“Azati Prime”
Written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga and Manny Coto
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 3, Episode 18
Production episode 070
Original air date: March 3, 2004
Date: unknown
Captain’s star log. Enterprise finally arrives at Azati Prime, Archer ordering the ship to hide behind a planetoid. There’s a detection grid protecting Azati Prime, and they observe Degra’s ship going through it. On that ship, Degra and his staff are toasting the completion of the weapon, even though they admit it’s a bit skeevy to toast the imminent destruction of a planet. When Degra meets with the council, the Primate councillor and Jannar congratulate him, though Dolim is parsimonious with congratulations. The other two councillors, who involve much more expensive special effects, are not present…
After it becomes clear that Enterprise will never be able to penetrate the detection grid, they go with Plan B: use the Insectoid shuttle they salvaged last episode to get through. Mayweather and Tucker learn how to fly the thing, aided by Sato’s translations. They take it to Azati Prime, bluffing their way past a patrol with a bullshit story about navigational failure, and discover that the weapons construction facility is underwater.
While waiting for Tucker and Mayweather to return, the planetoid’s orbit takes them into scanning range of a tiny outpost that they didn’t realize was there. Archer reluctantly is forced to destroy it (and its three inhabitants) before they can alert the Xindi to Enterprise’s presence.
When Tucker and Mayweather return, Reed examines the sensor data and is able to work out a way to destroy the weapon. It’s a one-way mission, though. Mayweather volunteers, as the only one who can actually fly the Insectoid shuttle. Archer, however, insists that he be the one to do it.
Mayweather gives him a crash course (ahem) in how to fly the ship, then Archer gives a big speech telling them to go back to being explorers when this is all over, and then enters the turbolift—
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The Archive Undying
—to find his ass dragged to the future by Daniels again. The Temporal Agent has brought Archer aboard the Federation Starship Enterprise, NCC-1701-J, in the twenty-sixth century. The Xindi are members of the Federation in the twenty-sixth century, and they’re fighting a war against the Sphere-Builders, who are transdimensional beings. Daniels doesn’t want Archer to go on a suicide mission because he’s too important to history. Archer—likely cranky about all the nonsense Daniels has already put him through—tells him to go jump in a lake. Daniels relents, but gives Archer a Xindi heirloom belonging to an Enterprise-J crewmember—it might help him convince the Xindi not to destroy Earth.
When he returns to the twenty-second century, Archer is surprised to find that T’Pol agrees with Daniels. T’Pol admits, in a surprising moment of emotion, that she doesn’t want Archer to die.
Archer flies off in the Insectoid shuttle, but is unsuccessful in his mission: instead of blowing up the weapon, he’s captured. Dolim interrogates him via torture, which doesn’t work, Archer instead being a smartass. He also demands to speak with Degra, providing the name of Degra’s third child. Degra, surprised that this human he has no memory of meeting knows his newest kid’s name, agrees to speak to him.
Dolim, meanwhile, investigates the fact that the outpost on the system’s edge has mysteriously gone quiet…
Archer gives Degra the heirloom Daniels gave him, and also describes his and T’Pol’s mission to Earth’s past in graphic detail, including the Reptilians building a bioweapon. Degra is starting to have doubts—as are Jannar and the Primate councillor. Dolim, however, insists on continuing.
Reptilian ships attack Enterprise, pounding the holy crap out of it, with multiple casualties…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently the Xindi also have the bullshit capability of “quantum dating” which can show that something’s from the future, erm, somehow.
The gazelle speech. Archer insists on being the one to fly the suicide mission, which other characters object to because they don’t know that he’s the star of a TV show and therefore can’t die.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. More evidence of T’Pol’s fracturing emotional control, both in her outburst to Archer saying she doesn’t want him to die, and also kicking Tucker out of the ready room when she’s in there sulking.
Florida Man. Florida Man Volunteers For Suicide Mission, Is Denied.
Good boy, Porthos! Archer leaves Porthos with Phlox, which only makes sense, since the two of them bonded like crazy just a couple of episodes ago…
The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… T’Pol FINALLY admits that time travel is a real thing, having apparently been convinced by traveling in time to twenty-first-century Detroit. It’s a testament to what a stubborn ass she’s been on the subject that Archer is genuinely surprised that she feels that way even after getting experiential evidence of time travel…
More on this later… The Federation Starship Enterprise, introduced in “The Cage,” and seen captained by Pike (SNW, the original series’ “The Cage” and “The Menagerie,” season 2 of Discovery), Kirk (the original series and several movies), Decker (The Motion Picture), and Spock (The Wrath of Khan) had the registry NCC-1701. At the end of The Voyage Home, a new Enterprise was constructed (the original having gone boom in The Search for Spock) and it had the registry of NCC-1701-A, seen subsequently in The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country. That set a precedent that has been continued through several spinoffs. The Enterprise-B was seen in Generations; the Enterprise-C in TNG’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise”; the Enterprise-D throughout TNG, in Generations, and in Picard’s “Vox” and “The Last Generation”; the Enterprise-E in First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis; the Enterprise-F in “Vox”; and the Enterprise-G in “The Last Generation.” The ship Daniels brings Archer to is the Enterprise-J in the twenty-sixth century, which means they’ll go through the G, H, and I before commissioning the J in a hundred-plus (obviously very tumultuous) years…
I’ve got faith… “I’m going to ask all of you to think back to the day when this ship was first launched—we were explorers then. When all this is over, when Earth is safe, I want you to get back to that job. There are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy—we’ve only explored a tiny fraction. You have a lot of work to do. Of all the captains who will sit in this chair, I can’t imagine any of them being more proud than I am right now.”
Archer being profound and stuff just before his suicide mission.
Welcome aboard. It’s recurring character theatre! Back from “Carpenter Street” is Matt Winston as Daniels. Back from “Stratagem” is Randy Oglesby as Degra. Back from “Proving Ground” are Scott MacDonald as Dolim, Rick Worthy as Jannar, and Tucker Smallwood as the Primate councillor. Winston will return in “Zero Hour.” Oglesby, MacDonald, Worthy, and Smallwood will all return in the very next episode, “Damage.”
Trivial matters: Daniels sent Archer and T’Pol into the past to stop the Reptilians from building a bioweapon in “Carpenter Street.”
Archer found out all kinds of personal info about Degra when they tricked him into thinking it was three years in the future in “Stratagem,” and also erased his memory, which is why Archer is unfamiliar to him.
Enterprise got their hands on an Insectoid shuttle in “Hatchery.”
Phlox was alone with Porthos for a significant amount of time in “Doctor’s Orders.”
Procyon V, the site of the battle Daniels brings Archer to, is also seen in the Star Trek Online: Future Proof mission “Ragnarok.”
It’s been a long road… “Patience is for the dead!” I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that this story arc would’ve worked way better in half the season instead of all of it, as this arrival at Azati Prime would’ve been significantly more effective around eight or nine episodes into the season instead of eighteen. Mostly because my response to seeing Enterprise arrive at the titular planet was, “Finally!” Getting to this stage of the story should inspire excitement, not exasperation…
While this is far from a perfect episode, it’s also the culmination of a lot of prior episodes, and it delivers in terms of story, in terms of excitement, in terms of suspense, and in terms of character. Allan Kroeker is entirely the right person to direct this, as he keeps the pace brisk, the performances excellent, and the action beautifully filmed.
I like how this brings everything to a head, both the long-term plotline of Enterprise trying to stop the Xindi from blowing up Earth, and the shorter-term journey to Azati Prime that we’ve been waiting for since “Stratagem.”
I love how Archer’s continued response to violent interrogation is to be a smartass (cf. “The Andorian Incident,” “Detained”), and I like how Scott Bakula plays his desperation in trying to convince Degra (whom he knows is not an entirely bad person), Jannar, and the Primate councillor (for fuck’s sake, why the hell couldn’t they give Tucker Smallwood’s character a damn name?????) that they’re on the wrong path. Randy Oglesby in particular continues his excellent work in showing Degra’s moral struggle that we started to see in “Stratagem.”
I did not like yet more Temporal Cold War foolishness, and while it’s not really Matt Winston’s fault that he’s playing an incredibly tiresome character, it really has gotten to the point where seeing Daniels onscreen is cause for wailing, moaning, and throwing rotten tomatoes at the screen.
I like that Mayweather was immediately the first to volunteer for the suicide mission—which only made sense, given that he’s the only one who could fly the ship—but I hate what came immediately after. First Tucker says it should be a senior officer who flies the shuttle. (What? What? No, dumbass, it should be someone who can skillfully fly the fershlugginer shuttle!) Then Archer sets his jaw and says he’s doing it. Now Archer is an accomplished pilot, but the notion that there’s enough time to train him strains credulity, especially with the ticking clock of when the Xindi will discover that their outpost has gone quiet.
I’m reserving judgment on the destruction of the base and the murder of three innocent Xindi, because there isn’t really time for Archer to have to deal with the moral consequences of that action in the episode itself, and I know that the very next episode will deal with those moral issues in more depth. But it’s still something that didn’t sit right with me, partly because, yes, it was murder, and partly because it wasn’t all that tactically sound an action. My first thought when Archer ordered the outpost destroyed was, “What happens when they don’t check in?” And sure enough, the outpost going quiet was just as dangerous to Enterprise as the outpost communicating their presence would’ve been, with the added lack-of-bonus of Archer murdering three innocent people.
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be at Horror on Main at the Hunt Valley Inn in Cockeysville, Maryland (north of Baltimore) this weekend. He’ll be at the eSpec Books table in the vendor room, and also be doing a reading on Saturday at 2pm in Salon A.
