The plot thickens and the body count rises…
Awakening
Cast & Crew
Director: Roxann Dawson
Written By: Andre Bormanis
Starring
Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as T’Pol
Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox
Guest Cast
Robert Foxworth as V’Las
Gary Graham as Soval
John Rubinstein as Kuvak
Bruce Gray as Surak
Kara Zediker as T’Pau
Joanna Cassidy as T’Les
Episode Information
Originally Aired: November 26, 2004
Season: Four
Episode: Eight
Production: 084
What Happened
On a quest to learn the truth behind the bombing of the Earth embassy on Vulcan, Archer and T’Pol track down the Syrrannites, a revolutionary faction hiding in a desert sanctuary which includes T’Pau — the prime suspect in the bombing — and T’Pol’s mother T’Les. The rebels are on the verge of being crushed by Vulcan High Command leader V’Las, but they are stunned to learn that Archer might hold the key to their survival.
While Vulcan’s state of unrest grows more violent, former Ambassador Soval reveals to Trip that the High Command also plans to launch a massive sneak attack against rival planet Andoria, an act that could pull Earth into interplanetary war. More from StarTrek.com
Review
The conflict widens, the stakes are raised, and the pressure increases. All the elements you need for a successful Act II.
High Point
Surak’s scenes. I like having Archer get in touch with his inner Vulcan.
Low Point
While I’ll gladly give bonus points for having T’Pau in the show (early drafts of the pilot had her instead of T’Pol), the actress playing her was a bit lacking.
The Scores
Originality: We’re recycling a little of Star Trek III, but it works and expands the storyline. 4 out of 6.
Effects: Just a little fight, but well done. And I just want to add, the new beauty passes they’ve got going for Enterprise orbiting Vulcan are just beautiful. 4 out of 6.
Story: The plot unfolds a little more, ramping up the tension. 4 out of 6.
Acting: I’m not sold on T’Pau, but I like Surak and the weight he brings to the episode. 5 out of 6.
Emotional Response: I’m really excited about seeing each new episode. 4 out of 6.
Production: Great sets, even the dark underground stuff was interesting. But where was Archer’s fedora and whip? 4 out of 6
Overall: Bring on the fight! This feels like it’s going to be good. 5 out of 6.
Total: 30 out of 42
Next Week on Enterprise (December 3, 2004)
Kir’Shara
Archer, T’Pol and rebel leader T’Pau struggle to reach the Vulcan capital to publicly unveil their discovery of a revered ancient artifact that could revolutionize Vulcan society and topple the corrupt government.
Meanwhile, with help from allies among the Vulcans and Andorians, the Enterprise crew attempts to stop V’Las and the Vulcan High Command from launching a sneak attack upon rival planet Andoria. More from StarTrek.com
Additional Notes and Comments
If you’re interested in what’s in TheAngryMob’s review queue, check out my What’s Coming page.
Ancient Artifact
I’m sick of ancient artifacts. What the vulcans need is some good ol’ fashioned soul searching, followed by some intense collective shame, ending with new-millenium resolutions on better behavior. Not some cheap piece of styrofoam that looks like it was won in V’egas.
What could the significance of that artifact be that it would convince many vulcans to change their ways, that wouldn’t already think changing their ways is a good idea?
Re: Ancient Artifact
What is the significance of the holy grail?
The Lost Ark?
or any other ‘religious’ icon
While watching this, I got to thinking. Logic for a Vulcan is a religion, not a life choice. It is no more different than claiming to be a christian, a muslim, or an atheist. Except in their society being anything but logical is banishment instead of tolerance.
So this artifact to them could be the holy grail to a christian? Who knows. Symbols are very important in many cultures. If someone found Noah’s Ark even it’d have a profound impact.
Re: Ancient Artifact
Well, sure, what with the face melting and all…
Re: Ancient Artifact
That would be the Ark of the Covenant, which the Ten Commandments were stored, not Noah’s Ark.
Re: Ancient Artifact
Right.
I’ll just go ahead and blame this on the fact that I’ve been awake for… 28 and a half hours ;-)
Re: Ancient Artifact
Two things; its wrong to call atheism a religion, and second; the way the vulcans would/should learn of Surak is through mindmelds, ie, learn it straight from the horses mouth as it were – so no faith would be necessary.
Re: Ancient Artifact
Do we know what the artifact does? Maybe it’s a brainwave-broadcast machine?! That would make mass conversion muuuch easier…
Re: Ancient Artifact
One of the definitions of Religion….
Religion : A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
So it’s not necessarily wrong to call it that at all.
And from the talk in the episodes it appears that not all Vulcans have the ability to mindmeld – and the ones that do seem to lean towards Surak anyway.
Re: Ancient Artifact
As an Atheist, I must object to this fallacy.
The clue is in the word itself.
A-Theist, literally means “no god”.
Dictionary.com says “One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.”
The word “theist” on the other hand means: “Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world.”
Monotheist, means “The doctrine or belief that there is only one God.”
Polytheist, means “The worship of or belief in more than one god.”
So, you see, being an atheist, it means I DON’T BELIEVE, and I do not pursue it as a cause or a principle with zeal or conscientious devotion as religous people do. I reject their principles. That’s the difference.
So, Atheism means NOT believing, and NOT adhering to a preset notion. It’s simply a word for a sceptic.
I don’t know how many times and how many different ways I have to say the same thing. It’s NOT a religion, it is actually the lack of religion.
There, I’ve repeated my self enough…
Re: Ancient Artifact
It can be argued – quite convincingly – that atheism requires just as much active commitment and belief as mono- or poly- or pan- theism. Being a polytheist, I’m not in a very good position to argue that, but I have seen it argued very convincingly that agnosticism is a lack of religion, while atheism is a religion which doesn’t include a God of any sort whatsoever.
Of course, it depends who you ask really!
Re: Ancient Artifact
Its a magical, mind-changing artefact, see…
Aaaah, V’egas, where everyone counts cards! : )
I’d go to T’lantic City, personally, its closer ;-)
T’Pau
What do you know, I can’t hate on Enterprise anymore. Damn, now what am I going to do for fun?
You know, when T’Pau first showed up in TOS, I always found it strange that she spoke Olde English, using Thee’s and Thou’s in her speach. I wonder if when she eventually get’s Surak’s ‘soul’ out of Archer if it doesn’t pull some human stuff along with him. Or maybe they’re just gonna gloss that one over like the Puerto Rican Klingons in gold lamé.
Re: T’Pau
You just found the answer to the “We do not talk about it amongst ourselves”
mysterious change in Klingon apperance:
The Klingon Empire was in dire economical straits, had just been through a
couple of bad elections, and chose to outsource the interplanetary war
division to Puerto Rico.
Re: T’Pau
Aint it cool news has reference to episode during sweeps week being developed to start to explain this…could be interesting considering how good the last couple of arcs have been. Of course that is relative, I mean after Season 3 two chimps could make something good but I really like where things are going now.
With the Vulcan/Andorian thing being mediated by the Humans it really sets up a nice segway as to why the Vulcans go from being ‘in power’ like they are to being a strong member race along with the Andorians.
I’m starting to live up to my alias again with these recent episodes, starting to get really excited.
Re: T’Pau
You just found the answer to the “We do not talk about it amongst ourselves”
mysterious change in Klingon apperance:
The Klingon Empire was in dire economical straits, had just been through a
couple of bad elections, and chose to outsource the interplanetary war
division to Puerto Rico.
i was PISSED about that, kirk said the Klingons went to war because o a disasterous first contact situation, Worf looked at the human klingons and said “we don’t like to talk about it. SOONGs kid fired a bio weapon at a klingon colony!
A plausible explanation in their grasp and they missed it! They could ahve said Soong had jsut enough time to replace the bioweapons with his his embryo writing program, so teh bioweapon launched a plague taht rewrote human NA into klingons, sure eventually the human DNA could get overwritten by the natural Klingon DNA, or they could ahve said that with the forced organian acords, the Federation offered help for the klingons as a peace ofering and fixed the plague.
Screw it, TRIBBLES could ahve been on at probe, it could ahve been so much more then a “mmm its ok we blew the missile up after we pulled the wing of the klingon ship…”
I get it!
Now I understand! Surak is a human sent 1000 years into the past by the Vorlons to bring peace to the Vulcans. That makes Archer, according to some, his father. ;)
Re: I get it!
“And so Trek begins.”
“There is a hole in your continuity”
“What cave do you want?”
“No one here is exactly when he appears.”
“Nothing’s the same anymore.”
“Sub Commander T’Pol is being reassigned.”
“Why don’t you eliminate the entire Human homeworld while you’re at it?”
“I see a great hand screwing up the stars.”
“When are you?”
“Berman and Braga have signed a decree today declaring `Lucas` law.”
“These orders have forced us to declare Trek dead.”
“…unless you people get off your brain-dead butts and write something original!”
“You are the one who was.”
“If you go to Zindi space, you will die.”
“Why are you in the past?”
“Do you have anything worth watching for?”
“I think of my beautiful planet in flames…”
“…like giants in the time stream…”
“Now get the hell out of our Star Trek!”
“We are here to place Berman and Braga under arrest.”
Enterprise 4, with Manny Coto trying to unscrew the ST continum.
Re: I get it!
That is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long long time. Great stuff.
Re: I get it!
Agreed. XD
Re: I get it!
Woo! Great stuff!
I watched Awakening the other day and surprised myself again by liking it a lot. This is what Enterprise should have been from the start! More more more!
Although Battlestar Galactica is still massively better.
Re: I get it!
Comedy gold!
I need to put together a comment rating system so things like this will get the recognition they so richly deserve.
another UPN spoil
UPN continues to show “coming up on Enterprise” teasers during the first commercial break. Gee, now that I know T’Les *WILL* die, I just have to sit back and wait 20 minutes for it to happen. Damn commercial teasers.
At least we get more Jeffrey Combs next week. (I can’t decide if I love Shran more than Weyoun. The wiggly antennae definitely give him an edge.)
Re: another UPN spoil
TiVo Rules for this fade to black…blip blip blip….you never see it.
Re: another UPN spoil
What on earth is the point of doing that? People are already watching the show! I made the mistake of watching it live last week instead of on my ReplayTV and that really pissed me off. Ug!
the old switcharoo
I actually was confused for a moment when a bag of sand was NOT slid on the altar in the relic’s place.
Current events reference
I still say Enterprize is trying to be morally representative of current events. Now more than ever.
“Bomb the insurgents/terrorists/Surakians back to the stone age”
Next episode when V’Las says something to the Enterprise crew like “You’re with us or you’re with the Andorians” – then it will all become clear ;)
Re: Current events reference
*grins* I commented on this right underneath you (:
The Xindi already did the “you’re either with us or against us!” in the last season.
Anti-“Patriotic” Trek?
Is anyone else picking up on the anti-Bush-administration sentiment in Enterprise?
We had the evil Xindi say “You’re either with us or you’re against us”, and this time we have the Vulcan high command claiming the Andorians have weapons of mass destructions despite not having any real evidence! Am I imagining things?
Re: Anti-“Patriotic” Trek?
Ya, I noticed that too. They are comparing our President to the Vulcan High Councilman. Guess someone on the writing staff has a political axe to grind.
Re: Anti-“Patriotic” Trek?
Personally, given the un-Patriotic Act and the Bush administrations general ignoring of the Constitution, I don’t find it anti-patriotic at all. Quite the opposite. But regardless of which side you’re on, this is one more return to one of the things TOS was lauded for: commentary on current society by example of alien societies. Granted, it makes it all the more palatable that I *agree* with the position they’re taking ;-)
Re: Anti-“Patriotic” Trek?
Note: I had “Patriotic” in quotes (;
Re: Anti-“Patriotic” Trek?
If you watched Star Trek: TOS when it aired instead of reruns like a lot of us many said the same thing about it.
That being said being against an elected official is not anti-patriotic by any means, being able to be against an elected official. Otherwise, everyone who was a Clinton hater should be brought up on treason charges long before people that don’t like Bush should.
Re: Anti-“Patriotic” Trek?
I don’t want to turn this into a political debate, so I’ll just say tat I put “patriotic” in double-quotes for a reason.
I know TOS was very, uh, social-commentary-oriented. Just cause I wasn’t born yet doesn’t mean I don’t see that (: However, I don’t know that there were any issues that were so explicidly anti-adminisration, and I’d be very curious to know if there were.
Re: Anti-“Patriotic” Trek?
Sorry was a long day at work when I replied, didn’t mean to slam it. I was
born years after it was cancelled and didn’t see it for the first time until the
mid 80s or so :)
Re: Anti-“Patriotic” Trek?
“The Enterprise Incident” was supposed to be a commentary about the USS Pueblo (didn’t quite work that way). “Errand of Mercy” could be considered related to mucking about in some country were we aren’t wanted. “Patterns of Force” is about the wisdom of setting up a dictatorship. “Assignment: Earth” is about nuclear profileration.
Re: Astute Trek?
The most obvious political comment came, I thought, when Archer said that humans don’t stand by when someone attacks them/their friends, and T’Pau responded with something like, “no, you cross vast wastes based on inaccurate information.”
Re: Astute Trek?
Yes, that was excellent.
ROMULANS!
Just saw the ending of the final part. (Angry mob review
won’t be written to next week). Nice teaser with the ROMULANS!
Music
During the fight between Archer and the Vulcans using those spear-things, I had this “Cable Guy” moment where I just had to sing the TOS fighting background music.
Re: Music
ha ha! You knew when they showed the knife being electrocuted that someone was going to have to go down like that before the episode was over! :)