[6.9/10] In the word of Jeff Winger, “I’m doing a bottle episode!” While “Shuttlepod One” does not match the heights of similar efforts from Community, Breaking Bad, or even Star Wars Rebels, it’s an admirable effort at character study with most of the scenes confined to a single set. The episode is penned by showrunners Berman and Braga, and it’s nice to see the people in charge of the series taking the risk and challenge of foregoing action or even major plot developments in favor of a closer look at Trip and Malcolm.
The episode sees the pair of Starfleet officers stranded in the titular shuttlepod with a dwindling air supply, believing that the Enterprise has been destroyed. They are weeks or even months away from being able to flag down help or even record their final goodbyes and last wishes, and the two of them clash over whether to resign themselves to the end or hold out hope. Assorted mishaps and close shaves make their doom seemingly more imminent, and raise tensions between a pair of officers with very different personalities and worldviews.
The setup is simple but admirable. “Shuttlepod One” frames Malcolm as the eternal pessimist, who sees their chances of rescue as infinitesimal and views Trip’s efforts to better those chances as an act of shuffling the deck chairs on the titanic. Berman & Braga position Trip as the devoted optimist, not letting their long odds dissuade him from doing everything in his power to effect a rescue and rolling with the confidence that, however improbable, help will come.
It’s a solid premise, with the two representing opposing but still elemental reactions to crisis, and offering very personal reflections of those positive/negative ideas in the process. The catch is two-fold. First, the writing is anything but subtle here, with both men describing the other’s worldview in case the audience doesn't get it, and resorting to some tired clichés to make sure we understand the clash of personalities. Second, the acting is pretty hammy, with Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer playing up their characters’ optimist/pessimist qualities to the hilt, making the tension caricatured, and playing everything from desperation to intoxication to romantic affection for the cheap seats.
Trip and Malcolm debate proper English schooling vs. American comic books. They repeatedly question the wisdom of hanging onto hope versus resigning oneself to death. They contrast Malcolm’s fastidious devotion to the guidelines and bylaws for being an officer even with death on the horizon, with Trip’s willingness to kick back and break the rules under the circumstances. The episode plays up its Odd Couple pairing over and over again to make sure the viewer couldn’t possibly miss the contrast.
The episode also tries to go for comedy in many places, with little to no success. While there’s plenty of room for laughs at the human moments in desperate times like these, the episode just offers hackneyed gags that were dated twenty years ago. The pair of guys being drunken messes is such a cliché, with no funny wrinkles to it. Malcolm writing identical letters to family or old flammes with Trip’s commentary feels like something out of Two and a Half Men. And the less said about Malcolm’s affections for T’Pol, the better.
Honestly, it’s the roughest part of the episode. The obvious fantasy sequence where Malcolm imagines himself flirting with T’Pol is a clear feint and goes on way too long. The fact that his humanizing moment is chuckling (with a thankfully baffled Trip) about her bum is the sort of leering nonsense that just isn’t necessary. I’m not asking for Enterprise to be a chaste show by any stretch of the imagination. But lord knows if they’re going to put Jolene Blalock in the Seven of Nine-style catsuit, the least they can do is not throw in these sorts of male gaze-y interludes every other episode.
Still, while the episode has its problems -- chief among them that it devolves into a sort of stagey, dialogue-heavy mode that Enterprise has yet to really prove itself adept at -- it’s solidly built and commendable in what it aims to accomplish. The arc here is strong. Malcolm is a doomsayer and risk-averse and down on everything because he was never really able to get close to anyone in his life. But it’s his budding connection with his crewmates on Enterprise that helps him push past that, to be willing to take risks and desperate measures and even prevent Trip from completing a noble sacrifice because he cares about all these people and is willing to do what it takes, even change his thinking, to be able to see them again.
Is that a bit trite? Undoubtedly, but it’s also a well-laid out journey that the episode takes Malcolm on. “Shuttlepod One” is full of meaningful choices from Malcolm that show his resourcefulness and gradual change, from plugging oxygen leaks with mashed potatoes, to stopping Trip from martyring himself in the airlock, to a “Galileo Seven”-esque ploy to get the Enterprise’s attention by jettisoning and blowing up their impulse engines.
The only other thing that weakens these moments is the amount of time we spend on Enterprise, reassuring the audience that our heroes are on the lookout for their lost crewmen. The rules of network television suggest that Malcolm and Trip were unlikely to actually die here, but letting the audience know that the Enterprise was not, in fact, destroyed, and is instead patrolling for the lost shuttle dampens the episode. While there’s some juice to be had from the dramatic irony of Malcolm believing that all hope is lost when we know there’s a realistic chance he’ll be rescued, it softens the tension of his and Trip’s isolation when the threat seems weaker at the same time the show is attempting to heighten it.
(As an aside, the back and forth between Archer and T’Pol about quantum singularities ultimately felt like a fairly pointless tangent, unless they’re setting us up for something down the line.)
Still, “Shuttlepod One” itself takes a big chance by doing this bottle episode. Limiting yourself to (mostly) one room and two actors is a challenge for writers. Berman & Braga don’t quite master that challenge, but there’s enough good material in the episode to make it a worthwhile outing. Sure, some of the bluntness of the themes and the over-the-top performances from the main figures lead to some stumbles, but this is still Star Trek marrying a straight character study with its outer space adventurism. That’s a risky move in and of itself, and while the results aren’t perfect, I still can’t help but admire the effort.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-04-29T21:44:20Z
[6.9/10] In the word of Jeff Winger, “I’m doing a bottle episode!” While “Shuttlepod One” does not match the heights of similar efforts from Community, Breaking Bad, or even Star Wars Rebels, it’s an admirable effort at character study with most of the scenes confined to a single set. The episode is penned by showrunners Berman and Braga, and it’s nice to see the people in charge of the series taking the risk and challenge of foregoing action or even major plot developments in favor of a closer look at Trip and Malcolm.
The episode sees the pair of Starfleet officers stranded in the titular shuttlepod with a dwindling air supply, believing that the Enterprise has been destroyed. They are weeks or even months away from being able to flag down help or even record their final goodbyes and last wishes, and the two of them clash over whether to resign themselves to the end or hold out hope. Assorted mishaps and close shaves make their doom seemingly more imminent, and raise tensions between a pair of officers with very different personalities and worldviews.
The setup is simple but admirable. “Shuttlepod One” frames Malcolm as the eternal pessimist, who sees their chances of rescue as infinitesimal and views Trip’s efforts to better those chances as an act of shuffling the deck chairs on the titanic. Berman & Braga position Trip as the devoted optimist, not letting their long odds dissuade him from doing everything in his power to effect a rescue and rolling with the confidence that, however improbable, help will come.
It’s a solid premise, with the two representing opposing but still elemental reactions to crisis, and offering very personal reflections of those positive/negative ideas in the process. The catch is two-fold. First, the writing is anything but subtle here, with both men describing the other’s worldview in case the audience doesn't get it, and resorting to some tired clichés to make sure we understand the clash of personalities. Second, the acting is pretty hammy, with Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer playing up their characters’ optimist/pessimist qualities to the hilt, making the tension caricatured, and playing everything from desperation to intoxication to romantic affection for the cheap seats.
Trip and Malcolm debate proper English schooling vs. American comic books. They repeatedly question the wisdom of hanging onto hope versus resigning oneself to death. They contrast Malcolm’s fastidious devotion to the guidelines and bylaws for being an officer even with death on the horizon, with Trip’s willingness to kick back and break the rules under the circumstances. The episode plays up its Odd Couple pairing over and over again to make sure the viewer couldn’t possibly miss the contrast.
The episode also tries to go for comedy in many places, with little to no success. While there’s plenty of room for laughs at the human moments in desperate times like these, the episode just offers hackneyed gags that were dated twenty years ago. The pair of guys being drunken messes is such a cliché, with no funny wrinkles to it. Malcolm writing identical letters to family or old flammes with Trip’s commentary feels like something out of Two and a Half Men. And the less said about Malcolm’s affections for T’Pol, the better.
Honestly, it’s the roughest part of the episode. The obvious fantasy sequence where Malcolm imagines himself flirting with T’Pol is a clear feint and goes on way too long. The fact that his humanizing moment is chuckling (with a thankfully baffled Trip) about her bum is the sort of leering nonsense that just isn’t necessary. I’m not asking for Enterprise to be a chaste show by any stretch of the imagination. But lord knows if they’re going to put Jolene Blalock in the Seven of Nine-style catsuit, the least they can do is not throw in these sorts of male gaze-y interludes every other episode.
Still, while the episode has its problems -- chief among them that it devolves into a sort of stagey, dialogue-heavy mode that Enterprise has yet to really prove itself adept at -- it’s solidly built and commendable in what it aims to accomplish. The arc here is strong. Malcolm is a doomsayer and risk-averse and down on everything because he was never really able to get close to anyone in his life. But it’s his budding connection with his crewmates on Enterprise that helps him push past that, to be willing to take risks and desperate measures and even prevent Trip from completing a noble sacrifice because he cares about all these people and is willing to do what it takes, even change his thinking, to be able to see them again.
Is that a bit trite? Undoubtedly, but it’s also a well-laid out journey that the episode takes Malcolm on. “Shuttlepod One” is full of meaningful choices from Malcolm that show his resourcefulness and gradual change, from plugging oxygen leaks with mashed potatoes, to stopping Trip from martyring himself in the airlock, to a “Galileo Seven”-esque ploy to get the Enterprise’s attention by jettisoning and blowing up their impulse engines.
The only other thing that weakens these moments is the amount of time we spend on Enterprise, reassuring the audience that our heroes are on the lookout for their lost crewmen. The rules of network television suggest that Malcolm and Trip were unlikely to actually die here, but letting the audience know that the Enterprise was not, in fact, destroyed, and is instead patrolling for the lost shuttle dampens the episode. While there’s some juice to be had from the dramatic irony of Malcolm believing that all hope is lost when we know there’s a realistic chance he’ll be rescued, it softens the tension of his and Trip’s isolation when the threat seems weaker at the same time the show is attempting to heighten it.
(As an aside, the back and forth between Archer and T’Pol about quantum singularities ultimately felt like a fairly pointless tangent, unless they’re setting us up for something down the line.)
Still, “Shuttlepod One” itself takes a big chance by doing this bottle episode. Limiting yourself to (mostly) one room and two actors is a challenge for writers. Berman & Braga don’t quite master that challenge, but there’s enough good material in the episode to make it a worthwhile outing. Sure, some of the bluntness of the themes and the over-the-top performances from the main figures lead to some stumbles, but this is still Star Trek marrying a straight character study with its outer space adventurism. That’s a risky move in and of itself, and while the results aren’t perfect, I still can’t help but admire the effort.