Re Marauders:
Like most Enterprise episode, Marauders becomes shaky if you think about the plotholes. I feel like the show didn't want you to look past the David v. Goliath, good trumps over evil, etc. narrative.
The only time I remember T'Pol's white suit was during the Surak arc in season 4. I did like the cast's desert clothes, though.
The Seventh:
I found it problematic that Archer didn't tell Trip anything. Trip is, after all, the stand-in captain. The encounter with the Vulcan captain ended well, but it could have ended a lot worse had Trip interacted with someone less literal and emotionally dead.
For someone so logical, T’Pol sure let Menos get to her easily. I thought Vulcans were highly resistant to emotional manipulation. I was disappointed that because of her guilt, T’Pol released Menos. She could have resolved her conflicted feelings towards the accidental killing while Menos was knocked out or tied up. Had she spent less time in her existential crisis, she might have found the evidence of Menos’s drug-dealing ways that Travis later discovered.
Finding out that one’s memories does not conflate with reality would be traumatic for a human, but I would imagine a Vulcan’s first inclination is to suppress, suppress, and suppress. Thus, T’Pol’s reaction doesn’t ring true for me. Of special note is when T’Pol hesitates in shooting Menos. I know that she remained plagued by guilt. But Menos’s behavior raised so many red flags throughout the episode. I was surprised that she still hesitated.
Furthermore, while the episode emphasized how personally and culturally abhorrent T’Pol finds killing an innocent man, T’Pol was a military operative and should understand the concept of accidental casualties. Her Vulcan is not Spock’s Vulcan. It’s militaristic and cynical.
From a story-telling perspective, I wished that the episode had left Menos’s culpability ambiguous. Revealing that Menos was, in fact, smuggling biotoxins seemed to serve as justification for the stunning, whereas leaving his guilt up in the air forces T’Pol to deal with her moral conflict.
I liked how the ending emphasized T’Pol and Archer’s respectful camaraderie towards one another. I enjoyed learning more about Vulcan society. I thought the initial sting operation and the Fullara ritual were interesting details that made the story more unique. Having Menos go native offered a different image of Vulcans I had up to this point from Enterprise.
The Communicator:
Way to doom the alliance, guys! Like T’Pol pointed out at the end of the episode, Archer and Malcolm’s actions contaminated the local civilization—more so than losing a communicator would have, in my opinion. Objectively speaking, losing a communicator would have corrupted the society only so much.
It would have advanced communication, but it isn’t a weapon of mass destruction, not like the phase pistol. From what I recall, Enterprise knew that there was civil war on that planet, yet Malcolm and Archer still went down planet. That seems irresponsible, especially coming from the tactical officer.
Was the delivery intentionally stilted when Malcolm lied about being a genetically altered sent by the alliance to destroy their jailors? Because it was not very convincing. It fit Malcolm’s profile, but I was surprised that the jailors swallowed it. Aside from swallowing that lie, I thought their jailors behaved rationally, especially with the doctor’s suggestion that they check out the enhanced organs. I actually felt really sorry for the doctor since he was convinced that Malcolm and Archer were aliens. Unlike the military leaders, he never believed what Malcolm and Archer were selling.
I thought this episode was very flattering to Archer. When faced with the prospect of imminent death by hanging, Archer was grim but resolute. He was willing to sacrifice his life so to keep Enterprise’s contamination of the civilization minimal. He was willing to sacrifice his life to save Malcolm’s. I found Malcolm’s grumbling about the civilization not even appreciating their sacrifice to be realistic. It’s a thankless job but someone’s got to do it. I found the two minutes or so where they contemplated spilling everything to be absolutely absurd. Thankfully, Malcolm and Archer came to their senses. I’m going to assume their moment of stupidity arose because of the prospect of imminent death and not that the characters legitimately thought it was a good idea.
I thought they could have gotten rid of Trip’s invisible hand. It was humorous but didn’t really add anything. Investigating glitchy alien technology would have been a lot interesting than that mess of an episode, Singularity—a chair fixation, really?
