Azati Prime: Enterprise arrives at Azati Prime and uses a shuttle captured from the Xindi insectoids to infiltrate the system and find the weapon. Then, Archer decides to return to the weapon with explosives to destroy it, but is informed by Daniels (first seen in “Cold Front”) that he must not sacrifice himself and that the Xindi have been told by aliens from the future that humanity is a mortal threat. Archer decides to try to blow up the weapon anyway — it’s too close to being completed — but is captured (Archer gotta be Archer, right?). He uses the opportunity to try to sway Degra (who doesn’t remember anything from “Stratagem”) and then learns that the Xindi reptilians have discovered where Enterprise is hiding and have sent ships to attack. The episode ends with Archer being taken to a detention center and Enterprise nearly destroyed from a brutal assault.

Damage: With the ship very nearly destroyed, the reptilian attack is called off by Degra and his supporters on the council. T’Pol and the crew commence repairs and Archer is sent back to Enterprise in a small Xindi vessel — all arranged by Degra and Co. As Archer and T’Pol assess the damage and count up dead crew members, they realize that the warp coil is fried — and that they need another one to get to their next meeting with Degra. An alien ship comes along asking for assistance with repairs from anomalies — and Archer asks if he can trade for the warp coil. The alien captain (played by old buddy Casey Biggs) says no … so Archer crosses an ethical line and decides to steal the warp coil (!). The mission is a success (and Archer leaves the aliens food to help them survive until they return home on impulse power) and Enterprise heads to the meeting with Degra.

The Forgotten: Enterprise is still in tatters and 18 crew members are dead. The ship meets up with Degra and his supporters and Archer makes the case that the Xindi are being manipulated into destroying humanity, showing evidence from previous episodes, including “Harbinger”. Degra comes around and decides to start helping Enterprise, even going so far as to assist with repairs (despite having to work around Trip and his anti-Xindi feelings). Degra also orders the destruction of a reptilian vessel that happens upon the meeting, ensuring that Degra’s fate is now directly tied with humanity’s.

Why it’s important

A lot happens in these episodes, as noted above. Most of the significance is self-explanatory — the events are obviously key in saving Earth. The T’Pol subplot (she’s been injecting a Delphic Expanse substance into her bloodstream for months to tap into her emotions and must beat an addiction and long-term effects) is a key development for the character. It likely prompted the relationship with Trip (a big domino for the series) and made the character more interesting than the passive Vulcan we saw for most of the first two seasons (though she had started to lighten up previously).

What doesn’t hold up

It’s hard to swallow that the Xindi wouldn’t have stopped the stolen insectoid shuttle earlier. Even if it was one of their ships, wouldn’t there be identification protocols indicating that shuttle shouldn’t have been anywhere near Azati Prime? This is likely why they locked down the weapon after the initial recognizance by Trip and Mayweather, but still.

There’s also the 180 from the end of “Azati Prime” to the beginning of “Damage”. Essentially, one more shot from the reptilians could have ended everything — and Degra and his supporters were able to call the attack off JUST in time. It’s odd that they could do that when the reptilians were moving in for the kill in the previous episode and didn’t seem to answer to the other members of the Xindi council.

I’m also kind of amazed that alien technology always works so well together. That warp technology developed so similarly on so many different worlds is hard to believe. It’s a necessary conceit for “Damage”, but it’s too bad that the characters didn’t talk more about how Archer’s gamble assumed that the aliens’ warp coil could work with Enterprise’s systems.

Final thoughts

Criticisms aside, this is a truly great stretch of episodes.

Consider that Enterprise, through two seasons, was considered dull, and even dated. Second-generation Trek had been on the air for 15 years at that point, and was showing its age. Even if you’re a Voyager defender, few would argue that it reached the heights of TNG or the daring of DS9, and as good as DS9 was, it was never as popular as TNG. Enterprise took a big risk in season three — but it sort of had to. And, thanks to what happened starting around “Proving Ground” (coupled with some good tie-ins from the first half of the season) the Xindi arc became a success.

And, yes, it likely shocked some fans that the hero of a Trek series would essentially commit piracy (among other things). But putting Archer in such a situation was likely necessary if the creators wanted to avoid the dullness of seasons one and two. His dialogue with Mayweather in “Azati Prime” about how he had to fly the mission to destroy the weapon because he had to take questionable actions in the expanse — and his lines to Trip and T’Pol in “Damage” — show that while Archer had to walk a line and occasionally move across it, he didn’t lose his humanity. It is too bad that we didn’t see him come to terms with what he’d done or face consequences, but more on that later.

Also, consider that Archer ends up working for a peaceful solution even after he’s captured in “Azati Prime” and even after he sees that at least some of the Xindi can’t be reasoned with. Granted, some Xindi end up going rogue, but the events of this season almost seem to pave the way for Archer (and humanity’s) enlightenment. It’s been a long road, after all.

Coming next week …

We wrap season three.

Enterprise finds the facility where the Xindi are making kemocite, needed for the weapon  to destroy Earth — which is just weeks away from completion. The facility is staffed by a small number of arboreal Xindi, including Gralik (John Cochran), who runs the facility but has no idea what the kemocite is to be used for. Archer, Reed and MACO leader Major Hayes (Steven Culp, introduced in “The Xindi”) capture Gralik in his home and tell him what the Xindi council members are up to. Xindi weapon designer Degra (Randy Oglesby) comes to the planet for an update, and Archer — with Gralik’s help — stashes a tracking device on Degra’s ship.

Why it’s important

From a plot perspective, this episode is important as it furthers the ship’s successful search for the Xindi. The groundwork laid here helps the crew find a smaller version of the weapon in “Proving Ground”.

Not only that, this episode gives Degra a name, the first time we learn the identify of anyone on the Xindi council that has been plotting Earth’s destruction. Degra is probably only behind Archer, T’Pol and Trip as far as importance during this season of Enterprise, as we’ll see in subsequent reviews.

What doesn’t hold up

It’s interesting that Archer’s actions here don’t bear fruit for another six episodes, or about a quarter of the season. Two of those episodes (the great “Twilight” and the passable “Carpenter Street”) only cover a few days for Archer and Co., but the other episodes (the stellar “Similitude”, the decent “Chosen Realm” and the forgettable “North Star”) take a while (about two months all told, according to Memory Alpha). Although things kick into high gear soon after this stretch, it’s clear why some fans were impatient with the Xindi arc as the season progressed.

This is more of a question than a complaint, but I’ve never really understood what the Xindi council’s relationship is to the rest of the Xindi people. Granted, the Xindi are scattered throughout the Delphic Expanse, but is the council the ruling party of Xindi? Or is it more of a rogue group?

Final thoughts

After all the hand-wringing about the Xindi arc going against Roddenberry’s vision, this episode is important viewing. Even as the future of humanity is in the balance, Archer relies on his trust of Gralik, rather than acting out of violence. Foreshadowing Archer’s relationship with Degra, this episode proves that common ground can be found even between enemies. Also, it’s important to note that Archer turns out to be right, even to the point where Gralik ends up tampering with the kemocite to delay the weapon development.

Lastly, the Hayes character was a nice addition to the show — even if he seems oddly absent at times. Steven Culp and Domonic Keating played well off each other as rivals, even if their antics became juvenile at times.

Coming next week …

An old friend returns as the Xindi arc continues.

The Xindi: After weeks of searching the Expanse without any sign of the Xindi, the ship finds one on a mining colony, and learns that the Xindi have five different types of species (humanoids, reptilians and some others). Unfortunately, the mining foreman plans to capture the Enterprise crew and use them as slaves. Archer, Trip and the Xindi laborer try to escape and are eventually rescued by a party led by Reed and the new military assault command crewmen (MACOs) introduced in “The Expanse”. The Xindi is mortally wounded in the rescue but gives the crew coordinates to the Xindi homeworld before he dies. When the ship arrives, all they find is a large debris field more than a century old.

Anomaly: The weird effects of the expanse continue to wreak havoc on the ship. After being disabled, Enterprise is boarded by a group of pirates who steal a bunch of supplies, including the antimatter reserves. The ship follows the pirates to a base they’ve set up inside a large, cloaked sphere that is causing serious gravitational distortions (like the anomalies). The crew recovers much of their supplies and Archer learns the pirates recently dealt with a Xindi ship and obtained its database. Archer then tortures a captured pirate for information (eep). The ship has a short battle with the pirates and uploads much of that database — using codes from the captured pirate — providing the crew important information in completing its mission. Archer also returns the pirate, largely unharmed, to his people.

Why it’s important

These episodes set up some key pieces going forward, including the Xindi council (seen at the beginning of the first episode), the weird anomalies in the Expanse, the fact that the Xindi have five different races (humanoids, arboreals, aquatics, reptilians and insectoids) that don’t get along very well and the spheres. The idea that Archer’s mission will require him to bend his morals — hinted at in “The Expanse” — is important, as well. To be sure, what we see in season three is the most troubling extended sequence of Star Trek, even surpassing the darker parts of latter DS9.

What doesn’t hold up

It’s puzzling that the Xindi in the first episode (in his dying breaths) would provide coordinates to his peoples’ homeworld … which has been destroyed for a century. Was he trying to mess with Archer, or did he think the coordinates would somehow be useful? It’s not as if he didn’t know the planet had been destroyed, unless he was more than a century old.

I’d argue that the second episode holds up, even if it paints Archer in a very troubling light. It is odd that Archer would dramatically call up the Xindi database as the episode ends, considering he couldn’t possibly read anything in it. I suppose it did make for a cool shot.

Final thoughts

This is about the point where longtime Trek fans were probably (at best) thinking the series was imitating “24” and (at worst) was completely betraying Trek principles. The first criticism certainly has something to it, and the second criticism is likely valid IF you don’t watch the entire season. “Anomaly”, viewed alone is highly, highly problematic. But Archer’s later actions in trying to make peace with the Xindi (as we’ll discuss) put this more into the “lessons learned” category. In other words, the Enterprise crew acts out of desperation a lot in season three but ultimately doesn’t forget its principles.

Where appropriate in the third season, we’ll combine reviews, similar to what we did with DS9’s final episodes.

Coming later this week …

The Xindi arc continues.

A weird sphere pops up over Earth and attacks, killing 7 million. Enterprise is recalled and on the way home, Silik and his future guy boss tell Archer that a species called the Xindi is responsible — as they think humanity will destroy them in the future — and that an even larger attack is coming. Archer makes his case to Starfleet, over the objection of Ambassador Soval, and sets course for coordinates given to him by future guy, which Soval says are in a particularly nasty part of space called the Delphic Expanse. Without clearance from Soval, T’Pol resigns her commission to help Archer with the mission. Enterprise has to deal with some Klingons out to get Archer (wrapping up a mini-thread from late in the second season) but makes it to the expanse as the episode and season end.

Why it’s important

Well, the entire series basically changed in this episode. The attack on Earth is hugely important for Enterprise and Trek generally, and the ship’s mission in the third season truly needed to succeed for everything we saw in previous Trek to still have happened. No Earth, no Federation, no Starfleet, no Kirk singing around the campfire with Spock and McCoy, no Picard rolling his eyes at Q’s jokes, no Sisko fooling the Romulans into a war and no Janeway going through shuttles like Pez.

Interestingly, the fact that we knew the creators wouldn’t undo all of that sort of undercuts the drama in the third season — we know Earth won’t be destroyed — which basically makes the Xindi arc about HOW Archer will save Earth, not whether he would.

What doesn’t hold up

Well, big picture, I can’t not mention that in all the Trek that takes place after Enterprise, we never hear of the Xindi or this attack. There are plenty of lines in Star Trek about how some threat to Earth is the biggest since the “last World War,” (or something similar) without any mention of the death of 7 million and the possibility of another, more cataclysmic attack. The only way you can write this off is to figure that the events of Enterprise are in an alternate timeline, perhaps created by all the time travel in previous series. Maybe Data winning at poker in 19th-century San Francisco is to blame? Or that time Chekov left a Klingon phaser behind in 1986?

Lastly, why did the Xindi mount a small attack before the big one? That’s probably the biggest logical issue with the entire Xindi storyline, because without the initial attack — which wasn’t necessary from the Xindi perspective, as the final attack was aiming to destroy the entire planet — Starfleet wouldn’t have known to send Archer to the Delphi Expanse.

I’m a big fan of season three of Enterprise, but that logical flaw is something that takes away from the overall quality.

Final thoughts

The attack, of course, is an obvious parallel to 9/11, which occurred about 18 months before this episode aired. Interestingly, much of the first season was shot before 9/11, even though it didn’t air until after. That’s one explanation I’ve heard regarding the first season’s unevenness — and the show’s general inability to connect with audiences.

Now, not a lot of fans liked where the series went after “The Expanse” and were probably unnerved by how the Archer/Trip scene in this episode indicated a darker, non-Roddenberry approach to the third season that clearly was meant to echo the politics of the early aughts. While that’s certainly a fair criticism at points, it’s not a major problem (IMO) if you watch the ENTIRE third season. It never QUITE gets to the point where the the characters aren’t at least torn up about their actions. Despite some dabbling (to be kind) in moral ambiguity, Archer and Co., as we’ll discuss, eventually get back to Trek idealism. Stay tuned on that.

All that said, Trek is at its best when it makes you think. And whether you like season three or hate it, it’s not the sometimes boring, by-the-numbers fare that we saw for much of early Enterprise that made the show feel dated. Put another way, season three’s ambition beats the malaise of much of seasons one and two, at least, in my humble opinion.

Last point: T’Pol’s decision to remain with Enterprise is one of the high points for the series. Her growing respect and even devotion to Archer was a well-crafted part of Enterprise’s first two seasons — as it developed slowly and believably over time. We pointed this out in our previous review, but it’s worth noting that the Archer-T’Pol relationship was as multi-faceted as (or close to) anything we saw in Trek — though it helps to forget that the absolutely horrid “A Night in Sickbay” ever happened. And it’s unlikely Archer’s mission in the Delphic Expanse would have succeeded if T’Pol had left the ship.

Coming next time …

The season of “This isn’t open for debate” begins.