OEEG: Terra Nova

Description: The episode opens with Mayweather and Hoshi looking at pictures of the Terra Nova colony, the first deep space human colony on a world virtually identical to Earth. In keeping with the global nature of this expedition, it's no surprise that almost everyone we see is white. Well, it turns out the colony disappeared decades ago and no one knew what happened. My guess is Geth - they always go for those deep space human colonies.

We come back from the teaser and it turns out that T'Pol has never heard of Terra Nova. Tucker takes this moment to rub in the fact that humans learned all the important Vulcan expeditions, but T'Pol delivers a nasty smackdown by targeting his greatest weakness: the fact that he's a moron. So she asks him to name one, and naturally, he can't, poor catfish-eating bastard. So Archer decides to explain about Terra Nova, that it was perfect for colonization and just twenty light-years away. We have some more typical silly dialogue:

TUCKER: It took them what, nine years to get there?
ARCHER: Nine years there, nine years back.

So, what they came home? Or were you clarifying for us that it would take nine years to get back if they would have, just in case we wondered if the planet was downhill or something? Anyway, nobody's heard from them in seventy years, and it turns out that early on the relations with Earth became strained. After a couple years, the space agency had wanted to send another two hundred colonists, but the colonists didn't want any more people coming. Maybe the new people weren't going to be white, I don't know. What I do know is that this is goddamn stupid. They don't want another two hundred people to land on the same planet? How much leibensraum do you people need? This is the same thing we saw in Star Trek: Insurrection, the creators don't seem to realize how big a planet is, which is stupid considering all of them have been confined to one planet their entire existence.

Between these people and Archer, I'm starting to get the feeling that being insane is a mandatory requirement for being a leader in space.

Naturally, T'Pol asks why they didn't just ask the Vulcans to help them check to see what happened, rather than just scuttling all colonial efforts and possibly allowing two hundred people to die. Tucker says that asking anything of the Vulcans is too high a price for that. I'm starting to get the feeling from this series that what truly united humanity was learning that they all hated the Vulcans. But, really, let's admit why they didn't do it: because then there would be no episode, and we'd have to give up this pointless piece of crap. At half a dozen episodes in, I'm convinced that's pretty much Enterprise in a nutshell: idiotic explanations to justify boring hack stories.

So they show up and try hailing the colony, but there's no response, and a visual check reveals an empty shanty town. Despite some radiation, he decides it's safe enough to head down there, and since Tucker's gone all day without scratching his crotch with a wrench, Archer leaves him in command until his return. On the surface, there's no sign of anyone (though there are plenty of CGI birds flying around... I guess they all must be magically immune to radiation - that, or their eggs keep hatching goldfish), or of bodies, even though the readings suggest that seventy years ago the radiation would have been lethal. They'd also designed their ship to be disassembled when they arrived to build the colony, which meant that no matter how desperate they might be, there was no escaping Terra Nova... I know the feeling.

Meanwhile Reed is out wandering around when he spots somebody. He radios in to Archer and gives chase, leading to a tunnel. The two head in while T'Pol and Mayweather stand guard outside, trying to look intimidating. Finally Archer finds a chamber with some primitive equipment in it and spots some people watching him. He tries talking to them... which, if you know Archer, you won't be surprised this ends in violence. In the ensuing fight, during which the primitives fire machine guns at Archer and Reed, our heroic explorers get their asses lost, and have to contact T'Pol to pull up mapquest on her tricorder. So they head back towards the way out, and Reed gets shot. Since this is part of the Voyager/Enterprise era of Star Trek, you should know that guns -even machineguns- don't actually kill people unless they're bad, so Reed just says he's fine. Archer, showing that wonderful leadership of his, just kind of nods and keeps going without bothering to help him... in fact, he kind of gives him a look like "Some security officer, getting yourself shot. I hope you're still alive while they pick the flesh from your bones." It's important to note that they're not even being further shot at at this point - for all we can tell the locals ran out of bullets, yet Archer is in such a hurry he doesn't even think to go back and try to help one of his officers who was just shot. Again, the man was shot; how are we suppose to take threats seriously if even the characters won't. Been hit by a machinegun? Walk it off.

So the primitives grab Reed while Archer hauls ass out of the cave. He grabs T'Pol and Mayweather and brings them back to the shuttle and takes off; sucks to be you, Reed. T'Pol does the big reveal: that these aren't aliens, they're humans. Yeah, what a shock; I was totally fooled by the fact that they were dirty, and that the ones we saw weren't white.

So back on Enterprise, they start looking at rescuing Reed, since it'd probably make Archer look even worse if they didn't do something now to get him out. They discuss some plans, like beaming him out, but he's too deep. Tucker suggests stun grenades, but Archer is indignant about the possibility of more casualties. Gee, if only these stun grenades had a stun setting. And really, if we've already seen that bullets set on kill are just a minor nuisance, then I think a stun weapon would be lucky to knock someone out. Archer also rants that as alien as they might look (which, I don't see at all, they look dirty, and some of them aren't white... kind of makes you wonder if Archer thinks Mayweather is an alien, or that all humans not born on Earth are black), they're still human, so they have to be careful. So, what, if they were aliens you'd give Tucker a six-pack, a coon hound, and a hunting license? Since he generally spends the whole episode acting like a dick again, Archer wins the annoying character award once again.

So Archer and Phlox head back down to the planet and quickly surrender to two of the locals. I don't want to belabor this fact, but as I've said, when you reach the point where even I notice, you probably already crossed the line. Every single "alien" we've seen so far has been black, and that includes the two who now grab Archer and Phlox and drag them down into the cave where more black people guard the white Lieutenant Reed. This whole thing has that uncomfortable vibe you get when you watch mid-twentieth century films involving African villages. Will they be made white gods or white devils?

Uh huh, it's white devils, as the locals refer to them as humans and accuse them of wanting to gut their people. Still, they decide to release Reed and send them on their way, telling them not to come back. As they work on fixing up Reed for the trip back, Archer decides to prod the sore spot of being human. Turns out the locals blame humans (which is a pretty stupid term to use; Earthers maybe, but the Novans didn't stop being human when they came here) for the "poison rain" that killed the colony. The locals hid in the caves, and all the adults perished, leaving the children to fend for themselves. So, there you have it, the standard story of advanced civilization quickly reduced to cave men, yawn yawn. Why not just have the planet taken over by damn dirty apes if you're not going to bother coming up with something that hasn't been done to death. Oh, and it wouldn't be a Brannon Braga story if you weren't beaten about the head and shoulders with the point, in this case, the fact that they live underground - for instance, lies are called "shale," because that's a kind of rock and they live underground. It gets really irritating. And I suppose the locals are pissed that Archer might be after their Fruity Pebbles, huh?

So, while Archer tries to convince the Novans of this hack plot, Phlox informs them that the old lady is sick. Turns out she's got lung cancer; I told you that Marlboro mine was a mistake. So they bring the old lady and her son -presumably the head of this little group- back to Enterprise while Reed is left behind as a hostage. Being a heroic leader, Archer doesn't even offer to have himself stay in Reed's place, even though the latter was shot and left behind because of him.

While Phlox works on the treatment, Archer tries to convince the old lady that they are all humans. Of course, this could be done by giving them a bath and a mirror, but he decides to take the more round about way and show some old pictures. Of course, this doesn't work, so it's off to the bridge for T'Pol to explain what happened. Turned out there was an asteroid that hit and created the radioactive cloud that spread all over the northern hemisphere. They find a message in the buffer (damn buffers!) that never went out in which they blamed it on Earth attacking in retaliation for their leader threatening to shoot down any ship that tried to land. Um, what are you going to shoot them down with, or did you equip your colony with some missiles rather than making some space for a hazmat facility?

After this, we get an interlude with Reed down in the cave. He talks about the machinegun for a little while, and the body armor, because we all know he's obsessed with weapons. What he doesn't do is explain why since they went underground the society has completely altered their appearance and the meanings of words, but haven't run out of bullets. Or had the guns stop functioning for that matter. I don't know many children qualified to strip, oil, clean, and rebuild an M-16.

So we get back to the medical part of the plot, where Phlox does his usual job of explaining why there is now a Desperate Situation they'll need to solve. Turns out the water supply has been irradiated, which means everyone will die unless they relocate. So this requires trying to explain it to the old lady and the chief, but they respond with more of this stupid dialogue. "You humans tried to gut our go-befores when they lived on the overside. Now you're trying to gut us." I'm going to gut somebody if I have to listen to any more of this crap. You know, as I've said before, I watch all these episodes at least twice, and one thing I've learned is that Enterprise episodes only manages to get worse the more you watch them, as if there was crap to them too subtle the first time to be picked up amidst the larger crap that dominated before. Enterprise: a symphony of flatulence.

Well, Archer breaks out some more photos, and turns out he's got a picture of the old lady as a little girl. This isn't good enough for the chief, though, so they've no choice but to bring them back. Archer takes T'Pol aside and asks what to do. She says that, since Tucker's improved the resolution of the tunnels, the transporter could be used to beam stun grenades into the tunnels, knock everyone out, and while they're unconscious, bring them on board. Archer gets pissed at this idea, that they need to convince them it's the right thing, but T'Pol argues that Archer's idea to bring them back to Earth would destroy their culture. Of course, the compromise is so f*cking obvious I can't believe no one has even suggested it yet: just move them to the southern hemisphere, where it's not radioactive. Again, people, it's a planet. Planets are big.

Finally this occurs to Archer, so they check out the maps, and yes, believe it or not, there's a whole lot of this planet that isn't radioactive that they can survive on. So he tells Tucker to try to find a good place with some nice caves. "And it wouldn't hurt if they were crawling with those, what do they call them? Diggers." Yes, they were, though I realize that would be a hard word to remember, especially when you remember that the Novan language is a simplistic bit of crap. Archer tries to explain this, but the chief is skeptical. Mayweather is so upset by this he actually gets a line.

So they land the shuttle in the remains of the old colony, but the ground breaks and the shuttle falls into tunnels far below. Wait, so these people flew for nine goddamn years and then decided to build their colony on a sinkhole? What a bunch of dumbasses. So they get out, and thus begins the game of Pass the Phase Pistol as it gets handed off to people at various points as signs of trust and all that bullshit. Also, we need to pad out the episode some, so we take a detour to go rescue a local who's at the bottom of a well with a dead tree on him. Since they're far underground, I'm sure it's no surprise that this tree is so massive that even together Archer and the chief can't move it. Trees grow to be so huge underground. So it's Archer's turn to get the phase pistol, which he uses to cut the tree in half and free the local, yawn yawn.

Oh, and just in case you thought the point of that scene was for the building of camaraderie, well, it wasn't. The chief still doesn't want to do what Archer wants, and it takes badgering by the old lady to finally get him to agree. So, yes, when I said that scene with the tree was just there to pad out the episode, I really meant it. Take it out, and nothing in the story would have been any different, except for the game of Pass the Phase Pistol. Back on Enterprise, since Mayweather has something to say, it's his turn to be invited to the captain's table to eat and talk. He gets the chance to write up the report since he played such an integral part in solving the mystery of Terra Nova... you know, since he flew the shuttle down there and all. Whatever, as long as this crap is finally over. Enterprise is like a leech that tries to suck all the joy out of you.

Rating: 3

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