2x24 First Flight

[6.0/10] If I had an overall criticism of Enterprise’s second season, it would be that it seems to be redoing a lot of older episodes from past series, but not really doing them as well. Case-in-point, “First Flight” feels like a spiritual successor to “Tapestry” from The Next Generation. Both episodes flash back to the captain’s pre-command days, and focus on a pivotal point in their lives as younger men when they had to learn the importance of taking risks and not just playing it safe.

There’s differences between the two episodes, of course. Picard’s flashback is a supernatural, *It’s a Wonderful Life”-style bit of “What my life might have been” bit of alternate history, whereas Archer’s is just a straight recollection of what happened in his pre-command days. There’s nothing wrong with either approach, but the former gives the proceedings a little more of what wild science fiction-y, thought experiment-ish flair.

The frame story (and Greek Chorus-esque commentary) for “Tapestry” comes from Q, the puckish demigod who guides Picard through this seminal moment in his life a la A Christmas Carol (which is appropriate for Patrick Stewart). In “First Flight”, that role is fulfilled in the frame story by T’Pol, who is more of a listener and commenter than a guide. Now don’t get me wrong, I think T’Pol is one of, if not the best, characters on Enterprise, but she and Archer cannot match the brilliant comic/dramatic dynamic between Picard and Q.

And most of all, “Tapestry” pins most of its success or failure on the shoulders of Patrick Stewart, who has to believably portray a mix of his younger and older and eventually alternate selves, and make each feel like slices of the same whole. “First Flight” asks much less of its lead, simply asking him to play a slightly younger, less polished, rougher around the edges version of Jonathan Archer. But the fact is that Stewart is just leagues better as an actor than Scott Bakula is, which means that in an episode filled with the usual sort of Archer speeches, the Enterprise efforts sink into eye-roll-worthy territory early and often.

The meat of “First Flight” comes down to Archer recounting his rivalry with fellow pilot/command candidate A.G. Robinson years ago, in their joint efforts to break the Warp 2.5 barrier in one of Starfleet’s experimental ships. Robinson is picked for the first test flight over Archer, but inevitably, things don’t go quite as planned, and the two have to work together in order to save the entire Warp program from being scuttled, or delayed into oblivion, by those dastardly Vulcans.

There’s nothing wrong with that setup in and of itself. Sure, the episode shoehorns in Trip into the flashback in a way that feels a bit contrived, but that’s a forgivable sin. The problem is that the episode just hits the expected beats dutifully and doesn't do much with that premise. Archer and Robinson are rivals. Robinson beats out Archer to pilot the experimental ship. The mission goes wrong. They argue some more. They realize they have to work together and go outside official parameters to prove the Vulcans wrong about humans. They do, and Archer learns that his erstwhile rival is actually a decent and honorable guy, and he grows into his command role.

Again, I don’t have a big problem with this type of story, it’s just very rote. You can more or less call each plot development before it happens, and it mostly covers ground that Enterprise already conveyed in its series premiere or other clashes with the Vulcans, to where it doesn't feel like these scenes from the past are really adding to the audience’s knowledge of human/Vulcan relations.

The big takeaway from the episode is supposed to be that Archer used to be a very by-the-book officer. But, through Robinson, he learned that being a good captain means taking risks and coloring outside the lines at times. Robinson teaches him that there’s more to the job than just being a good captain; that it takes being a good commander, which calls for other skills than just scrupulous rule-following.

The problems here are two-fold. First, this is a trite and generic lesson. The whole “follow the rules” vs. “take risks” dichotomy is an oversimplification that “First Flight” doesn't really engage with, and the episode’s grand morale is pretty shallow. The second is that Enterprise signposts and underlines that lesson really hard. As I said, this installment is rife with grand speeches and conversations that declare exactly what the theme is and exactly what the characters are thinking or feeling at any given moment.

The one interesting wrinkle to all of this is the one that’s been baked into Archer’s character from the beginning. The thing that prompts Archer to bend and eventually break the rules, to clash with Robinson, to go against Admiral (then Commodore) Forest’s wishes is that he believes in the engine his father built, and that the Vulcan’s suggestions to start over would not only delay his father’s dream for another decade, but would consign his life’s work to the dustbin of history. Archer has something he believes in, alloyed by the love and admiration for his father, and that’s what gives him motivation beyond just the “learning to take chances” bromide.

The frame story with T’Pol there to help comfort Archer about Robinson’s death in the present, at the same time they’re using an experimental technique to detect a dark matter nebula, is nice enough, but also a little too cute. The whole “keep trying, even if a Vulcan doubts you can do it” connection between past and present is, like a lot in the episode, a little too obvious. And T’Pol declaring, in the end, that they should name the inevitably discovered Nebula after Archer’s fallen friend is well-intentioned but ultimately a pretty corny button to put on the proceedings.

In the end, it’s clear that Enterprise is trying here. The mere fact of enlisting Keith Carradine (another future Deadwood alum) as Archer’s rival shows the series trying to take this one seriously as an exploration of how Archer became the leader he is, and how Starfleet took this next bold step into deep space exploration. But as usual, Enterprise deploys a lot of clichés and viewer hand-holding to get there and, with that, can’t meet the standards of the stories and stars that came before it.