#deadstop

[images © CBS/Paramount]

Top Three Episodes

We’re starting with Tops this time because we have stronger emotions over this season’s Bottoms list, so we’ll get to those in a minute. There were still some highlights (or at least higher-lights), and you’ll notice that the best of them are clustered around the beginning of the season:

“Judgment”: Caitlin Like in season one when we got episodes with Jeffrey Combs, Ethan Philips, and Fionnula Flanagan, a Trek-experienced guest star can redeem an otherwise standard plot. Sure, “Judgment” treads a lot of the same ground we’ve trod before, but J.G. Hertzler as Advocate Kolos is something new for Klingon culture and he chews the scenery so well!

“Regeneration”: Jake We love us a good Borg episode, and this one pulls it off. You could argue that Borg don’t belong in a prequel series, and you’d probably be right, but the tension created throughout this episode, the creepy environment we find ourselves in, the clever way the writers got around the canon issue, and the sense that there were actual stakes for a change are all commendable. Resistance is futile.

“Singularity”: Chris Like a “The Naked Time” or a “The Naked Now,” this one really thrives on how committed all of the actors are to their respective bits. Most of the plot feels like filler – an anomaly of the week affects the crew in weird ways; we’ve seen this a million times – but there’s just something about watching Trip fixate over a chair and Hoshi obsess over her soup recipe that’s just so charming we can’t help but enjoy it.

“Minefield”: Ames Of all our main crewmembers, Lieutenant Reed remains the most vague, and this episode makes us fully okay with that! We get a glimpse into his stiff-upper-lip brand of British Gumption™ paired with the stress his family put on him to succeed, and he just works! So this sweet little character piece about Reed preparing to sacrifice himself for the ship is just the right amount of character insight we need into our pineapple-loving security chief.

“Cease Fire”: Caitlin Andorians are just fun. A large portion of the appeal of the blue baddies rests on the shoulders of Jeffrey Combs as Shran, who is so capable of playing just about anything. But this episode deepens the culture of our antennaed friends by adding some infighting to the mix with the addition of Lieutenant Tarah, played so hypnotically by the ever-great Suzie Plakson! Always a good day when you get to see her!

“Carbon Creek”: Ames, Chris, Jake The episodes that we see agreement for among your SSHB hosts are also those early episodes I was referring to when we still had hope for the season. This bedtime story of Vulcan lore succeeds in showing us a different side of our pointy-eared allies, basically pulling a Coneheads. Nothing wrong with that. And we get such fascinating new characters out of them that I actually amended my Favorite Vulcans list!

“Dead Stop”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake The one we all put on our Tops list this season is also one of the more original stories from Enterprise. The idea of an enigmatic race of aliens who created an automated repair station is interesting enough on its own, but the creepiness builds throughout; the clean, white design sets an appropriately offputting tone; and everyone is left on edge. And we already know Roxann Dawson rocks at voicing homicidal computers.

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Bottom Three Episodes

And now for the nerd rage portion of our wrap up. We had such hopes when we started this season, but then the rest alternated from “this has been done before and better” to “well, that was unsatisfying” to “cringe cringe cringe cringe cringe!” Here are this season’s biggest offenders, in every definition of the word:

“The Expanse”: Chris We can see the season finale is trying to set something up with the Xindi attack on Earth, but what we get are a lot of expository scenes, an entirely disjointed sideplot with the unfathomably present Klingons, and a not-at-all-subtle 9/11 allegory that is going to taint a lot of our future watching. Why are the Xindi stupid enough to test their probe on Earth and then do nothing for months? Find out next season on Enterprise!

“Bounty”: Caitlin While the A-plot of this episode is fine, it warrants inclusion because the B-plot is so enraging. We’ve already had enough of pon farr after train wrecks like Voyager’s “Blood Fever” and the uncomfortable Saavik scene from The Search for Spock. So we’re all the more done with it when Enterprise forces T’Pol to writhe around erotically in her underpants and sexually assault Phlox and Reed. YUCK.

“Cogenitor”: Chris If you were looking for more reasons to be angry at Archer, we’ve got an episode for you. It could have been successful if we could be sure what its messaging was. We fume at the Vissians for how they treat the cogenitors and assume that’s the point... Until Archer just starts screaming at Trip for standing up for a marginalized person, and refuses to grant Charles asylum after they begged for it. So. Whose side are we supposed to be on? Because it can’t be Archer’s, right? Right?

“Vanishing Point”: Caitlin, Jake What a let down. What could have been an interesting new concept about early uses of the transporter, in an era when they were even more terrifying than usual, gets entirely negated by the conclusion that “it was all just a dream.” These cop-out ending pull the rug out from under you and make everything you watched feel like a trick. As if we needed more to hate about dream episodes.

“Stigma”: Ames, Jake Just when you thought last season’s rape-happy episode “Fusion” was behind us, it rears its ugly head again in this HIV/AIDS allegory that comes decades too late. Yet again, T’Pol gets stripped of her agency so that various Men In The Room can decide what’s best for her. And to make matters worse, the incongruous B-plot seems to suggest that Trip is close-minded for not wanting Phlox’s wife to sexually assault him all day!

“A Night in Sickbay”: Ames, Chris I disliked Archer and Phlox enough after season one – and things were looking up for season two – when this episode comes crashing down. Archer is just a Big Baby all episode long because he refuses to apologize for Porthos pissing on the Kreetassans’ sacred tree, Phlox is nothing but obnoxious and disgusting the whole time, and we get even more objectifying T’Pol in Archer’s dreams for no reason!

“Precious Cargo”: Ames, Caitlin, Jake But the worst of the worst this season just has to be this rehash of TNG’s “The Perfect Mate,” which we hated enough to begin with! Another Kriosian woman is being transported in cryostasis, allowing for an episode of Kaitamma and Trip running around in their underwear until they predictably make love by a stream. Add to that Padma Lakshmi’s awful, awful acting and you’ve made it to the bottom of the season. Woo.

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