That has to be the absolute worse theme song I've ever heard for a sci-fi action show... It would be better fit for some romance show.
Once again, we find an Enterprise crew member alone aboard an alien ship without any Universal Translator, but still able to perfectly understand every alien language spoken on board. Funny how language is only a barrier when the plot requires it to be.
I found the T'Pol/Phlox plot even more uncomfortable than "Tuvix", which I watched yesterday. To be quite honest, I have no idea what point it was meant to serve. At least the main plot with Archer being captured by a bounty hunter working to service the Klingons' price on his head had some relevance to continuity and a cliché moral point to make (good men can be driven to awful deeds under the right circumstances). T'Pol throwing herself at the doctor (and, once, Malcolm) seemed to be pure fanservice.
Anyone who's read my reviews or chatted with me about fanservice in anime knows the disdain I have for the practice. It applies equally to live-action and Western media, worry not. Briefly, I think sexualizing a character just for the hell of it (as this seemed to be) cheapens the entire series. Enterprise isn't alone in this. The same was done in Voyager, first with Kes, then with Seven when Kes failed to hold the target male viewership demographic. The Next Generation did it with Deanna Troi and her absurd non-uniform. I can still call it out when I see it, especially because other Trek series did the same thing. It's a pattern.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-07-14T23:30:26Z
[7.1/10] Character stories work well on Star Trek. Hell, they work well just about anywhere. While most of us need some plot to get the creative juices flowing, just getting to know and appreciate a character’s change of heart within a story can hook you, independent of the broader things that are happening on a show. So while I like the story of the Klingon bounty on Archer’s head in the appropriately titled “Bounty”, I’m more interested in his connection and eventual alliance with Skalaar, the Tellarite freighter captain-turned-bounty hunter who captures and eventually helps free him.
For one thing, it’s just cool to see the Tellarites done up in modern makeup. “Journey to Babel”, the episode of The Original Series that featured what I believe is the first appearance of the Tellarites, had them mostly looking like random dudes in cheap Halloween pig masks. While they made slightly gussied up background appearances in the movies, it’s nice to see them given the full spotlight and modern T.V. treatment. The costuming and makeup teams manage to bridge the gap between their latex mask origins and the more detailed modern look necessary for 2000s television.
But more than the visuals, I just like Skalaar’s personal story. Sometimes Enterprise can be a little heavy-handed in deploying guest stars’ backstories, but Skalaars is natural and compelling. He was a freighter captain who designed his own ship, had it impounded by the Klingons when crossing their territory, and is hunting fugitives in order to get it back. At the same time, the whole incident estranged him from his brother, something he hopes to rectify by recovering his vessel and trying to set things back to the way things were.
That is, while maybe not relatable, more understandable than the usual villain Archer and company come across. Skalaar isn’t in this because he hates Archer or thinks he’s guilty. Frankly, he doesn't really care. He’s not cruel to his prisoner, and if anything, there’s a world-weary, matter of fact resignation and determination to the Tellarite through the whole ordeal. Good or bad, right or wrong, turning Archer in is a necessary step for Skalar to regain his old life, and he’s just playing his part.
T’Pol is, in her own way, just playing her part physiologically, when a virus from a local planet prompts the pon farr, or the Vulcan mating reaction, within her. I’m of three (not just two minds) about this plotline, and like the virus itself, it certainly prompts a reaction, which is something.
On the one hand, I like that this virus gives Jolene Blalock the chance to emote a little. One of The Original Series’s favorite tricks was to have Spock encounter some spores or a weird form of radiation or some other macguffin sauce that weakened his emotional resolve and showed off that Leonard Nimoy was a talented performer with range. “Bounty” gives Blalock the same opportunity, letting her show desperation, desire, raw anger, manipulation, and a failing effort to maintain T’Pol’s stoicism that all let us see interesting shades of the performer and the character.
On the other hand, the way the show depicts T’Pol’s advances on her male crewmates is really uncomfortable. Lord knows that Star Trek as a franchise has a long history of characters encountering some pathogen or something that makes them super amorous, but T’Pol’s passes at Dr. Phlox in the chamber take on a sexual assault vibe after a while. Once again, I’m not sure Enterprise as a show is equipped to tackle that sort of thing, at a times, the episode even seems to want to use it for comedy, which is a problem all its own.
Worse yet, it’s hard to ignore the metatext of this one, where you can practically hear the network executives asking for an excuse to have Jolene Blalock parade around in her underwear for an hour and try to seduce anything she comes across to try to lure in the horny nerd crowd. I don’t know if this reaches the level of rank exploitation, but again, there’s something about the whole exercise that feels transparently crass and calculated, and it puts me off.
(As an aside, I will say that I appreciate the continuity of it being Reed who encounters and eventually subdues her, as it adds some extra suspense and tension to their confrontation, even if I don’t necessarily like the fact that the story leads to that point, or frankly, that it even exists.)
Thankfully, when the show is not parading its sweat-drenched, scantily-clad second lead around the ship, it’s helping us to better know and understand a, shall we say, much less aesthetically pleasing pig alien. The episode does a nice job of letting the audience understand Skalaar’s reasons for going after Archer, and then justifying his reasons for changing his mind and collaborating with our dear captain instead.
That comes down to his ship, something that unites the two of them. Skalaar retrofitted the engines himself, making it the fastest freighter out there, just as Archer feels an attachment to his father’s warp engine. It’s subtle but it helps build a bridge between the two of them, make Skalaar seem like more recognizable as a person, and motivate his turn when he finds out that the Klingons have gutted it.
The ensuing plan is clever and exciting. While it’s a little convenient that Archer is able to fight and scheme his way off of the Klingon ship once he’s transferred, the ensuing battle with Enterprise is a thrill. The fact that he and Skalaar worked out a way for the Tellarite to get his money, while Archer can escape the Klingon penal system, and no one’s the wiser, is a nice beat, that helps set the stage for better human/Tellarite relations to follow.
It also sets the stage for, if you will, better audience/Tellarite relations to follow. Enterprise has a nigh-endless parade of guest stars. It’s a natural outgrowth of the show being about exploring strange new worlds and new civilizations on a weekly basis. But when it takes time to develop those guests, to motivate them, and show them changing within the hour, it makes it a lot easier to latch onto them, and a lot of more exciting and endearing when they resolve to side with our heroes.