“Exile”
Written by Phyllis Strong
Directed by Roxann Dawson
Season 3, Episode 6
Production episode 058
Original air date: October 15, 2003
Date: unknown
Captain’s star log. An alien makes telepathic contact with Sato. At first she thinks she’s hallucinating, the stress of their situation starting to get to her, especially since neither Phlox nor Reed can find any medical or scientific reason why she’s hearing someone whispering her name and seeing shadowy figures in her quarters.
T’Pol has been analyzing the sensor data on the anomalies, both from Enterprise and the Xindi database, and she theorizes that the anomalies might be caused by gravimetric waves from the sphere crossing with the gravimetric waves from another sphere. She’s been able to triangulate the rough location of this theoretical second sphere. Archer, excited, sets a course.
On T’Pol’s orders, Sato goes to the command center to translate more of the Xindi database. Once again, the telepathic contact is made, and this time it’s more detailed. She sees images of his planet and of herself on the command center screens, and then she is seemingly transported to what looks like a medieval castle. The alien, who appears human and calls himself Tarquin, offers to help them in their mission. (At one point, he also gave himself the appearance of Phlox.)
Archer decides to take a shot, and heads to the coordinates. Archer, Sato, and Reed take a shuttlepod down to meet Tarquin, who turns out to be more alien-looking than he let on. He was only expecting Sato, but he greets the others with equal friendliness.
His telepathy allows him to read telepathic imprints that people leave behind on objects they’ve manipulated. If they have something of the Xindi’s, he can, with a few days’ meditation and work, provide information about them. Archer gives him a piece of the device that attacked Earth in “The Expanse.”
Tarquin, however, asks that Sato stay to keep him company over those few days. Archer is reluctant, but Sato is willing to volunteer to stay behind to hang out with him. He’s all alone on the planet. Archer promises to be back in a few days after they’ve checked out the other sphere.
Apparently, Tarquin’s telepathy only works directly brain-to-brain, as it were, on a select few people, people who have the right kind of mind. Sato is one such. Telepaths are rare on Tarquin’s world, and those who have the ability are exiled. He’s been living here for centuries, though he has sufficient technology to want for nothing—except company. He’s able to re-create some Earth food using his food synthesizer, based on what he’s read in Sato’s mind. They talk a lot about Sato’s life and feelings, and she can’t help but notice how little he talks about his life. He shows her a crystal that helps amplify his telepathy to allow him to reach out for light-years, which is how he found Sato. She tries it, and gets flashes of memories from assorted past adventures, as well as a view of a Xindi-Reptilian. He also gives her a book that is from whoever lived on the planet in the distant past. When Tarquin is working, Sato translates and reads the book.
As Enterprise approaches the sphere, the anomalies pound the crap out of the ship. It quickly becomes clear—especially when a slice of the saucer’s hull is ripped off—that Enterprise can’t approach this sphere. So they take the trellium they mined last week and use it to coat the hull of one of the shuttlepods. Archer and Tucker head into the cloaking field, and make it out the other side, then land on the sphere. There’s some damage that Tucker has to go EVA to fix, and he accidentally activates the port thruster, which sends the shuttle careening into space. Archer and Tucker have to destroy the thruster in question so the shuttle will crash back to the sphere hull. It does that, skidding toward them, yet they don’t move, because they’re TV characters, and they know that it’ll stop skidding two feet before it hits them. Sure.
Tarquin has advised Sato not to go outside, as the wind is nasty, but the real reason is that he’s buried the last several people who’ve been his companion on this world. Sato is appalled, and makes it clear that her visit is temporary. Tarquin tries to appeal to the sense of loneliness that she feels even on a starship, though how he’s supposed to convince her to cure loneliness by spending all her time with just one other person on a whole planet is not clear.
Enterprise heads back to pick up Sato, now armed with a shit-ton of data from the sphere. On the planet, Archer approaches Sato and says that Tarquin will only provide the information he’s gotten from the Xindi tech if she remains with him for a time. Sato reluctantly agrees, but when Archer won’t even let her go back to ship to collect her things and brief the new alpha-shift communications officer, she realizes that Tarquin is pulling a fast one by psionically posing as Archer. She confronts him, again refusing to stay, and threatening to destroy the crystal. Tarquin does agree to let her leave, but refuses to provide the information he’s learned from the Xindi tech.
Enterprise picks up Sato and buggers off. Archer’s pissed about Tarquin, but at least they got Sato back and have lots of cool sphere data. Pursuant to that, T’Pol now has a map of the anomalies, and her initial theory was both right and wrong—there is more than one sphere, but there’s also more than two. Based on the map of the anomalies she’s been able to compile, there are approximately fifty of them.
Tarquin contacts Sato, to her annoyance. He promises that this is the last time he’ll reach out to her. He provides the coordinates for a colony on which the Xindi built the weapon, and where they are likely building their bigger one. He changed his mind about sharing the intel with them because their mission is dangerous, and he doesn’t want to see Sato hurt. Sato passes those coordinates on to a suddenly very excited Archer…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? When T’Pol theorizes that there are fifty or so spheres, all creating a mess of anomalies, Archer realizes that the spheres may have created the Delphic Expanse…
The gazelle speech. Instead of being grim and nasty Archer, this week he’s closer to his old self, mainly because they’re doing science and finding stuff out. It’s heartening.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol has been burning the midnight oil in the command center studying the Xindi database, likely because she’s still having nightmares from her trellium poisoning in “Impulse.”
Speaking of that, Archer tells her to stay away from the launch bay while Tucker fits one of the shuttles with trellium, and Jolene Blalock gives a heartfelt “Indeed” worthy of Teal’c…
Florida Man. Florida Man Makes First Ever Anomaly-Proof Shuttlepod!
Optimism, Captain! Tarquin poses as Phlox at one point, and it’s creepy as hell….
Better get MACO. For some inexplicable reason, Archer leaves Sato alone on a planet with an alien they just met. The whole reason why you have, not just a security detail, but the MACOs on the ship is to protect the crew, so why the hell didn’t he leave a MACO or four with her?
I’ve got faith…
“Sometimes, I don’t know what is worse—being alone, or having to bury the people I’ve come to care about.”
–Tarquin, failing his saving roll vs. empathy.
Welcome aboard. The only guest is Maury Sterling as Tarquin.
Trivial matters: This is Phyllis Strong’s first solo writing effort for Trek—all her previous writing for both Voyager and Enterprise was in collaboration with Mike Sussman.
When she uses the crystal, Sato sees images from, among other places, “Sleeping Dogs,” “Judgment,” and “The Communicator.”
This was the first episode of any Trek series to be aired in high-definition, a practice that was becoming more and more commonplace across the first decade of the millennium.
It’s been a long road… “The next time you invite someone for a visit, you might want to let them know that you’re looking for a lifelong companion.” This is almost an excellent episode, for all that it wears its influences—it’s pretty much Beauty and the Beast and Phantom of the Opera—on, not just its sleeve, but on the whole damn shirt.
Buy the Book
Dead Country
Thankfully, the story avoids the biggest problem with B&tB in particular, which is that it’s a rather creepy case of Stockholm Syndrome disguised as a romantic comedy, which has always sat poorly with me. (Even back in 1991 when the Disney animated version came out, I kept thinking, “But he kidnapped her! It’s not true love, it’s a damn felony!”) But even though Sato thankfully at no point gives in to Tarquin’s desire to keep her prisoner, there are so many little things that threw me out of the story. For starters, Archer just left her alone on the planet with this telepathic rando without any protection beyond a phase pistol. Seriously, why are the MACOs even there if they can’t provide security for a bridge officer stuck on a strange planet?
And then Sato is so nervous about being with this strange alien that she gads about the place in a tank top and shorts the whole time. Because the producers of Enterprise are never happier than when they’re sexualizing their female characters.
The biggest problem is that Maury Sterling is pretty nowhere as Tarquin. He isn’t charming enough to make Sato’s being willing to hang out with him convincing, and he isn’t menacing enough to make the reveal that he’s a predator land very well. (Also: he’s got a whole planet to himself, why does he put the graves of his previous hostages so close to the castle where the next victims can find it like Sato does?)
The Enterprise half of the plot is both useful for moving the seasonal arc along and only occasionally interesting. Finding out that there are tons more spheres is very important to the overall plot, but getting there is not half the fun. For one thing, why isn’t Mayweather the one piloting the shuttlepod into the cloaking field? This is the second episode in a row where the ace pilot isn’t doing the job that requires ace piloting, and when the ace pilot is the only person of color in the main cast and he’s being set aside for the white dude, it’s not a good look. For another, the whole setting off the port thruster and having to shoot down the shuttle is such obvious filler, it’s sad.
Linda Park is excellent as always, and she does well with the spotlight, and hey, at least it’s not as dreadful as “Vanishing Point.” But this should’ve been a stronger episode, and it was done in by bad guest casting and several failures of scripting.
Warp factor rating: 5
Keith R.A. DeCandido is also reviewing the new episodes of Star Trek: Picard as they are released on Paramount+, and in anticipation of that, he also rewatched the movies Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis on this here site, right before his review of Picard’s “The Next Generation.” His review of Picard’s “Disengage” went up last week, and his review of “Seventeen Seconds” will go up on Thursday.
