[7.5/10] Two stories, two clear conflicts, two clear goals. Maybe that’s too much to ask for from Enterprise, but you can see the benefits of it in an episode like “United”. (Hey! That’s the first word in United Federation of Planets! What a coincidence!) T’Pol’s figured out a way to track the mysterious ship, but to do it will take an alliance of Andorians, Tellarites, and Vulcans all working in unison. And Trip and Malcolm are still stuck on that ship, which turns out to be a drone, and have to figure out how to disable the ship without being killed by its controllers, and hopefully escape back to the Enterprise.
Both stories are solid fodder for an episode. Sure, it’s a little convenient that in an arc already founded on ideas of unity that’s clearly planting the seeds for a proto-version of the Federation, Archer faces a challenge that requires the cooperation of all these rival species. But there’s strong notions at play of these disparate groups not just needing to work together because of some high-minded ideals, but because of some common threat that it takes all of their collective efforts to defeat. Yes, that problem arrives at just the right time, and solving it makes people a little too friendly a little too quickly, but it’s politics and diplomacy in a microcosm, which is Star Trek to a tee.
There’s less highfalutin subjects at play in the Trip/Malcolm portion of the episode, which is more of a pure cat and mouse game between our heroes and the Romulans, but not none! Even there, the show is playing with ideas of whether to let the importance of the mission, or the life of a friend and crewmate, come first. Malcolm ostensibly gives the Romulans the chance to use their warp drive in exchange for their putting a halt to the radiation leak that’s slowly killing a trapped Trip.
Of course, the whole thing is a ruse, and rather than restoring the warp drive, Malcolm just set an explosive that disrupted the drone ship’s power supply. It makes for a ripping, if not especially imaginative, explosion set piece, as the stranded duo make their way through any number of pipes and flashing dials and other ductwork to get past the fireworks.
The move itself is some of the franchise’s trademark ideals of humanism and loyalty at play, but what I really like best is the button “United” puts on things once Trip and Malcolm have been rescued. There’s something very real and fun about Trip fooling Malcolm into thinking he’s going to have to report him for disobeying a direct order, and it speaks to the joshing, but friendly relationship the two have had since they were stuck together in a shuttlepod.
There’s also the simple fun of the Romulans and their two humans interlopers/captives working against one another. Trip and Malcolm start disabling the warp drive, so the Romulans trap Trip in a reactor-coolant area. Trip manages to power down the reactor, so the bad guys turn on the back-up generator. As noted before, Malcolm submits to their demands to turn everything back on, only to thwart them with an explosive escape when he’s able to move Trip and himself to safety. The episode cuts back and forth between the duo on the Romulan drone’s back-and-forth conflict and the larger diplomatic squabbles taking place on Enterprise, which helps preserve a certain momentum and tension in both.
Unfortunately, those diplomatic squabbles turn stupid very quickly. Rather than Archer having to deal with the mere centuries-long tangles and tensions between the Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians, he inserts himself into a blood feud between Shran and the Tellarite diplomat who fired the shot that results in his Andorian paramour Talos’s death here. There’s some juice to this storyline, if only because the tenuous alliance of convenience between the Andorians and the Tellarites seems solid enough for present purposes until Talos’s death and Shran’s swearing of vengeance mucks it all up. But then things take a turn for the dumb.
You see, Shran demands a traditional Andorian duel against the Tellarite who slayed his lady love, and will view any shirking of the Andorian traditions or rites in this situation as reason to call off the alliance. The plus side of this is that we get to learn a little more about Andorian culture, from their having similar ship-naming practices to humans, to their ice-based society, to their mourning rituals. The downside is that it results in some stupid Kirkian shit, where Archer subs in for the Tellarite in the duel.
I actually appreciate Archer’s logic here -- that he’s the only one whose death would still allow the alliance to go forward. But the whole thing is just such a fingers-crossed exercise. We know they’re not going to kill off Archer, and the show barely even bothers with the wringing of hands or other bits of the standard pretense that he’s in any mortal danger. Sure enough, Hoshi and Mayweather stay up all night finding a loophole (which is actually a nice enough touch). In the end, as expected, the fight to the death with Shran isn’t actually a fight to the death, but a mere slice of Shran’s antennae from Archer ends the cheesy, weak pro-wrestling match of a fight. If anyone over the age of twelve really believed that Archer or Shran might kill the other, I hope they’re no longer so gullible.
Still, after that, all is magically well between all the previously offended and suspicious groups. Apparently despite skirting the rules, Shran is mollified by Archer observing Andorian rituals and agrees to stay in the alliance, and we at least get some good scenes between the two of them. The result is a conveniently-timed discovery of the Romulan drone, and a thrilling mid-air (er, mid-vacuum) rescue of Trip and Malcolm, spoiled only by the stupidity of them not seeing the massive Starfleet ship behind them, and being alerted to its presence by an “anybody need a lift?” line from Archer that left me literally laughing out loud with the corniness.
The episode closes on a nice image (before the teaser, of course) where a collection of human, Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite ships are all waiting together, joined in the bonds of the need to fight a common enemy and forge connections that lay the groundwork for the Federation. Sure, it’s all a little easy and quick, and falls into more “Archer is the specialest dude in the galaxy” material that I don’t like. But it’s anchored around two distinct problems and two distinct solutions that give the episode a sense of direction, even when it devolves into some TOS-style silliness and tidiness.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-08-22T19:04:20Z
[7.5/10] Two stories, two clear conflicts, two clear goals. Maybe that’s too much to ask for from Enterprise, but you can see the benefits of it in an episode like “United”. (Hey! That’s the first word in United Federation of Planets! What a coincidence!) T’Pol’s figured out a way to track the mysterious ship, but to do it will take an alliance of Andorians, Tellarites, and Vulcans all working in unison. And Trip and Malcolm are still stuck on that ship, which turns out to be a drone, and have to figure out how to disable the ship without being killed by its controllers, and hopefully escape back to the Enterprise.
Both stories are solid fodder for an episode. Sure, it’s a little convenient that in an arc already founded on ideas of unity that’s clearly planting the seeds for a proto-version of the Federation, Archer faces a challenge that requires the cooperation of all these rival species. But there’s strong notions at play of these disparate groups not just needing to work together because of some high-minded ideals, but because of some common threat that it takes all of their collective efforts to defeat. Yes, that problem arrives at just the right time, and solving it makes people a little too friendly a little too quickly, but it’s politics and diplomacy in a microcosm, which is Star Trek to a tee.
There’s less highfalutin subjects at play in the Trip/Malcolm portion of the episode, which is more of a pure cat and mouse game between our heroes and the Romulans, but not none! Even there, the show is playing with ideas of whether to let the importance of the mission, or the life of a friend and crewmate, come first. Malcolm ostensibly gives the Romulans the chance to use their warp drive in exchange for their putting a halt to the radiation leak that’s slowly killing a trapped Trip.
Of course, the whole thing is a ruse, and rather than restoring the warp drive, Malcolm just set an explosive that disrupted the drone ship’s power supply. It makes for a ripping, if not especially imaginative, explosion set piece, as the stranded duo make their way through any number of pipes and flashing dials and other ductwork to get past the fireworks.
The move itself is some of the franchise’s trademark ideals of humanism and loyalty at play, but what I really like best is the button “United” puts on things once Trip and Malcolm have been rescued. There’s something very real and fun about Trip fooling Malcolm into thinking he’s going to have to report him for disobeying a direct order, and it speaks to the joshing, but friendly relationship the two have had since they were stuck together in a shuttlepod.
There’s also the simple fun of the Romulans and their two humans interlopers/captives working against one another. Trip and Malcolm start disabling the warp drive, so the Romulans trap Trip in a reactor-coolant area. Trip manages to power down the reactor, so the bad guys turn on the back-up generator. As noted before, Malcolm submits to their demands to turn everything back on, only to thwart them with an explosive escape when he’s able to move Trip and himself to safety. The episode cuts back and forth between the duo on the Romulan drone’s back-and-forth conflict and the larger diplomatic squabbles taking place on Enterprise, which helps preserve a certain momentum and tension in both.
Unfortunately, those diplomatic squabbles turn stupid very quickly. Rather than Archer having to deal with the mere centuries-long tangles and tensions between the Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians, he inserts himself into a blood feud between Shran and the Tellarite diplomat who fired the shot that results in his Andorian paramour Talos’s death here. There’s some juice to this storyline, if only because the tenuous alliance of convenience between the Andorians and the Tellarites seems solid enough for present purposes until Talos’s death and Shran’s swearing of vengeance mucks it all up. But then things take a turn for the dumb.
You see, Shran demands a traditional Andorian duel against the Tellarite who slayed his lady love, and will view any shirking of the Andorian traditions or rites in this situation as reason to call off the alliance. The plus side of this is that we get to learn a little more about Andorian culture, from their having similar ship-naming practices to humans, to their ice-based society, to their mourning rituals. The downside is that it results in some stupid Kirkian shit, where Archer subs in for the Tellarite in the duel.
I actually appreciate Archer’s logic here -- that he’s the only one whose death would still allow the alliance to go forward. But the whole thing is just such a fingers-crossed exercise. We know they’re not going to kill off Archer, and the show barely even bothers with the wringing of hands or other bits of the standard pretense that he’s in any mortal danger. Sure enough, Hoshi and Mayweather stay up all night finding a loophole (which is actually a nice enough touch). In the end, as expected, the fight to the death with Shran isn’t actually a fight to the death, but a mere slice of Shran’s antennae from Archer ends the cheesy, weak pro-wrestling match of a fight. If anyone over the age of twelve really believed that Archer or Shran might kill the other, I hope they’re no longer so gullible.
Still, after that, all is magically well between all the previously offended and suspicious groups. Apparently despite skirting the rules, Shran is mollified by Archer observing Andorian rituals and agrees to stay in the alliance, and we at least get some good scenes between the two of them. The result is a conveniently-timed discovery of the Romulan drone, and a thrilling mid-air (er, mid-vacuum) rescue of Trip and Malcolm, spoiled only by the stupidity of them not seeing the massive Starfleet ship behind them, and being alerted to its presence by an “anybody need a lift?” line from Archer that left me literally laughing out loud with the corniness.
The episode closes on a nice image (before the teaser, of course) where a collection of human, Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite ships are all waiting together, joined in the bonds of the need to fight a common enemy and forge connections that lay the groundwork for the Federation. Sure, it’s all a little easy and quick, and falls into more “Archer is the specialest dude in the galaxy” material that I don’t like. But it’s anchored around two distinct problems and two distinct solutions that give the episode a sense of direction, even when it devolves into some TOS-style silliness and tidiness.