In the twenty-sixth and final episode of the first season of Enterprise, THIS IS SO FUCKED UP. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
You know, I was real worried at the start of “Shockwave, Part I” that this was going to be an episode exploring the reversal of the dynamics of misogyny, and I WAS NOT REALLY INTERESTED IN SEEING THAT. It’s odd to think where this episode started from, though, because it is a journey to that last, devastating image. Given that this is a culmination of the time travel serialization over the course of the show, it’s fair to wonder how much of this is going to matter in the end. Will the timeline be reset in the first episode of season two?
That’s something I’ve criticized when it came to alternate timelines within Star Trek, especially since it is something the writers have constantly relied on. Deep Space Nine and, to an extent, Voyager at least got to move away from the episodic nature of the Trek universe, and I’m wondering if the Temporal Cold War being a serialized narrative will push the writers to try more things like they do here. BECAUSE Y’ALL. THIS EPISODE COMMITS TO SO MANY THINGS IN VERY LITTLE SPACE. The opening alone is (I can’t help it I have to do this) so explosive, friends, and the writers don’t lose sight of what it means to the characters on board Enterprise. That’s why it’s so clever for it to be the opening. “Shockwave” features the deadliest accident in Trek history, and everything that follows makes it clear that this is the case.
What I mean is that we see the emotional ramifications of this incident. More so than any other character, Jonathan Archer is fucked up over what amounts to an unfortunate accident. No matter how often the others assure him of this – that protocol was followed, that they did everything they were supposed to, that no fault can be assigned to a person or a thing – it never makes him feel better. In a matter of seconds, 3,600 people died because of that shuttlepod. Those lives were gone, Starfleet was most likely going to stop space exploration for a decade or two, and that was it. All of it, brought to an immediate end, in just seconds.
So Archer wallows. He shuts down. He is THE WORST WE HAVE EVER SEEN HIM. Bakula gives him a combination of guilt, sorrow, anger, and frustration, and IT’S REALLY WELL DONE. Tucker was furious that his captain won’t fight the changes; T’Pol had never seen a human so bereft of motivation. WHEN T’POL THINKS YOU SHOULD STAND UP TO THE VULCANS, MAYBE YOU SHOULD. So we have this contrast between what the crew wants to do and what Archer wants to do, and it’s exploited for tension within the script, and honestly, I could have watched twenty more minutes of it. I love character stuff like this!
But “Shockwave” takes Archer’s emotional pain in a completely surprising direction, all thanks to Crewman Daniels, who SOMEHOW reappears after pulling Archer back to the time just before he left on Enterprise. WHY? Because someone altered history. The accidental destruction of the Paraagan mining colony was never supposed to happen in any timeline. That act set in motion the discontinuing of the Enterprise mission, so… let’s just extrapolate that. The Suliban Cabal were willing to kill over three and a half thousand people in order to make sure that Enterprise just went home. THIS IS CLEARLY EXTREME AND TERRIBLE. But it’s a sign of the desperation at hand, a sign of how far this weird time travel leader dude is willing to go in order to get what he wants. The show’s been a bit ambiguous about exactly what the Suliban and that weird future timeline guy wants, but I don’t need that defined yet. The adventure itself is worth it.
Because despite doing exactly what Daniels ordered him to, it doesn’t work. Look, let me also take some time here to state that the heist sequence in the midst of “Shockwave” is ONE OF THE VERY BEST IN TREK HISTORY. It’s so fast; each piece of this plan comes immediately after the last one, and there are no breaks whatsoever. The filming/editing helps build that sense of tension and fear, too, and it’s just… WHEW. It’s a lot! All of it was riding on trust, too. Had Daniels told them the truth? Would this lead them to the data discs, and could they definitively prove that the Suliban were behind the attack? The irony is that Daniels did have the right information, but it still didn’t matter. There was another variable at hand: Silik. I DON’T KNOW HOW HE DID THIS. He somehow found out what Daniels was planning, and then planted fake information in order to strand both Daniels and Archer in the 31st century. We don’t even know if they’re on Earth in that final scene!!! HOW IS THIS HAPPENING.
I honestly don’t know, but it’s bold. This whole episode feels that way, which is an achievement for something dabbling so heavy in time travel. I get the sense that even if this is explained away, it’s going to have ramifications for Enterprise regardless. This Temporal Cold War isn’t going away anytime soon.
The video for “Shockwave, Part I” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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