Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. As I continue to discuss my absolute favorite, I've watched them a million times, episodes it was hard to find one for Enterprise. I have a real love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with this show. But there is a season 3 episode I loved and am surprised I haven't mentioned it by now.
Plot Synopsis:
Enterprise is hit with a rather intense anomaly. Refusing to leave an injured T'Pol behind, Archer is struck by the anomaly, leaving his brain infected with parasites, preventing him from making any new memories. Fast-forward 12 years.
T'Pol has been caring for Archer since his affliction. As she does every day, T'Pol catches Archer up on the past 12 years, knowing he will forget everything within hours. She was in command of Enterprise after his injury, that the parasites live outside normal space-time and usual remedies never worked.
But today is special; Dr. Phlox is ready to give Archer the treatment he has been developing for ten years, which must be performed on Enterprise. However, they find out the parasites exist outside time and destroying them in the present effective eliminated them in the past as if they never existed. Removing them all resets history as if the infection never happened.
Guest Stars:
Gary Graham reprises his role of Soval in a totally pointless scene.
Episode pros
One of the reasons I gravitate to this episode is the focus is on TPol and Archer, the only two characters I really liked! I am not normally a fan of forcing two characters together (I am one of the few who is happy Chakotay never hooked up with Janeway) but here the situation makes sense and even feels natural. And the fact they don’t get into too much detail on how close they’ve come helps. maybe this is why the episode stuck with me beside the memory gimmick; it's a solid character episode.
I realize my synopsis wasn’t great so let’s rehash it a bit more. After an accident Archer is infected by parasites which prevent him from forming long term memories. Ever seen 50 First Dates? Yeah. So the first half of the episode is explaining how he eventually lost his command and that without him the Xindi successfully destroyed Earth. These scenes are effective and well done.
Archer was rescuing TPol when he was infected, so she feels honor bound to care for him. When Phlox has devised a treatment, they find that the parasites live outside time and by eradicating them in the present it’s like they never existed at all. If they complete the process history could be charged, but then the Xindi arrive.
The final battle isn’t on the level of yesterday’s but it’s pretty decent, with archer finishing the treatments and resetting history in the last second. Oh and cute having the Earth survivors end up on Cetti Alpha V of all places.
Episode Cons
The one major problem is, like yesterdays, you know that the old reset button is gonna happen at the end of the episode making the whole thing moot. It doesn’t really bother me but I can see how it might annoy some people. And like yesterdays episode since it’s a “what if” the creators take the opportunity to kill everyone on the show and destroy the ship. Heck the opening is earth blowing up!!!
And I never understood the Xindi. They attack Earth because they think in the future Earth will destroy them. So, in this episode they succeed and destroy Earth. But TPol explains they didn’t stop there; they attacked every Earth colony they could find. Why?????? What threat could humanity possibly be at that point????
In my last Enterprise article I talked about how Mayweather was usually underused on the show. And so of course he was quickly killed off in the episode.
Honorable Mentions:
Man, not too many. The few I have I already did articles for. The pilot was strong and I should talk about In a Mirror, Darkly someday. Sorry this show was just meh for me.
Final Thoughts:
A delightful “what if” story which takes a cliched idea and makes it work.
So what about the original series? Since I reviewed every episode, it’s seems weird to rehash what I talked about there. But I’ll give the og series some love soon.
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