When Enterprise explores an alien planet, several crewmembers are exposed to a virus that mutates them into an alien species. As they pursue an innate primal instinct to find their "home," Enterprise tries to cure them... while trying to keep a third party from killing the team to prevent the spread of the contagion.
Here's the dirty secret of Enterprise season three: it isn't actually all connected. This is the first of many episodes that center on the crew dealing with a one-off sci-fi problem. Previously, the classic Star Trek model would begin with a captain's log that went something like: "Starfleet sent us to do this thing, and so here we are to do the thing. I sure hope nothing unexpected happens!" It takes only the tiniest rewrite of that monologue to instead say: "Our hunt for the Xindi has led us here, and we're going to investigate. I sure hope nothing unexpected happens!" Here, the Macguffin of the Xindi database from the previous episode serves as the grease to get this week's plot machine in motion. But is that really connected? Certainly not in the way we think of modern serialized television. But not even -- I'd submit -- in the way of more serialized shows of the time (such as 24, the show I'm increasingly convinced Enterprise was trying to emulate).
All that surely sounds like I'm complaining... and I suppose I am -- just not in the way you might think. I'm fine with Star Trek continuing to be a show of one-off adventures. Deep Space Nine ended with a serialized, 10-episode arc, but had earned that by slowly building up recurring characters and story threads over seven seasons. Outside of that, I'm not sure that season-long story arcs is what Star Trek is built to do best (and Discovery might have been the show that later went on to prove that). But bottom line, whether Enterprise has or hasn't begun a single, long narrative isn't itself the issue.
The issue for me is that the writers of Enterprise seem to be thinking that the Xindi arc is a bold new way to reset the series. "Extinction" demonstrates that the show hasn't really changed at all. And that is the problem for me. Enterprise needs to develop its characters into more three-dimensional people. (Making the human characters likeable in any way would be a plus.) Bending a little away from mindless action and more toward provocative ideas wouldn't hurt, either. Nothing baked into the Xindi arc addresses any of that, and so to me, the change isn't likely to actually boost the show.
"Extinction" reinforces these feelings by being another truly mediocre outing, making three in a row to start the new season. The idea of mutating crewmembers is a bit stale to begin with -- it's been done several other times on Star Trek (once featuring this episode's director, LeVar Burton). None of those past episodes was especially good, either. That probably makes the writers think there's room to "get it right this time." I'd say maybe they're not taking the hint.
They try to tweak the idea a little this time around. The "de-evolved" characters have their own alien language. (We quickly learn it, of course). Previously unavailable visual effects are employed to show Archer's internal organs mutating inside his body, and the strange shift in his vision. (But these look pretty hokey.) We learn this mutation was purposefully created to try to perpetuate a dying species. (That nugget is interesting, but doesn't change much about the course of the story.) Ultimately, the episode feels quite familiar.
So it falls on the actors to make any kind of meal of this. Perhaps because Linda Park and Dominic Keating are so rarely given anything to do on this show, they really try to feast and leave no crumbs -- especially, Park, who really leans (sometimes literally) into the animal posture of Hoshi's alien version. Scott Bakula also really "commits to the bit." Collectively, the three keep this from seeming as silly as it could have, but can't hoist the episode on their shoulders alone into something solid.
Other observations:
- I guess there is a bit of season 3 continuity I haven't properly credited: Trip is still getting late night back rubs from T'Pol. (Sigh.)
- Even as an alien, Reed sucks at his job. You'd think he'd be a better fighter than Archer, but in a fight for food, Reed quickly capitulates.
- Aliens arrive to keep this virus from spreading off world. They tell Enterprise: "Your vessel is under quarantine. Prepare to be boarded." I don't think they understand what "quarantine" means.
"Extinction" really poses an almost-impossible acting challenge to three of the series regulars. Even as I can acknowledge the unfairness of that, I can't pretend the episode is "good" just because they give it their best effort. I grade it a C+.
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