Star Trek: Enterprise Reviews C

This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.

I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)

Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).

“Sleeping Dogs” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.

“Shadows of P’Jem” See this for a plot summary.

There’s one very good bit of politics in this episode. When looking at an alien city from outer-space, Malcolm and Trip have the following exchange:

Malcolm: From what we can tell, the entire capital is surrounded by a shanty-town- there are almost as many bio-signs on the outskirts as there are inside the city.

Trip: Looks like these people have a lot to learn about building a free society.

Poverty does undermine how free a society is. First, the US Declaration of Independence includes “the pursuit of Happiness” as an unalienable right. And poverty seriously affects democracy in a negative way. If you look at everything involved with an election in a capitalist country, it’s sort of a cross between “one person one vote” and “one dollar one vote.” Poverty makes it difficult for people to pursue their dreams.

I give this episode four stars out of five.

“Shuttle pod One” See this for a plot summary.

Although very non-political and in some ways unattractive for me, this is, overall, one of my favorite episodes in ENT. It is almost entirely about two Enterprise officers in a shuttle craft facing death in space as they are completely isolated and are losing oxygen. Normally I wouldn’t be interested in that sort of thing, but I love this episode.

I give it four stars out of five.

“Fusion” See this for a plot summary.

The way that they talk about what happens to T’pol during and after the mind-meld, is very similar to how people talk about rape.

I like the message sent about rape, but because of other elements of the episode (I’m not a big fan of Vulcan episodes), I am giving it only two stars out of five.