Civilization

Now I know that not many people will agree with me but this is the type of episode that I like best.

We are shown an alien world that is both strange and familiar, plus some engaging guest actors and fascinating, not-quite-right historical sets and costumes that convey an alien civilisation at an earlier period of development than our own. This forms the backdrop for a story that we've probably seen hundreds of times before: villains from a more advanced race secretly extracting minerals from beneath the feet of the occupants, a female healer who notices that people are becoming sick and searches doggedly for the cause despite her limited scientific knowledge. Oh, and some light snogging for the Captain.

If it looks this good and moves at this brisk pace then I'm happy. Diane DiLascio who played the inquisitive Riann wore the medieval look very well and may have been recognisable for a brief role in Babylon 5. Wade Williams who played the exploitative villain Garos needs little introduction as he has appeared in just about every TV horror series of the last two decades. In this episode, the alien make up was understated to say the least but, as we have have learned before, you just can't have elaborate costumes and prosthetics in the same episode. At least not unless you want it to be followed by two boring-as-hell bottle shows in order to recoup the expenditure.

Now, I'll only say this once and once only (hopefully none of my kids will notice) but.......

........... Scott Bakula is a hell of a lot more sexy than William Shatner ever was. He's much taller, he has more hair, a better physique and ten times the acting range. I also understand he can actually sing. Yes, I just checked it out on YouTube compared to Shatner, Scott's a positive Pavarotti. When called upon to do a bit of smooching on screen there's just a chivalrous pressing of the lips but absolutely none of that lascivious Captain Kirk-style slobber. How the first Star Trek Captain would have survived in today's atmosphere of safe spaces and "intimacy co-ordinators", I've no idea.

Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.

An Earth-like planet is explored by the Enterprise crew. They are doing fine until they come to realize that there are forces at work on the planet that could lead to domination and death. There is some kind of generating device that is capable of great destruction. Archer meets a female scientist. If we wanted to nitpick, we could say it's odd that this woman, except for some facial features, similar to stitches on a baseball, is awfully attractive and earth-human. Archer falls for her. Not only is she physically attractive; she is extremely wise. She also handles their abilities and actions without batting an eye. I would expect a bit more bewilderment as they face off with weapons drawn from someone who lives in a really primitive environment. I guess the prime directive hasn't quite found its way into the vocabulary yet.

... Voyagers computer processor?

The senior senior Trekker writes.

This is an interesting pre-prime directive ep.

Actually, until phasers and tractor beams were being used with abandon, nobody really noticed anything other than people getting sick.

The Enterprise visits this planet and tries to keep it low-key, but events beyond their control cause them to act openly.

I liked this planet, it should have been visited again. But the alien crook in this episode somehow got a hold of Voyagers computer processor (or, what the Da Vinci simulation referred to as "a woman in a box") and was using it as an antimatter reactor. Huh? What! Of course they re-dressed the prop a little bit, but it was basically the exact same thing.

In case you did not notice that the controller for Radio Controlled Spock in "Spock's brain" was actually the original communicator from "the cage", later seen in "the menagerie"...

Or that the cloaking device for the USS Pegasus was also a beacon used in the Voyager episode "Gravity" (with Tank Girl)...

Fun Game: in any Star Trek episode, identify the props and which episode or episodes they originally appeared in.

My favorite thing in almost all of the Star Trek series that I have collected on DVD over the years were the featurettes by Penny Juday, where she discusses the origin of various props, and how they were used in episode after episode.

So, what else would they use to make a portable antimatter reactor out of? It had to be something easily removed using a transporter or translocation device. So, "the woman in the box" it was...

Archer was fortunate with his choice of nosy alien to form an alliance with, I don't think he stepped over the prime directive, had it even been in effect at the time.

But the alien crooks were pieces of work. I hated their guts. Great work by Wade Williams, who had previously been seen as "Ray Pierce" from The X-Files, where he was a man slowly turning into metal.

Oh Yah... somebody suggested that it was unclear what these aliens were mining. Eh? Eh? At 32:50 into the episode they name the exact substance! It's the same stuff used by Spock to locate Kirk 2 sectors away on Rura-Penthe. T'Pol mentions another use for it. Of course, nobody discusses exactly what they are going to do with it, but that's beyond the scope of this episode.

But what is really interesting is that the planet the alien crook "Garos" is from is mentioned in the "Those Old Scientists" episode "The Changeling"...

One of my favorite 1st season Enterprise eps... and I always refer to the show as Enterprise, not Star Trek Enterprise. The renaming of the show was something ordered by the head of CBS at the time as an escalation between him and Rick Berman. Who should have stayed in charge of the Franchise.

Bill Shatner would feel right at home in "Civilization", an Enterprise segment that faithfully captures the feel and story line of a vintage Star Trek episode.

Interacting with a woman on a distant planet that is not as advanced as Earth gives Bakula an opportunity for romance with a charming alien. Actress Diane DiLascio is a demure beauty who I'm glad to see is working again several decades later, looking almost unchanged by the passage of time.

Bakula doesn't have much trouble defeating a heartless guy who is secretly stealing mineral wealth from the planet without caring about harming its inhabitants, and while hardly earthshaking the tale of Contact is effective using a familiar storyline.

It seems that Captain Archer and the crew are beginning to grow a little wiser as they spend more time exploring. This time when they find a new planet, at least they have the decency to take T'Pol's advice and go incognito. Fortunate for them that they did decide to go check out what the Akaali are up to since they find something fishy going on.

The Vulcan/human relationship is still a bit odd to me. The humans complain that the Vulcans look over their shoulder a bit too much but, at the end of the episode, we're told that Archer informs the Vulcans of this planet and asks them to check in on it from time to time to see how they are doing. This extends the reach of the Vulcan's oversight even further. Knowing earthlings, realistically, we'd probably want to keep the knowledge of this planet to ourselves and in the future treat it as one of our colonies & extract its precious resources for our material use. But hey, maybe we'll mature in the next 100 years.

This episode's fairly average. Seeing Archer encounter some alien romance is fun, I suppose. It's also nice encountering 2 new races but it's doubtful that we run across the Akaali again anytime soon. I like the character of Riaan, too bad she couldn't come aboard the Enterprise. Noting special about this episode, but not terrible. It also has a sweet stratagem executed by T'Pol.

Side Note: Archer tells Riaan that he often talks to his dog when he's thinking critically. How the hell does Riaan know what a dog is?