Daedalus

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Emory Erikson: Father of The Transporter is the book that made Chuck Tucker grow up to be an engineer.  No doubt Dr. Erikson inspired generations of obsessive tragic engineers like Richard Daystrom, and obsessive drunk engineers like Montgomery Scott. Dr. Erikson takes some time off from his Tinker work for the Great and Powerful Oz to invent a long-range transporter. Zap between Earth and Vulcan in an instant with sub-quantum teleportation! Warp engines will be tossed in the garbage! It's a forgone conclusion... since the audience already knows this is going to go fzzzzzt---pop, crackle, and/or ka-BOOM!

Heading out into The Barrens, a starless void, where if anything goes wrong there will be no one around to hear... we learn that Captain Archer was friends with Emory's kids, that Cochrane taught Erikson to drink heavily, and in the days when the beaming cycle took a full 90 seconds and felt like a year, drinking heavily was a necessity. And back then, son, taking all your molecules apart only cost a nickel!

Emory poo-poos the people who said the transporter would cause cancer, psychosis, and Jeff Goldblum's dingus to fall off, but Emory's own messed-up spinal column and paranoid, deluded ramblings say different. Also, some poor nearby slob gets a disrupted face from a g-g-gh... Zuul!

Breaking the transporter distance record is all very well, but do we go further: 15 years into the past and beyond the grave? Can poor Daedalus bring back his son Quinn... and the wax wings that sent his boy to subspace hell?

"Daedalus" is part 'The Ultimate Computer' part 'Realm of Fear' and part 'Jetrel'. It's like a shambling, mangled, transporter mash-up. But I'll forgive ten times as much derivative writing when I get performers like Bill Cobbs. He actually makes me sympathize with a man so loopy that he knowingly tested his faulty transporter on his own son, and then can't trust anyone enough to ask for help! Enjoy him even more in Demolition Man, won't you?

Kir'Shara

**** (4 stars out of 5)

The living spirit of Surak (the Vulcan Bono) guides Captain Archer to the "Kir'Shara", a Rosetta Stone revealing the 1800-year-old teachings of enlightenment that have been lost on a Vulcan culture of miserly, xenophobic, bigoted, back-stabbing, self-loathing, war-mongers for quite some time now.

Tucker flies out to Andorian territory so Shran and Soval can shout in each other's faces and realize at last they have some common ground: hating the Vulcan government. Shran kidnaps and tortures Soval ANYWAY, but at least Shran feels kind of bad about it afterwards.

Tucker does his level best to defuse the frayed nerves, but Vulcan and Andorian guns start a-blazin', with Enterprise caught in the middle texting OMG and WTF.

If I've learned anything from the Vulcan military's failed attempt to murder all the pacifists, it is "Don't carry a metal lirpa directly into sand lightning." Logic!

Archer activates the fifth element stone with earth, air, fire, and water and re-boots the Matrix. Surak's original writings! Logic Thy Neighbour. Nothing Unreal Exists. Don't Eat Yellow Sand. The High Command is dissolved, President Bush... uh, I mean V'Las is disgraced, and mindless race war with Andoria returned to 'Plan B' status.

Remember how before T'Pol was a drug addict, she picked up a disease from a mind-meld date-rape? Well, worry no more, because the gentle touch of a lady Vulcan with a LOT of experience can make it all better. T'Pau cures T'Pol's Pa'Nar syndrome (then cures HUNDREDS of other sheepish clients who all mutter the equivalent of "I fell on it"). Since T'Pol's mom died when the V'Las military bombed her sanctuary, T'Pol's sham marriage serves no purpose, either. That block of wood Koss performs a Citizen's Divorce. Yay!

But who was behind V'Las' throne of skulls? Romulans!? Where the hell were you guys LAST year? Oh... right- plotting, scheming, and twirling your moustaches in caves under Vulcan. And that's exactly what I love about this season. Being a prequel means never having to say Xindi when you mean Romulan!

Awakening

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Yesterday's wacky Vulcan hermit is today's holy pilgrim as that guy Arev who died touching Archer's face and saying "Remember" turns out to have been Syrran. His disciples, hiding in caves from the High Command's drone planes, include T'Pol's mom and a young T'Pau (not the eighties pop group).

T'Pau gets it on with Archer (psychically, of course) to find the soul of Surak (the Vulcan Jesus) which Syrran thoughtfully tucked away in Archer's mind before he died of sand lightning. Difficult as it might be for the audience to comprehend, most Vulcans seem to have forgotten they even HAVE downloadable souls, and also lost track of Surak's katric ark (soul jar) for a couple of thousand years. In visions, Surak urges Archer to put his planet back on the right track. (The one with all that peace, love, and understanding jazz birthday-boy Gene was always on about.)

Previously the Black Hat when it came to humanity, Ambassador Soval lets slip that he's always kind of liked those stinky blunt-eared jerks. Soval takes Charles Tucker's side in the investigation into the bombing that is starting to look more and more like a government frame-up. Certainly when you press them on it, the government is quick to bomb more things, including T'Pol's mom.

"Awakening" implies sweeping changes will come to the world of Vulcan once word gets out that Surak's teachings have been corrupted or ignored. One of those sweeping changes is apparently that T'Pau will develop a thick accent and a much deeper prejudice against humans. Go figure. Then again, T'Pau is probably a common name. "T'Pau of Shirkahr" may be the equivalent of "Debbie from Dallas".

The Forge

**** (4 stars out of 5)

The Enterprise crew is pulled away from their clothed version of Octran Naked Basketball by bad news from the happiest place in the galaxy. Vulcan.

Someone blew up the United Earth Embassy, killing Captain Archer's friend Admiral Forrest and others. V'Las, The Administrator (*cough* dictator) of the Vulcan High Command blames a lunatic fringe. Disciples of the philosopher/archeologist Syrran known appropriately enough as Syrranites. DNA evidence on the scene points a finger at T'Pau, a known Syrranite. Since the group is most famous for being logical pacifists on a spiritual pilgrimage to uncover the original writings of the Vulcan Buddha (Surak), one wonders what the hell is, indeed, up.

It doesn't help that V'Las is the identical cousin of future Earth dictator Admiral Leyton. Six words out of his mouth and you already know he's Emperor Palpatine with a bad haircut. While the wacky hermit whom Archer and T'Pol run into in the nuclear wasteland called Vulcan's Forge is bound to be important later. Wacky for a Vulcan of this era, I mean, in that he is not instantly a douche canoe.

"The Forge" is the first on-screen attempt to give us a good look at Vulcan since 1986 and I welcomed it. You should see me squee when Captain Archer gets chased by a sehlat! Primeval surpassed this all-too-brief CG creature effect, but back in 2004 I really thought that blink-and-you'll-miss-it-beauty was the bee's knees and the cat's ass rolled into one.

The Augments

**** (4 stars out of 5)
When we left our heroes, the Augments had decided to keep the fuzz off their backs by starting a Klingon-Earth War. "Sensibly", they're going to start by poisoning Archduke Fehr'DIH G'Nand and everyone else on a Klingon colony near the Briar Patch (You remember? From Star Trek: Insurrection still available on DVD, Blu-Ray, Netflix and Direct-To-Brain download.)

I'm still on the edge of my seat when Captain Archer narrowly avoids a cloud of diseases by blasting himself into space! Where he is beamed to safety with mere frostbite and burst eyeball capillaries for Phlox to contend with. Wish you had a genetically more durable body yet?

Malik overthrows Daddy Soong because the human perfectionist intends to cook up the next batch of Augment Shrinky-Dinks to be less inherently hostile. Malik LOVES hostility! To prove it, he stabs his girlfriend Persis for helping Soong escape. So much for the Malik Dynasty. The ladies don't find that sort of thing terribly endearing, I understand.

Back in normal land, T'Pol's arranged marriage has made things awkward for Trip Tucker. As Trip puts it- "Romeo and Juliet probably stood a better chance." Or as my wife quipped: "Romulan and Juliet."

It all ends with a bang, after Captain Archer bluffs his way past a Klingon Border Guard who sounds a lot like Yoda. Jon tells a big ad-libbed fib about ferrying the Chancellor to Orion... which luckily fits the rumour that the Chancellor digs Orion females. Kerplop!

"The Augments" is 'Movie Reference Episode' with the border guard being kind of ST VI, beaming off exploding ships kind of ST III, and, of course, all the name drops of Khan from ST II. Nobody saves any whales, but when Soong goes back to jail, there's a glint in his eye about designing androids instead of super-soldiers. Despite our heroes' Anti-Augment prejudice, I suspect the true lesson of Mr. Data may be that absentee fathers can be preferable to parents who saddle you with ludicrously high ambitions. What's wrong with setting a goal like "be human"?

Cold Station 12

**** (4 stars out of 5)

In the immortal tweets of @lazy_joe_:

Ice Ice Baby, Ice Ice Baby

All right stop, Collaborate and listen

This frozen baby needs to see a physician

You'll find plenty in medical storage attic "Cold Station 12". Under the "Eggs in One Basket" Directive, thousands of genetically modified embryos from the Eugenics Wars are bottled up right next door to the worst infectious diseases of the cosmos. Xenopolycythemia. Telurian plague. Whatever Ryan Lochte has.

Speaking of mind versus muscle, the Augments have already failed the humanity test when they left their own man "Smike" behind... simply for being born without superpowers. As Captain Archer reminds pirate/geneticist Arik Soong: "Whenever a group of people start believing they're better than everyone else, the results are always the same."

Phlox's pen pal Jeremy Lucas (AKA Walrus Moustache Man AKA Wilfred Brimley Jr.) is Walter Finnerty's umpteenth great-grandson and easily the hero of the hour. Savagely beaten and 'merely' a human hostage, he refuses to yield the vault full of horrors to the bandits. 

Chafing under Soong's too-squeamish approach to enforced obedience, Augment jefe Malik carries out the ghastly murder-by-blood-burn of Jeremy's co-worker. It's anybody's guess whether Soong was only bluffing, but his eager kids picked up the message somewhere that perfect, rare, and beautiful snowflakes don't have to follow the rules! They aren't taking no for an answer. 

They are taking Augment fetuses and a grab-bag full of viruses. The anthrax is for duck huntin'.

Borderland

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

Ask a Star Trek fan what five things they'd like to see most, take the top answers, and film the results. You'd get "Borderland", a delicious Star Trek goulash that tastes as great the second day as it did the first.

Spock's ancestor may have solved mysteries in Victorian drawing rooms, and Picard's ancestor may have founded the Martian Colonies, but Data's ancestor is a jailbird. Meet Dr. Arik Soong, a smug super-genius devoted to improving the human genome in a culture not terribly eager to repeat the 30-odd-million deaths they had the last time back in the Eugenics Wars.

Thoroughly Misguided Soong raised a dandy little crop of Nietzscheans, and they were left to their own devices when he was arrested. They may not have the common sense to get new clothes (unless the artfully ripped chest holes are 22nd Century Chic?), but they sure know how to kick stuff! Klingon butt, mainly.

Archer needs Arik to pacify his overpowering proteges before they make the Klingons mad enough to go to war... oh, too late. But first, the disgraced geneticist must come to the rescue when Orion slavers sell T'Pol in a market down on Verex III. You just don't get that personal touch when you buy your harem girls on eBay!

Real, Honest-To-Gor Orions! The third and final Hertzler Klingon! A Tellarite being a chauvinist pig! And all the infighting and bedroom antics of the gene-spliced Augments. Let's give a hand (before they take it by force) to Malik, Persis, and Raakin: the Khannabes, everybody!