Star Trek: Enterprise - Series 3 - That Clone Episode - Angry Rant

[dolorous_ett]

Does anyone apart from me like Enterprise? I know it's generally considered a low taste among serious Star Trek fans, but I followed the first two series with great enthusiasm - it won my heart in the very first episode with its faulty translation software, twitchy tactical officer who no-one ever listens to and the charming inexperience of the crew.

That said, I've never been a fan of Captain Jonathan Archer - he just doesn't seem capable of using his head a lot of the time, takes a lot of frighteningly irresponsible decisions and puts the lives of all at risk for principles that are completely opaque to me. He has lots of sensible people giving him really good advice - and usually ignores it.

Recently I treated myself to the third series of Enterprise in DVD form. Until this evening I was slowly coming round to Archer, but I've just watched "Similitude" - the episode in which they make a clone of Tucker to save his life - and was appalled.

This is the episode where Trip Tucker, Cheif Engineer, is involved in an accident and winds up in a coma. His brain is damaged so much he can't recover. Fortunately, Dr Phlox is able to clone him using alien technology - the clone passes through an entire human lifespan in about 2 weeks. They can take the brain tissue without hurting it, and all will be well. Apart from for the clone, obviously, who will be dead within the fortnight anyway.

Scientifically, the cloning is a great success - sweet baby - cute small boy - gawky teenager, all in a few days, taking on more of Tucker's memories and experience by the hour. Makes quite a hit with the crew.

Now it gets messy. The doctor does a few more checks. Whoops! We made a mistake. The transplant won't be a problem - it's just that the clone won't survive it. The clone is surprisingly good humoured about it at first, but then understandably cuts up rough. Especially when he realises there's a possibility that his development can be slowed enough to give him a normal human lifespan. But of course, for that to happen they lose any chances of saving the original version.

This is where Archer shows his true colours - for someone who bases his choices on his own moral code and personal gut feelings over cold logic it's particularly shocking. He tells the clone - more or less in so many words - to hurry up and die so that he can get his cheif engineer back - and is plainly prepared to have him dragged to sickbay at gunpoint if need be. The nearest he comes to human appeal: "Don't make me a murderer" (bonus points for making it all the clone's fault).

Of course, in the end the clone does the "decent "thing and allows his brain to be harvested. We see him taking a few farewells and lying down on the operating table. He is buried in space with full military honours, and an emotional speech by the gallant Captain Archer of the "greater love hath no man" type, the dirty old hypocrite. The original Trip is present, looking decidedly queasy - as was I by this point.

So much is morally wrong in this episode that it's quite breathtaking. There's a lot of stuff about creating a sentient being for spare parts that I don't need to spell out. But the complete lack of humanity in the second part of the episode really took my breath away. So much for Archer as a decent man who makes mistakes and lets his heart rule his head - this was more like a spoiled child who's lost his favourite toy, and throws a tantrum when he realises he's in the wrong.

All this "humanity" stuff making you uncomfortable? After all, Earth is under attack from an Alien Menace, and time is running out. OK, well let's take the logical approach. 

Tucker is a good Chief Engineer, but he's far from being the only engineer on board. Basically, he would be missed, but he is dispensible. Among other things, the ship boasts a Vulcan science officer. And presumably someone has been quietly keeping the engine from blowing up while the day shift catch up on sleep, or when Tucker is absent from the ship. The justification of the whole cloning thing is that Tucker can't be spared for the safety of the ship - but that doesn't hold water to me.

Oh yes, and why didn't any of the crew say anything? They knew about the clone, and what he was for. He was running all over the ship being a charming child just a few days ago. They can't not have known at least some of what was going on.

It's brave of the script writers to tackle such a morally difficult area, and if the idea was to produce a strong reaction, they have succeeded! But it's killed any lingering sympathy I had for the captain stone dead. I hope the Klingons get him.

Comments

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

So, I've never seen Enterprise, but this post makes me giggle a little bit because on last night's Stargate Atlantis the very same actor (Connor Trinneer) who played Tucker on Enterprise was again playing a character who was the subject of a very sketchy medical experiment that put the "good" guys firmly on the wrong side of the ethics equation. If Mr. Trinneer isn't careful, he's going to start being typecast as the go-to guy for sci-fi shows in need of subjects for their morally questionable experimentation. I wonder what exciting medical horrors will be inflicted upon him next?

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Ooooo - you'd think one peice of really abhorrent medical ethics would be enough, wouldn't you? Still, there's no accounting for taste...

Perhaps they'll take a leaf out of my students' book, and have his brain transplanted into the body of a gibbon? Though by the standards of what he's already been through, I don't imagine that would be such a big deal.

In Enterprise he is obviously a Good Old Boy you are meant to like just... because. And for this reason I didn't like him at all in the first couple of series. I used to regularly cheer on his opponents in fights - but nobody deserves to go that way. And Trineer's acting as the clone was really very good.

[snorkackcatcher]

I saw parts of Season 1 and quite liked them -- but no, I wasn't much impressed with Archer either. In the self-righteousness stakes he seemed comparable to Janeway in Voyager (who likewise made ridiculous command decisions based on obscure principles of her own).

Ah, Star Trek scripts. IMHO the only series they got it really right with in terms of consistent quality was DS9, with some good TNG mostly from Seasons 3-6 (ducks fire from fans of the other series).

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

You won't get anything thrown from me - there were some great TNG episodes, though I'm no authority on TNG, and I don't think I've ever seen an episode of Deep Space Nine, alas, alas.

But Archer, while apparently a more than competent competent pilot, is a disaster as a captain - unpredictable, illocigal and inconsistent. He has some excellent advisors, and generally ignores them. I can only presume that up close he has immense charisma, as most of the crew seem to like him just fine - including people like T'pol, who ought to know better.

Personally, I wouldn't put him in charge of a shuttlepod.

[snorkackcatcher]

The one I remember was an episode where they find an alien planet where the locals have some sort of genetic wasting disease that will kill the race off in a couple more centuries, and the Doctor comes up with a technique for basically curing it, and Archer agonises for several minutes of screen time about whether to give it to them before saying 'no' on the grounds of non-interference (with a nod to future/previous series 'maybe we'll have a rule one day that will make the decision for us').

I'm afraid my reaction was 'Bullshit! You're not talking about giving them weapons technology they can't handle or something, you're talking about their extinction!' Oh well. Was that just me?

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I have slightly more sympathy with this one, as in this case Archer was ready to give the medicine to the sick species, it was the doctor who was really cutting up rough about it - on the grounds that it would not allow the other species on the world to evolve to fulfill their full potential.

Though now I come to think of it, you're quite right. Archer doesn't normally let things like future problems bother him much - and again, he seemed happy enough to look the doctors on that planet in the eye and say that he can't help, sorry, but here are some really good painkillers...

...

Do you know, I almost talked myself into that? And then I remembered that episode called "A Night In Sick Bay" when that stupid dog of his gets sick - Phlox tries to fix the creature, and Archer stands around, is emotional and loses his temper. Which is no more than mildly irritating until I remembered the entire planet of sick people he happily left to die off in their own time...

No, there's no doubt at all, the man has some very strange priorities.

[tree_and_leaf]

That's.... very disturbing. Even worse than that Voyager episode where Tuvok and Neelix got splinched together, and Janeway effectively had the new entity (Tuvix?) killed in order to bring back Tuvok and Neelix.

I liked much of what I saw of Enterprise, though that wasn't beyond season 2 (thank you Channel 4, who did exactly the same thing they did with Angel), but I didn't like Archer either. I never understood how Malcom-the-British-Weapons officer and T'Pol-the-Vulcan-Science-Officer stood any of them (I always thought that a reserved Brit and a Vulcan ought to find each other an agreeable change from the Americans).

My favourite moment was the season 1 episode where Malcolm's British-Navy-through-and-through father was revealed to be the chap who played Leutnant Grüber ('and hees leetle tank') in 'Allo, 'Allo. I immediately became convinced that MAlcolm really was descended from Lt Grüber, which would at least explain the weapons fixation.

Agree entirely with Snorkackcatcher about DS9, my favourite of the Treks (though I have a great fondness for TOS, no-one could call it consistent...)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I never understood how Malcom-the-British-Weapons officer and T'Pol-the-Vulcan-Science-Officer stood any of them (I always thought that a reserved Brit and a Vulcan ought to find each other an agreeable change from the Americans).

I agree with you completely about both of them. And let's spare a thought for poor Hoshi while we're about it (I'm not including Phlox - because although he is very sensible and rational he's also astonishingly thick-skinned).

I love T'pol (although the level of Vulcansploitation in some of episodes is pretty appalling) - from time to time I still find myself saying "This is a foolish mission" in a deadpan voice. There is never any response!

And I'm a sucker for Reed, though I don't think he's well-developed always - some of the script-writers don't really understand what it's like to be a "stiff-assed Brit" I think. Nonetheless, I like his perfectly natural twitchiness - and the way he draws attention to actual safety concerns. Too bad no-one listens to him...

I'd completely missed the Gruber connection. That would explain a thing or two, wouldn't it? Though I think if I had Archer at his most quixotic as a commanding officer - and Trip Tucker as his second in command - I would want to blow things up too!

[tree_and_leaf]

Frankly, there were moments when I wondered why the Vulcans bothered with humanity in the first place (probably because they were worried about the harm a species which can choose Archer as its representative would do if let off the leash?) And yes, poor Hoshi, too.

Although one of the good things about Enterprise was the fact that the friction between humanity and Vulcanity(?) it created actually made some sort of sense of the appalling racist crap Spock had to put up with in the early episodes of the original series, most notably the one where he's in command of a shuttle that gets trapped on a planet full of savage proto-hominids, and the crew blame Spock for everything, are just short of mutinous, and keep making offensive remarks. Or 'Balance of Terror', where a junior officer insinuates on two seperate occasions that Spock is a Romulan spy, and gets only a very minor telling off from Kirk on the second one. While Spock is vindicated in both cases, no-one seems to realise quite how badly the humans are behaving.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I thought it was just the humans picking on T'Pol, and we'd have grown out of it by the Original Series - of which I've seen almost nothing. Looks like not. Poor Vulcans.

I like T'Pol's character, but she does get the most horrible things to act - like that beastly "Mate or Die!" disease she got at the end of Series 2. Quite worthy of

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I thought it was just the humans picking on T'Pol, and we'd have grown out of it by the Original Series - of which I've seen almost nothing. Looks like not. Poor Vulcans.

I like T'Pol's character, but she does get the most horrible things to act - like that beastly "Mate or Die!" disease she got at the end of Series 2. Quite worthy of <ljuser="deleterius">!

[anna-kat.livejournal.com]

I don't watch Enterprise but I love your rant and do sympathise. I was equally angry when Janeway killed Tuvix or when she formed an alliance with the Borg who had slaughtered 30.000 of her comrades. Contrast this with the (very early) DS9 episode where someone created his own clone only to kill it and because of it was charged with murder. Except for the strangely esoteric end that I never fully grasped, DS9 was the best.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I really must watch some DS9. It sounds like it's the Thinking Person's choice in Star Trek. Though Enterprise in its better moments is neither thoughtless nor amoral - episodes like the one above are thankfully in a minority.

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Never fear, they didn't really bury him in the space: it would be a horrible waste of a noble sacrifice. His liver, hear, kidneys and other spares were safely stacked away for future use - accidents happen and somebody else may need a replacement. To say nothing about five litres of good blood...

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

A very good point. And very logical. As such, almost certain to offend Archer's delicate sensibilities one way or the other...

To say nothing about five litres of good blood...

Mmmmmm.... blood...

Talking of which, a Polish shop has opened just 5 minutes' walk from my flat. Can that delicious-looking blood-based dish you mentioned a few entries back be bought in packet form?

[themolesmother.livejournal.com]

I think Archer is meant to be the antithesis of the normal Star Trek chief protagonist. Unlike Kirk and Picard he's all too human. I never saw this episode and by the sound of it they maybe took the whole thing a bit too far. Still, I liked Enterprise - always thought of it as Star Trek for grown ups. The universe wasn't perfect, the characters weren't incredibly noble, and the ship was held together with bits of string and sellotape. Just like reall life.

Never had much time for DS9. To me it came across as a Babylon 5 rip-off and I much prefer the real thing.

MM

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I see what you mean about Archer. And I've no objection to him being human - the trouble is that he isn't consistently any one thing. You can say this a very human trait, and of course you're right - but it must make him impossible to work under.

But I agree with you completely about Enterprise - one of its many charms is that things often don't work, and the characters are flawed and inexperienced. The suspicion with which they view the transporter beam ("YOu'll never get me in one of those") is one of my favourite examples of this - and the clunky translation software...

[aerama.livejournal.com]

We liked Enterprise – or tried to. Over here it kept getting pre-empted for stupid basketball games or what-have-you. I just love how sports is assumed to be what Everyone Wants to Watch.
So it had a hard time keeping a loyal audience with it missing for weeks at a time – and as you noticed above, the unevenness of the episodes/characters was annoying. On televisionwithoutpity.com, they took to calling Archer’s furrowed-brow-pacing-his-cabin-with-the-great-view-while-talking thing the Weight of the World Window…at least I think that’s why they called it that


Seeing Connor/Trip on Stargate Atlantis was nice (sounds like you saw it?)
I loved how evil/seductive he got near the end – well, right before he was let loose, of course. Then he just got creepy! I wish they’d bring back an episode with Jolene on the regular Stargate.

DS9 was fun, and I got into TNG after I got over how office-building-y it looked.
But the lack of seatbelts always bothered me. Nobody ever learned how to hang on, either. You’re still crossing a road of sorts even in space!!

What I want - what I'd love - is to see a movie of The Mote in God's Eye, which I don't know if you've read, but I recommend. But it probably should have been made two decades ago.

*Back to Enterprise - potential spoiler*
It got so that the best part – I don’t know if you’ve seen all of them before you got the DVDs – was the Alternate Universe schtick. Creepy and horrifying yet solid. And too late to save the series.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I didn't see Connor/Trip on Stargate Atlantis - I don't own a TV - the only viewing I get is on a weeny portable DVD player. The good thing is that I can't waste time watching the TV - the bad news is that sometimes I miss really good things!

But the lack of seatbelts always bothered me.

Another reason to love Enterprise! The first time the ship takes a hit, Reed says that they really need to think about fitting them... and of course, no-one ever listens to his advice, so it never happens.

*Back to Enterprise - potential spoiler*
It got so that the best part – I don’t know if you’ve seen all of them before you got the DVDs – was the Alternate Universe schtick. Creepy and horrifying yet solid. And too late to save the series.

So far and no farther, please! I've only seen about half of Season 3, and nothing at all of Season 4. So I don't even know how the Evil Blue Nazi Lizards ended up taking over the US! It goes without saying that I'd rather you keep that information to yourself - I want to enjoy finding out - even if I end up swearing at the screen in annoyance!

[tree_and_leaf]

The first time the ship takes a hit, Reed says that they really need to think about fitting them... and of course, no-one ever listens to his advice, so it never happens.

Ah, poor Reed. Once again, the voice of reason gets ignored. No wonder the poor man is twitchy. (As well as the fact that not all the script-writers understand him...)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Reed is right about so many things. And yet we are supposed to sympathise with Archer when he tries to talk him out of his belief in order and discipline... Twit.