Enterprise | Season 4

Bound

Directed By: Allan Kroeker
Written By: Manny Coto

Rating:

Reviewed on: 8 August 2005
Reviewed by: Michael Axe

In Brief:

Review: (Contains Spoilers)

Whilst the episode is certainly well-produced, with some nice sub-plots and an interesting twist at the end, there's really no getting over the problem that this concept has been done-to-death already.

The icing on the cake, so to speak, does give this episode a fresh gloss, but that doesn't change the fact that the cake underneath is as stale as month-old bread. Every aspect of the main plot is an overly-familiar concept – from explaining the notion of freedom to the slave girls, to the effect the scantily-clad women have on the crewmembers, to the final double-cross where the women turn out to be less than trustworthy.

Credit must be given to Manny Coto for the attempt to update and deepen such a shallow concept, for example, by explaining the effect the Orion women have on the female members of Enterprise's crew, or justifying the fact that all the male crewmembers suddenly start acting like horny dogs by mentioning the Orion women's “magic pheromones” (which, it seems, every beautiful alien woman produces – see “Rajiin” for example). And, of course, the whole premise is a tribute to the classic appearance of the Orion slave girl from TOS, and continuity links such as this are always welcome. But it's simply not enough to build an entire episode around.

One saving grace for the episode is the twist at the end, which explains that it is in fact the Orion women who control the Orion Syndicate, and who use the Orion men as their puppets. It's a fresh spin on the concept, and certainly goes a long way to addressing the deeply misogynistic portrayal of the Orions to date. The problem is, coming as it does at the end of 45 minutes of watching beautiful, practically naked women parading around, the episode could be considered a little hypocritical in trying to justify such obvious titillation by saying it's okay if the women do it on purpose…

Anyway, as is quite often the case in mediocre episodes, the real gems are the subplots. In this episode, Trip has to deal with the repercussions of his “unofficial” return as Chief Engineer when his replacement doesn't take kindly to effectively being demoted. This also links into the satisfying next step in the Trip/T'Pol saga, where they both pretty much finally get around to admitting their true feelings, at the same time as discovering that they have “mentally bonded” anyway.

All in all, this is a decent enough episode if it's taken as a piece of light-hearted entertainment, and the character-related sub-plots should keep fans happy. But a classic episode this isn't, and given that there are now only five episodes left before Enterprise is off the air for good, I can't help but feel this slot could have been filled with an episode that had a bit more to say…

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.