2x02 Carbon Creek

[8.2/10] If I were to answer the question of what Star Trek: Enterprise is about, beyond the usual “boldly going” routine that all Trek shows follow to some extent, it would come down to two things. The first is the notion of humanity taking its first fledgling steps out into the wider universe, and the stumbles and triumphs we’ll make along the way. But the second is one of Vulcans and humans coming to understand one another, appreciate one another, and become the close allies that we would see in the many series set later in the timeline.

“Carbon Creek” feels like an encapsulation of the second theme in miniature. Beyond the 1950s setting, it has a certain throwback vibe, as the sort of premise that the 1960s series might do, where our heroes venture to a new place and learn the lesson of a whole people in the span of just forty minutes of screentime or so.

Except now, that people is us! “Carbon Creek” smartly flips the usual crazy away team mission on its head. This time, the aliens are the advanced spacemen who’ve descended from the stars, and we’re the promising-but-backward community they have to infiltrate and get by in without betraying their true nature. The simple fashion in which the episode reverses the usual dynamic helps to put the lens on humanity from an outsider’s perspective, putting us in the shoes of our Vulcan protagonists as they settle in with, begin to understand, and even eventually learn to appreciate the humans that populate this strange, pre-warp civilization.

Granted, the episode has more than its fair share of cheese. Given that the show has to tell a pretty long story in just a short amount of time means there’s shortcuts and some of the conflicts are rote. There’s the human and the Vulcan who fall in love (or who at least have an affection for one another), and the smart, space-minded small town kid who gets an unexpected boost from the alien visitor who sees potential in him.

And that’s before you get to the frame story, which not only shoehorns in our main trio to trade exposition and a weird “that’s just a story” feint, but provides an excuse for Jolene Blalock to play her own great grandmother. T’Mir is practically indistinguishable from T’Pol beyond a dye job, and the squaint 1950s mining town is a little too picturesque a setting. But honestly, that all just adds to the cute, unassuming charm the whole episode has.

Because as much as those touches are a little corny, they also seem very heartfelt. However plucked out of a Hallmark card or Norman Rockwell painting Maggie and Jack may seem, the episode takes them seriously. Little touches like references to I Love Lucy come off well-considered, given that Lucille Ball herself helped get the original Star Trek off the ground. And the prospect of a world on the brink of nuclear war, with good people aiming to live their lives despite it, makes these events feel like a spiritual cousin to “City on the Edge of Forever,” right down to the beanie covering Vulcan ears.

But more than those nice touches, the episode succeeds by depicting, in an upfront but no less charming way, our Vulcan protagonists slowly but surely warming to their human hosts. Mistral is obviously the one who goes deepest with that, fostering a romantic relationship with Maggie, being moved to save his fellow miners after a collapse, and ultimately choosing to stay and learn about humanity up close for the long haul. He goes native quickly, and is the first to see that, for however much our global politics and entertainment are concerned with violence, there is a compassion and curiosity within these people that is worth saving and trusting.

In the end, though, even T’Mir is moved by the experience. She is, initially, inherently distrusting of this barbarous species that makes weapons of mass destruction and does not seem poised to make the jump to space travel before brought down by its own hand. And yet, she meets Jack, one of those supposedly uncivilized humans, who has an appreciation for meditation, an understanding of the benefits of a disciplined mind, and a curiosity and thirst for knowledge that seem destined to take him far.

That is, assuming, his money troubles don’t do him in. Sure, the conflict of Jack needing enough money to go to college is trite as all hell, but the resolution is still heartwarming. He has become a talisman for T’Mir, something to suggest that she was wrong and that there is worth and merit in these stumbling but noble people. So she breaks the rules and, in a hilarious choice, introduces velcro to an inventor shop in exchange for enough money to send him to school, placed surreptitiously in the loudly-noted tip jar meant for that purpose.

The joy of Jack going to college is a little muted, but more important is the indication that this is the first step of warming and understanding between humanity and the Vulcans. T’Mir, like her great granddaughter, spent time with these smelly beings, and walked away thinking they were more worthwhile up close than their surface scans had indicated. She’s willing to not only violate whatever the Vulcan equivalent of the prime directive is, but to go so far as lie to a superior officer about Mistral’s office because she understands his fascination with these people, even if she’s not quite as convinced, Hell, even prickly Stron is taking extra time to fix his neighbor’s vacuum before their unexpected rescue and chance to go back home.

That’s the thrust of “Carbon Creek”, a gradual melting between human and Vulcan in the past that portends the possibility for more detente and understanding in the future. However frosty the relationship between the two species in the present, there is an secret blueprint, a hidden history that suggests a greater understanding between them is possible, if not outright inevitable. The keepsake handbag that T’Mir passed down to her great granddaughter is a symbol of that connection, and that however fragile it may seem, its roots are long and sturdy, stronger and reaching further back than any human being would have known.