“Harbinger”
Penned by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga and Manny Coto
Directed by David Livingston
Period 3, Episode 15
Output episode 067
First air day: February 11, 2004
Date: December 27, 2153
Captain’s star log. We see Tucker getting a Vulcan neuropressure session, but it is not with T’Pol, it is with just one of the MACOs, Corporal Amanda Cole. The session finishes with Cole kissing Tucker to the latter’s surprise—but not to the viewer’s, as she’s been flirting fairly significantly with him.
Business is pootling along towards Azati Key when Mayweather studies that the stars look to be shifting place. They halt and discover a convergence of a number of spatial anomalies. They also find a small pod in the anomaly with a humanoid existence inside of. They grapple it out, but as they do so, the anomaly moves to deal with the fore area of the ship, detrimental techniques, and turning the atmosphere unbreathable. Mayweather has missing helm manage, but Tucker—who’s unaffected in engineering—is in a position to pull them out.
They rescue the occupant, who, as soon as he regains consciousness, begs to be put back. He promises to be from a transdimensional realm, and Phlox claims that he’s dying—but putting him back in the anomaly won’t do him any favors.
Phlox informs T’Pol that Cole came to him with problems, and she also pointed out that she was executing neuropressure with Tucker. They both equally specific concern that Tucker’s newbie neuropressure is quite possibly undertaking hurt to Cole. T’Pol also exhibits hints of jealousy.
Hayes has instructed getting his MACOs teach Starfleet personnel in much more state-of-the-art hand-to-hand fight procedures. (Why he’s waited until finally months into the mission to suggest this is remaining as an workout for the viewer.) Reed has previously stated no, so Hayes went in excess of his head to Archer, who has purchased Reed to concur to it, on the argument that the MACOs are way ahead of Starfleet when it will come to this stuff. Reed and Hayes argue over when to plan the coaching periods, and it is apparent that Reed thinks Hayes wishes his work and is heading to be an ass about this no matter what.
T’Pol reports to Archer that this anomaly convergence is found specifically at the midpoint amid five spheres. Tucker and T’Pol’s assessment of the pod demonstrate that it’s made of the exact content as the spheres. Archer theorizes that the pod was a canary in a coal mine, despatched to take a look at the consequences of the anomaly.
Hayes’ sessions go perfectly, to Reed’s annoyance. Having said that, at a single issue, a MACO puts Mayweather on the flooring, and Reed ends the session, telling Hayes to management his men and women. Hayes states what transpired wasn’t out of line (speaking as a martial artist, I’m on Hayes’ side of this argument, what happened to Mayweather is a little something that at times occurs when you spar), but Reed is pissy. Later on, Reed and Tucker share a meal in the mess. Tucker teases Reed about his pissing match with Hayes, and Reed tells him to fuck off. Then Reed teases Tucker about his flirting with Cole, and Tucker tells him to fuck off.
Tucker goes to T’Pol for a neuropressure session, and they discuss his sessions with Cole. They go over the likelihood of jealousy, with T’Pol insisting that she’s over these types of things, and Tucker perplexed as to why he would come to feel any. T’Pol then reveals what Sim claimed about Tucker’s feelings for T’Pol, and then they kiss, and then she drops her gown to expose a entirely naked entire body, and then they have sex.
Hayes walks in on Reed performing out, and they have a sparring session that immediately devolves into a grudge match and bleeds (so to converse) out into the corridor.
The alien has a pleasant discussion with Phlox, then when the health practitioner turns his back again, the alien assaults him. He can apparently phase by make any difference, so he walks by means of the ship, disrupting units.
When the tactical warn is known as, Hayes and Reed end preventing and gather their troops and test and are unsuccessful to prevent the alien. He tries to sabotage the engines by phasing by way of it, just after rendering Tucker unconscious, but Reed and Hayes get the job done jointly to result in a feedback surge and quit the alien.
Tucker and T’Pol discuss in the mess corridor. T’Pol insists that the preceding night was an experiment in human sexuality, no more, no considerably less. Tucker is nonplussed, and they the two agree that they ought to almost certainly never converse of it again—though Tucker figures they can still continue on the neuropressure sessions…
Archer reads the riot act to Hayes and Reed for acting like 5-yr-olds, then tries to issue the alien about why he’s definitely there. The alien starts to fade out of existence, but his past terms are, “When the Xindi demolish Earth, my men and women will prevail.”
Screenshot: CBS
Just can’t we just reverse the polarity? Reed and Hayes halt the alien by essentially reversing the polarity of the plasma coils. It’s brilliant.
The gazelle speech. Archer has a certainly epic rant versus Reed and Hayes. It is a single of his very best moments as a captain, and his dressing-down of the two morons is ideal up there with Kirk’s yelling at the bar-brawlers in the initial series’ “The Problems with Tribbles” and Sisko’s yelling at Worf, O’Brien, and Bashir in DS9’s “Bar Association.”
I have been qualified to tolerate offensive cases. T’Pol insists she isn’t jealous of Tucker and Cole’s neuropressure sessions, and that her seduction of Tucker is just an experiment in human sexuality. Both equally these items show that Vulcans can way too lie.
Florida Person. Florida Male Has Sexual intercourse With Alien Seductress!
Optimism, Captain! Phlox outs Tucker’s “adultery” to T’Pol. On the surface, he just appears to be to be passing on health care facts, but you know he’s fully trolling all 3 of them…
Improved get MACO. Hayes thinks the Starfleet personnel need to up their hand-to-hand recreation. When Archer is promoting Reed on this, he mentions how effectively the MACOs have performed considering that coming on board, and he will have to be referring to adventures among episodes, simply because there is been no proof onscreen that the MACOs are in any way competent…
No sex, be sure to, we’re Starfleet. The use of Vulcan neuropressure as a fig-leaf for sex in prior episodes gets to be a clear fig-leaf in this a person, culminating in T’Pol coming on to Tucker in a way that would not be out of spot in a 1980s teenager sex comedy.
I’ve obtained faith… “The previous factor I have to have is to hear that two of my senior officers have been admitted to sickbay mainly because they abruptly regressed to the stage of five-calendar year-olds!”
“Captain—”
“Don’t consider to tell me who started off it!”
Archer accomplishing a verbatim examining from the riot act, and also refusing to permit Reed get a phrase in.
Welcome aboard. Thomas Kopache plays his seventh of seven (so significantly) roles on Trek as the alien, owning earlier played a Vulcan in “Broken Bow,” a Romulan in TNG’s “The Subsequent Period,” a holographic educate conductor in TNG’s “Emergence,” an Business-B bridge officer in Generations, a Kohl in Voyager’s “The Thaw,” and had the recurring role of Kira’s Father in two episodes of DS9.
Israeli actor, singer, creator, and activist Noa Tishby plays Cole, even though Steven Culp is back again as Hayes last found in “The Shipment,” Culp’s subsequent overall look will be two episodes consequently in “Hatchery.”
Trivial issues: Enterprise acquired of Azati Prime in “Stratagem.” The Tucker clone Sim informed T’Pol of Tucker’s attraction to T’Pol in “Similitude.” The alien’s final line hints that he’s from the species that built the spheres, which will be extra or fewer confirmed in “Damage.”
This is Cole’s only onscreen appearance, though she will be outlined once again in “E2.”
The U.S. airings of this episode on UPN (and later on reruns on the SciFi Channel) confirmed a a little bit distinctive edition of T’Pol dropping her gown, enlarging the impression so they could crop it earlier mentioned her posterior. Audiences outside the house the U.S., and afterwards viewers on DVD and a variety of streaming solutions, get a more finish view of Jolene Blalock’s bottom.
T’Pol’s uncharacteristically psychological behavior in this episode will later on be discovered to be thanks to trellium-D exposure.
Screenshot: CBS
It’s been a extended road… “You two really ought to declare a truce.” As aspect of the Xindi arc, this is a useful, essential episode. We get our first glimpse at the Sphere Builders, nevertheless we never know it’s them nonetheless, and it gets to be crystal clear that they’re manipulating items primarily based on what the alien says just before he disappears in a puff of illogic.
But holy crap, is all the other stuff that happens in the episode preposterous. Let us start with the macho idiocy of Hayes and Reed sniping at just about every other over the MACOs teaching Starfleet. This could have labored if two points have been distinctive.
Just one is that this should’ve transpired a lot before in the year. It is absurd that, right after months of faffing about in the Delphic Expanse (not to mention the a number of weeks it took to get there), it only just now happened to Hayes to suggest excess hand-to-hand battle coaching for the Starfleet crew.
And the other is the mother nature of Reed’s disagreement with Hayes. Appear, diverse branches of the armed forces are likely to have rivalries with every other that border on hatred. Which is totally fine. But the concern is Reed being nervous that Hayes is just after his position, and that tends to make almost nothing like perception. Hayes is section of a entirely various department of the armed service that does fully diverse points. There is no Earthly reason why he would even be fascinated in turning into the stability main on a starship, and even if he was, it wouldn’t be so basic as making use of for a position, he’d have to transfer to a wholly distinct provider. It is ridiculous.
And that’s not the worst of what occurs in this episode, because, of course we have the T’Pol’s Bare Butt scene.
I suggest yeah, sexual tension, jealousy, Tucker flirting with someone else, gobby gobby gobby, but ultimately, all of it was in support of the producers’ ongoing initiatives to make confident that their display largely appealed to heterosexual teenage boys who used their allowance to invest in copies of Maxim.
It is also ridiculously out of character, nevertheless we’ll at some point uncover out that which is for one more reason. While 1 has to wonder if they were being far more worried with locating an excuse to get Jolene Blalock out of her apparel and flashing Connor Trinneer (and the audience) and retroactively arrived up with the trellium-D dependancy to demonstrate it.
Warp variable ranking: 4
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a visitor at Indiana Comic Con this coming weekend at the Indiana Convention Centre in Indianapolis. He’ll be at Table G5 in the exhibit hall providing and signing textbooks all weekend, and also carrying out a panel on Friday from 4-5pm on creating in other people’s universes in Room 104.