen at the top of the episode) to capture Soong. Plus there’s a J.G. Hertzler cameo, which is always a good thing.
Warp factor rating: 7
Keith R.A. DeCandido urges you all to support the Kickstarter for Grandma Got Kidnapped by Aliens (and Other Holiday Disasters), edited by Hildy Silverman for Crazy 8 Press. This anthology of holidays gone horribly wrong will include stories by fellow Trek scribes Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, Paul Kupperberg, Glenn Hauman, Aaron Rosenberg, Geoffrey Thorne, Derek Tyler Attico, and Howard Weinstein. If the book makes a stretch goal, Keith will do a story as well! Please consider supporting.
This is where Manny really brought the show onto another level, this is what the show should have been from the start. A show about Eugenics, top stuff.
Alec Newman also played Paul in the Sc-Fi Channel’s Dune and Children of Dune mini-series, which he is fine in, imho, but the latter is helped immensly by making James McAvoy the lead. Newman also read the Star Trek Prometheus trilogy audiobooks that Big Finish put out.
TCW Revisited: We’re being told that Phlox and Soong had met before. That must have been somewhere around 2134. OK, Denobulans seem to live long enough for that, but when exactly did Phlox join the interspecies medical exchange? Did he spend 20 years on Earth before joining the Enterprise?
Tri’Pol: Trip urgently needs to talk to T’Pol, about a rather private matter, and the best place is crouching next to the new captain’s chair, on the fully crewed bridge?
With Great Power comes Great Ego: OK, the Augments had been abandoned/left alone at the age of 10. (Abandoned implies intent; Soong might have planned to come back shortly.) Whatever their IQ, they lack emotional maturity. I wonder if the apparent gender imbalance in the group aggravated things when they turned adolescent without adult rolemodels.
Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents …: Having come back from a harrowing tour of the Expanse, the Enterprise now tours the Borderlands. I wonder why they didn’t stuff a cargo hold with trade goods?
Once, long ago, in early development of the hard-SF superhero universe of my novel Only Superhuman and subsequent stories, I considered referring to genetically augmented humans as “Augmen” (by analogy with X-Men, basically). I wisely decided not to. But I was amused to see Trek establish “Augment” as their term for it.
I think the Augments were well-cast, especially Alec Newman as Malik — although it frustrates me that characters with names like Malik and Persis (an homage to Ms. Khambatta, perhaps?) were cast with white actors.
Worth pointing out that this is the first canonical appearance of green-skinned Orion males. The one previous appearance of Orion males was in “The Pirates of Orion,” and there they had pale blue skin (but green uniforms). I suspect Filmation’s artists assumed that Thelev from “Journey to Babel,” the only Orion male previously seen, impersonated an Andorian because he was naturally blue-skinned. A number of tie-ins have portrayed Orion males with green skin, but until “Borderland” it was possible that only the females were green.
The timing gets pretty wonky here. “Zero Hour”‘s log entry was on Valentine’s Day. The episode ended maybe a day later on February 15. After the temporal foofaraw, they seemed to get back shortly thereafter, so “Home” would also be in mid-February and span about a week (though given the travel time to Vulcan, I choose to believe the Vulcan scenes all took place after the Earth scenes and were interlaced out of chronological order for effect). The dialogue in “Borderland” suggests that T’Pol stayed on Vulcan for about a week after “Home” — yet the log entry midway through this episode is on May 17! There are at least two and a half months unaccounted for.
I want to say, I really loved the innovative format of season 4, doing a mix of 1-, 2-, and 3-parters and letting each storyline be as long as it needed to be. It gave us some grand, cinematic stories, although the single-parters other than “Home” were pretty lacking. Not many series have used a format like that. Disney’s 1950s Zorro series with Guy Williams used a mix of 3- and 4-part story arcs and the occasional 1-parter in its second season. Another ’50s show, Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, consisted mostly of 3-parters with a smattering of 1-parters; most of the 3-parters were cut together and released theatrically as movies (two of which were shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000). The last season of the 1990s animated Spider-Man series was broken down into several story arcs of varying lengths. The original Battlestar Galactica sort of did it, but that was a case where the intention was to do a series of 2-hour TV movies, but the network insisted on doing it as an hourlong series instead, with a bunch of mostly forgettable 1-parters interspersed between the more important 2-hour stories.
Anyway, it worked well, and I wish more series would adopt this approach. I’m surprised they don’t, really, since one advantage of multi-part arcs — and possibly part of the reason they used them in this reduced-budget season — was because it saves money to amortize the cost of the same sets, costumes, etc. over multiple episodes. In the TOS bible, Gene Roddenberry actually proposed doing just that as a budget-saving technique, sticking around a particularly interesting planet for several episodes in a row. It’s something you’d think they would’ve done more often.
Although doing a season consisting mostly of multiparters means there are some big time jumps between them. That sudden leap from February to May isn’t the last big gap we’ll see.
It’s weird that T’Pol’s season 4 “uniforms” are really just her season 3 civilian outfits with Starfleet insignia, department color stripes, and rank pins attached.
Quoth Christopher: “It’s weird that T’Pol’s season 4 ‘uniforms’ are really just her season 3 civilian outfits with Starfleet insignia, department color stripes, and rank pins attached.”
Not weird at all when you consider that this show has treated Jolene Blalock as a body for heterosexual male viewers to gape at for the entire run of the show…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@krad in 5, in that regard, consider how the auction was depicted. She got a top price, the male ensign was used for a cheap laugh …
o.m.: The male ensign was also there for Archer to buy so Enterprise could get their hands on the restraint, but your larger point is absolutely correct.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
This one was a bit rougher around the edges than I remembered. I think Spiner’s solid work as Soong made me remember this as better than it was. But most of my issues were around the Orions; I feel they are better represented in the current Trek shows, though there may be some recency bias at play.
I am generally favorable towards Alec Newman; I thought he did a solid job as Paul Atreides in the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries for Dune and Children of Dune. But he’s not given much to work with here, and even his accent wavers from scene to scene. Though I remember ultimately remembering his performance in a better light, so perhaps the next two installments will provide a better showcase.
It’s a shame, because I think T’Pol looks great in the actual Enterprise uniform, but I thought the same thing about Troi in TNG. Oh well.
As for why the 1984 film depicted all the augments as blond-haired and blue-eyed, I assume they were going for the whole Nazi master race look. However, I agree that the original series’ multi-ethnic supermen were a better idea. Another way that this episode apes the film is the augments’ costumes. I guess being abandoned when you’re 10 years old has the same effect on your wardrobe as being abandoned on a doomed planet.
At any rate, I think this was a pretty good episode, mostly because of the talent of its big guest star, who will continue to be the best part of this three-parter.
“You tried to redesign your species. The first time that was attempted on Earth, the result was thirty million deaths.”
And so begins Star Trek’s first official three—parter since the premiere of DS9 Season 2. I’ve always found it amusing that at almost the exact moment that Doctor Who went from almost entirely multi-part stories to mostly standalone episodes, Star Trek went from mostly standalone episodes to mostly two- and three-parters!
It takes almost the entirety of this first episode for Enterprise to actually encounter the Augments: For most of the running time, they’re kept separate, with the Augments occupied by the power play between Malik and Raakin, while Enterprise are having a run-in with the Orions. To be fair to 2004 casting directors, they at least used ethnic diversity for the non-speaking Augments, at least one of whom gets apparently recast with a speaking role later in the story. I feel like I’ve seen Alec Newman all over the place, but the only thing that springs to mind is a two episode guest role in the last season of Angel. (I was aware of his Big Finish work as well.) The biggest selling point is obviously the presence of Brent Spiner as Noonien Soong’s ancestor (and, as we now know, Adam Soong’s descendant) and it makes sense to have him and Archer together for most of the episode so he’s front and centre.
But like most six-part Doctor Who stories, of which this is the equivalent, the runtime is largely padded out with a capture and escape that doesn’t really advance the plot. And it’s a huge moral failing that Archer only rescues his own people and just uses the other slaves as a diversion. When the Augments do turn up, Archer does take some precautions but it feels like he could have come up with a better strategy than just letting their leader come aboard for a chat. But then, there’s another two episodes of this. Also, it’s not really explained how Malik and The Other One ended up in space in a transport ship? (Why act as though they were stranded if they had a ship? Was it too weak for them to risk using it?)
Soong remains a pleasingly morally ambiguous character and has a blistering argument with Phlox which is about the only time his confidence in his viewpoint takes a beating. It’s easy to nod in agreement when he talks of curing diseases but he’s clearly going beyond that: Trying to build a better human is an idea fraught with problems. Incidentally, Phlox refers to the Augments as being the work of the 20th century. Make of that what you will in terms of modern continuity.
First time we’ve seen the Klingons since the end of Season 2, although they’re only in the pre-credits and it’s mainly a cameo to set up the Augments using a Klingon ship. Admiral Forrest is mentioned. It’s over two weeks since the end of ‘Home’, which Tucker noting T’Pol spent that long on Vulcan after he left. (I’m not convinced Enterprise would have returned to Earth on the same day as Dolim’s attack, and I can easily believe that some time passed during and after ‘Home’ while Enterprise underwent an extension refit.) Ensign Pierce provides confirmation that Enterprise has taken on new crew since all the casualties last season.
As noted, T’Pol has now officially joined Starfleet with the rank of commander, but for reasons no-one bothers to explain, instead of putting on a uniform, she’s just stuck commander’s pips on her multi-coloured catsuits. Yes, that’s plural, as she wears both the red and the purple number here. I found the scenes of WWF Stunt Casting Guy picking her up and swinging her around rather uncomfortable: I’m not sure how much of that look of disgust was T’Pol and how much was Jolene Blalock.
I prefer Enterprise‘s version of the Orions (makeup-wise) to Discovery‘s version, and I prefer Discovery‘s version to Strange New Worlds‘ version. Having the males be giant hulking behemoths twice the size of your average human (and putting the generally petite Jolene Blalock next to them to emphasise the difference) is a nice way of diversifying the portrayal of alien species in Trek – they’re not all going to be average-human size and shape. Discovery didn’t do the size difference thing but at least it had that weird plasticy-skintone thing, which was also a nice difference from the average-human-with-bits-stuck-on template. But now SNW has gone back to average humans with green paint again. I guess SNW is TOS-with-modern-technology so it makes sense from that perspective. And it also shows diversity within a species, I suppose. I just preferred this version.
@5/krad: “Not weird at all when you consider that this show has treated Jolene Blalock as a body for heterosexual male viewers to gape at for the entire run of the show…..”
I mean it’s weird in-universe. As objectifying as T’Pol’s Vulcan High Command uniform was, at least it was intended in-story to be a Vulcan uniform. At least Seven of Nine’s catsuits were meant to be medically necessary for protecting and supporting her part-cybernetic body. And in season 3, T’Pol dressed differently from the others because she was a civilian consultant, the same as Phlox. In every case, there was an in-story reason for the character dressing differently.
But in this case, the story premise is that she’s formally joined Starfleet — and yet her “uniforms” are literally just her civilian clothes with rank pins attached. And there’s no attempt made to justify why that would be.
@10/cap-mjb: “Also, it’s not really explained how Malik and The Other One ended up in space in a transport ship? (Why act as though they were stranded if they had a ship? Was it too weak for them to risk using it?)”
It was a trap for the Klingons. They wanted to get captured and brought aboard a Klingon ship so they could capture it. Remember, Raakin said afterward “I didn’t sanction this attack.” It didn’t just happen, it was planned.
So this episode marks the start of a few trends that have continued throughout modern Star Trek, one of which I like and two of which I really don’t.
The one that I like is bringing back the Orions! During the pandemic, I rewatched all of Trek from the beginning, and it’s really quite noticeable (and somewhat bizarre) that the Orions go from being a pretty regular presence in TOS and the animated series to just vanishing altogether for thirty years before reappearing in this episode. I guess maybe writers in the 80s and 90s were embarassed by the “green-skinned space babe” stereotype with which they’d come to be associated? In any case, their return here, persisting through the reboot movies and into the Secret Hideout era, is a welcome development.
But then we get to the trends that I don’t like, namely, casting Brent Spiner as every single person in the Soong family line, and fetishizing Wrath of Khan. Concerning the former: with all due respect to Brent Spiner as an actor, I really haven’t liked him in any of his Star Trek roles other than Data himself, and I would say that I like each one of his Soong characters a little less than the last. Concerning the latter: I admit to enjoying TWOK, but I think that I would rate it maybe fifth or sixth favourite of the Star Trek movies; but, for whatever reason, its legacy seems to have started metastasizing about twenty years following its release, seeping into everything. Really, I shouldn’t blame this episode; the symptoms were already there when Nemesis came out a few years earlier. But it is really, really blatant that they’re trying to make the Augments as Khan-like as possible. Why else would they be sporting rags and hockey hair? Khan’s crew at least had the excuse of having been stranded on a hell planet for fifteeen years; the Augments’ planet, when we see it next episode, looks quite temperate. One can only assuming that super-tailoring and super-hairdressing skills were not amongst their genetic enhancements.
With all of that out of the way, I actually like this episode for the most part. Archer’s use of Soong’s handcuffs in recapturing him is probably only the second time that he’s managed to impress me with his cleverness, and I don’t actually agree that the Augments are boring; if anything, I think that the love-triangle subplot serves to illustrate what we’ve mostly just been told, namely, that their enhancements have left them with overwhelming ambition and will to dominate, and I think that Alec Newman plays Malik with a credible degree of menace and intensity. The bit where he calmly informs Archer that he’s going to attack him and then has him in a death grip before he can even react is chilling, and the story only gets better in the second part.
And thus begins the two/three-parter format for season 4. When done well, they really work, even though I often feel the scope of the stories (Augments, Klingons, Andorians, Vulcan civil war, etc.) leave little room for secondary character development. And by secondary I mean the side characters. We have little to no room for Travis Mayweather, Malcolm Reed and Hoshi Sato this season, other than standard plot function (Hoshi being the exception thanks to her ‘alternate’ self on the Mirror Universe saga coming up later). Since any character focus has to go to Archer, T’Pol and Tucker (and the occasional Phlox scene), that leaves the rest of the crew in the dust. A sad casualty of an otherwise pretty good semi-serialized format for storytelling this season.
Manny Coto doesn’t waste any time with this first three parter. “Borderland” manages to establish three major season 4 elements that will be revisited down the line: Augments, Klingons (the whole Klingon forehead ridge situation) and even Orions. It even manages to rope in what was then the TNG exclusive Soong dynasty into the mix. That’s a lot of distinct franchise lore being worked remarkably well into this arc.
And yet, while “Borderlands” is a good opening episode, I’d argue the Augments trilogy is the weakest of the bunch, thanks in no small part to the Augments themselves. Malik and company are some of the most boring villainous characters I’ve seen on any Trek show. Someone in the writing or casting department forgot to develop a charismatic centerpiece villain. “Space Seed” worked because it had Khan as the face of the Augments, played by a charismatic actor.
What makes the episode work, as pointed out, is Brent Spiner. It’s not surprising Kurtzman and company keep coming up with different Soong characters to bring him back in the current era. He’s great in every single one of them, and Arik is no exception. Snarky, self-absorbed and obsessed. It gives Spiner the chance to stretch his range in a way he never could on TNG – other than the rare chance he got to play Lore. And he’s way more interesting than someone like Malik (after Marvel’s Secret Invasion, I’ve had my share of simple-minded one-note villains like Gravik – Malik’s no different).
Worth pointing out, this isn’t the only LaZebnik associated with Trek. His brother, Philip LaZebnik, has three noteworthy Trek credits: on TNG, one of its very worst (“Devil’s Due”) and one of its very best (“Darmok”). On DS9, he wrote the appropriately titled “Fascination”. They have another brother, Rob LaZebnik, who’s a veteran writer/EP/showrunner on The Simpsons.
@12/CLB: “It was a trap for the Klingons. They wanted to get captured and brought aboard a Klingon ship so they could capture it. Remember, Raakin said afterward “I didn’t sanction this attack.” It didn’t just happen, it was planned.”
Yes, I understand that bit. I guess my biggest question is: Where did they get the transport ship from? Maybe there’s explanations later in the story that I’ve forgotten but my memory is that they’ve been stuck on this planet since Soong left them. Have they had space travel all along but just not used it much? Did they capture the transport ship recently and then use it to capture another (better) ship?
I think this episode proves that hard-bitten Jonathan Archer is the very best Captain Archer: that bit with the handcuffs is delightfully ingenious, but it’s an equally-delightful display of the Good Captain being just done with this wannabe supervillain.
One also feels that the episode did a pretty fair job of pointing out why Earth DOES NOT WANT genetic supermen (Especially when they’ve been told from birth that they are not only more physically powerful and intellectually gifted but BETTER): even when they’ve acquired the ability to forge their own destiny a long way from the rest of Humanity, the Augments (As a body) decide to do their own thing in the way most likely to reduce Humanity to cinders.
By the way, @krad, I think you do protest too much about the Klingon willingness to launch themselves into war against Earth: given the number of embarrassments handed the High Council by Captain Archer (As well as the apparent tensions within the Empire) it makes perfect sense that there would be a significant faction eager to embrace war against Earth (A relatively soft target) as a way of giving Klingons a foreign enemy to rally against AND pay off some old scores.
“What about Vulcan?” you may ask; “What about Andoria?” I reply.
Finally, I really liked the scenes with the Orions: that big fellow was excessively melodramatic, but seeing him get it in the stones from T’Pol was delightful – I was also very favourably impressed by the extra who managed to own every inch of the screen as the nameless, wordless Slave Girl (I recall enough of a future episode from this reason to regard this as an early warning that Orion women are not to be trifled with even when chained*).
All in all, I consider this a very successful episode and enjoyed it a great deal.
*Note that Big Bad Green, foolish enough to ignore the fact that Vulcans are always stronger than they appear, is much more careful about the woman of his own race.
I can see why Phlox says that Augments are the work of the 20th Century. Even though there was no official work on Humans, scientists were already working on GMO’s. Work that began with improved crops would then proceed to research on Animals (Cloning, Selective Breeding etc). From there it’s not hard to see unscrupulous individuals doing clandestine research on Embryos (as part of the HUMAN Genome Project as a cover story).
I remember thinking Malik looked like Khan who had shrank in the wash, but I thought Alec Newman had enough charisma to pull it off.
However, it’s Spiner who makes these episodes fly. Admittedly, I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes when I heard he was playing another Soong back then (which I’m still doing in 2023 with Picard by the way). He did a nice job, though.
@15: “and I would say that I like each one of his Soong characters a little less than the last.”
When you made this point, it struck me that after Noonien Soong, subsequent Soongs (really?) are steadily more distasteful as we go further back in time. Noonien was kindly old grandfather with a side of flighty. Arik was just as smart, but snide and too full of himself for anyone’s comfort but his and his creations’. And Adam? Genuine sociopath, only interested in his own lot, even at the expense of his “child.” It’s like the Soong clan collectively took 250 years to do the learning that Phlox was referring to in the conversation above (though if I remember correctly we get a throwaway ‘the more you know’ moment for Arik at the end of the three-parter) It works better for me as a multi-generational redemption arc; Data, as a Final Soong ™, has none of the less-than-pleasant qualities of the fleshy Soongs.
I am suffering from DataSoongitis. What I originally watched this of course it wasn’t that bad because we hadn’t had all the different iterations since then, But looking back at it now I realize that at some point, Spiner’s tour de force collective performances jumped the shark for me.
@19/Autochef – And Altan Inigo Soong seems genuinely helpful, and pretty chill by the time that he died. I think it kind of works as a character arc if you buy into the fan theory that they’re all just clones of Adam.
Ohh yes. I loved all these short multipart arcs, this one is just the warm up. There was an aborted arc in STO called “The Children of Khan” that I think perfectly encapsulates this arc. They’re children. It’s Lord of the Flies with genetically enhanced super young adults. Raakin is the only one that had a sense of restraint and for that he’s deposed and killed. For all their brilliance they lack the foresight that maturity would bring. Khan was always referred to as the best of the supermen, I think this arc is a demonstration on what the normal supermen were like. They were narcissistic, petulant, cruel sociopaths. Malik didn’t just want to win, he wanted people to cower and fear him. To just give him what he wanted or else. He delighted in the cruelty. He reminds me of Black Adam’s speech to Billy, about most people not feeling remorse for stepping on an ant. Zero empathy not even for his own people. He also shows how supergeniuses with super strength can still defeat themselves. Khan with his lead, would’ve just taken his new warship and set off for new horizons. Malik could not find contentment.
With multiple Soongs over the centuries Brent in arrogant snot mode can be annoying, but here it was the first non-contemporaneous to Data Soong and Arik is pretty good. Very understandable. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but he feels that humanity is doing something shortsighted and limiting due to following silly dogma from ages past. But he tried to showcase that nurture is enough to override any nature issues that augments may have. But his experiment was undercut when he was captured. I think Raakin gives some credence to the idea, while Malik proves him wrong. But worse is that all the others went with Malik and betrayed Raakin.
I’m curious how an augment raised in a Vulcan monastery would turn out….
@10, cap-mjb
As for Paul “Big Show” Wight as I understand it they had a great time filming. I think it was purely T’Pol. They did behind the scenes interviews on Smackdown I believe at the time.
Paul is a pretty gentle giant. Stronger wrestlers like Paul Wight, Brock Lesnar, and John Cena are all very safe to work with because they’re so strong that they have a lot of control.
@22/mr d: Apologies, I was being a bit unnecessarily snide about Mr Wight there. Of course he’s just doing what the script told him to and I’m not suggesting Jolene Blalock felt any personal animosity towards him for the scene. It just felt like another scene where the show’s writers came up with an excuse to demean her character in a “Come and have a good ogle at the pretty lady” manner, even if T’Pol does get a bit of revenge later on.
I should add that, for all my discomfort with some aspects of that storyline, I think he put in a magnificent larger-than-life performance which came close to stealing the episode if he didn’t have Brent Spiner doing that, and got most of the most memorable lines. “You are now the property of the Orion Syndicate. Break the rules and you will suffer. Follow the rules and you will suffer less.”
&19 said: It’s like the Soong clan collectively took 250 years to do the learning that Phlox was referring to in the conversation above (though if I remember correctly we get a throwaway ‘the more you know’ moment for Arik at the end of the three-parter) It works better for me as a multi-generational redemption arc; Data, as a Final Soong ™, has none of the less-than-pleasant qualities of the fleshy Soongs.
I actually have a theory about that that also explains why all the Soong men look nearly identical. My theory is that either Adam or Arik messed with their genome somehow to ensure that all of their male offspring are clones of the original. And further, somehow get all the memories of the previous versions, which accounts for Arik muttering about how 200 years should allow for cybernetics to be the big breakthrough
@23 cap-cjb,
No worries. Sign of the times. Star Trek and Pro Wrestling are two things I love that never seem to get their proper respect to me, so I try to speak up. And I love it when they cross over. And I had forgotten about that line. You gotta admire the honesty.
Paul Wight is a pretty good actor, and he has excellent comedic chops.
The size difference between them reminds me of Andre the Giant and Robin Wright in The Princess Bride. Where a wrestling giant gave a tiny woman a Vulcan Neck Pinch. Full circle.
It was nice to see Brent Spiner, but other than that, this episode rates a solid ‘meh’ from me.
Wellllll it’s the Big Show!
Brent Spiner is always a hoot despite his hamming it up.
One thing I really appreciated about this arc was the discussion between Archer and Phlox about genetic engineering. Genetic engineering to enhance natural human abilities is a complex subject, and the idea that it’s simply “wrong” is intellectually absurd. Having Archer of all people, a man who frequently demonstrates an absurd degree of binary thinking on WAY too many subjects, acknowledge the nuance of the situation during his discussion with Phlox was as surprising as it was welcome. The only other genuinely good discussion we ever get concerning the topic comes from DS9’s “Statistical Probabilities,” wherein different characters briefly discuss some of the implications of genetic enhancement, particularly with regards to the contributions Dr. Bashir has made to the Federation and Starfleet.
The only thing I liked in this episode were Brent Spiner and the Orions :)