Lower Decks

The Crossing
Mission Date: Unknown
Original Airdate: April 2, 2003
Reviewed By Admiral Kahn

Summary | Review | Screen Caps | Cast | Guest Cast | Creative Staff

Summary

"The Crossing" begins quickly, with Reed reporting at his tactical station that something is gaining on the ship, traveling at warp 6, but with no recognizable warp signature. We assume it's a ship of some kind, and T'Pol announces it is 500m in diameter, a quick visual on the main screen confirms their pursuer is an alien, and it is indeed closing in fast. There is no record of anything like this in the Vulcan database, and there is no response to Enterprise's hails… Hoshi reports that there is no evidence that there is even a transceiver on board. Quickly gaining on Enterprise, massive doors at the front of the attacking vessel open wide, and the Enterprise disappears inside.

Weapons and engines become offline when Enterprise becomes trapped inside the attacker, however life-support and other ship functions remain online and fully operational. Scanning the interior of the giant, mysterious ship reveals no life signs, however a quick view from the ships outboard cameras reveal the presence of floating Vapor Wisps of unknown composition. After learning that there is an atmosphere of Helium and Zeon outside the ship, Archer, Malcolm and Trip enter a shuttle pod and venture down to a kind of surface on the ship. They scan the surroundings, and quickly discover that the outside temperature inside the enormous alien craft is a comfortable 18º-Celsius, and the previously inhospitable atmosphere is quickly converting into one that is breathable. Intrigued by the Vapor Wisps now circling directly above them, Archer insists they appear alive, even though their hand held scanners can't seem to detect them. Trip is startled, and stunned as one of the Wisps strikes him, and seems to enter inside of him. When the Wisp leaves Trip's body, he insists that he was among them, seeing himself in the third person, as well as on Earth moments earlier. The confused and alarmed trio quickly returns to Enterprise, where Trip is confined to De-Con; Phlox examines him in detail, and finds nothing of significance. Trip assures the others that he is fine; Phlox releases him and assumes the experience was probably only a hallucination. Since Enterprise is still confined inside the enormous alien ship, Archer cannot allow Trip any time to rest. He orders Malcolm and Trip to quickly get both the weapons and engines online, to escape as soon as possible. While in engineering Trip is confronted again by one of the Vapor Wisps, seemingly having the ability to pass through the hull, Trip becomes affected – he appears to be confused, and preoccupied. Troubled, a fellow engineer alerts the bridge about Trip's peculiar behavior after he quickly leaves engineering. Archer demands an explanation for his strange behavior, when he, T'Pol and Malcolm find Trip in the mess hall. We discover that Trip's body has been possessed by one of the Wisp creatures found outside Enterprise, who indeed are very much alive. They're curious about our existence and claim that they were like us once, until they evolved. They wish to learn about their ancestors, by studying us, they hope to learn how they must have existed, and they assure us that this will show us a realm we never thought possible. They let Enterprise free from the containment of their ship, however the engines still remain offline, and in need of repair. Trip, possessed by the creatures, asks Archer to keep an open mind, since he is an explorer, like them in many ways.

Now returned to his physical body, Trip claims to have experienced more ‘hallucinations', he tells Archer that the entire crew can experience what he did, if they wanted to. In a personal log, Archer expresses his concerns and mistrust over Starfleet's first contact with non-corporeal life forms; he's concerned that he may not trust them because they are so different, but he is interrupted by Phlox, who appears disturbed. He explains to archer that he encountered one of the Vapor Wisps in sickbay, but that it couldn't enter him, he assumed that it was because he wasn't genetically compatible with the creature… but he expresses to Archer that the creature was trying very hard to enter him, he is concerned over it's behavior. Reed is working away at something in the launch bay, until he himself encounters one of the Vapors, he tries to escape quickly, leaping down the stars and shutting the door behind him doesn't stop the creature from catching him. Reed has been replaced, and he wanders the corridors, intrigued by female crewmembers, until he ultimately enters T'Pol's quarters. He is apprehended by security, and locked in his quarters after he tells Archer that the Wisps are capable of letting us, humans experience anything we desire. Trip continues to work fast to get the engines up and running again, but another of his engineers becomes overcome by one of the creatures, we learn that many more incidents are occurring all over the ship. Archer orders T'Pol and Phlox to try and find a way to distinguish who is who, who's a crewmember and who is being controlled by the Wisps. When the impulse engines are finally repaired, Archer refuses to leave until Malcolm is returned, and until he knows how many others have become affected.

Using a handheld scanner to detect elevated brain patterns, T'Pol and Phlox set out to search for all of those who have been affected by the Wisps, and then proceed to lock them in their quarters. Mayweather is sent to the catwalk by Trip to re-polarize the engine nacelle; he too makes contact with one of the Vapor creatures but manages to escape into the catwalk – where the shielding surrounding it prevents the creatures from entering. Archer decides that to protect the crew from being taken, the crew again has to bunker down into the catwalk for safety, he orders Hoshi to make the announcement-but Hoshi has already been taken…

A third of the crew has been taken by the Wisps, 58 now safe up in the catwalk, minus Phlox who remains in sickbay since he cannot be affected by the creatures, and 24 locked in the quarters. T'Pol believes she can discover the creature's true intentions by coming into contact with one of the creatures, and allowing their minds to merge when the creature tries to take her over, she asks permission to re-enter the ship. Archer-naturally- objects to her decision and T'pol- obviously- describes to Archer the supreme ability of the Vulcan mind to resist the temptations. In Sickbay, Hoshi summons Phlox to her quarters; she says to Phlox that she fractured her leg and that she cannot move. Cautious, he enters her quarters and addresses her, only to find out that she really isn't injured, and that she called him down only to attack him and discover the location of the rest of the crew- she fails and is rendered unconscious by Phlox. T'Pol afterward encounters one of the Wisps shortly after she leaves the safety of the catwalk, and walks the corridors of the ship.

Sent by the captain to find her, Dr. Phlox locates T'Pol standing motionless, and taken, but unlike the others. He discovers she has Hyper-Simulated neural pathways, but she won't move when he tries to take her to sickbay for treatment. Seconds later, the Wisp is expelled from T'Pol's body, leaving her disoriented and alarmed by knowledge she gained from the joining of their minds: the creatures lied to the Enterprise crew. As she explains, we discover that their giant ship is deteriorating, and they have no way to repair it. They are looking for the crew's bodies of ships they encounter, since they cannot simply live in space, their ship is what keeps them alive - like the bodies of their victims. There are hundreds of the creatures aboard the alien vessel, but only 82 can survive with the Enterprise crew, the rest would have to continue on to find other ships. T'Pol suggests to Archer to shield the rest of the ship, and leave as soon as Warp engines are repaired, but Archer won't settle for saving only two-thirds of the crew. He then contemplates a plan to save the lives of the entire ship; he wonders if the creatures are able to continue living in host bodies instead, T'Pol tells him that it would probably be like living in the vacuum of space for them, as they wouldn't be able to survive. Archer decides to release Carbon Dioxide into the ship-wide atmosphere, and Phlox will have to change the environmental controls manually, those in the catwalk will be safe from the gas. Trip- now possessed again by one of the creatures, escapes from the catwalk, and into the ship to stop Phlox from carrying out the plan. The two fight just as the gas is about to be released, however Trip is unsuccessful.

The gas is released into the ship, and the affected crew begins to fall unconscious, as the Wisps are escaping their now dying victims, the affected crew starts to return to their former bodies. With the entire crew now safe, the Enterprise breaks away from the alien ship at full impulse, and fires two torpedoes into the again-opening doors, thus destroying the massive vessel, killing the alien life. With a huge headache, Trip asks Phlox what happened, and the two start off to unlock many crew quarter doors.

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Review

When I first read about this episode, I found myself feeling a little bit un-interested with the concept. I'm lucky I had the chance to review it; otherwise I may not have even bothered watching it at all.

With a very quick, and to the point teaser, this episode seemed to be off to a tacky start, I had the feeling watching it that I had missed something important. Who was chasing the Enterprise? Why were we, the audience, supposed to care?

The Good:

Well, it's about time we get to see some new Enterprise episodes after such a long span of nothing but re-runs, that's for sure. I really liked the original concept for the story, non-corporeal creatures having the ability to replace us, and allow us to experience anything we desired. This was something that I was thinking should have deserved more attention, it would have been interesting to see some of the crew intrigued by these creatures, and willing to experience "The Crossing" into their realm. I also thought the special effects for this episode are worth mentioning, the short scene with Archer, Malcolm and Trip on the surface of the ship looking up at Enterprise was interesting, and other quick cuts here and there were kind of neat to see, mainly because they were reminiscent of the Enterprise being inside the V'Ger craft in "The Motion Picture"

The Bad:

Well, where to start? Though the episode had an interesting concept behind it… I couldn't help but thinking, yet again- that I've seen all of this before. Another re-used story concept? No, not on Enterprise, I must be dreaming… yeah, that must be it.

TNG's "Power Play" comes to mind, where alien entities enter the bodies of quite a few Enterprise-D crewmembers and replace them…. Though, not a Trek show, Babylon 5's limited spin-off series, Crusade had an episode which sounded very many warning bells on many occasions during the course of this week's Enterprise. Especially the ending means to liberate the crew from the control of the Alien Wisps: by knocking the crew unconscious. I was rather disappointed.

Every character seemed to have a part to play in this episode, though very small everyone seemed to have something to do. I suppose that would be considered a plus, if the acting was done up to the level seen on previous episodes. I couldn't grasp Archer's apparent anger towards the alien creatures… did I miss something again? Every time he was on screen, I got the feeling that he wasn't giving this show his all, the same goes for the other characters, no one really stood out and this made the episode feel rather weak and unexciting.

I would have liked to have seen some more of a conflict between those characters who were affected by the Wisps and those who weren't. Clearly, what was happening to the ship made Archer angry, but I didn't get that sense of hostility or anxiety from other characters. Not even when a massive alien attacker swallowed up their ship!

What was the point of Malcolm, Trip and Archer going down to the surface of the ship in the first place? It seemed rather pointless, since they didn't really do anything…

The pace of the episode seemed rather odd too, after a quick and fast-moving teaser, lasting no more than a minute- we're left with the rest of the episode developing at an odd pace, some points flowing smoothly into the next and others taking unusually long. An example of this is, compare how long we watched Phlox and T'Pol search for affected crew members, interacting with other crew, to how long we watched Phlox fumble around the controls to the environmental system, and how long and incredibly intricate the instructions that were given to him by Archer and T'Pol. What was with that anyway? What would happen if the ship were taken over by, well anyone? They'd be able to save it like we've seen so many times before in Trek, by releasing anestizine gas into the ship-wide atmosphere, but it would take a quarter of the episode again to watch someone fool around with the controls to do it. I just felt that it was a little too long, and very feeble to see Phlox turning knobs left and right, pushing buttons at the back of a box and then tapping his head twice while rubbing his stomach. That scene alone pretty much made of the majority of the ending, with was rather abrupt and didn't seem to conclude much of anything. Why is it that the Enterprise destroyed the massive alien ship with only 2 torpedoes? How strong are Enterprise's weapons? I would have thought more than that would be needed, but then again, with only 3 minutes left in the show, you don't necessarily have enough time to make up a plausible resolution, so I guess you have to credit whoever wrote it with that much. Kudos to you!

All in all, I felt that the episode was rather disappointing. Some points, which did catch my attention, were quickly replaced with apathy as the show progressed to its rather abrupt ending. It's a sad reflection of the state of the show in general; another re-used story concept is turned into another dull Enterprise episode. Let's hope next week has something more worthy of note.

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Grade: 4/10 C-

Cast:
Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox
Jolene Blalock as T'Pol
Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
Connor Trinneer as Charles "Trip" Tucker III

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Guest Cast:
Joseph Will as Rostov
Steven Allerick as Cook
Valerie Ianniello as Female Crewman
Alexander Chance as Crewman #1
Matthew Kaminsky as Crewman #2

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Creative Staff:
Director: David Livingston
Teleplay By: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
Story By: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga & Andre Bormanis

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