Weekend Trek “Rajiin”

I had been rather excited about this season until this episode.  I have no idea what happened, and I know that you can’t expect every episode in a 20+ episode season to be good, but this one here is the big reboot to try and get the series some viewers, and this episode…OK, it has a lot of fanservice, starting with the attractive blonde actress playing the episode’s title character.

Yes, here’s a blonde woman wearing, when we first find her, what looks like a macrame bathing suit.  She’s a slave girl being sold by a slave merchant among other slave girls, one of whom has an outfit there to show off some under-boob, and considering this is supposed to be a part of the galaxy that no human has ever seen before, it sure is odd that we finally found an alien who looks mostly human.  She has some weird red markings across the top of her chest and some weird wrinkles by her eyes that look vaguely like gills, but she’s an attractive blonde given to wearing either catsuits or what looks an awful lot like bathing suits.

Plus, she can somewhat seduce people through physical contact.  The fan service does have some limits for when Rajiin takes Hoshi by the hand that she only asks her some questions, but her big thing here is she is there as a spy for the Xindi.  And that still gives Hoshi more to do in this episode than Travis who, I think, has maybe two lines and spends all his time at the helm.

By the by, knowing Archer, Trip, and Malcolm would come through that exact market and meet that exact slave merchant was a lucky turn.  Granted, the episode’s best moments come from that market where Trip has to negotiate with a chemical merchant for the formula to outfit the ship with the right protective metal to survive the expanse, a negotiation that ends when the alien just trades the formula for a bunch of kitchen spices.

Now, I will give the episode some credit.  The Xindi are still somewhat mysterious as bad guys go, even if I don’t know what to make of them, but Archer’s mission is one of diplomacy.  That’s good to know.  I still don’t know what the Xindi were told about the Earth, but they’re working on a bio-weapon that, even if this wasn’t network TV, I would be sure would never get finished because the show is also a prequel and Captain Kirk exists.

Still, Rajiin has some hands that scans Archer and later does the same to T’Pol in a way that knocks her out, and since T’Pol is in her Vulcan sleep wear, hey, more fan service!

Why Rajiin needs to clock Trip over the head with a lamp or something when her touch can knock a Vulcan out, I have no idea.

Also, when the Reptilian Xindi attack (with one bad CGI Insectoid Xindi), they do have some rather formidable weapons and armor.  Most phase pistol blasts don’t do much, and the only one who doesn’t escape with Rajiin has a suicide gland to keep from being taken alive.

This is dark, so why didn’t the episode work?  Well, one, I don’t like fan service.  I do appreciate that Rajiin never seduced anyone into sex or anything.  I don’t think she even kissed anyone unless I missed something.  But her final line of the episode, telling the Xindi council that the humans are more than they appear to be, that was a cliche.  I guess I expect more from Enterprise right now.

I did not see that coming.