4x20 Demons (1)

[8.5/10] The great thing about the abstraction of fiction is that it travels. I have little doubt that the xenophobia at play in “Demons” was meant by Manny Cotto and company as a commentary on facets of American society during the War on Terror. But it has an eerie relevance in 2019, where we are once again dealing with large swaths of the United States who reject international coordination, reject those who don’t look like the Founding Fathers, and want our nation to close ranks and make our national interests king above any and all others.

That gives the speech from Paxton, the xenophobic leader of the “Terra Prime” hate group, a frightening resonance in the modern day. The way he idolizes Colonel Green and views his genocidal campaign as misunderstood, his utter disdain for non-humans and description of them as a plague on humanity, his paean to the idea of putting Earth first to the utter exclusion of any cross-species cooperation have, if anything, more application to America today than they did in 2005, where Paxton’s ideas remained more on the fringe than in the mainstream.

But as is right, the political allegories and social commentaries are not the sum total of “Demons” -- just that interesting ingredient that spices up a story of diplomacy, mystery, and personal stakes in these world-shifting events. The premise of the episode is that in the midst of an interstellar trade conference that feels like the harbinger of the Federation, it’s discovered that a baby exists whose parents are T’Pol and Trip.

On a political level, Earth Minister Samuels (Harry Groener!) wants to keep it quiet so that the news doesn't inflame Terra Prime and threaten to scuttle the trade talks. On a mystery level, Archer and his team want to get to the bottom of this. On a personal level, Trip and T’Pol have no idea how this happened and are naturally invested in finding out, and Mayweather reunites with an old flame.

That is a lot to tackle in a single episode, and at times “Demons” feels a little ungainly, even with another episode’s worth of real estate to play with. There’s spies to be revealed, politicians with possible xenophobic leanings, births to be questioned, and mysteries to be unspooled. But Enterprise does a pretty good job at balancing all of that. At times, it feels like we’re jumping from plot to plot, but on the whole, the episode puts the focus where its needed and spoons out answers and reveals at a clip that satisfies without giving up the game.

The least interesting aspect of the episode is Mayweather’s never-before-mentioned ex-girlfriend reconnecting with him here. There’s not much chemistry between them, and her inclusion seems too obviously constructed to make the reveal that she’s a Terra Prime spy have some extra juice due to a heretofore unknown connection to a member of the crew. The time we spend with the two of them isn’t especially compelling, and that means the ensuing betrayal doesn't feel especially dramatic.

On the other hand, in an episode where the xenophobes’ trump card (no pun intended) is supposed to be the existence of a Vulcan/Human child, there’s a power to the show balancing that out by featuring an interacial romance (albeit not the most healthy one, obviously). In a franchise that featured television’s first interracial kiss, it’s nice to see the show counterbalancing the prejudice of its antagonists in what it depicts and normalizes, and not just in the story it tells.

And by the same token, in a recent interview, “Demons” director Levar Burton talked about not being able to exhibit sexuality as Geordi on The Next Generation given the color of his skin and mores at the time, something he aimed to correct and do right in episodes he helmed. So it’s nice to see Mayweather’s relationship with Gannet as a reflection of that laudable impulse.

At the same time, the show is also a little too tortured about Trip questioning whether T’Pol kept something from him. The existence of this baby is one of the episode’s central mysteries, so I don’t mind people puzzling over it. And in the same way, it makes sense that Trip would at least wonder if something happened there that T’Pol didn’t tell to him. But it also just doesn't feel like something T’Pol would do, so the show returning to Trip’s doubts feels like a contrived to gin up strife between them and pose what seems like an obvious red herring. That said, Trip’s excitement about having a daughter is tremendously sweet and endearing.

The bad guys here, on the other hand, are far less endearing. As a mystery box episode and political one, “Demons” does a nice job of drawing out all the tangles connecting the different parts of the stories. You have the political angle, with Minister Samuels not wanting to disrupt the all-important trade conference, but having ties to Terra Prime in his past. You have Paxton holding this baby hostage and killing any “loose ends” who might have sympathy for it. You have a mining colony foreman giving a xenophobic pep talk and rounding up Trip and T’Pol. You have Malcolm plying his old Section 31 contacts again already.

And, most of all, you have Paxton taking his mining ship to Mars, tapping into a comet-blasting laser, and threatening to use it on people and cities and enemy starships if all the non-humans in the area don’t scram and do it fast. It’s a hell of a cliffhanger (albeit one that seems inevitable to be undone), but what’s most impressive is how the show makes time for all of those different story threads and starts tying them together one-by-one. Even the less-inspired Mayweather/Gannet interlude ends up connecting to the larger whole in a meaningful way.

What stands out, though, is Paxton’s speech, his effectiveness, the sense that he’s tapping into a vein of rationalized hate that threatens the bigger world we hold dear, the one that provides the foundation for the enlightened, compassionate Federation Star Trek fans would come to know and love in other shows.

It’s hard not to feel a little like that now, like the era of cooperation and allyship, the arc that has bent toward justice, is being threatened this very minute by forces and figures that would rather divide, point fingers at outsiders, and give into isolation than be an upstanding part of that broader world. Whether “Demons” is directed at that or not, it speaks to a universality of those fears, of pernicious persistence of those prejudices, that give Archer’s team, and the audience, the most significant moral challenge they’ve faced: to not just save the world, but save a set of ideals that Star Trek and this country both aspire to.