Star Trek Enterprise: Extinction
01/11/2003 . Source: Evan Braun 

In "Extinction," a sterile alien race, which is now extinct, creates a metagenic virus that has the effect of changing all other humanoid lifeforms into their own species. As far as originality goes, Evan reckons this episode gets a fairly average grade.

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"Genesis" meets "When the Bough Breaks."

However, if you are not blessed to immediately understand these TNG references, as the hardcore among us are already nodding thoughtfully, I will briefly lay them out. "Genesis," from the Next Generation's seventh and final season, features the crew de-evolve into lower life-forms thanks to a synthetic T-cell initially used to treat Barclay's flu bug. "When the Bough Breaks," conversely from the first season, has the Enterprise encounter the Aldeans, who kidnap children from the ship to revitalize their sterile civilization.

In "Extinction," a sterile alien race, which is now extinct, creates a metagenic virus that has the effect of changing all other humanoid lifeforms into their own species. As far as originality goes, this show gets a fairly average grade. It's basically a combination of two prominent plots of the past, forced together into hardly something resembling a fresh story. I honestly don't believe the writers of this show consciously try to duplicate what's gone before . . . they seem to come by it quite honestly. I suppose that's hard to avoid when you have over 650 episodes under your belt.

The show opens with a freshly-transformed alien specimen being hunted down and killed by another alien species. Killed by blowtorches. Blowtorches. It might just be me, but there are faster and more effective means of killing a person, and also ways that don't involve starting massive forest fires. And interestingly enough, when we later see these aggressive, pyromaniac excuses for aliens featured more prominently, they seem far too efficient for this method of "neutralization." Nonetheless, it's visually interesting.

It is a good thing I'm not much of a betting man. I would have guessed we'd have to wait at least five minutes in before seeing Trip sans uniform top. It took only a minute this time around. In the scene, Trip offers T'Pol fresh Georgia peaches in recompense for two cancelled neuropressure sessions. Apparently what Trip means by "fresh" is "at least two months old" ("The Xindi" took place six weeks after the crew visited Earth, and if we assume that approximately two weeks pass between episodes, as the Star Trek Chronology assumes, then we're dealing with eight-week peaches). Indeed, upon first bite, our favourite Vulcan science officer seems suitably unimpressed.

T'Pol is called to the Command Center, and Archer shares with her this week's news. The ship is pursuing a species of Xindi that seems to have evolved from a sort of primate. Once Enterprise reaches the planet in question, the Xindi are curiously nowhere to be found, having visited the planet two weeks earlier, but a shuttlecraft of some kind is detected. Archer, T'Pol, Reed, and Hoshi take a shuttlepod of their own own to the surface to investigate, at which point the situation goes predictably awry.

First off, Archer recognizes the downed shuttle as belonging to the Xindi. He knows this from having reviewed the Xindi database recovered last episode. That, unfortunately, is the only acknowledgement we get that the startling finale from last episode ever occurred. A disappointment, to be sure.

Hoshi discovers the body of the alien that was torched back in the teaser. This is when the human members of the landing party begin transforming into the extinct alien species. T'Pol seems to be affected as well, though not as vigorously or as quickly as the others. As Archer, Reed, and Hoshi begin communicating in a foreign language, T'Pol labours to establish lingual commonality, through the use of Hoshi's universal translator.

Here is where I have a bit of trouble. Right after the crew mutates, they act in a decidedly tribal manner. In fact, Archer and Reed have a violent, and ritualistic, exchange over food. Archer, the recognized leader, wins. More startlingly, Archer actually can't help himself, in this alien state, from literally groping T'Pol. Later, after we can start understanding the alien language, the mutated crew starts acting much more civilized. I may very well be reading into it, but it seems the writers and actors have gone out of their way to establish a rater obvious point of fact. Why they don't manage to remain consistent with it is something we may never know.

Early on, the story is fairly non-compelling. Archer and the others are acting weird, they have crazy makeup, and they run around T'Pol like apes (apparently we are to believe this last bit is unusual behaviour). They even go as far as tying her up, and hunting and gathering for food (enormously appetizing looking eggs that are filled with something resembling Klingon gagh). All in all, it starts to get pretty ridiculous.

T'Pol and a couple of MACOs come down in Shuttlepod Two to mount a rescue. They manage to capture Reed and return him to the ship, where Phlox attempts to determine some medical answers. The answer does strain credibility, but at the very least it's moderately consistent with similar Trek stories, such as "Genesis." Phlox observes that the laws of biochemistry are just as unpredictable in the Expanse as the laws of physics, which is hardly a sufficient explanation for the phenomenon. It is, however, all we are going to get. Phlox's solution is to get T'Pol back to the ship; her Vulcan K-cells neutralize the pathogen.

At this point the next threat arrives, in the form of the aliens we saw "neutralizing" the pathogen in their own way at the beginning of the episode. Tret, the alien captain, demands that Enterprise kill the infected Reed, as well as the crewmembers on the planet. They have been fighting this mutagen for 60 years, and are still unable to reverse the effects. In fact, tens of millions of their species have been destroyed in order to contain the pathogen. The problem here is not plotting, but rather the inexcusably wooden performance from Roger Cross. It seems that Cross can fit into the category of just another actor who can't quite manage to act through the makeup.

On the surface, the Archer-alien dreams of an advanced city, constructed in the styles unique to the Mayans of ancient Earth. We find out that the extinct species is known as the Locek (the spelling is merely a guess on my part). The race died out thousands of years ago, and now all those infected with the virus are turned into a Locek and are drawn to this beautiful city. When Archer and his companions discover the dream city in the real world, however, they find it has long ago been abandoned.

And speaking of wooden performances, we get an appalling line delivery from Scott Bakula. During the final battle in which Archer, T'Pol, and Hoshi confront the alien neutralization team, Archer declares, "You destroyed my city, killed my people!" It's completely unconvincing. Bakula's strengths usually lie in subtle performances. Often, when his part requires outbursts of emotion, he falls apart. Another good example of this was in the first season's "Detained," when Archer fought Dean Stockwell's Colonel Grat.

The show then wraps up with a nice, neat, and wholly unsatisfying Reset Button ending. Phlox has found an antivirus to cure Archer, Hoshi, and Reed, presumably with the aid of T'Pol's K-cells. But what was the point? What are the consequences of what's happened? There doesn't seem to be any, except that the ship almost came into contact with a new species of Xindi. I think the people who came up with this story were counting on us viewers being so interested in seeing our beloved heroes revert into an extinct species that we wouldn't be bothered that the story lacks any substance.

Finally, Archer decides not to destroy the pathogen, but instead preserves it. By preserving it, he feels, he will retain some of the extinct society's culture. A far more chilling possibility I thought of is that the pathogen could potentially be used as a terrible weapon in the future. Alas, I'm quite certain this possibility will go unexplored.

In smaller notes, the rarely-seen transporter is put to good use in Archer, Hoshi, and T'Pol's final rescue. The transporter is effective when used so little, and then only when absolutely necessary. It's still going to take time for the people of this century to start trusting the technology.

Also, Mayweather commands the ship for a time in this episode. Good for him, but what I'd really like to see is him being a human being. Most of the time we see him, he's being used (perhaps 'wasted' is a more appropriate term) in the same capacity that most of the show's extras are.

Certainly the most ridiculous line of dialogue so far this season: Trip says to T'Pol (whilst experiencing Vulcan neuropressure), "You're sure this is safe?" He's referring to the fact that Vulcan neuropressure hasn't ever been used to treat a human before. Please, it's a massage.

6. So, I'm wondering, what about that Xindi database that had me so riveted last week? Less high-concept science-fiction and a few more meaningful, character-involved, arc-related stories, please.