Episode Review - The Andorian Incident
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
At a place of Vulcan meditation, a group of blue-skinned aliens with antennae invade and take over for some reason…

Trip questions the point of exploring new worlds when all the crew seem to be doing is explore planets previously mapped by the Vulcans. In response, Archer says that they are planets that humans have not yet visited, but also mentions that a neutron star that they passed a while ago is nowhere to be found on the Vulcan charts, suggesting that they are inaccurate. He decides that they should take the opportunity to visit a nearby Vulcan monastery called P’Jem, which is over 3000 years old. T’Pol explains that P’Jem is a sanctuary for meditation and ‘Kolinahr,’ or the purging of emotions. She briefs Trip and Archer on the proper protocols that should be followed, before the three take a shuttlepod down to the planet.

When they are there, something does not seem right – the entrance has been damaged, to which T’Pol replies that a 3000-year-old building may not be able to stand the tests of time. However when they enter, a Vulcan Elder informs them that they are interrupting Kolinahr and must leave. T’Pol notes that there should have been more than one Elder to greet them, adding to the oddity of the situation until Archer notices a reflection of a blue-skinned alien with a weapon. Trip also notices one, and when the two try and capture an alien, the room is invaded with a group of the blue-skinned creatures.

The aliens show how paranoid they are when their leader, Shran, interrogates Archer, accusing the humans of conspiring with the Vulcans. The away team is then left, trapped in a meditation room filled with Vulcans who were captured earlier. Archer learns from T’Pol that the aliens are Andorians, a suspicious and volatile species from a neighbouring system. They believe that the Vulcans intend to invade their homeworld. Through this paranoia a treaty was signed between the two, but the Andorians are at the monastery because they believe that the Vulcans are hiding a long-range sensor array, which the Vulcan Elder denies the existence of.

Back on Enterprise, Reed, now in command, detects an alien vessel that is not Vulcan. Worried about not hearing back from the away team, despite Sato’s suggestions that they do not have to contact their ship every ten minutes, he tries to contact them. However on the planet, Shran is interrogating Archer again. When his communicator goes off, Shran answers and announces that Archer is a prisoner of the Andorian Imperial Guard, and warns that and attempts at intervention will result in the deaths of the hostages. He then smashes Archer’s, and then Trip's and T’Pol’s communicators to prevent further communications. Reed has no intentions of doing nothing and plans a rescue mission and initiates further research into the Andorian race.

Back at P’Jem, Archer tries to get ideas flowing among the captives. The Vulcan Elder admits to the existence of an old transmitter, which he is not sure of still working after so much time. However, Trip is convinced that he can repair it, and so he, escorted by a younger Vulcan, traverses through a secret entrances into a dark series of passages filled with ancient relics. They discover the transmitter and Trip begins trying to fix it. The two make it back to the meditation room before the Andorians discover that they are missing, and when they leave, Trip successfully contacts Reed and tells him just to sit tight whilst they come up with an escape plan themselves.

The Vulcans are strongly against any form of violence, but Archer learns about the layout of the catacombs and works out a plan. He gets the Andorians to take him in the atrium where he will give them information, but he just babbles useless Earth trivia under the fake ruse of just wanting to get away from the Vulcans, saying that he cannot cope with their company. In reality, he wanted access to the atrium so he could drop a figure through an orifice in a large sculpture on the atrium wall. Archer’s time wasting results in a beating, but as Trip finds the figure they now at least know that the passage leads to the atrium. Therefore Reed and two other crewmen (one being a bit apprehensive about using the transporter) are transported to the meditation room and go underground to plant explosives behind the face sculpture.

The Andorians detect an energy surge, and then the new human bio-signs, but before they can do anything they are caught in the explosion of the atrium wall, and get into a fight with the rescue team. Reed stuns two Andorians, but Shran and another get away. Archer arms himself and pursues them to the Reliquary, where the temple’s most sacred artefacts are kept. The young Vulcan Initiate objects to them entering it, but Archer leaves him with little choice but to accept. They are attacked by the Andorians, and many relics are destroyed. However, a curtain is knocked from its position, revealing a high-tech-looking door, which looks completely out of place in an ancient monastery.

Archer manages to open the door, and immediately calls a ceasefire when he sees what is inside – all humans, Andorians and even T’Pol are surprised to see a large complex filled surveillance equipment and many Vulcan technicians. This shows up the monks for lying all along, and tests T’Pol's allegiances by ordering her to take pictures with her scanner and hand them over to the Andorians, as evidence of the Vulcans betraying their treaty. T’Pol also orders the Enterprise to allow the Andorian ship safe passage away from P’Jem. Shran takes the scanner and tells Archer that they are in his debt.

Summary
Wow. This was big. When I first heard that the Andorians were going to be appearing in Enterprise, I thought it was cool. Maybe they’d become a recurring villain and we’d have a nice few episodes showing how they came to be members of the Federation. But this was much bigger than that, and maybe I should have known that with the introduction of a new look for the aliens, as well as Jeffrey Combs playing the lead Andorian (both of which were very interesting – the antennae now seem to have a point, and it was nice to see the excellent Jeffrey Combs back again.)

One interesting part of Enterprise’s premise was the strained relationship between humans and Vulcans. How the two distrust each other, and don’t tell each other everything. This really cool beginning point of the Star Trek timeline was pictured brilliantly hear, first with the revelation that the Vulcans knew all about, had problems with and even had a treaty with the Andorians, and then secondly by having the Vulcans as the ‘bad guys’ at the end. The fact that they had stooped to treachery is surely going to have big ramifications on the series so early in its run. In fact, though I haven’t read any spoilers yet, the upcoming episode ‘Shadows of P’Jem’ already sounds like one I can’t miss.

There were lots of other likeable bits as well this week. The ongoing joke about the smell of humans had me in stitches by the final time it was mentioned – first of all, Trip says that the Vulcans wouldn’t like them visiting their monastery because of their smell. However, later in the episode we find that T’Pol has some sort of injection to ensure that she doesn’t have to put up with the smell, and then we find that without it she is finding it hard to cope, and she certainly doesn’t want to share a blanket with Archer! Very funny, indeed.

Phlox and T’Pol had a very nice conversation in the mess hall. Both seem to have a common trend of being an outcast on the ship – T’Pol being the only Vulcan on the ship and being ‘embarrassed’ by having to show that status to the people at P’Jem, and then Phlox being the only of his kind on the ship, having to learn about the various aspects of human culture to be a better physician. I hope that this relationship is one that builds, as it is one that deserved scene after scene, for me at least. It is a stark contrast to the Spock/Bones friendship of the original series, and it was very nice to see T’Pol make ‘friends’ with someone finally.

In ‘other-character news’ – Reed, Mayweather and Sato seem to be coming off as ‘the other crew.’ After the episode had finished I held the opinion that Archer, T’Pol, Trip and even Phlox (especially considering who’s been having dinner with who over these past weeks) are the most important personnel on the ship, leaving the other three as ‘supporting staff.’ Not that this is bad. OK, no-one’s getting the development that they could do with so early in the season, but when the three were in charge on the bridge when the others were down on the planet, the seemed to have their own camaraderie sorted out, and looked like they would be another group of friends, alongside the captain and company. Though having said that, Reed was very good in his ‘tactical-officer-in-charge’ role. He was very concerned about the away team and ready to pounce on any escape idea. His over indulgence in weaponry sounds like a running gag at the moment, and I’m sure he’d be a good captain one day.

It may have been out of character, but I could easily have seen T’Pol slapping Archer at the beginning of the episode! I like how this new crew is all enthusiastic to explore new worlds and such (excellently shown through Trip at the start, who sounded like a whiney kid) but Archer’s stubborn ‘let’s-visit-the-monastery-no-matter-what-they’re-doing’ approach to P’Jem seemed a bit unfair and even wrong. Though it did go and force T’Pol into that interesting scene with Phlox…

Moving back to the Andorians, I’m told that their new moving antennae are supposed to reflect their emotions. Whilst that sounds like an interesting, plausible idea, throughout the episode I was just left wondering what the point was. They simply seemed to be moving at random, and the close-up on them at the start of the episode was a bit silly. But on the other hand, the Andorians were originally a war-like race when they were created. This episode seemed to fit in nicely with that idea. And then with Jeffrey Combs playing Shran cranking it up a notch (yes, he was/is that good), it was good to see the Andorians back.

Final Opinion
An excellent episode, I hope they follow up on the issues raised.

Rating: 9/10