Enterprise Flashback: Cold Station 12

When last we left the Enterprise crew, they'd been bested by a group of genetically engineered "Augments," aided by the devious Arik Soong. Fans tuning in for the conclusion were surprised, however: "Cold Station 12" turned out to be a continuation.

Soong and the Augments set their sights on a biological research station where genetically enhanced embyros are kept in storage. Enterprise may have help in stopping them, if Archer can get through to Udar, a "defective" Augment with limited gifts. But there's also a personal stake in the confrontation -- Phlox's longtime friend Dr. Lucas works on the station and is directly in harm's way.

With the decision having been made to tell this story over three episodes, it shouldn't be surprising that it essentially follows a three-act structure. What's perhaps more surprising is that this middle "act" suggests that the main character of the story is Arik Soong. At least, he's the character with the conventional story arc. Part one positioned him as a villain and the "smartest person in the room." Now in part two, he learns he's neither of those things; Malik is plotting deeds more clever and dastardly than Soong could conceive or condone. This episode sets the stage for Soong to turn against his "children" in the final act. 

I get it, Brent Spiner is Star Trek royalty, and they wanted to give him a juicy part to play. But that does come at the expense of other characters. I think the story line that suffers most is that of Udar, the non-augmented Augment. We don't get any sense of why he would be loyal to the siblings who teased and abandoned him. That in turn makes it less impressive when Archer talks him into turning good. (All it takes is some info on biological relatives he's never known?) Worse still, Udar doesn't really do much once he decides to help our heroes... before getting coldly executed by Malik. I suppose this is the skeleton of a story arc. There just isn't enough meat on the bones to be convincing.

Maybe that time could have been claimed by taking out some of the dull scheming between Malik and Persis. This is "sexposition" before Game of Thrones caused the zeitgeist to coin the term. But it can only be so sexy on network TV, and it doesn't do nearly as much to reveal Malik's psychopathy as his actions elsewhere in the episode. (Most of his plans go straight to "then we kill a bunch of people," which Soong has to regularly redirect.) 

But there are plenty of nice moments sprinkled throughout. There's talk about the consequences of banning genetically research -- which, given the time this episode was made, was probably intended as a proxy for stem cell research. Genetic manipulation might have saved Archer's father from a disease... that sounds a lot like a proxy for dementia. But the issue isn't painted as clearly black and white. Because human society's technological reach exceeded its moral grasp, we're told over 30 million people died in the Eugenics War.

Elsewhere in the episode -- when we finally get to meet Phlox's oft-talked-about friend Dr. Lucas, it's delightful to find that he's played by veteran character actor Richard Riehle. (You've seen him in many places. But for better or worse, he's probably best known as the "Jump to Conclusions Mat" guy from Office Space.) Not only does the episode benefit from latent affection we probably have for this actor, but John Billingsley does what he does so well as Phlox, making us feel for Lucas through the strong feelings he expresses. When Phlox's life is threatened, we TV viewers of course know that he isn't going to die... but we don't have to believe he will for Lucas' reaction to land.

The episode ends with a literal ticking clock: a countdown until every lethal pathogen stored on the station is released to kill all our heroes left aboard. It's mystifying why Archer is the one sent up a ladder to stop it (right after having caught the beating of his life from Malik). But it's a fun cliff to hang from until next week.

Other observations:

• Even the Augments' underwear has tastefully ripped holes in it. Although they're clearly not wearing it under their actual clothes, or we'd see it through the, you know, tastefully ripped holes.

• The FX shot of stored embryos inside Cold Station 12 is an unusually unconvincing visual effect for the series.

• As the Augments flee in a shuttle, Enterprise fires some torpedoes and misses. Reed's not at the trigger. So... maybe it's not that Reed sucks as his job? Maybe it's the ship?

I wish this episode budgeted its run time a little better. But there's still enough I like about "Cold Station 12" to give it a B.