Star Trek: Enterprise: The Xindi Rewatch

July 29, 2019 10:52 AM - Season 3, Episode 1

The NX-01 finds a possible lead.

Background information
Story and script
> This was the opener for the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise and the beginning of the year-long Xindi incident story arc. ENT co-creator and Executive Producer Brannon Braga recalled, "We looked at 'The Xindi' as a pilot of sorts. We were re-establishing an Enterprise that was going to be a little bit different this year, so we had to think of it in those terms [....] We wanted to set the new tone right away, that this isn't going to be your typical season, and get everything rolling. So we really wanted to set up the MACOs and to establish the Xindi right away. We thought it would be kind of startling to just plop them out and say, 'Here they are.'" (Star Trek: Communicator issue 151, p. 27)
> This episode's final draft script was submitted on 17 June 2003.

Cast and characters
> Stephen McHattie, Randy Oglesby and Rick Worthy all appeared in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. McHattie starred as Senator Vreenak in "In the Pale Moonlight", Oglesby starred as both Ah-Kel and Ro-Kel in "Vortex", as well as Silaran Prin in "The Darkness and the Light", and Worthy starred as Kornan in "Soldiers of the Empire".
> Scott MacDonald previously appeared as N'Vek (TNG: "Face of the Enemy"), Tosk (DS9: "Captive Pursuit"), Goran'Agar (DS9: "Hippocratic Oath") and Rollins (VOY: "Caretaker").
Steven Culp appeared in a deleted scene from Star Trek Nemesis, as Commander Martin Madden.
> Daniel Dae Kim previously appeared in VOY: "Blink of an Eye", as Gotana-Retz.

Production
> The "Trellium-D dirt" in the mine was created by throwing lots of blue-painted Styrofoam into a wood chipper. Bits of the Styrofoam stuck to everything, and was tracked all over the Paramount Pictures lot. ("The Xindi" text commentary, ENT Season 3 DVD & Blu-ray special features)
> The Xindi-Reptilian uniforms were actually Reman costumes from Star Trek Nemesis with metal coils added to the shoulders.
> This is the first episode to use the newly modified version of "Where My Heart Will Take Me" in the opening credits.

Continuity
> This episode marks the first appearances of some of the Xindi regulars: Degra, Jannar, Commander Dolim, Kiaphet Amman'sor, the Xindi-Primate councilor, the Xindi-Insectoid councilor and the Aquatic councilor. The Aquatic and Insectoid species are subtitled; the other species are heard in English.
> This was the first episode to feature T'Pol and Tucker's neuro-pressure sessions.
> This episode features the first appearance of Enterprise's new command center as well as T'Pol's new civilian look. In addition, her eyebrows are now swept up in the traditional Vulcan manner.
> An orange Benzite-looking species can be seen in the trellium-D mining facility.
> The scene where the MACOs descend on a rope, firing, during the rescue of Captain Archer from the mining facility was used in an altered opening credit sequence for "In a Mirror, Darkly" and "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II".
> When asking T'Pol to give Tucker neuro-pressure, Phlox asks if she has any siblings, and says, "Commander Tucker had one – a sister." The script, and the remainder of the series, neglects the brother he mentioned "practicing the two-step with" in ENT: "Fusion".
> The concept of abducting crews from passing ships, and forcing them to work at the mining facility was previously visited in the Star Trek: Voyager episodes "Workforce" and "Workforce, Part II".
> This episode takes place six weeks after the events of "The Expanse".

Reception and aftermath
> Brannon Braga commented about this installment, "It was a big episode, [...] very ambitious." Braga more specifically remarked that – because this outing established the MACOs and the Xindi, as well as featuring "an adventure with us and the Expanse" – the episode set up "a lot of stuff." (Star Trek: Communicator issue 151, p. 27)
> Following this episode's production, bits of the Styrofoam used in this installment was often found on the Paramount lot during the rest of Star Trek: Enterprise, even when the main sets were being taken apart after the series finale, "These Are the Voyages...". ("The Xindi" text commentary, ENT Season 3 DVD & Blu-ray special features)

Memorable quotes

"Try not to breathe."
- Archer, to Reed while on the mining planet

"I'm certain, with your delicate guidance..."
"'Delicate' is not a word I associate with Mr. Tucker."
- Phlox and T'Pol

"Why would you do this?"
"Unfortunate accident."
- Archer and the Alien Foreman, discussing how he came to be in possession of Kessick's finger

"You know, I'm not sure why but I'm just itching to kick the hell out of you!"
"Trip – take it easy."
- Tucker forcefully grabs Kessick while Archer tries to calm him down

"Sewage takes on a whole new meaning when it comes from... a dozen different species."
- Archer

"The son of a bitch lied to us!"
- Archer, after discovering the destroyed Xindi homeworld Kessick sent Enterprise to

"The doctor injected you with a placebo. He sent you here because he wanted me to persuade you to try Vulcan neuro-pressure. As I predicted it was a pointless exercise."
"Why didn't he just ask me?"
"He did. You refused."
- T'Pol and Tucker

"Please disrobe."
- T'Pol, to Tucker

"The doctor knows how intransigent you can be."
"Intransigent?"
"Unwilling to compromise."
"I know what it means, but it just so happens, it's not true. I'm as willing to compromise as everyone else..."
"Then take off your shirt."
- T'Pol and Tucker

This Week In:
* Pointless STO Comparisons: MACOs still exist in the dark future of Star Trek Online, featuring specialized equipment.
* Vulcans Are Superior: Vulcans don’t need hyposprays.
* Non-Catastrophic Equipment Failures: The ship lacks proper insulation from the wackiness of the Delphic Expanse, and that shows up for the first time in this episode.
* Aliens Outclass Enterprise: As above, the aliens know about Trellium-D, while Starfleet does not.

Poster’s Log:
First up, I am properly labeling these as rewatches. My bad for anybody who might have been spoilered coming up to this moment.

Second thing: as I mentioned last time, this is one of those ‘mixed bag’ reviews.

So, some good stuff:
- The visuals hold up really well.
As far as I’m concerned, ENT is the prettiest Trek, even including DSC. When I say that, I mean that it best captures the aesthetics of Trek that I wanted after growing up watching TOS. This is particularly true of the alien effects here.

- The bad guys make more sense than usual.
The foreman’s attempt to capture Enterprise is decent. He attempts to delay Archer and Trip an extra hour to give his ships time to get closer. He tries to get information out of them at every turn. He denies them access to Kessick as long as possible, even cutting off the poor guy’s finger to avoid scans. He has guys waiting exactly where they *have* to go to escape the vented plasma.

I appreciated the display of competence.

- The MACOs are pretty good too.
Major Hayes and his guys actually read a file on something before coming aboard. They bothered to plan the rescue. They considered contingency options like ‘maybe the plan will take too long and we need to cover the ship.’

Again, I appreciated the display of competence.

- Trip’s nightmare was pretty good.
The last time I remember a nightmare sequence like that was Jetrel, where I felt it was out of place. Trip’s nightmare works better, honestly feeling like a bit of a Terminator 2 homage.

Moving on to the bad:
- Archer is incompetent again.
The opening sequence where he dresses down Reed for wanting to actually prepare for the mission was appalling. Taking Trip down to the surface was pretty stupid too - when trying to meet a Xindi for the first time, it would’ve made sense to take Reed or T’Pol or literally anyone who hadn’t just lost a sibling to the Xindi probe.

Also, his treatment of Kessick was pretty bad the entire time. I couldn’t believe when he offered to bribe a slave in a mining camp, but was aghast at just breaking the guy out.

This stings a little harder because the foreman and Hayes both do engage in basic reasoning and scheming/planning during this story, meaning it’s not that the writers can’t, it’s that Archer isn’t supposed to be able to.

- Phlox is on the wrong side of stuff again.
I like Phlox. He is intended to be the heart of the show - he has medical ethics (normally), he’s nearly the only one aboard the ship who seems interested in exploration every week, (although Hoshi has come a long way there, she’s still barely present).

It’s sad when they toss that stuff out the window, like they do this week. Him coercing T’Pol into trying to talk Trip into a new and intimate treatment is both against Denobulan medical ethics as presented, (Trip refused the procedure, and Phlox gave him a placebo without permission), and completely unfair to T’Pol.

- We traded down from decon gel.
I’d forgotten about the literal ‘T’Pol is topless with Trip, telling him to go harder’ business. Gah. This is what I get for rejoicing that we were done with decon gel scenes, apparently.

This feels like a throwback to their earlier failures at comedy, including Archer’s facing landing in T’Pol’s cleavage, T’Pol’s attempted seduction of a Ferengi or the entire plot of Precious Cargo.

So yeah. Mixed bag. Good stuff, bad stuff. I do think it probably is a step forward overall.

posted by mordax (9 comments total)

When asking T'Pol to give Tucker neuro-pressure, Phlox asks if she has any siblings, and says, "Commander Tucker had one – a sister." The script, and the remainder of the series, neglects the brother he mentioned "practicing the two-step with" in ENT: "Fusion".

Or maybe the brother was erased from history, another casualty of the Temporal Cold War?

Nah, they just forgot.
posted by Servo5678 at 12:18 PM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yeah, definitely a mixed bag. I'd thought of the MACOs as part of the "9/11ization" of the show, but as you noted, they're well-done, including Hayes' clashing a bit with Reed. (I understand that some people even ship them together.) The CGI has improved immensely from the earlier series that had it; the Xindi-Insectoid was particularly impressive. I also liked the foreman's scheming, at first seeming to be willing to settle for a bribe, but then revealing his real plan. (I didn't recognize Stephen McHattie, who was not only Vreenak but also Hollis Mason in the Watchmen movie, really about the best thing in the movie.)

But that damn fanservice. Even cringier than usual, for the reasons listed, also that the woman from the planet where everyone wears flowing robes wears shorty pajamas to bed. And the sad thing is that, if they're moving more toward T'Pol and Trip being a pair, there were a whole bunch of ways that they could have moved toward it in a more meaningful way than surprise hand-bra. Just as her breaking free from the Vulcan High Command is a big step... but they use it as an excuse to put her in even tighter outfits than previously, those sort of pastel velour tracksuits. Ugh. At least she'll get better treatment in alternate-future episodes this season, "Twilight" and "E²", and even better in S4, but this is just crass and dumb. I'm still looking forward more to S3 than I did the previous two seasons, but the show should have done better. I doubt that I'd have gotten this far in the franchise if they'd treated Kira Nerys this way. (Side note: one of the things that was most interesting about the Picard trailer was Seven of Nine's appearance, AFAIK the only returning non-TNG character, and going by online reaction, I'm not the only one by a long shot.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:29 PM on July 29, 2019 [3 favorites]

Ok. So, this really has nothing to do with the episode, but since Randy Oglesby and Scott MacDonald are both in the cast for it I thought I'd bust out some obscure trivia.

Randy Oglesby was also in a TNG S2 episode called Loud as a Whisper, in which he played an interpreter for a deaf/mute negotiator. He was disintegrated by an energy weapon in that episode. Randy was also in the world-premiere production of the Pulitzer-prize-winning play The Kentucky Cycle in Seattle.

Scott MacDonald, who has shuffled off his mortal coil in a variety of ways across a number of ST properties, made his first professional television appearance as Subcommander N'vek on the TNG episode Face of the Enemy in which he was phased out of physical reality and ejected into space.

He was also in the world premiere of The Kentucky Cycle.

Another member of the Kentucky Cycle cast, Charlie Hallahan (not credited as part of the official Opening Night cast though, not sure why) was not in Star Trek (not even by accident?!?), but was in John Carpenter's The Thing. His head came off, sprouted legs and scuttled away.

And last but not least, The Kentucky Cycle was written by none other than Robert Schenkkan (name look familiar? He also wrote this) who portrayed Lt. Cmdr. Dexter Remmick in two TNG episodes. Notably, in Conspiracy Remmik had been taken over by a brain-controlling bug/lizard thing. Members of the Enterprise crew fired their phasers at him and disintegrated his torso and upper body (actually it kind of exploded), leaving only his legs and a smoldering spinal stump sitting in the chair.

I'm not sure what the connection is between The Kentucky Cycle and gruesome science fiction deaths, but I always thought it was kind of odd, and I've been waiting decades for an opportunity to share it.

Source - my roommate at the time and another friend were both in that production of The Kentucky Cycle.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 4:00 PM on July 29, 2019 [6 favorites]

A nice cheap Cotes du Rhône will pair nicely with this episode. Not great, but good enough that it will have you wistfully wishing the bottle was better, because you know Cote du Rhône can be better. Also only one glass- this episode doesn’t need or deserve a second.

God I hate what they do to T’pol in this series.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 7:24 PM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

@Servo5678: Or maybe the brother was erased from history, another casualty of the Temporal Cold War?

Hey, Trip's brother knows what he did.

@Halloween Jack: Yeah, definitely a mixed bag. I'd thought of the MACOs as part of the "9/11ization" of the show, but as you noted, they're well-done

Yeah. I was surprised to like them. I feel like the real 9/11ization here was with Trip's "I just want to beat up every Xindi" thing, and Archer's whole, "No time to make sure we have the right target!" stuff.

As a person with visible Middle Eastern blood, that took me back in an unhappy way.

I understand that some people even ship them together.

Yeah. I feel like that'll be a topic more than once, going forward.

@under_petticoat_rule: I'm not sure what the connection is between The Kentucky Cycle and gruesome science fiction deaths, but I always thought it was kind of odd, and I've been waiting decades for an opportunity to share it.

I declare you the winner of the thread. Your prize: stay, tell us more crazy stuff!

@Homo neanderthalensis: God I hate what they do to T’pol in this series.

Same.
Do we need to codify a drinking game? Will that be our final thread for ENT?
posted by mordax at 7:49 PM on July 29, 2019 [4 favorites]

Do we need to codify a drinking game? Will that be our final thread for ENT?

We would both die of alcohol poisoning and you know it. SO yes. Yes we'll figure one out. There might already be one though.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:32 PM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

The foreman’s attempt to capture Enterprise is decent.

Agreed, that whole plot arc here worked quite well. It helped to have the excellent McHattie as the villain, but on top of that, I took note of some really great design in the foreman's makeup, costume, and gear. Worthy of a Trek movie, really—not that that's shocking, given that this episode is one of those season-three-soft-reboots, and was doubtlessly budgeted accordingly.

But that was about the only standout here for me (well, that and the cool blue styrofoam stuff—a nifty alien-worldbuilding touch, though maybe not worth the huge mess!). T'Pol continues to be shat upon by these writers. Jack says T'Pol gets better treatment in S4, and I sure hope so, because I don't clearly remember it. (…I really don't know who had it worse, Blalock or Jeri Ryan.)

For previously-enumerated 9/11y reasons, I never liked the inclusion of the MACOs, though if it had to be done, it was done well here. But that lovingly lingering villain-head-shot sequence? That might be the first time I ever said "This isn't Star Trek" to Star Trek, and J.J. wasn't even involved yet.

Or maybe the brother was erased from history, another casualty of the Temporal Cold War?

Nah, they just forgot.

No, no, that's the Fraternal Cold War, wherein secretive factions are erasing brothers from history. They're obviously to blame for Kirk forgetting about his brother Sam in that one line of dialogue from The Final Frontier about losing a brother "once", and for that matter for Sybok disappearing from everyone's memory in DISCO. (They accepted the fate of Kurn as sort of a compromise.)
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 8:39 AM on July 30, 2019 [4 favorites]

Jack says T'Pol gets better treatment in S4, and I sure hope so, because I don't clearly remember it. (…I really don't know who had it worse, Blalock or Jeri Ryan.)

Well, by "better" I don't necessarily mean "unmitigatedly great." There's still one instance of absolutely shameless fanservice in S4, and if you've seen it you probably remember it. But there's also a lot of interesting family developments for her, a three-parter that not only addresses the ENT Vulcans' general buttheadedness but also goes a long way toward fixing it, and an episode very near the end of the series that sets up a TOS character. It's a lot meatier than her simply being the bridge crew's resident killjoy. As to who had it worse, that would probably be best left to a private conversation between Blalock and Ryan, if they haven't already had it. Blalock generally doesn't do cons or interviews, and the little I've found online makes it seem like she wasn't happy with the ending of the series, but who was.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:31 AM on July 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yuck at this situation where Tucker has special pain as if no one has ever lost anything else from all the violence and suffering the Enterprise has seen out there. But no, we gotta personalize the 9/11 pain, being shaken like a rattle at the moment the US is in Iraq.

What Trip needs is a therapist, but we see what the show thinks of therapists. Yuck that this is how they spark the T'Pol/Tucker romance, by having her medically instructed to do this to help ease Trip's special pain.

Yuck that the enemy is some consortium of diverse species. Yuck, that they strike first, out of nowhere, due to some fear of ethnic erasure they know from the future as if that's a great idea to put into the brains of ppl in 2003, "Hm, *would* it be justified to do a pre-emptive annihilating strike on some other tribe if you magically knew they would wipe out your tribe in the future?"
posted by fleacircus at 7:17 PM on November 3, 2019