Demons
It’s friday night so you know what that means - yet another episode of Star Trek Enterprise. Actually after tonight’s airing of “Demons”, there will only be two more episodes of Star Trek Enterprise left.
Demons takes us back to Earth where we find the human race at crossroads. On one hand, you have Starfleet about to forge an alliance with various planets to form what we would later know as the Federation. On the other hand, you have a growing number of humans called “Terra Prime” that want all aliens to leave the planet and to keep earth just to humans… essentially these individuals are portrayed at isolationists or xenophobes.
It’s an interesting concept but not exactly ground breaking - essentially a story that in many ways models what the US went through before becoming a super power. There were significant portions of the population that wanted America to just stay out of the business of others and there were those who felt that America had a greater responsibility. Of course.. we’ll never really know who was right but today we find the US at the center of much of the world’s attention for better or for worse.
Demons takes this to a grander scale - will Earth become the stage for further attention down the line as it forms this alliance? Will we attract more and more aliens and thus make humans second class citizens as the episode postulates? In many ways, this episode could have been so much more. They could have looked at how aliens were being treated by other humans, or they could have shown how Earth was actually really divided. However, all they ended up showing was a bunch of wealthy humans taking a mining station from the moon and flying it over to Mars. Then after a magical arm comes out and takes over an array, the Terra Prime forces become a threat because they can supposedly destroy anything. Umm ok. So you’re telling me a fleet of starships can be destroyed by this slow moving array ? Umm ok.
And what’s up with this Trip and T’Pol baby? How the? what the heck?? Does anyone feel like this was an episode of the X-Files all over again? OMG - it’s actually Mulder’s kid isn’t it? Sheesh.
Just when I thought that Enterprise was going out with a bang with the In a Mirror Darkly episodes, they decide to do this xenophobic episodes which do nothing but show how lame the writing can be sometimes. I firmly wish that the writers of Star Trek would actually challenge the viewing audience sometimes. Show us why the xenophobes have something to be afraid of. As it stands, we end up feeling sorry for the aliens (ok, yes the Xindi did kill 7 million or so humans but that was 2 yrs ago now!). Show us some more!!
Ok..enough venting.. what’s up with Trip? Why is he back on the Enterprise? I thought he got transferred to the Columbia? Did anyone else notice this???
