"Judgment"

Written by Taylor Elmore and David A. Goodman
Directed by James L. Conway


In which Archer is put on trial by the Klingons for saving refugees and disabling a Klingon battle cruiser, and finds that there are some Klingons with a sense of honor...

Synopsis - Analysis - Memorable Quotes - Observations


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Synopsis

As the episode begins, Archer is brought before a Klingon magistrate in an open court, accusing of conspiring against the Klingon Empire. He is informed that if he cannot prove his innocence at the trial, then he will be executed.

Later, in his cell, Dr. Phlox comes to speak with Archer, under the guise of treating a lingering ailment. Phlox tells Archer that Enterprise arrived two days ago, and that Starfleet and the Vulcan High Command are exploring all options of gaining his freedom. Archer tells Phlox that he orders T’Pol and Trip to safely get Enterprise out of Klingon space, if things go badly.

Phlox is removed when Archer is “cleared”, and he gets a visit from Kolos, his advocate. Kolos waves off Archer questions and attempts to discuss the case, wanting only to do his job and let matters fall as they always do. Archer is unhappy to learn that Kolos will speak for him, that there is no jury, that everyone is chanting “enemy” at him, and that the prosecutor is well known for his conviction record.

The magistrate calls the tribunal to order, and the prosecutor, Orak, calls a Klingon named Duras to testify. Duras used to be the captain of a Klingon battle cruiser, until his encounter with Archer. He claims that some rebels fled a Klingon planet, and Duras was ordered to retrieve them from a location just outside Klingon space.

Duras claims that he saw Enterprise, and did not recognize the ship. When Duras supposedly asks for the rebels (now on Enterprise) to be handed over, Archer is said to have replied with hostility. Duras tells the court that Archer was defiant, but when Archer tries to speak out about the lies, he is silenced. Duras goes on to say that Archer fired on his cruiser, forcing him to defend his ship. After pursuing Enterprise into the rings of a nearby planet, Duras claims that Archer ignited the plasma within the rings to disable his ship. Enterprise fled after disabling the Klingon cruiser’s warp systems.

When the prosecutor rests his case, he makes it sound like Archer conspired with rebels against the Empire and is therefore an enemy of the Empire himself. Having dismissed charges against his crew and his homeworld, Orak calls for Archer’s execution. When given the chance for a response, Kolos declines. When Archer tries to speak for himself, he is taken down by guards with pain sticks.

The tribunal goes to recess, and back in his cell, Archer scoffs at Kolos’ strategy. Kolos tells Archer that the magistrate has offered leniency, if Archer tells the court where the rebels are located. Archer refuses, which Kolos doesn’t understand. Archer berates the Klingon interpretation of the law, and Kolos cautions him to not assume everyone shares the current view. Kolos tells Archer how times were different when he was young, when he chose the law because it was an honorable vocation. Now, however, a less honorable paradigm holds sway.

Back at the court, Kolos informs the magistrate that Archer wishes to testify in his own defense. Orak objects, but Kolos reminds the court that he is within his rights to challenge the charges, according to the old ways. The magistrate allows the witness, against the popular feeling about it.

Acording to Archer, Enterprise responded to a distress call. They came upon a ship that had suffered terrible damage, with numerous casualties. They manage to dock with the ship, and one of the survivors tells Archer that the refugees are fleeing their world, which had been annexed by the Klingons. After the Klingons took over, they stripped the planet of resources and left them to waste. Orak jumps on the fact that Archer admits to aiding the “rebels”.

Archer is allowed to continue. Archer decides to give the refugees passage to a safe world nearby, but before they can leave, they detect a Klingon battle cruiser on the way. Archer admits to preparing to defend his ship, which Orak portrays as an act of war.

Archer continues, explaining how they realized that the rings of nearby planet could give them a chance to take out the battle cruiser’s sensors long enough to allow them to take out the cruiser’s engines. When the cruiser dropped out of warp and its captain demanded that Archer surrender the “rebels”, Archer refuses without additional information. The Klingons fire on Enterprise, so Archer orders his ship into the rings, resulting in the battle that Duras described. Archer makes it clear that although he had the chance, he chose not to destroy the battle cruiser because the Klingons were not his enemy.

Kolos submits, on Archer’s testimony, that Archer is guilty. But then he explains that Archer is known by the High Council, thanks to the events of “Broken Bow”. Also, Kolos mentions Archer’s rescue of a Klingon vessel from a gas giant. Therefore, Archer has worked to save the Empire, and is therefore guilty...of being a nuisance.

Back in his cell, Kolos and Archer wait for the verdict. Archer thanks Kolos, and they share a little bloodwine. Kolos explains that the courts have been steadily falling under the control of the warrior class, which has been marginalizing the other classes of Klingon society in recent years. Honor has become nothing more than victory, regardless of the circumstances. Archer tells Kolos that his world was once that way, until a few courageous people decided to make a difference.

They are called back to the court, where the magistrate agrees that Archer was a victim of his own foolishness. Still, the laws of the Empire have been violated, so his intent is meaningless. Archer is declared guilty, but the magistrate commutes his death sentence. Instead, Archer is condemned to the penal colony of Rura Penthe for the rest of his life.

Orak protests, seeking Archer’s death. Kolos points out that condemning Archer to Rura Penthe is a death sentence, given the life expectancy. When the magistrate warns Kolos that he is close to contempt, Kolos rails at the lack of honor and true justice in the Klingon courts, recalling a time when such things mattered. Kolos is found in contempt, and is sentenced to a year at Rura Penthe himself.

On Enterprise, T’Pol explains the ruling to the bridge crew. With the trial over, Enterprise has been ordered to leave. Trip and Reed want to stage a rescue, but T’Pol reminds them that Archer told them not to do anything foolish on his behalf. T’Pol assures them that there are other alternatives.

On Rura Penthe, Kolos finds it difficult to keep the pace of the mines. When a guard chastises Kolos with a pain stick, Archer fights back, until he is subdued as well. Kolos thanks him, though he finds Archer’s sense of loyalty more than a little foolish. Sometime later, a guard brings in some new arrivals. One of them approaches Archer, and Kolos prepares to protect his friend.

However, it turns out to be Reed. Reed explains that T’Pol managed to bribe the right people to get Archer a means of escape. Archer is more than happy to go, but when he invites Kolos to come with them, Kolos refuses. Kolos bemoans his years of silence, and he knows that he would never be able to restore honor to his people, should he choose the life of a fugitive. Archer understands, though he disagrees.

As Archer and Reed rush to their freedom, Kolos returns to his work...


Analysis

If the last few episodes have been easily criticized for their lack of originality, then this episode might best be described as the latest in a series of mistakes by the writing staff of “Enterprise”. Not only does this episode compound one of the cardinal sins of the series by continuing to involve the Klingons in affairs that they should not be involved in (based on earlier continuity), but what is depicted here is clearly an attempt to resonate with fans.

Of course, the most obvious way to do that is to remind them of one of the better moments of the previous eras. “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” was a magnificent way to give the cast of the original series a sense of closure, and the trial and punishment of Kirk and McCoy is definitely one of the high points of the film.

It’s understandable, then, that with “Enterprise” struggling to retain its core audience, thanks to its overall blandness, the writers would turn to something much more solid. Unfortunately, the writing staff failed to realize that shoving Archer into a Klingon show trial would be a massive error in judgment.

It was bad enough that Archer was involved with the Klingons last season, several decades before the Federation was even supposed to encounter the warrior race. But the writers seem to have decided that previously established continuity is a burden that they shouldn’t have to bear, since that would require the writers to think. And as we see here, there is very little thinking going on.

This episode hinges entirely on the central plot, which is the one thing that “Enterprise” has been unable to transcend. As noted for earlier episodes, having only an “A” plot in a given episode makes it an “all or nothing. For instance, all considerations of the larger continuity of the series aside, this episode is predictable from beginning to end.

It’s obvious from the start that Kolos is going to be won over by Archer’s idealism, just as it’s obvious that Archer is going to be sent to Rura Penthe as a sentence. This is obvious because as soon as the episode begins, the writers tip their hand by using the same “show trial” set piece that was used in “Star Trek VI”. Having shown one instance of an inability to develop something new, the writers proved that more was to follow.

According to the episodes shown so far, the Vulcans are not the only alien culture that Archer will manage to change. Apparently, a century before Kirk’s era, the Klingons have already begun turning away from the old ways of honor and glory. This is at least mildly consistent, given the fact that the Klingons in Kirk’s time are far more opportunistic. If “Star Trek VI” was meant to represent a reformation within Klingon society, then perhaps this episode is meant to represent the roots of that movement.

But at the same time, there are indications of a rift in Klingon society, as evidenced in “Broken Bow”. Just as the details of the conflict were glossed over in that episode, as well as the larger implications on Klingon culture as a whole, this episode does not provide much in the way of larger context. Kolos simply notes that there has been a shift towards military control of Klingon culture, and that is something that Kolos sees as damaging.

If this is the start of some kind of Klingon reformation, then it doesn’t seem to stick in the future. The Klingons might have continued to develop and nurture a code of honor over the next 200 years, but the emphasis on the military remained. There is a hint here that the segments of Klingon culture that supported easy victory and dubious definitions of honor were backing Duras, and that this was a subtle hint that those same forces backed Duras during the civil war in the 24th century.

Is the implication that the forces that backed Duras took control during the Cold War years of Kirk’s era, so that Kirk’s trial followed a similar pattern? If so, then Kolos fails, at least in his lifetime, and the fact that his name is never mentioned makes it less than likely that he began a revolutionary movement towards honor.

An additional difficulty is the question of Klingon genetics. After all, previous series have established that the more human-like appearance of the Klingons encountered about 100 years after the period covered in “Enterprise” was not just a special effects problem. Not only that, but human-like Klingons were later shown to look like the more alien version of the Klingons, meaning that something very odd happened in the time between “Enterprise” and the original series.

By dragging the Klingons into the pre-Federation years, instead of letting them stay out of the picture for another 50 years or so as they were previously said to be, the writers force certain questions. Why do later references to the Klingons say that the hostility between Humans and Klingons didn’t begin for another 50 years, if there are issues over Archer in this time period? How does the cultural war in Klingon society, and the intervention of factions in the Temporal Cold War, pertain to the future history? And does any of this give a reasonable explanation for the existing portrayal of Klingons in previous incarnations of the franchise?

In essence, the writers cannot turn back now. Had the Klingons been left alone, most of these problems could have been set aside. But now, there are questions that are left unresolved, both for “Enterprise” and in the larger sense. The writers have put themselves in the position where the Klingons will need to be developed with the same depth as the Vulcans, and many fans are already less than pleased with the way the Vulcans have been handled.

The end of this episode, of course, hints that there is going to be more to come, and that being the case, the die may already be cast. In the desperate attempt to find something to interest fans, the writers seem to have decided to throw all concerns for larger consistency out the window. While this has happened before, this is a major mistake, and the series is in serious danger of losing its remaining integrity if it continues.

In less than two seasons, “Enterprise” has gone from intriguing and promising to barely mediocre. Instead of resting on its own laurels, the series is relying on retreads and ill-conceived references to former franchise high points. When every episode is being billed as an “event”, regardless of the quality, then one knows that even the producers know that there is a major problem with how the series is performing.

Of course, in the end, the producers have only themselves to blame.


Memorable Quotes

ARCHER: “What’s your success rate?”
KOLOS: “I perform my duties...”

ARCHER: “What’s it the blood of?”
KOLOS: “Don’t feel badly, if you can’t stomach it.”
ARCHER: “I didn’t say that...”

KOLOS: “Are all humans like this?”
ARCHER: “Like what? Fair?”
KOLOS: “Stupid!”


Observations

- OK, this may not have been during the episode, but did anyone else notice that the promos kept misspelling the word “judgment”?

- Not only do we get a retread of yet another old franchise set piece, but as usual, the television version looks like the high school drama version of a Klingon show trial...

- This episode really highlights how wrong the theme music is for this series!

- I don’t recall Q’onos looking this good before...the CGI is definitely improved over the years...

- After playing the colorful General Martok all those years on DS9, I wonder if J. G. Hertzler saw this is a momentary return to something resembling glory!

- Besides J. G. Hertzler, there is the other SF veteran in the Klingon courtroom: John Vickery, who was far more impressive and multi-layered in his role as Alyt Neroon on “Babylon 5”...

- Of course, I’m sure that we are to believe that the Duras in this episode is related to the Duras of TNG fame...though no explanation is given for the commonality of the name!

- I may be wrong, of course, but isn’t that D-5 battle cruiser just a little more advanced than the Klingon vessels are supposed to be at this time in history?

- Whoever plays Duras’ first officer, she really wasn’t cast very well...

- I can’t even imagine Archer winning on “Survivor”, let alone eating gagh!

- Scott Bakula doesn’t fake drinking something harsh very well...

- I also notice that Rura Penthe looks a bit different...perhaps a little newer than it would be in a hundred years or so. Especially given that dilithium is apparently mined like blocks of ice in the 22nd century!

Overall, this episode is nice enough for what it is, but in the larger context, it is almost an admission of failure by the writers and producers. At this point in the series, reliving memories of a better time for the franchise is not a good sign. There are no signs that “Enterprise” will find its own voice, and if that continues, then the series doesn’t deserve to continue.

I give it a 4/10.


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