Synopsis:

Archer and his crew encounter hostile, paranoid aliens when they visit a Vulcan Monastery.

The Enterprise crew pays a friendly visit to an ancient Vulcan spiritual sanctuary, despite T’Pol’s concerns that her human colleagues will be an awkward and disruptive presence there. Upon landing, they discover that the monastery has been forcibly taken over by the Andorians, a paranoid and highly excitable race of aliens with a long history of conflict with the Vulcans. Archer soon discovers that the Enterprise crew has gotten in the middle of an interstellar Pandora’s Box and now must find a way out.

C.A. Voigts' "A View From The Shuttlecraft" Enterprise Episode Review:
The Andorian Incident - spoilers involved

For the record, I believe the intro scene is probably the shortest I have ever seen. It had nice music to begin with that unfortunately evolved into typical "Trek". This happened throughout the episode.

There were some nice moments - the introduction of the IDIC was done well. T'Pol's brushing something off of Archer's shoulder during her listing of the protocols for the visit was cute (does our intrepid captain have dandruff?). The first scene in the atrium of the monastery was well done. T'Pol and Archer, while they still do not like each other, do seem to be learning to work together and pick up on unspoken cues from each other. Archer is polite enough to ask before just barging in on the Vulcan monastery, seems unwilling to go without the Vulcan's knowing they are coming, and was quite willing to leave when he was told the monks were in meditation. T'Pol told Captain Archer he smells bad without being too rude.

We do learn a few things that are interesting. T'Pol uses a nasal numbing agent (guess all that training was't enought). Vulcans are not above gossiping and not only do they lie but they can lie through their teeth. Vulcans are not universally liked. The Andorians are VERY paranoid and like to hit people.

Lots of bad things - the humor in this episode seemed very forced, not natural as in other episodes. If the Andorians hadn't even heard of Earth, how were they able to speak English so well? I know that, when watching a play, movie, or show, there is a willing suspension of disbelief but that is going a little too far. In the blanket scene, T'Pol seemed a bit petulant. Didn't know Vulcans could be like that. And the Vulcans seem to blame Archer for the situation, even though T'Pol is the one who put the three into the situation. She could very well have suggested they leave when she sensed something amiss, then talked to the Captain on the ship, done some scans, and assessed the situation before going back to the surface. I think that would have been more logical. And how did the Vulcans manage to hide the power source for their sensor array? It looked as if it would take a lot of power but no one sensed it. It would have been nice to know how it was hidden. Too many questions - not enough answers. And I think, in this episodes, both Vulcans and humans had "Holy than thou" attitudes. No one is right all of the time.

Malcolm is once again the worrywart; however, this time it is justified and he does make some good points - ones that I am sure will be incorporated in the future. No more leaping into a situation without a net, or in this case, some research before going into a situation. Granted, the visit was thought to be harmless, but, as this is the crew's first voyage into space, some precaution would be in order. Malcolm did handle the situation very well and did not let his worry get in the way of taking needed action.

Episode Rating:
What does this rating mean?
--
Copyright 2001, C. A. Voigts. All rights reserved, but feel free to
ask... This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any
off-net compilation without due attribution and *express written consent
of the author*.
cavoigts@starfleetlibrary.com

Laurie's No-Nonsense Review

Those sneaky, sneaky Vulcans.

Captain Archer, Trip Tucker and T'Pol beamed down to a sacred Vulcan monastery and found it taken over by angry (and violent) Andorians, who accused the Vulcan monks of spying on them with sensors and had them all locked in a room. They captured the landing party, beat up Captain Archer a whole bunch of times, and leered at T'Pol while the monks stood by and waited patiently for all of them to finish up and go away.

Eventually, after some trickery and more beatings for Archer, they found a transmitter underground and got a signal to the crew, so Lt. Reed could beam down & save the day. It all ended when they found a steel door leading to...lo and behold...a huge room full of advanced sensors, all trained on the Andorians' homeworld. Archer handed all the data over to the Andorians, even though they'd beaten the crap out of him several times, and the Enterprise crew left, without staying long enough to ask the Vulcans why they were spying and lying about it.

All of the spying and secrecy was very un-Vulcan behavior, but maybe since it's 100 years before Kirk's time, the Vulcans haven't quite evolved to a Spock/Tuvok level of enlightenment yet. And we also found out that Vulcans don't like the way humans smell, and T'Pol has been using "nasal numbing agent" so the smell of humans won't bother her so much. Fascinating.

As for the Andorians, they weren't very interesting as a species, but I liked their antennae. Unlike the Andorians on the original Star Trek series, their antennae actually moved. Their blue skin looked good too. And they all wore leather pants. Every week we have a Star Trek first, and this week, it was leather pants.

It wasn't a fabulous episode, but it could have been with a little postscript at the end, a little bit of explanation from the Vulcans, follow-up on the Andorians, information about why the Vulcans and the Andorians are in conflict. . .something. It needed a little punch at the end, I wanted to know if they were going to report the monks or shut down the equipment and I wanted to know what T'Pol thought, even if she does have to wear a catsuit.

As far as outfits go, it was lovely to see the Enterprise crew actually using pockets that were built into their uniforms. I find it interesting that Kirk & Picard & Janeway go without pockets, even though they still have to carry phasers and tricorders. I approve of pockets -- especially the ones they had sewn into the sleeves. Very handy. I don't know how T'Pol manges to carry anything in that spandex body-glove.

And Trip Tucker is still my favorite character. He gets the best lines and rolls his eyes a lot. I like him. I still like Dr. Phlox too, especially because he's always interested in everybody's food. And he has a wonderful voice.

But here's something to think about. . .if they were able to beam an away team down to a specific location on the planet under the monastery, then why couldn't they just beam the crew up? Is it because their communicators were broken? That wouldn't make much sense, since they were talking to the ship through a transmitter they found in the Vulcans' basement. They could have beamed down and THEN beamed them up, while they were all underground.

I'd say the episode was about middling, quality-wise. The theme song still stinks, which is a shame because the opening footage that goes with it is all really cool.

A final thought: where's Ensign Mayweather's episode? Everyone's had a little featured role so far except him.

FYI: The show was directed by Roxann Dawson, otherwise known as Voyager's B'Elanna Torres.

Land of Laurie
http://www.twogirlsandatv.com/lauriereviewscifi.htm#enterprise

Timothy Lynch's Enterprise Episode Review

WARNING:  This review of "The Andorian Incident" should have a
cute spoiler warning; alas, "The First-Quarter Grades Due Incident"
precludes that.
 
In brief:  A little pat here and there, but great fun.
 
======
"The Andorian Incident"
Enterprise Season 1, Episode 6
Teleplay by Fred Dekker
Story by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga and Fred Dekker
Directed by Roxann Dawson
Brief summary:  The Enterprise's ill-timed visit to a Vulcan retreat
puts Archer in the middle of a hostage situation.
======

Director Roxann Dawson's been quoted in a few places as saying
"The Andorian Incident" really has an "Indiana Jones"-like feel to it.
I don't know if I'd characterize it quite that way, but there's a certain
free-wheeling sensibility to it that called to mind a lot of TOS -- and
in a good way, most of the time.

Some of that "TOS echo," of course, is due simply to the presence of
everybody's favorite blue-skins, the Andorians.  Every Trek series to
date has had one or more races who got pretty thoroughly examined:
TOS had Vulcans, TNG had Klingons, DS9 had Bajorans and
Cardassians, and so forth.  The Andorians have been around for a
long time, but we still know almost nothing about them --
"Enterprise" could be the series that changes that.  (I can also take
this opportunity to put in a free plug for all of the "post-series" DS9
novels, however; one of the new characters on the station is an
Andorian, and we're finding out some interesting stuff about the
species there.)

After the teaser (notable in that we get to see Andorians with modern
makeup, and in that there's absolutely no dialogue), the episode
begins much as others have -- namely, Archer decides to do
something rash and potentially stupid.  This time, he wants to check
out a planet that's along their course -- which is fine, except that T'Pol
says it's an intensely private Vulcan spiritual retreat that may not
welcome visitors.  The dialogue, heavily paraphrased, is something
like this:  "Vulcan spiritual retreat, huh?  Sounds interesting; let's go
visit."  "Captain, they are a private people, they may not welcome
visitors."  "Great -- so you'll handle it, then."  For now, it's
entertaining, but we really, *really* need to see one of these decisions
blow up in Archer's face in a serious way.  (This one doesn't count --
he got beaten up, but other than that he accomplished more good than
harm.)

The decision had two immediate good consequences, though.  First,
Archer seemed almost playful when he talked T'Pol into making the
visit -- just the way in which he calls "Archer to helm" suggests that
he's having the time of his life.  More importantly, however, the
T'Pol/Phlox scene in the mess hall points out yet again that John
Billingsley is one of the series' major finds.  Phlox gently and
diplomatically makes T'Pol look at her "new crew" in a slightly
different light, even managing to invoke IDIC in the process.  "What
is diversity but a celebration of differences?" is a good point to make
to T'Pol, and probably not a bad one to make to the audience at this
particular point in time either.

The show really kicks into high gear, though, once Archer, Trip, and
T'Pol head down to the retreat itself.  In short order, they discover the
four Andorians who've taken over the sanctuary and are taken
prisoners themselves.  At this point, we go pretty firmly into
suspense-movie mode:  not every decision is entirely well thought out,
but you're having so much fun watching everyone chewing the
scenery that you don't particularly care.

Part of that appeal, of course, is due to Jeffrey Combs.  He's certainly
had roles in Trek I didn't care for (most notably Ferengi Liquidator
Brunt), but he made a deliciously slimy Weyoun in DS9 for years,
and is different enough here that we're getting a better sense of his
range.  Weyoun was eternally patient and generally pleased with
himself; Shran, the Andorian leader, is eternally suspicious and
generally violent with others.  Now, that could describe half the
Klingons we've seen on screen in the last decade as well, but Shran
seems a bit more sadistic about it, and you get the sense that he
doesn't necessarily *enjoy* violence so much as he considers it a
useful tool.  In any case, he's great fun to watch.

Once Shran threatens the Enterprise and destroys all the
communicators, it becomes clear that we're going to go into the "face
down this problem, then this one, then this one" Saturday-morning-
serial mode of storytelling -- which is pretty Indiana-Jones-esque, I
suppose.  Step One:  find a way to communicate with the Enterprise.
Step Two:  find a way to stall for time until Step Three:  force the
Andorians out.  There were a few plot points telegraphed a mile off --
for instance, as soon as we hear about the reliquary and are told that
no one ever goes in, is there anyone out there who *didn't* know
immediately that Our Heroes would end up inside at some point? --
but from a pacing point of view, most of this held together quite well.

Scott Bakula, in particular, decided to buckle his swash for all it was
worth this week.  (And no, I don't entirely know what that means
either.)  Archer is the one who has to reconcile Vulcan sensibilities
with the needs of the moment, Archer's the one who gets to strut
around and get beaten up while letting Trip test a hypothesis, and
Archer's the one who gets the Big Decision at the end after the plot
twist is revealed.  In a lot of ways, this is old-style, ham-it-up
storytelling, and both character and actor proved up to the job.
(Personally, I just enjoyed hearing someone mention Tycho Brahe on
screen ... but I suppose that's just me.  :-) )

T'Pol was a slightly more mixed bag, but in this case it's not so much
the actress as the way the character's being presented.  First, we get
Tholos, one of the Andorians, sneering, "I'll enjoy having you ... as a
prisoner," which is so far up the list of Cliched Leering Villain Boasts
that I thought it had been retired some time ago.  Then Archer offers
her a blanket to keep warm, which while not particularly sexualized is
certainly going to call up sexual tension in the viewers' minds
(especially with Archer in serious Kirk mode this week anyway).
Then Tholos talks about Vulcan mating rituals and offers to kill
Archer in order to mate with T'Pol.  Now, even put together, this isn't
as blatant as the decontamination scene in "Broken Bow," but it pretty
thoroughly screams at us that "yes, she may have other character
traits, but this is the Attractive Sexy Babe character and don't you
forget it!"  It wasn't gigantically jarring here, but it was unnecessary
enough that it was slightly jarring.

Not jarring, at all, on the other hand, was everyone's favorite
explosives enthusiast, Lt. Reed, who *finally* got to blow something
up.  :-)  I'm really waiting for a good and juicy Reed show somewhere
down the line, because Dominic Keating is really doing a nice job
with what material he gets.  Yes, for example, it was a given that Reed
wasn't going to "sit on his butt when he's threatened," (to quote
Archer) but Reed's snappish, "I don't take orders from a comm voice,
Ensign -- not unless it belongs to the captain" cut to the point without
being melodramatic.  Reed's still nervous about the transporter, which
is appropriate, but he's also willing to put those concerns aside for the
sake of his job.  I want to know more about what makes Reed tick,
but it's already palpably clear that he's a character you'd want to have
at your back.  I can definitely live with that.

There were a couple of plot points which seemed somewhat
questionable, though not hugely so.  First, while Archer and T'Pol are
debating about nonviolent solutions (in a fairly good scene), I
wondered if it might work to simply beam down a sensor array from
Enterprise, damage it a bit, then let the Andorians "discover" it in
some locked room.  I'm not sure it would have worked, but it might
have been worth considering, since the alternative is putting a lot of
lives at risk in a firefight.  Second, why exactly did Archer need to go
through that lengthy "talk about nothing and get beaten up" scene for
the sake of tossing that statue through the atrium bas-relief?
Wouldn't it have been easier for Trip to check from the other side?
Walk up the staircase quietly, peer through the holes and see if the
light is really coming from the atrium.  No muss, no fuss.  Both
points are definitely arguable, but the second one in particular struck
me as a small dose of "toss logic out the window for the sake of a
good scene."

Speaking of the Archer/T'Pol debate, apart from the presentation I
think it makes some good points.  When is violence justified?  Are
the Vulcans risking "enlightening" themselves right into victimhood?
Some interesting questions, and ones without particularly clear
answers.  (The answers for this particular incident were made moot
by the twist at the end, but the questions overall still strike me as
valid.)

All of that, however, is just lead-up to the big twist at the end --
namely, that the Andorians' suspicions were well-founded all along,
and that the Vulcans at the retreat have actually been spying on the
Andorians for a long time.  I'm sure some people will be crying foul
over this, both because it has Vulcans lying for a long period of time
and because it seems fundamentally against most Vulcan ethics -- but
I'm willing to go along with it now, for a few reasons.  One is we
don't really know much about Vulcans of this particular era -- yes,
their culture dates back a long time and the general sense of logic and
control is well-established, but there could certainly be factions within
Vulcan society who consider this necessary.  It's entirely possible that
incidents like this are what make Vulcan a bit more pacifistic and a
founding member of the Federation -- if the Federation can keep the
peace, they won't *have* to pull stunts like this.  The other reason?
Well, it just worked so damn well.  We're left with some ambiguity --
for starters, it's not at all clear whether the Elders of the sanctuary
knew what was going on, though I'd certainly call it likely -- and a
serious sense that T'Pol is badly shaken by Archer's discovery.
(Kudos to Blalock for hitting the right balance in that scene, by the
way.)  The Andorians are now in Archer's debt, and it's one I hope we
see him collect on someday.  If it turns out that virtually every Vulcan
we see is deceitful and scheming, I'll be the first to pick up a torch and
head for the castle -- but this isolated incident works for me just fine.

Other musings:

-- The initiate's own wild shooting is what revealed the sensor
emplacement he was trying to hide -- a nice touch.

-- I don't know if my wife and I were the only two people who noticed
this or not, but we were getting fairly serious B5 echoes when Archer
and Trip were stalling for time in the atrium.  Archer and Trip
babbling about monasteries, the San Francisco Zoo, and everything
else they could think of just made us think of Sheridan and Garibaldi
talking about trees in "Divided Loyalties."

-- When T'Pol briefs Archer and Trip about how to behave, I couldn't
resist adding "And whatever you do, Commander, do NOT stick your
hand in a bucket full of telepathy-inducing pebbles!"

-- This is the second episode in a row where I haven't wanted to throw
something large and heavy at T'Pol, which is a good sign -- but that
catsuit has absolutely got to go.  (No, not in that sense -- get your
minds out of the gutter, or at least back up *to* the gutter.)  When
she's conferring with the Elder upon their arrival, the outfit really
plays up the differences in presentation between T'Pol and other
Vulcans, and not in a way the episode intended.

-- Trip is staying pretty true to character.  One of his first lines this
episode is, "Where's the exploration in going places people have
already *been*?", and both it and Archer's response were well taken.

-- The Elder says early on that during Kolinahr, Vulcans are urged to
explore their "vestigial emotions."  I really can't see that wording as
workable.  By any yardstick you want to use, Vulcans are not and
have never been emotionless -- so "vestigial" seems odd.  (I suppose
one could argue that the Vulcans *want* them to be evolutionary
holdovers that aren't needed, so the wording could be wishful
thinking.)

-- The emphasis on how much T'Pol can't stand the smell of humans
was a bit much.  Yes, it fits with the Porthos scene in the pilot and
with her discussion about food with Phlox an episode or two back,
but it seems excessive.

That pretty much does it.  Apart from the plot twist, "The Andorian
Incident" is not exactly a hugely deep, thought-provoking show -- but
it's an awful lot of fun to watch.  No objection here.

Wrapping up:

Writing:  Mostly an adventure yarn, with a few weird moments in tow
-- but a generally well-crafted one.
Directing:  Lots of fun cross-cutting at the end, a good dissolve with
the "lights at the end of the tunnel," and solid overall.
Acting:   Bruce French (the Elder) had a little trouble staying Vulcan,
but no major concerns.

OVERALL:  9.  Well worth the hour.

NEXT WEEK:
 
Cometary hijinks.

Tim Lynch (Castilleja School, Science Department)
tlynch@alumni.caltech.edu<*>
"For people without emotion, you sure have a flair for the dramatic!"
-- Trip (and boy, ain't that the truth)
--
Copyright 2001, Timothy W. Lynch.  All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any off-net
compilation without due attribution and *express written consent of the
author*.  Walnut Creek and other CD-ROM distributors, take note.

Related Links:

Where to Watch - Local channels and airtimes.
VHS, Laserdisc and DVD availability.

Cast:

Scott Bakula as Captain Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Chief Engineer Charles Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as Sub-commander T'Pol
Dominic Keating as Lt. Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery as Ensign Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Ensign Hoshi Sato
John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox

Guest Cast:

Jeffrey Combs as Shran
Bruce French as Vulcan Elder
Steven Dennis as Tholos
Jeff Ricketts as Keval
Richard Tanner as Vulcan
Jamie McShane as Tactical Crewman

Creative staff: