monkee reviews 'Future Tense'
First Impression: Solid and entertaining.
A Mystery Ship: Enterprise finds a mysterious ship floating adrift, and brings it on board. They can't make head nor tails of it. It has no windows, they can't tell which is the bow or the stern, and they can't seem to locate any kind of engine. There's a corpse, though, and oddly enough, considering Enterprise is the only ship that's been out this far, it's human. Further examination reveals that a) the ship uses some kind of organic circuitry, b) due to some kind of spatial anomaly, the ship is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, and c) the corpse is, in fact, the result of several generations of interspecies breeding that is, the pilot had both Human and Vulcan ancestors, among others. The only explanation Archer and the gang can come up with is that the ship is from the future.
Zefram! Before they find all this out, though, they think that the pilot is none other than Zefram Cochrane. When he was lost, all those years ago, he was rumored to be testing an experimental warp ship. I can't tell you how much I loved this little nod to both TOS's 'The Companion,' and TNG's 'First Contact.' "You might have just solved the greatest missing person case of all time," Admiral Forest tells Archer, and what's cool is that we already know he didn't, but that Kirk will about a century later.
Slithering Suliban: The Suliban show up, insisting that Enterprise turn over the time ship. When Archer refuses, they try to take it anyway. The temporal plot thickens! The Suliban were well utilized in this episode, and I liked the shot of the one morphing out of the ceiling and crawling towards Reed in the cargo bay.
THOLIANS! Soon, the Tholians show up to stake a claim on the time ship, too. In another great nod to TOS, their ships looked much the way I remember them looking in 'The Tholian Web,' only better, of course, since that was back in the special effects-challenged '60's. We never do see them, but T'Pol confirms for us that they are a deeply xenophobic species, not believed to be humanoid. Over the comm channel, they sound almost insect-like, with a robotic-sounding translator. Very cool, very cool. And just how do THEY fit in to this temporal cold war? We don't know yet, but another front could only make things more interesting.
E.T. Phone Home: When Trip and Reed investigate the cavernous interior of the tiny ship, they retrieve a piece of technology that they initially think is a black box. It turns out to be an emergency beacon. When Enterprise reaches its rendezvous point with the Vulcan vessel that's supposed to return the ship to Earth, they find it disabled. The Suliban and the Tholians converge and begin fighting, and Archer decides to take T'Pol's advice and destroy the thing. Before he can, though, someone from the future apparently picks up the distress signal, and the ship, the beacon and the corpse all vanish. Was it Daniels and his people, or some other contingent? We don't find out, which is one of the things I like the best about this ongoing temporal arc we aren't going to be able to pull it all together for quite some time.
Homer Simpson Moment #1: DOH! If there's anything I hate, it's when the characters do something so egregiously stupid that my suspension of disbelief is wrecked. Enterprise couldn't scan the mystery ship its hull was scattering their sensors. So why, then, would they CUT OPEN the hatch and crawl inside once they got it on board? Sheesh! Now I know you have to move the story along, but puh-lease! A line of dialog? Something? When the characters do something that even *I* would know better than to do, something's wrong!
Homer Simpson Moment #2: Archer takes T'Pol into Daniel's quarters so they can look up the mystery ship in his database from the future. Okay, I'll buy that they want some answers, although why Daniels hasn't come back for that database is a mystery in and of itself. If their gonna do it, though, they should at least shut the door behind them! Anyone could have wandered in there! Suliban could have dropped out of warp and crawled in on the ceiling! I couldn't even concentrate on what the two of them were saying, because I kept yelling, "Close the door, you idiots!"
Archer Watch: I liked him okay this week, except for those Homer Simpson moments, which I probably wasn't supposed to have noticed. I can certainly understand him wanting to take a more proactive approach to this temporal cold war that he's been thrust into the middle of. And I like that he heard T'Pol out, but opted not to take her advice his prerogative, as Captain. As a famous starship Captain will one day say, risk is their business! When things are looking grim, he does take her advice, as a last resort. It doesn't work, but they're saved by the future anyway.
'shipper Watch: Lots of fodder for the Archer/T'Pol fans out there this week. T'Pol is noticeably taken aback by the fact that the mystery corpse is a Vulcan-Human hybrid. Lots of innuendo about mating between her and Archer. If you're into that sort of thing. <g>
Character Interactions: Besides the Archer and T'Pol scenes, there were many others. Mayweather and Hoshi were neglected, as usual, and my buddy Porthos didn't appear, but there was some terrific interaction between Trip and Reed. They have an interesting conversation about knowing the future, then they get stuck in a small temporal loop. They eventually start saying the other person's response out of turn. It was clever. And once again, there was a good mess hall conversation between T'Pol and Phlox. He's always trying to get her to see past her preconceptions.
Best Lines:
"This gives space exploration a whole new meaning." (Reed, to Trip, as they plunge down the proverbial rabbit hole)
"There are significant biological differences between the species. It is unlikely that we could reproduce. Humans and Vulcans." (T'Pol, awkwardly, to Archer)
"If a Human and a Vulcan did have a child, I wonder if he'd have pointed ears." (Archer, to T'Pol. I suspect this was supposed to be a small nod to Spock, but it just made Archer look stupid. Again.)
"I wonder if there's anyone ELSE who thinks they have claim on that ship." (An exasperated Archer, to the bridge crew)
"That corpse is full of surprises!" (a perky Phlox, to T'Pol, over dinner)
"Surprises, Subcommander. I believe in embracing surprises." "I prefer to embrace logic." (Phlox and T'Pol)
"I'm tired of these factions interfering in our century. It's time we took a more active interest in this war gathered some information for ourselves." (Archer, to T'Pol)
"Your curiosity is putting Enterprise in unnecessary danger." (T'Pol, to Archer)
"I wonder if they'll believe that Humans and Vulcans will be swapping chromosomes one day." "They're more likely to believe in time travel." (Archer and T'Pol)
Rating: 9/10. A good addition to the temporal arc.
Next Week: Canamar. Looks like 'The Chute' to me, but I'll wait until I see it
A Message from monkee: Thanks for your patience! My first martial arts tournament was interesting, exhausting, frustrating and rewarding. Although I wasn't happy with my performance, I won my division. My group also won the group form division, so I took home two gold medals! Yippee!
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