“Harbinger”
Written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga and Manny Coto
Directed by David Livingston
Season 3, Episode 15
Production episode 067
Original air date: February 11, 2004
Date: December 27, 2153
Captain’s star log. We see Tucker having a Vulcan neuropressure session, but it’s not with T’Pol, it’s with one of the MACOs, Corporal Amanda Cole. The session ends with Cole kissing Tucker to the latter’s surprise—but not to the viewer’s, as she’s been flirting pretty noticeably with him.
Enterprise is pootling along toward Azati Prime when Mayweather reports that the stars seem to be shifting position. They stop and find a convergence of multiple spatial anomalies. They also find a small pod in the anomaly with a humanoid life inside. They grapple it out, but as they do so, the anomaly moves to cover the fore section of the ship, damaging systems, and turning the atmosphere unbreathable. Mayweather has lost helm control, but Tucker—who’s unaffected in engineering—is able to pull them out.
They rescue the occupant, who, once he regains consciousness, begs to be put back. He claims to be from a transdimensional realm, and Phlox says that he’s dying—but putting him back in the anomaly won’t do him any favors.
Buy the Book
Some Desperate Glory
Phlox informs T’Pol that Cole came to him with headaches, and she also mentioned that she was doing neuropressure with Tucker. They both express concern that Tucker’s amateur neuropressure is possibly doing damage to Cole. T’Pol also shows hints of jealousy.
Hayes has suggested having his MACOs train Starfleet personnel in more advanced hand-to-hand combat techniques. (Why he’s waited until months into the mission to suggest this is left as an exercise for the viewer.) Reed has already said no, so Hayes went over his head to Archer, who has ordered Reed to agree to it, on the argument that the MACOs are way ahead of Starfleet when it comes to this stuff. Reed and Hayes argue over when to schedule the training sessions, and it’s obvious that Reed thinks Hayes wants his job and is going to be an ass about this no matter what.
T’Pol reports to Archer that this anomaly convergence is located precisely at the midpoint among five spheres. Tucker and T’Pol’s examination of the pod show that it’s made of the same material as the spheres. Archer theorizes that the pod was a canary in a coal mine, sent to test the effects of the anomaly.
Hayes’ sessions go well, to Reed’s annoyance. However, at one point, a MACO puts Mayweather on the floor, and Reed ends the session, telling Hayes to control his people. Hayes says what happened wasn’t out of line (speaking as a martial artist, I’m on Hayes’ side of this argument, what happened to Mayweather is something that sometimes happens when you spar), but Reed is pissy. Later, Reed and Tucker share a meal in the mess. Tucker teases Reed about his pissing match with Hayes, and Reed tells him to fuck off. Then Reed teases Tucker about his flirting with Cole, and Tucker tells him to fuck off.
Tucker goes to T’Pol for a neuropressure session, and they discuss his sessions with Cole. They discuss the possibility of jealousy, with T’Pol insisting that she’s above such things, and Tucker confused as to why he would feel any. T’Pol then reveals what Sim said about Tucker’s feelings for T’Pol, and then they kiss, and then she drops her robe to reveal a completely naked body, and then they have sex.
Hayes walks in on Reed working out, and they have a sparring session that quickly devolves into a grudge match and bleeds (so to speak) out into the corridor.
The alien has a pleasant conversation with Phlox, then when the doctor turns his back, the alien assaults him. He can apparently phase through matter, so he walks through the ship, disrupting systems.
When the tactical alert is called, Hayes and Reed stop fighting and gather their troops and try and fail to stop the alien. He tries to sabotage the engines by phasing through it, after rendering Tucker unconscious, but Reed and Hayes work together to cause a feedback surge and stop the alien.
Tucker and T’Pol talk in the mess hall. T’Pol insists that the previous night was an experiment in human sexuality, no more, no less. Tucker is nonplussed, and they both agree that they should probably never speak of it again—though Tucker figures they can still continue the neuropressure sessions…
Archer reads the riot act to Hayes and Reed for acting like five-year-olds, then tries to question the alien about why he’s really there. The alien starts to fade out of existence, but his last words are, “When the Xindi destroy Earth, my people will prevail.”
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Reed and Hayes stop the alien by actually reversing the polarity of the plasma coils. It’s awesome.
The gazelle speech. Archer has a truly epic rant against Reed and Hayes. It’s one of his finest moments as a captain, and his dressing-down of the two morons is right up there with Kirk’s yelling at the bar-brawlers in the original series’ “The Trouble with Tribbles” and Sisko’s yelling at Worf, O’Brien, and Bashir in DS9’s “Bar Association.”
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol insists she isn’t jealous of Tucker and Cole’s neuropressure sessions, and that her seduction of Tucker is just an experiment in human sexuality. Both these things prove that Vulcans can too lie.
Florida Man. Florida Man Has Sex With Alien Seductress!
Optimism, Captain! Phlox outs Tucker’s “adultery” to T’Pol. On the surface, he just seems to be passing on medical information, but you know he’s totally trolling all three of them…
Better get MACO. Hayes thinks the Starfleet personnel need to up their hand-to-hand game. When Archer is selling Reed on this, he mentions how well the MACOs have performed since coming on board, and he must be referring to adventures between episodes, because there’s been no evidence onscreen that the MACOs are in any way competent…
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. The use of Vulcan neuropressure as a fig-leaf for sex in previous episodes becomes a transparent fig-leaf in this one, culminating in T’Pol coming on to Tucker in a manner that wouldn’t be out of place in a 1980s teen sex comedy.
I’ve got faith… “The last thing I need is to hear that two of my senior officers have been admitted to sickbay because they suddenly regressed to the level of five-year-olds!”
“Captain—”
“Don’t try to tell me who started it!”
Archer doing a verbatim reading from the riot act, and also refusing to let Reed get a word in.
Welcome aboard. Thomas Kopache plays his seventh of seven (so far) roles on Trek as the alien, having previously played a Vulcan in “Broken Bow,” a Romulan in TNG’s “The Next Phase,” a holographic train conductor in TNG’s “Emergence,” an Enterprise-B bridge officer in Generations, a Kohl in Voyager’s “The Thaw,” and had the recurring role of Kira’s Dad in two episodes of DS9.
Israeli actor, singer, author, and activist Noa Tishby plays Cole, while Steven Culp is back as Hayes; last seen in “The Shipment,” Culp’s next appearance will be two episodes hence in “Hatchery.”
Trivial matters: Enterprise learned of Azati Prime in “Stratagem.” The Tucker clone Sim told T’Pol of Tucker’s attraction to T’Pol in “Similitude.” The alien’s final line hints that he’s from the species that built the spheres, which will be more or less confirmed in “Damage.”
This is Cole’s only onscreen appearance, though she will be mentioned again in “E2.”
The U.S. airings of this episode on UPN (and later reruns on the SciFi Channel) showed a slightly different version of T’Pol dropping her robe, enlarging the image so they could crop it above her posterior. Audiences outside the U.S., and later viewers on DVD and various streaming services, get a more complete view of Jolene Blalock’s backside.
T’Pol’s uncharacteristically emotional behavior in this episode will later be revealed to be due to trellium-D exposure.
It’s been a long road… “You two really ought to declare a truce.” As part of the Xindi arc, this is a useful, important episode. We get our first look at the Sphere Builders, though we don’t know it’s them yet, and it becomes clear that they’re manipulating things based on what the alien says before he disappears in a puff of illogic.
But holy crap, is all the other stuff that happens in the episode ridiculous. Let’s start with the macho idiocy of Hayes and Reed sniping at each other over the MACOs training Starfleet. This could have worked if two things were different.
One is that this should’ve happened much earlier in the season. It’s ridiculous that, after months of faffing about in the Delphic Expanse (not to mention the several weeks it took to get there), it only just now occurred to Hayes to suggest extra hand-to-hand combat training for the Starfleet crew.
And the other is the nature of Reed’s disagreement with Hayes. Look, different branches of the military tend to have rivalries with each other that border on hatred. That’s totally fine. But the issue is Reed being worried that Hayes is after his job, and that makes nothing like sense. Hayes is part of a totally different branch of the military that does totally different things. There is no Earthly reason why he would even be interested in becoming the security chief on a starship, and even if he was, it wouldn’t be so simple as applying for a job, he’d have to transfer to a completely different service. It’s ridiculous.
And that’s not the worst of what happens in this episode, because, of course we have the T’Pol’s Bare Butt scene.
I mean yeah, sexual tension, jealousy, Tucker flirting with someone else, gobby gobby gobby, but ultimately, all of it was in service of the producers’ continued efforts to make sure that their show primarily appealed to heterosexual teenage boys who used their allowance to buy copies of Maxim.
It’s also ridiculously out of character, though we’ll eventually find out that that’s for another reason. Though one has to wonder if they were more concerned with finding an excuse to get Jolene Blalock out of her clothes and flashing Connor Trinneer (and the audience) and retroactively came up with the trellium-D addiction to explain it.
Warp factor rating: 4
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a guest at Indiana Comic Con this coming weekend at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. He’ll be at Table G5 in the exhibit hall selling and signing books all weekend, and also doing a panel on Friday from 4-5pm on writing in other people’s universes in Room 104.
“Sounds like you’re saying last night was some kind of experiment.”
It feels like this one has three plotlines competing to see which can be the most tedious. The mysterious alien plot is at least a bit intriguing, which is more than you can say for Reed and Hayes’ peeing contest and the neuropressure triangle. It’s extremely ethically dubious though. Enterprise seems rather cavalier in pulling the pod out of the anomaly convergence without attempting communication: They arguably cause the alien’s death as a result, although it’s maddeningly unclear a)what kills him and b)whether or not he actually dies. Following on from comments someone made on the last episode about Phlox’s wandering ethics, here he makes only a token objection to Archer putting the alien through pain to get information. Oh, but he turns out to be a baddie, so that’s okay. Prior to that, he does actually convince as a confused victim. The climax of the storyline is exciting and satisfying, but ultimately the Sphere Builder (there’s no point not using the name, because we’re pretty much told what they are here!) gets defeated by Reed pushing a few buttons that, um, do something.
Despite their failings, the other two plotlines do include some decent moments. The final scene of Archer chewing out Reed and Hayes is actually quite amusing, especially the way he just walks away and leaves them in his office when they’re interrupted and you can see that two by-the-book career officers don’t quite know what to do next. (“Do you think we’re dismissed?”)
When the episode opened with that “Surprise! It’s not T’Pol!” moment, I thought “Oh great, this one.” Phlox pimping out T’Pol’s neuropressure skills makes me rather uncomfortable: Back in ‘The Xindi’, she was reluctant to share it with Tucker, calling it “intimate”, and here he virtually orders her to do it on someone she barely knows. I did rather like the reversal of their “Who’s jealous of whom” conversation, but unfortunately it then descends into random soft porn, which T’Pol’s coy look doesn’t entirely make up for.
I find myself full of questions about the Sphere Builders which I’ll be looking to see if we get answers to: Here’s we’re told they could from a “transdimensional realm”. Phlox claims Tucker has only been having neuropressure for “a couple of months” which would require the last fifteen episodes to have occurred in a ridiculously short space of time. (In fact, given that they’d be in the Expanse for six weeks in ‘The Xindi’ and three months in ‘The Shipment’, it would require the last seven episodes to have taken place over about two weeks, a time period covered by ‘Similitude’ alone!) Maybe he means Denobulan months… It’s also not clear why, when Archer said the training sessions would be for Starfleet security personnel, those present consist entirely of MACOs and main titles senior officers.
Channel 4 once again managed to improve the episode by cutting out the nudity.
I’m starting to get a bit dubious of Manny Coto’s reputation as the saviour of the show: He seems to have written most of this season’s worst episodes!
The idea of having Trip and T’Pol get together is not – generally speaking – a bad one. And I think that perhaps back in the day, it seemed a little less gratuitous with the likes of Melrose Place and Desperate Housewives filling up the airwaves with censor-challenging near-nudity. What I find annoying about the way this relationship is carried out is that it’s the invariable “one step forward, two back” soap opera “super couple approach of the time that’s really not based on the actual difficulties of carrying out a cross-cultural relationship, but on outside forces (the marriage to Koss, Trip’s transfer, etc.).
I have trouble remembering what “Harbinger” is about; I had to look it up. I guess that, aside from harbingering the Sphere Builders (yes, it’s a verb too), it’s more about developing ongoing threads, so it doesn’t really stand out clearly as its own entity. Unless you remember it as “The one where we get to see T’Pol’s bottom,” I guess.
I ended up like Trip/T’Pol quite a bit in Season 4, but the origins of the relationship are just brutal.
Incidentally, Keith, I was wondering what you thought of the martial arts techniques used in this episode. Part of the reason that I didn’t notice how inept the MACOs actually were is because all of their hand-to-hand fighting looks pretty impressive to me, but I am very much not qualified to judge.
It looks like the Tor.com site changed its settings, and the alt-text on the link to read the rest of the article has been replaced by a generic “Read More” for every article.
I consider “Harbinger” a very skippable episode of Enterprise. Everything you need to know in later episodes is clear through context or the “Previously On Star Trek: Enterprise” recaps.
@5 – Only temporarily. We’re working to restore the custom “Read more” links.
jaimebabb: all the sparring stuff in the episode was fine. Archer’s line about how they are years ahead of Starfleet really only applied to the weapons training. The hand to hand stuff was all pretty basic see-Spot-run self defense training.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I really liked this one, partly because it’s an exploration of the fact that (unlike most deeply-repressed characters in television or film) Mr Reed is absolutely a better person when he buttons it all up to play the consummate professional (I’d argue poor Hayes does his best to handle the situation with some professionalism, right up until he gets sick of Reed being territorial to the point of being profoundly insecure) – although credit where it’s due, Mr Reed absolutely pulls off a Kirk manoeuvre in their fight scene – in great part because Captain Archer absolutely REFUSES to tolerate this sort of adolescent behaviour – because the Delphic Expanse continues to be a creepily dangerous place (that literal fade out at the end is a perfect finish to an imperfect episode) – and because Holy Moley, MACO Cole is just outrageously attractive (If that’s what the Jarheads of the 23rd century look like, imagine what the parade ground soldiers look like!).
Oh, and T’Pol’s morning-after put down of Mr Tucker was delicious (Honourable mention to Mr Reed taking a break from being a snippy little runt to be good old gossip Malcolm long enough to tease Trip).
*Consider his vacation episode on Risa, amongst other incidents.
A few unconnected thoughts:-
– I really loved the “Feeding time” sequence that opening the show: Doc Phlox’s medical cabinet/menagerie continues to be one of my favourite parts of the show (I would, to be frank, absolutely LOVE to see various STAR TREK medical officer’s sound off about this unconventional approach to cross species medicine – especially Doc McCoy).
– It was rather charming to see Mr Mayweather get a chance to strut his stuff on the training mat, at least to a point.
– Captain Archer was worryingly “end justifies the means” in this episode, hopefully not the first sign of a relapse into War on Terror morality.
– Trip was more than a bit ‘Himbo’ in this episode and I absolutely enjoyed it: I’m certain this week’s ‘Florida Man’ should have been “Florida Man gets ALL the Luck”.
– I’m glad that, while T’Pol was jealous, there was no ‘Cat Fight’ (I’d like to imagine that MACO Cole just shrugged and soldiered off on her merry way when she got wind of this development – bonus points if she stayed friends-without-benefits with Trip and tried to make friends with T’Pol afterward).
– I really do LIKE ‘Faith of the Heart’ as part of the ENTERPRISE credits, which leaves me perpetually torn between Rafe and Grief whenever the bastardised version thrust upon us this season threatens to kick in, just before I press ‘Skip Credits’.
Gotta love Phlox here. He’s just a messy bitch who LIVES for drama.
I agree with cap-mjb in 1, the episode was just too full. A-plot, B-plot, C-plot.From the choice of teaser image for this article, I’m not sure which one you consider the A-plot. The Sphere Builder was clearly C, even if that could have filled an episode.
One thing I wondered about, Trellium-D or no Trellium-D, is T’Pol aware of just how emotional she is about the love triangle? Or is she deceiving herself? As of this episode, I can see both options. Her session with Cole was very clearly showing her emotions, but she has spent a life keeping them in check.
And did you notice how she held her own against Hayes while watching Cole and Tucker all the time? A reminder that she has Vulcan security training, plus decades of experience in a physically young body. What would have happened if she had paid attention?
Regarding Hayes and Reed, two comments for Keith:
– They are still figuring out how starships and their crew work. Reed could be afraid that Hayes was angling to ‘prove’ that all ships should have a MACO complement, and that gunnery-and-security should be stripped of half their job. What does firing a phaser cannon have to do with firing a hand phaser?
– We don’t know how long he has asked before he went over Reed’s head to the captain. Three months, maybe?
I suspect that at seasons end, this will be your favorite “reverse the polarity”.
Just me I suppose, but I never understood why the showrunners insisted on jamming Tucker and T’Pol together, in this case literally. I didn’t see any chemistry between them except in one episode to come where they dealt with tragedy together.
And I have to echo the derisive comments of others. This is like something out of a bad teen flick. Hot aloof girl harbors secret attraction for the doofus hunk, but won’t act on it until she has a reason to get jealous. And of course instead of expressing her feelings to him, she entices him to dock his shuttlecraft. The next morning, she still won’t acknowledge her feelings, instead she gaslights him to make him feel like an idiot for being attracted to her in the first place. Seriously, ick
@10 I would designate the plotlines in this episode as D, E, and F, as none was really up to the challenge of carrying an episode.
So there’s one scene in a first-season episode where T’Pol and Hoshi are stuck on downed Klingon warship; Hoshi is on the cusp of a panic attack, so T’Pol somehow touches her arm and speaks to her in such a way that it temporarily drains out her emotions. And maybe it’s just me, but I find that one scene way sexier than all of the decon chamber scenes and all of the neuropressure scenes and all of the scenes of female characters getting their shirts ripped off or exposing their bums or wearing too-small camisoles or getting pon farr or whatever else put together.
The only memory I have of this episode is of the messy dramatics between the regulars and the MACOs, so I guess it didn’t really do the job of furthering the season’s plot. I also have no memory of seeing T’Pol’s backside, so either I watched the edited version or I have blocked it out due to trauma.
This may be small comfort, but “Harbinger” was at least a bit more memorable than “Doctor’s Orders” or “Hatchery”. All I can remember of Doctor’s Orders is it being a rehash of Seven & the Doctor in Voyager’s “One” except Phlox is narrating a letter to Dr. Lucas while Hatchery is all about Xindi Insectoid juice affecting ARCHER’s BRAIN!!!!
I usually skip these two and go right for Azati Prime.
Yuck.
Why did I not notice the gross treatment of T’Pol as Obligatory Sex Object when I watched this in first-run? (The “yuck” is for the writers, not Jolene Blalock’s bum.)
So much to unpack here.
Yes. That is it. “Himbo.” That one word perfectly encapsulates Charles Tucker III.
I said at the start of the rewatch that Malcolm Reed should have been the Captain. I withdraw that statement. Boy, did the Reed-Hayes pissing match get really old, really fast.
I fully believe someone watched the T’Pol/Tucker triangle here, went “Ew, gross”, then thought, “Hey, we could use the Trellium-D thing to explain why we wrote T’Pol, a former senior Vulcan officer, acting like a horny teenage girl.”
And finally, one of the moments where I really like Archer; his dressing-down of the two morons who are supposed to be senior officers was indeed epic.
And in the midst of all this nonsense, we get some movement on the Xindi plot, though the episode itself doesn’t make clear what.
Whew, okay I need a nap.
@AlanBrown in 13, here I disagree. We learn a lot about the sphere builders, about the “power behind the Xindi,” and that could have filled an average episode. Find the pod, the rescue, understand the occupant, the rampage,etc.
The T’Pol/Tucker scenes notwithstanding, the only sexual tension I ever saw on this show was whatever was going on between Reed and Hayes.
“to make sure that their show primarily appealed to heterosexual teenage boys who used their allowance to buy copies of Maxim.” Hey, as a trans woman, I take deep offense at that. Lesbians like me were… Uh… Targeted… As well :-P
Joking aside, this episode was at best blandly offensive and stereotypical. T’Pol has the “honour” of being the worst treated (though other characters were far more ignored), and this episode epitomizes that phenomenon. I don’t really have much more to add. This whole thing feels like a 12 year old wrote it.
The Alien plotline is interesting, the rest is tedious and is the low point for T’pol as a character.
I feel like I should watch it again for research purposes, but I’m pretty sure that in the version of the episode that I’ve got on DVD, you do not see all of T’Pol’s behind. You see some, enough for it to be clear that she’s not wearing anything down there, but not everything.
What, indeed? It really doesn’t make sense that one person would be in charge of two departments that have completely different functions and methodologies, simply because they both involve pew-pew weapons. Tactical/gunnery (keeping all ship weapons in fighting shape, training/drills for weapons personnel, preparing tactics for likely adversaries) and security (day-to-day security, maintaining guards on key points on the ship, repelling boarders, off-ship ground operations) are two totally different considerations, requiring different skill-sets and different mindsets.
On a smallish ship like the NX-01 where there are only a couple hundred crew, to say nothing of a larger starship with a big crew and civilian complement, each of those would be a full-time job just for managing the people in those departments. Giving one officer responsibility over both departments may make sense from a Doylist perspective (you can only pay so many main cast members, and having two of them be “fighting” people doesn’t provide as much variety), but from a Watsonian perspective it doesn’t make much sense.
@20. Lance_sibley: I’m not going to lie, my response to crying “Foreplay DONE, time to get down and dirty!” was to immediately ask “But am I talking about the lovers or the fighters?”
Also, it has just occurred to me that T’Pol may be a bit more impulsive than usual in this episode because, as a tactile telepath handling MACO Cole, her own complicated attitude towards Trip might well be further complicated by emotions picked up at that neuropressure session (Something her mind may have difficulty processing, given the jolts it has taken in the past few seasons).
As dumb as it was, I found the pissing contest between Reed and Hayes hilariously done. Their spar turned into genuine fist fight was entertaining and Archer reading them the riot act was just perfect.
A small, transitional character-centric outing while the ship makes its way to Azati Prime (I’m surprised Berman and Braga got a story credit out of such a small, uneventful episode – I’m guessing it was because of the T’Pol side of the story).
I actually like the Hayes/Reed tension mainly because Steven Culp is that charismatic. He reminds me a bit of TNG’s Jellico. A hard-line military mind with no room for nonsense, but who won’t hesitate to do the right thing, even if his personality is too extreme by Enterprise crew standards. Like Ronny Cox, Culp really makes Hayes spark and come alive as a well-rounded person. This is one standoff where I have no problem siding with the new guy. Reed does himself no favors acting the way he does. But Culp keeps this story from being a complete, predictable bore.
I could join the club and proclaim the T’Pol/Tucker scene gratuitous and unnecessary. But given we spent four years with Voyager parading Seven of Nine’s assets without going all the way, I was actually surprised they pushed the nudity envelope this time around. It’s well known that DS9 ended up with an atrocity like “Let he who is Without Sin” because they couldn’t show skin due to syndicated programming restrictions. As far as I can tell, this was a first for Trek, and while it could be labeled as male-gaze-oriented and gratuitous, I’d argue it was a necessary step in terms of showing scenes of intimacy on Trek – an aspect that has become far more ingrained and part of the current era.
I don’t think it’s that out of character at all. How long have they been spending time together in close proximity by this point? Months – closer to a full year. I could see it coming from a mile.
And I’m pretty convinced that the Trellium D aspect was already under consideration by this point. After three seasons, the tension/chemistry between Trip and T’Pol was more than clear. Whether pairing them off as a couple was the best choice is debatable, but it’s pretty evident Berman and Braga wanted to push them together without breaking any pre-established limitations and conventions of human/vulcan relationships in earlier incarnations of the franchise. Trellium D was a handy solution. And if it wasn’t, it sure became one.
@27/Eduardo: “It’s well known that DS9 ended up with an atrocity like “Let he who is Without Sin” because they couldn’t show skin due to syndicated programming restrictions.”
I don’t know about that. The thing about syndication is that it’s market by market, so standards vary from place to place. Years before DS9, there was a 1990 episode of War of the Worlds: The Series wherein the aliens tried to turn people violent with subliminal messages hidden in a perfume commercial (their second subliminal-message plot in season 2 and the third in the series overall). The commercial was astonishingly racy for its day, featuring a nude man and woman posing in bed together, their naughty bits hidden from the camera only by their body positions. It was the most graphic nudity I’d ever seen on commercial TV, rivaling or surpassing the envelope-pushing that NYPD Blue would become famous for several years later. Here in Cincinnati, they wouldn’t even air the episode, so I had to watch a fuzzy signal from Dayton 50 miles away.
So I don’t think there were any broadcast restrictions imposed on DS9 per se — just their own choice of what audience they were aiming for and how far they were willing to push it.
“As far as I can tell, this was a first for Trek”
In the absolute, perhaps, but TOS pushed the envelope on skin and sexuality by the standards of its day, and early TNG tried to take advantage of looser ’80s standards with episodes like “The Naked Now” and “Justice,” before things became more sedate once Roddenberry’s influence waned.
I remember this being a thoroughly “meh” episode, with the most memorable bits being the Sphere Builder and the MACO/Starfleet standoff. This episode really did not need the C plot of Jealous T’Pol, with it serving to dilute the episode in the case of the former (which would have made an excellent A plot on its own.) My main problem here is the conflict between MACO/Hayes and Starfleet/Reed personnel. It would have been great if earlier episodes had more hints of any friction beyond the tidbit from Reed on the MACOs doing the rescue operation back in “The Xindi.” It should have been stretched out across a couple of episodes and taken place much earlier in the season (seriously, how many months have you been in the Expanse?!)
I don’t have any real issues with the Sphere Builder plot; he’s going to die anyway, there’s nothing that can be done at least according to Phlox, and his people might be the key to why the Expanse is the anomaly-ridden hellscape it is, so why not question him.