Mirror, Mirror

While it was in production, I paid scant attention to Enterprise, seeing parts of it a few times but generally shrugging my shoulders at it. Not bad, not worth following. Lately, though, WCIU has been showing it immediately after the Three Stooges on Saturday nights. We don’t watch all of the Stooges any more—it seems like we’ve seen all of them—but they’re on sometimes anyway (Ann has become fond of Curley, for one thing).

So I’ve watched Enterprise a few times now. My conclusion: not bad, not worth following. Lilly didn’t take to it either, maybe because large parts of it mystified her. Once she’d gotten the idea that these people—and other, more heavily made-up people pretending to be from other planets—were travelling in spaceships, she asked me, “But where are they going?” This is a question I would never think to ask, since the answer is looking for trouble. You know, out there. Adventure calls. Wagon train to the stars. New life, new civilizations and all that.

A week ago and on Saturday, however, a two-part Enterprise was shown, “In a Mirror, Darkly,” and I actually enjoyed them. The plot device was a storyline in that well-worn alternate universe in which, among other things, Spock has a beard, the female cast members wear fetching uniforms, and Capt. Archer serves an aggressive, warlike Empire, instead of that UN with teeth known as the Federation.

Archer himself is aggressive and warlike, prone to torturing and murdering enemies. Scott Bakula must have had fun with it. At one point he even makes a speech in front of his crew, like Vespasian might have before his officers, on the need to overthrow the corrupt regime in Rome—I mean, Earth—and become Emperor himself. Star Trek needed more of this kind of thing since day one.