{"id":6562,"date":"2017-10-02T13:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T20:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=6562"},"modified":"2017-09-25T06:29:04","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T13:29:04","slug":"mark-watches-enterprise-s03e24-zero-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2017\/10\/mark-watches-enterprise-s03e24-zero-hour\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Enterprise’: S03E24 – Zero Hour"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twenty-fourth and final episode of the third season of Enterprise<\/i>, no. Just… no. DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T DO THIS TO ME. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Star Trek<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

What do I even say about the Thing<\/i>?<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For brief mention of Nazis\/nazism.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zero Hour\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is certainly one of the more expertly plotted episodes of this show, and it was here, at the end of season three, that it felt abundantly clear that Enterprise<\/i> had found its own footing. It hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been a clear path to this point, of course, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve struggled with some of this show feeling like it was a tad repetitive. <\/i>This Xindi plot, though, was the most unique thing we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d seen out of Enterprise<\/i>, and it has led to… well, a Thing<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get there. Prior to that final sequence, this was a tense and emotional journey, though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a journey that centers Archer first, then Tucker and T\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Pol. Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily a bad thing! The further development of T\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Pol\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relationship with Tucker and her emotional growth is an important part of the fabric of Enterprise<\/i>. I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to take it out at all. Yet this episode is very much about<\/i> these three character, especially Archer. If we look at this role with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zero Hour\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he matters more to the story than anyone else. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the one who offers himself up as the one to stay behind and plant the charges on the reactor of the Xindi weapon, risking his own life in the process. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very much in-character for him, but the re-appearance of Daniels challenges this notion.<\/p>\n

So what does the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hero\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the narrative do when told that their heroic act will actually ruin<\/i> history? Well, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Archer, you dismiss all warnings and do what you want. (He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a Gryffindor, oh my god. Well, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a lot of Slytherin in him, too, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to be expected, since those two houses are so complimentary to one another.) It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s through this that Enterprise<\/i> posits that the most important character within this universe is Archer, which leads to one of the most awkward lines in the whole show: Daniels saying that Reed and Hoshi don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter to the future of the Federation. LIKE… YIKES, THAT WAS AWFUL. And kind of unforgivable! I get what the show was trying to convey, but the problem is that if you step back and look at Enterprise<\/i> as a whole, Archer is definitely the kind of character to fit the Chosen One arc. Aside from T\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Pol and Tucker, who are certainly the next most important characters, everyone else sort of lives in the background, so a statement like that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t elevate Archer. It felt dismissive<\/i> of Reed and Hoshi, which means that Phlox and Mayweather exist on the same level. (Well, Phlox has had a decent number of episodes about him, though.)<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s uncomfortable in general, but it came off as more glaring because I finished both Deep Space Nine<\/i> and Voyager<\/i> this year. To go back to a Trek<\/i> show where a straight white dude is the critical character to the whole story feels… really unfortunate?<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I wish the connection between Hoshi and Archer would have been built up. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a solid element in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zero Hour\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because of how the two of them met and how far they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d come in the last three years or so. We get a couple sequences that remind us of their history, but it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like enough. (Especially when Archer was so dismissive of Phlox earlier in the episode when it came to Hoshi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health. I get that this was a desperate situation, but you could still be nice???)<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hoping that the hints we got of T\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Pol\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s growth continue throughout season four, though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure which direction the writers might go. I love the idea of her letting her guard down more and more with Tucker, so her revealing her actual age to him was one of the sweetest moments in the whole season. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll experience more and more emotions in the future, but how will they manifest? Will Tucker have the patience to deal with T\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Pol as she experiments with them? WILL THEY CONTINUE TO BE ADORABLE???<\/p>\n

Anyway, before I get to the Thing<\/i>, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just acknowledge as a whole that the action sequences in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zero Hour\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were quite well done. This is a tense episode with dual nightmares unfolding simultaneously, and I never felt like either story was rushed. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a brilliant balance, honestly, and it helps that this finale tied up all the loose ends from season three\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arc. The Enterprise<\/i> destroyed the spheres and banished the builders to their dimension; Archer blew up the weapon before it could be used on Earth; neither of the resolutions for these plots felt cheap or silly. This was tense<\/i>.<\/p>\n

And yet, nothing was quite as tense as that moment when Enterprise<\/i> was dropped off by the aquatics ship near Earth and couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reach anyone on their home planet. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still reeling from this ending because EVEN THOUGH I WAS WARNED THAT ARCHER\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S DEATH WOULD DISRUPT TIME, I NEVER REALLY BELIEVED IT. Look, this show wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to kill him off, so even when they said that he hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t made it off the Xindi weapon, I figured that maybe the Andorians got him. (Well, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe it until the scene with Porthos, and then I nearly lost<\/i> it. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do this to me, DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T.)<\/p>\n

Somehow, Archer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death on that weapon triggered an unraveling of time, and Enterprise<\/i> was thrown back to… what? The 1940s? The late 1930s? Or is that the modern day, and Earth society never developed space flight? We still have no idea what this is, except that World War II appears to be a conflict between the Allies and the Nazis and THE NAZIS ARE ALIENS<\/i>???? HOW ARE THERE ALIENS OPENLY WALKING ABOUT EARTH? HOW DID ARCHER GET THROWN BACK IN TIME? IS THIS TIME TRAVEL OR JUST A MESSED UP TIMELINE?????<\/p>\n

What a fucking cliffhanger. My predictions for the last season are going to be a mess<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zero Hour\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"