[5.4/10] I think it must be a rule that every Star Trek show has to go back in time to when the series is being made. The Original Series did it (multiple times!), Next Generation did it (more or less), and Voyager did it. (I can’t recall if DS9 did it, but they went back in time to TOS, so that has to count for something.) And now Enterprise has done it, as Archer and T’Pol depart back to the distant year of 2004.
Except that rather than doing much of interest, or having much in the way of interesting reflections on how much things have changed or how unfamiliar the past is to them, we get a pretty generic police procedural story grafted onto a Star Trek framework. There’s an irony that Scott Bakula would go on to star in one of the umpteen CSI/NCIS/SVU shows, because aside from the tangential science fiction elements, this one feels like a generic installment from one of those formulaic network cop dramas.
I will say this for “Carpenter Street” though -- I appreciate how it just drops the viewer into the scenario. When we meet Loomis as some low-rent hood in a disheveled apartment, it’s kind of a “what the hell?” moment. (I legitimately wondered if he was Malcolm in a bad wig for a minute.) The Enterprise doesn't show up until most of the way through the first act. Instead, we just get this low life, drugging prostitutes, and taking them to a random warehouse. It is odd, but before our heroes show up, it feels legitimately gritty, with a steadicam approach and a number of torn up settings that make you wonder, for a fleeting moment, if Enterprise is going to try taking a page from The Wire.
Alas, it’s not to be. Instead, Daniels (the guy from the future) shows up to send Archer and T’Pol to the past to catch a trio of Reptilian Xindi, for reasons that are thin as hell. This show has real trouble with its time travel plots (which, to be fair, is nothing new for Star Trek series). There’s weird rules for how it works in this context, with Daniels telling them that he doesn't know what the deal with the Xindi is because that’s not from the original timeline, and because it takes a while for events from the past to reach his future. What the hell does that even mean?
The explanation for why Daniels can’t go himself is even weaker, as he suggests it would be too much paperwork and require too much authorization and thus take too much time for him to go rather than sending Archer. Again, how could anything possibly take too much time for someone who can time travel? I’m not a nitpicker, but it’s just frustrating that the show draws attention to these things and then papers over them with unsatisfying explanations when it’d be way easier to just not mention them at all and let the audience sweep it under the rug of “willing suspension of disbelief.”
Still, with that unfortunately not a possibility given that Berman & Braga have the pen here. Instead, we spend a lot of time on unconvincing exposition before Archer and T’Pol venture back to Detroit, Michigan in the early 2000s to figure out what’s going on with the Xindi. In the process, they pretend to be cops, have trouble dealing with 21st century technology, and generally cavort like this is a bad episode of Law & Order.
I’ll give the episode two points in its favor. For one, the Xindi plot is pretty creepy. There’s something about the Reptilian Humanoids having a blood bank lab tech kidnap and then experiment on them that hits things right in the creep factor. Maybe it’s just that Loomis gives off serial killer vibes even before we learn he’s in league with aliens, but the whole thing is disturbing in a way that makes this one stand out.
The other point is that it manages to advance the major story arc of the season in a significant way. The setup of the episode is a little weird, because the audience already knows that the Xindi are working on a bioweapon, which accounts for their behavior here, even if Archer and T’Pol don’t, but the episode plays out kind of like a mystery. That’s not a bad approach necessarily, but the show doesn't make use of the dramatic irony of the audience knowing more than the characters.
Still, Archer discovering that the Xindi are working on a bioweapon, and taking a trio of them (including one played by a totally undifferentiated Jeffrey Dean Morgan!) and their incubator back to his ship is a major development. The fact that they’re back in contact with Daniels, however ephemeral his appearance, is a major development. And even T’Pol having little choice but to buy into the reality of time travel is a, well, not small development.
But the episode quickly devolves into generic cop crud and an almost laughable last act action sequence. I can’t tell you how much I chuckled at the pomp and circumstance the episode drummed up when Archer made his adorable little leap from one building to another. Even without that silly moment, all “Carpenter Street” has to offer is another generic firefight, with nothing really to distinguish it from any of the other umpteen we’ve had, beyond another laughable moment when a Xindi tries to roll his little bio canister into a fan and Archer saves it at the last moment.
But hey, at least those moments made me laugh, however unintentionally! The episode goes for straight humor on multiple occasions in this episode, and it is just the most tepid, unfunny comic misfire you’re likely to see in Star Trek. The sequence where Archer and T’Pol try to find a car to steal and run into boots and rottweilers takes forever and has nary a laugh. And the scene near the end where they go to a fast food joint and have to deal with food spilling in the car feels like the kind of humor a fourth grader would right. The procedural elements in this one are mostly uninspired but fine, while the comedy sinks to levels of true awfulness.
The episode mostly sticks to the cop procedural stuff, and it is a middling if mostly watchable effort. Archer playing the good generic detective on a network police drama is the white bread role that Bakula was born to play, so while it’s rarely inspired, it feels true to the trappings of the genre. Otherwise, this comes off like a waste of a time travel episode, or at least one filled with missed potential, where major plot developments and a certain level of creepiness can’t make up for the hoariness of the shtick or the crappiness of the humor.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-07-27T04:38:37Z
[5.4/10] I think it must be a rule that every Star Trek show has to go back in time to when the series is being made. The Original Series did it (multiple times!), Next Generation did it (more or less), and Voyager did it. (I can’t recall if DS9 did it, but they went back in time to TOS, so that has to count for something.) And now Enterprise has done it, as Archer and T’Pol depart back to the distant year of 2004.
Except that rather than doing much of interest, or having much in the way of interesting reflections on how much things have changed or how unfamiliar the past is to them, we get a pretty generic police procedural story grafted onto a Star Trek framework. There’s an irony that Scott Bakula would go on to star in one of the umpteen CSI/NCIS/SVU shows, because aside from the tangential science fiction elements, this one feels like a generic installment from one of those formulaic network cop dramas.
I will say this for “Carpenter Street” though -- I appreciate how it just drops the viewer into the scenario. When we meet Loomis as some low-rent hood in a disheveled apartment, it’s kind of a “what the hell?” moment. (I legitimately wondered if he was Malcolm in a bad wig for a minute.) The Enterprise doesn't show up until most of the way through the first act. Instead, we just get this low life, drugging prostitutes, and taking them to a random warehouse. It is odd, but before our heroes show up, it feels legitimately gritty, with a steadicam approach and a number of torn up settings that make you wonder, for a fleeting moment, if Enterprise is going to try taking a page from The Wire.
Alas, it’s not to be. Instead, Daniels (the guy from the future) shows up to send Archer and T’Pol to the past to catch a trio of Reptilian Xindi, for reasons that are thin as hell. This show has real trouble with its time travel plots (which, to be fair, is nothing new for Star Trek series). There’s weird rules for how it works in this context, with Daniels telling them that he doesn't know what the deal with the Xindi is because that’s not from the original timeline, and because it takes a while for events from the past to reach his future. What the hell does that even mean?
The explanation for why Daniels can’t go himself is even weaker, as he suggests it would be too much paperwork and require too much authorization and thus take too much time for him to go rather than sending Archer. Again, how could anything possibly take too much time for someone who can time travel? I’m not a nitpicker, but it’s just frustrating that the show draws attention to these things and then papers over them with unsatisfying explanations when it’d be way easier to just not mention them at all and let the audience sweep it under the rug of “willing suspension of disbelief.”
Still, with that unfortunately not a possibility given that Berman & Braga have the pen here. Instead, we spend a lot of time on unconvincing exposition before Archer and T’Pol venture back to Detroit, Michigan in the early 2000s to figure out what’s going on with the Xindi. In the process, they pretend to be cops, have trouble dealing with 21st century technology, and generally cavort like this is a bad episode of Law & Order.
I’ll give the episode two points in its favor. For one, the Xindi plot is pretty creepy. There’s something about the Reptilian Humanoids having a blood bank lab tech kidnap and then experiment on them that hits things right in the creep factor. Maybe it’s just that Loomis gives off serial killer vibes even before we learn he’s in league with aliens, but the whole thing is disturbing in a way that makes this one stand out.
The other point is that it manages to advance the major story arc of the season in a significant way. The setup of the episode is a little weird, because the audience already knows that the Xindi are working on a bioweapon, which accounts for their behavior here, even if Archer and T’Pol don’t, but the episode plays out kind of like a mystery. That’s not a bad approach necessarily, but the show doesn't make use of the dramatic irony of the audience knowing more than the characters.
Still, Archer discovering that the Xindi are working on a bioweapon, and taking a trio of them (including one played by a totally undifferentiated Jeffrey Dean Morgan!) and their incubator back to his ship is a major development. The fact that they’re back in contact with Daniels, however ephemeral his appearance, is a major development. And even T’Pol having little choice but to buy into the reality of time travel is a, well, not small development.
But the episode quickly devolves into generic cop crud and an almost laughable last act action sequence. I can’t tell you how much I chuckled at the pomp and circumstance the episode drummed up when Archer made his adorable little leap from one building to another. Even without that silly moment, all “Carpenter Street” has to offer is another generic firefight, with nothing really to distinguish it from any of the other umpteen we’ve had, beyond another laughable moment when a Xindi tries to roll his little bio canister into a fan and Archer saves it at the last moment.
But hey, at least those moments made me laugh, however unintentionally! The episode goes for straight humor on multiple occasions in this episode, and it is just the most tepid, unfunny comic misfire you’re likely to see in Star Trek. The sequence where Archer and T’Pol try to find a car to steal and run into boots and rottweilers takes forever and has nary a laugh. And the scene near the end where they go to a fast food joint and have to deal with food spilling in the car feels like the kind of humor a fourth grader would right. The procedural elements in this one are mostly uninspired but fine, while the comedy sinks to levels of true awfulness.
The episode mostly sticks to the cop procedural stuff, and it is a middling if mostly watchable effort. Archer playing the good generic detective on a network police drama is the white bread role that Bakula was born to play, so while it’s rarely inspired, it feels true to the trappings of the genre. Otherwise, this comes off like a waste of a time travel episode, or at least one filled with missed potential, where major plot developments and a certain level of creepiness can’t make up for the hoariness of the shtick or the crappiness of the humor.