Episode Review - Strange New World
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
For the first time since their mission started proper, the Enterprise discovers a new planet, full of mountains, rivers and other beautiful parts reflective of Earth. Ignoring T’Pol’s warnings of an alien environment and the need to spend another week scanning in preparation, Archer orders an away team via a shuttlepod to explore. As well as the Archer, the away team comprises of Crewmen Cutler and Novakovich, as well as T’Pol, Mayweather and Trip. Archer also brings along Porthos, who upon arrival immediately runs towards a tree… The team split up, each to explore in their own ways. While T’Pol, Cutler and Novakovich conduct scientific readings; Archer, Trip and Mayweather laze around and make the ‘best’ of a lovely day, after which the three are informed by a disgruntled T’Pol that they have strayed from the agreed time perimeters set before they went their separate ways.

T’Pol, Cutler and Novakovich request that they stay overnight to study nocturnal life, and as he decides that he and Mayweather should also stay for the fun of it, Trip comments that she is finally getting into the mood of exploring new worlds.

After a night of stargazing and ghost stories around a campfire, the crew return to their tents, yet are unable to sleep as a sudden storm appears around them. After finding the tents unsuitable to stay in, they take refuge in a nearby cave, and the decision is made by Reed and Archer not to attempt such a risky shuttlepod landing in such bad weather conditions; therefore the crew settles in. However, Mayweather finds that they have left important food packs behind at the campsite, so volunteers to go back and get them.

As he is struggling to find anything in the strong winds, he sees three humanoid figures, and in shock and need of safety he runs back to the cave. T’Pol scans to confirm that there are no lifeforms, which suggests that Mayweather simply imagined them, but no sooner than that Novakovich is determined that he has heard voices coming from the back of the cave. He is deterred from wanting to stay in the cave, and runs back outside. Trip and Mayweather go after him, but are unable to find him. During their search however, they both see alien faces and bodily movements coming from the cliffs before they have to turn back into the cave.

Archer communicates with Trip and tells him that he and Reed will be attempting a rescue mission in a shuttlepod. Meanwhile, back in the cave T’Pol uses time to explore further into it to find what Novakovich was so paranoid about. Cutler is unwilling to remain alone with her fear, but when she tries to meet with T’Pol, she appears to discover her in the middle of a conversation with two alien figures.

When the group finally rendezvous back at the original refuge point, the mood is incredibly tense as Mayweather and Trip describe their sightings to a sceptical T’Pol. When she says that she has discovered no life signs, Cutler accuses her of lying, telling of what she saw of T’Pol and the creatures, which she in turn denies. Trip himself supports Mayweather and Cutler’s feelings as he saw rock-creatures himself, and paranoia runs riot as the rest of the away team stand against T’Pol.

Archer and Reed finally arrive on the planet, but find themselves unable to land still due to the massive winds, forcing the away team back into the cave. Back on Enterprise, Sato reports that she has found Novakovich’s bio-signs, which happen to be erratic. Archer hears the man screaming, and therefore orders Reed to initiate a risky bio-transport. Novakovich eventually materialises on Enterprise, but twigs and leaves from the planet have been fused into his body. He is then treated by Phlox, who finds that his bloodstream has a dangerous psychotropic compound called tropolisine in it, contracted apparently from a pollen brought up from the local plant life by the strong winds.

Archer tries to commute to T’Pol his findings, but finds that Trip is pointing a phase pistol at her upon suspicions of treason, who tells Archer that he always knew that T’Pol would sabotage the Enterprise. Archer orders Trip to lower is pistol, explaining that the aliens that he saw were just hallucinations caused by this pollen. Trip does so grudgingly, yet continues to wildly accuse T’Pol of working secretly with the ‘aliens,’ as Mayweather and Cutler pass out. T'Pol herself lashes out at these accusations, the first appearances of possible irrationality on behalf of the pressured Vulcan.

Meanwhile, Phlox reports to Archer that the tropolisine has experienced an unforeseen complication, and has broken down into a toxin within Novakovich’s bloodstream. It may now be too late to save the crewman, but he explains that there should be time to save the rest of the crew. Archer tells T’Pol and Trip that ampules of inaprovaline will be transported to the away team so that they can be inoculated. However, Trip has become even more violently paranoid and is very close to shooting T’Pol. As she, who says that she has barely been affected by the pollen, and Sato talk secretly in Vulcan, Archer plays up to Trip’s delusions and tells him that T’Pol was meeting with the ‘rock-people’ in a secret mission, which tricks him into lowering his weapon, allowing T’Pol to stun him herself. She then treats the away team with the inaprovaline.

The morning brings better weather more comparable to the day before. Trip apologises to T’Pol and admits that his preconceptions about Vulcans need challenging. After learning that Novakovich will be fine, the away team gather their things and leave the planet via their awaiting shuttlepod.

Summary
It’s happened before. Some sort of outside alien influence manages to make some sort of paranoid impression on a Star Trek crew. In TNG, Riker thought that he was going insane. In DS9, O’Brien thought that he had spent years inside a prison and had killed his closest friend. And in Voyager, Chakotay found himself fighting for an evil species against the good guys. OK, so each one may be stretching the premise mentioned just, but all I’m saying is that when I had finished watching tonight’s episode, I felt that I had seen it all before.

Not that it was a bad thing – this is our brand new Enterprise series, which so far has had a good start. This is a prequel show, therefore any previously explored themes found throughout Star Trek will just be explored again here, but in a different light – there will be more of a threat if the crew isn’t used to this sort of thing, right? Well, let’s buy that and move on.

First of all, I loved the start. The whole idea of, ‘Wow! A planet! Let’s stop and explore’ seemed a very real direction to head in. T’Pol’s scepticism perhaps reflects ours when the episode starts. We all know something’s going to go wrong, that’s why we just don’t rush down to any old planet to explore for the hell of it. But this crew has spent six weeks out in space now, and probably haven’t done much, so I’m glad that the crew have all this enthusiasm still, reflective of the prequel premise.

I also loved the show’s eventual move from light-hearted (Porthos running of into the woods made me laugh – I love that dog – as did the camping-out under the stars with ghost stories – it all seemed very human) to the tense. Again, third episode in a row that gets a bit rough and we have enough tension to force frown lines upon the younger members of the crew.

The characters that made up the away team had some very good character treatment. Well, again apart from Mayweather, who seemed to blend more into the background again like in ‘Broken Bow’ after his ghost story humour, like the new Cutler and Novakovich characters. Cutler seemed interesting enough – she came across as enthusiastic for her work and exploration like the rest of the crew – but Novakovich in comparison seemed a little bland. Though he was an important reminder of those nasty transporters, and how we WANT to avoid them in this new series. I was wondering how they were going to use that to get them all out of there, and was so happy when they didn’t.

T’Pol and Trip were very good in this episode also. We found that Trip is close to the captain (just in case we didn’t pick that up over the course of the past two episodes with the meals and the frank discussions the two had), and his enthusiasm for new worlds was perfect. T’Pol shifted a little, showing her trust in her crew back on the Enterprise, whilst still having her reservations over humans – I’m sure the away team ganging up on her set her human-acceptance back by a few weeks at least.

Moving onto some of the more negative points – for one I hope that this doesn’t set a trend for alien virus episodes. I’m already approaching next week’s episode about ‘unexpected’ (notice the naff pun?) pregnancy with an alien with a bit more caution after this week’s virus. I think this is a worthy worry, especially after TNG’s flirtation with alien viruses and such during their first couple of years. It is a concept that has been overdone, like the previously mentioned paranoia, and frankly a new show can do without old tricks (are you hearing me costume department? Ditch the cat suit! As if T’Pol would go camping in it…)

Finally, here’s hoping that poor old Mayweather (and Reed, though I can accept that he wasn’t essential to the plot in this episode) gets some more lines and a bit of development. He’s coming across as a token black guy at the moment, and that is definitely not the way television should work, and is definitely not what Star Trek is meant to depict.

And maybe we could get a Porthos episode in the near future? Hmmm? OK, that’s just wishful thinking…

Final Opinion
A nice episode generated from an old premise.

Rating: 7/10