[4.4/10] If there were two things that consistently drove me nuts about The Original Series, it was the “Kirk knows best” attitude, and the parade of disposable love interests. With the former, it didn’t matter how reasonably Spock’s points were, or how fragile the ecosystem of the community that this flaxen-haired spaceman was visiting. Kirk had his ideas, and he was going to jump in and execute them no matter what anyone else said. With the latter, to borrow a line from Community, Kirk (and plenty of other characters, to be fair), would often have passionate, instant chemistry with some random woman whom we’d never see again. Both of these problems dragged down more than a few of the 79 episodes that started this whole Trek shebang.
So it’s disheartening, to say the least, to see Enterprise repeating those mistakes. In fairness, there’s less of the “Captain is always right” thing here. I’d like to think that part of what this series is doing is showing the audience adventures from before there was a prime directive, or standard away team protocols, in order to have things come this close to going entirely pear-shaped and demonstrating why those rules were created in the first place. (Not that those rules did much to keep Kirk in line.)
That means that, while I find it annoying, I’m willing to tolerate Archer being dismissive of T’Pol’s concerns about screwing around in a pre-warp civilization if it’s a prelude to Archer running into real trouble and being a little chastened about the whole experience. But we don’t get that here. Instead, we get the old “some mysterious thing is making everyone of these mostly-human aliens sick, and we’ve got to save them” razmataz, replete with firefights in the streets and an attractive younger woman who’s paired up with the captain, and a chance for Archer to prove he was right to want to go down to the surface given how he manages to save the day.
It’s all just tiresome. Archer is kind of a supercilious dick through the whole thing, and I am increasingly skeptical of Scott Bakula’s ability to do the Kirk thing in 2001. (Hell, I’m still somewhat skeptical of Shatner’s ability to do the Kirk thing in 1966!). He’s not really convincing as a mystery solver or as a confidence man, but the show wants you to think he is, which makes his efforts to uncover the source of the illness meh at best. He’s also not great at the moral indignation thing, which is a good chunk of the episode.
It’s also just not that interesting of a mystery, and “Civilization” really belabors it. We barely get to know the native aliens before we’re introduced to the illness, mostly via exposition. It’s instantly clear that the concerned apothecary is the good guy and that the smug shopkeep is the bad guy, which takes a lot of the intrigue away. And the reveal that this is an Erin Brockovich/A Civil Action-esque story about mining runoff making people sick is a pretty boring reveal.
Ideally, the show wants to spruce up that fairly standard “Starfleet infiltrates pre-warp civilization and discovers mortal threat” template with the Archer/Riann romance, but that’s dull as dishwater, which brings things down considerably. I’m willing to give some leeway to episodic television to have single-serving romances to add a little excitement to these individual stories. But the show telegraphs the romance so heavily, hits such predictable beats, and finds absolutely no chemistry between its actors to the point that it’s a chore to get through their scenes.
Riann’s character is barely sketched beyond generic “something must be done!” And Archer’s interest in her isn’t sketched beyond him randomly kissing her when the universal translator stops working. It’s the usual “Here’s two people. We hope our focus on them will paper over the fact that we’ve done little-to-nothing to account for why they should be together” routine. That approach is particularly galling when you just know that Riann isn’t going to join them on the ship, and this is inevitably a dull, fleeting thing.
The episode is also just sloppy. Again, it’s immediately clear who the bad guys and good guys are. Archer and Riann escape the bunker where the mining is being done despite being theoretically trapped and held at gunpoint because...reasons? It’s never really made clear. They’re just suddenly out and running from the bad guy.
The one minor saving grace here is that it’s a good episode for T’Pol, who after some initial skepticism from yours truly, has settled into the Spock role nicely. Trip’s mini-freakout when she says to prepare to leave, only for her to slap him down (figuratively of course) and note that she had no intention of leaving the captain behind, is a great character moment. And while it’s a little convenient, her beaming the energy core that the bad guys were using into space, and then blasting to disable the ship, was pretty damn badass. Her lineread of “fire” when she had Reed then disable the enemy ship’s weapon systems was downright Picard-esque.
But at the end of the day, this is an Archer episode, and it’s just boring. The romance is predictable. The mystery is predictable. And the non-Enterprise part of the escape is done by fiat. I’m not one to poo poo the minor thrill of our heroes dressing like the natives and trying to learn a little more about an alien society. But in trying to give us the first such story in Starfleet history (at least chronologically in-universe), Enterprise delivers something generic at best, and eye-roll worthy at worst.
That comes down to an undercooked, underwhelming romance, and a heap of Archer ignoring everyone else’s advice because he just has a feeling about how to do and save everything. Rather than punishing our protagonist for the hubris or developing a romance worth rooting for, “Civilization” just gives the audience some reheated Kirk-esque leftovers, that were barely worth chowing down on when they came from the later (but earlier) Enterprise’s replicators.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-04-18T23:16:24Z
[4.4/10] If there were two things that consistently drove me nuts about The Original Series, it was the “Kirk knows best” attitude, and the parade of disposable love interests. With the former, it didn’t matter how reasonably Spock’s points were, or how fragile the ecosystem of the community that this flaxen-haired spaceman was visiting. Kirk had his ideas, and he was going to jump in and execute them no matter what anyone else said. With the latter, to borrow a line from Community, Kirk (and plenty of other characters, to be fair), would often have passionate, instant chemistry with some random woman whom we’d never see again. Both of these problems dragged down more than a few of the 79 episodes that started this whole Trek shebang.
So it’s disheartening, to say the least, to see Enterprise repeating those mistakes. In fairness, there’s less of the “Captain is always right” thing here. I’d like to think that part of what this series is doing is showing the audience adventures from before there was a prime directive, or standard away team protocols, in order to have things come this close to going entirely pear-shaped and demonstrating why those rules were created in the first place. (Not that those rules did much to keep Kirk in line.)
That means that, while I find it annoying, I’m willing to tolerate Archer being dismissive of T’Pol’s concerns about screwing around in a pre-warp civilization if it’s a prelude to Archer running into real trouble and being a little chastened about the whole experience. But we don’t get that here. Instead, we get the old “some mysterious thing is making everyone of these mostly-human aliens sick, and we’ve got to save them” razmataz, replete with firefights in the streets and an attractive younger woman who’s paired up with the captain, and a chance for Archer to prove he was right to want to go down to the surface given how he manages to save the day.
It’s all just tiresome. Archer is kind of a supercilious dick through the whole thing, and I am increasingly skeptical of Scott Bakula’s ability to do the Kirk thing in 2001. (Hell, I’m still somewhat skeptical of Shatner’s ability to do the Kirk thing in 1966!). He’s not really convincing as a mystery solver or as a confidence man, but the show wants you to think he is, which makes his efforts to uncover the source of the illness meh at best. He’s also not great at the moral indignation thing, which is a good chunk of the episode.
It’s also just not that interesting of a mystery, and “Civilization” really belabors it. We barely get to know the native aliens before we’re introduced to the illness, mostly via exposition. It’s instantly clear that the concerned apothecary is the good guy and that the smug shopkeep is the bad guy, which takes a lot of the intrigue away. And the reveal that this is an Erin Brockovich/A Civil Action-esque story about mining runoff making people sick is a pretty boring reveal.
Ideally, the show wants to spruce up that fairly standard “Starfleet infiltrates pre-warp civilization and discovers mortal threat” template with the Archer/Riann romance, but that’s dull as dishwater, which brings things down considerably. I’m willing to give some leeway to episodic television to have single-serving romances to add a little excitement to these individual stories. But the show telegraphs the romance so heavily, hits such predictable beats, and finds absolutely no chemistry between its actors to the point that it’s a chore to get through their scenes.
Riann’s character is barely sketched beyond generic “something must be done!” And Archer’s interest in her isn’t sketched beyond him randomly kissing her when the universal translator stops working. It’s the usual “Here’s two people. We hope our focus on them will paper over the fact that we’ve done little-to-nothing to account for why they should be together” routine. That approach is particularly galling when you just know that Riann isn’t going to join them on the ship, and this is inevitably a dull, fleeting thing.
The episode is also just sloppy. Again, it’s immediately clear who the bad guys and good guys are. Archer and Riann escape the bunker where the mining is being done despite being theoretically trapped and held at gunpoint because...reasons? It’s never really made clear. They’re just suddenly out and running from the bad guy.
The one minor saving grace here is that it’s a good episode for T’Pol, who after some initial skepticism from yours truly, has settled into the Spock role nicely. Trip’s mini-freakout when she says to prepare to leave, only for her to slap him down (figuratively of course) and note that she had no intention of leaving the captain behind, is a great character moment. And while it’s a little convenient, her beaming the energy core that the bad guys were using into space, and then blasting to disable the ship, was pretty damn badass. Her lineread of “fire” when she had Reed then disable the enemy ship’s weapon systems was downright Picard-esque.
But at the end of the day, this is an Archer episode, and it’s just boring. The romance is predictable. The mystery is predictable. And the non-Enterprise part of the escape is done by fiat. I’m not one to poo poo the minor thrill of our heroes dressing like the natives and trying to learn a little more about an alien society. But in trying to give us the first such story in Starfleet history (at least chronologically in-universe), Enterprise delivers something generic at best, and eye-roll worthy at worst.
That comes down to an undercooked, underwhelming romance, and a heap of Archer ignoring everyone else’s advice because he just has a feeling about how to do and save everything. Rather than punishing our protagonist for the hubris or developing a romance worth rooting for, “Civilization” just gives the audience some reheated Kirk-esque leftovers, that were barely worth chowing down on when they came from the later (but earlier) Enterprise’s replicators.