Sci-Fi Universe

Article posted on Saturday January 22nd, 2005 by David J. Nixon at 02.30 am EST / 11.30 am PST.

"Observer Effect" review by David J. Nixon. For personal use only.

Warning: Bottleneck show outbreak. Second outbreak of this disease in 2 weeks but the good news is that this time “Observer Effect” is the panacea we’ve been waiting for. Those of you who read my review of “Daedalus” will know that I didn't have a very warm reaction to that dosage of Enterprise. As the growing Enterprise Season 4 addict I am, I felt very annoyed that my withdrawal symptoms after a 6 week hiatus of the show were not satisfied so I needed my latest fix to be good and it didn’t disappoint.

I don’t know when the last teaser featured Travis Mayweather speaking a single line of dialogue but it turns out that for the first time since ever, really, he’s an important character in this episode – I should say in a decent episode because that one in Season 2 was rubbish! It opens in a familiar and friendly, inviting scene with Travis and Malcolm playing a game of good old two dimensional chess but quickly it becomes apparent that something’s not right. Malcolm talking about deaths and being thousands of years old, Travis talking about humans in a distinctive tone, as if he was an alien. Well it transpires throughout the episode that Coto’s done it again and we’re meeting for only the second time in Trek history the illustrious Organians, who in TOS stop a war between the Federation and Klingons. It’s a very strange episode because it’s never established whether Enterprise is in orbit of Organia or not, only a planet with a silicon virus on it that infects Hoshi and Trip. The Organians seem to use this planet as a testing ground and only the races that they deem to be intelligent will they actually make open first contact with. Instead they take on hosts and observe how the crews deal with the virus but in a very Prime Directive echoing way they refuse to interfere – even if it means watching entire crews die of this silicon virus.

Being a bottleneck show there is very little SFX and anyone wanting to see weird aliens better just avoid this episode because it’s all characters and let me reiterate how wonderful it is to have Hoshi and Travis speak throughout and be central characters. We learn that Hoshi actually was quite the rebel in being expelled from Starfleet during her training, which casts this forgotten character in a whole new light. We don’t learn so much about Travis because he’s for the most part inhabited by an Organian, who spends his time talking in a subordinate way to a senior Organian who inhabits Malcolm. I’m hoping that this isn’t a one off and that we see these characters come back with an expanded role in the coming few episodes. Seemingly with Trip going to be away for a little bit there’s room for these two to take on more screen time.

The relationship between the aliens is fascinating to watch because their motivations are a little difficult to discern at first. It’s almost as if they are responsible for the crew becoming affected and their non-corporealism makes them appear to have an arrogance over flesh and blood beings. They coldly and without feeling discuss how Klingons and Cardassians have died from the same thing. They recount the statistics comparing the efforts of Phlox and the Enterprise crew to save Hoshi and Trip to the thousands of other races that they’ve encountered infected with this disease. It also appears that they take their “Prime Directive” to the extreme in watching these species die despite knowing that they can easily cure them. When I first heard about the Organians being involved in this episode I didn’t know what to expect but I expected them to be obsessed with keeping the peace. However, they seem to have a very different idea in these early days and the decision of the Travis-being to rebel and demand change is a wonderful harkening to the TOS era where the Organians will not stand by and watch the quadrant go to war but intervene disabling all the Klingon and Federation ships so they can’t fight anymore. I didn’t make this connection immediately after watching the episode but thinking back on it this makes sense, so Coto has done it again making a very convincing connection between Enterprise and TOS, thus establishing the Prequel Concept again.

The camera work has much improved with this episode and it’s a lot more fluid and traditional rather than cuts and zoom ins every few seconds. It’s a very easy episode to watch for this reason. The lack of SFX makes the audience appreciate it when it does come and this HDTV stuff is amazing. Enterprise has never looked so good and I don’t know how I ever watched it before. You can’t tell that there’s been a reduced budget this year from this episode alone and that’s even considering that this is a money saving bottleneck episode.

For me one of the highlights of this episode was hearing Archer and Phlox give their mini little dissertations on the actions and prerogative of the Organians. It’s clear that what they said to the beings convinced them to change the way they operate, which would be so important in the rest of Trek history. Archer totally has grown since his famous gazelle speech at the start of Season 2 and no longer is trigger happy wanting to blast anyone and everything out the Airlock if they don’t co-operate with him. His actions are rather heroic, selfless and admirable. I’d have loved it more had it been one of the other characters rather than Archer though because I don’t want to see him being created into some super-saving the day type character but no one else would have had the same effect as the captain. He exposed himself to the silicon virus to try and save a member of his crew. Archer mirrors Kirk throughout this moment in sickbay and especially in his attack on the Organians – verbal not oxygen removal – this episode itself has a very TOS feeling to it and it’s made all the more enjoyable because of the mystery behind it.

All in all, this was an excellent episode that gave me a much needed break from my prelim revision. Has the revival of Enterprise begun yet? Yes it’s got off to a start but now I’m saying that we need to bring on the arc that I’ve been waiting months for. IF it’s got the Romulans in it then I’m interested and with Coto behind it I’m sure that we’re in for quite a ride next week and this is only the calm before the storm but definitely this was one relaxing and enjoyable calm.

A definite 4 out of 5 and a dramatic improvement over the disastrous bottleneck we saw last week. If that one was the vinegar then this is the Chateau Picard 1865 of Enterprise!

Written by David J. Nixon.

Want to rate the episode too? Check out the 'Observer Effect' Episode Page.