the delphic expanse

This is the discussion thread for "The Seventh". All DE rules of engagement apply.

On to the show!

I'm finding I really enjoy the eps I don't remember much about, especially when they harbor little gems that have completely slipped my mind. I was fascinated by the Captain's Mess scene with Malcolm, Trip and Phlox. It was like finding an unaired piece of canon. LOL.

And I don't see it as making Trip out to be inept. He's getting better at being on the bridge and running things -- but that's not all there is to being captain. It's like managing a restaurant: you get to be the decider, but you're also the person who unclogs the toilets if the plumber can't be found. Been there, done that. The everyday stuff isn't glamorous, and this was one way of portraying that part of being a leader.

I always wince at this episode's making Trip look silly - because really, we've seen him in the captain's chair before and we've seen him play act before, and he's always done well. He's more than capable of taking command - just think back to Shadows of P'Jem. Archer and T'Pol are being held hostage - and he's very calm and in control through the whole ordeal. But that said, those scenes are a very minor part of the episode and I can fanwank that Trip was just thrown off base by having his two senior officers keep secrets from him. And the scenes are a very minor part of the episode.

Menos is an outstanding character - as Entallat said in the live chat - Hannibal Lector-like in his manipulations of T'Pol. He seems to "innocent" in the beginning when they first catch him. You really think - as an audience - he might be telling the truth.

With all our discussions of slash in the Neutral Zone, I decided that Menos and the man T'Pol killed were lovers. It's made the episode even more interesting.

Another thing I noticed - and I don't mean to Archer-bash because I think it is the writing and it is a little off - is how much of a jerk and how dismissive of T'Pol Archer is early in the episode. After all they've been through and how much distress is showing in her face and body language (for a Vulcan) - I find it strange that Jon, who is usually very caring of all his crew, would be so obnoxious to her. Later, on the mission, Jon feels very much like the Jon we know - and there's a great deal of of emotional intimacy.

Oh, and Travis? Does a lot. He's really the unsung hero - figuring out this and that.

So, I do think the episode has some flaws - but it is redeemed with some strong character moments and some fantastic performances by SB, JB and the actor who plays Menos.

I'd interpret Jon's earlier reactions to be more directed to the Vulcan High Command's secrecy -- he may have grown to trust T'Pol more, but the Vulcans overall can really get his dander up. How did they contact her on-ship without going through Hoshi or another communications officer? That's actually pretty subversive (and not very good writing), so I think I'd be put off too if I had the combination of someone outside of my ship going behind my back to talk to my second in command -- and then making them clam up when they've been becoming more open.

Transference. The absolute moment that T'Pol starts to tell him The Truth behind her requests, his whole demeanor changes. He's open, curious, supportive, and far more trusting.

This whole episode is a watershed moment for them.

This is another example of why I love this whole rewatch idea, for some of the same things entkayjay said - catching little things I hadn't noticed before.

This wasn't one of my favorite episodes when I first saw it and - other than remembering that T'Pol had a Ministry of Security background - was one of the ones I'd pretty much forgotten. In some ways it's still not one that I like a lot, mostly because I get easily confused by the the whole background story of Menos. That doesn't usually happen to me when I watch stories - even with fairly complicated plot-lines - but it happens here almost every time. The actual stuff about Menos and his prior exploits should be really interesting - it's a Vulcan undercover who's gone basically criminally insane - and yet I kinda glaze over it every single time. I don't understand it, really, because Menos is a really interesting kind of evil here. He's calm and rational and appeals to T'Pol's emotions, instilling her with guilt, to cover his crimes. For a Vulcan, that's pretty damn creepy.

So yeah, I don't know why I haven't liked this episode more. It's also a fantastic episode for Archer and T'Pol interaction. Whether you wear shipper glasses or not throughout it, the way T'Pol seems absolutely distraught bu having to keep anything from Archer, the way she turns to him for help, the way she returns it with "If you ever need anyone you can trust" ... by this time in the series you really believe it. Whatever life choices T'Pol made before, however she ended up on Enterprise, this is where she was meant to be now. Archer really comes through for her too.

Like Honeybee, I wasn't looking forward to seeing Trip be made to look like he couldn't handle stuff. In the end it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered. This was a different sort of leadership than he's had to handle before (or at least at a different level than he'd be expected to in Engineering) and when he was on the bridge he did fine. I'd go along with the idea that he had done fine up until dinner, when he was expecting to the kind of easy camaraderie, free of administrative decisions, that he, T'Pol, and Archer often shared over dinner, and it was that disappointment that was the source of his "I'll get to that later".

As usual, the episode gave me "fic starter" ideas. What did Travis think about this whole thing. He was the only person other than Archer who knew what happened. Did his crew mates (Trip?) try to get him to spill what happened? Had he ever been to an outpost like this before? Did he recognize the any of the alien species there? He was there only to be the pilot in and out, but ended up guarding Menos alone a few times. Did Menos ever talk to him directly? What did he say and did that have an impact on Travis later? Interestingly, there are few times when Travis has to act in a capacity that's close to his MU counterpart - a MACO - and this is one of them.

I'm also constantly amused by Phlox's ability to be inappropriately good humored about gross things.

Call me blasphemous, but sometimes I kinda wish it had just been Travis who had gone with T'Pol in this episode. That's a character dynamic we practically never saw explored in the show. But obviously it couldn't have worked, at least not with the way ENT and this episode in particular were structured. They would have had to rewrite the whole part about T'Pol needing Archer to trust her before she could finally trust herself. Still, it could have been interesting.

The thing that always bugged me the most about this episode is that I just don't understand why T'Pol would have a nervous breakdown after killing a criminal who was pointing a gun at her. I really think there must be more to the story. Is it possible that it would have been revisited if we'd had a fourth season? The way T'Pol was shown struggling during the memory wipe was really quite horrible. I almost think the fullara itself may have been more traumatic than the shooting. I really think T'Pol might have uncovered something that someone didn't want her to know, and that she was forced to undergo the fullara to erase that memory. Maybe Menos and Jossen were selling weapons to the Romulans and she learned something about them that "someone" didn't want revealed.

Honeybee wrote:Menos is an outstanding character - as Entallat said in the live chat - Hannibal Lector-like in his manipulations of T'Pol. He seems to "innocent" in the beginning when they first catch him. You really think - as an audience - he might be telling the truth.

With all our discussions of slash in the Neutral Zone, I decided that Menos and the man T'Pol killed were lovers. It's made the episode even more interesting.

I didn't remember much about this episode, so for a while I really did wonder if Menos was innocent. The slash idea is interesting. It would provide another motivation for Menos and his friend to go rogue, if they expected that the High Command would force them to abandon their relationship, or even punish them for it.

Honeybee wrote: Oh, and Travis? Does a lot. He's really the unsung hero - figuring out this and that.

EntAllat wrote:Interestingly, there are few times when Travis has to act in a capacity that's close to his MU counterpart - a MACO - and this is one of them.

Yes! Travis really does a great job here. In fact, you could make the argument that this episode shows that T'Pol is beginning to trust Travis, too, since she could easily have insisted that he stay in the shuttlepod, far away from the action. The fact that she lets Travis in on so much of what is happening could reflect her growing trust of the crew as a whole. I'd never thought of the Travis MU MACO thing before, but you're right about that, EntAllat.

I think they established pretty well that T'Pol had her doubts as to whether or not he had a weapon, and if so what his intentions were. *That* was what was driving her crazy -- her own guilt.

The main thing I took away from this episode was how awful for poor T'Pol that she's had her brain monkeyed with against her will so many times. The procedure didn't exactly seem voluntary, did it?

Aquarius wrote:I think they established pretty well that T'Pol had her doubts as to whether or not he had a weapon, and if so what his intentions were. *That* was what was driving her crazy -- her own guilt.

The main thing I took away from this episode was how awful for poor T'Pol that she's had her brain monkeyed with against her will so many times. The procedure didn't exactly seem voluntary, did it?

No it didn't seem exactly voluntary to me. And I wonder how a procedure like that (that I can only think involves some sort of mind meld) would fit into the pre-Syrannite culture of Vulcan.

Another fic idea: What if Menos or Jossen were Romulans or working for them? What if T'Pol uncovered something about the Romulan plots we see later in season four and the manipulation of her - guilt and all that - is a way to deflect her from recovering the memory?

Oh, this episode is full of possibilities.

And one more thing: I guess Vulcans didn't have phaser technology seventeen years prior to this. That would have solved this.

And maybe working for the V'Shar like T'Pol did was akin to working for the Black Ops or certain units in the CIA and special forces where they have a little more control than is normal given the high stresses of the job. And since Vulcan at this time is a very conformist society, it wouldn't be considered immoral to force such a treatment on a person.