3x24 Zero Hour

[8.6/10] What do you know? After episodes and episodes of throat-clearing, convoluted politicking, and bad action movie setup, Enterprise actually delivers surprisingly strongly on the final act of its biggest overarching plot. With all of that table-setting out of the way, “Zero Hour” allows the show to focus on two big challenges, which gives the show a way to keep up the propulsiveness of its finale, and maintain tension by jumping between them.

The first challenge is the one that’s been inevitable almost since the season began: Archer and company have to sneak aboard the Xindi superweapon and disabled it before it reaches Earth. This half of the episode features Archer, Reed, Hoshi, and the good guy Xindi, going against the Reptilians, and feels the most like the show’s efforts to imitate the big budget spectacle of its cinematic brethren.

But you know? It works! The simple task of intercepting the weapon in time, recalibrating its power couplings or whatever before they Reptilians stop our heroes, and then trying to escape with their lives creates a clarity and purpose to everything that happens which buoys that part of the story. The show knows how to mine the suspense of Archer trying to pull an Alien with the big lighted tubes in the Xindi superweapon while the Xindi brutes advance, and the bad guy Xindi getting within spitting distance of Earth helps add some stakes to the effort even if victory seems inevitable for our heroes.

It also comes up with neat things for the non-Archer contingent to do as part of the endgame, which I wasn’t counting on. While a bit over-the-top at times, Linda Park does a great job at conveying how mentally and physically disturbed and disoriented Hoshi is after what she’s been through. Her pallor and confused speech and efforts to persevere and help out despite that make her presence in the story a welcome one.

At the same time, the opening credits spoiled for me that the Andorians (or at least Shran) were going to come to the rescue, but it’s still a fist pump-worthy moment when the blue-skinned cavalry arrives back in the Sol system. Jeffrey Combs is great as always with his delivery of the line that now he and Archer are even, and it makes for a good excuse for why Degra’s scientific vessel wouldn’t just get blown out of the sky by the Reptilians when trying to infiltrate the superweapon.

There’s a similar style of suspense, logic, and action at play back on the Enterprise, which is trying to make good on the humans’ promise to the Aquatics to destroy the spheres. That effort becomes more difficult when the sphere-builders realize that the “unfavorable timelines” are accumulating and decide to emit their unconstructed space around the main sphere, making it more difficult for our heroes to survive within it.

That challenges reduces T’Pol to having to command the ship in one of its tightest scrapes ever, Trip to have to perfect his experimental method of disabling the sphere, Dr. Phlox to have to generate a temporary antidote to the unconstructed space’s effects, and Mayweather to have to fly them in semi-blind. As with the A-story of the episode, the B-story includes meaningful things for each member of the cast to do, which is to its credit.

It also benefits from a ticking clock and the inclusion of an unexpected, intrusive wrinkle in the same way the A-story does. Just as Archer and company have to race against time to destroy the superweapon before the Reptilians can fire it on Earth, T’Pol and company have to complete their attack on the sphere within fifteen minutes, lest the entire crew die of exposure to the unconstructed space. That allows the show to add a nice visual cue for the audience, forcing us to watch our heroes skin blister and crack from the strange realm, and for them to withstand its effects while they complete their mission.

That’s made all the harder when some of the Sphere-Builders come onto the ship, attack the engineers, and start screwing with the power systems. But a few rotating phase rifle frequencies later, the spheres are destroyed, the sphere-builders can’t stand normal space, and the good guys have won the day in the now-expanseless expanse.

Things aren’t as straightforward back at the superweapon though, as a gang of Reptilians descends on our heroes right when Archer and his allies are trying to overload the reactor. What follows is some standard, but still exciting Star Trek action. Both Reed and a Maco get to do some rough and tumble combat with the Reptilians that’s a little stilted but still offers some spills and thrills. That’s aided by the set design, which matches Death Star style walkways and pits with a colorful, gyroscopic center that makes the interior of the superweapon distinctive.

It also ends in a gratuitous but enjoyable enough fist fight between Archer and the Reptilian general. The whole thing feels kind of forced, and has shades of Star Trek III to it, but it’s still fun for what it is. Archer’s slip of the last explosive on his foe has a clever, almost Die Hard quality to it, and while his run away from the final blast is corny as hell, it’s at least a neat visual to go out on.

I said early on in this season that this show seemed to get better at action, but wasn’t necessarily equipped to tackle the emotional and political fallout from a mass tragedy like it was attempting to. That holds here, as the Daniels-inspired dilemma over whether Archer risking his life to save Earth right now versus allowing someone else to take that risk to preserve the formation of the Federation is the greater good. Sure, it’s neat to see a glimpse of the Federation being founded, but the rules of T.V. say that our heroes will win and that Archer will survive, so the whole thing feels like false jeopardy that can’t support the philosophical thought experiment the show wants to have.

At the same time, I’m still not crazy about T’Pol’s arc here. The fact that she’s only more emotional because of the drugs still rankles me, and the show dramatizes that newfound emotion in ways that feel a little too plain and obvious (see: her talking to Porthos). Still, I like when she expresses those emotions in subtler ways (like quietly reassuring Phlox about their chances for survival), particularly the reveal of her age as an “intimate” detail to Trip signifying her openness to a deeper connection between them.

Still, in the end, I walked away satisfied by the capstones the show put on the Xindi arc here. It didn’t really say much of anything about our emotional or military responses to terror or the perspective of the people who would attack us (the Reptilians eat live mice, just in case the audience didn’t get that they were the villains), or meaningfully explore sacrifices for a higher cause. But it did deliver a rolicking action finish to the central conflict, which definitely suffices given the rocky road to get here. There is catharsis in our heroes finally subduing the season-length threat that’s been looming over each episode this season, and that’s more than enough.

The only thing that spoils it is the post-victory tease that leaves me scratching my head and furrowing my brow. Again, the show wants us to be greatly moved by the fact that Archer doesn't make it back from the superweapon, but only a fool would believe he really died in that explosion. And what is it with Star Trek and finding some tortured way to go back with Nazi Germany? The Original Series did it. Voyager did it. And now Enterprise is doing it. It’s a weird, unnecessary tease for the next season.

Still, if you can set that bit of cornpone aside, season 3 of Enterprise goes out on a high note. I can still only term the Xindi arc a failure, given its shoddy construction, hodgepodge of lore and one-note species whose motivations and beliefs shift as needed by the story. But the season also features some of the show’s clear high water marks, improves the overall batting average, and finished strong, which counts for something. Here’s to, as more than one character has reminded us, a return to exploration.