"The Crossing"

Written by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Andre Bormanis
Directed by David Livingston


In which Enterprise encounters a ship filled with non-corporeal life forms, who appear to want to trade states of existence for mutual enlightenment...

Synopsis - Analysis - Memorable Quotes - Observations


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Synopsis

As the episode begins, Enterprise detects a large vessel approaching out of warp. The vessel comes up from the behind them, and without any communication, opens an orifice and “devours” Enterprise. The engines go down, and the weapons go offline, leaving only the life support systems intact. A scan of the interior of the vessel reveals an odd vapor of hundreds of distinct “wisps”.

Archer, Trip, and Reed take a shuttle out into the vessel, and go EVA for a better look. Around them, the atmosphere adjusts to their needs. As they look around, one of the wisps comes right towards them, but Reed cannot get any readings. The wisp slides right into Trip, and a wisp of a different color comes out. Trip seems out of sorts, and then the transfer takes place again. Trip recovers, and remembers being among the wisps...but also with his girlfriend on Earth. It all felt real to him.

Dr. Phlox checks him out in the decontamination chamber on Enterprise, and cannot find anything wrong with him. Trip is allowed to leave the chamber, but he can’t stop thinking of how amazing the experience was. Archer orders Trip to work on the engines, but to let him know if he has any more unusual experiences.

T’Pol visits Archer’s quarters, and argues that there is no reason to think the aliens are hostile. Archer takes a somewhat different perspective. T’Pol reports that Hoshi has had no luck communicating with the aliens, and the crew is trying to maintain calm in the crisis. Archer is convinced that they need to find a way out of the ship.

In the engine room, one of the wisps encounters Trip, and the transfer occurs once again. Only this time, the alien stays within Trip for a lot longer. One of Trip’s engineers, Rostov, notices his odd behavior, and immediately informs Archer. Archer, T’Pol, and Reed catch up with him in the mess. The being that has taken over Trip’s body is enjoying a very large meal.

The alien pretends to be Trip, but readily admits that the real Trip is exploring the alien’s non-corporeal realm. Archer insists that Trip be brought back immediately, despite the alien’s claims that Trip is safe. The alien claims that his people are explorers, who live in subspace and wanted to remember what it was like to be corporeal by sharing knowledge and experience with the crew of Enterprise. Archer is not moved, and Enterprise is released. Archer and the others watch as Trip returns to his body.

Trip once again gushes about the experience, and describes living in various times and places, all at the same time. He tells Archer that the aliens offer the experience to everyone on board. Archer, however, doesn’t trust what is happening, and orders Trip to sickbay. T’Pol, however, thinks that the aliens may have been telling the truth.

Archer still doesn’t trust the aliens, and when Phlox comes by to inform him that an alien came to initiate “the crossing” with Phlox, without his consent, Archer’s suspicions seem confirmed. At the same time, one of the aliens chases down Reed, and once in control, seems to revel in the idea of physical mating rituals. After trying to make a move on one of the crewwomen, he visits T’Pol’s quarters, and starts expressing his desire to mate with her.

T’Pol, rather disturbed, calls for Archer to come to her quarters with a security team. The alien inside of Reed postpones his intention to have his way with T’Pol long enough for security to show up. When Archer insists that the aliens return Reed, the alien indicates no intention of doing so. Archer locks Reed in his quarters.

Archer orders Trip to accelerate the work on the engines, but then Rostov is taken over by one of the alien wisps. Trip informs Archer, and the captain orders Rostov confined to quarters. As more and more of the crew is taken over by the aliens, Archer has them all confined. He orders T’Pol to work with Phlox to find a way to detect who has been forced into “the crossing”.

Trip manages to get the impulse engines back online, so Archer orders them back to the alien vessel. Meanwhile, T’Pol and Phlox find a way to use a hand scanner to detect the “possessed”. Trip asks Mayweather to look into a problem in the starboard nacelle, while T’Pol and Phlox methodically remove and confine those who have been replaced. One of the aliens follows Mayweather into the nacelle, but for some reason, it doesn’t go into the catwalk.

Archer contacts Trip, and they theorize that the shielding in the nacelle might provide some shelter. When one of the aliens takes over Hoshi, Archer confronts it, and it vaguely threatens him. By the time the crew is back in the familiar confines of the catwalk, with control functions once again re-routed to the temporary stations in the nacelle, a third of the crew are no longer themselves.

T’Pol requests to return to the main portion of the ship, thinking that her Vulcan disciplines would offer her protection. Archer is less than sure, but T’Pol convinces him that during any attempted possession, she might be able to learn something. Meanwhile, the alien controlling Hoshi feigns injury, calling Phlox for assistance. Hoshi tries to use the ruse to escape confinement, but Phlox manages to get the upper hand. Archer contacts Phlox, and requests his help.

Soon after T’Pol returns to the main corridors of the ship, one of the aliens slips inside of her. When Phlox encounters her, she is non-responsive. Before Phlox has to sedate T’Pol, she manages to drive the alien from her mind. She knows that the aliens have been lying, and that their vessel is falling apart. Running out of time, and unable to survive in space, the aliens are taking over whatever corporeal bodies they run across.

Archer wonders if the aliens can survive in a dead host, and sends Mayweather to find Trip, so they can work on a plan. Archer sends Phlox back into the ship, but Mayweather cannot find Trip. With Archer’s help, Phlox begins working on releasing carbon dioxide into the ship, except for inside the nacelle. As Archer and Phlox work, Trip overhears...but it is decidedly not Trip.

Mayweather find Trip, and the possessed engineer fights his way out of the catwalk. Even as Phlox struggles with the final steps of the plan, Mayweather informs Archer of the problem with Trip. They try to rush Phlox through the final steps, but when he gets to the valves needed to release the carbon dioxide, Trip attacks him. They trade blows, and in the end, Phlox manages to release the gas. Trip gets a good amount in his face, and as he succumbs, Phlox begins monitoring the progress.

All around the ship, the aliens leave their victims, and the crewmen are restored. As soon as possible, Archer orders Mayweather to flee the alien vessel. As the alien vessel tries to devour them again, Enterprise fires two missiles into the interior. The resulting explosions destroy the alien vessel, ending the threat.


Analysis

Once again, “Enterprise” repeats one of the cardinal mistakes of “Voyager”: the apparent inability to find new ground to cover. This episode takes on the well-trodden plot device of encountering non-corporeal aliens with a hidden agenda, and does little more with it than when it first appeared on the original series. In fact, this episode feels like it was cobbled together from elements of several previous episodes and films in the franchise.

For just a moment, the sheer scale and intriguing design elements of the alien vessel seem like they might be a throwback to the best ideas about V’Ger. Then, for just a moment, there is the possibility that the aliens are actually offering an experience that is benign and very different within the franchise. But none of those promising concepts are explored, and instead there is a standard “alien possession” storyline, which does very little to expand the drama or reveal the intricacies of the characters.

Just once, it would be nice to see a modern incarnation of Star Trek actually do something new and exciting. These are the days before the Federation, and considering some of the bizarre and outlandish situations that Kirk encountered, one would have to assume that even stranger things were found in those initial forays into space. Why can’t Enterprise ever run into something extraordinary?

Imagine if this episode had been about something similar but very different: Archer, Trip, and Reed exploring a vast and extremely alien construct, wherein they experienced non-corporeality in ways that actually impacted them on a personal and spiritual level. Imagine the possibility to learn something about what these characters believe, beyond the safe confines of duty and barely-there politically correct bland statements of faith.

Imagine how, with the budget that “Enterprise” affords, modern special effects could have depicted such an organically internal interface with a species intent only on providing a means of unlocking the secrets of potential within the species that they encounter. When the alien inside of Trip made its offer to Archer, imagine where the episode could have gone if that offer had been sincere.

Instead, the expectations of the episode are clearly laid out by Archer’s reactions and behavior. Considering some of his previous displays of massive naivety, this sudden shift to well-worn skepticism doesn’t quite track. One would think that the Vulcans would have more experience with marauding non-corporeal entities, given their spiritual aspect, but for whatever reason, T’Pol is the one that trusts the motives of the aliens.

Even when things begin to go wrong, the episode had more than ample opportunity to move in unexpected directions. In the similar episode “Return to Tomorrow” during the original series, the non-corporeal aliens were actually allowed to have varying personalities and therefore varying motivations. However, in this case, all of the aliens were of like mind, without any attempt to flesh out the aliens as real or distinct personalities. The closest parallel would be the relatively benign alien inside of Trip versus the considerably more randy alien inside Reed.

Usually continuity wins points for this series, but in this case, it contributed to the feeling that ideas were in short supply. Some of the worst aspects of “The Catwalk” were retread in this episode, especially the cloying attempts by Mayweather to emulate Archer’s interaction with the rest of the crew. Once again, Mayweather becomes a catch-all character, given screen time just to fend off the complaints that his character isn’t getting any screen time. The concept of character development has apparently never crossed Berman or Braga’s mind.

And that is the real complaint here. This episode tells us nothing that we didn’t already know, putting the characters through a stock gauntlet instead of a novel crucible. I am instantly reminded of an episode of “Crusade”, the mistreated and prematurely aborted follow-up to “Babylon 5”. In the episode “The Path of Sorrows”, an encounter with a mysterious alien reveals details about the pasts of many of the principal characters. The power of the episode, as well as the application of its very simple plot device, was astounding.

Had something similar happened in this episode to the main characters, it could have been equally as effective. However, the difference between “Crusade” and “Enterprise” is that the background and future development for every character had been carefully considered and fleshed-out, including some very dark and human aspects that never seem to surface in the Star Trek franchise. So even if the characters had been placed under such scrutiny, it’s doubtful that there would have been anything intriguing to discover.

Berman and Braga, aware of the discontent with the series, have spoken about how the series will begin to explore more dangerous ground. If this is what they were referring to, then they simply don’t understand what makes a series compelling. The key to making “Enterprise” a success is very simple. The characters need to be re-imagined on a fundamental level. They need to be constructed in detail and given considerably more depth. They need to be people, not just cardboard cutouts with facile, stereotypical traits.

Perhaps the best way to express this vision of the series is a simple comparison. “Enterprise” is about 2/3 of the way through its second season. By this point, on “Babylon 5”, think about how far the characters had come: simply the interaction between Londo and G’Kar speaks volumes. Or how about “Farscape”, and the massive changes in the relationships between the characters of John and Aeryn? That doesn’t even take into account where those two groundbreaking series were in terms of overall plot development in that short span of time.

“Enterprise” has several more episodes under its belt, and the main plot threads have barely moved an inch since the series began. And more than that, the characters are practically the same as they were when they were introduced. Only T’Pol has changed, but only when convenient to the episode at hand. It’s clear that whatever plans were conceived for the series were little more than a house of cards.


Memorable Quotes

TRIP: “Have you ever tried this?”
ARCHER: “It’s called bread...”

REED: “You are a female? Correct?”
CREWWOMAN: “Last time I checked...”
REED: “I am a male.”
CREWWOMAN: “I am aware of that, Lieutenant...”

PHLOX: “Good suggestion!”


Observations

- I love the design of the alien vessel, very H. G. Giger in influence...but there is absolutely no sense of scale when they are shooting the interior...

- I would think that something like this would constitute a textbook example of why one doesn’t rush into situations blindly!

- There is a considerable difference in how Scott Bakula delivers his lines for the captain’s log when it’s a voiceover and when it’s on-screen...and the voiceover is about as badly done as one can get...

- So Reed was taken over by the horny, smarmy evil alien consciousness?

- And are there so many young, pretty women on board that Reed just happens to encounter one within a matter of seconds?

- That’s all Hoshi needs...another reason to be afraid of whatever Enterprise might encounter...

- Wow...Hoshi is even hot when she’s possessed and highly violent!

- As usual, Phlox is the highlight of this episode...

- I don’t care how deteriorated the alien vessel was supposed to be...the missiles on the Enterprise should have barely scratched the surface!

- Nice destruction of the alien vessel, though...

- Oh, look, one of those infamous “Voyager” endings where the episode just kinda ends, without much in the way of actual resolution!

Overall, this episode is a barely cohesive mishmash of elements stolen from episodes from previous incarnations of Trek, and that is definitely not a good thing. So many opportunities were wasted that this episode might just stand as a prime example of what is wrong with the franchise as a whole: an utter lack of a central concept and plot motivation.

I give it a 3/10.


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