“Demons”
Written by Manny Coto
Directed by LeVar Burton
Season 4, Episode 20
Production episode 096
Original air date: May 6, 2005
Date: January 19, 2155
Captain’s star log. On the moon, at the Orpheus Mining Facility, John Frederick Paxton, the mine’s owner, and a doctor named Mercer are checking up on a baby in an incubator, who’s been sick. The baby has the tapered ears of a Vulcan. We’re apparently supposed to just know that she’s a Vulcan-human hybrid, even though she only just looks Vulcan.
Enterprise has been summoned back to Earth to be present for the signing of a treaty that will lead to a Coalition of Planets, which will include Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar Prime, Coridan, and Denobula Triaxa. Earth’s Prime Minister, Nathan Samuels, is giving a press conference, with the various delegates and the Enterprise “senior staff” (everyone in the opening credits) observing.
The reception afterward includes some rather nasty bitching and moaning from Tucker about how Samuels didn’t give Enterprise credit for their part in this (the Andorians and Tellarites are pretty much only there because of Archer and the gang), and said bitching and moaning is particularly bitter toward Samuels. Archer, for his part, is happy to stay out of politics.
One of the reporters covering the event is named Gannet, and she and Mayweather used to be an item, presumably when he was at Starfleet Academy. It seems to have been an acrimonious split, though Gannet appears interested in rekindling things.
Samuels compliments Sato on the work she did improving the universal translator. Meanwhile, T’Pol quietly and politely agrees with Tucker that Enterprise is due more credit—but she’s interrupted by a medtech named Susan Khouri, who gives T’Pol a vial with a hair sample, says, “they’re going to kill her,” and collapses—only then does her coat fall open to reveal a nasty phase pistol wound.
Khouri eventually dies from her wounds. Phlox examines the follicle and shocks everyone by saying that (a) it’s a Vulcan-human hybrid, and (b) the person to whom this follicle belongs is the offspring of Tucker and T’Pol.
T’Pol maintains that she has never been pregnant (why she needs to insist that when a simple examination from Phlox would provide evidence of that is left as an exercise for the viewer). But she also maintains that this is not a hoax and that there is a child of theirs out there somewhere.
Archer discusses it with Sameuls, with the latter preferring to keep the news of the hybrid quiet. It’s a difficult time right now, and there’s a “Terra Prime” movement that has been growing since the Xindi attack, which wishes to isolate Earth from alien contamination.
Gannet shows up on Enterprise, saying she’s doing a story on the ship and asking Mayweather for a tour. They wind up making out in a shuttlepod, then take the party to his quarters.
Samuels has asked Archer to let Starfleet handle the investigation, but because Archer is the lead in a TV show, he is incapable of allowing people not in the opening credits to deal with things, so he has Reed contact Harris. Harris reminds Reed that Reed told Harris never to contact him again. Reed says he contacted Harris, which isn’t the same thing. Harris says that this means Reed is still working for him whether he likes it or not, a declaration that would have much more weight if this wasn’t the antepenultimate episode of the entire series. Harris reveals that Khouri is also part of Terra Prime.
On the moon, Paxton expresses concern to Mercer over Khouri’s betrayal, particularly that Mercer might also start feeling sympathy for the abomination. Mercer’s assurances that he’s loyal don’t sound all that convincing. Paxton also watches footage of Colonel Green from just after World War III where he’s advocating eugenics.
Phlox has Khouri’s autopsy report, and it includes a growth hormone used in low-gravity environments. It’s hardly ever used anymore since artificial gravity was invented, but it’s still used in a few places, like Orpheus on the moon—which is also, according to Harris’ intel, a hotbed of Terra Prime activity. Sato also reports that there’s a weird glitch in the universal translator.
On the moon, they’re cleaning up from a cave-in, and they find Mercer’s body, the victim of a carefully constructed “accident.”
T’Pol and Tucker go undercover as new employees of Orpheus. Tucker befriends a man named Josiah, who invites Tucker to a meeting of people who are sick of alien influence affecting Earth. Tucker goes to the meeting and is outed by Josiah at the same time that T’Pol is taken prisoner. They’re brought before Paxton, who identifies himself as the leader of Terra Prime. He plans to return Earth to its rightful owners. It’s not clear what role the hybrid child is supposed to play…
Archer, Reed, and Sato interrupt Mayweather and Gannet’s nookie because they’ve discovered that Gannet is a Terra Prime spy. She was listening in on all the universal translators, which triggered an ID protocol that Sato was able to trace. Gannet also made several trips to Orpheus, which were not, according to her editor, for a story as she claims. Gannet demands to have a lawyer, and Archer puts her in the brig, apologizing to a hurt Mayweather.
Paxton’s chief flunky Greaves pilots Orpheus off the surface of the moon and flies it to Mars, which surprises pretty much everyone. Archer orders Enterprise to go after them.
Orpheus lands on Mars near the verteron array that is used to divert comets. Paxton reconfigures it to fire on the moon, and declares that all non-humans must leave the Sol system or there will be more damage done.
To be continued…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently, despite all the medical advances we’ve seen in the twenty-second century, somehow the ability to determine if a woman has ever been pregnant has been lost. (This is me, rolling my eyes…)
The gazelle speech. Archer seems to be the only member of his own crew who doesn’t mind that Samuels never mentions them in his speech. He’s just happy to see the Coalition of Planets becoming a thing.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol somehow just knows that she has a daughter out there, even though she was never pregnant. Tucker goes along with this. Sort of.
Florida Man. Florida Man Has Miracle Baby With Alien Lover!
Optimism, Captain! Phlox is the one who moves the plot along by examining the hair follicle and examining Khouri’s autopsy.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Mayweather and Gannet get very hot and heavy, and even start talking about future plans together right up until she’s arrested.
More on this later… The Coridan ambassador having a complaint about Tellarites and trade with the Orions mirrors a similar issue that comes up when Coridan applies for admission to the Federation a century hence in the original series’ “Journey to Babel.”
Also the baby seen at the top of the episode is the first-ever Vulcan-human hybrid, which we know will become a bit more common in the future, given that the most popular character in the entire franchise is a Vulcan-human hybrid…
I’ve got faith…
“It’s estimated that there are at least five thousand unregistered aliens on Earth. Now, another study puts that figure at ten thousand. This insanity is the direct result of our government’s policy and the enforcers of that policy, Starfleet! We need to send a message to the people in power.”
–Josiah, rabble-rousing with depressingly familiar rhetoric.
Welcome aboard. Eric Pierpoint returns as Harris, last seen in “Divergence.” Harry Groener, who previously played Tam Elbrun in TNG’s “Tin Man” and a magistrate in Voyager’s “Sacred Ground,” plays Samuels. Peter Weller plays Paxton; he will later play Alexander Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness. Patrick Fischler plays Mercer, Adam Clark plays Josiah, and Johanna Watts plays Gannet.
Steve Rankin plays Colonel Green in footage Paxton watches. Green previously appeared as an Excalbian re-creation in the original series’ “The Savage Curtain,” played by Phillip Pine. Rankin previously played a Romulan in TNG’s “The Enemy,” a Cardassian in DS9’s “Emissary,” and a Klingon in DS9’s “Invasive Procedures.”
And this week’s Robert Knepper moment is the appearance of the great Peter Mensah, whom I had completely forgot was in this two-parter as Greaves.
Pierpoint, Groener, Weller, Clark, Watts, and Mensah will all return next time in “Terra Prime.”
Trivial matters: Colonel Green was established in the original series’ “The Savage Curtain” as a fascist from the twenty-first century. He was remembered by Kirk as one of the greatest villains of human history. Here, he’s specifically tied to the chaos of World War III and its aftermath (as seen in the movie First Contact), and is seen advocating eugenic genocide to avoid humanity being horribly mutated by radiation in what was referred to in TNG’s “Encounter at Farpoint” as “the post-atomic horror.”
Green is also a major player in the novel Federation by Enterprise‘s co-producers Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and also appears in Federation: The First 150 Years by former Enterprise consulting producer David A. Goodman and “The Immortality Blues” by Marc Carlson in Strange New Worlds 9.
The Coalition of Planets is obviously a precursor to the Federation, which will be founded seven years after this episode.
This is the last of 29 Trek episodes directed by LeVar Burton, who also played Geordi La Forge on TNG, Voyager, and Picard and in four movies. Burton has continued to be active as a TV director, most recently having lensed several episodes of NCIS: Hawai‘i.
The Coridanite ambassador has a completely different appearance from the Coridanites seen in “Shadows of P’Jem” (and later in Discovery’s “Far from Home”). The novel The Good that Men Do by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin explains this as the ambassador wearing a ceremonial mask.
It’s been a long road… “Terra Prime forever!” This is a very effective episode generally, and one that has become more depressingly relevant as social commentary, as the rhetoric espoused by Paxton and Josiah is the same anti-other nonsense that’s been getting way too much play in this country about certain illegal immigrants and in the UK during the entire Brexit mishegoss, among many other places.
I’ve said this a lot during this rewatch, but this is the kind of story Enterprise should’ve been doing all along, and while it was nicely seeded in the bar brawl in “Home” particularly, the fact that it took until the penultimate storyline to cover it is annoying.
The Xindi attack especially is something that would prompt a subsection of humanity to go all xenophobic and isolationist. Not everyone, of course—what I especially like is that the rise of Terra Prime is concurrent with the advancing of the Coalition of Planets. Which is the way of things, sadly—progress is often met with violent regressives. Ending slavery led to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. More recently, expansion of rights for non-heterosexuals has led to a rise in violence against them.
Josiah’s speech was especially mind-blowing to watch in 2024, as that speech resonates at least as much as it did nineteen years ago. (Though I’m sure writer Manny Coto was inspired by the anti-Muslim rhetoric flying about in the wake of 9/11.)
Peter Weller has aged nicely into the kind of person who is good at angry-white-guy roles (see also his turn in Star Trek Into Darkness, not to mention his recurring roles on Sons of Anarchy and The Last Ship). He absolutely nails Paxton’s confident arrogance here, making him a bad guy to be reckoned with.
The episode loses a few points for a couple of things that twigged me greatly. The first is, as mentioned above, the fact that T’Pol has to say to Tucker that she’s never been pregnant. Unless Vulcans gestate really really really fast, there’s no way T’Pol could’ve had a kid without anyone knowing, as the only time she was away from the ship for a significant period was between “Home” and “Borderland,” which was only a few weeks. And, again, we have the means to medically determine if a woman’s ever been pregnant now, so the notion that it’s not something that could be determined by Phlox waving a scanner over her is ludicrous.
Secondly, Enterprise continues to give us a united Earth that’s mostly Caucasian. Both the prime minister of Earth and the head of Terra Prime are WASPy white dudes. Worse, though, is that we do actually get a couple people of color in the guest cast this week—and they’re both bad guys! As wonderful as it is to see Peter Mensah, and as good as Adam Clark is, it would’ve been nice to see some Black folks who aren’t xenophobic terrorists. And the complete lack of Latin, Middle Easter, or Asian people (beyond Sato) remains tiresome. They even give poor Mayweather a subplot, but it’s all in service of his being duped by his ex, which is only a nominal improvement over how they usually ignore the ensign.
Still, this is one of Enterprise’s stronger social commentary episodes, and one that nicely shows the growing pains of Earth in the transition between World War III and the founding of the Federation.
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be Author Guest of Honor at the inaugural ConVivial in Williamsburg, Virginia this weekend, alongside Music Guests of Honor HipHopMcDougal, Cosplay Guest of Honor Angela Pritchett, and Fan Guest of Honor Candi O’Rourke. Keith will be doing lots of programming, and also will be performing with the Boogie Knights for a few concerts. His full schedule will be posted to his blog soon.
