Sci-Fi Universe

Article posted on Friday February 25th, 2005 by David J. Nixon.

"Affliction" review by David J. Nixon. For personal use only.
Be aware of heavy spoilers!

Well with stress abounding both back here on planet Earth and in the Klingon Empire I’m writing this review this week feeling totally run down after an incredibly stressful week as regards my presidential position and course work in school. However, it was with joy that I was able to sit down and enjoy this week’s Enterprise episode that tackles the greatest continuity discrepancy in Trek history and one which has become that of myth. We are of course talking about the reason for why all Klingons in the Next Generation Era and prominently in Deep Space Nine had forehead ridges while all those in the Original Series were lacking these prominent distinguishing features. Anyone living in the real world can realise that this was simply advancements in makeup technology between the late 1960’s and the late 1980’s but there are still some hardcore Trek enthusiasts who want to see this outstanding question resolved and it appears that our wonderful pot of outstanding writing and ideas – the infamous Manny Coto – has done it again!

We have a very different episode this week that is clearly setting up a great deal in the future. We meet a lot of new interesting people and go places where no man – or no Danobulan – has gone before. The episode opens in a secret Klingon Laboratory where a condemned prisoner has a procedure performed on him that causes his cranial ridges to dissolve seemingly in a great deal of pain. So right from the word go Manny’s telling us that this piece of the Trek mythos is about to be thrown open for us all to have comprehension of its secrets. As the story develops we see that the Klingons were less than pleased when they found out about the human Augments which featured as the stars of the first true arc of Manny’s Season 4 when Doctor Arrik Soong rescued genetically modified embryos left over from the Eugenics Wars. After their defeat and destruction we as an audience didn’t expect to hear from them again but it appears that the Klingons don’t know how to let things lie and so they examined the wreckage of the Klingon Bird of Prey to harvest several of the embryos, which they used in their experiments to create super-Klingons.

Some might find this a little stupid but I really love this whole idea because it makes so much sense and is a continuation of a much earlier story, so unlike what we’ve become used to we don’t have all these things suddenly coming out of nowhere. Certainly anyone who visits any of the Trek bulletin boards will know that this was a popular theory that has come into being. So am I satisfied with how Manny’s constructed a resolution to this issue? Yes you bet I am!

But this episode revolves around so much more because it lets us get to grips with Klingon culture for the first time in the Prequel’s run. We see that the Klingon warrior culture is constantly suspicious and concerned about anyone making military advancements, which would threaten the Empire. We see their total lack of ethics in performing clinical experiments on prisoners – not even Archer last season got this bad! – and their total inhibition to killing their own without a second thought. The relationship the main Klingon scientist has with his pet Targ is almost funny, especially with his story of him being his: “first patient”. I don’t know who I feel more sorry for – the Targ or the Klingons who he practices on! The ultimate demonstration of the Klingons as we’ve always known them is the genocide that the High Command authorises to exterminate all the affected colonies after the mutagenic virus began to spread. We probably shouldn’t expect anything less from the Klingons but still it came as a shock to me that they’d do this without at least attempting a medical cure.

The relationships on Enterprise have taken a turn for the worse what with Trip leaving at the end of the last episode to take over as Chief Engineer onboard Columbia. I felt really sad seeing him arrive onboard Columbia and have to deal with the newbie engineers who are more skilled in theory than practice in the field. It must have been such an affront to Trip to have these people question his orders when he had been one of the people who had saved Earth and the entire timeline from destruction just months before in the Xindi Incident. I don’t seem to like Captain Hernandez and I don’t understand why but she just seems different for some reason. Maybe it’s because she’s got Trip onboard her ship rather than Enterprise or her bordering on reproach of Trip upon meeting him. He wanted to get straight down to work and she didn’t seem to appreciate it as I believe she should have. However, I must concede that the scene of the Columbia pulling out of space dock, with the camera slowly backing away to reveal the retrofitted bridge was very cool and the ambient music was central to achieving this effect without a doubt. I think I’m going to enjoy seeing the Columbia out and about but it’s just unfortunate it’s not clear as to whether we’ll be seeing any more of her before the series’ time is up in just a few episodes.

Of course I can’t get through this review without mentioning the very different scene between T’Pol and Trip which is foreshadowing some developments in “Bound”. At first if you don’t know the spoilers you might be thinking: oh no Manny not the dratted Sphere Builders again! However, it appears that this is just an unconscious realm in their minds so no need to worry about any nefarious time meddling aliens from another dimension messing around with the timeline again. I think we saw enough of them last year! I really didn’t know how the writer’s were going to approach the story line of T’Pol and Trip being connected telepathically because of their closeness during their neuropressure sessions but this I guess is as good as any. It certainly was funny seeing their interactions together and I don’t know if it was intended or not but there definitely is a spark between those two that we need to see lit up by the end of the series or Manny’s going down in my books!

So all in all I liked this episode because it’s given me a reprieve and a break after a very testing week. It’s not painful to watch like earlier of episodes were and I’m glad to see that this arc is turning into something very interesting indeed, which is totally surpassing my expectations. I just can’t wait to see the episode on next week because from all reports the dramatic cliffhanger ending of “Affliction” is going to culminate in one of the coolest scenes in all Trek history that would beat the charge of the Federation fleet in Sacrifice of Angels or even the final scene in A Call to Arms, which were important moments in my Trek experience. I just hope school doesn’t kill me between now and then as I’d die unhappy if I don’t get to see how “Diversion” plays out.

A definite 4 out of 5 head ridges… *ahem* I mean stars!

Written by David J. Nixon.

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