monkee reviews 'Chosen Realm'
First Impression: Simplistic and heavy-handed, but not without merit. Plus there are a couple of fun cameos!
The Chosen Realm: Shortly after investigating yet another sphere in the expanse, Enterprise assists a ship in distress. The passengers turn out to be spiritual pilgrims whose interpretation of the expanse, which they call the 'chosen realm,' is religious. They believe that 'The Makers' created the spheres and will one day become manifest to the faithful. They are on a pilgrimage to venerate the spheres, and consider the skin-twisting deformities they suffer as a result of the anomalies to be 'the maker's breath.' They don't have all their facts straight – they think there are thousands of spheres, when, in fact, there are only fifty-nine – but then they aren't all that interested in facts anyway. As their leader, D'Jamat, tells T'Pol, "Scientific progress has led many people astray." This is all fairly interesting – it makes sense that the people who live in the expanse might develop a mythology to explain it. Archer gives the pilgrims the run of the ship while Enterprise repairs their vessel. This, naturally, turns out to be a mistake when things take a menacing turn...
Fanatic Extremists: The spiritual pilgrims turn out to be fanatic extremists with a hidden agenda. They have all been armed with internal explosives and are, for all intents and purposes, walking bombs. D'Jamat can order any one of them to blow him or herself up, and take part of Enterprise and her crew along with them. He demonstrates by ordering one of his people to detonate, and an Enterprise crewmember, a woman, is killed along with the extremist. The extremists have positioned themselves in critical areas, including right next to the warp core, so Archer has no choice but to order his crew to cooperate. Earth needs Enterprise so Enterprise needs to survive. D'Jamat wants to take Enterprise to his home planet, Triannon, in order to eradicate the 'heretics' who are in power.
This was effectively done. In less than one minute, D'Jamat transforms from a harmlessly eccentric spiritual pilgrim to a real threat, a man who claims that it doesn't matter how many 'heretics' die in the attack, because they were all doomed as non-believers anyway. He believes that his way is the only 'true' way, and that all actions are justified in the service of the Makers. He's just as mercurial with his own people, too. In an instant, he can go from charismatic leader to coldly calculating despot. When one of his people, Yarrick, questions what they are doing, D'Jamat tells him that questioning him is the same as questioning the Makers, clearly implying that he is in danger of becoming a heretic, too.
I wish I could claim, now, that D'Jamat was a preposterously unrealistic character, and that no one is that fanatical and unreasonable. Alas, I can't do that. There are people like D'Jamat everywhere, it seems. They're all over the airwaves, on television, and speaking from the pulpits of odd, cult-ish churches in every state, and probably every country as well. I, myself, have been on the receiving end of comments like 'Well, I'll pray for your soul, but it's probably too late for you.' I can't stand people who want to force their interpretation of what is right and true down my throat. So I loathed D'Jamat, but was mighty impressed with the actor who portrayed him, Conor O'Farrell. Outstanding job!
Reluctant Followers: Through a bizarre mixture of charisma and threats, D'Jamat has his followers in the palm of his hand, but we do at least see some indication that they aren't all brainwashed automatons. Yarrick questions all the killing, and his wife, Indava, seeks to terminate her pregnancy because she doesn't want to bring a child into D'Jamat's fold just so he or she can be sacrificed in a religious war. Sometimes it just takes one voice of reason to counteract cult brainwashing, and Yarrick and Indava have each other to talk to. By the end of the episode, it becomes clear to them that what their group is doing is wrong, and they assist Archer and his crew.
Archer's Choice: Because Enterprise has 'defiled' many spheres, D'Jamat claims he is now obligated to destroy the ship and kill its crew. He decides to 'temper' the punishment, though, since Enterprise helped them, and tells Archer to choose just one of his crew to die. This is blatantly unfair, of course, since D'Jamat's exploding crewman already took out one of Archer's people, but there you are. Naturally, Archer chooses himself.
Creative Defense: Here, Archer takes advantage of D'Jamat's relative naivete, and asks to be executed 'humanely' in a device that Enterprise has, in part, for this purpose. The transporter. Ha! Now THAT was clever. D'Jamat's never heard of one, so he agrees, and, since he doesn't know how they work, allows T'Pol to conduct the 'execution.'
Don't you just bet that part of her was sorely tempted? Hahaha!
EIM (Enterprise Instant Messaging): But no, she simply beams him to...well, I'm not sure where he was – some remote part of the ship, I suppose. There, he accesses the computer and begins instant messaging Phlox. They need to figure out a way to neutralize the follower's internal explosives. Archer abducts a follower and scans him with a tricorder, something forbidden by their faith. With that information, Phlox determines that he'll be able to neutralize the explosives by releasing a chemical into the ship's air. Diverting environmental control has to be done from the bridge, and Archer is able to convince Yarrick to help him.
Archer's relatively low-tech solution to the mess is quite clever, though he's fortunate that D'Jamat and his followers aren't more sophisticated. But their focus has been their faith – they haven't been exposed to many other cultures (and they've never even heard of the Xindi, incidentally). They aren't good at strategy once their internal explosives are taken away. With the timely arrival of four ships full of D'Jamat's enemy, the people he considers heretics, Archer and his people are able to retake the ship, and then convince the 'heretics' not to blow him up, either.
The Niners vs. the Ten-ers: And no, I'm not talking about DS9 fans and Placido Domingo. It turns out that the big religious conflict between D'Jamat and the heretics is a trivial bit of dogma – D'Jamat believes that the expanse was created in nine days, the heretics say it took ten. Hmmmm. Now, this is very Roddenberry. "Don't you see? He's black on the LEFT side – we're black on the right!" But I posit that, while this was very effective back in the 60's, it doesn't fly now, in the year 2004. The conflicts that this story is supposed to represent – those in the Middle East and in Northern Ireland, to name a couple – aren't so simple. The religious disagreements get the most attention, but they're only a small part of those situations, which also include profound political and cultural differences. I think it diminishes the real life conflicts to represent them in this way. We should have at least gotten a tiny hint that the conflict in this story was also complex, with more at it's root than a simple disagreement about dogma. Bad call.
A Lasting Peace on Triannon: D'Jamat and, I assume, his more violent followers, are put in the brig, and Enterprise takes them to Triannon, the home world that they had planned on ridding of heretics. As it turns out, they won't have to bother. Eight months ago, the planet erupted in a religious civil war and it now lies in ruins. There are no major cities left, and both sides have been completely decimated. The episode ends with D'Jamat looking out over all the destruction. You like to think he's finally seeing the error of his ways, but somehow, I doubt it. He probably just sees it as a sort of flood scenario. He probably thinks the Makers have only spared the few who were truly worthy. He probably wonders why Yarrick and Indava were spared as well. People like D'Jamat rarely change. It's very difficult for the profoundly self-righteous to admit that they were wrong.
One can only hope that Yarrick and Indava, and those like them, will be the ones to guide whatever recovery is possible on the planet.
The Bottom Line: The final shot of the devastation is a chilling and effective one, despite the over-simplification of the conflict. Because that's the bottom line. No matter how complicated the differences are, it's up to us to decide what our disagreements are worth. Are they worth all of the death and devastation and heartbreak they cause? I don't think so. Not ever.
Captains Who Live in Glass Starships...In my favorite dramatic scene of the episode, D'Jamat, who's been reading Archer's logs, throws the torture-in-the-airlock incident from 'Anomaly' back in Archer's face. I was stunned and delighted by this, really – I never expected the incident to be mentioned again! Archer's no D'Jamat, but there are moral absolutes, and I think Archer crossed the line in that episode. Hopefully, this will give him something to think about. I think it's a bad sign when a fanatical extremist/murderer can make a good case that he's not all that different from you!
Other Continuity: They did a nice job keeping this stand-alone episode connected with the broader Xindi arc. Because Enterprise 'defiled' the spheres by scanning them, D'Jamat erases all of their data files. Enterprise's mission has become important enough to me that my heart sank right along with Archer's when that 'files deleted' message flashed on the viewscreen. Let's hope T'Pol had cleverly backed them up someplace. There were also a couple of delightful cameos that leant continuity...
PORTHOS, the Fearless Space Pup! Yes, he was there! Archer's last words before his 'execution,' were 'Ask Phlox to take care of Porthos.' Awwww. And he got Phlox's attention in sickbay by flashing the words "Don't feed him cheese" on his screen. Hee. I guess that's one of those 'do as I say, not as I do' things, since Archer feeds him cheese all the time. Happy sigh. I'm a sucker for that space pup!
The BAT Returns: Phlox creates a diversion in sickbay by releasing his bat. This was a wonderful and non-jarring bit of humor in an otherwise serious episode. The extremist in sickbay is (understandably) put off by having an agitated bat flapping about, and Phlox is able to subdue him and release the chemical into the ship's air that will neutralize the explosives. "There'll be an extra helping of snow beetles for YOU tonight, young lady," Phlox tells his bat buddy. Hee.
Character Interactions: All of Archer and D'Jamat's scenes were quite good. I also enjoyed the shoulder-thumping camaraderie between Archer and Reed when Archer broke him out of his quarters, and the obvious connection between Archer and T'Pol when she 'executed' him...
'shipper Watch: T'Pol was clearly saddened by Archer's 'death.' Wait. No. She was just acting. But there was still a nice undercurrent between them in that scene. Not romantic, necessarily, but a good indication of teamwork and 'we're in this together.' Nice. Otherwise, though, there wasn't a whole lot going on in the 'shipper arena this week.
Mayweather Watch: Woo hoo! The man got something to do this week! He and Trip were in the shuttle scanning a sphere in the episode's opening. He even had some lines! And he bravely attempted to defy D'Jamat's orders on the bridge, until he had a gun put to his head, and T'Pol told him to comply. Hey, it wasn't much, but at least he was peripherally involved in the story!
The Same Old Quibble: While we're on the subject, T'Pol did some resisting of her own up on the bridge. She tried to stop the followers from destroying one of the 'heretics' ships, but was pretty easily tossed aside. Say it with me once again. Vulcans are STRONG and T'Pol is a Vulcan MARTIAL ARTS EXPERT! Sigh. I'll let it go, but honestly – I wish they'd keep that in mind more often. Remember when Spock bashed an intercom flat once when he was angry? THAT'S the kind of strength we should be seeing in T'Pol every once in a while.
Archer Watch: No complaints about Archer this week – he was terrific. He stood his ground at all times with D'Jamat, and argued eloquently. And he found a clever way to get his ship back and minimize the harm done to his crew. He even made sure Porthos got fed!
Best Lines:
"I also lost a crewman in that explosion, Captain. I'll say a prayer for them both." "Save your breath." (D'Jamat and Archer)
"How many people are you going to kill with my ship?" (Archer, to D'Jamat)
"This may sound barbaric to you, Captain, but it doesn't matter how many heretics die. When the Makers return, only the faithful will survive. The non-believers will be swept away." (D'Jamat, to Archer)
"Doctrines like that make it real easy to wipe out anyone who doesn't agree with you." (Archer, to D'Jamat)
"I'm trying to save my world from being destroyed. You're trying to wipe out everyone who doesn't share your beliefs." (Archer, to D'Jamat)
"I pray for you Captain. I had hoped that the Makers would open your eyes to the truth, but it seems they've turned away." (D'Jamat, to Archer)
"When you begin to sympathize with the enemy, you risk becoming the enemy." (D'Jamat, to Yarrick)
"As long as people like D'Jamat dictate what's true and what isn't, all you'll ever have is war." (Archer, to Yarrick)
"Don't worry, it's harmless. Unless it's agitated." (Phlox, to extremist in sickbay, regarding the bat)
"Your faith was going to bring peace. Here it is." (Archer, to D'Jamat, on the surface of the devastated planet.)
Rating: These simple morality stories worked in the 60's because they were unique to television at the time. Trekkers today, however, are used to ensemble dramas with continuing story lines that explore topics in much more depth. We needed more complexity here. Still, it was solid, and helped along by strong acting and nice moments. I'll go with an 8.5.
Next Week: Two words. SHRAN, baby! This monkee and Shran fan can't wait!
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