[8.5/10] Who better to challenge Archer than the offspring of Trip and T’Pol, who was trained by Archer himself? There is a great deal of mirroring in “E²”, of crews operating from similar principles, on similar ships, with similar goals. But I think that’s my favorite part of this outstanding episode -- Archer realizing how frustrating it could be to have to deal with someone who proceeds according to his own example.
Of course, to get there, we have to do some classic Star Trek timey-wimey nonsense. It turns out that the space vortex Archer was planning to take a trip though doesn't play nicely with Enterprise’s impulse engines, and instead of taking our heroes to Degra’s coordinates, will send them 117 years into the past. Except...it’s already happened, and that version of the Enterprise has been puttering around for that long until it was time to meet our heroes in the present!
It sounds more complicated than it is! This is some of the usual stuff the franchise likes to pull in episodes like “Yesterday’s Enterprise” where one of the standard space anomalies results in some time-displaced good guys having to reconcile with some currently-operating ship. But what makes this one so much fun, and so interesting, is that this Enterprise is the result of a Voyager-like generation after generation of stranded Starfleet officers building a floating society over the years.
That gives the show’s main characters a chance to get a glimpse of their (possible) futures. Archer has a great granddaughter and learns that his wormhole’d counterpart met and married an Ecaran. Hoshi, Mayweather, and Phlox all led long lives and had plenty of kids, while Reed, to his dismay, was a longtime bachelor (something he, true to form, aims to correct in the present). And most notably, T’Pol and Trip get married and have a son, Lorian, who is the captain of the alternate Enterprise and, thanks to his half-Vulcan physiology, has been for some time.
That gives everyone on the Enterprise prime a chance for reflection, to see their possibles selves and think about the distance between there and here. That comes through most clearly with T’Pol, who continues to have a Tracy/Hepburn dynamic with Trip despite the fact that they clearly have feelings for one another. I’ll admit, I’m tired of their will they/won’t they game at this point, given that they’re both mature adults who should be able to speak about their feelings rather than play this Dawson’s Creek crack. On the other hand, I like the challenge to their current frostiness that is a living, breathing indicator that, at least in one reality, they were the love of one another’s lives.
Granted, I still have real problems with the fact that T’Pol’s acceptance of certain emotions, of accessing different feelings, is not something by choice and camaraderie like it was for Spock, but rather the result of a chemical reaction. Still, I like the idea that she’s guided and encouraged in that by her older self. As much as I praise Jolene Blalock’s performance here, her efforts to portray an old lady Vulcan have a certain dinner theater quality to them (the same goes for the makeup), but that’s part of the charm.
There’s an Noonien Soong vibe to the whole thing, and in some ways, this episode has the same vibe as that appearance, at least where T’Pol is concerned. An elderly, wise, cantankerous, and arguably mischievous version of our favorite Vulcan is a treat, and the advice she gives to her younger self is intriguing and encouraging. She puts T’Pol prime in a state of dismay when she tells her that she’ll never fully recover from the result of the Trellium, but that Trip can become a conduit for her to express those feelings. It’s a literal version and a metaphor for the strength that comes through emotional support, which helps validate the show’s most promising relationship far beyond the standard love triangle crap.
But “E²” is not all just self-reflection and relationship drama. It has one hell of a central problem, where Lorian and the alt-Enterprise failed in their attempt to destroy the Xindi weapon, and now must try to reinforce the Enterprise prime so that it doesn't get sent to the past like their ship did. Setting aside the predestination paradoxes this episode half-winks at, that’s a cool idea. It creates an air of “don’t repeat our mistakes” and the urgency of two ships devoted to the same, vital mission, with one having an extra century’s worth of knowledge but also tools that have a century's wear and tear.
That’s brought to the fore when alt-T’Pol disagrees with her son’s plan to get Enterprise to the rendezvous, and offers an alternative. Lorian gets frustrated with the delays, with the problems, with the chances of success for the alternate plan, and like Archer would takes matters into his own hands. The result is Lorian stealing the Enterprise prime’s plasma injectors so he can try the original plan himself, and Archer stealing back the alt-Enterprise’s power generators so that they’re at a stalemate. The standoff threatens to turn deadly, but ultimately, neither captain is willing the risk of casualties to win the battle.
That’s what makes this such an interesting challenge. You have two captains piloting essentially the same ship with the same goal and the same methods. Lorian feels surprisingly believable as the child of the Enterprise’s science officer and its chief engineer, and he has as complicated a relationship with his different species parents as Spock did with his, but he’s also a hard reflection of Archer.
Lorian is haunted by the fact that he had a chance to stop the Xindi attack on Earth, with a kamikaze mission, but couldn’t bring himself to kill all his crewmembers, and so carries the weight of those seven million lives on his back. Archer gets it, because it’s exactly what he’d do, exactly how he’d feel, and exactly the sort of promise he apparently extracted from Lorian.
Instead of remaining at odds, he and Lorian work together, using the dual Enterprises to fend off the foes waiting at the mouth of the vortex and getting our protagonists where they need to be. It takes just such a sacrifice from Lorian, now having found the strength to help his ancestors avoid his fate, an act of nobility that, in a weird way, may ensure that he never exists. (Again, don’t think about it too hard.)
“E²” is, like a couple other episodes this season, a fun sort of “what if” that explores the lengths the Enterprise crew would go to in order to save themselves and their friends and their planet. It uses that mirror image, that extrapolation of where Archer and company might be years and years down the line to inform the present, in ways that advances the characters’ developments, creates a thrilling central problem and set piece, and moves us closer to the endgame in a way that’s meaningful, not just a means of marking the time.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-08-07T02:28:31Z
[8.5/10] Who better to challenge Archer than the offspring of Trip and T’Pol, who was trained by Archer himself? There is a great deal of mirroring in “E²”, of crews operating from similar principles, on similar ships, with similar goals. But I think that’s my favorite part of this outstanding episode -- Archer realizing how frustrating it could be to have to deal with someone who proceeds according to his own example.
Of course, to get there, we have to do some classic Star Trek timey-wimey nonsense. It turns out that the space vortex Archer was planning to take a trip though doesn't play nicely with Enterprise’s impulse engines, and instead of taking our heroes to Degra’s coordinates, will send them 117 years into the past. Except...it’s already happened, and that version of the Enterprise has been puttering around for that long until it was time to meet our heroes in the present!
It sounds more complicated than it is! This is some of the usual stuff the franchise likes to pull in episodes like “Yesterday’s Enterprise” where one of the standard space anomalies results in some time-displaced good guys having to reconcile with some currently-operating ship. But what makes this one so much fun, and so interesting, is that this Enterprise is the result of a Voyager-like generation after generation of stranded Starfleet officers building a floating society over the years.
That gives the show’s main characters a chance to get a glimpse of their (possible) futures. Archer has a great granddaughter and learns that his wormhole’d counterpart met and married an Ecaran. Hoshi, Mayweather, and Phlox all led long lives and had plenty of kids, while Reed, to his dismay, was a longtime bachelor (something he, true to form, aims to correct in the present). And most notably, T’Pol and Trip get married and have a son, Lorian, who is the captain of the alternate Enterprise and, thanks to his half-Vulcan physiology, has been for some time.
That gives everyone on the Enterprise prime a chance for reflection, to see their possibles selves and think about the distance between there and here. That comes through most clearly with T’Pol, who continues to have a Tracy/Hepburn dynamic with Trip despite the fact that they clearly have feelings for one another. I’ll admit, I’m tired of their will they/won’t they game at this point, given that they’re both mature adults who should be able to speak about their feelings rather than play this Dawson’s Creek crack. On the other hand, I like the challenge to their current frostiness that is a living, breathing indicator that, at least in one reality, they were the love of one another’s lives.
Granted, I still have real problems with the fact that T’Pol’s acceptance of certain emotions, of accessing different feelings, is not something by choice and camaraderie like it was for Spock, but rather the result of a chemical reaction. Still, I like the idea that she’s guided and encouraged in that by her older self. As much as I praise Jolene Blalock’s performance here, her efforts to portray an old lady Vulcan have a certain dinner theater quality to them (the same goes for the makeup), but that’s part of the charm.
There’s an Noonien Soong vibe to the whole thing, and in some ways, this episode has the same vibe as that appearance, at least where T’Pol is concerned. An elderly, wise, cantankerous, and arguably mischievous version of our favorite Vulcan is a treat, and the advice she gives to her younger self is intriguing and encouraging. She puts T’Pol prime in a state of dismay when she tells her that she’ll never fully recover from the result of the Trellium, but that Trip can become a conduit for her to express those feelings. It’s a literal version and a metaphor for the strength that comes through emotional support, which helps validate the show’s most promising relationship far beyond the standard love triangle crap.
But “E²” is not all just self-reflection and relationship drama. It has one hell of a central problem, where Lorian and the alt-Enterprise failed in their attempt to destroy the Xindi weapon, and now must try to reinforce the Enterprise prime so that it doesn't get sent to the past like their ship did. Setting aside the predestination paradoxes this episode half-winks at, that’s a cool idea. It creates an air of “don’t repeat our mistakes” and the urgency of two ships devoted to the same, vital mission, with one having an extra century’s worth of knowledge but also tools that have a century's wear and tear.
That’s brought to the fore when alt-T’Pol disagrees with her son’s plan to get Enterprise to the rendezvous, and offers an alternative. Lorian gets frustrated with the delays, with the problems, with the chances of success for the alternate plan, and like Archer would takes matters into his own hands. The result is Lorian stealing the Enterprise prime’s plasma injectors so he can try the original plan himself, and Archer stealing back the alt-Enterprise’s power generators so that they’re at a stalemate. The standoff threatens to turn deadly, but ultimately, neither captain is willing the risk of casualties to win the battle.
That’s what makes this such an interesting challenge. You have two captains piloting essentially the same ship with the same goal and the same methods. Lorian feels surprisingly believable as the child of the Enterprise’s science officer and its chief engineer, and he has as complicated a relationship with his different species parents as Spock did with his, but he’s also a hard reflection of Archer.
Lorian is haunted by the fact that he had a chance to stop the Xindi attack on Earth, with a kamikaze mission, but couldn’t bring himself to kill all his crewmembers, and so carries the weight of those seven million lives on his back. Archer gets it, because it’s exactly what he’d do, exactly how he’d feel, and exactly the sort of promise he apparently extracted from Lorian.
Instead of remaining at odds, he and Lorian work together, using the dual Enterprises to fend off the foes waiting at the mouth of the vortex and getting our protagonists where they need to be. It takes just such a sacrifice from Lorian, now having found the strength to help his ancestors avoid his fate, an act of nobility that, in a weird way, may ensure that he never exists. (Again, don’t think about it too hard.)
“E²” is, like a couple other episodes this season, a fun sort of “what if” that explores the lengths the Enterprise crew would go to in order to save themselves and their friends and their planet. It uses that mirror image, that extrapolation of where Archer and company might be years and years down the line to inform the present, in ways that advances the characters’ developments, creates a thrilling central problem and set piece, and moves us closer to the endgame in a way that’s meaningful, not just a means of marking the time.