3x09 North Star

I really enjoyed this episode. loved the combination of western and Star Trek. I really enjoy how they tackle tough plots on prejudice and bigotry. Reminds me of the episodes I enjoyed on quantum leap.

The crazy thing about it is I didn’t put together the relation to how my ancestors were taken from Africa until around the time they were discussing what to do about the humans. It hit me like a brick. I was like wow the story was told in a way that made me think of all the history I’ve learned of slavery not just my ancestors. That gave me a real appreciation for this episode and how it’s story was told.

This episode also makes me realize why Star Trek has been one of my favs since a child. It is set in a world where race or color didn’t matter. Really profound moment for me to realize I’ve been this way my entire life. I guess I can say why SciFi shows like this has always been a fav of mine. It’s usually peeps of all colors and race together on same team with a common goal.

Kind of choked up a little at how it ended with the sheriff proudly watching both human and Skagg children in school together.

[6.0/10] There’s a weird concordance between Enterprise and Deadwood for me, with so many performers from the latter show making appearances on the former. The two series shared a pair of casting directors, so it’s no great surprise. But there’s still some silly thrill to see the likes of actors I think of a Wild Bill Hickok or Wu or some other set of frontier rough interacting with our neat-and-clean Starfleet heroes in outer space.

“North Star”, then, should be right up my alley, an episode that feels like it’s trying to anticipate the superlative David Milch series, with a Western setting and ruminations on law and prejudice and progress. The only catch is that the episode is rushed, generic, and packed with too many developments in too short a time for any of them to really have an impact.

The premise sees the Enterprise landing on a planet in the Expanse which is unexpectedly populated by humans. But these aren’t just any humans, they’re a page right out of the old west with cowboys hats and sheriffs and saloons. After some of his usual poking around, Archer discovers that 300 years prior, a group of aliens called the Skagarans kidnapped a group of humans from Earth to use as labor, until after a century of servitude, the humans revolted and made their former captors into second class citizens, but never managed to advance beyond Wild West technology or society.

The results are mostly an excuse for Archer to wander around in an unconvincing cowboy getup and do his usual moralizing. Ostensibly, this episode wants to make a broader point about bias being passed down and turned around, and how the prospect of advancement and the future can push through it. But realistically, it’s clear that the folks at Enterprise just wanted an episode where they could play cowboys for a while.

Aside from the pestersome focus on Archer and his standard brand of pontificating, that part of the episode isn’t bad! Director David Straiton outdoes himself here, with unique shots in the saloon that emphasize the threat and simmering tension that Deputy Bennings has established. Archer’s attempted wheel wagon escape is shot with kinetic verve, and the slow-motion effort by the episode’s villain to shoot down his accomplice is smooth as silk.

The production design is great too. It’s worth noting that the cowboy getup is unconvincing because, as usual, Bakula can’t quite pull it off, but the costuming her is outstanding, with each of the major figures having a distinctive look that speaks to their place in the story and sets a tone. When all “North Star” wants to do is have people stand around, looking sepia tone dramatic in dusty rooms and be vaguely Western, it soars.

But this being Enterprise, the whole thing has to turn into a moral stand by Archer, who realizes that the Skagarans are being treated a notch above animals, and refuses to stand for it. He finds some pretty face to get attached to, tries to help her small acts of rebellion, and effects a rescue when things get hairy. The beats are all predictable, with Archer coming off like a boring do-gooder rather than the dashing gunfighter the episode seems to want to make him out to be.

Still, that’s just another element of the episode that makes this one feel like it’s borrowing from The Original Series. The notion of the Enterprise landing on a planet that miraculously resembles a moment in Earth history, only for the Captain to have to come down and set their society straight, is something the 1960s show returned to again and again. (Futurama brilliantly parodied this in a declaration that a certain spatial anomaly destroyed many planets “including two gangster planets and a cowboy world!”)

Sadly, “North Star” doesn't have the same cool conceit of “Spectre of the Gun,” but plays on the same archetypes. Sheriff MacReady is a pretty generic lawman, but he stands out as the episode’s most complex and interesting figure, if only for the fact that he seems less than enamored with his town’s bigoted laws, but understands them and feels duty bound to enforce them. It’s not as though the episode explores this with any depth, but it’s a worthwhile ingredient in the episode nonetheless.

The same can’t quite be said for Deputy Bennings, whose a standard-issue black hat bad guy, or Bethany, the latest in a series of damsels in distress. But each at least fills out the world, where the Captain isn’t smart about it, but at least stands up for the oppressed minority in the community.

The problem is that the episode squanders its most interesting twist there. After Bethany his shot, Archer gives up the charade and beams the two of them back to Enterprise, returning to the planet to declare that they are humans from a much more advanced Earth. (I guess the proto-prime directive doesn't apply when you’re talking to kidnapped members of your own species?)

The notion of humans operating a society sets centuries in the past having to deal with what amounts to members of their species from the future, replete with norms that would render your whole society as backwards, is an endlessly interesting idea to explore. But Enterprise just pays lip service to that idea for a scene before things turn into a predictable gunfight.

The gunfight isn’t bad, and in fact, has much of the verve that have elevated the action sequences this season. But there’s still a “mid-1990s T.V. movie” vibe to the whole escapade that makes Archer’s skirmish with Bennings in particular come off as pretty cheesy. And when the whole thing is over, we just get one scene to confirm that the visit of these spacemen has totally convinced this society to change its ways. Hooray! Deus ex machina!

The tepidness of the story brings this one down, if only through wasted potential, but in a dark season, it’s at least nice to see the show having some fun here. Enterprise may be ill-equipped to match the heights or complexity of Deadwood, but a middling episode is still elevated by the Wild West trappings it dabbles in.