"Dawn"

Written by John Shiban
Directed by Roxann Dawson


In which Trip finds himself on a moon with an alien with severe stranger anxiety, and needs to figure out how to communicate to survive...

Synopsis - Analysis - Memorable Quotes - Observations


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Synopsis

As the episode begins, Trip is taking Shuttlepod One on a test of an upgrade to the autopilot systems. The planet nearby has dozens of moons, which present the perfect testing ground. Enterprise tries to contact him to warn about an approaching ship, but contact is quickly lost. Before Trip can react, the alien vessel fires on the pod and Trip is forced to make an emergency landing on one of the moons.

Enterprise attempts to re-establish contact, but they have no luck. The moons have atmospheres that disrupt the ship’s sensors. Archer orders the crew to keep looking, one moon at a time.

Meanwhile, Trip is forced to salvage what he can from the damaged shuttle. The same atmospheric composition affecting the sensors is affecting the pod’s main power supply. Trip tries to rig a transceiver together, but he is distracted by a noise. He goes to check, and ends up under fire by an alien. He takes refuge in the pod until the alien leaves…with the transceiver.

Back on Enterprise, an alien cruiser approaches. T’Pol identifies it as Arconian, a race with an unfriendly reputation. When the Arconians contact Enterprise, the captain orders Archer to leave their space or be destroyed. What’s more, the alien captain is very unhappy to see a Vulcan on Archer’s bridge. Archer tries to explain his situation, only to find that Trip was shot down by an Arconian patrol. Archer convinces the alien captain that they should work together to find their missing men.

Back on the moon, Trip sneaks up on the alien’s camp, and finds that the alien has crashed as well. He recognizes that they must have both been affected by the same phenomenon. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a universal translator. Using his recorder, Trip tricks the alien into leaving his camp and manages to get a drop on him when he returns. But Trip’s forgiving nature gets the better of him, and the alien shuns him. Shortly, the alien forces Trip awake and tries to force him into fixing the transceiver. After some fruitless attempts at communication, the alien forces Trip to work on the transceiver on the alien vessel at gunpoint.

On Enterprise, T’Pol reports that neither ship has managed to find a trace of the two missing pilots. She explains that the Arconians don’t trust them because of her presence. The Vulcans made first contact with the Arconians, but the relationship was extremely strained and the Vulcans withdrew. T’Pol warns Archer that the Arconians are prone to hostility, but he insists on trying to work with them.

Meanwhile, Trip is having little success with his work on the transceiver. But he and the alien manage to communicate on a very basic level. They exchange names; the Arconian is named Zho’Kaan. With dawn coming soon, it is getting warm, and the work is difficult. Still, Zho’Kaan presses Trip until he gets the chance to turn the tables. Trip forces Zho’Kaan to pick up the transceiver materials, and they go back to the shuttlepod.

On Enterprise, T’Pol informs Archer that the orbits of the moons put them in a zone of high thermal extremes. Night on the moons isn’t so bad, but during the day, it reaches temperatures that can be lethal to humans. They are running out of time.

Back on the moon, Trip continues working using materials from the pod as a bound Zho’Kaan watches. Trip tries to share his food, but Zho’Kaan finds it inedible. Trip starts to make progress, and thinks that he can send a message soon. But the low ground near the shuttle is blocking the signal, so he needs to take his rig to higher ground. He asks Zho’Kaan to help, and the alien agrees.

Of course, as soon as Trip cuts him loose, Zho’Kaan drives him into the ground. They beat the tar out of each other until they are both too tired to even think of keeping it up. Trip is the one who ends up with the gun, so he tosses it away as a gesture to convince Zho’Kaan that they need to work together if they ever want to leave. With Zho’Kaan’s help, he gets the transceiver to a high point and tries making contact again.

The attempt is unsuccessful after two hours of trying, and the temperature has already started to rise. It’s clear that Arconians aren’t equipped for dealing with extreme heat. Trip does what he can to help Zho’Kaan, but it’s just a matter of time and it’s not long before the water (or whatever) runs out. When things are looking very grim, Enterprise finally makes contact.

Unfortunately, because of the atmospheric effects, Enterprise cannot send another shuttle, and Phlox doesn’t think that Zho’Kaan could survive the transporter. Archer offers to take Trip to Enterprise, and then find a way to save Zho’Kaan. Trip refuses to go without Zho’Kaan, even if it means staying in the deadly heat until a solution can be found.

Trip tells Archer that he thinks one of the Arconian patrol ships could be modified to go through the atmosphere. While they wait, the circuits of the transceiver fuse and he cannot call for additional supplies. As he begins to succumb to the heat, he sees a vessel coming to their position. Within moments, they are saved.

Shortly, Archer informs the Arconian captain that Zho’Kaan ought to be ready to leave sickbay at any time. The Arconians tell Archer to leave the system as soon as Zho’Kaan leaves the ship. T’Pol is impressed, since that is actually more than the Vulcans have managed to get from the Arconians in centuries.

In sickbay, Trip checks in on Zho’Kaan, and Zho’Kaan tells Trip that he’s glad he didn’t destroy the shuttlepod when he fired on it.


Analysis

Back in the early 1980s, there was a movie (based on a novella) called “Enemy Mine”. In essence, the story revolved around two marooned enemies, one human and one alien, who eventually learn to respect each other. While the film is imperfect, the story itself is not at all bad.

John Shiban must be very familiar with this story, because this episode is essentially the “Enterprise” version of “Enemy Mine”. Of course, since this is Star Trek, the premise has lost some of its bite, and the depth of exploration into the alien culture is minimal at best. Still, out of all of the characters on the show to choose, Trip is the one that fits the scenario best.

Familiarity lends a certain amount of good feeling towards this episode, but like so many other loose adaptations in recent franchise history, there’s not as much original input added to make it unique to the series at hand. When similar plots were explored on “TNG”, for instance, the circumstances revealed something about the character, or focused on one particular facet of the ordeal.

This episode doesn’t quite do that. The communication between Trip and Zho’Kaan is minimal, so there’s no exchange of culture. Most of the time is spent fighting and generally trying to deceive each other for mutual advantage. Until his life is in danger and resistance seems hopeless, Zho’Kaan doesn’t really attempt to work with Trip in any real sense. It’s only Trip’s human empathy that comes to the fore.

Unfortunately, that’s not something that comes as a shock. Trip’s sympathetic nature has been demonstrated plenty of times in other alien encounters, and it’s only when he’s dealing with Vulcans that he loses that enlightened point of view. So events in this episode don’t provide much of a surprise, and we don’t learn much about Trip in the process. It’s all very pleasant and mildly interesting, but it’s not exactly filled with revelations.

Unless, of course, one considers a considerable amount of survival mistakes as revelatory. It would be very hard to believe that Trip was ever a Boy Scout, should such a thing be revealed, because being prepared doesn’t seem to rank very high on his list of priorities. One could accept that Trip was using an apparently unused system for his autopilot tests, but there ought to be a standard protocol for having the device on hand. (Not that we even know what it looks like, but that’s another story.)

The more confusing mistakes come during the final act of the episode, once Trip contacts Enterprise and decides to stay with Zho’Kaan until a solution can be found. There’s absolutely no reason why the necessary supplies couldn’t have been beamed down to the planet. At the very least, they could have sent water and eventually the liquid Zho’Kaan needed.

But the ultimate responsibility for that error falls to Archer. Knowing as he does that Trip is not exactly the most reliable authority on survival tactics, he ought to have given the order to send the supplies as soon as contact was established. For that matter, he should have also contacted the Arconians and asked them what Zho’Kaan needed to survive, so they could send that as well.

The fact that Archer and the rest of the command staff completely lapsed in this crisis makes no sense at all. Except, of course, to stretch out the drama as far as possible. But given the unreasonable constraints placed on the series, there are limits to how far the characters can be pushed, and the need to resolve everything in something like 42 minutes eliminates long-range consequences.

What that means, ultimately, is that the drama needs to be artificially created through foolish decisions. Trip probably wouldn’t have had a universal communicator, because a realistic version of one wouldn’t work as depicted on the series. So that side of the episode works. But at the same time, there’s no reason for Trip or the command crew to fail to consider all of the viable options.

Without the need to create drama where none was necessary, more time could have been spent exploring the culture of the Arconians and giving a more complete picture of the basis for their antagonism with the Vulcans. Given the perspective that it could bring to the strained relationship between humans and Vulcans, it would have tied in nicely with Archer’s ongoing lessons in perspective.

Just as importantly, the fact that human diplomacy was able to accomplish what Vulcan protocol had not should have been stressed more completely. If Archer is meant to see the value of protocol during space exploration and first contact, then T’Pol is meant to see the value in the freedoms of human expression. These are the philosophical underpinnings of Federation, as we have been shown thus far. Why not emphasize these concepts more directly?

Like many of the episodes this season, there is a distinct lack of subplot, and that puts more pressure on the plot that does exist. One might argue that Archer’s struggle with the Arconians constitutes a subplot, but three scenes aren’t enough to effectively draw interest. Not to belabor the point, but cutting some of the bad writing to expound on the search for Trip and the conflict with the Arconians would have resolved the need for subplot to balance the episode.

As it stands, this episode isn’t nearly as offensive as it might sound. It is, in fact, well done for what it is. But in the end, it’s simply lightweight and doesn’t stand up to even minimal scrutiny. Of course, that’s better than most of the episodes this season have managed, so at least there’s some sense that progress is being made.


Memorable Quotes

TRIP: “It’s like talking to Porthos…”

TRIP: “Anything you want to say to the folks back home?”
ZHO’KAAN: “How-toe…”
TRIP: (Pause.) “That means ‘bad’…”


Observations

- Apparently Arconian water is pretty close to what comes out of the tap in New Jersey…

- The Arconians have some interesting first aid techniques. A little unsanitary, perhaps, but it works well enough!

- After “Desert Crossings”, Trip ought to know a little about survival in extreme heat…

- Starfleet ration bars look like week old brownies...or pressed Tootsie Rolls…

- Most of the moon shots do a good job of masking that it’s being filmed in a studio, but when it starts getting lighter, the illusion is constantly broken by the bad lighting!

- Nice touch having Trip remember experiences from earlier episodes!

- I wonder if “tarat gash” is Arconian for “vodka”…

- Two episodes by John Shiban, and they are both some of the best episodes of the season. This is getting to be a little unnerving!

Overall, this episode is enjoyable enough, but the plot devolves into artificial tensions by the end. The episode never quite manages to do its inspiration justice, and there is a disappointing lack of character exploration given the focus on Trip.

I give it a 6/10.


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