Just popped in the DVD and rewatched these two episode. It's been a while since I saw them and wanted to see how they hold up. The Romulan drone arc (the best of season 4's arcs in my opinion) would be a tough act for anything that follows, but this one, I though held up pretty well.
-Trip transferring to Columbia actually makes sense. You'd WANT at least a couple of crew members with experience on the only other NX class ship when you launch the second. Heck, you'd think Starfleet would've ORDERED Trip to transfer to Columbia.
-I think viewers always like seeing other captains and having Trip interact with Captain Hernandez is she's actually a CAPTAIN here, rather than just Archer's old girlfriend, as she was in "Home". I didn't see or hear anything pertaining to a first officer on Columbia, who nominally would've been Trip's immediate superior, in fact I would've liked any other senior officers, but I suppose that would've been unnecessary in an already crowded story.
-Speaking of the Columbia crew, we Seth MacFarlane himself in a little cameo as a Columbia engineer who's sort of unaccustomed to the way Trip runs engineering. I don't have any problem with him appearing on the show itself, but the problem with using him in this way is he's already had him play what is presumably the same character in a season 3 episode ("Damage" or "The Forgotten", I think), as an engineer on Enterprise, so it makes no sense for him to be so unfamiliar with how Trip operates.
-Having Malcolm be a Section 31 operative was an interesting development. I'd just assumed that, like the Dominion, Section 31 would just be some element pretty much confined to Deep Space Nine episode, though it's funny that they always seem to recruit the British characters. I don't think we ever got a clear picture on why Harris had such a hold on Malcolm, to the extent that he could make him sabotage their investigation of Phlox's abduction. It's a bit further than Riker withholding information in "The Pegasus". It is nice that, much like the various actors who played the Xindi, Eric Pierpoint, who's been playing various guest roles on various Trek series finally gets a recurring role here. I'm sure we would've seen more of him had there been a season 5.
-In retrospect, Phlox was starting to approach Travis territory in terms of being underused at this point in the series, so it was nice to have something for him to do besides just being fascinating by humans and their food.
-Regarding our Klingon guest stars here, we have a couple of good ones here. The late James Avery, the man who gave us both Uncle Phil and Shredder, is good here a grumpy Klingon general (he comes off a bit more likeable in the second episode, when he shows compassion for this subordinates and has Admiral Krell to cover the role of the episode's nastiest Klingon).
And of course we have John Schuck as Antaak, the Klingon scientist unwittingly responsible for this whole plague debacle. Schuck of course was the Klingon Ambassador in a couple of the original movies, (the one who ironically says "there will be no peace as long as Kirk lives!") He's done a couple of other Trek guest spots since then, but playing a Klingon is where he's best used. I've said more than once that playing a Klingon is all about the voice. You need a distinctive theatrical voice to play a memorable Klingon (think of people like Michael Ansara, Robert O'Reilly, J.G. Hertzler, and Kevin Conway). Schuck also gives us a very different Klingon here, in the same spirit of the line in "Judgment" about not all Klingons being soldiers. I think Antaak might be the only Klingon I've ever seen who NEVER appears aggressive or intimidating. He's courteous, he's humble, he never so much as raises his voice! It's still a bit strange to see a Klingon so different (even the Klingon advocate in "Judgment" seemed more fierce than this) but nice nonetheless to see some diversity in Klingons, both in profession and temperament.
-Down to the backbone of this story, it's clearly meant to offer an in-universe explanation for the smooth-headed Klingons of the original series. I'm not sure if this was really necessary (how about an explanation for why the Trill on TNG are so different from DS9, which goes far beyond simple appearance?), but to the episode's credit's it's not quite as convoluted as I remember it. You can buy Worf telling his crewmates a couple of centuries later that this is something they wouldn't discuss with outsiders.
-As for the plague, it's kind of hard to wrap my head around the idea of a plague spreading from planet to planet, threatening the Klingons so severely, unless it had a long, dormant period with no symptoms (which it apparently didn't). Separated by the vacuum of space, you'd think quarantining a ship or planet wouldn't be that hard.
-So the Klingon augments raid Enterprise and sabotage the systems. They also shoot one or two people and have their ship fire on the section where a couple of MACO's are located. It's not totally clear if they actually killed anyone, but Klingons aren't known for using stun setting, and considering they destroyed the Rigellian ship and considering their sabotage would've killed everyone on board, it doesn't seem likely the Klingons would've pulled their punches here. The problem is it's never really addressed later. You never have Archer say anything about it, not even when he comes face to face with the people who sent them after his ship.
-Speaking of the raid, we got yet another Klingon design here with the augments' ship. It's another nice-looking ship that's clearly a fore-bearer to the 23rd/24th century bird of prey. Eaglemoss is supposed to release that one in a couple of months. I'm not sure why they took the time and money to design a new ship from scratch (we never did get to see the Raptor more than once, for example), but it's nice to see.
-Krell's a jerk, isn't he? It's also weird hearing them talk about a Klingon admiral when that rank's never been attributed to the Klingons before, and we've had generals (i.e. Martok) commanding ships and fleets before. So what exactly is the difference between a Klingon general and admiral anyway? (They probably only used it because the episode HAD a Klingon general and they wanted to distinguish the two). Also a weird fact: Krell, who tries to destroy Qu'vat colony, is played by actor Wayne Grace, who appeared in the forgettable TNG episode "Aquiel", playing a Klingon governor, whose jurisdiction included the ship IKS Qu'vat.
-Trip climbing in between ships was a cool moment, even if it was more just a neat action moment than anything substantial. You'd think at those speeds, the tether being ripped away would be a lot more violent.
-This is sort of addressing later episodes (by which I mean really just the episode following this one), but I actually wish they'd kept Trip on Columbia a bit longer. It would've been interesting seeing him in a different environment, and perhaps interact with a different crew (remember on "The Office", when Jim transferred to Stamford for a while?). Yeah, Kelby was kind of a crappy engineer, but I still feel a bit bad for him that Trip assured him he wasn't taking his job and then immediately did just that. He also looks like kind of a jerk for ditching the Columbia crew so soon after launch.
-Speaking of Columbia, I get that they wanted to make her a bit different than Enterprise both in interior and exterior, but those columns on the bridge felt like they were just in the way. (Plus one of them was blocking the dedication plaque!) That said, it would've been nice to have another starship out there, had season 5 happened. It would've been nice to have someone you can call to lend a hand a la Sulu and the Excelsior in Star Trek VI.
-Sidenote: I actually met Kristin Bauer, who plays the female augment here, on a movie set a while back, though I didn't know that was her in the episode. I actually knew her from an episode of "Cold Case". I suppose most people know her from "True Blood", which I was never a fan of.
-I do NOT buy Archer growing forehead ridges that quick. (Where is that bone/muscle mass coming from?) Fun moment though. Speaking of ridges, I guess we assume the Klingons are too proud have cosmetic ridges surgically added. It would've been interesting, too, to see if there was some conflict that grew between ridged Klingons and non-ridged ones. Guess we'll have to wonder...
All in all, an interesting installment of the fourth season, that, if nothing else, answered an odd question. I liked it.
-Trip transferring to Columbia actually makes sense. You'd WANT at least a couple of crew members with experience on the only other NX class ship when you launch the second. Heck, you'd think Starfleet would've ORDERED Trip to transfer to Columbia.
-I think viewers always like seeing other captains and having Trip interact with Captain Hernandez is she's actually a CAPTAIN here, rather than just Archer's old girlfriend, as she was in "Home". I didn't see or hear anything pertaining to a first officer on Columbia, who nominally would've been Trip's immediate superior, in fact I would've liked any other senior officers, but I suppose that would've been unnecessary in an already crowded story.
-Speaking of the Columbia crew, we Seth MacFarlane himself in a little cameo as a Columbia engineer who's sort of unaccustomed to the way Trip runs engineering. I don't have any problem with him appearing on the show itself, but the problem with using him in this way is he's already had him play what is presumably the same character in a season 3 episode ("Damage" or "The Forgotten", I think), as an engineer on Enterprise, so it makes no sense for him to be so unfamiliar with how Trip operates.
-Having Malcolm be a Section 31 operative was an interesting development. I'd just assumed that, like the Dominion, Section 31 would just be some element pretty much confined to Deep Space Nine episode, though it's funny that they always seem to recruit the British characters. I don't think we ever got a clear picture on why Harris had such a hold on Malcolm, to the extent that he could make him sabotage their investigation of Phlox's abduction. It's a bit further than Riker withholding information in "The Pegasus". It is nice that, much like the various actors who played the Xindi, Eric Pierpoint, who's been playing various guest roles on various Trek series finally gets a recurring role here. I'm sure we would've seen more of him had there been a season 5.
-In retrospect, Phlox was starting to approach Travis territory in terms of being underused at this point in the series, so it was nice to have something for him to do besides just being fascinating by humans and their food.
-Regarding our Klingon guest stars here, we have a couple of good ones here. The late James Avery, the man who gave us both Uncle Phil and Shredder, is good here a grumpy Klingon general (he comes off a bit more likeable in the second episode, when he shows compassion for this subordinates and has Admiral Krell to cover the role of the episode's nastiest Klingon).
And of course we have John Schuck as Antaak, the Klingon scientist unwittingly responsible for this whole plague debacle. Schuck of course was the Klingon Ambassador in a couple of the original movies, (the one who ironically says "there will be no peace as long as Kirk lives!") He's done a couple of other Trek guest spots since then, but playing a Klingon is where he's best used. I've said more than once that playing a Klingon is all about the voice. You need a distinctive theatrical voice to play a memorable Klingon (think of people like Michael Ansara, Robert O'Reilly, J.G. Hertzler, and Kevin Conway). Schuck also gives us a very different Klingon here, in the same spirit of the line in "Judgment" about not all Klingons being soldiers. I think Antaak might be the only Klingon I've ever seen who NEVER appears aggressive or intimidating. He's courteous, he's humble, he never so much as raises his voice! It's still a bit strange to see a Klingon so different (even the Klingon advocate in "Judgment" seemed more fierce than this) but nice nonetheless to see some diversity in Klingons, both in profession and temperament.
-Down to the backbone of this story, it's clearly meant to offer an in-universe explanation for the smooth-headed Klingons of the original series. I'm not sure if this was really necessary (how about an explanation for why the Trill on TNG are so different from DS9, which goes far beyond simple appearance?), but to the episode's credit's it's not quite as convoluted as I remember it. You can buy Worf telling his crewmates a couple of centuries later that this is something they wouldn't discuss with outsiders.
-As for the plague, it's kind of hard to wrap my head around the idea of a plague spreading from planet to planet, threatening the Klingons so severely, unless it had a long, dormant period with no symptoms (which it apparently didn't). Separated by the vacuum of space, you'd think quarantining a ship or planet wouldn't be that hard.
-So the Klingon augments raid Enterprise and sabotage the systems. They also shoot one or two people and have their ship fire on the section where a couple of MACO's are located. It's not totally clear if they actually killed anyone, but Klingons aren't known for using stun setting, and considering they destroyed the Rigellian ship and considering their sabotage would've killed everyone on board, it doesn't seem likely the Klingons would've pulled their punches here. The problem is it's never really addressed later. You never have Archer say anything about it, not even when he comes face to face with the people who sent them after his ship.
-Speaking of the raid, we got yet another Klingon design here with the augments' ship. It's another nice-looking ship that's clearly a fore-bearer to the 23rd/24th century bird of prey. Eaglemoss is supposed to release that one in a couple of months. I'm not sure why they took the time and money to design a new ship from scratch (we never did get to see the Raptor more than once, for example), but it's nice to see.
-Krell's a jerk, isn't he? It's also weird hearing them talk about a Klingon admiral when that rank's never been attributed to the Klingons before, and we've had generals (i.e. Martok) commanding ships and fleets before. So what exactly is the difference between a Klingon general and admiral anyway? (They probably only used it because the episode HAD a Klingon general and they wanted to distinguish the two). Also a weird fact: Krell, who tries to destroy Qu'vat colony, is played by actor Wayne Grace, who appeared in the forgettable TNG episode "Aquiel", playing a Klingon governor, whose jurisdiction included the ship IKS Qu'vat.
-Trip climbing in between ships was a cool moment, even if it was more just a neat action moment than anything substantial. You'd think at those speeds, the tether being ripped away would be a lot more violent.
-This is sort of addressing later episodes (by which I mean really just the episode following this one), but I actually wish they'd kept Trip on Columbia a bit longer. It would've been interesting seeing him in a different environment, and perhaps interact with a different crew (remember on "The Office", when Jim transferred to Stamford for a while?). Yeah, Kelby was kind of a crappy engineer, but I still feel a bit bad for him that Trip assured him he wasn't taking his job and then immediately did just that. He also looks like kind of a jerk for ditching the Columbia crew so soon after launch.
-Speaking of Columbia, I get that they wanted to make her a bit different than Enterprise both in interior and exterior, but those columns on the bridge felt like they were just in the way. (Plus one of them was blocking the dedication plaque!) That said, it would've been nice to have another starship out there, had season 5 happened. It would've been nice to have someone you can call to lend a hand a la Sulu and the Excelsior in Star Trek VI.
-Sidenote: I actually met Kristin Bauer, who plays the female augment here, on a movie set a while back, though I didn't know that was her in the episode. I actually knew her from an episode of "Cold Case". I suppose most people know her from "True Blood", which I was never a fan of.
-I do NOT buy Archer growing forehead ridges that quick. (Where is that bone/muscle mass coming from?) Fun moment though. Speaking of ridges, I guess we assume the Klingons are too proud have cosmetic ridges surgically added. It would've been interesting, too, to see if there was some conflict that grew between ridged Klingons and non-ridged ones. Guess we'll have to wonder...
All in all, an interesting installment of the fourth season, that, if nothing else, answered an odd question. I liked it.
Which part of Star Trek is "Necessary"?
