[4.2/10] Enterprise seems to be taking its cues from The Original Series more than any of the prior shows. Sure, it may have used the exploratory bent of The Next Generation, or borrowed the production style of Deep Space 9, or be trying a very Voyager-esque story arc right now. But from the show’s central trio, to the homages to various bits of TOS lore, to the pre-Federation atmosphere, the show seems uniquely indebted to the 1960s series.
Well now it can add on more proud TOS tradition to its collection of pelts: putting out the sporadic episode that is really really stupid.
I don’t mean to malign the premise of “Extinction” too badly. I can honestly see a good episode being made from the central idea of this one. In brief, “Extinction” sees Archer, T’Pol, Reed, and Hoshi beam down to a planet where they think they might find some of the Xindi. Instead, they get infected with a local mutagen that changes their appearance and physiology, and gives them an instinctual desire to find a type of homeland. Meanwhile, Trip is in command and has to fend off some reasonable-ish but exacting aliens who are aware of the pathogen and willing to use any means necessary to contain it, including firebombing anyone infected with it.
That premise is a little out there, but not so wild or foolish within the outsized world of Star Trek. Notably, Agents of Shield would try a similar storyline in its second season, with solid enough results. There’s ways to tell this story that could make it work, even if it’s not necessarily destined to be a homerun.
The rub is that the episode calls upon Scott Bakula, Dominic Keating, and Linda Park to don some silly looking caveman makeup, scamper around like extras in a community theater production of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and use the worst attempt at a foriegn accent this side of Dick Van Dyke and Kendra the Vampire Slayer. The post-transformation members of the crew are just embarrassingly cheesy, and it sinks the whole episode before the thing even gets out of port.
To be fair to the actors, I’m not sure anyone could take what this episode gives them and make something worthwhile out of it. It’s oddly fortuitous that the trailer for the new Cats movie dropped the same day I watched this episode, because there’s an inherent ridiculousness to Bakula, Keating, and Park loping and undulating like Neanderthals that comes off very stage-y and cornball. Despite some cool effects with a weird neck ball thing going on, the whole thing reads as farcical when the show is going for pathos and danger, and it basically never recovers from that misfire.
Worse yet, the show plays off of Archer’s crush on T’Pol even when he’s in pseudo-primate form. Infected Archer has a semi-King Kong going on, where he’s wild-ish and primitive, but harbors a particular affection for the pretty lady that seems to soothe the savage beast. It’s an already cheesy trope, and deploying it in this context doesn't do much to rescue it.
It’s a shame, because when the show is on Enterprise and focusing on how Trip’s trying to deal with the situation, then the Barrel of Monkeys show down on the planet, “Extinction” isn’t half bad. To bring up a point I’ve raised again and again, Star Trek shows often work best when there’s a clear problem, and Trip trying to hold off and negotiate with the alien containment enforcers on the one hand, and find and rescue his crewmen before they’re either toast or stuck like that permanently works really well on that front.
Hell, there’s even a clever solution to the inevitable “how will we reverse the effects?” conundrum. It’s discovered that Vulcans are naturally resistant to the mutagen, but Phlox can’t synthesize an antidote with T’Pol stuck on the planet. Trip has the bright idea to go find one of the peaches she bit into during one of their neural pressure sessions, and voila, the day is saved! I don’t know if science actually works like that (I’m pretty skeptical to be honest), but whatever, I’m sure there’s some treknobabble answer we could come up with if we tried hard enough, and it works well enough in the moment.
What never works is the events back down on the planet. There is, admittedly, some pathos in the transformed Archer and company yearning for a homeland that no longer exists. The one decent scene involving the caveman crew is when Archer dreams of finding this El Dorado, only to see his human self pop out from behind. It’s simple stuff, but it sells the idea better than anything else in the episode does. The show just cannot get past Archer and everyone else speaking in broken, bad accented English like this is some hokey Halloween show.
Worse yet, the show uses the foundation of its premise to deliver a moral that makes no sense and makes Archer seem like an idiot even when he’s not infected with monkey juice. The aliens reveal that the mutagen is the result of another species that was dying off and unable to reproduce naturally, thus trying to use this transformation procedure to continue propagating their species. It’s a unique, science fiction-y idea, and again, not a bad thing to explore the consequences of it.
But even after all he’s been through, Archer refuses to destroy it when they’re finished, reasoning that it would make the species fully and finally extinct, and make him no better than the Xindi who attacked Earth. That’s unbearably dumb! They’re already gone! And as Archer knows full well, the mutagen just takes away unsuspecting humanoids’ agency and makes them quest for something that isn’t there! It’s ridiculously dangerous to keep around for some vague moral principle that doesn't even make sense!
Still, doing stupid things because of some vague moral principle may as well be called the “Captain Kirk Special.” Rest assured, “Extinction” is that dumb, but it’s at least the entertaining form of dumb, where the proceedings are so ridiculous and misguided as to be funny. That’s a note that The Original Series hit more than once, so even if Enterprise is delivering a clunker like this one, it’s following in some proud footsteps.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-07-19T23:44:33Z
[4.2/10] Enterprise seems to be taking its cues from The Original Series more than any of the prior shows. Sure, it may have used the exploratory bent of The Next Generation, or borrowed the production style of Deep Space 9, or be trying a very Voyager-esque story arc right now. But from the show’s central trio, to the homages to various bits of TOS lore, to the pre-Federation atmosphere, the show seems uniquely indebted to the 1960s series.
Well now it can add on more proud TOS tradition to its collection of pelts: putting out the sporadic episode that is really really stupid.
I don’t mean to malign the premise of “Extinction” too badly. I can honestly see a good episode being made from the central idea of this one. In brief, “Extinction” sees Archer, T’Pol, Reed, and Hoshi beam down to a planet where they think they might find some of the Xindi. Instead, they get infected with a local mutagen that changes their appearance and physiology, and gives them an instinctual desire to find a type of homeland. Meanwhile, Trip is in command and has to fend off some reasonable-ish but exacting aliens who are aware of the pathogen and willing to use any means necessary to contain it, including firebombing anyone infected with it.
That premise is a little out there, but not so wild or foolish within the outsized world of Star Trek. Notably, Agents of Shield would try a similar storyline in its second season, with solid enough results. There’s ways to tell this story that could make it work, even if it’s not necessarily destined to be a homerun.
The rub is that the episode calls upon Scott Bakula, Dominic Keating, and Linda Park to don some silly looking caveman makeup, scamper around like extras in a community theater production of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and use the worst attempt at a foriegn accent this side of Dick Van Dyke and Kendra the Vampire Slayer. The post-transformation members of the crew are just embarrassingly cheesy, and it sinks the whole episode before the thing even gets out of port.
To be fair to the actors, I’m not sure anyone could take what this episode gives them and make something worthwhile out of it. It’s oddly fortuitous that the trailer for the new Cats movie dropped the same day I watched this episode, because there’s an inherent ridiculousness to Bakula, Keating, and Park loping and undulating like Neanderthals that comes off very stage-y and cornball. Despite some cool effects with a weird neck ball thing going on, the whole thing reads as farcical when the show is going for pathos and danger, and it basically never recovers from that misfire.
Worse yet, the show plays off of Archer’s crush on T’Pol even when he’s in pseudo-primate form. Infected Archer has a semi-King Kong going on, where he’s wild-ish and primitive, but harbors a particular affection for the pretty lady that seems to soothe the savage beast. It’s an already cheesy trope, and deploying it in this context doesn't do much to rescue it.
It’s a shame, because when the show is on Enterprise and focusing on how Trip’s trying to deal with the situation, then the Barrel of Monkeys show down on the planet, “Extinction” isn’t half bad. To bring up a point I’ve raised again and again, Star Trek shows often work best when there’s a clear problem, and Trip trying to hold off and negotiate with the alien containment enforcers on the one hand, and find and rescue his crewmen before they’re either toast or stuck like that permanently works really well on that front.
Hell, there’s even a clever solution to the inevitable “how will we reverse the effects?” conundrum. It’s discovered that Vulcans are naturally resistant to the mutagen, but Phlox can’t synthesize an antidote with T’Pol stuck on the planet. Trip has the bright idea to go find one of the peaches she bit into during one of their neural pressure sessions, and voila, the day is saved! I don’t know if science actually works like that (I’m pretty skeptical to be honest), but whatever, I’m sure there’s some treknobabble answer we could come up with if we tried hard enough, and it works well enough in the moment.
What never works is the events back down on the planet. There is, admittedly, some pathos in the transformed Archer and company yearning for a homeland that no longer exists. The one decent scene involving the caveman crew is when Archer dreams of finding this El Dorado, only to see his human self pop out from behind. It’s simple stuff, but it sells the idea better than anything else in the episode does. The show just cannot get past Archer and everyone else speaking in broken, bad accented English like this is some hokey Halloween show.
Worse yet, the show uses the foundation of its premise to deliver a moral that makes no sense and makes Archer seem like an idiot even when he’s not infected with monkey juice. The aliens reveal that the mutagen is the result of another species that was dying off and unable to reproduce naturally, thus trying to use this transformation procedure to continue propagating their species. It’s a unique, science fiction-y idea, and again, not a bad thing to explore the consequences of it.
But even after all he’s been through, Archer refuses to destroy it when they’re finished, reasoning that it would make the species fully and finally extinct, and make him no better than the Xindi who attacked Earth. That’s unbearably dumb! They’re already gone! And as Archer knows full well, the mutagen just takes away unsuspecting humanoids’ agency and makes them quest for something that isn’t there! It’s ridiculously dangerous to keep around for some vague moral principle that doesn't even make sense!
Still, doing stupid things because of some vague moral principle may as well be called the “Captain Kirk Special.” Rest assured, “Extinction” is that dumb, but it’s at least the entertaining form of dumb, where the proceedings are so ridiculous and misguided as to be funny. That’s a note that The Original Series hit more than once, so even if Enterprise is delivering a clunker like this one, it’s following in some proud footsteps.