Weekend Trek “Demons”

Game show host Tom Bergeron cameos here as an alien ambassador under a ton of make-up.  But then, over there, is Peter Weller, really showing a vicious side as the villain in this, the final two-parter of the series.

Weller, of course, would be a secondary villain in Star Trek Into Darkness.

Back when the final season started, there was a subplot involving humans who were very anti-alien, and it’s an idea that popped up briefly here and there, but it finally comes to the forefront here as Weller’s John Frederick Paxton, owner of a lunar mining colony from the looks of things, is set up as the face for Terra Prime, a domestic terrorist organization that wants all aliens off Earth.  They claim there could be as many as 10,000 across the planet!

OK, side note: I really hate talking politics online for a wide range of reasons, but this talk does sound vaguely like the way some Americans talk about immigrants today, and that has probably always been true, but 10,000 is not a very large number all things being equal.  As it is, Paxtor expresses admiration for one Colonel Philip Green, something of a deeper cut in Trek lore, a strongman dictator who ruled the Earth or a part of it during a period, here seen in what amounts to archival footage, but the character did make an appearance of sorts in the Original Series.  Essentially,Paxton and his movement sounds fairly fascist from where I am sitting, and Green in the footage Paxton admires sounds really fascist.

However, this episode does give everyone something to do.  Phlox may actually have the least to do, all thing being equal, but the big issue that draws Archer and company into looking into Paxton is a dying woman saying that Paxton has a baby girl that genetic testing reveals is somehow the daughter of T’Pol and Trip.  How did that happen?  Why did that happen?  T’Pol says she has never been pregnant.  It does mean that when someone needs to go undercover in the moon mines, Trip and T’Pol volunteer despite the fact that neither of them are really trained for spy games, and T’Pol doesn’t even try to hide her Vulcan-ness, and when the two are inevitably caught–you don’t bring Robocop in for a one-off episode–I had assumed it was because they were quasi-celebrities.  It isn’t, but they still get caught.

As for the others, Malcolm has to go back to his proto-Section 31 for intelligence, a plotline that will go nowhere after this two-parter, I am sure.  Hoshi figures out where the spy transmissions about Enterprise are coming from because the universal translators are acting up, indicating someone transmitting something out of the ship.  Archer actually maybe stands aside and doesn’t do much aside from be the boss and put some pressure on an Earth politician trying to set up a proto-Federation.  And then…Travis got a plotline!

Holy crap!  He gets to talk, and he’s not an evil version or possessed or anything!

See, Travis has this ex, Gannet, a freelance reporter who came to Enterprise to cover a story.  See, Travis has something.  As for Gannet, she is what I think of as “90s Girl Hot.”  She just has the look of someone who would have been considered a very hot girl in the 90s, even if this episode came out in 2005.  Intense green eyes, a flip of hair over her face, looks like she could stand to have a good meal once in a while.  I’m not saying that look is unattractive today, just that I think I saw more of that look 20-30 years ago.  Anyway, seeing Travis actually deal with someone as another human being is nice.

She’s also Paxton’s spy on the ship.

Oops.

Anyway, Paxton’s plan was to fly his lunar mining colony to Mars and take over a station that deflects comets and asteroids away from the Earth and threatens to use it to launch comets and asteroids at the Earth and any ships that come to stop him if all the aliens on Earth don’t leave.

Man, what a jerk.  He better get his comeuppance in part 2.