Star Trek: Enterprise
"Rajiin"
Air date: 10/1/2003
Teleplay by Paul Brown and Brent V. Freidman
Story by Brent V. Freidman and Chris Black
Directed by Mike Vejar
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
"Some of our calculations may have been slightly off." — T'Pol after the lab blows up
In brief: Plot pieces set in motion reasonably, but there's still something missing here.
The general sense in "Rajiin" hints that the writers — at least for this week — envision the Xindi storyline arc as the perfect canvas for a comic-book space opera. This is an episode far better than "Extinction," not nearly as good as "Anomaly," and probably about on the level of "The Xindi." Already, I think, I am beginning to sense what "average" will look like in the Delphic Expanse.
If "Rajiin" has a strength — and it does — it's that it indicates that the Xindi arc is at least moving in some sort of a direction. Its drawback is that even while it manipulates characters, action, and plot pieces, it nevertheless feels kind of empty. The people do not have any chance to emerge as defined characters in the process of running around the ship. Sure, we have Archer being Deadly Serious as has been the case so far this season, but there's no take on the fact that he's so serious. He just is.
The main problem, I think, is that the principal villains, for the moment, are not invested with enough depth to come across as anything more than a run-of-the-mill super-threat. We see them in their roundtable meetings, and we even see how they disagree with one another, but we don't understand exactly what's going on here or why. For now, at least, the problem is one of motivation: The Xindi do not have one. Why must they destroy Earth, and why are they so urgent about it?
The one motive that we were supplied courtesy of Future Guy — that humanity would allegedly destroy the Xindi homeworld 400 years in the future — was seemingly quickly debased in "The Xindi." Consequently, we're left with no motivation for these guys. They seem to think it's awfully important that the Enterprise be stopped and that humanity be wiped from existence. Assuming that this is not because they are Pure Evil, why are they going to all the trouble? This might be a mystery to be solved with some interest further down the road, but the flip side of that coin is that for now we have conflict that rings pretty hollow. It is essentially Us vs. Them. Them are the Evildoers, and Us are the Good Guys. Us vs. Them doesn't make for particularly interesting drama. It kind of just sits there waiting around for the action to get rolling. "Rajiin" as a result is lacking.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because I haven't even brought up the title character, Rajiin. Rajiin is, in what the trailers were so helpful in explaining, a "beautiful alien sex slave" exclamation mark. (Leave it to UPN trailers to blow things out of proportion in order to appeal to the base.) Archer and the away team rescue Rajiin (Nikita Ager) from her owner in a western-like spaceport while tracking down a contact who has the formula for Trellium-D, the substance that we learned in "Anomaly" can insulate starships from the dangerous Delphic Expanse anomalies. There's a barter sequence here that's mildly amusing, in which Trip trades black pepper and other assorted seasonings for the Trellium-D formula. "On my planet, wars were fought over these," he explains. The quirky alien trader (Dell Yount) sneezes and cackles with enthusiasm.
Archer takes Rajiin back to the Enterprise where alarms in most audience members are probably sounding by now, even if they haven't seen the trailers. Is Rajiin the innocent slave-since-childhood she claims to be? Will Enterprise win an Emmy for writing?
Rajiin has a mental power that is hinted at but never quite explained, and as a function of story, that kinda works. There's a scene where she seduces Archer, but the seduction is not quite what it seems to be, and indeed the scene gives us the distinct impression that it might not have really happened at all. At the very least, Archer can't be sure; it's like he lost a few crucial seconds of time. Rajiin, meanwhile, seems to be stealing something directly from Archer's body. What, exactly? We find out at the end, and the way this pays off is actually kind of clever.
Rajiin is really an operative employed by the Xindi reptilian species, who have on their own accord, without the approval of the rest of the Xindi council, sent Rajiin to get bio-scans of the humans so they can begin work on a bio-weapon (the show's opening moments show a frustrated scientist who explains that it will take quite some time to complete the orbital weapon that can destroy Earth; the bio-weapon is proposed as an alternative).
Once Rajiin's true motives are discovered, she's chased down and thrown into the brig and questioned about the Xindi by Archer, who this time opts not to resort to methods of interrogation involving the airlock, perhaps because Rajiin is more sympathetic and cooperative than the surly prisoner in "Anomaly," but probably because the audience would quickly turn on Archer if he were to use similar tactics on a woman.
About this time, two Xindi ships appear and their boarding party storms the Enterprise to retrieve Rajiin, leading to a final act of action that makes it a priority to establish a slightly different take on hand-held weapons. The action is competently staged, if a little hokey at times. However, I find myself somewhat annoyed by the fact that the crew casualties are not mentioned in dialog. The thing about sci-fi violence is that we don't know exactly where we stand when someone gets hit by an energy beam. Are they dead? Knocked out? What? I'm pretty sure the first crew fatality on this series came just a couple weeks ago, in "Anomaly," and I'm at least hoping that the increased action-oriented drive of this season doesn't turn our crew into action props. So if someone gets killed, I'd at least like an acknowledgement. We don't get that here. I guess I'll just have to assume they're dead.
(Speaking of sci-fi violence, it occurred to me that maybe the Enterprise crew should keep around some conventional projectile firearms. Sure, a Xindi can absorb an energy beam with his sci-fi suit or whatever, but can he take a bullet? I'd be interested in knowing.)
As a piece of the Xindi arc, "Rajiin" is reassuring in that it follows some pieces that were placed before it and sets up pieces that can be built upon later. The search for and subsequent attempts for synthesizing Trellium-D grow nicely from "Anomaly," and the way the Xindi ships escape into a vortex is the same visual as when the Xindi probe emerged from nowhere in "The Expanse." These are decent continuity touches.
On the character front (albeit not especially significant), there's follow-up on the issue of T'Pol's treatment sessions for Trip. As much as I hated the transparent and spectacularly unbelievable presentation of their first session in "The Xindi," I'm certainly not going to keep harping on the point. In fact, now that the writers have settled down a bit and made these scenes somewhat more plausible, I won't really object, so long as it doesn't stagnate for the next six months. There's a relevant point brought up here, about the fact that "people are talking" about all the time Trip spends in T'Pol's quarters. This I can believe. It acknowledges the sexual undercurrents that the writers so completely sidestepped in "The Xindi" (and why, consequently, the scene came off as an utter crock).
Several people have offered me their prediction that the bio-weapon story thread will inevitably tie back to last week's misguided "Extinction." The logic goes like this: Since there's Phlox's early dialog about Archer having not completely finished staving off all the alien DNA-mutation effects, and because Rajiin took her bio-readings from Archer, T'Pol, and Sato — all of whom (conveniently) were infected by the alien virus — the bio-weapon will be based on those readings and will not work on normal humans. I applaud the foresight and audience predictions, but I don't think I would applaud the idea itself if it turns out to happen that way. It strikes me as pretty anticlimactic to base the solution to a major plot line on an arbitrary sci-fi technicality and not on something more substantially dramatic. So put me on the list of people who would rather wait and see rather than predict how this scenario will play out.
In terms of advancing the bigger picture, "Rajiin" isn't bad, but nor is it all that interesting or enlightening. The Xindi council scenes are going to get really old really fast if the writers can't come up with dialog that's better than the cardboard comic-book lines ominously uttered here. It seems to me the writers have slightly miscalculated regarding the Xindi by showing us either too much of them or not enough. They've showed too much for the Xindi to remain a mystery, and they've not shown enough for the Xindi to be villains we can understand or care about, except in the most simpleminded ways. At the moment, they simply exist as a threat. I'd prefer an interesting threat. It's quite possible we will still get that.
Until then, shows like "Rajiin" are simply average space-opera adventures. The characters march around, the action is in the spirit of comic books, and the dialog moves us along without getting us too wrapped up in anything or anybody. There's nothing really wrong with that. Nothing great about it either.
Next week: Vulcan girls gone wild!
Previous episode: Extinction
Next episode: Impulse
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47 comments on this post
Sat, Sep 15, 2007, 12:22pm (UTC -6)
Sat, May 22, 2010, 9:11pm (UTC -6)
Wed, Aug 24, 2011, 2:09pm (UTC -6)
Sat, May 26, 2012, 8:03pm (UTC -6)
Sat, Nov 24, 2012, 4:21pm (UTC -6)
I suppose at this point we know at least one of the ways Sato swings, but like with DS9's parallel universe same-sex flirting only really seems to happen with the bad guys. Hmm.
The spice trading scene was sheer genius - more of this would go down well! (That's how the Ferengi should've been, hmm?)
The T'Pol/Trip thing is getting old. I hope they will either screw soon and get it over with or fix his sleep and move on, tbh, I don't mind which, it's just that it's getting a bit repetitive and feeling like "sexual tension filler".
Archer still being a bit of a thug, but at least he didn't resort to the airlock this time!
t'was alright.
Sat, Dec 29, 2012, 10:25am (UTC -6)
1.5-2
Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 1:45pm (UTC -6)
Out of all the species in the galaxy, you'd think there'd be at least a few matriarchal species who are more prone to seeing men as scantily clad sex objects, but this almost never happens on Trek. The writers really needed to grow up.
Sun, Sep 15, 2013, 11:14pm (UTC -6)
Wed, Nov 6, 2013, 6:58pm (UTC -6)
*the weapons they used seem totally useless, yet they were able to penetrate borg shielding? Not plausible!
*what kind of security agent would not COMMUNICATE to their other teams their current weapons are not working (give the others a change to adapt eh?)
*even when they SEE their weapons are not working, instead of retreat and rethink some other attack strategy, they keep firing the very weapons they KNOW will not work, without changing so much as weapon setting?
*the ease they killed that one reptilian with, compared to all the other shots they took in before is illogical.
*their is ANTIGRAV plating in that ship, they have forcefields, might use that to do something against those invaders eh?
*ever heard of depresurising part of the ship?
But the most stupid part : you KNOW that bitch has scanned you, you KNOW she is a spy, you KNOW she works for the enemy. and yet you allow her to live? not even put a bullet to her head should she be escape prison?
And that leads to the most stupid scene : archer having a clear line of fire to take Raijn out after she escaped, and he actually NOT fires due concert of hitting her.
eh captain? : save humanity at all costs, no rotten morality in the way remember : KILL THE BITCH!
If archer would at least have shot her in that scene, and some proper (kill every last xindi your see) scene.. some nice torturing too.
it would be far more bearable.
Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 10:10pm (UTC -6)
Mon, Feb 9, 2015, 3:53pm (UTC -6)
Mon, Feb 9, 2015, 4:01pm (UTC -6)
And I again just have to ask: what if this WERE a male sex slave? Would the writers have him getting to close to Trip as they enter the turbolift? Would they have him enter Travis' quarters and caress the hapless Ensign as he purred, I mean, begged him to leave?
Sad. So sad.
Sun, Apr 5, 2015, 4:36pm (UTC -6)
Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 1:04pm (UTC -6)
Having a military unit on the ship just feels so un-Trek, please stop with that too.
I can see season three is going to be hard to get through. Such a shame as season one wasn't that bad and held some promise.
Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 1:53pm (UTC -6)
Sat, Jul 25, 2015, 10:03pm (UTC -6)
Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 8:00am (UTC -6)
Mon, Apr 25, 2016, 1:42pm (UTC -6)
Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 10:20pm (UTC -6)
Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 11:21pm (UTC -6)
Rajiin - "Wait, we can't leave!"
Archer - "Why not?"
Rajiin - "I need my sexy outfits!"
Archer - "Seriously?"
Reed - "I think it's worth the risk to go back, sir."
Archer - "You would."
Rajiin - "Please! My powers of seduction are reduced 8% without them!"
Archer - "We'll get you some outfits on the ship"
Rajiin - "But-"
Archer - "We're leaving."
(later, aboard the Enterprise)
Archer - "This is the captain. Would any female crewmembers with sexy outfits, preferrably catsuits, report to the captain's ready room. No, it's not what you think."
Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 2:17am (UTC -6)
Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 3:09am (UTC -6)
Many of the things you criticise Enterprise for are on display in the precious TOS and TNG in much greater quantities.
It's pure snobbery.
Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 11:31am (UTC -6)
1. Reviews are supposed to be biased.
2. DS9/VOY/ENT reviews on this site were done live, while the show was on. The inability to keep ENT from having the same problems as TNG had many of us feeling exhausted by the time ENT rolled around. These things should not be graded in a bubble. If your child does something wrong 6 times in a row are you not more annoyed the 6th time than you were the first?
3. I've come to see ENT as not nearly as bad as I thought it was at the time. But when you just put up with 7 years of VOY writers that felt like they'd rather be making season 8-14 of TNG than actually write to VOY's premise it was just a bit ridiculous when ENT S1/S2 seemed to want to be seasons 15&16 of TNG instead of try to do something bold and different like DS9. ENT actually DID try to do something bold and different in S3... and it worked in varying quantities, but god damn... at least they tried. And S4 felt like what it should have been the whole time.... but you know what? I wasn't watching anymore. I stopped mid season 2. After religiously consuming every bit of Trek for 14 years (I started in TNG S3). I have since come back to ENT and realized that it was much better than I gave it credit for.... but through the lens I was viewing S1/S2 at when it was on.... it was really, really tired.
Mon, Jun 5, 2017, 5:35pm (UTC -6)
I'm starting to crack up everytime we see the Xindi council. So some Xindi are like manatees swimming in the ocean? Couldn't they be shark-like? It feels a bit too much like Star Wars and that's not a good thing for Trek.
But back to the episode, I think it works because Rajiin turns out to be a traitor and it leads to the first confrontation with the Xindi. The action scenes are nothing special but at least we are getting more familiar with the enemy.
Wish the writers would stop with Trip/T'Pol and the sleep disorder/intimate scenes. It's getting tiresome.
I'd give this a weak 3 stars out of 4. Some elements of the greater story arc are starting to come together and it makes for a good story to have the Enterprise crew infiltrated by a spy who seems harmless at first to fool dumb-ass Archer.
Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 4:41pm (UTC -6)
Sat, Jul 8, 2017, 6:35pm (UTC -6)
"Isn't it convenient that Archer doesn't pay for the sex slave but still gets to take her back to his ship? For someone who frequently harps on the "have your cake and eat it too" contrivance in scripting, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on this point. All he had to do was get into a silly fight for which there are no consequences. I'm curious about what the writers were thinking; I mean, I'm all for liberating slaves from prostitution, but it's rather selective here AND the dialogue makes only a passing reference to "we don't believe people can own people" or whatever. "
The fact that the slave got to the ship without being purchased was a plot point. She had a mission to get to the ship, and she had to find a way even if she wasn't purchased.
That the Enterprise crew didn't go and free everyone is understandable. If they went in with weapons and freed everyone they weren't likely to get any business done at the port, nor anywhere else in the region. And they could possibly get a whole new set of enemies when they're already struggling with the Xindi. But if a woman frees herself and then asks for asylum (essentially what she did), they can't really turn her down. (Which doesn't mean they need to give her permission to wander the ship freely. Archer should have been weary of her).
------
On the episode itself: the main plot was tired, but not awful. Most of the rest of it was better than what Enterprise had been giving us. The spice merchant was fun and the T'Pol/Trip stuff was fine here. Overall, I'd give it a passing grade.
Tue, Oct 3, 2017, 4:30pm (UTC -6)
Thu, Nov 9, 2017, 1:29am (UTC -6)
As for the main plot of 'Rajiin'...it's an 'alien' sex slave who makes every crew member act like Riker (and is of course a spy). The Xindi's whole plan is simply to get her on the ship so she can scan the crew's DNA or whatever, and then to blast their way aboard the Enterprise and recover her? That's not clever, that's desperate. Way too many things could go wrong. On a sidenote, where is this woman even getting her skimpy outfits, and why would she wear them when she doesn't have to? Oh, of course. She has to wear them because RATINGZ.
The action scenes are all right and the writers are doing a good job of maintaining continuity. I still don't like the DNA silliness from 'Extinction' but at least they're making use of it somehow. The guest actress did a good job too. I'd give this a weak two-star rating.
Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 2:59pm (UTC -6)
I also realize how ridiculous at this stage the council comes across -- little more than cardboard cartoon villains, although it gets better.
Re-rating this to 2.5 stars. It's barely a decent episode in truth.
Sun, Jul 22, 2018, 1:20pm (UTC -6)
Mon, Nov 5, 2018, 4:10pm (UTC -6)
Sun, Jun 7, 2020, 2:58pm (UTC -6)
Mon, Apr 5, 2021, 2:11pm (UTC -6)
Oh, and thank you for that weird thing you did where I can't quite remember what happened and I won't mention to anyone else.'
Mon, Jun 7, 2021, 1:48pm (UTC -6)
See, for example, the Dutch-Portuguese war, the battle of Vasai and the Anglo-Dutch wars. Wonder if Tucker knew.
Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 10:02am (UTC -6)
Or, I dont know, something completely crazy, capture the helpless humans and TALK to them? Nah, better go back and develop weapons to extinguish them, after all we are aliens so we dont talk to other races to resolve conflicts, we just annihilate them (wait… how did we come to forming an alliance of many different species in the first place then?).
Loved the scene where they bring Raijin to the council too:
- Look I have bio-info on the evil humans
- Great!
- But they are also nice people. As the ONLY person ever from your region to have interacted with them, I have so many interesting things to tell you about them
- Shut up, go back to sex slavery, we have weapons to build here. And tell your master we want manatee or giant insect sex slaves, not your disgusting skin-covered type of species
Which makes me think. How do they know what humans look like? How did they know which type of species to use to be attractive and deceitful to humans?
Seriously bad writing. No matter how good the acting, CGI, etc., such poor writing completely kills episodes like this.
Was also waiting for Archer to start torturing Raijin… alas it seems he’s lost his way again and back to mercurial Archer.
He also forgot to blame Trip in the end. Clearly it was his fault that he couldn’t develop the special plating they need, so they had to go to that planet and then got Archer tricked by that spy girl.
Between ENT/Archer and VOY/Janeway it’s really hard to say which is worse. Would still go with VOY/Janeway at this stage, because it was lazy on top of bad. At least with ENT they are trying, or pretending to try.
Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 10:21am (UTC -6)
Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:35am (UTC -6)
The action sequences showing the humans look like amateurs,
The fish Xindi,
TPol and Trip,
Archer,
Reed's over the top facial acting when a merchant, acted like an effing MERCHANT
Yeah this was annoying throughout.
Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 8:55am (UTC -6)
I saw every single trek series for the first time 2 years ago so i dont think i have nostalgia blinders either... basically my point being, even though stuff like this xindi war arc try to do something different, something that feels a bit less trek, it still FEELS like star trek for the most part. the pacing, the interpersonal relationships. even with the hokey or weak episodes, even with some of the poorer writing... why is it that i can remember this whole crew from one watchthrough and care about them but couldnt tell you half the crews name on disco or picard?
ik i seem like im turning this into a shitting on the writing of new-trek post, but its mainly cus ive seen quite a few negative comments about how people gave up after the first 2 seasons of this show and were tired after voyager. i get it... but i guess as someone who saw all the star trek shows for the first time in my life at 24 yrs old 2 years back all within a year, i quite enjoyed enterprise, flaws and all. the first two seasons of TNG are p atrocious but there are still some absolute gems in both of those seasons. i think the same applies to this show and its a shame it was cancelled after season 4. id watch literally any enterprise episode over having to rewatch any episode of the new-trek. like seriously, watch an episode of discover and then watch an episode of this... if you thought *this* show didnt feel like trek, in comparison this show is trek as hell. the new stuff is a genuine example of what happens when you throw what trek is out the window and make a dystopian generic sci fi star wars show with star trek paint over it.
anyway, just been watching along to all the star trek series again doing a big rewatcha nd enjoying reading along w jammers reviews and the comments as i do, even comments i dont fully agree with, i remember using this site during my first watch through it adds to the experience for sure : )
just sharing my opinions, tng and ds9 are my favorites but yea i think ENT gets some undeserved hate from people who were tired (understandably) or who grew up w a certain star trek (understandable) ... but as someone who watched them all recently, this show still FEELS like star trek to me, even though the show has a lot of flaws (As does voyager, the beginning of tng, and all the series at one point or another) the fact that it feels like trek still and i actually know who the characters are after even the first season absolutely shits on what new star trek feels like. cant wait to get to s4 w some more shran action : )
Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 6:05pm (UTC -6)
Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 6:06am (UTC -6)
Regarding Picard, I disliked season1 first time I saw it but accepted it better second time. S2 (two episodes aired sofar) is promising. But .... It is not Star Trek.
Mon, May 16, 2022, 11:52pm (UTC -6)
Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 11:43am (UTC -6)
Yeah, this episode sucks.
Instead of the all too typical sophomoric t & a stuff I wish they had taken this into more ambitious territory.
I'm bored some I'm going to engage in some small universe riddled fan fiction spitballing.
Alright, we know the Sphere Builders and Future Guy have competing interests so let's work with that. Make Rajiin a Suliban playing a Matahari type role in the Expanse. She finds out that the Xindi Reptiles are up to some time travel hijinks and aims to stop them. How? Well, she needs access to a time machine. So she dupes Archer into "rescuing" her from the slave market so that she can gain access to crewman Daniels' time apparatus onboard Enterprise. The crew discovers she is Suliban, but not before she skips back to Detroit circa 2004.
Why are the Xindi in Detroit? Not to plant a bioweapon. They could do that in any century, right? No, they are here to kill an Earth scientist whose research will someday contribute to the Sphere Builders ultimate defeat. This is a total MacGuffin, of course.
Archer and T'Pol follow Rajiin to Detroit hoping to stop her from whatever nefarious activities they suspect her of and end up helping her defeat the Xindi time travelers and saving the life of the mysterious scientist. A scientist who looks suspiciously like Mestral from Carbon Creek.
Ok, that last bit is probably a bridge too far, but I think something like this would have been better than what we got with "Rajiin" and "Carpenter Street." Which really isn't saying much.
Mon, Nov 7, 2022, 12:48am (UTC -6)
And, as others pointed out, if you need human biology.... why not just grab a few?
For that matter, it was never adequately explained why they didn't just attack and destroy Enterprise from day one. There's lot's of hints that they don't want to do that, but it's never clear why.
Fri, Mar 3, 2023, 3:21pm (UTC -6)
Example: In the slave market scene, "Hey Archer, they're playin ya."
Example: When Rajiin emerges from the shadows in T'pol's quarters, "Uh oh, T'pol, she's no good for you. I suggest you kick her out immediately."
Example: While confronting Xindi soldiers who have boarded Enterprise, "Don't bother shooting boys and girls, they can't be killed. Script says so."
Thu, Apr 6, 2023, 12:21am (UTC -6)
I dig the evil Jedi council, especially the guys in the aquarium, super cool.
Enterprise has good fight scenes, Archer is a good fighter, one of the best ST captains with his fists.
I think Archer was definitely going to bang Rajiin, was that his intent from the start? Lol. He’s a bit a tail gunner, makes him more appealing.
Good bounce-back episode after the previous bad outing!
Onward! Not gonna bend or break me!
Sun, Apr 9, 2023, 1:02pm (UTC -6)
Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 3:33am (UTC -6)
Maybe Stargate with some new strict captain. Someone mentioned Firefly - I don't know. No wonder the ratings fell.
This is just boring - every episode in this season is just so similar and looks so similar and so cheap. This opening scenes with all these monsters right out of Buck Rogers.
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