1x05 Unexpected

[7.3/10] This is a tough episode to grade, because it essentially has three parts: a bit of cultural exchange, a zany male pregnancy story, and a diplomatic kerfuffle. I loved the first part, liked the third part, and absolutely abhorred the second part. That speaks to a certain disjointedness in the episode, where it occasionally felt like events sort of careening into one another rather than progressing organically, but enough of the constituent parts were good enough that I still enjoyed the ride.

Let’s talk about the part that I loved: Trip’s contact with the Xyrillians. One of the best things about Star Trek has a franchise is how it looks at the human side of these sort of encounters. On the one hand, this is the Enterprise rendering aid and making connections out in the frontier, but on the other, this is as much, if not more, a story of one individual adjusting to the experience of another culture and way of life, initially hating it and wanting to come home, but eventually feeling comfortable and welcomed in a place, to where he appreciates the experience and how it’s expanded his horizons.

Honestly, you could cut off “Unexpected” at the halfway mark (after Trip first return to the Enterprise), and you’d have a tidy but effective little story to that effect. The show does Trip’s “kid away at summer camp who has a tough first day and wants to come home” routine really well and relatable. I also love the production design and use of effects both practical and technical to convey the alien-ness of Trip’s experience.

The smoke rises in the decompression chamber and he clambors about, complaining about how his lungs are burning. The slowed down, echoey way he experiences speech and the passage of time on the Xyrillian ship is a nicely impressionistic way of convey his “it’s like a fever” transition. And the interiors of the ship itself, wonderfully realizes with oval designs, a back-to-nature aesthetic, and details that seem familiar enough to not require a crazy effects budget, but foreign enough to rattle Trip are nigh-perfect (at least on a network television setting).

Things get even better with Trip’s interactions with Ah'Len. It seems clear in this episode that Trip is meant to fill the Kirk/Riker slot of finding the affections of alien admirers in these journeys. But what I like about his interactions here is that they don’t carry the same womanizing baggage. Sure, Ah’Len falls for Trip a little quickly, but there is, again, that summer camp sense of flirtation and fascination with something outside your experience that makes them both a little more apt to explore and bat eyes at one another.

I think my favorite exchange in the episode comes when Ah’Len and Trip have their hands in the “pebbles”, which grant each some sort of rudimentary telepathy. Trip says, with some surprise, “you find me attractive” and has the hint of a sly smile, and Ah’Len retorts that he likes that she finds him attractive. The romance is necessarily a little quick, but there’s chemistry their, and there interactions are cute and even chastely sensual enough to be endearing in a short amount of time. That first half of the episode is a delightful little journey through Trip’s adjustment from an uncomfortable acclimation to a new environment to joys like the humans’ first interactions with a holodeck and a connection with another soul.

But then, the episode takes a turn, and starts being more about Trip having been accidentally impregnated by those otherwise sweet interactions, and the episode veers into a heap of sub-sitcom-level humor about being pregnant. Trip is suddenly exaggeratedly hormonal, to the point that he’s ludicrously insecure, constantly eating, and freaking out about the safety measures for children in engineering. It’s facepalm-worthy crud, and particularly dispiriting after a fairly decent comic scene of Dr. Phlox, Archer, and T’Pol gently tsk tsking Trip for what they imagine to have been getting a little too close to the Xyrillians amid his brief bit of shore leave.

The best you can say for this part of the episode is that it’s at least a flip of the script from the seemingly innumerable “Counselor Troi is pregnant again!” episodes that The Next Generation would do, even if it devolves into Junior-level comedy. (And Angel would follow in those ignominious footsteps with Cordellia, incidentally). I also suspect, true to my frequent reverse-epiphany experiences watching The Original Series, that this episode was the inspiration for Futurama’s “Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch”, right down to the incidental touch-based pregnancy and romantic row boat ride in the holodeck.

Thankfully, after that bit of unpleasant mishegoss, the show reverts to a meat-and-potatoes Trek conflict -- namely a confrontation with the Klingons. When the effort to track down the Xyrillians in order to figure out what to do with Trip’s pregnancy leads the Enterprise to discover the alien ship’s hitched a secret ride with the Klingons, Archer and T’Pol end up having to talk the characteristically combative Klingons into not blowing them, or the Xyrillians up before they can get an answer.

The banter and negotiation with the Klingon commander are fun, and it’s a nice wrinkle to the first contact story. The fact that Archer tries appealing to general decency, mercy, and harmlessness, to no avail given the Klingon’s pugilistic appetites, is a nice exemplar of how Starfleet is still learning how to get along in this strange new world. And I particularly appreciate how T’Pol proves her usefulness here, exaggerating (which Vulcans are allowed to do, per Spock) in order to retell Archer’s adventures from the premiere in a way that the Klingon commander would be forced to appreciate. Trip appealing to their sense of intrigue and excitement at new technology (right down to an amusing “I can see my house from here” line) is a good finishing touch, showing the essential trio of the show working together to make it work.

It’s hard to know how to weigh each of those parts out. The first half of the episode should almost be its own thing, a neat little representation of acclimating to the ups and downs of first contract. The subsequent pregnancy interlude nearly grinds the episode to a halt with its hackneyed, retrograde humor. But the third part rights the ship, both figuratively and nigh-literally, with some classic Trek diplomacy. All-in-all, “Unexpected” is more of mishmash, but the good parts are worth sticking around through decompression for.

Captain gets the most unexpected injury on the job. This is not what the title of the episode alludes to, you say? Well, the cause for that as well as black goo out of a food dispenser as well as the other incidents all over ship is a stowaway Xyrilian ship that leeched off their plasma. Tucker, always first to get into an adventure volonteers to fix very trippy 60s alien ship, complete with Eel tank. After inital problems acclimatizing he gets to bond with lizard lady Ah'len. Sparks fly between them, literally. She gets to show him her home planet in a some kind of a holodeck, they get to go on a romantic boat ride. So our commander Tucker is officially the first man in holodeck and first human having intercourse and male becoming pregnant that we know of.
Well, it seems it wasn't very memorable as he isn't aware of it. Apparently he got pregnant and started growing nipples. Notable is fun exchange between T'Pol and Tucker (something about restraining himself and meeting holographic parents). Tucker starts exibiting other symptoms, which include maternal instincts.
They find Xyrilian ship again, this time trailing Klingon ship. Klingons being Klingons they want to destroy everyone in their path, but after T'Pol exaggerating role Archer played in returning Klaang home, everyone laughing at Tuckers belly and promise of holographic technology, they let everyone go and allow Tucker to transfer his baby to some other host.
We find out Tucker joined Starfleet 12 years ago, that he knows Archer for 8 years. The end takes place a month after Kronos.

Actually pretty fun episode. Jokes are spot on and there's new cool alien environment.

Themes: first contact, humor, diplomacy
Watchable.