Enterprise | Season 4

United

Directed By: David Livingston
Teleplay By: Judith Reeves-Stevens & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Story By: Manny Coto

Rating:

Reviewed on: 3 March 2005
Reviewed by: Michael Axe

In Brief:

Review: (Contains Spoilers)

The strange thing about this episode is that on paper, it sounds perfect, but having watched it, it just seems to be missing … something, but I can't quite put my finger on what.

The central theme of this episode is, of course, the first steps towards the founding of the Federation, and in that respect, this should be a classic episode. And I can't deny that there are a number of great scenes as Archer attempts to get the three other founding races to co-operate for the first time, thereby demonstrating humanity's role as the unifying force behind the Federation. But for some reason, the creation of the alliance just feels a little too easy and a little too rushed. Yes, the creation of the alliance to find the Romulan ship is obviously going to be easier to organise than the creation of the Federation itself, but it still felt that the alliance was set up far too quickly, especially if you deduct all the time spent on the episode's various subplots. By the end of the episode, you suddenly have a huge fleet of alliance ships all working together, and I for one was left with the feeling of “is that it?”. Although I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was missing, I can't shake the feeling that the episode should have had a greater sense of occasion.

That's not to say that this is a bad or weak episode by any stretch of the imagination. The main plot concerning the creation of the alliance works well, and the subplot involving Trip and Malcolm on the Romulan marauder is also very well executed. What could have felt like filler onboard the marauder (when you think about it, nothing of consequence really happens in this plot thread), develops instead into a tense game of cat and mouse between the humans and Valdore for control of the ship. There were even some nice minor continuity touches, such as the first appearance of the Remans on screen since their introduction in Star Trek: Nemesis.

But there were other aspects which didn't seem to work quite as well. For example, Talas's death and the resulting duel, while not being a bad subplot in and of itself, just didn't sit well with the flow of the episode. Shran's grief over the death of his lover was nicely handled, especially given the established volatility of Andorians, but the concept of a duel to the death has really been done to death by now. Having said that, although Archer's decision to take the Tellarite's place was awfully predictable, it did lead to some wonderfully emotional and genuine scenes between Archer and Shran that really served to highlight how far the relationship between these characters has developed since the first season. Given that the duel itself also managed to generate tension and excitement, the whole subplot was rather enjoyable – but the problem was it just seemed a bit forced in the midst of the major political developments that were taking place in the main plot thread.

But the biggest problem for me is that the ending of the episode just felt too rushed. Suddenly we have an alliance fleet unified against the Romulan marauder, we then have a brief battle with the marauder during which Reed and Trip are rescued, before the Romulan ship scurries back to Romulan space. It felt like it was all a bit too easy somehow, and it left me asking where was the story going to go in Part Three? When the revelation of the pilot as an albino Andorian created the obligatory cliffhanger (and you just knew the identity of the pilot had to be relevant given that they had done so much to avoid revealing it earlier), it just felt a bit tacked on and gratuitous … but I guess it's only fair to reserve judgment until I see where the next episode goes.

ll in all, the main plot thread is very good, but somehow lacks the gravitas it deserves, while the various subplots are certainly enjoyable, but feel a little tacked on. I can't help but wonder whether this story would have been better off as a tighter two-parter, rather than a slightly unfocused three-parter.

Michael Axe is the author of a number of novellas and screenplays, and is a main reviewer for ST Universe. All his reviews are copyright © Michael Axe and are used here exclusively with his permission.