Episode Review - Breaking The Ice
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
Out of the blue, the discovery of a comet that is apparently the biggest that humans have ever seen has the crew enthused. T’Pol informs Archer that the comet holds large quantity of the previously unknown (to humans) mineral, eisilium, which is also rare. Upon knowing this, Archer orders Reed and Mayweather to land on the comet and take samples of the mineral. However, as they prepare for their mission, the Vulcan ship Ti’Mur approaches. Vanik, the Vulcan captain, informs Archer that rather than investigate the comet, he is  there to monitor the Enterprise’s own investigation of it. Archer is annoyed, but allows the Vulcans to stay and watch. He then asks T’Pol about what they are up to. He is especially annoyed that the Vulcans seem to be watching over them far too often, but in this instance, T’Pol has no answers.

Reed and Mayweather finally land their shuttlepod on the comet’s surface, and begin their mission in the extreme Winter-like environment. Meanwhile, back on the Enterprise, Trip is shocked when he finds that T’Pol has secretly received an encrypted message from the Vulcan ship. When he tells this to Archer, Archer says that he and T’Pol had previously agreed that she would tell him of any messages received from the Vulcan High Command. Due to the deception, he orders Trip to have Sato decrypt and then translate the message.

A little later, the bridge crew then takes some time out to answer questions from Trip’s nephew’s fourth-grade class in Ireland, including what they eat in space and how they talk to aliens. Trip himself is picked to answer, “When you flush a toilet, where does it go?” leaving him a little upset, but then Phlox jumps at the chance to answer the question, “Do germs live in space?” His complicated answer leaves the crew a little less than amused, and has Archer playing up the excuse that the class’ teacher’s time should not be wasted any more.

Back on the comet, Reed and Mayweather are making fun out of quite a dull job of setting charges in the ice to blow a crater into existence - the first step of their drilling operation. They stop to build a snowman, which eventually acquires a pair of Vulcan ears. On Enterprise, Trip puts the decrypted message through the Universal Translator himself after Sato says that she would not feel right reading it herself. However, he soon finds out and reveals to Archer that the message was nothing of a serious threat. On the contrary, it was incredibly private, and by reading it he feels very guilty. Trip decides to be the ‘good man’ and tells her, to which she reacts uncomfortably. The two agree to keep it to themselves, as thankfully no one else has read it. Later, T’Pol will not even confide in Phlox when she is treated for a headache. He suggests that revealing the secret and talking about her angst out in the open will alleviate the stress she is suffering.

Meanwhile, Archer decides that gaining the Vulcans’ trust will encourage them to leave the Enterprise in peace, and therefore invites Vanik to join him, Trip and T’Pol for dinner, with carefully selected foods chosen by T’Pol in order to suit the Vulcan more accordingly. However, this fails – the captain does not eat anything, and will drink nothing but water, and hardly responds to conversation. Archer becomes incredibly frustrated and asks suddenly why the Vulcans are spying on them. Vanik denies everything, and Archer sends him back to his ship angrily.

On the comet, Reed and Mayweather have blasted a crater on the surface, and they begin to set up a drilling rig so that they can gather samples. However, Archer tells them that the blast has altered the comet’s rotation, and tells them to be off the comet within two hours, before the sun is directly facing their shuttlepod. Back on Enterprise, T’Pol takes Phlox’s advice and asks Trip for advice in private, as he already knows about her situation. In her encrypted letter, T’Pol was told to return to Vulcan so that she could attend her pre-arranged wedding otherwise it would be cancelled. When she announced that she would be staying on Enterprise a few weeks ago, it angered her future husband’s family that she would rather stay with humans and delay her wedding. Now she has come to the point where she must choose between her culture (involving her staying on Vulcan for at least a year) and her career. Trip tries to tell her to choose for herself, yet she says that culture and tradition should take precedence over personal feelings. Trip says that she is acting like her mind is already made up, but is not convinced.

Having finally collected a sample, Reed and Mayweather begin removing their equipment. However, Mayweather slips and badly hurts his knee. He insists that they still take the sample with them, and their pace is slowed considerably as Reed helps the limping Mayweather back to the shuttlepod. They make it, but as the sun is beginning to break across the horizon, the ice is beginning to crack. As the two enter the pod and fire up he engines, a hole develops underneath them, leaving them trapped. Archer manoeuvres the Enterprise himself closer to the chasm using a navigational joystick so that they can use the grapplers to collect the pod. Vanik hails the Enterprise, offering assistance, which is then rejected by Archer. Trip manages to lock onto the pod with one of the grapplers, but the eisilium deposits disrupt the maglock. T’Pol convinces Archer to dismiss the Vulcans’ views of humans as arrogant and prideful and accept Vanik’s help with the use of a tractor beam. The Ti’Mur then rescues Reed and Mayweather.

Archer offers to share the data they collected with Vanik, who simply reiterates that he has no interest in it, and then prepares to depart. Trip asks T’Pol if she wants to leave with the other Vulcans, but instead she sends a message to be relayed to her family, conveying her wish to stay aboard the Enterprise.

Summary
I had a feeling that whatever came after last week’s ‘big-revelation’ episode would be a bit of a let-down, unless it was an immediate follow-up to the actions that were undertaken last week. My fears were confirmed with this episode that seemed to lack story, whereas in reality, there were three or even four small stories meshed into one mess, each one continuing the metaphor announced in the title at the beginning of the episode. And how tiring it had become by the end of it all, which was unfortunate as it was (originally) quite clever.

The original Star Trek series always tended to have one main story. Then, TNG came along and introduced us Trekkies, Trekkers or whatever to our friend, the B-plot, offering ancillary action to supplement the main plot, whether it was running short or whether it was there by design. On DS9, there were at least a couple of episodes that had as much as a C-plot, and don’t even get me started on the final arc. However, each time (or at least most of the time – you only have to see my review of Voyager’s ‘Body and Soul’ to see how the B-plot ruined that episode), each respective supplementary plot had something to do with the rest of the episode in general. Others, however, do not. Which brings me onto this.

When I first heard the title, and discovered that Reed and Mayweather would become trapped on a comet, I thought it would be a nice episode that would develop the characters of perhaps the two most underused Enterprise characters so far. However, all that I can see here is three or four ideas for stories all rejected at one point or another, recycled into one plot.

Firstly, we have our comet plot. Mayweather and Reed went off on this mission, but frankly if they hadn’t have been picked up at the end, no one would have noticed. We learned nothing new about the two, and in fact (because of the multiple plots) we hardly saw them. The breaking the ice metaphor previously mentioned is explored here with the ice literally breaking, and even if I had no idea what to expect in the programme, I would have known it was coming up because it was so predictable.

Next, there was the growing frustration between Archer and the Vulcan captain. Whilst this reflected the human/Vulcan relations quite well, it was not necessary. It derived the airtime from other pieces of story that deserved it, which include the aforementioned comet plot and the later mentioned T’Pol marriage plot. It was nice that Archer found himself having to accept help from the Vulcans, but then all that seemed to do at the end of the episode was make the captain look arrogant and full of pride – exactly what T’Pol said he should fight against. Breaking the ice again popped up here, with Archer finally calling a ‘truce’ with his acceptance of Vulcan help, but like I say, it didn’t come off very well.

The random story generator came up with another (small) part of the episode, where the crew recorded messages for the children on Earth. This was actually a nice bit of relief, and even tried to address what happens with toilets and all that business (I found that funny, what with the running joke about bathrooms on the Enterprise and whatnot.) However, this did not last long, and didn’t even seem to have any point being in the episode. Perhaps it was something that could have been done a few months down the line, when the crew had perhaps garnered a bit of fame back on Earth due to their exploits.

Finally, and easily the most intriguing part of the episode was T’Pol and her arranged marriage. It was interesting at first how the mistrust between humans and Vulcans (reflected in the first storyline mentioned here) was shown when Archer immediately thinks that T’Pol has gone behind his back. But then the situation grew more interesting with a bit of possible friendship shining through between Trip and T’Pol, and the revelation that she should be getting married. However, that was dealt with poorly. This is the second time in only a few episodes that the writers have taken an issue that could be dealt with interestingly and seriously, but then waste their resources on other parts of the episode. It seemed like T’Pol had been given ten minutes to make up her mind over whether she wanted to move off the ship or not, and as the revelation came quite late and Jolene Blalock is still in future episodes of Enterprise, it was completely obvious she was never going to leave. However, what was important here was that she broke the ice-cold barriers of her Vulcan exterior to allow a little humanisation (the pie at the end of the episode was a strong image after her refusal to eat it at the beginning of the episode as it was full of sugar - maybe she was just watching her figure?) to alter her a little more than she had been previously.

However, other than that little ray of hope, the episode had little other purpose, and was a big letdown after last week. However, it still scores better than 'Unexpected...'

Final Opinion
Trying to fill the box with too many toys will get you nowhere.

Rating: 6.5/10