If one doesn’t count the Terra Nova colony, and I am certainly trying to forget it, this episode marks the first time that the Enterprise crew has attempted to set down on an alien world and take a peek at the inhabitants. And so this is our chance to see how many basic mistakes the humans make when it comes to first contact situations.
Sure enough, they blunder through the whole thing with the same level of care that they have shown in every episode to date. In other words, very little!
You know as soon as T’Pol mentions the inhabited alien world that Archer is going to want to go and play. Certainly she knows it, because you can see it in her eyes as soon as she reports on it. And of course, she tries to talk some sense into the crew, given that the alien civilization is pre-industrial, but do they take the safe and respectful route and simply take detailed scans of the society from orbit.
Of course not! Before long, they find out that one of the cities somehow has an anti-matter reactor, which usually does not show up in your typical pre-industrial technology. So they decide that it’s a wonderful idea to send more than just the woman with a capacity for decoding languages. They send, oh, basically the bulk of the bridge crew…including the Vulcan, because as we all know, pointed ears would never get noticed.
Oddly enough, T’Pol is not the one who tips off the locals that something odd is happening. No, that would fall on Archer and Trip’s shoulders, since the first thing they do on arrival is break into the shop where the reactor is hidden. Apparently this pre-industrial society doesn’t believe in night watchmen or policing, because they only get caught by the local apothecary and confronted at the end of a crossbow. Thankfully, T’Pol manages to end the confrontation in a way that is completely consistent with a pre-industrial society…shooting her in the back with the phase pistol!
Well, Archer takes her back to her home…never mind how that happens…and proceeds to do some of the stupidest things ever. First of all, he tells her his name. Now, granted, they don’t have much experience in first contact, but don’t you think they would have gone to the trouble of giving themselves names that at least sound like something from the alien language? He also feeds her a line about being an investigator from another city, which also doesn’t make sense, given that we know there’s no police force anywhere to be seen!
Before long, we learn that there is something causing severe illness in the local population, and that it is related to some sort of smuggling going on from the shop with the reactor. The apothecary figured out the connection, and that’s why she was watching the shop. After T’Pol takes a sample of the groundwater and determines that it is a toxic lubricant of some kind, Archer and Trip confront the shop owner. Yup, he’s an alien himself, and claims that the reactor is something he uses to make midnight snacks and a nice wardrobe. Apparently all alien visitors to this world are bad liars!
So that night, Archer stakes out the shop with the apothecary babe. After a really bad excuse for some lip-locking, they wind up following the smuggler to the woods, where an alien ship takes the smuggled goods into its cargo bay and flies away. Now, most pre-industrial types would be more than a little freaked out by witnessing a flying shuttle and then a firefight with energy weapons, but the apothecary is apparently a rather accepting type. Not only does she not flip out over the whole idea of aliens (including playing tonsil hockey with one), when they finally break into the basement of the shop where the reactor is hidden and find a huge mining facility, Archer is more awestruck!
After getting them both locked in the mining office and the Enterprise attacked by a much, much bigger ship, Archer manages to get them out into a crowd of the pre-industrial types and start yet another firefight with energy weapons. At least the crowd reacts a little more logically to the whole business, because they go running and screaming out of the plaza. Apothecary babe sticks around, though, and winds up giving Archer tactical advice. Meanwhile, T’Pol uses her logical mind to take out two birds with one stone…at least metaphorically.
Of course, the Enterprise crew saves the day, and we are left to wonder just how badly Archer managed to “contaminate” the culture of the Aconi. But that’s Ok, because I’m sure that the Vulcans that are spying on the Enterprise were more than happy to rush in and do their best to fix the damage!
Some other thoughts:
- This show has to have the shortest teasers in television history. The opening credits are longer!
- Why ask why the Vulcan thought the triple cluster of neutron stars was more interesting than the alien planet? She’s a Vulcan!
- Linda Park looks hot enough in that uniform, but dressed as one of the aliens, she was truly drool-worthy. I’d take her over anorexic T’Pol any day!
- Why did Archer bother to have Sato create false identification documents, if he never uses it?
- Then again, there are no guards to check the documents, so I guess the Aconi just carry them around for fun.
- Wouldn’t you expect the Vulcan to know enough to cover her pointed ears?
- I have to correct Archer on that “breaking and entering” comment. They already did that back in the second episode!
- How did Archer know where to take the apothecary babe, when she was unconscious when they left the shop and woke up at home?
- What kind of chemist is stupid enough to prepare tea using the same lab equipment that is being used to study an unknown and deadly pathogen or substance?
- For that matter, I wonder if Archer was smart enough to actually check to see if the tea, or for that matter the saliva, on the alien world was toxic to humans…
- So there is an animal similar to a dog on the Aconi planet? If not, why didn’t the apothecary react to the strange word?
- Then again, maybe that’s why the translator started flipping out…
- OK, so Archer could figure out how to use the Malorian tricorder thingie, but when it came to figuring out the control panels in the mining office, he had no clue…that’s consistency for you!
- Oh, and what is the logic in putting a button on your console in a really prominent place that does little more than sound an alarm and lock everybody in?
- People in our modern society would freak out to see a hidden alien mining facility under one of our cities…and yet the apothecary babe barely blinked!
- There’s only one way out of the alien mining office. So the Malorians are so stupid that they never thought to keep someone on guard outside the door?
- Did Reed really think that his dinky little missiles were going to actually damage the Malorian vessel?
- At least T’Pol was thinking…her tactic of using the reactor as a weapon was pretty good.
- Nice of the Enterprise crew to remove all of the alien equipment from the planet. I wonder if they kept any of it for analysis!
Overall, this was a pretty silly episode with a lot of logic problems. It certainly didn’t help that this could have been a Voyager episode with very minor alterations.
