Enterprise Flashback: Vanishing Point

By the time Enterprise began, more than 600 episodes of Star Trek had already been made. So by that point, you could reasonably expect that some new episodes wouldn't feel wholly original; some would revisit ideas from earlier Star Treks, hopefully with a distinct twist. I don't mind this in theory... but it's harder to take in practice when an all-time great episode is being repackaged. That's what I felt was going on with Enterprise's "Vanishing Point."

Hoshi Sato and Trip Tucker are on an an away mission when a violent storm rolls in so suddenly that beaming back to Enterprise is the only escape. But once back aboard the ship, Hoshi is increasingly convinced that the transporter didn't put her back together correctly. What at first appears to be her own doubts suddenly becomes all too serious when Hoshi becomes incorporeal. She wanders the ship, desperate to find help -- but no one is able to see her.

It seems likely that when Rick Berman and Brannon Braga wrote this script, the past Star Trek episode they were thinking about was The Next Generation's "Realm of Fear." (In fact, Brannon Braga was the credited writer on that episode about Barclay's transporter phobia.) I do wish that for this new episode, phobia of some other technology might have been explored, just for variety's sake. Yet it's not like "Realm of Fear" invented transporter anxiety. (McCoy was complaining about it decades earlier.) Nor did "Realm of Fear" seem like a definitive take on the subject. (For one thing, plenty of people hated Barclay as a character.)

For a time, "Vanishing Point" does seem like it's doing something reasonably different. "I saw something in the transporter" isn't the same as "the transporter messed me up." Hoshi's fears are far more personal, and the episode does a decent job conveying them. And in the beginning, when it seems more like it might really all be in her head, it seems to me like enough for an interesting story. She just can't shake it. Her nerves are met with a cheeky ghost story and weird exchanges with people that seem to underscore her doubts. Even little things are unnerving -- has her birthmark moved?

But then it turns out that something really is happening to Hoshi. And that thing was already covered in "The Next Phase." That episode is one of The Next Generation's best, and already did everything that "Vanishing Point" tries to do. Someone has been rendered invisible by a transporter accident. They're presumed dead by a crew that's oblivious to a serious danger that only the transporter victim is aware of. "The Next Phase" covered all that, and even did a better job examining the existential crisis of it all, by involving two people in the accident, and having one of them -- Ensign Ro -- believe she's reached the afterlife.

The twist here that seems meant to differentiate this story from "The Next Phase" isn't exactly a good one: it turns out that "it's all a dream" in Hoshi's head. And sure, even that trope can be used with amazing results. But "Vanishing Point" shows its cards far too early, completely undermining the stakes. Something already seems off when Hoshi Sato misses her shift and T'Pol waits three hours to call and wake her up.  Travis and Trip's alleged capture by aliens would surely have been depicted on screen if it were real. Even as lurid as Enterprise can be, there's no way the show would cut away from an actual crisis to instead show Hoshi taking a shower.

And even by Enterprise standards, which often shows its characters fumbling because they're in a prequel and "learning how to do Star Trek," Archer seems especially awkward here. When he tries to inform Hoshi's dad of his daughter's "death," he doesn't even manage to actually get out the words to say what happened. In the same scene, he recognizes Morse code for SOS, but then decides to just dismiss it! I suppose this is Hoshi's hallucination; so maybe this is just what she thinks about her captain?

Although that doesn't explain why Malcolm Reed -- the tactical officer -- is actually operating the transporter when this whole thing happens to Hoshi in the first place. Given his track record, I think he'd be about the last person I'd want beaming me up.

Other observations:

• As always, John Billingsley nails his few moments on screen. When he tells Hoshi her secret is safe as though "he never saw her," he puts just the right spin on the joke.

• I'm not quite sure I believe in "giant gyroscope" as a piece of workout equipment, but Connor Trinneer tries his best to sell it.

• Of course, when you start to pick apart the "Next Phase" premise, you wind up asking how the phased-out characters don't fall through the floor. This episode really puts that in your face, though, when non-corporeal Hoshi sits on a table in Sickbay.

• Because it's Enterprise, right before Hoshi vanishes completely, she strips down to a tank top, so she can spend the rest of the episode showing her midriff.

"Vanishing Point" is trying to remix some Star Trek ingredients in a new recipe. But it's up against the signature dish from a three-star Michelin restaurant. I give it a B-.