- November 12, 2002
The Seventh - REVIEW
By Bonnie Malmat
Special thanks to Paul Pytlik for the screencaps.
THE STORY: Archer receives orders from Admiral Forrest to assist T’Pol in a secret mission for the Vulcan High Command by diverting from their course and taking her somewhere without letting the rest of the crew in on the knowledge. T’Pol asks Archer to accompany her in the shuttlepod, as she wishes to be with someone she can trust. She was once responsible for retrieving altered agents who refused to return home to Vulcan. One agent, Menos, managed to elude her and he has finally been found, and the Vulcan High Command is allowing her the opportunity to capture him this time, to make up for her failure of the last time. Menos was originally an agent who was supposed to infiltrate a group of smugglers, but became too attached to the profession and according to the VHC, he now deals in biotoxins.
T’Pol, Archer and Mayweather arrive on an icy moon and are able to take Menos into custody. However, they’re obliged to wait before departure, because the landing bay has been treated with acid. Menos tries to work on T’Pol’s conscience by telling her that he will face an unpleasant future back on Vulcan and that he only wishes to remain with his family, and he plays the sympathy card by telling her of his health problems, his body shows the effects of hauling used warp injector casings for years. T’Pol is unsettled; she begins to have flashbacks to the time on Risa, when she was chasing after Menos. She finally is so upset that she flees to Menos’ ship to search it herself, finding only the injector casings as he claimed. She had more flashbacks, this time seeing another man and she realizes that this was another agent that she shot, and the incident so upset her, that she had to undergo rehabilitation on Vulcan to suppress the memories.
She and Archer discuss this outside, when a commotion occurs. It turns out that Menos was desperate enough to escape, that he started a fire. T’Pol unlocks his handcuffs but a falling ceiling beam allows Menos to escape. He is found on board his ship, when Mayweather discovers a hidden forcefield due to a strange amount of energy consumption. He briefly escapes again, but with the support of Archer, T’Pol is able this time to be strong enough to stun him, and take him into custody. Meanwhile, Mayweather finds out that Menos indeed did have biotoxins, so that the Vulcan High Command was right. Menos is taken back to Enterprise to be handed over to a Vulcan ship that will transport him back to Vulcan, and T’Pol is grateful to Archer for his support on this mission.
THE GOOD: T’Pol. This character just improves; the actress does a good job with her. Archer also is good in this episode, gone is the petulant brat of “A Night in Sickbay”.
THE BAD:
Emotional semi-breakdown. What’s with the Vulcans having to freak
out? Tuvok did it often enough, now T’Pol? Sure makes me long for
Spock. Seemed like a half-human/Vulcan was better at controlling himself
than a full-Vulcan.
The acid. What was up with that? Couldn’t they have come up with
a better way of keeping Archer, T’Pol and Menos from leaving? And
one can wrap rags around one’s feet and walk in it? Huh? And notice
how it was conveniently gone when Menos escaped and the crew followed?
Risa. Why use the reference to Risa again?
THE VERDICT: Surprisingly blah. The story was average. The Vulcan renegade was just too human. It was hard to believe that he was ever a Vulcan. The story was rather dull and rather predictable. It was also difficult to see why T’Pol was so upset over having shot the other agent so long ago. A little more information on this would have been useful. And if she had the repression/suppression therapy, WHY would the VHC send her back into this again? Illogical!
GRADE: 7/10 C
Star Trek ® is copyright of Paramount Pictures. Copyright © 1966, Present. The Star Trek web pages on this site are for educational and entertainment purposes only. All other copyrights property of their respective holders.
®2002 Lowerdecks.com
