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.