Enterprise 0120 – Oasis

Originally posted to ScoopMe! on April 3, 2002

LEAD-IN

Oasis : Tempest in a Trek-plot

Trip falls head-over heels in like again. At least he manages to keep from getting pregnant.

SYNOPSIS

In the Captain’s mess, Archer, Tucker, and T’Pol share diner with D’Marr, a merchant from whom they want much needed supplies — too boring for D’Marr. While Archer and Tucker try recovering from the fiery spice supplied by D’Marr (to T’Pol’s amusement), he suggests they scavenge a ship on a nearby planet. He’d have done it himself, except it’s haunted.

They find the shipwreck quickly and go down to explore. Mayweather has some qualms — he wonders if the trader had left in such a hurry, way did he bother to close the hatch? In the engineering room, T’Pol and Tucker find nothing that can’t be repaired. T’Pol believe someone is there, but when she can substantiate it, Trip patronizingly ribs her. In another part of the ship, Mayweather and Archer find data modules — which they’ll take back to the ship and analyze.

Back in engineering, T’Pol sees the reflection of something; Trip joins her in searching for the body that goes with the reflection. Seeing nothing but dead ends, Trip burns open a hatch in a bulkhead — which leads T’Pol and Tucker into an airponics bay. A dampening field prevented the sensors from seeing it… or the blonde woman… or any of the other people with weapons.

The leaders of the group — Kuulan (the Captain), Ezral (the engineer), and Maya (Ezral’s wife) explain that their ship had been attacked three years before by an unknown alien, and it was a miracle that they managed to crash land on the planet. They didn’t send a distress call for fear of being discovered, so instead decided to play dead. Archer offers to transport them to their world, but they beg off — too far away. Tucker thinks they can repair the ship, and with more prodding from Archer, Kuulan agrees.

In engineering, the blonde, Liana (Ezral’s daughter), joins Tucker in his work — even warning him off of damaging a power bypass — the first words she’s spoken to him. Maya drags Liana away.

Later, joined by T’Pol, Tucker gushes about Liana. T’Pol badgers Tucker (with a little too much glee for a Vulcan) about his admiration for female engineers — like the one on the Xyrillian ship that left Tucker pregnant (“Unexpected”). Liana shows up with some veggies, which T’Pol refuses as she leaves. Tucker accepts and enjoys the meal. Liana quizzes Trip about women, but deigns to answer anything about her home world of Kantare. Kuulan asks Tucker if he could help them with something else — their computer core. It’s composed of optronic relays and the system is beginning to degrade. Lucky for Trip, he worked on a computer like this — on the aforementioned Xyrillian ship. Trip will need to get some equipment from Enterprise and invites the castaways to visit. They decline, but Liana worms permission from her father to go.

On the Enterprise, Malcolm reports that the evidence of an attack on the ship isn’t there. Archer doesn’t want to believe him. Also, the airponics bay isn’t large enough to feed all the people on the ship. Archer wants a report on the contents of the data module they brought up with them.

Malcolm leads Liana on a tour of the ship. She asks a lot of questions, but deflects any questions about her or her people. In any case, they are both in major flirt mode. Tucker has to hand off Liana to another crewman when Archer requests his presence.

Archer understands Trip’s spent a lot of time with Liana. Trip gets defensive and says he’s been a perfect gentleman. Turns out he misunderstood — Archer wants more information: if he’s noticed any strange behavior. Turns out the data module indicates a ship-board accident led to the crash. Detailed scans indicates the ship has been down for almost twenty-two years. They bring on board an escape pod. Phlox isn’t happy about them disturbing someone’s final resting place, but Archer plows ahead. The opened pod reveals the desiccated remains of Shilat — who Trip saw on the downed ship.

In the Kantarean vessel, T’Pol discovers something.

Trip joins Liana in the mess. She’s enjoying ice cream. Trip confronts her about the conflicting information. Liana can’t say anything. She wants to go back to the planet.

T’Pol pokes around areas of the ship and is confronted by Kantareans. Looks like someone is going to be detained.

Archer and Malcolm join Liana and Trip on the ship. They are surrounded by armed Kantareans. Trip is taken away to finish the repairs despite Liana’s protestations to her father. Archer and Malcolm are ordered back to Enterprise. Tucker isn’t liking this. He tries to impress on Ezral that Liana doesn’t deserve this — she can go home. Ezral just wants Tucker to fix the computer relays.

Liana complains to her mother that she’s tired of hearing that her father is doing it all for her.

Archer, Malcolm, and Mayweather head back to the planet — the dampening field that blocks Enterprise’s sensor should also work the other way.

Meanwhile, as Trip works on the computer, he’s being guarded by Shilat — who’s dead on the Enterprise. Liana order Shilat out, and off-camera explains everything to Trip.

The landing part of four has sneaked on board the Kanarean ship. They split into two groups to find their missing crewmen. Archer and Malcolm are attacked — Malcolm hit in the back by a stun ray. Liana starts pulling modules out of the computer, and the Kantareans disappear. All except Ezral.

Twenty-two years ago, Ezral was the ship’s engineer. There was a major plasma leak that was compromising the hull. The captain needed to make an emergency landing. Five-year-old Liana was in a lower deck and wouldn’t survive a crash landing, so Ezral left his station to save her. They were the only survivors, the ship couldn’t be repaired, and Ezral had major guilt. He constructed holograms so provide a “normal” life for Liana. Tucker then implores Ezral to let Liana have a real life.

On Enterprise, Ezral meets with Archer. He reluctantly agrees that it’s best to fix the ship and take Liana home. He only needs a small amount of supplies, and the holograms can finish the work.

On the ship, Trip and Liana say their good-byes. Maybe they’ll meet again. In any case, Trip gives her a protein resequencer — a girl’s got to have her ice-cream.

FADE OUT

ANALYSIS

I’m going to get my gripes out of the way up front.

There’s a fine line between a timeworn plot and a shopworn one and neither one is something you want to resort to in a series — especially in its first season. It seems that the Star Trek franchise can’t resist revisiting Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The first series, third season (“Requiem for Methuselah”); the third series, second season (“Shadowplay”); and now the fifth series, first season (“Oasis”) — if the pattern holds, this is the last time we’ll revisit this tale.

Then there is the hologram problem. What was at first a nifty gadget on TNG has turned into an over-used plot device that has dulled more episodes than it’s sharpened. The original series didn’t have much trouble doing without holograms, and it got on just fine. I was rather hoping for the same from Enterprise. I can only hope, with two major uses of holography so far this season, that the writing staff has gotten it out of their system for a while.

OK. With that load off my mind…

Tucker and T’Pol have evolved into a McCoy and Spock sort of relationship. While I hope the writers don’t try to force it, so far I like it. These two are definitely developing a relationship that could define this series.

Their digs, while lacking the rancor that fueled them when they first were getting to know each other, are still fringed with a little bit of bigotry. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Spock and McCoy certainly weren’t politically correct in all of their barbs. It doesn’t mean they don’t like and respect each other. In an odd sort of way, it actually reinforces their bond. They’re big boys and girls, and can take it. They also know they can trust the other to watch their back.

Though T’Pol is loathe to admit it, she has a crush on Trip; maybe not to the degree that Trip has with her, but girlfriend’s claws certainly came out when Trip was talking about another girl. Meow.

Every Trek needs their trios, and Enterprise is still searching for their third. At present, I’m thinking it’s Malcolm. While he’s still a bit of a mystery, and is played a bit too bland for my taste, he’s got potential. He and Trip are bonding, and he certainly wouldn’t mind a romp with the ship’s Sub-commander. And that’s the key with this triad. These three are connecting.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t other possibilities. Hoshi and Phlox have certainly bonded, but there isn’t a balancing third. The same can also be said of Archer/Hoshi and Phlox/T’Pol. Unfortunately, so far Mayweather is the odd man out. He’s got to start bonding with others in the crew.

Tucker is definitely becoming the focal point of the show. He’s the best of Kirk’s randiness and McCoy’s down-home personality. In many ways he’s our window into that world. A hard-worker who’s just doing the best he can.

Take his flirtation with Liana, for example. He knows that a relationship with T’Pol is out of the question. So, like a schoolboy, he is over effusive about Liana — even wanting T’Pol to spend time with her. Whether he intended to punch the jealousy button or not, it was clear that T’Pol isn’t comfortable with the idea of Trip making time with another woman.

Tucker certainly could have made a worse choice than Liana. While she came off as Kes-lite, I liked her. She was loyal to her father up until the time when loyalty clashed with morality — and morality won out. Her flirting wasn’t overdone, but the signals certainly were there. If Trip had been Kirk, she’d been another notch on the Captain’s headboard, but Trip was nothing if not a gentleman. Maybe having been in a family way after his first inter-species tryst has made him more cautious — which T’Pol was very kind to remind him.

T’Pol is becoming quite the card. For an emotionless Vulcan, she certainly has a lot of smirks. Yes, they are small, but they are there and almost always at Trip’s expense. I like that. I can just see T’Pol hanging out in the local Plomeek Soup bar wearing a leather jacket and cracking a full-blown smile with her other rebel buddies.

The one person who came off badly was Archer. In fact, he’s been coming off badly for a while. Last week he let the Ferendi go without so much as finding out their species, and this week he poo-poos a lot of very sensible ideas. Malcolm says that the Kantareans aren’t telling them the whole truth, and then Archer — who doesn’t happen to be smitten with anyone from the planet — starts making speculative excuses. They then bring an escape pod on board, and flat-out ignores Phlox’s points about grave-robbing.

As for Ezral trying to make a life for his daughter — I think that over-all it was commendable. He never lied to her, and still was able to give her a sense of community and socialization. It’s easy to find fault with him not devoting his obvious technical expertise in constructing a distress beacon, but in many ways that was wise. Consider — what if the Klingons picked up the beacon? Then Ezral and Liana would either be dead or slaves. Most of the space-faring species in the quadrant understand that there are many undesirables, and if you want to live a long time, it’s best to avoid attracting their attention. Archer is still learning that lesson (he is learning, isn’t he?).

So, I think Ezral did OK.

I do have to confess that I was hoping that Liana would be ferried on Enterprise. Like I mentioned before, I liked her. I was also pulling for Trip to have a relationship. That’s something we rarely get to see on Star Trek — a regular having a relationship with someone for more than one episode who doesn’t happen to be part of the regular cast. She has some engineering expertise, and so could be of some use. And the best part is, they’d be dropping her off at her planet in a few episodes (or a year at most, given what was said by Ezral). A heart-wrenching good-bye. Promises to stay in touch. Something to look forward to.

Come to thing of it — I’d like to see the characters have more connection with Earth. Maybe it’s me, but doesn’t it seem odd that no one pines for family, spouces, fiancées, friends, whatever? It’s a common topic among military personnel stationed away from home. That’s their anchor. That’s their reason for wanting to return alive. Not just some esoteric quest for adventure.

Then again, maybe Starfleet only assigns loners to starship duty. No wonder there’s sexual tension in the air.

TIDBITS, IRKS and QUIRKS

Not this week. I’ve already ranted, and I’d just be nitpicking.

So, is there tension in the air, or am I just nuts? Think my comments are right-on, or that they should just line a virtual bird cage? Sensical comments are always welcome on the message board.