Jammersreviews

Note: This review contains significant spoilers.


In brief: An aimless, unsatisfying wrap-up to this inconclusive 
three-episode arc.

Plot description: Archer and Shran attempt to recruit an individual from a 
telepathic Andorian subspecies in order to combat an enemy ship piloted by 
remote control.

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Star Trek: Enterprise - "The Aenar"

Airdate: 2/11/2005 (USA)
Teleplay by Andre Bormanis
Story by Manny Coto
Directed by Mike Vejar

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
Rating out of 4: **

"It's never been all that hard to figure out what I'm thinking." -- Shran
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Earlier this season, we had the Augments trilogy and the Vulcan trilogy. Now 
comes the conclusion to ... uh, *this* trilogy, whatever you want to call 
it. "The Aenar" is a messy epilogue in a three-parter whose most significant 
story arc was wrapped up in last week's "United." Watching the rather 
aimless "Aenar," I wasn't sure what this episode was supposed to be about, 
and by extension, the trilogy itself lacks a concrete through-line.

I think the main problem is that the show focuses fairly heavily on the 
Romulans and their meddling in the affairs of others, but we never really 
get the sense that this show is actually *about* the Romulans. The Romulans 
are more like arbitrary placeholders to drive the plot. We learn very little 
about them; they're sketchy people doing bad things for half-baked reasons. 
And if you stop and think about their genius plot, you're left amazed by the 
sheer stupidity of it all.

Most disappointing is the fact there's not much to suggest that this episode 
contributes to the prequel agenda that has been the selling point of this 
season. Unlike the Vulcan trilogy, which told a mostly coherent prequel 
story, we're left in a vacuum here wondering if we're going to see the 
Romulans again. If so, I'd hope for something more substantial. If not, then 
that's the way it goes and I guess the notion of Romulans sneaking around is 
all Enterprise intends to give us. Either way, "Aenar" has mostly wasted our 
time.

Not that "The Aenar" is all bad. It's never unwatchable and it has its 
moments. There is a scene, for example, where the Romulan admiral, a former 
senator, explains how he was cashiered from the senate for questioning the 
Romulan "precept of unlimited expansion." It would seem that reasonable 
people who question authority are quashed. Too bad this scene is never 
followed up.

It turns out the pilot of the Romulan drone is actually an Aenar, one of an 
Andorian subspecies who are blind and have strong telepathic abilities. The 
Romulans' remote-controlled drone is designed to respond directly to the 
telepathic signals sent by this Aenar, a man named Gareb (Scott Rinker), 
whom the Romulans abducted from Andoria about a year ago.

Shran explains that the Aenar were considered mythical for centuries until 
they were officially discovered "50 years ago." Even so, very few Andorians 
have ever met an Aenar, who are staunch pacifists, very secretive, and live 
only among themselves. Oh, and they can also read minds.

Frankly, much of this strikes me as quickly concocted Civilization Lite. 
These two species have lived on the same planet forever and only a few 
decades ago realized that the other even exists. But the story gives us 
little reason to believe these are real cultures that live on a real world. 
The Enterprise travels to Andoria to recruit their own Aenar to tap into the 
signal and stop the drone. But once there, we don't even see Andorian 
society.

Andoria is represented by empty ice-tunnels which, according to Shran, 
"branch off for thousands of kilometers." (The cities are all underground, 
with access from these tunnels.) You'd think there'd be a better way than 
walking to traverse thousands of kilometers of treacherous ice tunnels. I 
for one hope they brought a map. In any case, it strikes me as great fortune 
that Archer and Shran happen upon the Aenar as quickly as they do. Even 
greater fortune that it happens so quickly after Shran has accidentally 
impaled himself through the leg.

I suppose the notion of expanding this series' canvas of societies with the 
Aenar is commendable. Still, I wasn't all that riveted by them. The main 
selling point here is the decent characterization between the 
always-suspicious Shran and the innocent and well-intended Aenar named 
Jhamel (Alexandra Lydon), who, as it happens, is the sister of Gareb, the 
Aenar who was abducted by the Romulans. This gives her and her alone the 
motivation to break from her people's pacifist ideals to attempt to stop the 
Romulan drone.

Not that I understood how this was physically supposed to happen. You see, 
Trip has rigged up a remote-control chair/device on the Enterprise --  
similar to the one the Romulans have -- which I guess has all the right 
frequencies and encryption codes needed to break in and interfere with the 
Romulans' remote-control system. One would think a remote-controlled war 
drone wouldn't be so easy to tap into, but then one would be wrong.

Whatever; that's one of the overall problems with this episode -- too much 
meaningless tech and mechanical plot and not nearly enough emotion or 
relevance. I should care about Jhamel's plight to help her brother, but I 
don't. It's a perfunctory "human" tack-on to a remote-controlled plot filled 
with technobabble and explosions. The climax, where Jhamel is able to 
contact Gareb by telepathy and get him to turn the drones against each 
other, is overly simplistic -- underwhelming at best, hokey at worst. Gareb 
expresses guilt over the people the Romulans forced him to kill, which made 
me wonder why he didn't just make the drones return to Romulus and start 
strafing the city. Oh, never mind; he's a pacifist. (Truthfully, he's just a 
weak pawn of the plot.)

Meanwhile, I'm asking myself: Why would the Romulans even design 
remote-controlled war drones that require a telepathic pilot, of all things? 
Couldn't they just design remote ships that, you know, used keys or a mouse 
or a joystick or something, *anything*, but telepathy? Even more silly: (1) 
These drones require an Aenar to pilot; (2) The Romulans were apparently so 
shortsighted as to kidnap only one Aenar to fly them; (3) the Romulan 
admiral forces the Romulan scientist to push the pilot to the limits of 
brain damage, saying his health is "of no consequence"; so (4) I guess when 
he dies, their brilliant plan is to mothball the drones.

Really, this whole thing is more often than not a Swiss-cheese plot. Just 
what are the Romulans actually trying to do, anyway? Cause general chaos as 
a prelude to an invasion? The story never says. It's just a vague 
pseudo-threat -- the Romulans out here stirring up trouble for trouble's 
sake. Not exactly enlightening, particularly in prequel terms, and it's to 
the detriment of the first two episodes in this trilogy, which were sold 
mostly on their setup and mystery, which now has not been lived up to.

The show's best scene comes at the end, when Trip asks to be transferred to 
the Columbia, and Archer reluctantly grants that transfer. It's a payoff 
that was set up in several scenes earlier in the episode, centering on the 
simple fact that Trip realizes he's in (unrequited) love with T'Pol, and 
finds that it's affecting his work. This Archer/Trip scene is a quiet one 
that explores actual characters and the relationships and personnel 
realities of a starship. I like that Trip can't confess the reason for his 
request to Archer, and that Archer doesn't force him to.

As for much of the rest of this episode, I'll quote Archer: "Looks like we 
went all the way to Andoria for nothing."

--
Next week: Klingons, medical mysteries, and shadowy intelligence agencies.

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Copyright 2005, Jamahl Epsicokhan. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this article is prohibited.

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