Enterprise finally makes it to Azati Prime….so…well…you know this isn’t going to be easy. Originally broadcast on March 3, 2004 this is Azati Prime.
The Episode:
Captain’s Starlog Date January 2154
With the Xindi Super Weapon nearing completion the Xindi council celebrate their success with the exception of Dolim who is concerned that they are celebrating too soon.
On Enterprise, Archer and the team begin to plan their attack of Xindi Prime where Archer decides that he will lead the mission to destroy the weapon as it is likely anyone going will not come back. With this decided, Archer soon finds himself swept into the future by Daniels who pleads with Archer to not sacrifice himself as Captain Archer is instrumental to the future and the formation of the Federation of Planets. It seems that humans need to protect the Xindi so that they can join forces to defeat the Sphere-Builders. Archer ignores Daniels plea’s but Daniels gives Archer evidence that the Xindi join the federation in the future in hopes he will come to accept it. After being sent back to the present, Archer goes on his mission anyhow….where he is ,of course, caught and captured. There he meets Degra and explains to the Xindi councilor that they all might need to work together to fight the sphere builders, using the future artifact as evidence. Degra seems to believe him but it is too late as Dolim takes Archer away to be interrogated while they launch an attack on Enterprise.
In the end Enterprise is under attack and all appears lost so this is the best part to say…to be continued.
Is this a ‘Good’ Episode:
Predictable. That is basically what this episode is in a nutshell. I mean, did anyone really think that the attack on Azanti Prime would literally only take a single episode to complete with six more episodes remaining in the series? Plus, seeing how the whole Temporal Time War thing has been kinda placed on the backburner, are we really surprised that it is brought up again with yet another appearance of Daniels.
The biggest problem with this episode is that, well, it seems that the writers of Enterprise simply gave up on the original idea category all together with this story. In fact, much like the previous episode was clearly a riff off of the Alien franchise, this episode is literally the final act of another scifi film with a small group launching an attack on another spherical weapon that can also destroy planets. I mean, Reed even mentions that a few torpedoes can launch a chain reaction in the enemy station that will destroy it and, of course, it’s one of the lead characters who decides to go into the battle station in order to destroy it. Seriously?
Ok, other than the complete rips from other scifi series, this is sure to be a good episode right? right…. Well, not really. You see, we still see a Captain Archer who is hellbent on giving the Xindi a bloody nose no matter what the cost, even if it means destroying the future itself. Once again, this is absolutely not the Archer that we had come to know and love over the course of the previous two seasons. While he claims he is sacrificing himself because he has done ‘terrible things’ every single one of those terrible things could have been completely avoided in the first place. The fact is, all this does is imply that Archer just gave into his baser instincts and used the ‘threat’ of the Xindi to act like the bigoted bloodthirsty human that he probably always had been so now he is going to run away once again by killing himself. It’s sad really, but even his farewell speech comes off as rather disingenuous making me like this character even less than before. Of course, this sacrifice ends up being for the greater good somehow, even though we don’t see it just yet, because, like I said, we have six episodes left this season.
Overall, well, what is there to say other than…well, that happened…lets see how they get out of this one this time…
Gleanings and Cool Bits:
- We do learn that Enterprise J exists 400 years into the future.
- We see that th
- T’Pol cries. Yep. She cries. Then she gets all angry and has a completely out of character scene where she tries to finish Archer’s mission. Because she misses Archer or something? I don’t know. So much for Vulcan stoicism. There is a reason for this…but still.
Thanks for reading the Retro TV Review, I look forward to discussing the rest of the series with you, one episode at a time every Monday, Wednesday and Friday! Next Review: Damage
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Late To The Game 10/1/2021
Archer: ‘How Many Bothans died to get us this information?’
Tripp: ‘Bothan’s sir? It was just me and Mayweather…uh and no one died…’
You are part of the Enterprise Crew and a Traitor, Take Him Away!
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