Unexpected

caveat-warning-type-thingie: it's been a few weeks since I saw this ep, and RL has meant that my reviews had to be delayed longer than I would have liked. I only watch these eps once, and I'm completely unable to watch them again (at least until the videos come out, anyway). I took detailed notes, but this review might be a bit sketchy. Sorry.

episode #4: "Unexpected"

first impressions
Enterprise does comedy? Give me Captain Proton any day.

second impressions
Many Trekkish clichés, none of them particularly welcome here in the New Trek. A few things to recommend it, but sadly, few of them are in the A-plot.

quick summary
Enterprise is being tailed by a ship, which is hitchhiking due to a broken [technobabble]. Trip goes over, fixes it, flirts with Catsuit Chick and goes home. Where, it turns out, he's pregnant. Apparently, hilarity is meant to ensue.

plot criticism type stuff
This is meant to be a comedy. It's not.

Am I the only one who sees this as a serious problem? A lot of other reviewers liked it. Am I completely without a sense of humour?

I don't know. All I know is that I watched this ep expecting laughs, and ended up with mild amusement and a strong sense of what might have been.

It was … disappointing.

What was funny: Archer in the shower. I never, and I mean never, want to see that much of Scott Bakula again. But it was cute, it was funny, and it was a reminder that systems on Enterprise are still imperfect.

Phlox was funny. Phlox is always funny, and I love him for it. I want to take him home and keep him (I also want to take Reed home and keep him, but for completely different reasons). Phlox is fantastic.

I loved the look on Trip's face at the word "responsibilities".

What wasn't funny: the male pregnancy plot was badly handled. It was shallow. It was cliché -- Trip's pregnant, therefore he eats a lot and worries about safety. And he has nipples on his arms, ho ho ho.

I was reminded about a Voyager fic, a parody of the male-pregnancy slash plot. Tom's having Chakotay's baby, and he revels in the pregnancy, until the women of the crew tell him, "You're behaving like a stereotype. Stop insulting us."

The science was pretty awful, too. I'm not a biologist, so I don't know where a fetus would go if it were inserted in a male body. (I don't really want to know, either.) But I'm fairly certain that it would have been easier (and potentially funnier) for Trip's original nipples, not to mention his vestigial breasts, to be put to good use. Why build a whole new lactation system when you have half of one already there?

I'm not saying that TPTB apparently fascination with nipples isn't funny. But I'm laughing at them, not with them.

Alien Catsuit Chickie was a stock Trek character: likable, sexy and catsuit clad.

Ho hum.

It's not that I didn't like her -- as I was meant to -- or that I wasn't appropriately bemused by her outfit. But we've seen a lot of this character over the years.

I'm bored.

I want to see a love interest who doesn't seem sensual and beautiful. I want to see someone capable and intelligent, who doesn’t waste her time being sexy when there's work to be done. I want to see someone a little bit real.

I want to see Aeryn Sun.

Paging Mary-Sue…

Flipping through my notes, I see that I've said something about "dubious foreshadowing". I can't remember what I was talking about, so just take my word for it.

The pacing was off, seriously off. The pregnancy plot should have kicked in a lot sooner, and the Klingons felt … wrong.

"I can see my house from here!" cried one Klingon on the holodeck. Moron. He is without honour and without credibility.

The alien ship was funky, seriously funky. I liked seeing an alien vessel which doesn't look like a redressed stock set. This one was freaky.

With one exception. That holodeck looked like it was made of that shiny, holographic wrapping paper. It looked like a reject from Dr Who, if Dr Who had been made when we had holographic wrapping paper.

I'm just sayin', y'know?

da captain
Archer didn't really get to do much more than act captain-like and supportive. Oh, and naked.

Whatever.

Archer needs an in-depth character episode, something which will let Bakula stretch his wings and show us what he's capable of, something where Archer can't just resort to violence to show us that he's a good character, and more importantly, a good captain.

It will probably come eventually (surely…?) but I'd like to see it now.

T'Pol … what is she on?
I liked T'Pol in the pilot, and I liked her for parts of the other episodes. But if the quality of writing doesn't improve, I may just have to switch my allegiance to Sato.

I can't blame Blalock this time (as fun as it is). T'Problems with T'Pol (shamelessly stolen from Caillan) came exclusively from the script.

Her behaviour here was bizarre. Her censure of Trip, based on assumptions and incomplete information, was unVulcan in the extreme. Even Seven never came down that harsh, except in extreme circumstances.

I'm not sure what TPTB were trying to push here … were they trying to show that she's jealous of Alien Catsuit Chickie? Reminding us that these aren't your regular Vulcans?

I don't know, but I do know that it damaged the character's standing in my eyes.

Her scene with Phlox was lovely, though. Phlox can make anything good.

Trip
My notes on Trip are a little sparse, which is unfortunate, since this is a Trip episode. I'm not sure if it's because this wasn't a particularly good character story, or if I just don't like him.

Running through my memory, I can say that I enjoyed his early scenes on the alien ship, the difficulties he had with the acclimatisation process and the *very* strange ship. But once the pregnancy kicked in, he was behaving like a whiny child.

He needs to grow up.

It bugs me a little that he seemed to have no feeling for the child beyond irritation, but then, it wasn't genetically his. Women complain about being treated like walking wombs, but at least their kids are theirs. (Funky surrogacy stuff not withstanding.)

It took no genetic material from Trip.

Is that not the ultimate cop out?

I can't decide if I'm thinking too much about an episode which should have been lighthearted and fun, or if I'm seeing serious flaws in a story which wasn't handled with enough seriousness. But what I see is this: TPTB arranged things so that, in the end, Trip could walk away from the child without a second thought.

They didn't have to do that.

It's like a very subtle reset button. Consequences? We don't need no stinking consequences!

uh … there are other characters?
With the exception of Phlox, the other clowns in this traveling circus didn't get much time. I'd care, but, well, I didn't like this ep, so I'm kind of pleased that the characters I like weren't in it too much.

Porthos
He's a badass puppy. But he has enough sense to avoid crappy episodes.

Who's a smart puppy, den?

overall score
It's safe to say that this is Enterprise's weakest episode yet. But … even the bad eps lack flair. Where's the "Demon", people? Where's the "Let he who is without sin"?

If you're going to make a bad episode, you might has well make it really bad, instead of just disappointing. C+

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