Weekend Trek “The Shipment”

Huh.  The episode opened with a “previously on” segment.  I don’t recall DS9 doing that despite being the most serialized Trek up to that point.  Likewise, the only times I do remember hearing that, it was because it was a two-parter.  This episode just picks up where the last one left off.  How…different.

Alright, I can get behind this one.  I learned why there are five Xindi species and what happened to their homeworld.  In a nutshell, five different species evolved to sentient life forms, and there used to be a sixth, the Avians, but there was a civil war between the species that ended up destroying their homeworld, wiping out the Avians in the process.  That leaves the Reptilians, the Insectoids, the Primates, the Sloths, and…I guess they’re the Aquatics since they live in water.  Not sure how they survived when the homeworld exploded and the Avians didn’t, but my best guess is they didn’t have the CGI budget for bird people while they could make some very crude fish people who mostly just sit there during Xindi council meeting scenes.

Anyway, the Reptilians and the Insectoids are the treacherous or dangerous ones from the look of things, and the Reptilian leader Degra is being set up as a major adversary here.  The episode also suggests the Primates might be the clever ones or something along those lines.  But the episode here has Archer dealing with a Sloth, gaining the man’s trust.  Sort of.

So, the main idea here is Archer, Reed, and another guy go down to this colony world that’s making kemocite, an all-purpose chemical that, it just so happens, is used in the Reptilian bioweapons that will target Earth if Archer doesn’t stop them.  Why does Archer need the Sloth’s trust?  The Sloth, one Gralik Durr, is ignorant of what the kemocite will be used for.  It has, he says more than once, many uses, and the colony could use the economic investment.  He’s also never seen a human before, knows nothing about the attack on Earth, or anything else along those lines.

Essentially, Archer treats him decently, getting better with Durr the longer they interact, enough that Durr will cover for Archer when Degra shows up with the last of the kemocite early and say nothing when Archer plants a homing beacon onto the Reptilian ship.

I am hesitant to say that makes Archer and Durr friends.  They don’t really know each other very well, and Durr is still unsure whether or not he really helped some genocidal madman looking to wipe out the Xindi.  Archer himself may have some cause for concern.  Malcolm, for one, doubts Durr is truthworthy, and that comes from the fact Malcolm is wary of the Xindi as a whole.  I don’t think that makes Malcolm a space-racist largely because Malcolm sees everyone that way, but he is a good audience surrogate here who might still be wondering whether Archer will attempt to attack the Xindi or negotiate when the time comes.  There’s a general wariness here, and I think it fits the episode.

As for the subplot, that has Trip trying to reverse-engineer a Reptilian rifle, one that has fast-growing biological components (one grows back seconds after Trip removes on from the weapon), and he recruits Phlox to find ways to fight the biological components.  T’Pol is concerned, rightfully so, since the first time Trip tries to shoot the thing, a countdown clock starts and he has to toss it out into space with the transporter.  Why?  Beats me, but I will say this for Enterprise: it is solving mysteries at a good pace and keeping the momentum going.  I was not expecting that from this show.