1x16 Shuttlepod One

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Themes: character degradation

Trip and Reed are making their way back to rendezvous point near asteroid field in shuttle, only to find what appears to be Enterprise plastered on the side of the asteroid. They immediately start to panic and argue, as one would expect from some of the best Starfleet has to offer.
In the very next scene we learn that Enterprise is just fine, transporting Tesninans to their home world after their ship was destroyed in a docking attempt, taking away part of docking bay door with it.
And approximately 3 minutes in episode that's it for the plot. We know they'll rescue them so there's no real tension so we are left with almost 40 minutes of them bickering, Reed sending endless letters and T'Pol trying to convince Archer that micro singularities exist.

Now this is absolute garbagefest. There's no real plot, almost no character development (and what there is doesn't flatter anyone), no new information, only endless stupidity, bad acting and bad dialogue.
We get such memorable scenes as Reed sealing a hole in a shuttle plating from micro black whole with mashed potatoes and Reed having fantasy about T'Pol complete with him staring at her boobs and Reed and Trip overacting during drinking scene. Ok, we get to know that Reed is a melancholic ladies man, something we really didn't need to know.
And it's funny that even though Archer appears for a minute, they still manage to make his character even more unlikable. As if he didn't come across as ignorant enough, he literally laughs off the idea of micro singularities. Oh stupid vulcans and their scientific theories, what do they know, right?
Also, it occurred to me that this was supposed to be a comedy episode. If so, its failure is even bigger. They very effectively degraded 3 characters and gained absolutely nothing in the process. And for this to come just after Shadows of P'jem, one of the best episodes of the season that had so much going on!

And only thing left to think about: shuttle was supposed to move away from Enterprise at least 20000km so they can adjust targeting. If we give it a benefit of a doubt that there is some reason why they were supposed to move away, why wouldn't Enterprise just hop near the shuttle, warn them they had an accident and that they'll return in 3 days (or you know, cancel the shuttlepod mission). It would take them a split second to cover that distance. Yep, this episode literally shouldn't have happened.

[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.