{"id":6386,"date":"2017-07-04T13:00:13","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T20:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=6386"},"modified":"2017-06-26T08:02:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T15:02:34","slug":"mark-watches-enterprise-s01e15-shadows-of-pjem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2017\/07\/mark-watches-enterprise-s01e15-shadows-of-pjem\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Enterprise’: S01E15 – Shadows of P’Jem"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fifteenth episode of the first season of Enterprise<\/i>, T’Pol and Archer pay the price\u00c2\u00a0 for their past actions. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.\u00c2\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

After “Shadows of P’Jem” ended, I realized that a huge plot point had gone utterly unaddressed, but I’m still unsure of how to address that. Enterprise<\/i> seems to be taking after Voyager<\/i> in one respect. We’re getting individual stories with each new episode, but there are longstanding arcs already<\/i>. There’s the Temporal Cold War, first of all, and I am very<\/i> eager to see more of that. But this follow-up to “The Andorian Incident” suggests heavily that there will be a lot<\/i> more to come from the Vulcans.<\/p>\n

Which isn’t surprising once I put any<\/i> thought into this. The show opened with a very deliberate invocation of the Vulcans, and T’Pol’s presence as a main character guaranteed that Enterprise<\/i> would HAVE to address the complications of the Vulcans’ presence within human affairs. This is just another manifestation of that, but I don’t want to simplify it, either. T’Pol and Archer changed relations between the Andorians and the Vulcans! That much is undeniable. The problem, of course, depends on your interpretation of events. When the Enterprise<\/i> crew discovered the secret surveillance at the P’Jem sanctuary, what were they supposed to do? Leave it? Keep it a secret? Archer’s decision to more or less hand it over to the Andorians sparked yet another<\/i> violent development between the two people. So what could they have done different?<\/p>\n

This episode doesn’t attempt to answer that, though. Instead, it deals solely in the fallout: the Andorians have destroyed P’Jem, and the Vulcans are now on the offensive. T’Pol, however, has been recalled from her position as an officer aboard Enterprise<\/i>, and there’s nothing she can do about it.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of great emotional interplay between T’Pol and Archer over this, despite that most of it is Archer being frustrated because T’Pol <\/i>wasn’t emotional in response. I’m impressed at how much their relationship has grown in just fourteen episodes, and it shows, y’all. IT’S ALL OVER THIS EPISODE. Even if T’Pol “hides” it, she clearly wanted to stay on Enterprise<\/i>, yet she spent a great deal of this script blaming herself for how events transpired in “The Andorian Incident.” She blames her time with humans for making her logically “weak.” She states that she should have protested the visit to P’Jem in the first place. She makes excuses<\/i>, y’all. SHE IS TAKING AFTER HUMANS.<\/p>\n

So it’s fascinating to watch her struggle with this in her own way as the political events force her and Archer to rethink their position within the universe. It’s at this point that I start feeling unsure, though. I loved the introduction of the “faction” within the Coridan society because it makes things so layered. The Vulcans are not<\/i> the blameless, innocent culture they’d like to make themselves out to be. (And it’s interesting to me that the writers have found a way to play with canon to introduce this; I definitely find this way more engaging than the usage of the Klingons.) If anything, there’s a heavy commentary on imperialism\/colonialism within this plot.<\/p>\n

But… where does it go? We get vague hints that the Vulcans have propped up a leader of Coridan that does what they<\/i> want. We see brief flashes of the vicious economic\/material divide that exists within this society, the same one that led to this “faction” trying to overthrow the government. However, the script mostly abandons this in the end, and IT’S SO CONFUSING. Like, don’t get me wrong; I loved seeing Archer try to get T’Pol to rethink her interpretation of events, as well as all the interactions between Shran and the Enterprise<\/i> crew. That stuff is GREAT. (I really want Shran and Archer to constantly owe debts to one another, back and forth, so that they develop a working respect, and GIVE THIS TO ME NOW.)<\/p>\n

What of all the “radicals,” though? What of the government in Coridan? Did Archer and his team just not care about the ramifications of a shipyard existing on that planet? That seems… really important??? What if the Vulcans have caused the poverty that the rebels referred to? At the same time, here’s why this isn’t easy to talk about: there could be another episode that openly addresses this. What if this is part of a long arc spread out over this season? AHHHH, I DON’T KNOW! But it’s reasonably possible, right?<\/p>\n

So, I liked this one. (Minus that gratuitous sequence where T’Pol fell on Archer. REALLY. WAS THAT NECESSARY.) I just hope the show deals with the things it brought up here.<\/p>\n

The video for “Shadows of P’Jem” can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

-\u00c2\u00a0Please visit my new site for all announcements<\/a>. If you’d rather not have to rely on checking a website regularly, sign up for my newsletter instead<\/a>! This will cover all news for Mark Reads, Mark Watches, and my fiction releases.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"