“The Expanse”
Written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 2, Episode 26
Production episode 052
Original air date: May 21, 2003
Date: April 24, 2153
Captain’s star log. A probe appears in orbit of Earth and fires a beam weapon that cuts a brutal swath through Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba, and the Caribbean Sea to Venezuela before burning out and falling through the atmosphere. The pod is recovered by a Vulcan transport. The pilot, an unidentified alien, was killed on impact. The casualty numbers are catastrophic, in the millions.
On Kronos, the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire is angry that Archer has escaped their clutches twice. He assigns Duras a ship and a chance to regain his lost honor by killing Archer.
Enterprise is informed of the attack on Earth and is immediately recalled. Tucker is devastated, as his sister lives in Florida. It takes several weeks to get home, and en route they’re surrounded by a bunch of Suliban ships. Silik kidnaps Archer and brings him before Future Guy, who informs Archer that the attack on Earth was committed by the Xindi. They were informed by one of the factions in the Temporal Cold War that humans would destroy their world in four hundred years’ time. The probe was a test, and now they’re developing a weapon to destroy Earth. Future Guy provides coordinates for the Xindi homeworld, and also a method of proving what he says.
Buy the Book
Wild Massive
The Suliban return Archer and bugger off. T’Pol is skeptical, and wonders why Future Guy didn’t provide this info before millions of people died. Archer says he didn’t think they’d believe him before the attack happened.
As soon as Enterprise arrives in the Sol system, Duras shows up in a Bird-of-Prey and starts firing. However, several other Starfleet ships come to Archer’s defense and drives Duras off.
Enterprise comes into orbit of Earth, and they see the line of death that starts on the Florida peninsula. Nobody has heard from Elizabeth Tucker, so the engineer is pretty sure his sister is dead.
Archer meets with Forrest and Soval, who greet the intel provided by Future Guy with extreme skepticism. Archer provides proof: some of the pieces of the wreckage they retrieved from the probe is quantum-dated to minus-420 years, which means it’s from the future.
Soval, however, still advises against Enterprise investigating the provided coordinates, because they’re smack in the middle of the Delphic Expanse, which he describes as containing “fierce and dangerous species, unexplained anomalies. In some regions, even the laws of physics don’t apply.” In other words, a whole bunch of springboards for science fiction TV show plots!
Later, a Vulcan doctor comes to Enterprise’s sickbay, ostensibly to check for pyretic radiation, which apparently was given off by the wreckage, but who keeps asking questions about Future Guy. However, Phlox finds the doctor’s records in the Vulcan medical database, and he’s a psychiatrist, not a radiation specialist. Phlox is livid at the medical ethics violation, and Archer is disgusted at the rather transparent attempt by Soval to prove that Archer’s crazy.
Starfleet Command decides to let Enterprise go to the Delphic Expanse to try to find the Xindi. The ship is being retrofitted with better hull plating, better weapons, including photon torpedoes, and also gaining a contingent of soldiers from General Casey of the Military Assault Command Organization. Archer tells Forrest that he expects most of his crew to stay on board for this new mission.
T’Pol and Phlox discuss their futures. Phlox is remaining assigned to Enterprise, while T’Pol has been specifically ordered by the Vulcan High Command to not go to the Delphic Expanse. T’Pol later argues with Soval about her reassignment, saying a Vulcan should be on board Enterprise for this mission, but Soval makes it clear that the decision is final.
Soval also shows Forrest and Archer footage from the internal sensors of a Vulcan ship that entered the Expanse, Vaankara. The crew went completely batshit, killing each other with their bare hands.
Archer is undeterred, and he gets permission from Soval to pass by Vulcan on the way to the Expanse to drop T’Pol off. Enterprise sets off for the Expanse, with Duras (who has apparently been just sitting outside the solar system for the months it took to refit Enterprise) following them.
Duras attacks, interrupting a very ugly conversation over booze between Archer and Tucker where they make it clear that they’ll do “whatever it takes” to stop the Xindi. They don’t actually belch or grunt after saying so, nor do they chest thump, but they’re all implied.
Enterprise holds up much better the second time against Duras, and Reed disables the Klingon ship’s engines long enough for Enterprise to bugger off.
T’Pol decides to resign her commission and remain with Enterprise, to Archer’s relief. They don’t divert to Vulcan, instead heading straight for the Expanse. Seven weeks later, they arrive, at which point Duras finally is able to catch up and attack a third time. This time, it ends badly for the Klingon. Duras puts all his shields fore, so Archer has Mayweather do a loop-de-loop around to the back, where his aft shields are nonexistent, and blow him up.
They then head into the Expanse.
To be continued…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? The notion of quantum dating, which enables you to determine that something is from the future, is patently absurd and isn’t even given a decent hand-wavey explanation.
The gazelle speech. Archer is passionate in his desire to go to the Delphic Expanse, even believing Silik’s boss…
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol makes it clear in a delightful exchange between her and Archer that she’s happy on Enterprise and doesn’t want to go. Archer keeps mentioning all the things she’s complained about in the past, and T’Pol deflects or downplays every single one of them. It’s rather sweet, actually.
Florida Man. Florida Man Loses Sister In Alien Invasion.
Optimism, Captain! Phlox explodes in a rare burst of livid anger when he realizes that Fer’at came to his sickbay under false pretenses.
Ambassador Pointy. Soval sends a shrink to covertly examine Archer under the guise of scanning him for radiation poisoning that likely doesn’t really exist. On the one hand, this is a disturbing violation of medical ethics. On the other hand, given the examples he provides of the few people who’ve returned from the Expanse, from Vulcans who went binky bonkers to Klingons whose bodies were twisted inside out while still alive, you can see why he thinks Archer’s nuts for wanting to go there…
Good boy, Porthos! While Porthos is not seen, Tucker does ask after him, so he’s still on board. The first pooch in the Delphic Expanse!
The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… T’Pol and especially Soval continue to insist that time travel is impossible because the Vulcan Science Directorate has determined it, which has officially crossed over into the realm of the absurd, given what Enterprise has experienced.
Qapla’! Duras is given one last chance to reclaim his honor by finally nailing Archer to the proverbial wall. It doesn’t work. Sucks to be him, but at least we know his descendants will continue to be pains in the ass…
More on this later. Enterprise is outfitted with shiny new photon torpedoes, which has already been established as being standard issue on Starfleet ships in the next two centuries.
I’ve got faith…
“It’s not my place to disobey the High Command.”
“Nonsense—you’ve done it before.”
–T’Pol trying to justify her acquiescing to being recalled and Phlox calling her on her bullshit.
Welcome aboard. Several recurring regulars are here. Two make their final appearance: James Horan as Future Guy (though the character will still be referenced as influencing things behind the scenes) and Daniel Riordan as Duras. We also have John Fleck as Silik (who will next appear at the top of season four in the “Storm Front” two-parter), Vaughn Armstrong as Forrest (who will next appear in season four’s “Home”), and Gary Graham as Soval (who will next appear in “Twilight”).
Bruce Wright plays Fer’at (he last appeared as a Bajoran politican in DS9’s “Crossfire”), Dan Desmond plays the Klingon chancellor, Josh Cruze plays Captain Ramirez, and various Klingons are played by Gary Bullock, David Figlioli, and L. Sidney.
Trivial matters: This episode sets up the Xindi arc that will occupy the entirety of the third season, while also continuing the Temporal Cold War storyline, and pretty much finishing the Klingons-going-after-Archer storyline that started in “Judgment.”
The episode as scripted was ten minutes too long, and so several scenes were cut, including a subplot involving a romantic interest of Archer’s and scenes with Sato discussing her decision to accompany Enterprise’s mission to the Delphic Expanse with Archer.
Forrest and Archer see the under-construction NX-02, Columbia. Forrest says the ship is scheduled to launch in fourteen months, which it will do in “Affliction” in season four, though it will be seen still in drydock in “Home.”
It’s possible that the Klingon chancellor is the same character that we saw in “Broken Bow.” While it’s a different actor, the cranial ridges and facial hair are pretty much the same. Neither chancellor is given a name. In the fourth season’s “The Augments,” the Klingon chancellor is identified by name as M’Rek, and it’s possible that this guy (and the one in the pilot) is M’Rek. Or maybe they’re three different people…
While this is Ramirez’s only appearance onscreen, he’ll be mentioned in the alternate future seen in “Twilight,” and also appear in the Romulan War novel duology by Michael A. Martin.
It’s been a long road… “Let’s see what’s in there.” Watching this episode was incredibly painful, as it was a reminder of just how unbearably stupid we as a country were in the first few years of the millennium.
I live in New York City, and I still remember the events of the 11th of September 2001 with awful clarity: sitting on the couch in my living room, Channel 5 on the TV, observing the events unfold, hoping that my then-girlfriend would make it home from her midtown office to our apartment in the Bronx.
But I also remember the subsequent weeks, months, years, as we embraced the most imbecilic macho idiocy, as air travel became a ridiculous circus that did precisely nothing to make anyone safer, as draconian laws were passed that served to curtail personal liberties to no good end, and as this country stupidly embraced torture as a (wholly ineffective) interrogation tool to be used against terrorists, a tactic that provided very little by way of useful intelligence. I remember the mindless patriotism, the fetishizing of the American flag, and how, in the 2002, 2003, and 2004 elections, any candidate who didn’t wave the flag and declare themselves to be patriotic and tough on terror had a hard time winning votes.
And I remember how so much of the pop culture of the time embraced this idiocy.
Even if I didn’t remember it, though, watching “The Expanse” brought it all back.
The analogy to the 9/11 attacks is not subtle here by any means. It’s decently done; the number of assumed casualties rising with each report, e.g., not to mention the very brutal visual of Reed and Tucker visiting one of the destruction sites, which looked a lot like what the area around the World Trade Center looked like in the waning months of 2001.
Then we have the cringe-inducing conversation between Archer and Tucker, which is vintage 2003: “Tell me we won’t be tiptoeing around,” Tucker says. “None of that noninterference crap T’Pol’s always shoving down our throats.” Archer’s reply: “We’ll do what we have to do, Trip—whatever it takes.”
That’s right, we’re gonna show those bastards that they can’t knock down our buildings! Sigh.
This season finale is much more like what DS9 did—closing out the season and setting up the next one. The former is taken care of with the wholly unconvincing stalking of Archer by Duras, who apparently sits on his ass for months on end outside the solar system. This is pretty much only there to provide the Necessary Action Quotient, since the entire rest of the episode is talking heads, aside from the teaser. (And hey, points for having a good teaser for a change, as the probe just showing up and blowing a hole in Central America is a very effective opening..)
Unfortunately, it’s not particularly well executed. Besides the awkwardly fitting Duras bits, there’s also the even-more-awkward shoehorning of the Temporal Cold War into this, by having Future Guy just give Archer the answer without any rhyme or reason. He says it’s to keep from polluting the timeline, but Future Guy has been trying to pollute the timelines since we met him in “Broken Bow.” WTF? The TCW has been a mess from jump, and now it’s reduced to a cheap writer’s trick to put the crew on the path they need to go on to make their season-long arc work.
Plus the initial attack doesn’t make anything like sense. Is this just the prelude to an invasion? If so, why is there nothing heard from the attackers for the months it takes to retrofit Enterprise and travel to the Expanse? We won’t even get into the complete absurdity of quantum dating things with negative numbers…
This episode sets everything in motion for the season three arc, at least, but it’s clumsy, awkward, nonsensical, and, worst of all, an embarrassing relic of an unfortunate time.
Warp factor rating: 3
Keith R.A. DeCandido looks forward to lots more rewatching and reviewing on this here site in 2023.
