Enterprise Flashback: Desert Crossing

Hollywood is full of recognizable faces. You see them pop up again and again in countless movies and television shows: never in a starring role, but usually elevating whatever they're in. Often, you don't even know their name. But there are an elite few "working actors" who are more widely known -- like Clancy Brown, who guest-starred on Enterprise in Desert Crossing.

When Trip repairs the damaged ship of an alien leader named Zobral, he and Archer are invited to Zobral's planet. But when a rival faction thinks they've taken Zobral's side in a local conflict, Trip and Archer are driven into the desert, where they must fight to survive until Enterprise can rescue them.

It feels like the central theme of this episode is to demonstrate why the Prime Directive, which doesn't exist at this point in the Star Trek timeline, is a pretty good idea. Because Archer recently got his crew involved in alien politics, now someone on a nearby planet is coming to them all for help. T'Pol even explains to Hoshi how just visiting a factionalized society might create the appearance of taking sides, in one of the better bits of advocacy for a Prime Directive that Star Trek has delivered.

T'Pol doesn't ever get to say "I told you so" to Archer, though (even if Trip notes, not in so many words, that she would). That's probably just as well, because it doesn't seem like Archer has bought into "non-interference as standard policy" by the end of the story. Despite the personal ordeal he's been through, he notes that while Enterprise isn't out in space to fight wars, this seemed like a cause worth fighting for.

I think it would have made for a stronger episode if that detail wasn't so definitive. Archer is right, it seems pretty clear-cut in this struggle who's "good" and who's "bad." A Prime Directive doesn't seem as appealing in such a situation. But the episode doesn't want to spend time making the conflict morally ambiguous. It wants us to watch a game of "shirts and skins" lacrosse. Strange music (for Star Trek) accompanies slow-motion shots of shirtless Scott Bakula and Connor Trinneer twisting and sweating under a hot sun. I'm not saying it doesn't have its appeal, but it's not really storytelling.

As is often the case on Enterprise, though, what the episode lacks in subtlety it makes up for in production. This episode uses extensive location filming, several one-off sets, new "desert camo" uniforms, and more. At the moment of greatest danger for Archer and Trip, director David Straiton puts the focus on the actors by letting them perform a nearly four-minute scene in a single, unbroken take.

We have to talk about Clancy Brown, though. Sure, at some point, you gotta get him on Star Trek. I'm just not sure this was the best choice of episode. Though this alien society has Middle Eastern vibes -- and perhaps Moroccan most specifically -- the leaders we see are (of course) white guys. And here comes Clancy Brown, boisterously over the top with this huge, weird accent that might be Slavic or something. He's a skilled enough character actor that somehow, I do believe a guy like this is a real person. Somewhere. I just kinda wish it wasn't here. Or maybe I wish that all these aliens looked less human and had more going on than a simple doodle on their chins -- maybe then it would feel less like uncomfortable cultural stereotyping?

Other observations:

• Once again, we're teased with pleasure planet Risa at the beginning of an episode, only to switch venues to a different story.

• Poor Trip is having a rough run.

Once this episode actually gets to the fight for survival, it picks up momentum. It's a particularly good character story for Archer and Trip. T'Pol gets a good speech about what will one day be the Prime Directive. But it takes a long time to get to all that, and the alien race's appropriated culture and slapdash conflict don't help. I give "Desert Crossing" a B-.