Vox Sola
Date: Unknown
Original Airdate: May 01, 2002
By Q
The Story
Hosting a group of Keetassan's aboard the Enterprise,
the crew unwittingly offends them, and they demand to leave.
As they're leaving, another alien lifeform comes aboard,
without anyone's knowledge.
As the crew tries to figure out how they could've offended
their guests, and Archer sulks in his ready room because of the
incident, strange things begin happening on the ship. There are
noises in the walls, and the movie that most crew members had
been looking forward to, doesn't play. Trip and Archer
are oblivious to the events that are taking place, because they're
watching a water polo match, until Crewman Kelly calls to them
from Cargo Bay 2 telling them that she has discovered a lifeform
there.
Going down to investigate, Trip, Archer, Reed and Crewman Rostov
are confronted by the large, slimy looking alien who stretches
out its tentacles and captures Trip, Archer and the crewman and
seems to wrap them in some kind of cocoon. Reed escapes, and
manages to cut off a piece of the alien's tentacle and
takes it to Dr. Phlox for analysis.
Phlox soon discovers that the tentacle fragment is alive and
decided that stunning the creature with an energy beam might
weaken it enough to rescue the captured crewmembers. Reed and
2 crewmen fire energy beams at the creature but Phlox realizes
that the creature has linked the nervous systems of the crewmen
to its own and continuing the energy beams will kill them. The
creature continues to integrate the crewmembers into itself,
slowly killing them.
Running out of time and options, T'Pol, who's now
in command, orders Hoshi to try to find a way to communicate
with the creature, while Reed works on what will turn out to
be Starfleet's first force field.
Eventually, with T'Pol's help, Hoshi finds a way
to communicate with the alien, and using Reed's force field,
they enter the cargo bay. Meanwhile, Travis tries to contact
the Keetassan's to find out what they know about this newly
encountered lifeform. Once he finds them, they demand an apology
for what had happened during their initial contact. Travis, surprised,
asks what they had done, and the Keetassan captain explains that
eating was something that was only to be done in private. Travis
apologizes for eating in front of them, and in return, receives
the coordinates for the alien's homeworld.
Hoshi, T'Pol and Reed discover that the alien wants to
return home, and after promising to help it get there, the alien
releases the captured crewmembers. They take the alien back to
its homeworld, where it's determined that the form that
invaded their ship, and the one on the planet, is actually one
creature.
Review
It's a shame that all Enterprise episodes can't
be this good. While slightly predictable, it had all the things
that seemed to be missing from the last few shows.
The Good
Everybody had a part in this show! We got to see just how well
the bridge crew interacts with each other in a tense situation.
The tension between Phlox and Reed, and between T'Pol and
Hoshi added a lot to this episode. There wasn't an easy
fix, and time was running out. The tension and resulting dialogue
between them was very realistic. It's nice to see characters
like Hoshi, Reed and Travis have more than a line or two. Travis' interaction
with the Keetassan captain was funny, and very well done.
The camaraderie between Tucker and Archer while they were watching
the water polo match was great. They were just two good friends,
enjoying each other's company, and the pretzels and beer
were a great touch. While I think they've both had their
fair share of screen time in past episodes, seeing them in this
setting was quite enjoyable.
Porthos!!
The "birth" of the force field was done nicely.
It didn't work correctly the first time, and it wasn't
a magic cure for the problem at hand. It was nice to see that
it had to be adjusted more than once for it to work. After all,
that is the way it would work in real life, right?
Archer really seemed to care about everyone who was trapped
with him…even the "redshirts". Unlike Picard
and arguably the other captains, he seems to try to have some
kind of relationship with everyone on his crew, whether they're
officers or not.
Speaking of redshirts, I was really surprised when they didn't
die! While it would've reminded me of TOS if they had died,
I liked it this way better.
Roxann Dawson (B'Elanna Torres – VOY) directed this
episode, and did it very well. Her direction added to the tension,
suspense, and the "scariness." Perhaps she'll
be back to direct more episodes later on. I hope so.
One last thing worth mentioning…Not all first contacts
will go well. It's nice that this was addressed.
Now, on to the not-so-good
My first question when the episode was over was, "Why?" Why
did the alien try to consume the crewmembers? Phlox speculated
that it just needed some kind of physical contact, but nothing
was confirmed. I would've liked a little more explanation.
If this creature was so sensitive to light, why did it live
on a planet where we saw the sun rise? It's a slight contradiction.
Perhaps they were only sensitive to certain kinds of light? Yeah.
That's it.
Summary
"Vox Sola" (meaning Lone Voice) was the best episode
of Enterprise to air in weeks. This show has proven to me that
the writers and actors really do know what they're doing,
and that they can give us Trek fans what we want, when they put
their minds to it.
Grade: 9/10
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 Tucker
Guest Cast:
Vaughn Armstrong as Kreetassan Captain
Joseph Will as Rostov
Renee Goldsberry as Kelly
Creative Staff:
Director: Roxann Dawson
Teleplay By: Fred Dekker
Story By: Rick Berman & Brannon
Braga and Fred Dekker
