By O. Deus / 18:36, 22 November 2004 / ENTERPRISE Reviews

Synopsis: Archer and co. investigate the bombing of the Earth embassy on Vulcan.

Review: The premise of the three-part Vulcan arc is an interesting one, especially considering the need to bridge the gap in continuity between ENTERPRISE's mangled portrayal of the Vulcans and the STAR TREK portrayal of the Vulcans, two often quite outrightly incompatible. "The Forge" itself also tosses out a variety of interesting ideas into the mix, which may or may not be delivered on properly in future episodes. However, "The Forge" itself is nearly impossible to review on its own because it's simply more a fragment of an episode than an episode.

As with the Augments arc, "The Forge" appears to be part of an attempt to return to the prequel concept as a bridge to the Original Series and has a nice selection of continuity references to TOS. While it still continues to be filled with negative Vulcan stereotypes, the arc appears to be moving towards the argument that these Vulcans are bad primarily because they are the Vulcans in authority and prefiguring a social upheaval on Vulcan that will bring it more in line with the Vulcan we know. Of course the entire
premise that such events had occurred in recent memory fly in the face of all of STAR TREK, as we know continuity and ENTERPRISE even in the best of situations go together about as well as oil and water. And for those troubled by that, ENTERPRISE's own premise renders it as being outside of STAR TREK history via time-tampering from the future, rather than a continuing part of STAR TREK history as a whole.

The actual Vulcan drama is hit and miss with Ambassador Soval returning as a strong character but the Vulcan high command crudely portrayed and poorly acted. Soval's speech to Archer, though, sounds like recycled deep throat cliches. Admiral Forrest is somewhat unnecessarily killed for shock value where having him severely injured in sickbay would actually have been more far more effective. Trip's reaction of callously not caring about the embassy guard's body but his mind is out of character for him. Trip has many failings but inhumanity hasn't been one of them until now.

STAR TREK has more traditionally done three-part episodes and ENTERPRISE's new attempt to carry out these arcs has its flaws. Like "Borderland," "The Forge" feels like less of an episode and more of a preview to an episode. But where "Borderland" had more content and a solid ending, "The Forge" strings together exposition scenes and some action with the end result being more of a snack than a full dinner. Considering that the episode begins with a bang, the succeeding action mostly drags in scenes in which various people discuss or argue with Vulcans. There is no real sense of loss or catastrophe aside from Archer's scene with the coffins.

Once in the desert the pace does not actually pick up any but the interest level increases mainly because we are finally exploring Vulcan. Some elements such as the sandfire are well done, though the special effects for it and the Sehlat are quite inferior. The Sehlat in particular looks like CGI from the early 90's. The editing attempts to compensate for this by showing it only in quick shots is effective to a degree but still would have been better done with the Sehlat entirely out of sight. Just as the electrical sandstorm worked much better as flashes from behind rocks, so too the Sehlat worked better as a growl than a cgi creation. Special effects problems also plague the embassy bombing with the pillar collapsing blast scene looking just downright silly. I don't know if ENTERPRISE's budget has been cut or just stretched (in light of the lower UPN licensing fee) but in such a situation, suggestion is better than showing poor effects.

All in all "The Forge" raises some interesting ideas and possibilities but lacks real meaning until future episodes pick up the ball or don't.

Next week: I've got Surak in my head and I can't get him out.

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