Demons

This is the last two-part episode in "Star Trek: Enterprise" and it's the logical progression of the plot line about the creation of the Federation. The various future members of this organization have come to Earth to formalize this agreement when a group of xenophobic nuts derail the dream. What is their qualm? They want the human race to be pure--not adulterated by ugly alien genes--and the evidence of this ugliness is a hybrid baby--the love child of T'Pol and Trip. But how? They never had a baby?! However, their agenda involves MUCH more than showing everyone a freaky alien hybrid baby...they aim to destroy the negotiations and drive all the aliens off Earth using a super-weapon.

The leaders of the baddies is ably played by Peter Weller. He's menacing, nasty and cold. My only reason for giving the show a 7 is that the whole hybrid baby plot line never really made sense nor seemed necessary. Fortunately, part two is better.

A child is discovered matching the genetics of Trip and T'Pol.

I enjoyed this one for the performances and plot themes, but I thought parts of the script used pretty hackneyed formula.

The story was very interesting from a thematic perspective, as xenophobia in relation to the Federation of Planets is an excellent idea. It stands to reason that this would be a natural occurrence in this type of situation and the show actually underplays the divisions in humanity. At the time of writing, only 35 years away from the Enterprise era, nation-states are deeply divided with Earth as a whole nowhere near the type of unity that would make people identify as 'humans' rather than members of a group based on factors like ethnicity, gender, sexual persuasion, political ideology, social class or geographic location. Nevertheless I thought this was a strong theme to address at an important point the development of the Trek universe.

Performances were all great with the regular crew doing well in combination with some strong guest characters. Peter Weller is excellent as John Frederick Paxton, looking, sounding and acting the part perfectly.

I found the script very heavy on exposition and littered with cliches, particularly the scenes involving Paxton and Terra Prime. It's testament to how good Weller performs that he made the dialogue sound good and scenes that feel like they have been lifted from a first draft script of a bad bond movie work. Everything in relation to Mayweather and Gannet Brooks is so predictable that the build up scenes feel pointless other that to give Anthony Montgomery a love scene with a hot girl after years of character neglect by the writers.

This final 2-parter gathers up everything that has happened so far in Season 4 and dumps it into two beautiful Episodes.

Speaking of Beautiful, it's Travis' Ex, the lovely Johanna Watts as Gannet Brooks. A "So Called" Reporter, you'll find out why later. Peter Weller is yet another reactionary Meathead Sean Hannity-type who has done some very bad things.

Harry Groener from TNG "Tin Man" is a future politician, "Nathan Samuels", who used to be a member of the Xenophobic Group "Terra Prime". which is a lame future version of the lame "America First".

As Samuels tries to preside over a meeting of ambassadors from several planets, the Brietbart of the future has been soapbox- spouting, and people eating it up because of, of course, the Xindi wiped out 7 million people. Isil hasn't quite caught up with that yet, although Germany surpassed it previously, and people forget that Nazism started with Xenophobia. Then came the Deportation forces and the Concentration camps.

So, this preliminary meeting of the "UFP" does not bode well, because of this Breitbart style Xenophobia spreading. Phlox had been targeted during "Home" by a redneck in a bar.

Other things that didn't help much were a woman appearing and dying in front of everyone from a Disruptor blast, cryptically saying "They are gonna kill 'her'", whoever 'her' is.

And then it appears that Starfleet Security wants to shovel it all under the carpet. Archer finds a way around it, and Malcolm must needs meet his "Section 31" associate once more.

This 'Sode is a bunch of puzzle pieces being creatively put together, and it's marvelous. But just wait until the Conclusion!

On Earth, the Enterprise and her crew supervises the peace conference leaded by the politician Nathan Samuels that has the intention to form an alliance among humans and aliens. After Nathan's speech, a woman wounded by phaser trespasses the building and tells T'Pol that they are going to kill somebody and gives a vial with hair to her before dying. Dr. Phlox investigates the DNA of the hair three times and concludes that it belongs to a daughter of Tip and T'Pol; however, T'Pol objects telling that she has never been pregnant. Archer presses Nathan to disclose the investigation of the murder and he finds that the deceased woman is Susan Khouri, a medical attendant that belonged to the xenophobic organization Terra Prime. Archer orders Reed to contact Harris to know what is happening, and the mysterious man advises him to find the baby to unravel the truth. Trip and T'Pol go to a mining compound to snoop Terra Prime while the journalist Gannet Brooks, who had a past with Travis, comes to the Enterprise with the pretext of news coverage in the ship. But sooner Trip and T'Pol are captured by the xenophobic leader of Terra Prime, John Frederick Paxton while Gannet is arrested by Captain Archer accused of espionage.

"Demons" so far is an intriguing episode of Enterprise. The reason is the mysterious baby of T'Pol and Trip and I look forward to have an explanation how she was generated and the real purpose of the fanatic John Frederick Paxton with the child. The writer makes analogies of the Xindi attack with the September, 11th and the subsequent xenophobia of part of the North American population with foreigners with the xenophobia of Terra Prime with the aliens. Let's see the conclusion of the good show. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Demônios" ("Demons")

The group Terrra-Prime is like today's white supremacists. They have an agenda to rid the earth of aliens because of the activities of the Zindi who slaughter seven million people. This kind of hatred is certainly understandable, but it is directed at entire races and species, not at the perpetrators. Of course, it's being run by a zealot who wants to purify things. A baby has been born and it has the DNA of Trip and T'Pol, even though she has never given birth. There is tension because of this, of course. A woman died giving the DNA sample to the council meeting where they were forming the United Federation of Planets. This "half-breed" baby apparently is something that these idiots consider an abomination. It's an interesting episode. As it ends, Trip and T'Pol are in the hands of these crazies.