Enterprise Flashback: Canamar

By halfway through the second season of Enterprise, it was clear that the series regarded Archer, T'Pol, and Trip as their core trio -- their Kirk, Spock, and McCoy -- and that they weren't terribly interested in doing much with the other characters. Some episodes feel especially lacking because of this focus. One of these is "Canamar."

When Archer and Trip are mistakenly loaded onto an alien prison transfer ship, the question is whether anyone can set things right -- and set them free -- before the vessel reaches its destination. But the situation becomes more harrowing when other prisoners aboard the transfer ship stage a breakout, and Archer and Trip must play along.

Not long ago, I was commenting that the writers of Enterprise seem to enjoy putting Trip in danger more than any other character. And if someone else is going to be with him sharing the jeopardy? Odds seem to be that'll be Archer. So right out the gate, "Canamar" is saddled with a lot of "been there, done that" weight. A lot of the episode turns on Archer playing up his piloting skills to string the fugitives along... a story that could just as easily have been given to Mayweather. Trip's role in the story is mostly to navigate delicate situations with other prisoners... a story that might have played just as well with Reed, or even Hoshi Sato (if the writers had consider the option of a co-ed prison ship).

But no, we see two of the series' most familiar characters in what feel like too-familiar situations -- chained to benches as though being put to work on oars, suffering torture at the hands of indifferent guards, playing hero in a hostage situation, lying about their identities, and more. It's not exactly that Star Trek has done this stuff to death. It's that there's no particular Star Trek spin being put on this parade of tropes. The script brushes against being Star Trek at the very end, as Archer moralizes against this alien justice system, noting that there might be many more innocent people being wrongly incarcerated. But the episode barely engaged with that notion before this climax, with just one guest character noting that they were once innocent, before actually turning to a life of crime.

We don't get much satisfaction in the B plot either, which follows Enterprise on its search for the prison transport. The characters involved never really have to do anything. There's no need to convince an alien judge of Archer and Trip's innocence, since an alien leader immediately concedes the fact. They never really have to do anything clever to stay on the trail of the prison ship; they basically just follow it without diversion from point A to point B.

What's left to enjoy are a few fun action beats, delivered with the usual panache Enterprise brings to such sequences. (Even if it does seem hokey that a blow from a pair of rigid handcuffs could knock someone out.) The episode also does well with an unlikable weasel of a character, an archetype who always appears in a prison break story. Here that comes in the form of the alien Zoumas, played by guest star Sean Whalen to distasteful, annoying perfection.

Other observations:

• In the opening scene, set inside an empty shuttlepod, CG of the time isn't quite up to believably rendering the objects floating around in zero gravity.

• After seeing the electro-shock handcuffs throughout the episode, it's satisfying to see Archer use that feature as a weapon in his final confrontation.

"Canamar" isn't so much bad as utterly forgettable. I'll give it a middle-of-the-road C.