Text 111, 234 rader
Skriven 2004-10-03 05:45:00 av Kevin Karmann (1:278/230)
Ärende: ENTERPRISE Season 3, Part
=================================


                    STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE - Season 3
                    Season in Review, Part II: The Analysis

Last year, I pointed out several things that needed be done in order to
improve ENTEPRRISE for the third season.   These points boiled down to
characterization, continuity, and tackling topical, relevent issues.  In all
of these areas, ENTERPRISE made great strides forward, as was demontrated
with the grading of the episodes of this season, raising the show up one
entire letter grade from last year.  Still, I think there's still some room
for improvement.    By pointing out the trends over the past year, I hope to
give a solid idea of the direction the series has taken, as well as pointing
out the strengths and weaknesses of last season.

It would be hard to begin any indepth analysis of the third season of
ENTERPRISE without acknowledging the common theme of the season.   While
story-wise, the season followed Archer and crew's quest to stop a Xindi
weapon of mass destruction from destroying the Earth, this lead into some
far more interesting questions.   Over the course of the year, Archer had to
face moral challenges, having to weigh the needs of his homeworld against
his own moral code.  As real world concerns of terrorism and warfare
continue to be issues, I think these questions are particularly revelent.

In "Anomaly," Archer must first confront this challenge when he discovers a
prisoner of his, who had been raiding the Enterprise for supplies, has
information about the Xindi.  In order to get the raider to give up the
information he needs, Archer puts the man in an airlock, threatening to
throw him out into space if he doesn't tell everything he knows.  Later,
when an accident severely injures his best friend and chief engineer, Archer
decides to allow Phlox to create a temporary clone of Trip as a donor in
"Similitude."  Eventually, he ends up even taking a card from the raiders
deck, when he needs to steal parts from the friendly Illyrians in the
appropriately titled "Damage."

We've certainly seen small cases like this where a character had to weigh
the greater good of a situation over what they would normally consider
right.   For example, Kirk's decision to arm Tyree's people in "A Private
Little War."  An even more oft-cited example comes from DS9's "In the Pale
Moonlight," where Sisko descends into a conspiracy that ultimately leads to
a Romulan Senator's death in order to get the Romulans involved in the
Dominion War.   Still, this is the first time we've seen those actions
sustained over a longer period of time and, therefore, weighing harder on
our characters.

Just as importantly, we see these decisions weigh on Archer.   When it comes
time to decide who will destroy the Xindi weapon in "Azati Prime," Archer
decides to go himself, reasoning that he has caused too many others to die
so far.  There's also no small amount of irony when a future version of the
Enterprise turns the tables on Archer to make sure things get done for the
greater good in "E^2."

Of course, before the season opened, we were told that season three would
reflect the events of September 11th, 2001.  While this is true to an
extent, as the distruction seen in the second season finale reflected that
day as did the crew's reactions over the season, I think the events largely
stand on their own.   There are some larger elements -- bio-weapons, the
search for weapons of mass destruction -- that echo events that have
happened over the last couple years, but it's more in general points than
anything specific.

ENTERPRISE also confronted other issues of the course of the season, from
religious extremism ("Chosen Realm") to the idea of cloning for medical
purposes in and of itself in "Similitude."   Overall, I'd have to say that
the season kept an eye on being topical and thoughtful without presenting
the situations in a manner that would be considered dated.

Moving on to continuity, this overarching theme and storyline certainly
makes up part of this and, by and large, the season held together pretty wel
l.   In terms of pacing and resolution, I think there is some room for
improvement.

One of the interesting things about this season is that there are a number
of occaisions when one episodes leads directly into the next.   For example,
Archer uses the information from the raider in "Anomaly" to find a crashed
Xindi shuttle in the next episode, "Extinction."   Likewise, information
acquired in "Extinction" directly leads into finding a planet that produces
kemosite for the Xindi weapon in "The Shipment."  As things begin to occur
faster and faster, we get even more direct links between episodes as "Azati
Prime" directly leads to "Damage," which takes us toward "The Forgotten,"
where Enterprise takes off on the trail toward "E^2."   The last three
episodes of the season, "The Council," "Countdown," and "Zero Hour," are
pretty much one continual storyline, as event unfold toward the ultimate
conclusion of the Xindi plotline.   Although we've seen events unfold like
this before, especially during DS9's Dominion War, it has never been quite
this extensive.

Beyond this, the season followed up on a many of the elements brought up a
in the second season finale, "The Expanse."   The turbulent nature of the
anomalies were hinted at back then, as was the mysterious effects Trellium-D
has on Vulcans.  While I think it could've been used to better effect at
times, season three did follow through on the death of Trip's sister.  Even
the preparations being made to launch the NX-02 became relevent when another
NX-class ship showed up in "E^2."   About the only thing that wasn't delved
into involved why a ship full of Klingons came out of the Expanse reverted
with their internal organs on the outside.   I suppose this could be
attributed to the anomalies, but with no clear evidence one way or another,
this remains a dangling thread.

While the continuity of the season really helped bring the Xindi storyline
into focus, the flow of these developments sometimes hampered the series as
a whole.   Several times during the season, suspense was built up to the
point where it seemed as if we were on the cusp of big events, but the
series got sidetracked by other, more standalone stories.  I don't really
have any problem with such diversions in general, but the placement of
several of these took much of power that had been built up for so long,
making the matter of Earth's survival on the forefront.  The result is it
seemed like ENTERPRISE was spinning it's wheels until the next big plot
development came along

One of the best examples came during one of the most critical times for the
series, during February sweeps.   "Proving Ground" and "Stratagem" finally
brought the story of the Xindi weapon into full view and, by the end of
those two episodes, Enterprise was enroute to the climactic confrontation to
save Earth.  But instead of following up on all that built-up tension,
things slow way down with "Harbinger" and grind to a complete halt with
"Doctor's Orders" and "Hatchery."   Only when February sweeps are about to
end -- and ENTERPRISE is preparing to going into reruns -- do things really
pick back up again with "Azati Prime."   While this mid-season "cliffhanger"
is an interesting idea, I can see how many, more casual viewers especially,
may feel cheated and manipulated by the such developments.   A similer
situation occured when "E^2" came around right as the Enterprise was nearing
the very end of the Xindi plot thread.

This kind of storytelling also had another consequence by making territory
that had to be covered sometimes seemed rushed.   Even in some of the best
of the season three's episodes, such as "Azati Prime" and "The Council,"
events seem to be going on so fast everything feels just a tad rushed.
Certainly, important events happened in the episodes between, such as
discovering the Sphere Builder alien in "Harbinger" or capturing an
Insectoid shuttlecraft in "Hatchery," but I think they could be better
integrated to make the series in general feel more even in pace, rather than
the story going at Warp 9 one minute, then slowing down to half-impulse for
a few episodes before hopping to Warp 9 again.

Another, perhaps related trend, involves how the episodes themselves were
structured.   Early in the season especially, episodes tended to either
start at some point in the middle ("Impulse," "Similitude") or outside of
our regular cast (various Xindi Council scenes as in "The Xindi" and
"Rajiin," as well as episodes like "North Star").   This approach may be
nice every once in while (the out-of-order approach worked quite well with
"Twilight," for instance), but using it all the time not only detracts from
the technique, it often utilizes up a precious chunk of time when some of
the other things I mentioned could possibly be utilized.

On the characterization front, I've already discussed Archer, who had
plotline related to the main theme of the season, but Trip and T'Pol also
had a great deal to do in season three.  Their related storylines actually
joined together, combining the nightmares of his sister's deaths with the
Vulcan's seach for emotions.  While some of these characterizations worked
out quite well, it oftentimes seemed to be execuited rather clumbsily.

The Trip/T'Pol relationship first became relevent when Phlox suggested Trip
treat his nightmares with Vulcan neuro-pressure.  Unfortunately, much of
these early developments boiled down to Trip and T'Pol wearing as litle
clothing as possible for these massage treatments and little or no concrete
discussion about the impact his sister's death had on him.   It was only
later in episodes like "Similitude" and "Proving Ground" -- and even then a
bit too briefly -- that we really get under the surface of Trip's problems.

Meanwhile, T'Pol started -- unknown to us -- using small amounts of
Trellium-D to stimulate emotions.  While we were given some signs that T'Pol
was acting strangely throughout the season, the inconsistency shown toward
her character in the past made it all too easy to brush off this
foreshadowing as continuing mistreatment of a Vulcan character.   Thus, when
the relationship with Trip is started in "Harbinger," it seems awkward and
out of place.  Once things go completely out of control in "Azati Prime" and
"Damage," things improve dramatically.  We learn of her addiction to
Trellium.  The idea of Vulcan facing addiction -- and damage to the ability
to control emotions -- is an interesting one that only came up in passing
throughout the rest of the plot-heavy season.  Hopefully, season four will
delve into this more.

The same inconsistencies hampered Malcolm Reed's characterization in season
three.  While "The Xindi" established his problems with MACO commander Major
Hayes, these issues were put on the back-burner, only showing up a half a
year later in "Harbinger."  Worse, these differences often come off as more
than a bit petty on Reed's part, so that when his worst fears come out in
"Hatchery" due to Archer being mind-controled, it just doesn't feel right,
as if Hayes is simply going along with the plot so that it can work.   It
isn't until "Countdown" that Reed's feelings seem to be dealt with in a
truly mature manner, only to see Hayes die later in the episode.

Hoshi is curious case in the season three.  While she has much less to do
that in the previous years, when she does have a major role -- as in "Exile"
or the closing three-parter -- the character shines.   We simply learn more
about Hoshi Sato through "Exile" than any episode before or since and the
developments later in the season show how much strength she has developed
over the course of the series.

As in the past, Mayweather got the real short end of the straw this year,
even to a greater degree than usual.  Although he had some nice moments here
and there, nothing profound really happened with his character in season
threee.

As the primary enemies of the season, the XIndi by and large lacked a great
deal of necessary characterization.   Even though many of those early
council scenes that I mentioned before set up the differences between the
various Xindi species, only a couple of the Xindi characters were really
developed completely.   I think a lot of the problem here could have been
the "too much, too fast" approach I descrbed above taking a toll.  The best
of the Xindi characters was, of course, the weapon designer Degra, who
turned out to be very well-rounded.  In a briefer appearance, the
Xindi-Aboreal Gralik in "The Shipment" managed to stand out.
Unfortunately, Dolum -- the Xindi-Reptilian commander -- often came off as a
moustache twirling character who was evil simply because he was evil.   Most
of the other Xindi, like the Xindi-Aboreal leader and Degra's
second-in-command among the Xindi-Primates -- may have had important roles
to play, but weren't apparently even important enough to get an actual name,
much less extensive character development.

That about sums it up for the third season of ENTERPRISE.  Many strides
forward were made in continuity and characterization, but I think there's
little question that there was still room for improvement.

I think it's pretty obvious that I wouldn't be able to get around the third
part of this season-in-review that I promised (looking foward to the future
by discussing what should be done), so I'll sum it up right here.
Basically, I'd like to see all of these things done more tightly, so the
flow of things goes much more smoothly.  I think the idea of shorter
story-arcs that we'll be getting this season should be a good tool for
keeping the storylines on track and maybe even making the characters
stronger.

Kevin





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