3x12 Chosen Realm

[5.3/10] Two and a half seasons in, we’ve started to generate a pretty sizable list of topics that Enterprise just isn’t equipped to tackle: sexual assault, AIDS, 9/11. And now, sadly, we can add religious fanaticism and suicide bombers to that list. “Chosen Realm” tries to Say Something:tm: about the unfair exactingness of strict religious doctrine, but only has the shallowest, most sensational take on and of it.

That’s nothing new for Enterprise. Here’s what worries me though -- this is another episode written by Manny Cotto, who was purportedly a big fan of The Original Series. That is, obviously, not a bad thing. Particularly for a show that is, arguably, more indebted to the 1960s series, and more modeled after it, than any other, having a working familiarity of Captain Kirk’s adventures is a boon to leading this show.

The other side of the coin is that there were a number of aspects of TOS that worked fine, or at least were acceptable, in the context of the 1960s, but which just don’t work the same way today, I’m not even talking about the sexism or the politics. I’m talking about the storytelling rhythms, the style of presentation, the depth of the average guest character, and most of all, the lack of subtlety of the message.

Because I don’t know if you know this, kids, but religious fanaticism is bad, and your good friends at Star Trek: Enterprise want to make sure you know that. I don’t have an issue with that message, it’s just the thunderingly obvious way in which “Chosen Realm” makes that point that’s the problem. The “Prenom” is an utter caricature, and his strict religious principals feel like a dramatic parody of real life fundamentalist rather than a realistic portrayal of them. He’s the villain in some weird opposite-land version of Chick tract, rather than a human being of some sort.

The fact that he uses suicide bombers to take over the ship and rule it using his religious law comes off more crass than incisive. I suppose some of that can be excused for the show needing to have conflict. The other side of the coin is that this show tends to lean toward the cheesy, so a suicide bomber ending their live and killing someone comes off like overdone act break drama instead of a scary, heartbreaking moment. That makes the moment, and much of this episode, feel like it’s insensitive to the real victims of such bombings and other forms of fundamentalism.

That’s honestly the biggest problem in the episode. It’s not as though Enterprise hasn’t done episodes with obvious messages in the past -- some of them are even pretty good! But “Chosen Realms”’s version of everything is shallow and flat, which makes this another instance of the show wading into some serious territory and making an utter hash of things by turning it into fodder for a broad action-y drama.

This isn’t a new thing for Star Trek though. While it was laudable at the time, 1969’s “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” hits very similar beats to this episode. And if you just swap in religious fanaticism for racism, “Chosen Realm” is doing the same kind of thing here that The Original Series was doing then. The catch is that TOS’s obvious racial metaphor and action-y side dish to the point come off more forgivable in a piece from fifty years ago. Television had changed a lot between TOS and Enterprise, and yet Cotto penned a script with no more depth or nuance to its exploration of the issue du jour than that episode had.

So what’s good about “Chosen Realm”? While underdeveloped, the subplot about the husband and wife in the Prenom group who have doubts about their leader’s principles are interesting. It’s the one bit of nuance in the entire episode, where not all people who follow this dude are just blind automatons to the way the Prenom’s practice of his religion differs from its principles. At the same time, when you set aside the themes of this installment, the last act is basically just a bundle of action set pieces coming together, which are starting to become static given how often Enterprise goes to that well in season 3, but which are still well done.

But even the nuts and bolts “somebody’s captured the ship and we have to regain control!” material in this one isn’t very good. Archer’s dealing with fanatics who have organic suicide bombs within them and the big solution is....to synthesize a gas that neutralizes them. Who knows why that couldn’t have happened sooner, but it’s not a particularly interesting solution to the problem. Archer misdirecting the Prenom about the transporter being an execution device is at least mildly clever, but what follows is a pretty standard “round up the troops, and take our ship back” routine without much to distinguish it.

All throughout this, we have to deal with plodding exchanges between Archer and the Prenom about how the Expanse is “the Chosen Realm” that the Enterprise has desecrated, and that the anomalies are the “breath of the creator”, and all non-believers will be smited, and they have to wipe out the opposing group of fanatics! It is the kind of religious critique story that a high school freshman would write after their first “whoa man, religion can be bad sometimes!” epiphany.

Then, of course, when they get to the Prenom’s homeworld, it’s already been decimated by war, underscoring the futility and fatalism of this whole religious war, founded on a disagreement over how many days the expanse was created in. It’s a very Original Series ending, one that hammers home the point in a way that is both too blunt and too convenient for what the show’s trying to say. There’s a lot of good things to take from the 1960s show that started it all: the thought experiments, the philosophy, the exploratory and diplomatic bent to everything. But let’s leave the show’s overly didactic messaging in the dustbin of television history where it belongs.