"Harbinger"
Written by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Manny Coto
Directed by David Livingston
In which a mysterious alien is brought aboard Enterprise on the way to Azati Prime, while various tensions on the ship come to a boil...
Captain's Log - 60 Minute Drill - Final Analysis
Captain's Log
After two very strong episodes, it was almost inevitable that the writing staff would stumble, wiping out nearly all of the good graces generated by those successes. The fact that the episode started with a story by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga tells the audience all they need to know: needless sexual hijinks, barely justified fistfights, and poor characterization are guaranteed to ensue.
Manny Coto does his best to make this a worthwhile episode, but there’s only so much that can be done. Coto cannot be expected to fool the audience into believing that there has been a well-established rivalry between Reed and Hayes, nor can Coto find a way to completely justify the out-of-character actions expected of T’Pol. Coto was left with the thankless task of making terrible writing decisions seem better than they were.
Along the way, there’s actually an interesting new element introduced to the Xindi arc, and that subplot should have been the focus of the episode. After all, if the hints are to be believed, this is the first real indication of the source for the Xindi belief that Earth is seeking their destruction. The suggestion is that some species from another dimension is attempting to develop a staging ground for invasion, and that Earth is perceived as a threat to that goal. Therefore, the Xindi were fooled into eliminating Earth for those unknown beings.
This immediately brings the Temporal Cold War into the scope, because only a species with some knowledge of the future could know that humanity was the main threat to their incursion. The question is: how does this invasion connect to the TCW? Is one faction attempting to allow the incursion of the unknown species, or is the incursion and related temporal meddling something apart from the TCW? If the two struggles are separate, then it makes sense that any faction that learned of the incursion (including the faction behind the Suliban) would want to eliminate the threat to long-range plans that the incursion would represent.
Considering the impact on the Xindi arc and the series as a whole, it makes little sense to bury this subplot. That’s just what Berman and Braga do in this episode, preferring the usual lowbrow titillation of T’Pol “exploring human sexuality” and empty fisticuffs.
The Reed/Hayes aspect of the episode could have been a satisfying payoff, had the writers actually taken that plot thread from “The Xindi” and fleshed it out during the season to date. Instead, the writers chose to ignore all of the “hot” MACOs, preferring to use them as specialists during appropriate missions. One could argue whether or not the MACOs ever justified their place on the series, at least in proportion to the press they were given during the summer break, but at least a more in-depth look at the dynamic between Reed and Hayes would have been justified.
Had the proper plot development been done, the scale and ferocity of the fight between Reed and Hayes might have appeared less arbitrary. As it stands, the two characters go from mild annoyance a couple months earlier to apparent complete disinterest to open hostility. Hardly a well-considered character arc, and ultimately a decision that makes Reed look unstable at best.
On the other hand, the relationship between Trip and T’Pol has been established well enough. Regardless, this episode takes what has been a relatively in-character interaction and turns it into a scene from a bad romance film. While Vulcans are certainly not adverse to banter, T’Pol’s coy repartee doesn’t match the Vulcan mystique. Nor does T’Pol’s claim regarding a “study of human sexuality” fit what has come before, since this supposed attempt to explore human behavior hasn’t come up in previous episodes.
Again, Coto tries to take the fact that T’Pol is acting completely out-of-character and turn those scenes into something intriguing and even amusing. It’s as if any attempt to reconcile T’Pol’s decisions with dispassionate Vulcan culture was simply abandoned, and in its place, Coto tried for something like a 50’s-era sophisticated cat-and-mouse romance. It works within the scene if the context is more or less ignored, but overall, it’s a horrible decision to take the relationship into that direction so abruptly.
Much could be said about the way T’Pol is characterized and why it doesn’t work, but such comments are already quite apparent. It’s not that these plot choices couldn’t have worked under other circumstances, but rather, that the previous episodes for the arc don’t support the twists in this episode. The fact that the plot elements in this episode largely originate in sub-standard Berman and Braga material speaks volumes.
While Manny Coto could easily be rendered guilty by association, that would be an error. Coto should be credited for trying to make the episode work. Scene by scene, elements are added that make those scenes work, even if the whole falls apart under the weight of too many ill-conceived plot twists. Anything more than incremental improvement can only come with a new voice behind the series and the franchise.
60 Minute Drill
01:30 – An awful lot of recap for such a disappointing episode…
02:14 – A woman wearing only a thin halter top in an apparently cold room…definitely a sign of a Berman and Braga episode!
08:19 – This is episode is dated 27 December, 2153, which would be about two weeks into the three-week journey to Azati Prime…
11:22 – Perhaps Hayes should have been a regular, I think…his tone of voice suggests command, something that many of the regulars lack!
12:43 – So Evil Gravimetric Anomalies look like cosmic peanut brittle?
13:56 – And who didn’t know that the anomalies would temporarily “capture” Enterprise?
19:12 – Amazing how they can simple talk to the trans-dimensional alien without any difficulty…
20:21 – “No, Captain, the location of the spheres with respect to the anomaly is just a really big coincidence!”
21:41 – Something tells me that Trip is simply attracted to women who can easily kick his ass…
22:46 - Reed’s reaction to the training session is as predictable as it was short-sighted and petty!
34:45 – So…holographic target practice? Is that likely to be used in this era?
35:23 – The animosity between Reed and Hayes might seem more meaningful if it had been mentioned even once in the past 14 episodes…
37:26 – At least Archer’s decision to withhold pain medication from the alien is consistent with his recent character development!
40:08 – As ludicrous as the build-up to the love scene is, at least the dialogue is well written…
49:20 – At least the fight scene was amusing, even if it seemed to last forever!
51:00 – The weapons have no effect on the alien, so what do the security and military experts do? Keep shooting!
51:27 – There they go, “reversing polarity” again…
54:54 – I love Archer’s little lecture at the end of the episode…he should show this kind of fire more often!
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode is an example of a terrible story made adequate by someone stepping in and trying to make it work. The cast and director did everything they could to sell the story, but the lapses are still glaring. Not at all a high point for the season, this episode is more a symptom of lingering issues from the second season than a sign of continued improvement.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
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