While examining a stellar phenomenon, the Enterprise meets another vessel and offers a cultural exchange. However, Trip exchanges a little too much information when he discovers a cogenitor, a person who helps couples conceive children, being treated like a second class citizen.

I wasn't expecting anything especially amazing from this episode, and I think I was right. That said, I can't quite pinpoint exactly what's wrong with it, although it certainly seems a little bit off. It may be some of the edit points, as scenes keep cutting between other scenes without coming to their natural end. It does little to improve the flow of the episode, nor does it heighten the tension, so it seems a bit of a strange thing to do.

I think the main thing that doesn't work about this is Archer. All of a sudden he's a tough no-nonsense captain, yet Trip is right when he suggests that he did what Archer would have done. Now in this instance he's wrong. He doesn't think things through, but instead teaches the cogenitor things that he shouldn't interfere in. He does have a point, though, when he insinuates that Archer has messed with cultures in the past. He certainly hasn't respected their laws; indeed, it formed part of the basis for the plot of A Night in Sickbay, during which he complains that another culture's rules and regulations are stupid and as such not worth his effort to follow them. There are probably other examples, although I can't be bothered to try to think of them right now.

This is the main problem. Trip is definitely in the wrong, and you can see things spiralling out of control when he first starts educating the cogenitor. It's a stupid thing to do, it radically alters another culture, and as Archer points out, he's forcing his ideology on he/she/it. What would happen if the cogenitor got back to its homeworld? Would it start 'equal rights' marches? Would it cause in-fighting and wars? Trip is only thinking about righting a wrong without determining how best to go about such a thing.

The problem is that the story doesn't work especially well in an allegorical sense, because it's tricky to see exactly what it's getting at. It may be nothing, in which case it's a Trek story with definite throwbacks to TNG's The Outcast. Indeed, it's annoying that whenever some kind of neutral gender species is featured, it has to be played by a woman. Why can't it be a man in the suit? It would make a better point if it was, as it would somehow make its neutral gender more convincing. Here you get the impression that Trip is helping the cogenitor because it looks more like a woman than a man and that gains his sympathies.

The other thing that throws the episode out of whack a bit is the rest of the crew of the alien vessel, who seem to be used purely as padding, or as a means to get some of Enterprise's equipment upgraded and push them closer to later Trek tech. Malcolm seems to get on quite nicely with one of the visitors, but aside from giving her some cheese, we don't see anything else of the twosome, which seems a waste. Indeed, the 'owners' of the cogenitor don't do much either, and Andreas Katsulas seems to have been hired as the captain of the ship simply to be nice and take Archer on a bit of a joyride. It's all just rambling and does nothing of great note for the plot.

An interesting idea, then, but still not highly original, and not especially well executed. Certainly better than some of the other recent efforts though…

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