Laurie's No-Nonsense Review

I've been gone quite a while, huh?

Well, this wasn't the most exciting, dynamic episode of Enterprise I've seen, but at least it starred Trip and an alien who spat stuff.

Trip was along on a shuttlepod looking at some gas giants when he was attacked. The pod went down, and the Enterprise was left with the task of searching over 60 potential planets to find him.

He landed on an unhospitable, moon-like rock and tried to repair his transceiver....then found it stolen by the spiky alien who shot him down. Dammit! They got into a fight -- Trip fighting in his unattractive blue wifebeater shirt, which is a shame because he's a nice-lookin' fella -- and eventually exhausted each other. It was pretty cool when the alien spit in his face to freak him out, and then later, once they'd made friends, spit on his arm to cure his cut! Handy spit. As predicted, they eventually started working together for their own survival. The spiky alien was a lot less resistant to heat than Trip, and the surface started heating up as dawn broke.

The Enterprise, in the meantime, teamed up with spiky-man's ship so they could search together. When they finally found Trip & his buddy, they determined that the transporter would kill his buddy, so Trip waited while they figured out how to get to both of them. All that is well and good, but if the transporter worked, why didn't they beam DOWN an umbrella? And water? As well as whatever toxic substance the alien needed to survive? There was no shelter as the sun hit and a big cabana would have been lovely. Remember the original Trek episode where the transporter split Kirk into two, so nobody could use it, and Sulu was trapped on the surface with some other guys freezing their asses off? They couldn't beam up people, but at least they beamed down blankets and hot chocolate or something. Brandy, probably. And they used their phasers to heat up the rocks. I don't know, I felt like the Enterprise could have sent something helpful. I also don't know why Trip and his friend didn't take refuge inside one of their crashed ships, unless those were even hotter than the surface. Eventually, they were both saved, all was well, and T'Pol expressed her admiration that Archer was able to make friends with the Arkonians where the Vulcans failed. Not very exciting, except for all that spitting.

(FYI, tonight's show was directed by Roxann Dawson. Nice work, B'Elanna, it all looked pretty good.)

In brief: Haven't we seen this before?

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"Dawn"
Enterprise Season 2, Episode 13
Written by John Shiban
Directed by Roxann Dawson
Brief summary: After Trip's shuttlepod is attacked, he finds himself
stranded on a rapidly heating moon with an already inflammatory
enemy.
======

I went into "Dawn" with some relatively high hopes. John Shiban's
only previous ENT outing was "Minefield," and Roxann Dawson's
last directing stint was "Dead Stop." As those two episodes have
been among the few bright spots in an otherwise lackluster season so
far, I was hoping that their combined efforts would prove fruitful.

In moments here and there, I was right -- certainly, "Dawn" succeeded
a bit more than its rather shopworn premise might suggest. For the
most part, however, "Dawn" is far, far more run-of-the-mill than either
of the two predecessors I mentioned.

For starters, if they were going to use the "enemies stranded and have
to work together to survive" premise, the least they could do was ease
into it in a less forced way. "Trip goes out to test-drive a new
autopilot alone" is a really bad idea. Space is big, space is dangerous,
and you don't want to send people out alone, especially someone
important like, oh, your chief engineer. Even discounting the
possibility that the shuttle could come under attack, suppose Trip falls
ill, or trips (pardon the pun) and cracks his head on something? It
makes much more sense to send two people out so that each can be a
support structure for the other. When it's a mission along the lines of
"I have to do this and I have to go alone for various personal
reasons," I can usually buy into it for some reason -- but in a case like
this, there's absolutely no reason to do it other than to invoke the all-
seeing deity of plot complications.

(It's not as though a second member of the ship would have messed
things up too much, really. Have the second one be a random
crewman, and have him/her/it killed in the impact. Done and done.)

After that, stranding Trip on the planet is fine, and having him be
unable to lift off again is equally so. He's at least managed to get a
message off to the Enterprise, so they come warping into the system
as quickly as possible. Alas, the ship's sensors can't find him (or the
attacking ship) given the various ores in all the moons of this gas
giant.

To give us something more interesting to look at than frequent cuts
back to Travis and Archer saying "nope, still haven't found him," we
get to meet the race claiming authority over this system, the
Arkonians. They're aggressive (obviously so, given the television
credo that anyone with that many spines on his head can't be nice),
but are grudgingly willing to work with Archer on finding both
missing people. They don't exactly end up as friends to Archer and
company, but T'Pol notes in rather impressed fashion that Archer
cemented better relations with them in a day than the Vulcans had
done in a century. This was okay, especially in that it shows that
T'Pol's occasionally willing to admit it when someone else finds a
better solution. (It'd be nice if Archer did the same, but that's as may
be for the moment.) Their combined forces didn't really contribute
significantly to the plot in any real way until the end, but I've certainly
seen worse.

Meanwhile, our esteemed and much put-upon Mr. Tucker discovers
he's not alone on this moon. The pilot who attacked him is down
there as well, and his ship is just as wrecked as Trip's. He sets upon
Trip, surprises him, and steals his communications transceiver in the
hopes of getting a signal off to home.

At this point, as you might imagine, there's a series of power struggles
and duels going on until the two find themselves forced to work
together for mutual survival. Not exactly new territory, really, but I
found most of this executed reasonably well.

Some of this is undoubtedly due to Gregg Henry, who played the
pilot Zho'Kaan. It's not always easy to make your general message
understood despite a language barrier, or to come up with
mannerisms that evoke someone more alien than the usual genre
norm, but at least to some extent Henry did so, particularly with the
head-bob that symbolized "yes." It's a little thing, but it helped get
things away, at least briefly, from the "Trip faces big bruiser in latex"
standard. (That head-bob reminded me a little bit of Jeff Bridges in
"Starman," actually, and I've always felt Bridges did a nice job in that
film.)

The language barrier is something else which tripped my
implausibility alarms, though. From an internal standpoint, there's
little to no reason for shuttles not to have universal translators
onboard as standard equipment -- you'd think that every emergency
field pack would have one. From an external standpoint, it's
incredibly convenient that Archer can talk to his opposite number on
the Arkonian ship without a moment's delay, but Trip can't get
anywhere. It seems that the UT works immediately or with time
delays, depending on plot convenience. Here, at least, it smacked of
artificiality. (I don't object to the barrier on the planet -- it's just that
combining it with the "we can talk to Similar Guy without the
slightest problem" strains credibility.)

Shiban added a few minor touches here and there that were much
appreciated. When Trip's the one who's captive (after an abortive
attempt to reclaim his transceiver), he discovers (along with us) that
what the Arkonians use for hydration is something he finds
completely unpalatable. Given how many times different species
seem to find the same stuff appetizing (or at least edible), I
appreciated having that not play out here. Similarly, discovering that
Zho'Kaan's saliva can magically heal Trip's wound was pretty neat --
convincingly alien, and it led to one of the best lines of the night, "I
can't fix this -- it's a lost cause. Maybe if you vomit on it it'll fix
itself."

Somewhere around here, the ticking clock begins to surface: T'Pol's
scans have shown that the moons in this system change temperatures
very dramatically over very short times -- by the heat of the day,
temperatures reach 170 degrees Celsius. Time to find 'em by
morning.

The "enemies must work together" bit had to come into play
sometime, of course, and it does so when Trip finally gets a
transmitter working, using parts of Zho'Kaan's communicator to
power his own. Alas, the same ores in the planet that interfere with
sensors also interfere with communications to some degree, so Trip
decides that the only option is to go to higher ground. That requires
both parties to have hands free to carry equipment, so he talks to
Zho'Kaan and proposes they work together.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Zho'Kaan then goes on the offensive briefly,
and we get to watch the two of them brawl for a minute or two. That's
probably a less cliched choice than having them actually agree to
work together, and I'll admit that as fight scenes go this one seemed a
bit more interestingly choreographed than usual ... but it's also a big
game of Spot the Stuntman and not really all that much else. (It felt a
lot like the old Marvel Comics tradition of "heroes meet and have to
fight, then team up and go after the real menace" to some degree.)
Having Trip toss away his weapon a second time after the fight was
over and give some impassioned speech about "we can keep fighting
if you want, or we can get outta here" was telegraphed a mile away,
though -- and does nothing to dissuade people from the opinion that
Enterprise features departures from the Trek norm.

All that said, however, I was buying into the show a fair amount up to
this point. Once they get higher up and actually hear from Hoshi,
however, things deteriorated in rapid succession. First, thanks to
various atmospheric problems it appears that both ships' shuttles all
lose power, so Archer suggests they use the transporter. No good,
says Phlox -- given Arkonian physiology, it'll likely kill the pilot.
Archer conveys this to Trip and prepares to beam *him* up ... and
Trip then refuses, saying that he'll stay down until a way's found to
get them both back, abruptly suggesting a way in which the
Arkonians could modify their own shuttles to make it through the
atmosphere.

This is about as artificial a way to create the typical "there's one more
problem" suspense as I've ever seen. First, it's almost inconceivable
that Phlox should have enough information to make that call -- it's not
as though the Arkonians have been forthcoming with information up
to this point, after all. Second, Trip's reaction is, however noble,
intensely stupid. He could potentially be of more help up on the ship
when he's able to focus clearly. Third, Archer should have ignored
him as potentially delirious and beamed him out anyway. Fourth,
even if Archer's not willing to do that he could have, oh, beamed down
a few gallons of water. (And a fan. And an emergency shelter. And
the Road-Runner, who's just innately cool. But anyway...)

The disturbing part is that the same time crunch could have been
created trivially by simply saying that the same atmospheric voodoo
messing up the shuttles also interfered with the transporter. Trip and
friend are still stuck on the planet, and Trip might be sufficiently
convinced he's going to die that he can legitimately make a big speech
musing over all of the wonderful things he's seen and done during his
time on board. If I can come up with slight plot adjustments in ten
minutes that make a lot more sense, so can the creative powers that be
on the show -- and I'm really quite concerned at how frequently that's
not happening these days.

And about that speech ... eesh. I've heard it before, and heard it much
better. For those not familiar with genre films, I'll just say that clearly
the heat left Trip a little bit Batty and leave it at that. (I'll swipe from
Tom Lehrer here and say, "the rest of you can look it up when you
get home.") Even if that weren't an issue, however, there's no reason
for Trip to feel as he does. He knows he's not going to die --
Archer's flat-out told him that he's not going to let Trip stay down
there for long. It's a silly speech, insufficiently motivated.

Naturally, however, the Arkonian shuttle shows up in the nick of time,
everyone's fine, and Zho'Kaan winds up, if not friendly, then at least
"grateful that [he] didn't destroy" Trip's shuttle. Chalk one up for the
good guys.

Other observations and comments:

-- Not quite a nit, just an observation: giving a big gas giant 62
moons is reasonable enough (our own gas giants aren't that far up
there so far as we know yet, but it seems fine) -- but saying there are
62 of them with atmospheres that could support Trip is stretching
things. If memory serves, only 4 of Jupiter's moons are large enough
to have atmospheres of any consequence whatsoever, and it's leading
the pack in that regard.

-- Okay, this one's a nit: if this moon's got enough of an atmosphere
to keep Trip and Zho'Kaan alive, it's not reasonable to have the
temperature shoot up that much and that quickly. One of the reasons
an atmosphere is nice is that it tends to flatten out temperature
variation to some extent -- and even if the temperature could do what's
claimed here, I imagine the pressure changes involved would wind up
creating one hell of a breeze.

-- Trip: "I don't know what I've done to provoke him." Us: "Maybe
he just saw 'Precious Cargo' and 'Unexpected' back to back? It's a
wonder the whole quadrant's not after you."

-- On the healing power of Zho'Kaan: I could swear I remember
hearing at some point about an animal whose saliva at least
accelerated the healing process, but I'm not coming up with any
evidence for it at the moment. Given that vampire bats' saliva contains
an anticoagulant, though, I don't think it's that much of a science-
fictional leap to postulate saliva that can do a heavy-duty version of
just the opposite.

-- Did anyone else notice that Zho'Kaan's alien mannerisms
disappeared as soon as the UT made it seem he was speaking
English?

-- "That's why we chose this life -- to see things we've never seen
before." Considering how little there's been of late on the show that
*we* haven't seen before, the tang of irony here is a bit
overpowering...

As the first new episode of 2003, then, "Dawn" is pretty neutral. It's
got enough bright spots in the way of execution that it suggests
things like "Precious Cargo" won't be the norm ... but a lot of the
same weaknesses are still present, and there's cause for concern that
they may well be the norm. With another rerun break rising over the
horizon, let's hope "Dawn" is more of a remnant than a harbinger.

So, wrapping up:

Writing: Scattered moments of good alien sensibilities, but a lot of
glaring plot inconsistencies and artificialities.
Directing: Dawson did what she could to make a show that's almost
entirely two guys on a Planet Hell landscape visually
interesting.
Acting: Trinneer and Henry mostly held up their end of the bargain.

OVERALL: 5.5. Pretty neutral.

NEXT: More reruns. See you in February! (Maybe I can finally get
that "Nemesis" review done now...)

Tim Lynch (Castilleja School, Science Department)
tlynch@alumni.caltech.edu <*>
"I particularly remember a heartwarming novel of his, about a young
necrophiliac who finally achieved his boyhood ambition by becoming
coroner. [...] The rest of you can look it up when you get home."
-- Tom Lehrer
--
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