One thing I appreciate about Enterprise is its level of ambition: Â some episodes really reach for the stars (no pun intended), and while most of them don’t end up being all they strive to be, I give them credit for at least trying. Â The Star Trek universe is a rich canvas on which an incredible variety of stories may be painted, and I like it when Berman and Braga just go for it and throw caution to the wind.
The Expanse is one of those episodes. Â I can’t say that it’s entirely successful at what it sets out to do, but it’s certainly an interesting and entertaining ride along the way. Â The show starts out with an attack on earth by an alien probe, reminiscent of Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home. Â Except instead of churning the oceans, this probe cuts a swath right out of the planet roughly 300 yards across and 4,000 miles long. Â It starts in Florida and goes clear to Venezuela, after which the probe self-destructs and bits of it crash-land on Earth. Â Blackout. Â Cue opening credits (and, of course, the mute button. Â *shudder* Â that opening ballad is still terrible.) Â This, my friends, is how to open a season finale.
Soon afterwards the Enterprise is called home to help out and investigate, and we also get a somewhat hollow emotional core to the story: Â Trip’s sister, we find out, was among those who perished in the attack. Â This is handled somewhat clumsily, though it does provide a strong motivation for Trip and Cap’n to go get those darned aliens who did this to Earth. Â But pulling a character out of thin air (I can’t recall Trip ever mentioning a sister up to this point) is a bit of a cheap way to add a sense of drama to any plot. Â Still, it suffices, and I can overlook it for now. Â Archer gets told by the weird future-man from early in season 1 that the attackers came from (where else?) the future, and are planning to destroy humanity because in the future, humanity accidentally destroys the aliens. Â Archer wants to go get those rapscallions, but doing so would involve entering (dun dun DUN!) the Delphic Expanse: Â a hitherto unknown area of space that’s basically an interstellar Bermuda Triangle.
And that’s just the first five minutes. Â Suffice to say, this show was jam-packed with enough material to fill a movie, and perhaps they could have pared it down a little (between T’Pol’s possible deportation to Vulcan, the Duras family exacting revenge on Archer, Trip’s dead sister, the Delphic Expanse, and Archer’s quest for vengeance, it’s a little much) but I rather like the ambition. Â Despite a few weak spots and possible fiddling with the canon of Trek, this was a pretty solid way to end Season 2. Â I’m rather looking forward to Season 3, which we probably won’t start watching for at least a week.
Last 5 posts by Simon R.
- Mission: Impossible III - November 1st, 2013
- Pacific Rim - July 19th, 2013
- House of Cards - May 9th, 2013
- Academy Awards 2013 Liveblog - February 23rd, 2013
- Why JJ Abrams Will Save Star Wars - February 19th, 2013
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