3x14 Stratagem

[8.0/10] I tend to dislike the “three days earlier” conceit. As Rick and Morty so memorably ranted, it’s just a way of borrowing tension and excitement from later in the story without earning the build to it. Sure, sometimes it can work, but it’s hard not to view it as something of a crutch when a movie or episode can’t otherwise hook viewers without mortgaging its thrills. And it’s an approach Enterprise turns to often.

But I actually really like it in “Strategem” for a simple reason -- here, they use it to turn the “heist flick” formula on its head. If you’ve seen Ocean’s 11 or similar films, you probably know the drill. Some team has a problem, and after brainstorming it for a while, they lay out a plan which the movie goes through via montage. Then, they put the plan in place, and the audience gets the fun of seeing how the plan in theory differs from the plan in execution.

“Stratagem”, on the other hand, totally flips that. The first act allows the audience to see the plan in action. We’re witnessing a magic trick of sorts, where Archer and Degra are now allies, where they’re on the run from the Insectoid Xindi, where they’re sharing all kinds of secrets and information and trust with one another.

The big reveal at the end of the first act is meant to be that this whole thing is a ruse. The catch is that any reasonably savvy Star Trek viewer probably suspected that. The show already went to the “We’re in an alternate future where the humans lost the war with the Xindi” well just a few episodes ago in “Twilight”, and while this series is not above reconstituting its own tales, chances are that this was part of some means of tricking Degra (or, at a minimum, having both Archer and Degra being tricked by a third party), rather than a genuine flash forward to a stretch where Archer is one of the last human survivors and Degra is on the run from his own former confederates.

Still, I like that the episode just sort of tosses the viewer into the mix. We are put in the same position as Degra, waking up with our suspicions and prejudices and uncertainties, and having to try to make sense of the situation. Whatever theories I may have harbored before the act was up, there was always the possibility that Archer’s story was true, or at least based on truth, and the unique scenario forces the viewer to orient themselves and try to buy whether Archer is lying, Degra is hiding something or both.

But then, Enterprise puts its cards on the table, confirming that this whole deal is a simulation meant to squeeze some information out of the architect of the Xindi superweapon, and letting the audience in and how this whole situation developed. The answer is fair and intriguing, with the Enterprise checking the debris field from the weapons test in the prior episode, and not coincidentally running into Degra’s crew who is also running scientific tests. The confrontation turns the humanoid Xindi into the Enterprise’s prisoners, and when the usual interrogation leaves the captives less-than-forthcoming, our heroes have to get a bit more creative to obtain the info they want.

Admittedly, some of that ends up seeming pretty convenient. It’s incredibly good fortune (and plot-convenient) that Phlox discovers a way to wipe away the humanoid Xindis’ memories for the last few days. Still, going back to the “here’s a how a plan comes together” flashback is a canny choice. It gives everyone something to do, from Hoshi translating his diary, Trip and Reed working on fabricating the fake “transport vessel”, and T’Pol helping Archer to come up with the backstory they intend to use to fool Degra.

The result ends up being a super high stakes escape room. It’s fun to learn in hindsight how events like the regulan bloodworm needing to be removed from Degra’s arm, or the coolant breach, or other tight spots were all just scripted events, meant to build trust between Archer and the prisoner who doesn't know he’s a prisoner. There’s a clockwork neatness to whole thing.

It’s also nice to get to learn more about Degra and his motivations. I joked in my write-up of the last episode that the Xindi council often seems like “The Evil League of Evil” to me. But in what he thinks is an intimate moment, Degra gives the audience a chance to understand where the bad guys are coming from, and points him as closer to someone like Robert Oppenheimer -- a smart and caring individual whose academic pursuits turned practical and deadly when he believed his world faced an existential threat. The fact that Degra, in his own way, mourned the children of Earth caught in his attack, but did what he felt he had to in order to protect his own children, makes this season’s villains more understandable, and even gives him shades of The West Wing’s Toby Ziegler.

The piece de resistance of “Stratagem” is not that opening psyche out, or its reverse-heist structure, or even that chance to get to know the adversaries better. It’s the fact that it then pulls off a sort of “matrix within a matrix” trick. The episode again plays coy with what’s real and what’s fake when the Enterprise seemingly hits a hell of a rough patch when trying to use the Xindi’s portals to reach the coordinates that Degra gave them. That too, however, turns out to be a trick, one that convinces Degra they reached his coordinates, and tricks him into confirming that they were legit and not a counter-ruse on his part.

It’s more clever structural work, that plays in the space of what the audience knows versus what the guest character knows versus what the good guy knows. Sure, it’s a little too easy for the Enterprise crew to reset everything back to the status quo afterward, but that aside, figuring out the location of the Xindi superweapon is a big deal. It’s important information, and if it just fell into our heroes’ laps or was given to them by happenstance, it would seem too easy and unsatisfying.

Instead, “Stratagem” shows Archer and company being arguably as clever as they’ve ever been, having to keep track of tons of moving parts to make the scheme work, balancing “threats” in their fake scenario with threats in the real world, and pulling out a second ruse wrapped around the first one to confirm their results. It’s the sort of sharp, exciting moment-to-moment writing that makes Star Trek fun, and I’m ready, willing, and able to enjoy a little tension-borrowing to make that work.