“Home”
Written by Mike Sussman
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 4, Episode 3
Production episode 079
Original air date: October 22, 2004
Date: unknown
Captain’s star log. The “senior staff” of Enterprise (e.g., everyone in the opening credits) is given a big welcome home in San Francisco. Archer gives a speech that focuses on the twenty-seven people who didn’t make it home.
Archer’s debriefing with Forrest, Williams, and Soval goes poorly, at first. Archer is defensive, particularly toward Soval, given Soval’s attempts to keep Enterprise from even going to the Delphic Expanse. Forrest puts the debrief on hold so Archer can take some time to clear his head.
He goes rock-climbing, where he’s joined, to his surprise, by the newly minted captain of Columbia, NX-02, Captain Hernandez. She reminds him that you should never rock climb alone (a lesson another Enterprise captain will forget a century and a half hence). As they climb, they discuss various things, including Archer’s regret that he’s no longer the gung-ho explorer that he was three years ago—and that Hernandez is now.
T’Pol goes home to Vulcan. Tucker was planning to stay on Enterprise to oversee the refit, but Archer pretty much orders him to take a vacation. But his home was destroyed, and he has nowhere else on Earth he wants to go. T’Pol invites him along.
Upon arrival, the pair of them learn that T’Pol’s mother T’Les has retired from her position at the Science Academy. This surprises T’Pol. Another surprise is when her fiancé Koss comes to visit. While T’Pol had broken their engagement, Koss still wants to marry her. Koss also reveals that T’Les was forced into retirement, but if T’Pol agrees to marry Koss, he can prevail upon his father to use his influence to get her reinstated.
T’Les finally tells the whole truth: she was accused of removing classified documents shortly after the incident on P’Jem. They couldn’t touch T’Pol on Enterprise, but they could mess with her family in punishment for the destruction of the monastery.
T’Les, not being a moron, can see that Tucker and T’Pol love each other. But T’Pol also agrees to marry Koss in order to allow her mother to be reinstated. Tucker isn’t thrilled to have traveled all this way to see her marry someone else, but he declines T’Les’ suggestion that he share his true feelings for her. Tucker’s rationale is that T’Pol has enough pressure on her as it is…
Reed, Mayweather, and Phlox are hanging out in a bar and signing autographs, but things get ugly when one guy objects to Phlox’s presence, telling him he’d be more comfortable in the Vulcan Embassy. This leads eventually to a bar fight.
Later, Phlox is giving Sato a checkup, assuring her that the brain parasites Dolim injected into her are almost entirely out of her system. He then declines to accompany her and Mayweather to Madame Chang’s, even though he had said he was eagerly looking forward to once again having their egg drop soup. Phlox believes it would be better for everyone if he stayed on the ship rather than risk another xenophobic incident. Sato isn’t happy, but does agree to bring him back some takeout.
Archer finishes the debrief, and has a moment with Soval. Tucker attends T’Pol and Koss’ wedding.
The gazelle speech. Archer spends the entire episode in a (completely understandable) PTSD funk, complete with a nightmare where he’s ambushed by Xindi-Reptilians.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol spends the entire episode looking anxious; she’s very obviously still having trouble with her emotions. Finding out her mother was politically railroaded because of T’Pol’s actions doesn’t help matters.
Florida Man. Florida Man Visits Alien Planet!
Optimism, Captain! When threatened, Denobulans can blow out their heads, similar to that of a blowfish. Phlox does this during the bar fight.
Ambassador Pointy. Soval is more than a little confrontational during the debriefing, but when it’s over, he accepts Archer’s apology for the captain’s earlier outburst, and also admits that, despite his initial objections, Archer is the right person for the job of Enterprise captain. Soval then shakes a surprised Archer’s hand.
The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… Vulcan hospitality tradition includes getting up at 4am to prepare breakfast if you’re a guest in someone’s house. Tucker doesn’t find this out until 4am the first morning he’s there…
Blue meanies. Archer at one point angrily points out to Soval that the Andorians were more help to Enterprise’s mission than the Vulcans were.
Better get MACO. To Hernandez’s surprise, Archer suggests that she assign a MACO to tactical.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Archer and Hernandez used to date, but they ended it because he was her superior officer. They’re equals now, so they rekindle their romance while rock climbing.
I’ve got faith…
“I’ve been told that people are calling us heroes. When it comes to my crew, you won’t get any argument from me. But I think it’s important that we remember the heroes who aren’t with us: the twenty-seven crewmen who didn’t make it back. Without their sacrifice, I wouldn’t be standing here right now—none of us would. But I’m sure I speak on behalf of my entire crew when I say, it’s good to be home.”
–Archer’s words to the crowd welcoming them home.
Welcome aboard. We’ve got existing recurring regulars Vaughn Armstrong as Forrest (back from “The Expanse”), Gary Graham as Soval (back from “Twilight”), and Jim Fitzpatrick as Williams (back from “Regeneration”). Armstrong and Graham will be back in “The Forge,” while this is Fitzpatrick’s final appearance.
We also get four new recurring characters: Ada Maris as Hernandez, Joanna Cassidy as T’Les, Michael Reilly Burke as Koss, and Jack Donner as the priest. Maris will return in “Affliction,” Cassidy will be back in “Awakening,” Burke (who previously played a rogue Borg in TNG’s “Descent, Part II” and a Cardassian dissident in DS9’s “Profit and Loss”) will be back in “The Forge,” and Donner (who previously played Sub-commander Tal in the original series’ “The Enterprise Incident”) will return in “Kir’Shara.”
Trivial matters: Soval cautioned against entering the Expanse in “The Expanse,” which is also when the Xindi prototype attacked Earth destroying, among other places, Tucker’s Florida home. The Andorians aided Enterprise in both “Proving Ground” and “Zero Hour.” Archer points to the sky at the first new world they explored and tells Hernandez what happened there in “Strange New World.” Phlox’s love of egg drop soup was first mentioned in “Broken Bow.” Sato had brain parasites injected into her by Dolim in “Countdown.”
Humans’ xenophobia in the wake of the Xindi attack will be revisited in “Demons” and “Terra Prime.”
Hernandez’s name is never spoken in the script, bizarrely, though that same script refers to her as Erika Hernandez. Her family name will finally be spoken in “Affliction.”
Absurdly, there was a subsection of Trek fandom that objected to Hernandez’s presence, because this takes place prior to the original series’ “Turnabout Intruder,” and Janet Lester said that women weren’t allowed in Kirk’s world of starship captains and so there shouldn’t have been a female starship captain in a story chronologically prior to that story. Luckily, that was a particularly dopey subsection of fandom, and most people didn’t listen to them, especially not the producers of Enterprise…
Archer mentions Captain Jefferies, the head of Enterprise’s design team, also mentioned in “First Flight,” named after Matt Jefferies, who designed the original Enterprise back in 1964.
While this is Koss’ first appearance, he has been mentioned several times, most notably in “Breaking the Ice,” when T’Pol broke off their engagement.
When trying to blow off Koss, T’Pol mentions both her sickness—which could refer either to her Pa’nar Syndrome (contracted in “Fusion” and diagnosed in “Stigma”) or her trellium poisoning (contracted in “Impulse,” seemingly cured, but it was revealed in “Damage” that she continued to use trellium)—and the kal-if-fee, the ritual combat to get out of a marriage, first seen in the original series’ “Amok Time.” In addition, the opening of the wedding ceremony at the end is the same as that heard by T’Pau in “Amok Time.”
It has long been a fan assumption that Vulcan orbits the star 40 Eridani. While this isn’t stated specifically in dialogue here, Tucker does say he traveled sixteen light-years to Vulcan, and 40 Eridani is about sixteen light-years from Earth…
Hernandez tells Archer that her old high school was renamed after Archer. She jokes that more schools are named after him than are named after Zefram Cochrane. It was established in the movie First Contact that La Forge went to one of the high schools named after Cochrane.
It’s been a long road… “I lost something out there—I don’t know how to get it back.” I’ve always been much more invested in the aftermath of a conflict than the conflict itself, so it’s perhaps not a surprise that I adore this episode. In fact, I like this even more than the similarly themed TNG episode “Family,” mostly because the trauma Archer is suffering is more long-term. It goes all the way back to his devastation and anger at the attack on Earth in “The Expanse” through to his questionable moral choices (“Anomaly” and “Damage” in particular), as well as having to deal with the loss of more than a quarter of his crew.
It helps that Scott Bakula has superb chemistry with the wonderful Ada Maris as Hernandez. Maris is wonderfully calm and relaxed and centered, which is exactly what a rudderless Archer needs. Bakula plays Archer as a total mess, as his entire life’s work has turned into this ugly thing that he can’t shake.
The entire episode is about consequences, and doesn’t shy away from any of them. Some are positive: Enterprise’s return to a not-blown-up Earth, the spheres having been destroyed before they could expand to engulf the entire quadrant.
But far too many are negative. There’s the wave of xenophobia on Earth, which would be all too familiar to contemporary viewers who were seeing far too many Americans treating Muslims the way the jerks in the bar treated Phlox. There’s T’Pol’s slow recovery from trellium poisoning, which Jolene Blalock plays beautifully. T’Pol’s entire affect is just a bit off, like she’s barely holding in an explosion of temper, which is a pretty accurate description of what T’Pol’s going through.
And there’s T’Les’ ouster as the political fallout from T’Pol helping Archer expose the illegal listening post on P’Jem, which leads to T’Pol reversing her decision to back out of her arranged marriage, a move that obviously breaks her heart and Tucker’s. But Tucker doesn’t push, because he knows it’s important to T’Pol that her mother not suffer from the consequences of her own actions. Yet that, too, will have consequences…
Just a beautiful examination of the effect that trauma has on people, and which would’ve been a much more effective start to the season than a Space Nazi two-parter. Alas. Not that a large enough number of people were still watching at this point…
Warp factor rating: 10
Keith R.A. DeCandido urges you all to support the Kickstarter for Grandma Got Kidnapped by Aliens (and Other Holiday Disasters), edited by Hildy Silverman for Crazy 8 Press. This anthology of holidays gone horribly wrong will include stories by fellow Trek scribes Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, Paul Kupperberg, Glenn Hauman, Aaron Rosenberg, Geoffrey Thorne, Derek Tyler Attico, and Howard Weinstein. If the book makes a stretch goal, Keith will do a story as well! Please consider supporting.
I can’t help but think of this as an episode devoted to a demonstration of that special, special way in which Vulcans are often hard to like but sometimes quite impossible not to love: Also, has the extended universe ever given the age-old Vulcan tradition of Not Talking About It* a properly Vulcan name? (At this point it’s something between a National Pastime and a Cultural Art Form).
On a related note, it’s amusing and a little sad to observe that the apple doesn’t seem to have fallen very far from the tree when it comes to T’Pol and Mamma T’Pol (It strikes me that the latter’s emotions are nearer the surface than they are in many Vulcans, although slightly better managed than there are in T’Pol, at least at the moment).
*Also Known As “We don’t talk about ——-“.
It’s also rather amusing to see Lieutenant Reed fall into his usual bad habit of peacocking around like an absolute ninny when on shore leave: I like to think of it as a running joke, though I’m not sure that this was an entirely deliberate interpretation of the character.
Also, I’d pay money to hear Ensign Mayweather’s thoughts when he heard that bigoted nonsense: I suspect he and Ben Sisko would have had much the same basic response to Humanity falling into old, bad habits.
Oh, and I’ve only known Captain Hernandez for an episode, but I would absolutely fight for the chance to serve on her crew: she has the makings of an absolutely excellent boss.
“It has long been a fan assumption that Vulcan orbits the star 40 Eridani.”
Originally proposed by James Blish in his “Tomorrow is Yesterday” adaptation, and carried forward by fan works including the Star Fleet Technical Manual (though only implicitly, by counting 40 Eri as one of the UFP founders) and the Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual (making it explicit). It was made canonical in a screen graphic in Strange New Worlds: “Charades” a few weeks ago.
“Home” is a refreshing episode after the incongruous weirdness of “Storm Front.” It’s nice that they were willing to do another “Family,” a strictly character-driven story about the characters dealing with the aftermath of past events.
Since my novel Enterprise: Rise of the Federation — Uncertain Logic takes place largely on Vulcan, I rewatched “Yesteryear” and “Home” before writing it, and it struck me how much the design of T’Les’s home here is based on the design of Sarek’s home in the animated episode. Both houses have walls made entirely of windows looking out on enclosed courtyards containing fountains and sculptures.
This was the episode that made me actually rather like the Trip/T’Pol relationship, even in spite of how bad the neuropressure scenes in the previous season were. Plus we get Captain Hernandez out of it–one of my favourite recurring ‘Enterprise’ characters.
Christopher: thank you for that, I forgot that it was Blish who first proposed 40 Eri as Vulcan’s star.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
A fine episode, but do you really think it would have done as a season starter? I know that the TCW is generally reviled, but the two-parter had a decent dose of action. By contrast, this was a comtemplative episode. It might have been a great finale of season 3, if they had removed one of the non-arc episodes.
I almost forgot to mention – while this episode’s teaser isn’t exactly one for the ages, it was nice to see Captain Archer keep the dead of Enterprise very much in the foreground (In a way even more beloved captains have sometimes failed to).
On to the really good stuff. I am 100% with your KRAD, Family and Home are some of the most beautiful episodes in the franchise. Dealing with our beleaguered and exhausted heroes, picking up the pieces. I can’t remember was the PTSD of it all (the Afghan and Iraq wars) being focused on when this episode came out? (wow, looking at the air date I’d only been out for three months when this dropped).
Frankly Archer was justified to let Soval have it, though I also appreciated the rapprochement at the end.
As someone fully invested in Trip and T’Pol this was a gut punch and Koss is exceptionally scummy to hold that over T’Pol’s head. If you have to blackmail a woman into marrying you, maybe you’d be better served by accepting that she don’t want you, even if she is Jolene Blalock beautiful. I really like T’Les though, she was a pretty cool lady. But getting up at Reverie to make breakfast for your hosts? No thank you, that’s the weirdest and the worst Vulcan tradition by far. I don’t want someone doing stuff in my kitchen. Can you imagine T’Pril as a guest in your home, she’d spend the whole breakfast telling you how your utensils were improperly stored, your family tea is sorry, and your seasoning selection is trash without there even being a ritual involved.
Ahh Xenophobia, did you even wait to raise your trashy head? Phlox, one of the heroes that saved the Earth being insulted and terrorized by the Earthlings. Humans, right? *Eye Roll* I did like the blowfish defense though. Honestly that’d be useful for taking a punch too….or even falling from a high place.
I like Captain Hernandez a lot, though I found the Destiny series treatment of Columbia a bit ridiculous (Caeliar storyline not in any way a fan). She’s a great recurring character. I wonder if Marie Batel is an intentional spiritual successor. Fellow captains with their own lives who love our lead Enterprise Captain and are also the ones to keep him centered and check him when he goes too far up his own backside.
I remember this episode as the one that gave me the motivation to continue watching Enterprise, so it’s kind of sad that most viewers had already checked out. Apart from everything else, Scott Bakula is actually really good in it. Also, it tackled Trip and T’Pol’s relationship without any scenes pandering to teenage boys. Overall it felt like a more mature show than it had been.
I always took from Lester’s comment in Turnabout Intruder her externalizing the fact that she flunked the tests for command into a more general and made up view that all women were so excluded from such a position. After all, she was, shall we saw, not fully mentally healthy in that episode.
While we saw no women captains in TOS, we did have Number One in The Cage as a suggestion that command was not out of the question for women in Starfleet.
I liked this episode too, but I wouldn’t rate it nearly as high as “Family”. Both episodes are great character studies of the main character dealing with trauma, and Scott Bakula does a creditable job here, maybe one of the best performances he’s had in this series or any other. But he’s no Patrick Stewart. And there’s nothing to compare with the chemistry that Stewart had with Jeremy Kemp as his brother. For my money, Kemp’s performance is the greatest guest appearance on any Trek episode, and it’s not a close race.
I would also quibble with the suggestion that Archer’s struggle is more poignant because his trauma is more long-term. Chronologically, of course yes. But his pain derives from seeing his planet his friends and his crew harmed by a third party. Picard had to deal with his ingrained belief that he did not fight hard enough against the Borg, and that he himself was responsible for Wolf 359. His body and mind were invasively probed and forced to comply. With all due respect to Captain Archer, what he has to deal with In terms of contemplating the threat to Earth is nothing any more than anyone else on that ship did, beyond that, he gave some orders and made some decisions of questionable moral character. I don’t think that compares to having your entire self forcefully connected to a collective being that used you to damn near wipe out your entire species.
“Earth’s been holding its breath for the past year.”
You probably couldn’t have started the season with this, but after the Xindi and the Temporal Cold War have both been wrapped up, we get Enterprise’s equivalent of ‘Family’. There’s some interesting character building as the characters come to terms with what they’ve done, what they’ve become and what they have to do next. They aren’t always likable, with Archer coming across as particularly petulant as he and Soval continue to be adept at pushing each other’s buttons. But they’ve all got healing to do. There’s something almost spiritual at Archer trekking to the top of a mountain in order to cleanse himself of the sins he’s committed in the name of protecting Earth and finding peace with himself.
Meanwhile, on Vulcan, T’Pol and Tucker are being rather sweetly awkward around each other. T’Pol invites Tucker to meet her mother in a scene full of things left unsaid, and which will remain unsaid at the rather abrupt, downbeat ending. Despite his rather sulky reaction to T’Pol’s wedding plans, Tucker manages to be noble and, in his own way, quite logical.
I think Dominic Keating expressed disappointment at the way Reed and Mayweather were quick to resort to fisticuffs rather than defusing the situation. Still, them doing so means Phlox gets to defuse things in his own unique way with his pufferfish impersonation. (For, I believe, the only time. I did almost say blowfish, but I pufferfish sounds more amusing to me!) I like the way Reed doesn’t quite seem to know whether to burst our laughing or not.
Not only is Erika Hernandez not referred to by name, neither is T’Les, which didn’t help contemporary reviews where Hernandez got referred to as “the female captain”. I’d completely forgotten Koss was in ‘The Forge’ (which is the only Enterprise episode I’ve only seen once), I didn’t think we saw him again until ‘Kir’Shara’. It’s curious to note how much is being set up here. This is about the last time Archer and Soval genuinely butt heads, with their final conversation setting the stage for Soval’s more sympathetic characterisation this season. It’s intriguing to watch T’Les’ behaviour, especially near the end, in light of her next appearance. And of course, the xenophobia on Earth will be revisited near the end of the season.
Archer states twenty-seven members of the crew didn’t make it back: Reed said Hawkins in ‘The Council’ was the twenty-third fatality on the mission, after which we saw Hayes killed in ‘Countdown’ and Forbes in ‘Zero Hour’. Were there two casualties during the battle in ‘Countdown’?
@10 said: I liked this episode too, but I wouldn’t rate it nearly as high as “Family”
I liked both episodes but this one scores higher for showing the lasting impact of the Xindi attack on the world at large rather than just being one person’s story of recovery. Also, the Worf plot in “Family” isn’t very compelling.
@12- I’m with you on the b plot. I meant to mention that, the only flaw in Family is that Worf’s adoptive parents aren’t very interesting.
And I see your point about portraying the effects on the world at large, But I see things the opposite way. By sharpening its focus, Family was able to drill down deep into Picard’s incalculable grief and guilt, and It was a delicious irony in the story that the man who was able to get Picard to face his fallibility was his own estranged brother. I think Home would have been much more compelling had It been more tightly focused. And I don’t understand why the episode did not have Tucker even mentioning his dead sister, much less considering how his grief might have been affected by the defeat of those who killed her. JMO
@12, 13: I disagree with you both in regards to “Family”‘s b-plot. Finally meeting Worf’s human parents and seeing their obvious love and concern for him was indeed compelling and the characters as played by those particular actors were endearing and made a lasting impression.
twels & fullyfunctional: Worf’s fosterparents were one of the best things ever in the history of Star Trek, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a big poopyhead.
Poopyhead, I tells ya!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who is not a poopyhead
Yeah the Rozhenkos were a joy. Worf didn’t have some tough military taskmasters, or stern disciplinarians, he had a pair of sweet, bubbly, beautiful marshmallows who loved him no matter what difficulties he had and ached for him during his trials and tribulations and reminded him that discommendation meant the Klingons were losing more than he was. Honor be damned they knew who Worf was.
That was one thing that wasn’t a part of Worf’s arc in TNG due to the nature of his history. Aside from Kurn, no one in the Empire who truly knew Worf, therefore we didn’t get to see the reaction of people who would hear that Worf was discommendated and call BS on him being a traitor, or a traitor’s son. The sad thing is there was no one would step up for Mogh like that either.
@13: Actually, Tucker does mention his sister, albeit only once and almost in passing. He gives the fact she isn’t there any more as one of the key reasons why he doesn’t want to spend his vacation time on Earth and doesn’t consider it his home now, hence his accompanying T’Pol.
Personally, I think I like “Family” a little better than this episode, just because it had that wonderful mud wrestling scene. And I definitely agree about the Rozhenkos; whoever decided that Worf’s foster parents were an adorable Belarusian Jewish couple deserves all the accolades.
@18. Jaimebabb: It remains an ongoing shame and a disgrace that the expanded universe of STAR TREK – to the best of y knowledge – contains not one single episode revolving around Mr Worf being Klingon-Russian-Jewish (Just try telling me that FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is not one of Mr Worf’s favourite things: go on, TRY).
I’m not saying Mr Worf has to stop being Peak Klingon, I’m just pointing out that there is a rich vein of comedy gold going unmined if we deny ourselves the chance to show the Son of Mogh code-switch into the Son of House Rotschenko every so often, for example by referring to World War II as “the Great Patriotic War” or casually discussing some point of Jewish tradition with a Rabbi* and generally showing more than a basic level knowledge of certain Earthly customs touching on his adoptive mother & father.
*I cannot, however, decide if it would be funnier were Mr Worf to be as deeply traditional when it comes to matters Jewish as he is when it comes to things Klingon: I do, however, feel that the tragic lack of pictures of Mr Worf wearing a kippah is a truly tragic lack indeed.
ED: you really need to read the Starfleet Corps of Engineers novella Creative Couplings by Glenn Hauman and Aaron Rosenberg, which is in the year paperback collection of the same name. Among other things, it has the first ever Klingon Jewish wedding…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I know the Rozhenkos are awesome. I have all the DVDs at home!
@15 said: twels & fullyfunctional: Worf’s fosterparents were one of the best things ever in the history of Star Trek, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a big poopyhead.
Poopyhead, I tells ya!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who is not a poopyhead
The Rozhenkos are no doubt lovely people. And it is interesting that Worf was raised by two VERY non-Klingon individuals. The issue for me really is the fact that we’ve got one really compelling plot of one man’s guilt and trauma being addressed and another similar plot played so much more lightly, it doesn’t gel well
@15 I still think the Rozhenkos were rote caricatures, but I’m just a poopyhead and I’m okay with that. It’s one of the nicer things I’ve been called lately! 😊
@18– The mud wrestling scene is fantastic, at first it’s exhilarating, then it’s funny, then it is deeply moving to watch Picard finally let It all come to the surface.
The second time I saw the episode was when BBC America was rerunning the series about 10 years ago. I was waiting for the follow-up to that scene when Marie walks in, appalled to see the brothers sitting there covered in mud and getting drunk. BBC actually cut that scene for time constraints. I was outraged lol, It was one of the best moments in an already wonderful episode.
@17- I had forgotten about that. To quote Emily Litella, never mind… 😎
@22/twels: “The issue for me really is the fact that we’ve got one really compelling plot of one man’s guilt and trauma being addressed and another similar plot played so much more lightly, it doesn’t gel well”
I think the contrast is good — it provides a respite from the tension. That’s often what subplots are for.
@@@@@, ED,
Someone asked Worf, “How can you eat that?” Worf, “TARGS are Kosher!“
I think the two plots in Family gel together quite well, since they both give a great deal of insight into the characters of Picard and Worf. That one is more light than the other just keeps the episode from feeling overly melodramatic.
And everyone forgets “Family”‘s C-plot with Wesley’s holo-message from his father…
Taking that extraneous two parter aside, “Home” works both as the finale to season 3 and also the true opening episode of season 4. I imagine it wasn’t nearly as hard to convince Rick Berman to do this very much essential episode compared to the difficulty that Michael Piller had in convincing him to do TNG’s “Family” back in season 4. I imagine it’s easier to detour from the norm and do very different types of episodes when you have a threat of cancellation over your head.
I adore both Archer and Phlox’s stories, and especially the way Archer’s story informs his current state of mind, but to me the real winner here is the Trip/T’Pol side of things. It gives us a much needed look into T’Pol’s personal life and it deals with her and Trip’s relationship in a surprisingly mature way. And a lot of that is thanks to the introduction of T’Les. What a breath of fresh air. Easily the most fascinating Vulcan character, and easily my favorite new character of season 4 (despite how brief her presence was).
Other than the knowledge of Brent Spiner’s Soong character, I first went into season 4 not knowing what would happen at all. What kind of stories I was about to experience. T’Pol’s mother was the biggest surprise to me. She’s given very a low-key introduction, but right away we see plenty of subtle clues something’s not quite right about her and 2150s Vulcan culture in general. And Joanna Cassidy gives a standout performance. Some great chemistry with both Blalock and Trinneer. It takes talent to deliver such a unique Vulcan that’s as far removed from the usual arrogant emotionless version we tend to see in these shows. And that’s T’Les in a nutshell. When we find her involvement in the Vulcan civil war arc a few episodes down the line, it makes perfect sense. Easily the best introduction of a recurring character.
Everything about this episode feels right. The rise of xenophobia following the Xindi arc, and how it’ll lead to “Terra Prime” later on. Coto, Sussman and company really had a good handle on how to balance episodic with serialized storytelling by this point, in a way that the current Trek writers really should pay attention to and take notes (including Matalas, who actually worked on ENT during this period – Picard really suffered from messy plotting).
Direction-wise, this is one of Kroeker’s best. He’s usually known for the big action blockbuster entries, but he’s just as great with the quieter ones (DS9’s “His Way” and “Children of Time” being the obvious examples). He modulates and transitions effortlessly between scenes of Archer rock-climbing and finding himself, Phlox bar brawls and Trip as fish out of water in Vulcan culture.
@29/CLB: I didn’t forget about that episode’s C-story, it’s just not as compelling as the other two storylines going on. I like it just for the fact that it was a glimpse at a character wearing an original movie series style Starfleet uniform which was rare to see on TNG.
@30/Eduardo S H Jencarelli: Agreed on Joanna Cassidy having a standout performance, she was brilliant. She understood better than many other actors that you don’t have to play a Vulcan like a robot.
Wow, what a positive surprise this episode. I still like Family from TNG more, but this is on level with it. And wow, I have to join the choir: T’Pol’s mum was a believable Vulcan. It’s rare to see with guest stars that they can be any good as a Vulcan, but Joanna Cassidy totally nailed it. And it’s also a rare surprise when I don’t find Archer and Bakula totally irritating, so this episode is exceptional also from this sense. :)