{"id":6616,"date":"2017-11-01T13:00:04","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T20:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=6616"},"modified":"2017-10-18T12:49:53","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T19:49:53","slug":"mark-watches-enterprise-s04e21-terra-prime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2017\/11\/mark-watches-enterprise-s04e21-terra-prime\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Enterprise’: S04E21 – Terra Prime"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twenty-first and penultimate episode of the fourth season of Enterprise<\/i>, Archer leads a team to stop Paxton. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Star Trek<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of child death, terrorism, xenophobia, and racism.\u00c2\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

I so desperately wish more of season four \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and all of Enterprise<\/i>, for that matter \u00e2\u20ac\u201c could have been like this.<\/p>\n

This arc is heavy-handed, make no mistake. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a problem admitting that. The metaphor the writers use to tackle the changes in human society is about as subtle as a brick, but it still works<\/i>. It helps that Peter Weller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s performance as John Frederick Paxton is so relentlessly disturbing, and it also helps that this episode demonstrates one of the most insidious elements of this kind of reactive, restrictive thinking:<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no logic to it.<\/p>\n

In the past year, I think all of us have come to accept this because, at numerous moments, the political nightmare that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unfolded in Washington has made no sense. The number of contradictory messages, the sheer amount of hypocrisy, the cartoonish nature of it all, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop anything<\/i>. People who believe in extremist and reactionary nonsense do not care about making sense. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care if their existence relies on the very thing they want to get rid of it. All that matters is their feeling<\/i>, and you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t strip that away from most people.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Terra Prime\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has a fantastic example of this. T\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Pol discovers that Paxton suffers from a genetic disease that makes him \u00e2\u20ac\u0153impure\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by the very standards he upholds. Does that matter? Nope. Even worse, he uses a Rigelian<\/i> therapy system to keep himself alive, meaning that despite that he believes humans don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need any alien influence, he is comfortable contradicting that belief privately. And when T\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Pol confronts him with this, he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t beg her to hide what she knows. His whole terroristic regime doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fall apart. In the end, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a slight complication, but nothing to worry about. It is, admittedly, enraging<\/i>. The man does not live by the very rules he wants to KILL others over.<\/p>\n

Thus, Paxton feels horribly realistic, and it only adds to the ongoing tension of the story. And lord, THIS IS SO SUSPENSEFUL. The plotting here is tight, brilliant, and emotional, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that final part that really makes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Terra Prime\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so meaningful. At this point, I sat through four<\/i> series and hundreds upon hundreds of episodes of Star Trek<\/i>, and the idea of the Federation was at the heart of them all. Paxton sat completely opposed to that, and it felt wrong. <\/i>This wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the timeline that we were supposed to be on! Rather, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the growing pains that I had hoped Enterprise<\/i> would address more often than they did. What problems did Earth face when they tried<\/i> to create the Federation? Well, in the wake of the Xindi attack, it was a swelling wave of xenophobia.<\/p>\n

But nothing represents that more than the tragedy of young Elizabeth, the child created to be a literal<\/i> pawn of a terrorist movement. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so awful when you think about it that way, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the truth. They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care if Elizabeth lived or died. (They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even name<\/i> her!) All that mattered was that she stoke the flames of bigotry in humans (and hopefully Vulcans, too) so that Terra Prime could expel all alien forces. AN. ACTUAL. PAWN. Still, given how close we were to the end of the show, I thought that this was how Enterprise<\/i> would give T\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Pol and Tucker a child. I am fucked up<\/i> by the choice to have Elizabeth die instead. Honestly, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect it at all, and both Jolene Blalock and Conner Trinneer give some of their best performances as sudden parents who are thrust into grief over their lost child. That<\/i> was the emotional cost of this fight for them. They lost something that no one else did, all because Paxton wanted to prove a monstrous point.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an odd sense of hope at the end of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Terra Prime,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d though. The negotiations that will eventually give way to the Federation are continued; Travis is able to begin to repair his relationship with Gannet, who was Starfleet Intelligence, NOT a Terra Prime spy; and Phlox reveals to Tucker that Vulcans and humans are <\/i>compatible to have children, which he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have learned without Elizabeth. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hint of future stories here, which I imagine won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get to be fulfilled in just one episode, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like this was a seed planted to an eventual season five. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all: I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand how there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not another episode? How is that POSSIBLE?<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Terra Prime\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":"