Archer is trapped in the 31st Century, and the Enterprise crew are surrounded by Suliban. Plus there's also the issue of whether the ship will be recalled to Earth…

At the end of last season I hoped the conclusion to this would clear some things up. Not a chance. If anything it takes the path of least resistance all the way, resolving seemingly insurmountable problems with the flick of a wrist and happily pressing the Star Trek reset button™ in order to put things back and carry on with the season. It's laziness pure and simple. How do you solve Archer being trapped? Well, Daniels suddenly realizes he can knock up some 31st Century tech using a 22nd Century communicator and a few bits of wire. How convenient. Yet that doesn't solve anything other than communication (and even then there are a lot of variables to take into account that really don't make sense). So how does Archer get back? He uses the Suliban communications device… and leaps through it. What? When did it become a transporter? If it was, why didn't the mysterious shadowy figure just appear? The whole thing is utterly ludicrous. And where did Daniels go? Did Archer just leave him behind to fend for himself? The whole situation seems to be contrived purely so Archer can read a couple of books from the future, and for little other profit.

As for the Suliban, they're worse than useless. They do a spot of nasty torture, under which all the Enterprise crew buckle and reveal everything, and then they fall for a fairly simple trick. There are endless problems with this, including why on Earth the Suliban don't just blow the ship up, or steal it or something.

On top of this, there's the gazelle speech Archer makes at the end to justify continuing his mission to Starfleet. It's badly written, cringe-inducing and simply a horrible speech to saddle anyone with. Bakula gives it his best, but you still want to smack him round the head and tell him just to ask nicely rather than reeling off a tedious story.

Watching this episode, I suddenly realized what the problem was with the show, as it has been in most Trek for years: it's too clear cut. The goodies are good and always win, the baddies are bad and always lose. Deep Space Nine had the right idea when you weren't sure which way some people were going to jump, and where people misbehaved and did the wrong thing. Voyager could have been like that with the Maquis, but no one could be bothered. Now we have another series of straight Boys' Own fighting the evil monsters stories. So many other shows have so much more depth; take Farscape: evil villain, but at least he has a side where he can be useful, as season four has proved. Crais swapped sides. Even Grayza isn't evil incarnate. Buffy The Vampire Slayer for years has had a vampire as a friend rather than an enemy; it gives shades to the characters. Why does Star Trek simply refuse to move forward? A bit of thought and character work, plus some kind of regular villain they can work in, would do wonders for the series. It's why certain ones of the movies work well: Khan, Soren, even the Borg Queen, they're great villains because there's more to them than simple malevolence. Nemesis looks to have learnt this lesson, so isn't it time more attention was paid to getting this series working?

**

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