Star Trek Enterprise: Anomaly
01/11/2003 . Source: Evan Braun 

Seeing the episode title "Anomaly" set off a few dozen alarms for our Evan. The title is reminiscent of the lowest form of storytelling we all saw so commonly on Voyager. Did it disappoint? Read on ...

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As in last week's review of "The Xindi," this episode has to start with an evaluation of my initial expectations. The first two seasons of this series (the second more so than the first), if anything, provoked in me a constant expectation of mediocrity.

I suppose it's a very cynical thing going into an episode and hoping desperately for at least a scene or two that stand out from an otherwise wasted hour.

That said, this season is starting to turn that expectation on its head. Seeing the episode title "Anomaly" set off a few dozen alarms. The title is reminiscent of the lowest form of storytelling we saw so commonly on Voyager, the finely-honed format of ship-discovers-anomaly/disturbance/quantum singularity, said anomaly runs amok for 30 minutes, and then at the end everything is reset to normal.

Nothing actually happens in these sorts of stories. The characters don't grow, the show's overall plot isn't advanced. It has always seemed like filler material, and at the very least an opportunity to showcase marvellous special effects.

"Anomaly," fortunately, hardly resembles that formula at all. Except for the marvellous special effects, that is.

This time I'm going to move through the show more or less chronologically. The teaser gives us our first glance of Porthos this season. Inexplicably, he seems to be one of the most popular "characters." They went as far as giving him a show last season ("A Night in Sickbay"), which was received with decidedly mixed reviews. I'm a big fan, though. "First beagle in space." That's quite a premise. Anybody else thinking spin-off series?

We get a really interesting rippling effect, one of the disturbances that seem to plague the Expanse. The effect, though nice, briefly brought to mind some bad memories of "Twisted" from early in Voyager's run. Here, though, they weren't plotting an entire story around it. It serves merely as a catalyst.

So my first assumption was entirely wrong. This was not to be the "weird shit" episode I thought we were being set up for last week when Archer and Reed witnessed the strange gravity fluctuations in the cargo bay.

Unfortunately, no episode of this series seems complete without a gratuitous sequence of shots of crewmen in their underwear. The beginning of the first act offers just such a sequence. It baffles me. Star Trek has been very successful in the past telling stories without the main characters taking their clothes off, but such is not the case anymore.

Around the time of "Broken Bow," Brannon Braga was quoted as saying "This is not your father's Star Trek." Clearly, he was referring to the cavalier treatment of sexuality. Not that this scene was particularly sexual. In fact, compared to last week's incident in T'Pol's quarters, this is extraordinarily tame.

The ship's run-in with the anomaly leaves many systems damaged. More than damaged, it becomes clear that much of the technology we've come to depend on simply won't function in the Expanse the way it should in normal space.

When the warp engines go down, Trip says he'll have to "rewrite the book on warp theory," because the Cochrane equation isn't constant. Indeed, the laws of physics are not operating as they should. Also, many of the ship's weapon systems aren't functioning properly either. Following the death of Crewman Fuller (a red shirt, to be certain), Reed comments that the deceased crewman knew the torpedo systems better than anyone. Of course, if we'd actually heard of Fuller before this episode, that would actually mean something.

This is when the story kicks into full-gear. The ship is boarded by Osaarian pirates, who proceed to loot everything of value, including food, weapons, cargo, and most importantly, the antimatter storage pods. Without this resource, Trip says the ship has only one month left before they literally "run out of gas." The pirates get away, but one injured Osaarian is left behind. Archer has him relocated to the brig.

At first, this all seems to be unrelated to the Xindi plot that is supposedly going to be arced throughout the entire season. In fact, I was beginning to think for a while that this might be an unrelated stand-alone episode. Once again, it turned out I was to be quite wrong.

Orgoth (Robert Rusler) is interrogated by Archer, and some interesting facts are revealed. Ships in the Expanse require Trellium D to insulate their hulls, and therefore protect themselves from the distortions that are all too common in this region of space. Trellium D is the same substance that was being mined at the alien colony seen in "The Xindi."

That episode also suggested this was an extremely valuable commodity, but only now are we offered a glimpse as to why. Another key plot point is revealed: the thermobaric clouds that surround the Expanse (and which we saw the ship traveling through in last season's "The Expanse") allow ships in, but do not let them leave again. The crew is now supposedly trapped, which will doubtlessly become an important issue later in the season.

Archer leads the crew on a mission to get their supplies back. They follow the warp trail of the Osaarian pirates, until it leads them through a nifty cloaking shield (a la TNG's "When the Bough Breaks"). At the other end of the shield we find a huge manmade Sphere. At first, the Sphere seems akin to a Dyson's Sphere, but the differences between these two constructions are soon revealed. T'Pol tells us that the Sphere is 1000 years old, so clearly it was not constructed by the Osaarians; they would seem only to be using it now for their own purposes.

The Sphere is generating enough energy to power a dozen cities. It also is emanating a gravimetric field which could possibly account for the anomalies in the region.

A mission into the Sphere, which prominently features the almost-forgotten Ensign Mayweather, leads us to the meat of the story: the Osaarians raided and destroyed a Xindi ships two weeks earlier, and downloaded the Xindi's entire computer database. Archer's mission suddenly changes, and he does everything in his power to get the database from the Osaarians.

Certainly the most arresting moments of the episode occur as Archer seeks to get information about the Xindi from Orgoth. Archer goes so far as throwing the uncooperative Orgoth into an airlock, and then decompressing it, to get what he wants. In fact, Archer seems willing to kill Orgoth to prove he's not bound by civility or morality when it comes to accomplishing his ship's goals. This is a very dangerous place to bring Archer, but it is intrinsically an interesting one, and I, for one, am fascinating by where the writers are going with it.

At the end of the show, the ship manages to download 90% of the Xindi database. The episode closes on an extremely tense moment, as Archer begins his review of the information contained therein. No doubt, the information they retrieved in this episode will inform the episodes to come.

Speaking of continuity that I appreciated, I was delighted with Reed's discovery of stem bolts (one of Deep Space Nine's more memorable creations).

With all this marvellous continuity, however, we also had our share of bad continuity. The writers haven't forgotten about the Trip/T'Pol storyline that they began last week. A few scenes are devoted to Trip speaking to Phlox and Reed, individually, about his progressing therapy sessions with T'Pol. Once again at Phlox's prodding, Trip commits to an hour per night of the Vulcan neuropressure. That's one story I won't mind seeing less of, but I have a feeling it's going to figure prominently in the future.

Other items worthy of mention: Was I the only person who was reminded of the Son'a (Star Trek: Insurrection) after getting a good look at the Osaarian makeup? The skin pulled-back look is very distinctive, indeed.

Additionally, this episode has the most marvellous and ambitious soundtrack I've heard yet on the series. Jay Chattaway's score goes a long way toward establishing the creepy mood of this episode. Television generally isn't known for great music, but Enterprise may well be the exception to the rule.

And finally, "Anomaly" has a few great quotes that are meant to sum up this show's purpose, and I'd like to share them with you:

Trip: "This mission is looking more like a one-way ticket everyday."

Final Grade: 8.5.
We're getting better. I'm glad to see that "Anomaly" capitalizes on everything from the season premiere, and yet still manages to increase the overall level of anticipation. Looking forward to next week.

Evan Braun