getting ready to rewatch the Enterprise series finale, a moodboard

if Enterprise wants me to believe that Malcolm is straight, why do they keep dropping hints that he is not

This Enterprise rewatch is making me appreciate a lot the show, despite the failings and the stumbles, I feel like they were trying something, and I’m feeling a lot for the characters this time around, like

This time I actually feel very sorry for Archer? I think that despite the rough edges and the dumbassery, Archer is a very idealistic person, often to the point of naivety - often to the point of, quite frankly, foolishness.

Archer genuinely wanted to be an explorer, to honor his father’s lifework and to put humanity out there as peaceful explorers of the universe, and despite the mistakes along the way I think he showed it often that he had the heart (eh) in the right place.

And then the Xindi arc cames and the man gets destroyed. He goes from goofy captain who takes his dog in diplomatic missions and wants to befriend all his subordinates to hardened man with (quite literally) the weight of the world in his shoulders, commiting horrible actions on the way. By the time of Azati Prime, he is all but ready to commit suicide, and I don’t think he would ever fully forgive himself for the truly horrid thing he does with that innocent crew in Damage.

The direct comparition in the Trek universe I could make is with Sisko, but it doesn’t feel quite right because when we meet Sisko, we’re meeting him as a hardened man, as he loses his wife amid battle, so we meet him as he’s losing this innocence and becoming a man who knows grief and hardship quite well.

No, I think I feel more temped to compare Archer to Bashir - Bashir, who comes to the station wide-eyed and full of enthusiasm, talking about “frontier medicine” and “wilderness” without an once of tact, who gets a little more quiet, a little more taciturn and worn down as the Dominion war gets worse.

“Funny, I joined Starfleet to save lives”, Bashir sadly points out in Siege of AR-558 as he powers his weapon to hit the enemy. “Enterprise was designed to be a ship of exploration”, Archer wrily answers Degra in The Forgotten when he shows surprise that Enterprise had such detailed scans for a military vessel, like he still can’t believe this was what his mission has turned into. Two idealistic, cocky wide-eyed men, both hardened and worn down by their wars; two sides of the same coin.

I actually forgot how good this last part of the Xindi arc is, but ohh boy, this is good stuff. Reminds me a lot of the Dominion War, and if we use this same analogy, Damage is Enterprise’s version of In The Pale Moonlight.

They both feature the captain taking a very immoral decision when overtaken by the dispair of a hopeless situation. And while In The Pale Moonlight is the superior episode imo, Damage is maybe grittier in the sense that while Garak does most of the dirty work in Sisko’s name, Archer is not allowed this same grace here.

Archer is the one to come up with the plan to board and rob an innocent alien vessel and leave them stranded in a hostile space, possible condemning them to death. He is the one to come up with the idea, the one to plan it, the one to lead the boarding part. Not even metaphorically he gets to remain with his hands clean, and he’s very much aware of the wrongness of this horrid thing he’s doing.

And I think this episode makes a good job of showing clearly the despair of the situation, how high the stakes aware and why Archer is doing what he’s doing without sugarcoating the wrongness of his actions. The people he’s stranding are very nice, friendly. Explorers, they could be Starfleet. Hell, they could be Enterprise in the first two seasons, and the very clear guilty in Archer in doing token gestures like leaving them supplies and food doesn’t really make it better, not at all.

You know, TNG really, very hard wanted to distance itself from TOS, and DS9 really wanted to distance itself from TNG. Meanwhile, VOY wanted to be TNG, real badly, even if the nature of the story made the attempts usually a trainwreck.

Enterprise, tho? In their best days, Enterprise really wanted to be DS9

Honestly, Hatchery it’s such a weird episode because like, half the crew begins to immediately give Archer the stink eye when he starts to worry about the baby Xindi but like… even if he was sort of drugged, Archer was also, you know… right? Babies are innocent? You should not let a ship full of almost born babies to die when you could save them, even if their parents are your enemies? Why does the crew acts like Archer is such a nutcase when he’s essentialy saying We shouldn’t let children to die because even war have limits? Like, it’s weird

That being said, one part of the episode I actually like is the Starfleet crew working against the MACOS - there’s always some tension between them (especially between Malcolm and Major Hayes) so it’s interesting to see how they would fare against each other.

honestly hadn’t realized that Discovery had payed a small tribute to Archer and Enterprise this season until youtube recommended me this video lmao but this is lovely, ngl I almost teared up when the scene played Archer’s theme at full force

one thing I love about Discovery being so far in the future is how moving it makes when we see how beloved characters are still remembered. Last season it made me cry when it was revealed the huge influence Spock had in Vulcan and Romulan societies, and they’re still naming stuff after Archer, about 1000 years after he lived… i just think it’s neat

Enterprise’s Similitude is a lot like Voyager’s Tuvix but like… better, you know?

And tbh I actually like Tuvix (the episode) a lot! I think it’s mostlly a strong episode who gives you an impossible to resolve ethical dilemma, but what gets me about Tuvix is how abrupt it ends, how there are no reflections whatsover about the horrific thing that happened, no reflection about the weight of Janeway’s decision after it was done, so it sort of always feels… incomplete to me?

I think Similitude is a better episode because it allows the plot and the characters to breathe. It allows Sim to be angry and to want to fight for his own life, but also allows him to come to terms with the inevitable. I think the episode also allows Archer far more grace than Tuvix allows Janeway, even if I fully believe that Archer would force Sim into operation if he didn’t consent to.

Sim is very charismatic, too. It’s very hard to not feel sorry for him and for his fate, because he is very sweet and pleasant and Tuvix was kind of an asshole lmao

I think Twilight is a nice little gem, a favorite of Enterprise’s third season, and one of the things it does to me is that I can buy the implications of a romantic relationship between Archer and T'Pol that this episode makes?

I mean, not that I mind a Captain/First Officer ship - Kirk/Spock is an all time favorite, and I think Janeway/Chakotay could work really well, but I usually just roll my eyes when Enterprise tried to add sexual tension between T'Pol and Archer, mostly because these episodes have a really juvenile humor and treat T'Pol as a piece of meat so most of the time is just really unpleasant to watch, but like

In Twilight, the idea that T'Pol gets so shooked that Archer saved her and ended up with a lifelong disease because of that, and that for it she gives up her careeer, her entire life to be his caretaker, and as Phlox suggests, that she learns so much about Archer over the years that she could fall in love with him, even if the nature of his disease makes it impossible he could ever return her feelings? I could buy something like that, it could work.

Aw man, I forgot how early in the season they had Archer torture that guy, like

Given the way that season was written and the political landscape of when Enterprise aired, I don’t think is such a stretch to say Archer got too tangled up in his own fear and despair and hatred and went Too Far, but I do think they did it too soon like, second episode? Way too early