637. CivilizationFORMULA: Thine Own Self + The Andorian Incident + Rain in Future's End
WHY WE LIKE IT: The Visitors!
WHY WE DON'T: Missed the boat on the "Civilization".
REVIEW: Enterprise comes across its first "new civilization" in another episode that takes it title from the classic Star Trek speech, however, it doesn't do much with it. Enterprise has been scoring points (at least, for me) by portraying these early voyages as somehow more realistic, and imbuing a certain wonder to the sights and sounds only now reaching human senses. So while the characters see a lot of promise in this pre-industrial world, a plot about evil aliens poisoning the water supply sidetracks the whole endeavor and we hardly get to explore this new world.
Archer has his first alien romance as a wink and a nod to what future starship captains will call the final frontier, but Riann is a perfectly beautiful woman with an interesting occupation, she's entirely too non-plussed about seeing aliens and technology to be believable. It's just another day in the alchemy shop for her.
The bad guys here are reptilian aliens called the Malurians who, under their human-like masks, look a lot like those aliens in "V". Wow, takes me back. If the name sounds familiar to the geekier among you, it's because we've heard of them before. Their entire culture was wiped out by SBG favorite, NOMAD, way back in The Changeling. That'll teach 'em to interfere with primitive societies.
Otherwise, it's a fine episode, just not very momentous. The joke about aliens sighted in corn fields is amusing, especially considering Klang's landing site in Broken Bow. There's some needless infighting on the bridge between T'Pol and Trip, but the solution to beam the leaky generator into space and blow it up to crash the Malurians' shields is an elegant resolution. A universal translator malfunction amuses. I just wish the episode could have gone farther on the exploration side.
LESSON: Don't let Trip draft the rules for First Contact.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: As Archer's first "alien booty", he finds it memorable. As for us, not so much.
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