[6.8/10] My grandmother survived the Holocaust, and she has no interest in novels or films or television show about it. I thought it was odd when I was a kid. Why not Schindler's List? Why not Saving Private Ryan? Why not Life Is Beautiful? Why not all the great pieces of art that have helped people process those horrors and make sense of them in the way that only artistic expression can?
I understand it better now. I don’t want to spill my guts about 9/11. It only intersected with my life a thousandth as much as The Shoah intersected with my grandmother’s. And yet, I have no interest in seeing United 93 or World Trade Center or other dramatizations of that tragedy. It’s not that I think they’re bad, or disrespectful; there’s just something too real about having lived through that national experience, however tangentially, to want to experience it through fiction.
That makes me resistant to Enterprise’s 9/11 allegory here. The mysterious, unexpected, devastating, attack at home from a barely understood enemy makes things plain enough. But if it didn’t, the prospect of Archer taking on active military crewmates, of Trip wanting blood in return for the family member’s life that was taken in the attack, the transition from a mission of peaceful exploration to one of defense and revenge, makes sure the audience knows what “The Expanse” is getting at.
That feels a little gross to me. The deadliest terror attack in American history is represented by a clunky, CGI sphere letting loose a laser beam on a Google Map of Florida. The show’s take on this watershed moment in our nation’s history is mixed in with longstanding plot threads of shape-shifting aliens and vengeance-seeking Klingons and Star Trek’s usual time travel shenanigans. The genuine loss of life and national shock are represented with our heroes going into the outer space equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle. There is something that feels crass about that, no matter how much I may rationally want to make room for art to find imaginative ways to process the zeitgeist.
But if I’m honest with myself, a lot of my problems with it just come down to quality. The reimagined Battlestar Galactica, a spiritual cousin of Enterprise, came out just a year or so after “The Expanse” and approaches a 9/11 allegory in similar way, with (mostly) outstanding results. Homeland came out several years later, but reflects on the War on Terror and attacks on American soil in ways that were gripping but poignant. Hell, even The Avengers can be read as a sublimated processing of our lingering national anxieties after the 9/11 attacks. These are all pieces of art that I think are great and have no quarrel with.
Something about “The Expanse” rubbed me the wrong way though. It is not a bad episode of television. It has the feeling of a second pilot, a soft reboot of the show after what I understand was a mixed-at-best reaction to its first couple of seasons. It changes the premise of the series considerably, altering the mission, the stakes, and the mood in a way that makes it feel like the first episode of season 3 instead of the last episode of season 2. There’s not much to reflect on how far Enterprise and her crew have come; just a lot of table-setting for what lies ahead and attempts to capture the mood of that unexpected tragedy.
Enterprise tries to channel that through its three main officers. Archer plays the rueful leader, who receives one big convenient exposition dump from the Suliban and their time-displaced informant, convinces his human and Vulcan superiors that an alien species from the future called the Xindi are responsible for the attack, and goes toe-to-toe with Duras, who’s on a quest to restore his Klingon honor. Much of the episode’s clunky plot mechanics and awkward attempts to reposition the show run through Archer, and as usual, Scott Bakula isn’t really up to carrying that weight.
T’Pol is subjected to another “do I show loyalty to Enterprise and Archer or do I follow my instructions from the Vulcan High Command?” dilemma. As usual, it’s not a bad way to give T’Pol character-informing choices and show her evolution, but Enterprise has just gone to this well so many times that her decision is too predictable and lacks much impact.
Hers is one of the few stories in the episode that actually gains force from its 9/11 associations, carrying the sense of people who felt duty-bound, from her and abroad, to go fight and defend the country after such tragic events. But the Enterprise drapes T’Pol’s decision in personal loyalty to Archer, with “you need me” dialogue that trips into romantic undertones and just adds a completely “blah” element to what should otherwise be a momentous choice.
Last and arguably least is Trip, who lost his sister in the attack, and is hellbent on revenge. The show wants to try to capture the anger that people felt in the aftermath of those attacks, the thirst for vengence and to bring enemies to justice. That’s an interesting notion, particularly when Trip talks about eschewing the principles of non-interference, and a newly armed-to-the-teeth version of the Enterprise destroys its Klingon pursuer rather than just disabling it.
But the writing on this show just isn’t good enough to capture the complexities of grief mixed with cold anger mixed with shock and disbelief at such events. Connor Trineer tries his best, but the wistful recollections of his sister’s life, the desire to get the bastards what done it, all of that stuff is just so overwrought that it lacks the ring of truth, and comes off like the show exploiting the real life events it’s inspired by rather than processing them through its fictional lens.
Making sense of current events, political and personal, is in Star Trek’s DNA though. The 1960s series spent more than one episode grapplign with the legacy of World War II, the social unrest of the 1960s, and Gene Roddenberry’s wartime experiences. The Next Generation was suffused with a then-contemporary allegory for the Cold War. Plenty of other shows before and since Enterprise have treated the Federation as a stand-in for the United States, and told stories with that in mind.
If I take a step back and, as T’Pol might suggest, look logically at the situation, there’s nothing wrong with Enterprise trying to tackle 9/11, whether or not it’s for me. But this is a show that hasn’t had the chops to tackle sexual assault, or AIDS, or other serious issues with real life analogues that it’s attempted. I have serious concerns about it having the institutional ability to handle the most pivotal moment in recent American history, or the ensuing War on Terror, any better, especially without the grace of distance.
It’s a tall order for any series, past or present, and “The Expanse” is not an encouraging first step into that new world. But perhaps what ensues will, if nothing else, be an interesting time capsule of that era and that mood, whether or not Enterprise is capable of doing it justice.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-07-16T03:38:22Z
[6.8/10] My grandmother survived the Holocaust, and she has no interest in novels or films or television show about it. I thought it was odd when I was a kid. Why not Schindler's List? Why not Saving Private Ryan? Why not Life Is Beautiful? Why not all the great pieces of art that have helped people process those horrors and make sense of them in the way that only artistic expression can?
I understand it better now. I don’t want to spill my guts about 9/11. It only intersected with my life a thousandth as much as The Shoah intersected with my grandmother’s. And yet, I have no interest in seeing United 93 or World Trade Center or other dramatizations of that tragedy. It’s not that I think they’re bad, or disrespectful; there’s just something too real about having lived through that national experience, however tangentially, to want to experience it through fiction.
That makes me resistant to Enterprise’s 9/11 allegory here. The mysterious, unexpected, devastating, attack at home from a barely understood enemy makes things plain enough. But if it didn’t, the prospect of Archer taking on active military crewmates, of Trip wanting blood in return for the family member’s life that was taken in the attack, the transition from a mission of peaceful exploration to one of defense and revenge, makes sure the audience knows what “The Expanse” is getting at.
That feels a little gross to me. The deadliest terror attack in American history is represented by a clunky, CGI sphere letting loose a laser beam on a Google Map of Florida. The show’s take on this watershed moment in our nation’s history is mixed in with longstanding plot threads of shape-shifting aliens and vengeance-seeking Klingons and Star Trek’s usual time travel shenanigans. The genuine loss of life and national shock are represented with our heroes going into the outer space equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle. There is something that feels crass about that, no matter how much I may rationally want to make room for art to find imaginative ways to process the zeitgeist.
But if I’m honest with myself, a lot of my problems with it just come down to quality. The reimagined Battlestar Galactica, a spiritual cousin of Enterprise, came out just a year or so after “The Expanse” and approaches a 9/11 allegory in similar way, with (mostly) outstanding results. Homeland came out several years later, but reflects on the War on Terror and attacks on American soil in ways that were gripping but poignant. Hell, even The Avengers can be read as a sublimated processing of our lingering national anxieties after the 9/11 attacks. These are all pieces of art that I think are great and have no quarrel with.
Something about “The Expanse” rubbed me the wrong way though. It is not a bad episode of television. It has the feeling of a second pilot, a soft reboot of the show after what I understand was a mixed-at-best reaction to its first couple of seasons. It changes the premise of the series considerably, altering the mission, the stakes, and the mood in a way that makes it feel like the first episode of season 3 instead of the last episode of season 2. There’s not much to reflect on how far Enterprise and her crew have come; just a lot of table-setting for what lies ahead and attempts to capture the mood of that unexpected tragedy.
Enterprise tries to channel that through its three main officers. Archer plays the rueful leader, who receives one big convenient exposition dump from the Suliban and their time-displaced informant, convinces his human and Vulcan superiors that an alien species from the future called the Xindi are responsible for the attack, and goes toe-to-toe with Duras, who’s on a quest to restore his Klingon honor. Much of the episode’s clunky plot mechanics and awkward attempts to reposition the show run through Archer, and as usual, Scott Bakula isn’t really up to carrying that weight.
T’Pol is subjected to another “do I show loyalty to Enterprise and Archer or do I follow my instructions from the Vulcan High Command?” dilemma. As usual, it’s not a bad way to give T’Pol character-informing choices and show her evolution, but Enterprise has just gone to this well so many times that her decision is too predictable and lacks much impact.
Hers is one of the few stories in the episode that actually gains force from its 9/11 associations, carrying the sense of people who felt duty-bound, from her and abroad, to go fight and defend the country after such tragic events. But the Enterprise drapes T’Pol’s decision in personal loyalty to Archer, with “you need me” dialogue that trips into romantic undertones and just adds a completely “blah” element to what should otherwise be a momentous choice.
Last and arguably least is Trip, who lost his sister in the attack, and is hellbent on revenge. The show wants to try to capture the anger that people felt in the aftermath of those attacks, the thirst for vengence and to bring enemies to justice. That’s an interesting notion, particularly when Trip talks about eschewing the principles of non-interference, and a newly armed-to-the-teeth version of the Enterprise destroys its Klingon pursuer rather than just disabling it.
But the writing on this show just isn’t good enough to capture the complexities of grief mixed with cold anger mixed with shock and disbelief at such events. Connor Trineer tries his best, but the wistful recollections of his sister’s life, the desire to get the bastards what done it, all of that stuff is just so overwrought that it lacks the ring of truth, and comes off like the show exploiting the real life events it’s inspired by rather than processing them through its fictional lens.
Making sense of current events, political and personal, is in Star Trek’s DNA though. The 1960s series spent more than one episode grapplign with the legacy of World War II, the social unrest of the 1960s, and Gene Roddenberry’s wartime experiences. The Next Generation was suffused with a then-contemporary allegory for the Cold War. Plenty of other shows before and since Enterprise have treated the Federation as a stand-in for the United States, and told stories with that in mind.
If I take a step back and, as T’Pol might suggest, look logically at the situation, there’s nothing wrong with Enterprise trying to tackle 9/11, whether or not it’s for me. But this is a show that hasn’t had the chops to tackle sexual assault, or AIDS, or other serious issues with real life analogues that it’s attempted. I have serious concerns about it having the institutional ability to handle the most pivotal moment in recent American history, or the ensuing War on Terror, any better, especially without the grace of distance.
It’s a tall order for any series, past or present, and “The Expanse” is not an encouraging first step into that new world. But perhaps what ensues will, if nothing else, be an interesting time capsule of that era and that mood, whether or not Enterprise is capable of doing it justice.