Demons

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Meanwhile, it's January of 2155 back in a universe where close friends rarely shank each other for the last Pop-Tart in the box: the Star Trek Universe.

Nathan Samuels (better known as the Mayor of that plucky Californian city on the Hellmouth, San Fransisco) is politicizing the progress Captain Archer has made in getting aliens and humans to not murder each other so much. (Progress which is, itself, made possible by a grant from the Hoshi Sato Universal Translator Foundation.) Samuels is the beaming face of the budding new Coalition of Planets (name to be firmed up later).

Reed is making clandestine rendezvous in back alleys again, as the spymasters of Section 31 investigate the shooting death of Dr. Khouri, a woman who collapsed at the Coalition holding a hair from a Vulcan-Human hybrid. Phlox identifies this as the child of T'Pol and Tucker. And finally, Mayweather is doinking a reporter who works for a xenophobic cult lead by a power-hungry madman.

John Frederick Paxton. What is he, a tycoon or a moon shuttle conductor? He's got a funny idea about heroes: his idol is a familiar figure from The Original Series- Colonel Green. It seems that around 2056, shortly after the nukes of World War III dropped, "The Green Party" had an ENTIRELY different connotation. The Colonel prevented generations of mutation, disease, and ugly people using certain undisclosed unsavoury measures. Presumably millions of extremely late term abortions- in the 443rd month, for instance.

From his mobile fortress Paxton seizes the verteron laser on Mars and flatly intones "Aliens Go Home".

"Demons" is LeVar Burton's final directorial contribution, and wonderful work it is, too. Harry Groener and Peter Weller are welcome guests, and the regulars are in top form. We're wrapping up here and I'm kind of sad to see the end. To Be Continued...

In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II

***** (5 stars out of 5)
Using a strategy they'll stick with for a hundred years but get much, much worse at implementing, the Tholians spin a web of any size and explode the ISS Enterprise.

The surviving thugs with our heroes' faces will just have to settle for Defiant, which fiercely outclasses everything else in the Mirror Universe, and turns even mighty Vulcan Wessels into chump meat.

Don't underestimate a Vulcan, though, some of them can meld your mind and some of them have goatees. Some are blessed with both! Rebel Soval of the Avenger tries to conspire with T'Pol to wrest the future ship from the usurper Archer. You'd think it's be easy to do: Archer may have lost his brush-cut brain in the agony booth. He's reading the historical bio of Good-Guy-Universe Archer and having a jealous fit of rage about... himself. He even hears Hero Jon taunting him. But his strangest symptom though- wearing the green wraparound velour shirt popularized by Kirk in the '60s. For the Ladies.

Also For The Ladies: Evil Archer wrestles his giant lizard in the welcome surprise return of a Gorn. Slar may be a slavemaster and head-chomping saboteur, but his defeat via gravity plating crushing and multiple phaser blasts is unfortunate. They could have made him a member of the crew. In a green wraparound velour shirt!

As happens sometimes, the deleted scene has some of the best stuff. I love Archer's deleted line: "Shoot the first one who stops clapping." They should have done that with this series! Although I might have been the only survivor.

"In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" is a romp with all the trimmings, from every detail on the GNDN pipes to the computer voice of Majel. Plus the rise of the Earth's Evil Empress. Fear the belly shirt!

In a Mirror, Darkly

***** (5 stars out of 5)

I thought I had completely tired of the Mirror Universe, but here it is again and it's better than ever!

First of all, that's a staggeringly fantastic opening sequence. Trek Nerds recognize the end of Star Trek First Contact where Zefram greets Solkar... only instead of the Dawn of Maturity and Peace, psycho Cochrane shotguns the space elf down and steals all his stuff! (Keep in mind, in this dimension, Dexter is a sitcom.)

We discover Reed and Phlox invented the Agony Booth, and, curiously, that the ISS Enterprise crew is already more racially integrated than its counterpart in the positive universe: Andorians, Tellarites, even Orions. Of course, they're all conquered vassals, but still... get to the Tholians!

It's not just another evil parallel universe story, but a sequel to 'The Tholian Web', in which those dastardly crystal lobsters have got their claws on a tasty piece of future tech in flamboyant 2260's style... U.S.S. Defiant.

Mirror Archer proves he's not as unambitious as his Captain Forrest thought, torturing and blasting his way onto the bridge of the most powerful ship in the universe. Who wants the first orbital barrage?

"In a Mirror, Darkly" has lots of twisted amusements: Doktor Phlox dissecting his menagerie, Ho-shi trading up from Forrest's bed-warmer to Archer's, and Big Dick Tucker looking like he took a nap on a hot plate, but they had me at the revised opening credits. Earth thugs killing everything they see until they conquer the moon! Humans are the WORST... but you kind of have to admire their can-do spirit!

Bound

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Groobies, groobies, everywhere, and nary a man can think!

When Enterprise heads into "Here There Be Dragons" territory, scouting the Berengarius System for a good place to build Starbase One, the Orions stir up trouble. SEXY trouble!

Orion Syndicate giant and son of anarchy Harrad "Piney" Sar seals a deal for part interest in a magnesite mine with Archer. He does this by giving the captain three Slave Girls: Navaar, D'Nesh, and Maras. The trio of scantily-clad dancers emit pheromones that drive men wild, give competing women headaches, and make Dr. Phlox stifle a yawn.

D'Nesh is soon giggling and pulling levers in engineering, while Navaar wiggles her way into Archer's command centre. I MEAN PANTS! Travis Mayweather recommends the same thing he did as a teen surrounded by Deltan ladies- flee the room and Exercise More.

Meanwhile, T'Pol and Trip discover they've accidentally entered a deep and monogamous mating bond. This allows them to read each other's minds, pick out furniture together now and then, and also makes Trip immune to the Green Honey Trap.

This is good news, because they are the only ones who can form a coherent thought when Harrad-Sar turns up again to capture Enterprise on orders from the real enslavers- his owners: The Slave Girls.

"Bound" doesn't ask for much, and it wants to be The Original Series so bad you almost feel sorry for it. Keep Off The Grass!

Divergence

**** (4 stars out of 5)
How do you manage to risk 160 lives and two top-of-the-line starships just to fix a broken brake line? Just like this... and it's awesome! This is also how mommy space-ships and daddy space-ships make baby space-ships. The mommy space-ship sidles up alongside daddy at 5 times the speed of light and they press real close in a special hug... then they exchange a tiny space-ship building man on a string. Go Trip!

Marab, the Klingon Augment who snuck quietly in and sabotaged the Enterprise, is disdainful of Reed for sneaky-peeky spying! Speaking of hypocrisy, Augment Laneth reports to Marab's father that his son died without honour... because she thinks mere HUMANS killed him. The smooth-foreheads are feeling ashamed because they may have lost some bravado along with their crunchy heads. Although some of the fear may be due to the genocide descending upon them for being infectious mutants. Plus the Klingon Admiral trying to murder all the infected is in bed with Section 31, who (last time I checked) are humans! Sometimes I think Klingons are making up the honourable/dishonourable rules as they go along.

Medicine is just as arbitrary as engineering and honour: Phlox does something with computers and centrifuges, then incubates the result in Captain Archer's veins, which temporarily gives Archer a Klingon forehead somehow. So nobody dies, but the virus is going to create several generations of miserable Klingons who look like humans. (Worse yet, millions of them also caught a cold once that made their hair look like bad curly wigs!)

"Divergence" also explains Saavik and Ziyal- their faces must have caught the Augment Flu!

Affliction

 ***** (4 stars out of 5)

Did you ever sing "More, more tell us more" when Uncle Remus sang "That's how the camel got his humps?" Well, here's more anyway... that's how the Klingons got their Lumps! (And, no, it wasn't a bite from Lumpy Space Princess.)

Speaking of a beautiful crooning voice and racist comedy, Transferred Trip Tucker has a new underling on the newly-launched starship Columbia: Ensign Stewie. Why, it's a cameo appearance from Seth MacFarlane! (Sadly, he does not sing The Thunder Song.)

Madam Chang's is a popular San Francisco restaurant. Unfortunately, popular with kidnappers. Klingon Uncle Phil drags Dr. Phlox to Qu'Vat Colony, where a Fresh Plague has become Bel Airborne! Klingons can't look weak by ASKING for help. So they stole a Metagenetics expert. (Not as easy as it sounds. First someone had to invent Metagenetics.)

Klingon medicine has advanced to the point of Retsenbaum Scissors and screw-top cranial replacement surgery, but they still can't get that cat out of the operating room! (Sorry, it's a targ, not a kitty cat.) What's the "Affliction" poised to kill millions of Klingons? It's a mutated Levodian Flu Virus. What mutated it, you ask? Oh, you didn't? Well, I'll tell you!

Jealous of human Augments, Klingons made their own! With Soong's embryos from the wreck of Malik's ship. Granted, the super-soldiers lost their cranial ridges, but on the bright side they don't live very long with the disgrace.

Archer's search for Phlox hits a Section 31 roadblock when it turns out Malcolm Reed works for those Shady Secret Servicemen. And while he's still reeling from the betrayal, Klingon Augments infiltrate Enterprise and program it to be the bus that couldn't slow down. Why? Best I can tell: the Augmentation process includes a penchant for pulse-pounding but ultimately meaningless cliffhangers.

The Aenar

***** (5 stars out of 5)
Welcome to Andoria at last! It's an ice moon of the gas giant Andor. Enjoy labyrinthine ice tunnels. Geothermal cities in glaciers. Leg-piercing icicles for the unwary. Swarms of acidic bore worms. Essentially the same as Canada.

The Romulans causing all the trouble turn out to be fascinating, too. The football jock-type is a former Senator, demoted to Admiral because he didn't agree with expansionism. The head scientist passionately objects to their scheme with the drugged captive pilot, but he knows if he speaks out demotion is the least consequence. Being right is not rewarded on Romulus. Essentially the same as Canada.

The dastardly telepresence drones continue to fly circles around Enterprise. But the answer lies in the frozen hearts of "The Aenar": an endangered Andorian Goth subculture. Jhamel (sister of the Romulan's victim Gareb) is a brave volunteer for the countermeasure Trip and Phlox threw together out of old iPads and cake pans. Jhamel reaches her sibling mentally with a boost from the machine.

Gareb, told he was the last Aenar, appalled by his own deadly actions, and completely out of Doritos, turns on his tormentors. Knowing they will kill him for it, Gareb crashes the drones into each other.

Unwilling to explain his reasons, Trip asks for a transfer to Columbia. Phlox knows why: "No species in the galaxy has mastered the art of mixing romance and vocation."

What a great adventure story! Testing the limits of science! Exploration! Trying to understand the other guy! Nearly 40 years since Vulcans and Andorians showed up on TV and it takes this long to get around to a season depicting their home worlds? What fun, though!

Reaching out to communicate solves problems, silence causes more. Yet everyone knows that as a best policy, honesty is risky. After all, the Remans are waiting outside, just as they were in Nemesis: the wolves who show up to drag your carcass away when you're cancelled.