Star Trek: Enterprise – “Extinction”

Apparently this is a Star Trek spin-off. I didn’t know either.

Extinction

Cast & Crew

Director: LeVar Burton
Written By: Andre Bormanis

Starring
Scott Bakula as Captain
Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Chief
Engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as Sub-commander
T’Pol
Dominic Keating as Lt.
Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery
as Ensign Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Ensign Hoshi
Sato
John Billingsley
as Dr. Phlox

Guest Cast
Philip Boyd as Com Officer
Roger Cross as Tret
Daniel Dae Kim as Corporal Chang
Troy Mittleider as Palmer
Brian J. Williams as Alien Decon Agent

Episode Information

Originally Aired: September 24, 2003
Season: Three
Episode: Three
Production: 055

What Happened

Their ongoing quest for the Xindi leads the Enterprise crew to a tropical alien world where Archer, Reed and Hoshi are exposed to a highly contagious virus that transforms their bodies and minds into those of the long extinct alien inhabitants of the planet.

Review

Despite what I thought going into the episode (i.e. a horribly misleading trailer), I liked this one better than most. Overall, it showed imagination and some creativity. I think we were all expecting to see “Threshold” from Voyager and got something closer to “Inner Light” from Next Generation. And if you’re going to rip off old Trek, do it from the best.

High Point

And you thought peaches were only good for watching sexy women eat. We’ll show you!

Low Point

The ending was a little lame. The ship’s been in service for how long and they never think to use the transporter?

The Scores

Originality: Despite what we were shown on the preview, the fact that the mutation was designed to restore an alien race was quite clever. Something we haven’t seen on Enterprise. 4 out of 6.

Effects: The alien civilization and the internal body transformations were cool. 5 out of 6.

Story: At least the story didn’t dwell on the process of transformation (which has been done to death), but rather, on the consequences and the why. 4 out of 6.

Acting: I can see Burton’s directing queues for this one: “Scott, squat down and run about. No, no! More ape-like. There you go!” 3 out of 6.

Emotional Response: Guys running around with flamethrowers always make me a touch edgy. It added a nice amount of tension to the story. 4 out of 6.

Production: Caves? But at least the make-up was interesting. 4 out of 6

Overall: While the episode was interesting, it didn’t forward the overall plot of finding the Xindi. It could have been shelved for later or run last season. Get to the story that was promised over and over this summer. 4 out of 6.

Total: 28 out of 42

Episode Media

From StarTrek.com

Next Time on Enterprise (October 1, 2003)

Rajiin

Rescued by Archer from an alien bazaar, a captivating slave girl, Rajiin, uses her erotic, hypnotic mental powers on the crew to steal data on humans for her Xindi overlords. But when her deception is discovered, Archer throws her in the brig, forcing the Reptilian Xindi to storm the ship, weapons blazing, to spring her free.

Meanwhile, Trip and T’Pol initiate a dangerous experiment to insulate the ship from further destruction from strange physical phenomena in the Delphic Expanse.Video Preview

Additional Notes and Comments

If you’re interested in what’s in TheAngryMob’s review queue, check out my What’s Coming page.

TheAngrymob

20 replies on “Star Trek: Enterprise – “Extinction””

  1. ugghh…
    There wasn’t much good about this one.
    I can’t think of anything that really stood out to me.
    Too bad.

  2. Director
    It struck me as extremely appropriate that they got LeVar Burton to direct this, since he’d played the same scenario as an actor. The only difference is that these people didn’t get to be invisible, too.

  3. Problems

    I was so close to not watching this episode at all due to the trailer. The trailer was very misleading and the episode turned out to be much different than I had anticipated. However, I did have several points to pick with the writers…

    1) Bridge Crew: Here we go again with sending the main bridge crew down to an unknown planet without any enviornmental protection. What, is the captain retarded? How about sending one officer and a few marines? In environmental suits? Hello? Anyone home in the writing department?

    2) Medical: On another note, the doctor would have DNA samples for the entire crew. Period, end of story. I wouldn’t doubt that the doctor would also have in stasis blood and tisue samples as well.

    3)Transporter: Hate it, love it. All right, you trust it enough for non living things. I can deal with that. But they shouldn’t rely on it to get the main characters out of trouble.

    • Re: Problems

      1) Bridge Crew: Here we go again with sending the main bridge crew down to an unknown planet without any enviornmental protection. What, is the captain retarded? How about sending one officer and a few marines? In environmental suits? Hello? Anyone home in the writing department?

      Hello, if you send a few marines then theres no story, who the hell cares about a few marines or one bloody officer, if the captains taken out then it’s a big deal. Welcome to our little friend we like to call “plot device” sometime you have to pretend like your retarded in order to not hate all TV

  4. Re: Low Point

    Low Point

    The ending was a little lame. The ship’s been in service for how long and they never think to use the transporter?

    I thought they mentioned that they couldn’t risk the transporter? It sounded like they haven’t invented “biofilters” yet (or direct point-to-point transfers to Isolation). Or were you referring to another point in the show?

    Anyway, my low point was the rapid transformation of the team. There’s no way a virus could rearrange their bone structure that fast.

    • Re: Low Point

      Anyway, my low point was the rapid transformation of the team. There’s no way a virus could rearrange their bone structure that fast.

      I agree, I’m getting tired of this sort of thing. While superficially similar to Inner Light, this was far far FAR from being anywhere near as good (Inner Light, in fact, is
      probably my favorite Trek episode of all the series). I will admit to not giving enough credit to the reason for the virus, but I was probably blinded by the monkey acts, which was just silly.

      • Re: Low Point

        (Inner Light, in fact, is
        probably my favorite Trek episode of all the series).

        Inner light is almost one of my favorite episodes of any television show that has aired on the light box we call television. Absolutely amazing to me. Had me sold on Patrick Stewart as an actor too. can’t slobber enough with my praise on that single episode.

        • Re: Low Point

          (Inner Light, in fact, is
          probably my favorite Trek episode of all the series).

          Inner light is almost one of my favorite episodes of any television show that has aired on the light box we call television. Absolutely amazing to me. Had me sold on Patrick Stewart as an actor too. can’t slobber enough with my praise on that single episode.

          Refresh my college addled mind, which epp is that?

          • Re: Low Point

            Refresh my college addled mind, which epp is that?

            The one in which a probe from the, formerly living, now long-dead, world Kataan quick-feeds Picard a lifetime spent living there as Kamin, with a wife, friends, children and grandchildren (after Picard accepts his new life), and community involvement.

            Here is a review of it.

    • Re: Low Point

      Anyway, my low point was the rapid transformation of the team. There’s no way a virus could rearrange their bone structure that fast.

      They actually accounted for that. There was a scene where Phlox says that the laws of biology could be working as weird as the laws of physics did in those other anomalies.

  5. Next: SEX SEX SEX!
    Next on Star Trek Enterprise: Alien Sex Slaves! Sex with Archer! Lesbian Action with Hoshi and T’Pol!

    heh heh just kidding… that would be stupid…

    Oh wait, no, I’m not kidding…

    • Re: Next: SEX SEX SEX!
      Hey, if they’re going to keep continuity with TOS, Archer is going to have to hook up with the alien women sooner or later. Kirk couldn’t have pulled it off without at least some tradition to fall on.

      • Re: Next: SEX SEX SEX!

        Hey, if they’re going to keep continuity with TOS, Archer is going to have to hook up with the alien women sooner or later. Kirk couldn’t have pulled it off without at least some tradition to fall on.

        That never seemed realistic to me. Even worse was Tripp and Malcolms panty-raid on Risa. I mean, how do they know these aliens don’t have ridges on their foreheads and teeth in their privates?! They were lucky they were just shape-shifters!

        Tz’aa-Clunk: “How was your date?”
        Zk-sss-Click: “How could I know humans male sex organs don’t produce acid resistant mucous? Who ever heard of such a thing?!”

        • Re: Next: SEX SEX SEX!

          Tz’aa-Clunk: “How was your date?”
          Zk-sss-Click: “How could I know humans male sex organs don’t produce acid resistant mucous? Who ever heard of such a thing?!”

          Further proof we should be writing Enterprise!

  6. The Trailer.
    The trailer for this episode was such a piece of crap compared to what it was really about.

    I thought, from the trailer, that this episode found some stranded weird looking race that was actually some offshoot of enterprise that had crash landed their years ago. Some type of time-warp a la DS9 but with psycho mutations.

    It wasn’t a terrible episode, but it wasn’t good either. Smallville gets recorded first Wednesday and the Saturday re-run takes second. TiVo #2 will record that 70s show for a while unless it’s suddenly started sucking.

    • Re: The Trailer.

      The trailer for this episode was such a piece of crap compared to what it was really about.

      I thought, from the trailer, that this episode found some stranded weird looking race that was actually some offshoot of enterprise that had crash landed their years ago. Some type of time-warp a la DS9 but with psycho mutations.

      That’s about what I thought, too. It DID say that an Enterprise crew had already landed (at least that’s what I heard when watching the preview). Glad it wasn’t that. The trailer for the Oct. 8 episode better be misleading as well! The preview for it was horrible

  7. Peaches
    If that was really the high point, howzabout including _that_ as the media? No interest in watching, but my curiosity has been piqued.

  8. Survival of the fittest? No DNAing it!
    I found this episode interesting for a few reasons despite a previous themed story:

    – Acting by the two of the three landing party was interesting. The makeup made them all but unrecognizable. The manerisms they utilized were… deferent. Bakula really surprised me in this role, who knew he had more range?

    – No shoot em ups with a new race; instead they tried to avoid a fight.

    – The reasoning of a race with a militant view and the inference as to why they have taken this view with regards to the virus.

    On the down side I was dissapointed with other aspects of the story such as…

    – Archer does not destroy the virus for the sake of propiety; even though it ravaged his system. What does he expect to do with it if it is stored? Put it in a museum?

    – Doctor Flox must be a wiz kid in genetics even before Dr. McCoy. It takes him a few hours to come up with an answer to eradicating the viral transformation? Would it not have been more interesting to know that the virus will remain dormant instead of eradicated by the hours of intense effort? Disease in this timeline must be nonexistant!

    – Wow the good Captain sure has alot of treasures he is collecting. I wonder if this will ever boomerang on him in a future episode. We now have a small invisible vehicle, time travel data and equipment locked in a cabin, enhansed sensors ala the star fairing race that took him near the sun, a virus that can mutate humanoids. What next?

    • Re: Survival of the fittest? No DNAing it!

      – Wow the good Captain sure has alot of treasures he is collecting. … a virus that can mutate humanoids. What next?

      Hmmm…. can anyone else see a Biologial warfare getting used on the humanoid Xindi? That could certainly make for an interesting (if highly immoral) decision on Archer’s part wither to use this virus as a weapon, or to show a more civilised and “Star Trek” way.

      • Re: Survival of the fittest? No DNAing it!
        <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE="cite">
        Hmmm…. can anyone else see a Biologial warfare getting used on the humanoid Xindi?</BLOCKQUOTE>

        Google up Checkov’s Law regarding plays.

        Of course the virus is going to be used…..booorrrring….

        Last night I watched Smallville which I thought was great! I channel surfed between commercials and caught some "hot women on women action" between T’its and some other character as predicted by someone here last week.

        Star Trek is dead…. and Bermen and Braga killed it.

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