“Chosen Realm”

Looking at it as a straightforward action outing, I think it was quite effective. After all, this is "Enterprise". We shouldn't be expecting anything particularly thought-provoking...

After I finish watching an episode of Enterprise, I come on to this site and read your review of the episode. It pains me to say that I almost don't want to read your usually insightful views anymore because of this review. You even admit you didn't give this episode a chance because they have an action scene at the end which is admittedly far overused but perfectly acceptable (and well done) in the context of this episode. I...I just can't express how abhorrently annoyed I got after reading this review. I would hope you would give this another chance, it is by far one of the better enterprise episodes. It struck me that you didn't even try to find any good in it, something I would hope a "reviewer" would never put into print.

@Dead to me: Would this striking be despite the fact that the second-to-last sentence specifically mentions two good things about it?

It did sound silly to hear that the difference between believers and heretics here is that the former believe the Chosen Realm was made in nine days and the heretics in ten. But as a religion major, I'm forced to consider some beliefs that equally may sound silly to us, but have formed irreparable fractions, like:

1) In Christianity, does the Holy Spirit proceed only from the Father, or from both the Father and the Son?

- How can anyone purport to understand the Divine? But this seemingly small matter contributed to the division of the Eastern and Western Churches, which continues to this day.

2) Does Jesus Christ possess two natures, a human and a divine, that then fuse together in him? Or is it one sole nature that is both human and divine at once?

3) At what precise moment does the bread and wine in the Christian Eucharist become Jesus' literal body and blood? Or do they ever become so literally? Or is it simply symbolic?

- I don't think I have to mention all the blood spilled over THAT one.

I agree the line isn't delivered in the best way, but it does in a very real way mirror some of our history.

When I heard the explanation for the conflict between the sects my immediate thought was that it was more than a bit daft. After a moment's reflection, however, the only difference between the fictional Triannon and some of their factual counterparts I could think of was the level of violence they were prepared to go to.

The fanatics in this episode built their beliefs on a false premise. Namely, that the sphere-builders were gods. And in time the believers split into warring factions over how long it took the Makers to construct the spheres. Doctrinal arguments between sects don't usually end in war. Violent conflicts are more usually political or economic in origin, though they could just as easily be between sects as between different religions.

I don't believe the writers were referencing any particular conflict in this episode. It doesn't fit any that I can think of. They should perhaps have thought the story through and pointed up additional religious differences and introduced, however briefly, additional non-religious reasons for the war. Of course, it may simply be the case that these particular aliens would go to war to settle minor differences of opinion! They are aliens after all!

D'Jamat, the main zealot, was clearly too one-dimensional. It was also glaringly obvious that he ought to have known about transporter technology having gained access to Archer's logs. A sure fire entry for any future Nitpickers' Guide.

I like your reviews, but sometimes I think you are too hard on the show.

Yes,the message was one-dimensional and the plot was predicatable. But the major flaw for me was actually the mediocre acting. In TOS, the corresponding show (half white/half black face) had superb, over-the-top acting and it made the show. The hum-drum made-for-tv performances here weren't convincing. Where was the passion?

Still, this was classic trek in the spirit of TOS. The answer is peace. Silly to some, maybe not realistic, and maybe too flat for non-TOS fans. But remember, most people don't do a lot of reflecting about 'extremism' or religion at all.

This episode had a positive purpose, and I hope people got something from it.

I enjoyed this one! I peaked at your review before watching though. So, I wasn't expecting much. Maybe that's part of why I enjoyed it... Lowered expectations. Although, admittedly, my expectations for Enterprise are always pretty low whether I read your reviews or not.

Seriously, never has a Trek series set the bar so low as Enterprise. Voyager was not great either. But, a bad Voyager episode tended to end with me being angry about some plot hole or reset button misuse. A bad episode of Enterprise usually ends with me in a coma! I'd rather be angry than unconscious from sheer boredom.

Anyway, back to this episode. This might be the first time the obligatory action sequence at the end didn't bore me to tears. I wasn't super emotionally involved with these people. But, I cared just enough about everyone's plight to want to know what was going to happen to the "enemy" ships and what was going to happen to our terrorists. That's better than Enterprise usually manages.

The transporter thing didn't bother me that much. I took that scene to mean that Archer told them he would be beamed into oblivion. Just because the aliens know Enterprise has a transporter device that can move people from place to place doesn't necessarily mean that they know enough about it to dispute the claim that it can also be used for executions. They thought Archer was a man of honor, so they took his word for it. Is it a stretch? Yes. But, did it bother me? Not really.

Here's what did bother me though. The girl who watches the terrorist blow himself up has no reaction whatsoever to seeing this guys skin turn blue. That alone bothers me. But, on top of that, why didn't Archer immediately make an announcement to the crew that they were dealing with suicide bombers? The whole scene was badly written and horribly acted.

Also, I too am bothered by the MACOS officers. It's almost as if they keep them in stasis somewhere until they're needed. They're like military robots. What a missed opportunity. Where do these people sleep? How do they interact with the crew? What are their feelings about this mission? Ugh. I'd like some real character development instead of GI Joes in space. Can you imagine how the writers on DS9 would've handled them? They would be more than comic book characters, that's for sure.

But, back to the things I liked. I actually enjoyed the scene with Phlox and his bat. But, most of all I really enjoyed the landscape of the destroyed world at the end. The effects department on this show is top notch. If only the writers could live up to the visuals!

Finally, I am wondering if all that deleted information was really deleted or if they will find a "back up" copy in the next episode. I am interested to see how they will deal with that.

*peeked at your review

I think James pointed out exactly the buried potential in this episode. The way it was written, we the audience, through the crew, see immediately how ridiculous a premise the division between "believer" and "heretic" is, but had the premise been told us early on, it could have been very effective. Jammer is too forgiving of religious mumbo-jumbo, but he's right about this one being poorly written: as an allegory it would have been more accurate for none of the "peons" to really understand why the others are "heretics"...I can tell very few Protestants and Catholics understand the differences between their religions and in many cases you could stick them in the other's service without either noticing a difference, but they do "know" that their religion is the "right" one. That should have been Yarrik's journey, brought about through sharing earth history (factual and theoretical) with him.

On execution and effectiveness, I think this review is too generous, but the hidden potential I suppose is at least worth tuning in.

*Joseph, not James

I was waiting for Cat from Red Dwarf to show up and explain it was because they disagreed on what colour the hats at the hot dog stand on Fiji were going to be. It was retarded but it didn't need to be.

The major flaw of this episode for me is the continuity problem.

Let's take a look at the options they have for continuing on the deleted information problem.

1) They can make Enterprise gather information for more episodes. Because many of the viewers that were invested in the search for information have seen how easily that information is dismissed here, they won't be invested in it anymore. Uninvested viewers is a Bad Thing (TM).

2) They can have the disappeared information cause the crew to look at the situation from a new perspective and have this perspective be a sudden solution (if they aren't successful, file under (1)). While sort of a hack, I suppose this is not the worst way out. I would say it should have been done in this episode, though, not in the next. Star Trek doesn't often do cliffhangers, but it would have been an obvious one. On one hand it would have made the fact that the information disappeared not too much of a problem, while on the other it would actually be the good kind of cliffhanger that actually invest the viewer in the upcoming episode through a promise rather than a threat. Promises are a Good Thing (TM) (as long as you manage to deliver upon them).

3) They can have the crew find their backup module. I think this is one of the better options. Admit you made a mistake and fix it.

4) They can ignore the issue all together. It is pretending the mistake ever happened. May sound almost as good as (3), but has the unfortunate side-effect that continuity (within ENT) is devalued, which isn't exactly a good thing. Devalued continuity means less invested viewers. Bad Thing.

As you see, a negative situation in each case. Perhaps (2) is an exception, but even then the execution is off. Thusly, I present: a mistake in any case.

If anyone knows of anything the writers can do outside those four scenarios, you're welcome to tell me, I'd be interested to hear it.

I hope there is a Recycle Bin installed in Enterprise's computer to someway recover this 18 XB of deleted data...

5) Pretend the episode never existed. And it wasn't that hard either since I didn't remember that the billibytes of data was deleted anyway.

@Matrix: That's a specialized version of (4), a way of ignoring the issue at hand here.

I would like to add that denying an entire episode from being canon is a privilege I will hold for the horrors like Threshold.
This one does not even score close to that episode.

Regarding Archer's "deception" with the transporter:
If you notice, he was careful not to use the name "transporter"; he instead described it as a "device to dispose of hazardous material". And then a demonstration was provided of the "device" being used for that purpose. (There was even dialog regarding the "disassembling of the molecules" during the demonstration.) Without a frame of reference, it's quite believable that D'Jamat would not have made the connection to the machine's true purpose. After all, it was still designated as an experimental device in Enterprises' computer and the various records he had time to review regarding exploration of the spheres were universally carried out by the shuttles.

Even I, in the 21st century, backup my files. On a daily basis, mind you. Each day. Backup.
Where did that crew get its training? Clown college?

So they don't have backups and just anyone can waltz up and delete the lot in one button? Who designed these IT systems, the British Government?

Convenient also that it didn't cross the enemy's mind that the device would be a transporter. Lucky Archer (no doubt if he didn't think it would've worked, he wouldn't have had that noble moment of picking himself. Wouldn't been the most useless crew member for the chop. Sorry Travis :))

Twelve minutes in to this episode, I'm already ready to turn it off.

Seriously, what is it with Hollywood and hostage situations? More generally, with refusing to let the hero(es) shoot first?

This episode should have been over the moment the guy said he had two agents near the warp core. He already demonstrated that he needed to call them to make them detonate themselves. Stun the guy, send security teams out with orders to stun all aliens on sight (starting with engineering), put them all back on their ship, and leave.

Sure, fine, you don't know if maybe the leader's communicator has a dead man's switch that will tell everyone to detonate at once. But it takes them quite a while to do it, and with fast enough engineering personnel, you can undoubtedly stop them in time, or drag them away.

Also, the rule against medical scanning wasn't arbitrary, I strongly doubt it was part of their religion. Rather, it was obviously designed to prevent Enterprise noticing they were all walking bombs.

I should probably clarify my post above. I'm not actually saying that Trek should adopt a "shoot first, ask questions later" policy. That's obviously not in the Roddenberry tradition.

Rather, I'm saying that if you, as a Trek writer, create a situation where the (non-lethal) "shoot first" solution is *so blatantly obvious and correct* that your characters look like morons for not doing it, then you've failed as a Trek writer. You're no longer creating a realistic scenario, and the entire rest of the episode is going to seem shallow and contrived -- because it never should've happened if anyone was doing their job correctly.

Pretty much all the series had episodes where the ship/station gets taken over a bit too easily. For me, it's just unfortunate for Enterprise that it is the last/latest show, as now we the viewer (mostly) have less patience with it. Myself included.

I mean, you're in the middle of a we-must-prevail-at-ANY-cost scenario and yet you allow a newly met species into critical areas of the ship. I don't think so.

But ultimately the main issue, as Jammer states, is the over-simplified, pointless allegory.

Sure there are religious tensions on Earth that have started out on minor differences but they're always about something more that has happened over time. None of that is even suggested here. It strikes me as a very convenient way of looking at extreemists; that all their arguments are laughable and none of the grievances they have are part of a bigger issue.

In effect, they say the bad guys are bad because they see things in black and white, and yet we, through the good guys, are encouraged to also view things is such limited terms.

So yes, there is some entertainment value here, but I just can't accept this story as plausible, responsible or terribly interesting.

Yes, ships get taken over too easily, but being in trouble every week is also hard to accept.

The look on Archer's face as the files were deleted has reminded me to do a personal back up.

The writer seem to have put this episode together with the difficult choice made in the episode called damage. If you think about it, the choice that archer had to make in that damage episode mirrors the choice that the leader of the terrorist group made to kill a child in war. Think about how both episodes connect. One of the weaknesses of reviewing the television episode series episode by episode is that often times these types of connections are not made until Time and distance allow for proper reflection. Although this episode is somewhat mediocre and damage is somewhat well-made, both episodes act as a bookend of sorts. It is better to think of this series as a set than individual parts.

Enterprise destroys the spheres and the Chosen Realm at the end of the season. One would think these guys would come gunning for Earth afterwards.

Given how this entire season was inspired by the events of 9/11, I suppose an episode like this was inevitable. True, Star Trek has had hijackings before, but I don't recall offhand any of them being at the hands of "suicide bombers." It seemed to me that Archer was put in a real predicament here: turn over control of the ship or we destroy it. Going along with the demand while looking for an opportunity to take back control seemed like the logical course of action.

I thought these religious extremists were portrayed pretty realistically throughout most of the episode. Given their point of view, some of the things that Enterprise had done would have indeed seemed like sacrilege. The exception, of course was the 9 days vs. 10 days thing, which just seemed silly. It certainly didn't ruin the episode for me, though.

I'd give this at least 2 1/2 stars, maybe three.

"Hello, this is Starfleet Technical Assistance. How may I help you?"

"Uh, yeah, we just lost 18 exobytes of data."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir. How may I help?"

"How do we get it back?"

"Just use your Starfleet Restore CD and it will automatically retrieve any backups you have made from the Starfleet SubSpace Cloud."

"Er, see, we had some religious fanatics on board and they erased all our data."

"Well, yes, sir, but how were they able to access your computer? You surely didn’t also give them access to your local backups?"

"Er, I think they got the root password."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Or maybe they guessed it."

"Starfleet OS(TM) always asks you to change the root password to something secure. Did you not do that?"

"Uh, well, it was 'zero zero zero destruct zero'."

"So you just kept using the default root password? And even told it to a stranger over the phone? I'm sorry, sir, that voids your support contract, because your IT people are blathering idiots. I'm cancelling it now. Without your support contract, you no longer have access to Starfleet SubSpace Cloud. We are deleting your files now. Have a nice day."

Oh, and I bet 17 XB of that data was pr0n, and much of the rest was secretly filmed footage of T'Pol and Hoshi in decon. Captain's orders.

The 9 days vs. 10 days thing wasn't so unrealistic when you think about the bat-poop crazy things upon which a lot of religious schisms are based. And a lot of these obscure doctrinal points escalated into serious conflicts like the "troubles" in Ireland and so forth.

All through the 1980's Sunni Iraq and Shia Iran fought a war where Iran took to heart the idea that the last stages of mobilization are the children and the seedcorn, resulting in their launching human wave attacks partially composed of kids. Iraq responded with chemical weapons, one of which was apparently lewisite or some other mustard-gas type of blister agent. As a brand new USAR Chemical Corps officer near the end of this period, I saw pictures of the effects of this stuff, and it's not pretty. Imagine a blister on a guy's back the size of a basketball.

Oh, and the root cause of all this? Well! It was a verrrry important dispute, you see. Yes indeed. Apparently, when Mohammed died in the 7th century, there was an argument about whether his successor should be his son-in-law, or his buddy.

So yeah. Spheres created in 9 days or 10 days? Maybe a slight exaggeration of this kind of stupidity, but not by much Jammer...not by much.

I also thought the unfortunate channelling of Let That Be Your Last Battlefield should have been avoided although the ending of that infamous episode at least had the Enterprise sloping off leaving Frank Gorshin and his enemy to it in the identical-in-concept ruins of their world.

Looks like Archer found someone as self-righteous as he is. But the ending was just a copout on the part of the writers. "See, you were wrong all along and I was right." Whatever.

They sure employ more violence on here than previous star treks. That much I've noticed. Their GI Joe action figures do nothing more than advance Enterprise's moral posturing. At this point the show was circling the drain.

This episode was actually pretty good until the 9 or 10 days schism reasoning. That line was delivered so pat that nobody, including the actor, could take it seriously. Yes, others here have mentioned seemingly ridiculous reasons for schisms on Earth but none of them deal with the number of days for creation. They relate to leadership succession (Shia vs. Sunni) or the nature of divinity itself (Catholic vs. Protestant). This number of days issue was just too absurd and immediately took me out of the story. The action scene ending was also cliche with the GI Joes of Earth military making their obligatory appearance. A solid first half wasted by a poor second half.

Just FYI, W Smith - I think you mean Catholic vs. Orthodox instead of Catholic vs. Protestant. I say 99.9% of Protestants are in agreement with Catholics on the nature of divinity. They have other differences in doctrine. Orthodox Christians, on the other hand, actually do have a slightly different view of God's divinity than Catholics (mostly involving the nature of the Holy Spirit).

I think this episode was an excellent counterpoint to Season 1's Dessert Crossing. But where that episode showed the Israeli Palestinian conflict from the point of view of the Palestinians, this one shows us the same conflict from the point of view of the Israelis. What options does Archer have when religious fanatics show up threatening to massacre all heretics? The more that the Enterprise helps these fanatics, the more they literally blow up in their faces. But whereas Dessert Crossing skimmed over Israel's legitimate security concerns, this episode skims over some of the more subtle nuances for why the Palestinians are so willing to blow themselves up for their faith. It's a fair trade which helps to balance the series appropriately.

Contrary to what "capitalist" says, the Sunni/Shia conflict has always spawned, not from religious doctrinal disputes, but issues of power, politics, resources and land. Religious mumbo jumbo comes after.

Chelsea, it's a reach to read this episode as a comment on Israel's colonisation of Palestine. The Palestinian terrorists, again, blow themselves and others up not for religious issues, but for territorial issues.

What this episode is really doing is presenting the common post-9/11 view of terrorists: nutty religious fundamentalists who are mad at others for vague, nutty religious reasons. In the real world, though, most major studies show that terrorists primarily act, not for religious reasons, but for issues of political/national autonomy.

The action parts of the episode were pretty good, but the allegory was cliched and shallow.

I loved Phlox scaring his guard with his bat. "There's no cure for the venom!"

I totally believed D'Jamat falling for the transporter trick. He thought that he and Archer were alike and "understood" each other. He also would be apt to believe in any sort of religious custom.

At first I thought there must be a backup for the deleted database, but then Hillary Clinton and Lois Lerner's emails came to mind. If there are still Democrats in the 22nd century, anything is possible. :)

Finally, a Trek episode that doesn't pay undeserved respect to religious nutters. I liked that they highlighted their contempt for science - so threatening to the comfort of their echo chamber. About time Archer got really pissed!

I think this is a mixed episode but I disagree with your comment about turning the allegory into absurdity, I think it makes it's point exactly! If you look at the differences in the belief system of Sunni and Shia Muslims that have 90% of their religion in common but are slaughtering each other in their thousands at the moment over a small divergence in their beliefs.
Most religions - Christianity, Catholicism, Muslim, Jew all have far more in common than they differ yet they regularly kill each other over these differences.
I think the protagonists in this episode highlight perfectly the gross insane stupidity of religious extremists!

These people you're fighting: What makes them heretics?"
"We believe the Makers created the Chosen Realm in nine days. They believe it took 10."
— Archer and Yarrick, reducing extremism (and, by extension, allegory) to blatant absurdity

How is this any different from the basic difference (argument) between the sunni and the shia.

The argument dates back to the death in 632 of Islam’s founder, the Prophet Muhammad. Tribal Arabs who followed him were split over who should inherit what was both a political and a religious office. The majority, who would go on to become known as the Sunnis, and today make up 80% of Muslims, backed Abu Bakr, a friend of the Prophet and father of his wife Aisha. Others thought Muhammad’s kin the rightful successors. They claimed the Prophet had anointed Ali, his cousin and son-in-law—they became known as the Shia, a contraction of "shiaat Ali", the partisans of Ali. Abu Bakr’s backers won out, though Ali did briefly rule as the fourth caliph, the title given to Muhammad’s successors. Islam's split was cemented when Ali’s son Hussein was killed in 680 in Karbala (modern Iraq) by the ruling Sunni caliph’s troops. Sunni rulers continued to monopolise political power, while the Shia lived in the shadow of the state, looking instead to their imams, the first twelve of whom were descended directly from Ali, for guidance. As time went on the religious beliefs of the two groups started to diverge.

Religious Zealots.

I hate these guys, no matter where, and when they are.

Religious fanatics, suicide bombers, a hijacking. It's not hard to anticipate what this was commenting on. Again, this offers no deep insight and riffs on themes we have seen many times before. But in its own right this is another perfectly acceptable entry - it does what it does well. The bad guy is properly bad, the action scenes are suitably action-y, and the moral lesson is learned in the end. Classic Trek in that regard. 3 stars.

Wisq hit the nail on the head. I'm less than halfway into the episode and I just don't want to watch the rest.

Ideally, there would just be a button they could push that would teleport all non crew members into space in case of emergencies like this one. Maybe the technology isn't there at this point. But they definitely could have phase pistols installed on the walls and ceilings of every room and corridor on the ship that could be told to stun every non crew member simultaneously.

Failing that, Archer should have knocked the guy out, taken his communicator away and given the order to stun all of the aliens and chuck them out an air lock.

Why would I carry on watching an episode when I'm already angry about how stupid it is? What will the pay off be at the end? Will I get to see someone spoon the ringleader's eyes out or break his kneecaps? Will he get what he properly deserves in any way? No, he won't. This will just be another episode where the people I'm supposed to like are morons, and the bad guys get let off easy.

It is funny to think that the Triannons based their society on the spheres and the Enterprise blows them all up.

OK, I'm a pedant, but I'm willing to suspend disbelief to watch engaging TV. But my suspension of disbelief was disrupted every time T'Pol or D'jamat used the word data in the singular (e.g. "this data proves"). Data is the plural of datum, and writers should not mangle the language carelessly. Geesh. I couldn't take any more and had to switch off.

One thing I noticed that kind of bugged me was when D'jamat was crucifying Archer for desecrating a sphere. One of Archer's transgressions was entering the cloaking barrier. So umm, if entering the cloaking barrier is heresy and the cloaking barrier hides the sphere from view, how did any of these people even know there was a sphere inside???

You say the conflict between the sects is ridiculous and it's obviously a little exaggerated, intended to be comedic hyperbole of real religions. But the only real difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims for example, who have been in extremely brutal and bloody conflict for a long long time is that one believes that one dude is the heir of mohammed and the other one believes that some other dude is.

It's a throwaway line that shouldn't be taken too seriously, but it is intended to parody and parallel the real world absurdity of religious fundmentalism.

This is pretty standard ENT - token alien race hijacks the ship and one of the Enterprise crew has to lead the charge to re-take it. There's a routine battle scene (which are all too frequent in ENT -- have to agree with Jammer's sentiments here) and finally Archer & Co. successfully re-take the ship.
The episode is cloaked in a religious battle - which is purposely portrayed as being extremely silly (how many days it took the Makers to create the Chosen Realm -- 9 or 10). The leader is a zealot and has a discontent in his camp. Ho-hum.
Like I said, standard ENT, and hard to really get excited about stuff like this after seeing it so often in prior episodes.
What also drags this episode down is when ENT gets guest actors to portray the aliens, they tend to be poor actors -- very wooden. The scene where D'Jamat points a phaser at the black guy's head to pursue the smaller ships is a perfect example, although the actor who played Yarrick was slightly better.
I did think it was clever that Archer got himself transported in order to simulate death -- bit of a risk given D'Jamat had been going over the ships logs.
It's not a bad episode, it's just redundant and pales in comparison to TOS's "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" which had much better guest acting and provided more appreciation of the (racial) conflict. Here we only get one (biased) view of the conflict.
I'd rate this 2 stars -- almost a filler episode but one that's not stupid so not deserving of a lower rating.

Hohum, the ship is hijacked. Hmmm, the last time we 'rescued' someone and gave her free reign to roam around the ship, she turned out to be a spy for the Xindi. Let's do it again with these strangers. I ff'ed to the last 10 minutes.

The problem with this episode is that the trope of people coming onboard and taking over the ship has been done to death on Star Trek. You can see the ending coming from a mile away. It doesn't help that the writing here telegraphs it punches. Was there any doubt that Yarrick and his wife would end up helping Archer? Of course not. Even the movies (Insurrection) has used this notion of one of the enemy changing sides.

The title of this ep should have been Chosen Cliche

This benefits from good acting from the guest star & somewhat clever writing detailing how the ship was taken over (organic explosives they didn't know to search for) & how it was taken back (aliens ignorance of the transporter). Despite that, it's an action plot we've seen before that didn't allow for much characterization from our characters. So it never really grabs the viewer.

And yes, religious differences do often come down to silliness over "9 days or 10".

Corey says: "the Sunni/Shia conflict has always spawned, not from religious doctrinal disputes, but issues of power, politics, resources and land. Religious mumbo jumbo comes after."

eehhh...of course the people in charge of each sect seek "power, politics, resources and land". That's true of pretty much every religious or governmental leader. Once two groups are divided, they naturally compete over all of those things.

But religious doctrinal issues are special monstrosities that leaders use to channel power to themselves, dehumanize their opponents, and make compromise extremely difficult. These doctrinal issues aren't just pushed by the top leaders, but by clerics at all levels of society, who have an incentive to continue to advance the correctness of their views. This is essential for clerics to maintain their own importance in society. This whole system is key in keeping the divisions permanent.

So basically 7th day Adventist on a Jihad in space take over Enterprise....neat.

The loss of the data here had more of an emotional impact on me than the loss of most of these characters (aside from Porthos) would have had.

Captain: "Oh, and the root cause of [the Iran-Iraq War]? Well! It was a verrrry important dispute, you see. Yes indeed. Apparently, when Mohammed died in the 7th century, there was an argument about whether his successor should be his son-in-law, or his buddy."

Bit of a stretch to call this the root cause of a war between two majority Shia countries in the 20th Century. Note that it was a secular Iraqi government that started the conflict by invading Iran, not the other way around.

When DS9 explored religious politics and fanaticism, it did so with intelligence and style (particularly in the early seasons). When Enterprise tries to do something similar, it just sort of stumbles and crashes around. The ship happens upon a handful of supposedly harmless sphere-worshippers who turn out to be hijacking, suicide-bombing terrorists. How subtle. Oh, and just in case the references to early 2000s issues aren't blindingly obvious yet, let's throw in abortion too via a subplot with Yarrick and his wife (which is never resolved).

The murdering zealots want to force Enterprise to help them destroy a rival group of murdering zealots - and the head zealot, despite his alleged loathing of scientific technology, is willing to use it to win a holy war. Speaking of which, can anyone explain why the head zealot knows how to access Archer's log and delete files from the ship's computer, but has no concept of transporters? Because apparently the writers couldn't bother. Once again T'Pol is portrayed as weak and unable to overpower one guy, despite Vulcans' supposedly superior abilities. This is one telegraphed, dunderheaded episode and I don't like it. I'm trying to stick with this season and review it to the end, but these last few episodes have been a real slog. Going on what I've seen so far, I don't blame Jammer for being jaded about this particular Trek series. One and a half stars.

Typical Muslims.

I quite liked this episode, probably 3 stars. A reasonable depiction of closed-minded religious zealots that works quite well as an analogue to human religion, perhaps radical Sunnis. The fact that he didn't know the transporter didn't kill you was believable because they didn't seem all that technical. And I quite liked the bit at the end where their religion had destroyed their world. Quite appropriate.

In the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, the race of Cats that evolved after the explosion on the ship that killed everybody bar Lister, had a holy war that split them into two factions. Both factions believed exactly the same thing, except one side thought the name of the Maker was Clister the Stupid, the other lot thought it was Cloister the Stupid. Of course, Grant and Naylor were taking the piss out of religion and the religious. You’ve got to assume that the writers of this were doing exactly the same thing with the 9 days vs 10 days thing.

Yes, the action scenes of Enterprise with their GI Joes is getting boring. Yes, the nature of the conflict is silly. Yes, the ship is overtaken too easily. But my main annoyance with this episode, as with many Enterprise episodes, is that it doesn't do anything with a promising set-up.

Fanatic religion is bad. Violence is bad. This is basically everything this episode is telling us. And you can see it all coming from miles away. There just isn't anything clever or surprising. I liked the start of Enterprise but this whole thing in the Expanse is turning out to be a disaster.

So much Islamophobia on this website’s comments, wow! You do know that’s illegal right?? Jammer, I request that you remove all of the anti-Muslim incitement, this is the sort of thing that causes terrorism (most terrorism is done by Western racists and bigots, and most of what they call Islamic terrorism is a response to constant dehumanisation and oppression by white westerners)

David, that's laughable on it's face.

Let's look at the Islamic's attacks world-wide since 1979. I'll let you remember the significance of that year and Islam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_attacks

Not just against those "evil" white men either.

@Yanks

1979, the year when Iran overthrew their western puppet government? When the Zionist entity was forced to give back the Sinai peninsula?

“Islamic terrorism” is a misnomer. If you abuse someone for centuries, they’re going to respond. The West has occupied and ethnically cleansed entire countries and that’s just fine by you but desperate people fight back and that’s an outrage?

Anyhow, this is a moot conversation. Whether you like it or not, hate speech is illegal in most of the world (and before you go on about hate speech against whites, there is no such thing, just as there is no such thing as bigotry against the flu, it is reasonable and logical to despise a death bringing scourge) and soon it will be in Yankland as well. You belong in jail and to be perfect frank so does the person hosting this site and the writers of this episode as well.

I'm sorry, but did you just compare all white people to a death bringing scourge? Sounds kind of bigoted to me.

"abuse someone for centuries" ..... lol

"ethnically cleansed entire countries" ..... ?????

Desperate people? .... lol

Hate speech doesn't count against whites.... lol

Well, there you have it. the route of all evil in the world.

Jammer and I belong in jail.

People, people, stay on topic please. Focus on the episodes.

Great, now I hate David.

I'm kidding, riffing on his "hate speech" and "incitement". I don't respect the drivel he dribbled, but no, I don't hate him. I'll add: thank God I live somewhere that allows speech that mocks religion, though preserving that right (or in sadder cases, restoring it) is something we all should be vigilant about, wherever we live.

As to the episode, just one more little nit to pick, regarding the writing (of course). It really would be nice if the writers would aim for consistency in their cardboard characters within one episode. To whit:

Lead fanatic: You humans, so obsessed with numbers.

Was that really a put-down someone would make when their entire schism was based around a number? Seems improbable. I could give the benefit of the doubt* and assume this was an intentional absurdity... but then it was carrying absurdity too far, since the casus belli was already pitched to be ridiculous in viewers' eyes.

(*: but I don't)

One of the reasons I liked this episode is that it deals with religious extremism and fundamentalism with the contempt it deserves. Watching back through Enterprise I'm shocked at how much more I'm enjoying it than Discovery.

I don't read much of Jammer's reviews anymore; too biased against Enterprise and for DS9/Voyager. I usually read a few lines then skip the rest, however, I like many of the posters reviews.

I thought this was a strong episode. Not great, but very good. I usually don't like "take over the ship episodes" either but I like the freshness of having religious zealots as the "bad guys of the week". We don't see that a lot in Trek. It fascinates me how a person, or group, can look at a circumstance, like the spheres, anomalies, etc. and fashion their own belief system from this.

Some posters complained about the seemingly frivolous nature of the dispute between the two sides in this conflict but Human History is riddled with exactly these types of frivolous differences that culminate in wars where thousands die. Of course Protestant/Catholic is one example (read European History - Middle Ages) and the differences between Sunni and Shia Islam as well. This is not a stretch.

It's totally plausible that D'Jamat and his followers have never heard of or seen a transporter. Just because technology is prevalent in one area of the galaxy doesn't mean that it's everywhere or that people in another region have heard of it. Also, someone complained above that D'Jamat is "one-dimensional", yes, that is a zealot. Someone who is one or two-dimensional in their goals and ways to achieve those goals. I have a History degree and once you've studied enough history you see patterns, such as people like D'Jamat who only have one mindset. Usually it's to gain power, other times it's to gain money. People that attain power first usually then attain lots of money, or vice versa. Their means for attaining power, in the past it's usually through violence. So the fact that he's one-dimensional is completely believable.

Ease up on the MACO's. You have to bear in mind that this show lasts less than 50 minutes. The showrunners cannot show everything that's happening with everyone. Personally, as someone with military experience, having MACO's is totally plausible. I love TNG and TOS but to always have your away team, and one or two nameless crewman, going to fight someone or act as guards is ludicris. This is why the U.S. Navy has Marines and the British Navy has Royal Marines, because you can't always expect the people running the ship to also be proficient in combat. It works for TV but it's more believable to have a dedicated fighting force like the MACO's on your ship. And again, there is not enough time to get to know everyone on the ship so chill out people. The MACO's are a great addition.

Lastly, the ending was awesome. They land on the devastated planet and Archer tells D'Jamat that his war was going to bring peace, then walks away. Awesome because the war between the two factions DID bring peace, only not in the way envisioned by D'Jamat, who stands there dazed. This is a History lesson that cannot be told enough times so that people learn that wars can lead to the extinction or near-extinction of a civilization, which is why wars should be avoided almost at all cost. The ending was sober, realistic, and wise.

Strong episode: 3 stars

@Lew Stone
Could you please follow the Jammerian peace accords.
§1 Do not attack Jammer
§2 Follow §1
§3 Don't be a dick
a) If you have to be a dick be like Booming
a1) it is impossible to be like Booming!!!
§4 secret
§5 Follow the great leader Booming

I agree with Jammer's assessment of this episode. I enjoyed Doc Flox's bat, and particularly enjoyed watching D'Jamat call Archer out on his hypocrisy regarding the torture of the prisoner in the airlock.

Dead to me was right. Not reading your reviews anymore.

When I started to rewatch this I could not remember that I had ever seen it. After some minutes it looked familiar. Somehow a similarity to Sim in Similitude where his memories re-appeared. When I finished I could remember it all.

I guess that it is an indication for the episode not being great.

Still I could enjoy it. Conor O'Farrell argued in the same way as some esoteric / Feng shui / anti 5G / religious fanatic people do. Luckily most of them does run around with implanted bombs. His interpretation / acting was good / convincing.

The moral at the end was also very clear.

There is a risk that I will write a similar comment in a couple of years having forgotten this.

I agree that the action sequences on ENT are overdone and often pointless (as it is in this episode), but I think the 9 days / 10 days silliness is not that far from actual silly reasons for religious schisms.

The Shia-Sunni schism started when the followers of Muhammad disagreed on who should succeed him: his cousin Ali or his best friend Abu Bahkr. They diverged in other ways since, but that's the root of it all.

The Catholic-Orthodox schism started in a silly fashion as well. And what of the Protestant or Anglican ones? Just because Henry VIII wanted a divorce, a bloody conflict was initiated.

I think it's important to show the danger of fundamentalism, and I really enjoyed the scenes were T'Pol and Archer verbally clashed with D'Jamat.

Am I the only who laughs at the fact that almost every "bad guy" on this series has long hair? I

2 stars is fair. It had a few moments but I’ll mainly remember this as the suicide cult episode. The people who would stab themselves to blow up and how Archer convinced them the transporter was actually a humane form of death penalty

Which star trek 1. Kirk. Wrong answer. Picard was ST next generation.
Also. The message fighting for a believe of creation was done for spheres 9 vs 10.
Tells Us how, aburd our wars have been.
Not only, The west continues opening new war fronts but it also has the influence to end them, but oil industries and resources and the influence of Jewish interests control the direction of wars.
Excellent...enterprise S3 E12 .

The biggest divide in Britain after the arrival of Christianity was the heated debate between Celtic and Roman Catholicism. The core division? The calculation of Easter, which was only about 7-10 days difference. Never mind the fact that Christ told his followers to commemorate his sacrifice and not his resurrection, so both sides were wrong and were steeped in pagan fertility customs by the 4th or 5th centuries. I don’t think the divide between factions here is any more unbelievable or stupid than our actual history. That being said, something in the execution was just.... meh. Voyager did something similar but better with “Savior,” but this still kept my attention and moved the plot along a little, 2.5 stars from me.

Many of you make a lot of good points. I enjoy the episode, but I think it does call for some suspension of disbelief.
--Is it really possible that an airborne agent like the one Phlox synthesized could actually render the subdermal explosives inert, given the small amount of agent released into the air, and Enterprise being so big? Seems like a stretch to me.
--Very lucky for Archer that one of the only heretics he came across was Yarrick, who was possibly the only one open-minded enough to go along with his plan to go to the Bridge and re-route the environmental controls to Sickbay.
--And is it really possible that the Triannons hadn't heard in the previous 8 months that the war had already ended on their planet? Is it possible that their Comm system had failed? Or were their coil emissions normal? :)

Another point...if this really happened, yeah the heretics might've been unhappy about the spheres disappearing, but on the bright side there wouldn't be any more spatial anomalies to wreak havoc in what had been the Expanse. All this said, the episode contains some good turns, I like its subterfuge, and the guy who plays D'Jamat is suitably acerbic. It was almost like he sucked on lemons before his scenes.

'Hello unkown aliens in a strange and threatening part of the universe. Would you like to come on my ship and wander around unsupervised, after a bite of supper? Oh dear it doesn't seem to have gone well again. Well, better luck next time!' Duh Duh Dur Dur Dur Dur ........

I think the writers intended to have us think that the "heretics" they were talking about were scientists / logic people; the conflict they were talking about on their home world was science vs. religion. They made us believe it by the T'Pol vs. D'Jamat argument, and D'Jamat's continual mocking of science. So the reveal that the conflict was religion-v-religion was supposed as a surprise. It did surprise this commenter at least.

Maybe the writers were attempting to quickly convey religion-v-religion conflict, through the words of a basic religious zealot. Many on this board are reading too much into it and expressing their disdain that religious conflict is much more complex than such an absurdist reduction. Yes, it definitely is, but if you had to reduce it to a single sentence, it would seem as absurd. E.g. conflict over whether some guy was resurrected or not.

Are there ever any consequences for the bad guys on this show? The leader killed a crewman and we see Archer standing beside him in the last scene sermonizing. Perhaps pushing him out an airlock would be a stretch, but why not turn him over to the other faction?

4/5 - Mostly for the lead guest actor's acting and their faith, I like that he has a set of values that he follows so strongly, rather than him just being the most simple form of evil, simply acting out of malice alone. Even if he is extremly misguided it's more
interesting to watch this way, and it's more believeable.

The man has read all sorts of logs of theirs, of course he would've read about the transporter.

Boring once the action starts, but I guess that typical of many tv series including trek, at least for the vast majority of action scenes that are inoriginal.

What an awesome, in-your-face ending! And shown in such a Christian country!

Certainly a watchable episode, but not a great one. I wasn't even particularly entertained by this one, but it got the job done.

Watched this with my wife. She commented that Phlox's bat had more lines than poor Hoshi. What a waste of a good actress. So unnecessary. Story had clear resemblance of TOS' The Way to Eden. Wouldn't call it a bad episode. It was strongest when D'jamat had a frustrating stranglehold over Archer, but things weakened during the interminable firefight with no discernible dialogue. 2 Stars... D'jamat was truly obnoxious; the actor portraying him captured the essence of the sanctimonious religious zealot sub-species nearly perfectly.

@Sigh2000,

"Story had clear resemblance of TOS' The Way to Eden. Wouldn't call it a bad episode."

Haha, sounds a little contradictory! :) But I kid.

@William B

Nice one...LOL. It truly is atrocious, but I tread softly on TOS. : )

There is a fine line between an episode that depicts shouting, and an episode that shouts. I recently rewatched this episode. D’Jamar gave good bellow throughout (apparently even in the 22nd century people mistake shouting for profundity). Eventually the episode became as shrill and um-nuanced as the religious bigots it was condemning. The coup de Grace of lameness did not come when we learned the reason for the source of the disagreement - nine days vs. ten. Differences pettier than that have caused war, or could, given religion’s unique ability to breed people who Brook not even the slightest dissent. The episode went full nonsense at the end, when it lingered over the rubble of Triannon for near-eternity. A few seconds would have sufficed.

Part of the problem with the episode may have been this: the writers (so they said) wanted to engage September 11, but were afraid of offending one group or another. So, stories came off as vague racio-socio-political allegories that either had an elliptical point (is wanting to destroy an entire species wrong only if Sphere Builders re not driving you to it), or a point that was too obvious (desperate to,es call for torture)

@Caloceptri
"The coup de Grace of lameness did not come when we learned the reason for the source of the disagreement - nine days vs. ten. Differences pettier than that have caused war, or could, given religion’s unique ability to breed people who Brook not even the slightest dissent."

Good point. Would add that the number game 9 v. 10 is somewhat suggestive of Seveners /Twelvers sects within Shia, and projects how those doctrinal differences seem to outsiders.

I did like the visual effects at the end of the episode; it was a great matte painting effort which I can understand the director wishing to have the camera linger on. The art had me "with" the two shuttlepods on the devastated surface. In a general way it struck me as being similar to the closing sequence of the original Planet of the Apes. "You blew it up!"

Aside from the reminder of how infuriating, deranged, and hypocritical religious extremist/fanatics are, this episode shows how absurdly easy it is for alien species to take over the ship. Do their systems have no safeguards at all? Crew members have to go through 4+ years of star fleet training to operate a starship, yet invading aliens can figure out how to delete data, lock out command functions, and fire torpedos within hours of being on the ship. Not to mention how do they understand the language on the consoles and control stations? Does the ships Universal Translator make people hallucinate the controls and display screens as being in their language as well? It's also hard to believe space-faring civilizations would be so primitively delusional in their religious beliefs, to the point of the Crusades and medieval level insanity. Also egregious how they demanded a crew member be sacrificed when they already killed 1 with that suicide bomber early on. This is why star fleet characters should never let aliens that just met anywhere near their computer terminals or engineering sections, especially when the cult leader is starting to babble that nonsense to the captain. That point should have been a red flag and it was time to seal off engineering, the computer cores, databases, prepare to release neuro-gas or whatever, not just let them wander around the ship like that. And as people mentioned the bad guys get no punishment at the end, just shake it off that they just murdered a crew member and damaged your ship and destroyed multiple other ships. Lunacy.

What an aweful episode this was. I did not expect 2 stars here.

First of all, the idea of not letting the crew of Enterprise look like dolts: you pick up a group of quite religious people, fine, but you cannot scan them. Then you proceed to give them FULL ACCESS to the ship, even vital parts like the engine room. Next you tell me they were allowed into the armory....
I know the Star Trek universe should be idyllic, but by now the crew should already not be that trusting.

As stated here before, the fact that D'Jamat had read more than enough of the logs, but is tricked by the teleporter is bad. The tact that the terrorists learned all the controls in no time was also cringe.

Then the resolution. Yes, I can imagine that there are some dissenters in a group. Maybe those two just happened to end up with D'Jamat, and had a choice: join or die. Otherwise, a baby on the way changes perspectives quite a lot as well.

Then the sabotage begins... which is a problem. Because D'Jamat was put down as a smart person, and now he runs around wondering what is happening.. No. A real terrorist would blow up another person near some sleeping quarters. And then announce via the intercom: to our saboteur; surrender, or I will blow up more of your people... Luckily, D'Jamat suddenly had a lobotomy and could not remember that this was the theat he took control with...

The doctor being able to neutralize the bombs.. meh, okay. Shoot outs? Okay. Archer informing D'Jamat that he is alive and has taken control while T'Pol and Mayweather are still on the bridge, easily creating a hostage situation and giving the terrorists time to barricade themselves (which they of course fail to do, so Reed and the MAKOs can happily enter via the only two entry points and start shooting at the terrorists who did not take a more covered position, let alone think of hiding behind a hostage... sigh). Incredible stupidity.

So they capture all and take full control. Does immediately give the order to hail the attackers? Nope! He restores weapons and lets Reed take some more potshots. Only when Archer enters the bridge do they contact their would-be allies... After that madness reigns..

Imagine: you were just attacked by religious zealots who hijacked a powerful vessel. They desteoyed a number of your ships. They are then captured. What do you do? A) You arrange a meeting with the captain, and take the prisoners to be judged by your laws B) Give a small smile and just fly away... right

Another scenario: You are on an essential mission to save your race. Your vessel was hijacked, but you manage to take control again. You now have some prisoners. Do you A) Continue with your mission, leaving those prisoners with the first civilisation on your route that wants them B) go to their planet, even though it was destroyed and just leave them there...

Because yes, the ending was even more moralistically terrible. They destroyed themselves! See what radicalisation does! Repent! And yes, D'Jamat seems affected... sorry, but no. A man like him would just say; "A, it was devine intervention that my group was entangled with you just in time to miss our demise here, we are truly blessed to have been spared, ours IS the right faith, and so shall we rebuild!" He already said it didn't matter how many would die, so his reaction makes no sense, again...

And the final nail, and waaaaaaay to real when you look at the actions of americans around the globe: The people that helped them, that made sure they could win, who, when unmasked will be killed by these zealots, are left on this planet, together with their baby, to fend for themselves. Just as in real life those natives that help the americans are left to die when the troops decide to leave..... to real. Of course Yarrick and his wife should have been granted asylum. Dropped off on some other world with a friendly population. But not left with D'Jamat who might recover from his lobotomy to remember the talk he had with Yarrick, how easily Archer took control and put 2 and 2 together...

Just bad storywriting all around, but mostly way to easily resolved with "See what your views did? Now go to your room and think about THAT mister!"

Sigh

why hasnt travis talked the whole episode - not one word!

@Dead to me You are clueless if you think that this episode is good. That part is painful. That, and listening to you complain about reviewer.

@Joseph C No one will miss you, though it wouldn't surprise anyone if you and @Dead to me are one and the same.

ARCHER!!

S T O P A L L O W I N G A N Y R A N D O M A L I E N O R G R O U P O F A L I E N S Y O U D E C I D E TO G I V E R I D E S T O F R E E A C C E S S T O G O W H E R E E V E R T H E H E L L T H E Y C H O O S E O N Y O U R S P A C E S H I P S T U P I D

I have absolutely no idea why my above comment came out like it did after I clicked the submit button?

But what it was supposed to say was:

Archer, Stop allowing aliens you decide to give rides to when on your travels, free access to wander around your spaceship stupid.
You’d think you’ve learned this by now….

Sorry, I wish this comment machine had a post-submission edit function, I keep thinking of things I’d like to add to my comments, but alias…

Anyway, how come the leader of this alien religious fanatic squirrel squad didn’t know what the hell a transporter was; but he certainly knew exactly, after only having been on-board just a matter of hours, which “one-single-push-button” command function to a previously unknown “alien” spaceship computer in order to totally wipe clean it’s entire memory bank?
Ahhh…, did I mention, “…with a single button ?”

I wonder if that button was actually labeled on the console: Attention: To Permanently Erase ALL Starship’s Computer Memory — PUSH THIS BUTTON ONCE !

By the way, the button is located right above the room’s leisure-music on-off button…

One of the commentators wrote “Many of you make a lot of good points. I enjoy the episode, but I think it does call for some suspension of disbelief.”

Uhhhh, yeah. We are watching a show about a spaceship traveling warp speed with a crew that includes a Vulcan and a Denobulan.

Too many take this all too seriously. This was extremely entertaining. Jammer swings and misses on another review.

There's a certain amount of slack I cut to this series based, in part, on what the reviewer calls "low brow Trek" in another episode's review.

It's a very black and white episode and I see how the low brow label would fit.

But I love slumming from time to time, like I sometimes ( rarely) enjoy Easy Cheese as opposed to a nice brie.

These days though, slumming almost seems like collaboration, still, there is much to be said for harmless mindlessness.

So, I didn't mind this episode so much for
all of its Easy Cheese. Wouldn't want it all the time.

Religious, anti science people shown for who they are. Three cheers for that.

This goes out to all the people who hate them theme song for going on 'faith' when trek is about science. and reason.