Yeah, I didn't care for
Cogenitor either. Here's
my review of it:
2-22 Cogenitor
And so we have arrived at
Cogenitor, one of the most overrated episodes on all of
Enterprise. Why it usually gets such high praise as it gets is beyond me. While not bad in the sense that
A Night in Sickbay was bad, it nevertheless doesn't rank very high on my scale, mainly because of how the subject matter offends me. The underlying "message" of the episode is certainly not one that I would subscribe to, and to think that this is what goes for Trek morality makes me feel rather uneasy. It's the same kind of issue I have with
Dear Doctor from the first season. Granted, the episode is well crafted and it presents an intriguing moral dilemma, but I cannot for the life of me look beyond the resolution.
Here we have a new species, the Vissians, that turns out not to be bi-gendered but that has a third gender, the cogenitors, that practically serves as sex-slaves and are treated as nothing more than inanimate objects that are tossed around to whatever couple that needs them to conceive a child. But the cogenitors are no less intelligent than the male and female Vissians. While presenting this fact, the episode concludes that "we" have no real right to judge them and to interfere with their culture. Riiiight. This is the kind of thinking that allows you to look the other way when women are being oppressed in a lot of Middle Eastern cultures, or when genocidal madness grips certain areas of the globe. Thanks, but no thanks! I will never support this kind of reasoning.
I suppose this is another one of
Enterprise's attempts at showing how the prime directive of later Treks evolved (as was the aforementioned
Dear Doctor). It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone then, that I'm not a big fan of this general order, and I never have been, especially how that rule was implemented in the 24th century. At least Kirk had the decency to ignore it whenever he felt it was prudent. While a certain amount of caution is to be advised when you're dealing with alien cultures, there is such a thing as right and wrong. I'm definitely not a moral relativist. I do believe there are certain
universal rights. In the Trek universe one may not say just human rights - in
Cogenitor T'Pol does point out that the Vissians aren't humans - but I'd like to think that there are "sentients' rights", for lack of a better term. The kind of rights I'd like to see being the foundation for what will eventually become the United Federation of Planets. I don't care if that is viewed as a human-centric outlook, especially if the alternative leads to morally bankrupt consequences.
So yes, I firmly believe that Trip was right in doing what he did when he befriended the cogenitor and learned him/her/it to read. And Archer was (literally, as it unfortunately turned out) dead wrong in refusing to grant the cogenitor asylum. Sure, Trip was a bit naïve and probably went about it the wrong way, but his heart was in the right place. He saw just the person, Charles (as the cogenitor named himself/herself/itself), not the culture, not the species, not the gender, and not the "supposed" place Charles had in Vissian society. While some may say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, that is also, if not more so, true of the non-interference approach. Yes, interfering in a culture's "natural development" (whatever
that means) can be fraught with dangers, but so can definitely standing by the wayside be, allowing oppression, genocides or natural disasters to occur.
To add insult to injury,
Cogenitor also offers one of the worst portrayals of Archer we've ever seen on
Enterprise, which is no small feat considering how bad the character has been treated overall. Here he comes off as a complete asshole. Hypocritical just begins to descibe it. When he starts to fiercely chew out poor Trip, especially after he tells his chief engineer that Charles has committed suicide rather than to keep living in slavery, I cringe every time. All the blame is put on Trip's shoulders and Archer hasn't a nice thing to say to someone who is supposed to be his friend, and a grieving friend at that.
Perhaps it is Archer's own guilt speaking, since Trip firmly, and rightly, believes that he's done no different than Archer would've done. Archer sure has meddled before whenever it had struck his whim. But now this incident has blown up in his face and while he at one point says
"You did exactly what I'd do? If that's true, then I've done a pretty lousy job setting an example around here" (duh!) he refuses to admit his own culpability. But that's right, Archer's actions will never be shown to come back to haunt him or bite him in the ass, since he's supposed to be this "hero captain". But it's perfectly fine to have it happen to another character, because Archer is the bestest! Urgh! I also hated how Trip took all this in such a self-depreciating manner. As someone said, it's like abuse victims who believe every crap their abusers throw at them, while they keep getting beaten up. Dammit Trip,
you were right and your bloody captain was
wrong!
Cogenitor also marks what I see as an effective end to the close friendship between Archer and Trip, and that isn't surprising. While the events therein aren't mentioned again, as is all too common in episodic television, you can't help notice that they're usually not on such buddy/buddy terms after this episode as they were before. And only a few episodes later we're deep into the Expanse, where Archer effectively shuts himself off from everyone.
The way the episode played out, it felt that Archer was more upset that Trip had ruined an otherwise great first contact situation. While Trip was befriending Charles, Archer was befriending the Vissian captain Drennik, safely away from the rest for a few days in a Vissian stratopod closely observing a hypergiant star (which had some great visuals). Those were some really nice scenes and the late Andreas Katsulas (R.I.P.) was great as Drennik. But there lurked some darker facets underneath the Vissians otherwise friendly exterior. I'm willing to concede that apart from the way they treated their cogenitors, they might have a very decent society, but that doesn't mitigate the appalling way in which they treat them. But Archer seems more upset at having been forced to learn this fact than about the fact itself. And after he's been totally mesmerized by all the nifty Vissian technology he's seen, when he refuses to grant Charles asylum, it comes off as if he's more interested in not jeopardising the future possibility of getting his hands on said technology, than helping a fellow sentient being.
The episode also suffers from a totally unnecessary subplot about how Malcolm Reed flirts with a Vissian woman - or perhaps it is the other way around. Since there are a lot of narrative holes in the main story, one has to wonder why it was felt a need to put this quite silly storyline in the episode? For example, it would've been much better if the viewers got to learn what eventually motivated Archer do deny Charles asylum. And there was the same problem in
Dear Doctor, when we never learned why Archer made the decision he made. The common theme in both instances, at least how I see it, is that he made the
wrong decisions. I suppose it is hard to come up with good reasons, or convincing ones at any rate, for someone to make wrong decisions. So this perfectly underlines my objections to both episodes.
A minor nit, especially after all the above, is that I have a hard time wrapping myself around the concept of tri-gendered reproduction - that according to Phlox needs the enzymes from the third sex to facilitate conception. It seems unnecessarily complicated, and frankly a way that one would think evolution would try to stay well clear of. The advantages of bi-gendered reproduction is quite obvious (oh not that, you pervs…), even if it is more complex than asexual reproduction, but it is hard to see any additional advantages to having a third sex involved (let alone a fourth, as some fans have speculated the Andorians have).
Wasn't there anything I liked about
Cogenitor? Well, I mentioned the Archer/Drennik scenes and I thought Trip's interaction with Charles were sweet. Also, the scene at the very beginning when Trip teases T'Pol about her age was cute. But ultimately I cannot give this episode a higher grade than
3- on my 10-graded scale. Sorry, but the moral of this tale really offends me.
