Episode Review - Civilization
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
T’Pol’s analysis of the region of space that the Enterprise has just entered leaves the crew excited at the prospect of being able to explore an Earth-like planet populated with 500 million lifeforms in a pre-industrial state, called the Akaali. Despite T’Pol’s protests that the crew should not interfere with a pre-warp civilisation as it may affect their rate of development, Archer says that if Starfleet had wanted to just map stars they would have sent out probes. The fact that they have sent a crew out is reason enough to explore the planet. However, urgency for the mission to take place becomes apparent when the crew detect neutrino emissions on the surface. They surmise that an antimatter reactor is present, which should be impossible on a world that does not even have indoor plumbing. Archer leads an away team including Sato, Trip and T’Pol, and all have their appearances altered so that they look like the Akaali.

Throughout nighttime on the planet, the team split into two groups to explore the surface, trying to pinpoint where the emissions are coming from. T’Pol and Sato find that many people on the streets are infected with some sort of illness. Archer and Trip find that the antimatter reactor is concealed underground, beneath a shop. Upon breaking into the shop they find that some sort of forcefield is blocking an entrance to the rear. However, any advancement is hindered when a startled Akaali woman accuses them of causing her people’s plague with their ‘evening deliveries.’ After she pulls a crossbow onto the two officers, T’Pol arrives just in time to stun the woman. Upon dawn’s arrival, Archer orders the rest of the away team back to their shuttlepod as he stays behind with the woman to try and obtain some information. He finds that her name is Riaan, and tells her that he is an investigator from another city, curious about the strange goings-on at the shop, and their possible relation to Riaan’s people’s plague, and says that he will return to ask more questions, to which she agrees.

When the shop finally opens, Archer and Trip confront the owner, whose name is Garos, about not being from this planet, though in response he notices that neither are Archer and Trip. He explains that he is a Malurian, an explorer like them, who has taken a liking to the Akaali and their planet, and decided to stay. The antimatter device is apparently nothing more than a fabrication device that creates food and clothing for him. He also claims that the plague is caused by an indigenous virus, and that Riaan’s accusations towards him about him causing it are groundless. Archer remains sceptical about this, and therefore returns to Riaan’s laboratory with T’Pol. As she secretly goes about acquiring data, Archer learns from Riaan that her own brother was one of the first victims of the epidemic, which started a short while after Garos arrived. She also mentions that mysterious deliveries happen at night, with delivery people taking things from Garos’ shop to various other places. Back on Enterprise, Phlox gathers from T’Pol’s readings that the city’s water is contaminated with tetracyanate 622, a toxic compound usually used as an industrial lubricant. It is apparently responsible for the plague.

Later, Archer and Riaan observe the shop, waiting for a delivery. Unexpectedly, Archer’s translator malfunctions, leaving him awkwardly unable to communicate with Riaan. He solves the problem by kissing her as cover whilst he fixes the translator. They soon see a man hauling crates out of the shop, and they follow him to a forest where they see the crates being transported into an alien shuttlecraft via a tractor beam. Riaan is shocked by these sightings, and Archer is left ready to tell her his true identity when they come under attack from the delivery man. He manages to stun him, which also undoes the alien’s prosthetic disguise. He takes the alien’s weapon, shop key and a remote control, and explains everything to Riaan as they return to the city. They enter Garos’ shop and use the remote to disable the forcefield that was previously stopping Archer and Trip from exploring any further. The two discover a large underground drilling operation under surveillance from the aliens. Archer determines that they are mining a veridium isotope, used to create explosives, and that their drill bits are saturated with tetracyanate, which in turn would be causing the contamination to the town’s water supply. Determined that he can shut down the operation, Archer tells Trip on the Enterprise to use the transporter to beam out the antimatter reactor, as soon as he can disengage the dampening field that is in operation around the entire mine. However, he and Riaan misread the alien controls and set off an alarm.

As a Malurian ship approaches and threatens Enterprise, Garos confronts Archer in the mine and tells him to leave and never return to permit the survival of his ship. Enterprise manages to evade the ensuing attack, with Trip protesting about T’Pol’s orders to set a course away from the planet. She tells him that they are only setting course, and says that they will not leave without the captain whether he be alive or dead. On the planet, Archer manages to disable the dampening field and escape with Riaan into the city where they get caught in a phase pistol firefight with the aliens in front of the shocked locals of the town.

Trip tries to get a transporter lock on the reactor, but whilst the Enterprise is failing to fend off the Malurian ship. T’Pol suggests that they should just give them what they want, and the reactor is then promptly transported from the planet into the space in front of the Malurian ship. They fire a torpedo at it, creating an antimatter explosion and disabling the attacking ship. On the surface, Riaan’s scientific knowledge offers Archer a plan – shooting the oil lamp on the street, above Garos and his soldiers, which then in turn explodes and allows Archer to handle the situation fully. Defeated, Garos leaves the planet. The Enterprise crew then removes the mining equipment and provides an antidote for the plague that Riaan will claim the creation of. All this is without the Akaali knowing anything that is going on, apart from Riaan, who doubts anyone would believe her stories of what happened anyway. Archer then shares one last kiss with her, and a joke about his ‘failing translator’ relating to their earlier ‘incident.’

Summary
After an incredibly confusing story last week that mixed as many storylines together as there had been episodes so far this season, Enterprise returned this week to perhaps a simpler story, with slight romantic interludes reminiscent of one of James T. Kirk’s past, erm, ‘heroic’ stories. It may be a ridiculous concept that the captain of a Starfleet vessel is allowed to gallivant around the galaxy, making it with a series of alien babes (what does it say about serious relationships, or the possibilities of dangers surrounding alien relations – ‘Unexpected’ was only a few weeks ago…), but at least it captured the fun of the original series, which fits in nicely with some of the themes that Enterprise itself has been following over the past few weeks related to comedy. Though again, Porthos is missing.

And so, the prequel concept of the Enterprise bandwagon moves onto another Star Trek cliché or two – after previously looking at Vulcans, warp drive, transporters and even holodecks, in this episode we have a mention of the Vulcans' recommendations against exploring a pre-warp civilisation (an early version of the Prime Directive, though obviously that doesn’t exist yet allowing Archer to do whatever he wanted on the planet), as well as a further look at the universal translator and all its problems. Ahem.

We’ll look at the first one first (makes sense.) This Prime Directive has always been a thorn in the sides for all Starfleet captains, however every time it gets a mention onscreen, it only ever seems to be so that the captain in question can actually defy it, therefore making this early appearance of it a little redundant. However, it was a cool mention – we got to see Archer and co. dress up as aliens to ‘protect’ the Akaali from knowledge of existence of other life and better technology. Plus everyone looked like they had just been ripped out of a period drama - T’Pol especially looked like some sort of princess! It was at least nice to see the building up of something perhaps so important in the Star Trek history, whilst at the same time being something incredibly important, in that it spurned a lot of plots on (a couple of films and a handful of episodes at least, I’d say.)

Now onto the universal translator (the one thing that often hinders one’s usual suspense of disbelief.) Whilst so far the use of alien language has been interesting on Enterprise (Sato is an interesting character who works with languages well; and the delays of any translation among the Enterprise and alien ships adds tension to a story), this episode seemed to blunder a little, though saying that the case is the same with any Star Trek episode. Surely Archer (and T’Pol, et al) would have to speak English into the translator for an alien translation to be spoken. Surely the alien would either notice the human speaking English, or if not would realise that the alien tongue would be coming out of a small contraption hidden from sight, perhaps creating a bad dubbing effect for the alien to view. (And thank you Christina for popping these oddities into my head. ) Confused? Me too… Perhaps every alien being American is just something we’ll have to continue to buy and move on with – it’s never really been a problem before.

Moving onto the story now, and this week we have another couple of new alien species, one pre-industrial and one more interesting, yet treacherous race after some veridium. First of all, did anyone notice how similar the ‘revelation’ near the end of this week’s episode was incredibly similar to the revelation at the end of ‘The Andorian Incident’ – discovering a huge mining operation underground, compared to discovering a Vulcan satellite underground? This did feel like some sort of copy, and as we had never met these races before, the revelation did not seem as shocking, and was predictable given the set-up of the contaminated water and so on. Which then brings me onto another point – another water contamination? Another illness? It seems that every episode of Enterprise has had some sort of illness or medical irrationality in it, which in itself is becoming a tired idea (if I remember correctly, TNG’s first season had a few illness episodes… Given the success if that series, maybe this is a good sign?) This is also quite odd given that Phlox, like Reed and Mayweather (again ignored this week) has not had much character development, other than maybe a little with T’Pol. Hmph!

All action this week focussed around Archer, though T’Pol came up with an interesting idea (and line – “Maybe we should just give then what they want,” was quite cool for a Vulcan), whilst Trip at the start of the episode gave us our regular burst of excitement that gets the crew going every week. This week, for me however, seemed to grate with me a little – Trip is becoming to come across as quite dumb, leaving me dumbfounded myself as to how he achieved the rank of commander and the position of chief engineer in the first place! However, his comic interludes still entertain me – his suggestion that breaking and entering property might be allowed on the planet made me laugh.

Archer’s romance at first seemed forced, and really did look like he was covering their appearance at Garos’ shop, though by the end of the episode the two lovebirds became quite sweet and icky. Moving on the supporting character of the week, Riaan seemed interesting at first, though her acceptance of Archer and his crew’s presence came a little to fast and too easily – surely if she had flipped and told someone on the planet, it would have added an interesting subplot or something, but then other than that, character interaction, plot, special effects (had to mention the customary space battle/stand-off at the end of each episode! , and such all made for quite a nice episode, a lot better than last week’s certainly.

Final Opinion
Groovin’ round the galaxy, ignoring the ‘Prime Directive’ – just like the good ol’ days of the 60's

Rating: 8/10