ENT - The Xindi

[MerelyAFan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGQOCo3 ... FDebrisRed

It's funny. In some ways, despite Season 3 largely being better than the two that came before, Archer's continued dubious characterization comes across as worse precisely because it's such a high stakes scenario. His lack of self awareness and general pigheaded attitude was never ideal, but maintaining it when so much is at risk somehow makes him seem even less capable than giving away an ally's military secrets did.

It somewhat underscores the issue of Enterprise's writing at this point, yes there was finally actual direction and an ongoing story arc at least gave the cast something more interesting to do. But the poor conception of most of the characters was still apparent, and the disconnect between Archer as the affable everyman explorer and stubborn/self righteous captain was still not mended.

Basically a lot of the house of Enterprise was fixed up by Season 3, but its interior was still fundamentally rotten, and it took the likes of Damage and really Manny Coto to turn Archer into the leader that the show had pretended he was but rarely pulled off.

[Mabus]

The series really dived into the post-9/11 spirit of the time with the start of S3 more so than before. I don't have an issue with the characters being all stressed out and near the edge, which makes sense after Earth was attacked and lots of people died in what appeared to be a senseless attack. My biggest grip is that this is not how the season opener should have been. In typical Trek fashion, the characters are acting angry for something that happened off screen! Won't it have been nice if instead of the characters telling how for the past 6 weeks they barely found any lead towards the Xindi (which is ridiculous, considering that in the episode opener, the Xindi council claims that the Enterprise is at least 50 LY from Earth, or Earth is at 50 LY from them, the dialogue isn't clear to me), we actually get to see that? And rather than everything happen in one episode, why not just make the season opener a two-part? That way, not only you remind the audience the stakes, but also how the failed attempts of finding the Xindi is increasingly causing the crew to become more angry and stressed out? It's not there aren't any episodes in S3 that weren't necessary, like Rajiin, Exile, North Star or Similitude. They could have just removed one of those and made a better season opener.

And it's ridiculous, given that later in the season, when things go even worse, they... again become angry and stressed out, both in the next episode when they get robbed, and later when the Enterprise gets almost destroyed. Won't it have made more sense for this to have built up gradually, rather than have the characters act angry and irritated every time they needed a forced emotional moment?

[MerelyAFan]

They probably could have done something interesting with flashbacks of the immediate aftermath of the Xindi attack being heavily featured in the season opener and the lightly peppered in throughout the rest of the season. You get the emotional impact of what it did to the crew, and then deliberately compare/contrast that window of time with what's going on in the present. Perhaps a scene of an enraged Archer right after Earth is hit declaring he'd do anything to stop the Xindi... but having that show up in Damage where now that angry declaration is tested. Or one of Phlox wondering how such a people could not value life that they would kill so many occurring in the Similitude.

There's some potential with the concept.

[Linkara]

Part of the crappy attitude of Archer and Reed is because of the more serialized nature of this season, where there will be later resolution to their stuff - Archer's later realization of what he's become in the wake of all this and Reed's clear jealousy and insecurity about the MACOs stemming from his own ego rather than any ACTUAL attempt by the Major to usurp his authority. It's just all we've got is the beginning of the arc here so they just come across as assholes.

And as mentioned above, the episode really got into that post-9/11 mindset of making our heroes more aggressive, more impatient and less sympathetic to a perceived villain. It's honestly most helpful in that the season shifts away and starts recognizing how shitty the attitude is, because of course looking back on it 20 years later we realize how horrible this mindset was. End of season 2 had that private conversation with Archer and Tucker talking about how they're going to go into the expanse guns blazing, kill 'em all... and of course by the end of this season both men realizing how wrong they were (just as the Xindi themselves had been tricked) and trying to actually make things better.

[Lazerlike42]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGQOCo3 ... FDebrisRed

It's funny. In some ways, despite Season 3 largely being better than the two that came before, Archer's continued dubious characterization comes across as worse precisely because it's such a high stakes scenario. His lack of self awareness and general pigheaded attitude was never ideal, but maintaining it when so much is at risk somehow makes him seem even less capable than giving away an ally's military secrets did.

It somewhat underscores the issue of Enterprise's writing at this point, yes there was finally actual direction and an ongoing story arc at least gave the cast something more interesting to do. But the poor conception of most of the characters was still apparent, and the disconnect between Archer as the affable everyman explorer and stubborn/self righteous captain was still not mended.

Basically a lot of the house of Enterprise was fixed up by Season 3, but its interior was still fundamentally rotten, and it took the likes of Damage and really Manny Coto to turn Archer into the leader that the show had pretended he was but rarely pulled off.

I know this is likely a point of disagreement among fans, but I'd never really considered the show to be trying to portray Archer as a great leader. One of the big themes early on in the series is that they really have no idea what they're doing, and it gets them into trouble quite often. I think it's a mistake to interpret this stuff - Archer's attitude included - to be awful, tone deaf attempts at portraying the crew in a positive light. I think we're supposed to see them as messing up and being largely terrible at what they're doing.

Now, I would say that I think that by mid season two and onward they are trying to portray Archer (and everyone else, for the most part) as finally starting to "get it" and doing the right stuff, and I think at this point it really does come across as tone deaf and terrible because the show's idea of what "getting it" means is aa mess.

For example, I just rewatched the very late season 2 episode Cogenitor tonight with my wife, who is watching for the first time, and I remembered how awful it is. Archer reaches Janeway levels of hypocrisy and blaming the people who are actually trying to do something about an atrocity and it seems like the show is, in this case, trying to praise him for it. I think it's supposed to be a case of showing how Archer is finally coming to the "enlightened" view that would become the prime-directive and that he's learned his lesson from past mistakes like when he tried to actually help people and all.

[shikomekidomi]

Archer being aggressive with and unsympathetic to the aliens who attacked Earth out of the blue certainly makes sense. However, abandoning one of them after searching six weeks for a clue to the location of their home planet BEFORE getting that information from said alien crosses the line into absolute madness. Even if Archer was solely focused on revenge, he should have wanted to take the alien to his ship and beat answers out of him.

[CmdrKing]

The Xindi arc in general is a case of “I appreciate the intent and some of the message works well but it’s not a smooth ride by any stretch”, and I think Chuck captures that frustration well.

I think the arc they ended up accidentally creating for Archer (which Chuck’s character breakdown video goes into) is pretty interesting, just being accidental (or at least, unintentional) means again it’s a bumpy ride.

[MerelyAFan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGQOCo3 ... FDebrisRed

It's funny. In some ways, despite Season 3 largely being better than the two that came before, Archer's continued dubious characterization comes across as worse precisely because it's such a high stakes scenario. His lack of self awareness and general pigheaded attitude was never ideal, but maintaining it when so much is at risk somehow makes him seem even less capable than giving away an ally's military secrets did.

It somewhat underscores the issue of Enterprise's writing at this point, yes there was finally actual direction and an ongoing story arc at least gave the cast something more interesting to do. But the poor conception of most of the characters was still apparent, and the disconnect between Archer as the affable everyman explorer and stubborn/self righteous captain was still not mended.

Basically a lot of the house of Enterprise was fixed up by Season 3, but its interior was still fundamentally rotten, and it took the likes of Damage and really Manny Coto to turn Archer into the leader that the show had pretended he was but rarely pulled off.

I know this is likely a point of disagreement among fans, but I'd never really considered the show to be trying to portray Archer as a great leader. One of the big themes early on in the series is that they really have no idea what they're doing, and it gets them into trouble quite often. I think it's a mistake to interpret this stuff - Archer's attitude included - to be awful, tone deaf attempts at portraying the crew in a positive light. I think we're supposed to see them as messing up and being largely terrible at what they're doing.

Now, I would say that I think that by mid season two and onward they are trying to portray Archer (and everyone else, for the most part) as finally starting to "get it" and doing the right stuff, and I think at this point it really does come across as tone deaf and terrible because the show's idea of what "getting it" means is aa mess.

For example, I just rewatched the very late season 2 episode Cogenitor tonight with my wife, who is watching for the first time, and I remembered how awful it is. Archer reaches Janeway levels of hypocrisy and blaming the people who are actually trying to do something about an atrocity and it seems like the show is, in this case, trying to praise him for it. I think it's supposed to be a case of showing how Archer is finally coming to the "enlightened" view that would become the prime-directive and that he's learned his lesson from past mistakes like when he tried to actually help people and all.

There might be some validity to that, but I do think it would have been better illustrated if there had been more significant in universe consequences of the result of what Archer has done.

I mean, just word of his decision with the Valakians getting back to Starfleet and causing controversy there (and maybe with the Denobulans as well given Phlox's involvement)? Or Archer perhaps losing command of the Enterprise for a bit after the Andorian Incident rather than just the silliness of Shadow's of P'Jem ? That would have been ripe for story potential and allowed the topics to be further explored if there was no interest in doing so with Archer's character specially.

Like for example, I don't think Desert Crossing is all that an impressive an episode, but I will give it credit for following up the events of Detained and allow the fallout of his decision there to result in aftershocks when it came to character motivations.

As far as the PD it seemed they were trying to write Archer as a Captain who would make the hard decisions vis-à-vis the proto Prime Directive, but still violate in extreme cases when he felt it was right. The problem was the writing in the first two seasons was so slap dash that when he somewhat did the latter it was in stories that audience were unimpressed by/didn't care about like Civilization or Detained, but when he did the former like in Dear Doctor or Progenitors, many felt it was misapplied.

[Fianna]

I loved Chuck's point about imagining how the other captains would have delivered Archer's little rant, and I can totally hear each of them saying it in their own way (especially Janeway's don't-give-a-fuck delivery), and it really makes all the difference in the world between a captain you can respect and Jonathan Archer.

[SerpentStare]

Part two is tagged as having been blocked by CBS CID here. For some reason. In the divided version.