Attention on heck! Don’t try to adjust your viewscreens, person-hell and boo-tenants! What you’re seeing isn’t a creepy clone, a hellish hologram, or a strangely specific alternate universe! For the month of October, we’ll be taking a spine-chilling stroll through Trek’s most horror-iffic outings and spooky adventures! Now why don’t you sit back and try not to let that green blood of yours run cold! If things get a little too intense, don’t hesitate to ask Scotty to SCREAM you up! Hehehehehehehehehe!
Star Trek: Enterprise – Season 1, Episode 12
As I’ve written before, one of the things Star Trek: Enterprise got right was depicting the occasional terror from space. The previous Trek series had included weird and scary threats before, but the premise of Enterprise gave it a different tenor. That the titular ship was all alone in the great unknown, and represented humanity’s grandest deep space exploratory mission made the potential for horror that much scarier. “Silent Enemy” features a weird and spooky alien race that toys with the unprepared crew of Enterprise.
Star Trek: Enterprise also emphasized a more nuts-and-bolts approach to its ship and space travel, which was a departure from previous Trek shows but made sense in the context of the series. At this point in the timeline humans are still figuring out this whole space travel thing and the show devotes a lot of time to the stumbling aspect of their journey out into deep space. It was one of the more novel and welcome differences the show had, and “Silent Enemy” features the crew struggling with a classic but taken for granted component – the ship’s phasers.
The Enterprise was rushed out of spacedock before its phasers could be installed – the components are aboard, but have yet to be hooked up. It ends up being a whole process/ordeal for Tucker and Reed but is interesting and charming to a certain extent.
“Silent Enemy” honestly isn’t that spooky – it does showcase a bizarre and unsettling alien race, albeit briefly. But it apparently left an impression on me, and it was one of the most memorable episodes from the first season because of these guys. A lot of time is spent on the aforementioned phasers, and oddly, Sato’s mission of trying to figure out what Reed’s favorite food is for his birthday. It’s nonessential fluff, but there’s isn’t quite the tonal dissonance Trek usually commits with its primary and secondary stories. Enterprise succeeded at making its ship feel like a smaller, more tight-knit community as compared to other Starfleet vessels (especially Voyager).
Enterprise is poking along one day, dropping off transponders so that they can establish long range communications back to Earth. Again, in previous Trek series being able to communicate with Stafleet command is a given, when in fact there is a complex network out there that makes is possible. So it’s an interesting world-building detail to see Enterprise forging the first rudimentary version of that.
A (spooky!) green alien ship drops out of warp right in front of Enterprise. Archer greets the ship but gets no response. After a few beats the ship turns tail and warps away. Reed reports that it’s impervious to scans and can discern no information about it.
Later, the ship drops in on them again. Archer tries talking to them once more, but gets no response. Just as he’s about to give up, a high-pitch squeal assaults the crew’s ears and T’Pol reports that they’re being scanned. The alien ship fires on Enterprise before warping off again. Reed reports that when they fired, their sensor-dampening shields dropped and he was able to scan their vessel. There was 15 aliens aboard, and their ship probably wouldn’t have been phased by Enterprise’s torpedoes – their only weapon at this point. The vessel doesn’t conform to anything in the Vulcan database and is a true unknown.
The damage to Enterprise is fairly serious, and Archer realizes how unprepared they are to meet the potential threats out there. He wonders if the Vulcans encountered many hostile races when they first went into space, and T’Pol responds that back then there were far fewer species with warp drive. It’s a curious detail, and makes sense.
Archer mentions that they have the components for one set of “phase cannons” but they need to be installed. He wants to head back home to Jupiter Station so that the professionals can do it – over Tucker and Reed’s objections, who feel that they can do it themselves. They at least convince Archer to let them get started on the work so that the process is further along by the time they reach home, and he agrees.
Tucker and Reed meet with their subordinates and lay out the situation. They want to install the cannon they have, and build two more from scratch before they reach home. There’s a ra-ra moxy to it that’s infectious, and it’s nice to see the pride taken in their work. One of the crewmembers asks if they’re expecting another attack, and Tucker emphasizes that they’re out in the great unknown and anything can happen – it’s scary, but that’s also why they all signed up for this.
Predictably, the alien ship descends upon Enterprise again, this time from behind. It generates a dampening field that shuts of the ship’s systems, and even its lights. A spooky green little shuttle launches from the ship and aliens board Enterprise. A couple of crewmen armed with flashlights get jumped in the corridors by their unseen attackers.
Archer leads a team and witnesses the invaders firsthand. They’re running their hands above the fallen crewmen with energy beams coming off of them. The aliens are CG-rendered and although humanoid, are very bizarre looking. With mushroom-shaped heads and weird eye stalks, the aliens silently stare at Archer as he fires his phaser at them. The beam is absorbed by a force field and the unaffected aliens walk off. They’re tall and lanky with weird ass legs, and combined with the flashlight-illuminated darkness it makes for a spooky and surreal scene.
The alien shuttle departs Enterprise, and the ship fires on them again before warping away. The aliens haven’t said a word yet, but their dickishness in continually picking on Enterprise is ragingly apparent.
The injured crewmen were subjected to invasive scans but will probably be OK. Warp drive is down, but impulse engines will be repaired soon. Archer decides to swallow his pride and ask the Vulcan High Command for assistance, but when they try to open up communications, they discover that the transponders they dropped have been destroyed. They’re on their own.
Reed and Tucker continue to run themselves ragged in getting the cannons online. Reed wants to route the power directly from the impulse engines to give them a bigger bang, but Tucker is concerned that it’s too dangerous, yadda yadda. There’s a requisite little conflict between them over it.
Also requisite and half-baked is Archer self-flagellating over him rushing Enterprise out of spacedock before it was 100% ready to go. Tucker accuses him of being Vulcanish, which is weird… and racist! The conception of the Vulcans as antagonists in this show was truly one of the worst decisions. Because we definitely needed to illustrate the bigotry that humanity still embodied. Yup, that’s absolutely why I tune into Star Trek – to watch humans be dicks to aliens.
After giving Archer a pep talk about the value of taking risks, Tucker decides that Reed’s plan to hook up the phase cannon is fine and dandy and encourages him to continue (minus the space racism – or spracism for short).
They test out the phasers on an uninhabited moon and blow up a mountain-sized piece of it. The blast was 10 times higher than expected and blows out relays all over the ship. T’Pol detects anomalous readings from one of the launch bays, where they find an alien device put there during their visit. It’s apparently tapping into their systems and messing with them, including the phasers. The crew understand it as a clear message that the aliens can destroy them at any time of their choosing. Archer faces the device and drops his friendly tone, telling the aliens that although they think humans are defenseless, they won’t give up easily. He then destroys the device with his phaser. Boom, ROASTED.
Shockingly (I’m shocked), the alien vessel returns once again and starts flying directly at Enterprise. Archer orders their ship to stand its ground, as the aliens transmit a message to them. It ends up being an edited version of Archer’s message with him saying “You are defenseless. Prepare to surrender your vessel.” Archer angrily orders the transmission cut off.
LOL, it’s such a dick move by these aliens. Their entire MO seems to just be messing with and terrorizing others, and the way they do it has such an infuriating quality to it. Archer gives them this steely “Never give up, never surrender” speech and they’re just, “lol u suk bro i banged ur mom.” They’re very much extraterrestrial trolls.
The Enterprise fires its new phasers at the aliens, but it has minimal effect on their shields. Archer suggests purposefully overloading them like before, and Tucker devises a way to do so while absorbing the energy recoil so that it doesn’t damage their own ship as much. They fire again, and the mega-phasers manage to cut through the aliens’ shields and cause enough damage so that they retreat. PWNED, you literal dickheads.
With their phasers operational, Archer decides there’s no reason to return to Earth and orders them to resume their previous course. Sato suggests replacing the subspace transmitters the aliens destroyed.
The more lighthearted subplot sees Archer weirdly fixated on doing something for Reed’s birthday. He conscripts Sato into finding out what his favorite food is, and it’s all as scintillating as it sounds. There’s something kind of M*A*S*H-esque about it, as it recalls the super low stakes antics bored people do to fill time and to build a sense of community and camaraderie.
Sato has to perform a long and involved scavenger hunt to figure out what the hell this guy’s favorite food is so Chef can make him a special birthday meal. OK. Archer begins the hunt by contacting the guy’s parents, and they Britishly inform him that at no point in Malcolm’s entire childhood did he express any preference for a single type of food. Holy shit, what? Reed’s whole shtick is that he’s the most British guy to have ever Englished, and his upper lip is so stiff it can deflect photon torpedoes, but this sounds absolutely mental. His parents even ask Archer what Reed even does aboard Enterprise, as their son is apparently so tight-lipped he didn’t even mention that. This fucking guy.
Someone being so closed off to their parents would make sense if they were abusive and he had to protect himself. But that doesn’t appear to be the case, and so the storyline immediately paints him as just an extraordinarily weird kid (and eventually a weird adult). This does a disservice to the character and plot because it makes him that much more inscrutable and unsympathetic. Or just uninteresting; he’s certainly no Garak. And it makes the other characters seem pretty intrusive for wanting to pry into someone who clearly doesn’t want to share. It’s just kinda weird all around.
Anyway, so Sato ends up talking to Reed’s sister and an old classmate, both of which are dead ends. And in an ill-advised attempt to engage Reed directly in conversation, she accidentally gives him the impression she wants to bang him and he gets super uncomfortable and shuts her down. Which prompts her to realize what she did, and she gets super uncomfortable. Hey, you know who else this all makes uncomfortable? Who happens to have two thumbs?
This guy.
Ugh, this is just sitcom-level garbage. It’s not nearly as bad as we’ve seen before, but it’s bad enough. Because in trying to do something nice for this guy that he didn’t ask for at all, it’s created an uncomfortable workplace atmosphere. Awkward!
Sato decides to up the intrusive ante by asking Phlox about Reed’s medical records. Thankfully this works, because I can only assume the next logical step would be to tie Reed up and waterboard him until he gives up this vital intel. Phlox reveals that Reed has a bevvy of allergies, but takes medication so that he can tolerate one specific enzyme found in pineapple. It seems super tenuous, but whatever. As long as it saves lives, I guess – we all know how far Sato will go.
So after the alien crisis is resolved, Archer, Tucker, and Reed sip beers in the weapons bay. Sato comes in with a big secret case that contains a pineapple cake. Reed exclaims that it’s his favorite and wonders how they knew. “We have our sources” Sato says. Sensible chuckle, executive producer credits, fade to black. Followed by an “in memoriam” chronicling all of the people who suffered horribly and died painfully at the hands of Hoshi in her insane, bloodthirsty quest to celebrate Reed’s birthday. Thousands of souls, their flames snuffed out. Never forget.
“Silent Enemy” is only truly spooky in one key scene, but the off kilter visuals of the aliens combined with their bizarre and threatening behavior create an unsettling antagonist for the Enterprise crew. These enigmatic enemies illustrate that the universe outside of Earth contains threats that are serious and just downright inscrutable. There is a certain terror to the possibilities of the unknown, but even after coming face to face with someone and still not knowing anything about them or what they want. That’s pretty spooky.
But enough about Malcolm Reed! 😀
Stray Observations:
- OK… “Chef.” The mountain of references to this unseen character is pretty distracting and conspicuous. He’s even more enigmatic than Wilson from Home Improvement – at least you saw half of that guy’s face and he was played by an actual actor. I have no idea what the original intention was for this character – it seems like a super slow boil background joke with some eventual planned payoff. Except it’s played totally straight and humorlessly throughout the show.
Of course, “Chef” is eventually revealed in the finale, and in the absolute stupidest way possible in one of the worst episodes of Trek ever. If you don’t know the story – imagine the worst thing you can, multiply it by 100, and you’d be 0.03% of the way there. Enterprise truly ended its run by bellyflopping into a pool of raw sewage. - Obligatory Porthos!
