3x22 – “The Council”
cut-throat, like real government 
Another decent enough episode,
The Council just doesn’t manage to inspire all that much in me, one way or the other. There were little annoyances here and there, and little niceties here and there too, so it all just kind of balanced out for me.
T’Pol continues her struggle with the after-effects of having taken Trellium-D as a drug, which I’m sure isn’t doing the P’Nars any good either…
…and Trip manages to walk in on T’Pol discussing it with Phlox, which I’m sure panics her as she beats a hasty retreat from the room mid-sentence. Trip is made to be annoyingly clueless – “you notice something different about her lately?” I’d have thought the whole thing over Lorian and finding out that in an AU they only narrowly avoided they ended up together might have clued him in to what might be eating her lately.
The whole business with the sphere was played up a little too much. First I have to wonder how it is the Xindi never figured out how to get in the things for all their studies of them when T’Pol managed to detect the holographic exhaust port with the NX-01’s shuttlepod. Heh, which reminds me, Death Star anyone?
Sorry, as if their looks weren’t enough, we actually had them use the exhaust port to get into the thing . But moving along, I find it hard to believe that even though the Osari pirates used a convenient hole in their sphere and fashioned a garage door for themselves, that the deadly security devices didn’t get them. Makes one wonder what caused the damage to begin with. T’Pol’s “hold your course” bit was a little annoying for me too, considering that Reed was right about simply telling them that there was a false image over the exhaust port (exhaust for what I wonder). It was also wholly predictable from the moment we met that MACO that he’d be biting the dust in this mission.
As for the sphere builders themselves, called the Guardians by the Xindi, they reminded me an awful lot of the female shapeshifter from DS9. Having them float around in the fog was a bit weird too. I am curious about how they managed to build the spheres themselves though, considering that they can’t exist in our universe.
TPTB managed to keep a fairly realistic portrayal of bigotry and hatred on Trip’s part. Though Degra has been trying really hard to essentially earn his penance through Trip, he utterly fails, stories of woe and regret be damned. Trip barely managed to keep himself from getting physical, because the harder Degra tried to make it up to him, the more he hated him (from what I could tell), and I think it was very powerful to have them part on those terms considering that Degra would soon be murdered.
The Xindi Council itself… well… I’m not really sure how to feel about it. Truth be told I didn’t find it all that interesting. Political maneuvering can have its own drama, but with all the breaks when it started to get heated and constantly getting a play-by-play from Degra and his friends took most of the interest out of it for me. And the discussion between Archer and Hoshi about going to the principal’s office seemed out of place to me. Speaking of being out of place, I can’t believe Archer tried to manhandle the guy that not all that long ago had beaten him within an inch of his life, and who had been insisting he be killed ever since he showed up at their meeting.
Served his dumbass right to get tossed on the table by that Insectoid, and he’s lucky that’s all he got.
I never thought I’d consider Degra a poor bastard though, but he really was. Not only did he not get his penance from Trip, but just as he was starting to make up for being a mass murderer, he was himself murdered by that Reptilian commander, whose speech was very reminiscent of Magwa’s speech to Gray Hair in
The Last of the Mohicans.
Trip, to his credit, seemed to feel a bit guilty and was definitely taken aback at news of Degra’s murder. I almost have to wonder if he might have been guilty to have been wishing death on Degra for so long, and then when it happened after Degra had actually helped them, because he had helped them, he regretted wishing death on him. Or perhaps part of him was glad Degra had been killed, but the reasonable side of him regretted feeling that way. I just love speculating about characters’ feelings and motivations, don’t you?
Whatever his reasons, Trip did manage to swallow his hatred and ask Degra’s friend about those APUs Degra had so generously given him.
Not feeling very strongly either way about this episode, I think about 7/10 is appropriate.
