Earlier in the season, there was an excellent episode that dealt with the concept of racial inequality and prejudice, mated with the larger concerns of natural vs. artificial selection. One of the things that made that episode work, I think, was the assumption that the audience would be able to understand the issues involved without drawing an obvious analogy to a specific historical reference. This episode tackles another issue close to mind in these troubled times, that of how to treat immigrants from a culture or race that is identified with terrorism.
During a routine “feline” moment, Archer and his fellow “victim of the week” Mayweather find themselves captured and held in a detainment camp run by the Tandarans. The Tandarans are also holding a rather large population of Suliban, ranging from the elderly to young children. Archer automatically assumes that the Suliban are being held because they were following the orders of the Kabal, the organization behind the genetically-enhanced Suliban fighting in the “temporal cold war”.
But after a brief discussion with one of the Suliban named Danik, it becomes clear that there is more to the story than meets the eye. The Tandarans, after several devastating attacks by the Kabal-led Suliban, have decided to round up all of the Suliban currently residing peacefully in Tandaran space, forcing them to live in detainment camps. This is done for “their own protection”, according to Colonel Grat, the commander of the detainment camp where Archer and Mayweather are taken. But as far as the Suliban are concerned, they are being imprisoned simply for looking like the enemy.
Archer, of course, is offended by what sounds like a clear violation of the basic civil rights of the Suliban being detained. And for the purposes of this episode and this circumstance, we are led to believe that the Tandarans have a culture not unlike the present American culture. By this point in the episode, it is becoming quite clear that the situation is a commentary on those Americans who might want to “detain” anyone of Arab descent because of the recent terrorist attacks and the lingering fear of extended terrorism.
It would have served the episode better, I think, had Archer not taken the first convenient moment (in the middle of a covert transmission, no less) to make reference to the Japanese-American detainment in America during WW2. Certainly, this happened, and there is a clear analogy in that case as well. But it takes away from the immediacy of the concept, because instead of thinking about current events, we get to place the episode into a more comfortable perspective. Social commentary, as Gene Roddenbery was well aware, ought to strike at the heart of current events.
Still, this doesn’t take much away from the episode. I think I would have like to see a bit more ambiguity in terms of the Suliban motivations…were they really escaping to freedom, or would some of them now join the Kabal because of their experience in Tandaran space? Perhaps a future episode could reveal that Danik or another of the detained Suliban had gone on to join with Silik, leaving Archer with the responsibility of having acted without truly considering the consequences. The fact remains that Archer acts more or less blindly in this situation, applying a broad human concept to an alien culture, with only limited information.
It would also be interesting to see how the situation with the Kabal unfolds, and if Earth is forced to join on the side of the Tandarans against a Kabal-led offensive. Beyond that, it is likely that the Vulcans will continue to become more and more uncomfortable with Archer’s simplistic views on interspecies morality, and that could create additional friction in the seasons to come. Sooner or later, the somewhat jaded arrogance of Kirk’s time will come out of these early days of interstellar exploration.
The real weakness of this episode is Mayweather. This is beginning to sound like a broken record, but as hard as Tony Montgomery tries, he just can’t deliver a convincing performance. I think part of the problem is the lack of definition for his character…resident space folklore expert is hardly impressive. Here, his scenes feel like filler in comparison to the tensions between Archer and Colonel Grat or the interplay between Archer and Danik. Even T’Pol manages to show a subtlety in this episode that we haven’t seen before, and next to all of that, Mayweather simply comes across as a waste of material.
Some other thoughts:
- Lest anyone think I’ve abandoned the “humans are stupid” mantra, I think it’s hilarious that Archer gets into trouble for something like the 90th time for chasing after something “neat”!
- Can someone please forward my continual complaints about these useless teasers to Berman and Braga? This one just barely managed to include actual content.
- How good was it to see Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell acting together again? Especially in that first scene where Colonel Grat pulls out that little device and starts tapping at it!
- I wonder if it was intentional to have the name Suliban sound so similar to Taliban, especially when you toss in the fact that the evil Suliban are in the employ of the Kabal, which sounds vaguely Arabic…
- If isolation is only for one night, and the only real complaint is that it gets a bit cold, why do they refer to it as though prisoners are regularly tortured in there?
- If the Tandarans are paranoid enough to intercept a covert signal from the Enterprise, wouldn’t they be paranoid enough to bug the detainment camp…especially if there had been previous escape attempts?
- Why would they keep the impounded Suliban ships within a few hundred yards of the detainment camp itself? I would think that they would want to study Suliban technology, assuming they were actually Suliban-designed craft.
- For what it’s worth, Colonel Grat’s questions were completely understandable given the circumstance the Tandarans happen to be in. It would be much harder to believe that Grat wouldn’t ask those questions of someone that had encountered the Suliban and survived!
- Speaking of which, what kind of relationship are the Tandarans going to have with Earth after this little mess? Presumably the Tandarans could have intelligence to share with Earth, and could aid them in any action against the Kabal. I would think that the Tandarans would now treat Earth as a hostile power.
- How many times is T’Pol going to have to lecture Archer before he realizes that human morality doesn’t necessarily apply to alien cultures? Did he even attempt to find out what the laws and mores of the Tandarans might be? Nah!
- “How are you doing, Dr. Phlox?”
“Just fine, Subcommander…I’m almost finished shining this annoying red light directly into the camera…”
- For just a moment during the scene between T’Pol and Colonel Grat, I felt as though T’Pol was being played way off character…until I realized that she was playing a part for Grat’s benefit. Good bit of subtlety there.
- I’m not sure I understood the unspoken moment between Archer and Grat at the end of the confrontation…something happened, I’m sure, but I have no idea what they were trying to convey.
- They call that an ending? Why didn’t they just cut it off in the middle of a frickin’ line of dialogue, it would have been just as bad…
Overall, this was a solid enough episode, and one that ought to have some kind of consequences for the future. I could have done without Mayweather completely, as I think he detracted from the episode, but in the end it didn’t take too much away from the impact of the episode. There were some problems, though, that kept this from being an above-average offering.
