Cogenitor

Take a look at this trailer and tell me what you think.

IF I told you this was a trailer for what would be a very dark episode, would you believe me? Probably not.

Season 1 of Enterprise started off strong. I mean, really strong. 12 million people tuned in for "Broken Bow". For a little reference, that's slightly less than how many people tuned in for the finale of LOST, and greater than the number of people in the UK who witnessed the return of Doctor Who. This is Star Trek, a show that aired on a network not everyone had access to! Its ratings are usually lower as it appeals to a more specific audience.

Anyway, despite its strong start, the rating rapidly fell. By the end of Season 1, only five million people were still watching Archer go around the quadrant and be judgmental of other cultures. Season 2 leveled out with 3-4 million people loyal to the show (I was one of them; don't judge). Towards the end, the writers began their plans to reinvent the show. To do that, they needed to draw in people and pray they would stay drawn in. One way was to hastily bring in the Borg, another was to have T'Pol go through Pon'Farr, and another was...this, an episode that lied to potential viewers and stayed a morally confused story. Oh, and this story was written the masterful duo of dramedy: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, so you know this episode is going to suck.

The episode opens with the crew of the NX-01 observing a hypergiant about a hundred or so lightyears from Earth. Archer has the need to remind the crew of how they are the first Earth ship within ten lightyears of a hypergiant. John, you're the first crew to be a hundred lightyears from Earth. You don't have to remind them at every turn about how far you are! Even Tucker got annoyed with you saying "We're making history with every lightyear!" Anyway, they discover a ship that is close to the star (much closer than they can get). Fortunately, the aliens of the week are a cheerful bunch, so Archer has no reason to be an arse this week.

One line consisting of one word of three letters.
Bye!

In the mess hall, Trip and Reed prove how heterosexual they are by introducing two of the Vissians to ice cream sundaes. Reed instantly has a takes an interest in the tactical officer and hopes to learn new ways to blow stuff up. There's another Vissian here, but she only has one line and never appears again, so they could have just cut her all together (even the actress herself never acted again). Trip goes over to meet the engineer and his wife. Sitting with them is someone who is very quiet. They say that this person is a cogenitor, and they're hoping to have a baby. It turns out this race has three genders.

Meanwhile, Archer agrees to accompany the Vissian captain on an expedition into the hypergiant. He talks about organizing a list of books and movies to give them. T'Pol has a moment of competence, in that it is out-of-the-ordinary to be alone with someone you just met for two days. Of course, Archer doesn't want to hear about it and leaves. I'm going to skip his scenes with the Vissian captain because it is too easy for jokes.

Don't worry. I'll pray that your next leap
will be the leap home.

Anyway, Trip gets a treatment for radiation (Trek continues to portray radiation as something you can easily immunize yourself against), and has the extent of humour for this episode. Phlox offers to show pictures of aliens having sex, with that, the trailer footage is used up. From here, Trip is completely disinterested in the marvels of an alien warp drive system that could potentially revolutionize Starfleet. Hell, in Reed's subplot, he gets the specs for photon torpedoes! But no, Trip spends these scenes as a guest on an It's Pat! sketch, wondering whether the cogenitor has a woo-hoo, or ha-ha. Well, maybe not, but he's a college dropout Southerner; it's probably all he thinks about.

Trip decides to take it upon himself to determine whether the cogenitor has the same level of intelligence as the other two genders. He learns that cogenitors comprise 3% of Vissia's population. He uses human standards of equality to decide that he needs to teach it how to read. Yes, really. He decides he will defy a thousand-year old culture with a critical element to reproduction, on his own. And before you go on about how the Ferengi changed their misogynistic culture on DS9, that was over many years, with the Ferengi opening trade relations with their neighbors, the Federation. Trade is often a good means to bring about good relations and spread ideas. You cannot take it upon yourself to force them to change overnight!

C:DOS
C:DOS/RUN
RUN/DOS/RUN

After teaching it how to read, Trip takes the cogenitor, who names itself "Charles", on a tour of Enterprise. He shows it the transporter, the warp drive, The Day The Earth Stood Still (the original, thank God), and the game Go. He is astonished that Charles, who until recently was essentially an uneducated sex worker, manages to beat him on its first game (saying no one's beaten him in two years). Well, considering two years is how long they've been in space, Organian-Reed boasted he's a champion at chess, and that Trip doesn't know basic algebra, or chemistry, dropped out of college and learned engineering from working on motorboats, I think we can reach a conclusion: the crew let Trip win. He's so stupid, they all decided to let him have his moments.

Sometime later, Trip is no longer welcomed aboard the Vissian ship. You know, Day The Earth Stood Still is 92 minutes long, Trip was teaching it how to read over a few hours, and it would take a couple more hours to show Charles all around the ship. How is it that it took that long for the Vissians to locate Tucker? Why didn't they come aboard and forcibly take the cogentior? And how did no one see them leave the ship? Did they really walk through the Jeffries tubes to avoid detection? After that, Charles says the Vissians don't approve of its education and it wants to stay.

Archer returns and proceeds to give a dressing down to Trip. Trip tries to say he did what Archer would do, and...from what we've seen...hmm. Archer condemned an entire race to extinction, betrayed Earth's only ally to a race that took him hostage, refused to apologize for his dog urinating on sacred trees, actually helped space pirates who were preying on Earth's defenseless cargo ships...yeah. Teaching an oppressed creature how to read is exactly what Archer would have done. And acknowledgements to sfdebris for pointing these things out to us all! He later goes to consider granting asylum to Charles. Again, Starfleet needs to draft that Prime Directive and tell its people to stop futzing around with aliens they just met.

Thanks to you, I didn't have a chance to get beaten up
this week!

After a brief legal scene, in which the Vissians make it very clear they are from a different culture and are not on Earth, Archer makes possibly the most boneheaded thing this season: he refuses to grant Charles asylum. And so, the Vissians fly off to memorize Shakespeare and Socrates (even giving books can change a culture), and later the Vissian captain says that Charles killed itself. So yes, once again, this episode is left with a morally confused lesson: sexual oppression is good when aliens do it! Thank you, Rick and Brannon, for taking a step back from the series long Ferengi arc on DS9!

The Vissian captain was played by the late Andreas Katsulas, who played the recurring Romulan Tomalak on TNG. As for the Vissians, with their highly advanced ability to fly close to stars, that strained even the hull of the Enterprise-D, they are neeeeeeeeeever seen again. I have a theory for how: the death of Charles sparked world-wide outrage. They retreated into isolation to combat increasing demand for cogenitors. Eventually, the demand became so great that they began to fight each other over the rare sex slaves. By the 24th Century, they had fought themselves into extinction.

Rating: 4/10