Date: 9 weeks, 4 days after "Broken Bow"
Convinced that the Vulcans are hiding a long-range sensor array at a 3,000 year old sanctuary, a group of Andorians invades P'Jem. When the Enterprise arrives out of Archer's curiosity, the crew becomes embroiled in the dispute, and lies at the mercy of the Andorian's volatile nature.
Summary
Archer diverts the Enterprise to the P'Jem outpost, a Vulcan sanctuary for the pursuit of Kohlinar. He, Tucker and T'Pol beam down and encounter a supposedly 'agitated' Vulcan Elder, who informs them that they have arrived during the time of silent Kohlinar and must be turned away. T'Pol notes that there should be more monks around and that the main atrium is in some disarray. Babbling, Archer and Tucker circle the atrium until they spot a blue-skinned alien's reflection in a bowl. The two jump the alien, but three of his comrades arrive and throw the landing party into detention with the Vulcan monks. The aliens' leader notes that the humans' presence serves to confirm his suspicions that the outpost is "more than just a sanctuary".
T'Pol explains that the aliens are Andorians, a militaristic race which is jealous of superior reasoning and technology. Although a treaty is in place between Vulcan and Andor, certain Andorian factions maintain the belief that the Vulcan High Command is planning to invade them. The Vulcan Elder tells Archer that General Shran, the Andorians' leader, believes that a long-range sensor array is hidden within P'Jem, which the Vulcans are using for spying purposes.
Archer is taken for interrogation by the Andorians, which he returns from battered and bruised. Faced with the possibility of Lieutenant Reed launching an armed assault in his sanctuary, the Vulcan Elder reveals that there is an old transmitter below ground which may still be functional. Tucker investigates the tunnels and locates the transmitter, repairing it and ordering Reed to hold his fire: Shran has promised that any attempt to rescue the landing party will result in the hostages' deaths.
Archer formulates a plan after finding out that the Andorians do not have transporter technology. Determining from Tucker's report that one of the underground tunnels leads directly behind the Andorians' main position, Archer has Reed and two tactical officers beam down and attack. In the ensuing firefight, Shran and one of his men escapes underground. Despite the Elder's protestations, Archer and his team follow into the reliquary, once again exchanging fire with Shran. One of the Vulcans, accompanying Archer, inadvertently knocks loose an ancient covering, revealing a giant metal entranceway. Archer opens it and immediately calls for a ceasefire. All parties - except the Vulcan - are shocked to see a massive sensor installation. Archer orders T'Pol to take image scans and give them to Shran. Having found what they came to find, the Andorians leave, Shran grudgingly telling Archer: "We are in your debt."
Review
One function of Enterprise should undoubtedly be to try and flesh out the ways in which the Federation grew to be the institution it was by the time of Kirk and Spock. If nothing else, "The Andorian Incident" is a good example of how this can be achieved, with an interesting first look at a hitherto neglected alien species. The fact that that species acts more like Klingons than the Klingons currently are doing leads one to think that they may turn out to be the most worthy allies/adversaries the series could throw up.
That's not to say, of course, that this episode makes enough use of the tenors and hues that any alien culture has. Much like the Romulans' first appearance in the original series' "Balance of Terror", the fact that the Andorians are a militaristic race (and seemingly governed by an Emperor - Shran belongs to the 'Andorian Imperial Guard') is largely glossed over in favour of highlighting the fact that the Vulcans have been acting in violation of an interstellar treaty, a fact which Archer finds singularly unbelieveable. If the Vulcan-Andor tebnsions are going to be a fixture of this series, then it'll be necessary for us to see exactly what the Andorians have at stake. This may be possible if Archer is going to become their ally (or at least stick up for them against the Vulcans' relentless logic); it may also provide a reason for Earth-Vulcan tensions other than the fact that the Vulcans were a bit reticent after first contact to share their technology.
T'Pol is visibly disturbed at the end of this episode by the discovery of the sensor installation; one wonders how the crew's view of her will alter as we learn more about Vulcan realpolitik. It's a departure from the way we've seen Vulcans depicted in the past; although we've long since dispensed with the myth that "Vulcan's don't lie", that doctrine didn't extend to the Vulcan military keeping sensor installations in direct violation of Vulcan philosophy secret from their public. Personally, I don't have a problem with this 'new Vulcan' society; it's pretty obvious that by the 23rd and 24th centuries, prolonged contact with humanity will have altered Vulcan perspectives on certain things. Greater co-operation with Starfleet will lead to greater openness with humans about Vulcan operations and methodology. At present, it makes sense for Archer and Enterprise to continue discovering hues to the Vulcans which are more shades of grey than logical black and white.
Jolene Blalock, to her credit, gives her best performance as T'Pol yet here. Ranging between a nicely realised dinner conversation with Phlox about IDIC to quiet menace when asking Archer if he's questioning her loyalty, she is starting to recognise how to convey subtle moods like thoughtfulness and bewilderment without cracking the Vulcan facade which it is necessary to maintain. Her dinner with Phlox is one of the highlights of this episode. Phlox employs a proto-Garak Socratic method to lead her to the conclusion that the visit to the sanctuary is perfectly in accordance with Enterprise's mission and, in a wider context, that the mission resonates with the Vulcan principle of infinite diversity. He even uses their differing dinner choices to highlight his point. Whilst speaking, Phlox can seem quite sinister - his smile and his tone of voice suggest the same sort of enigmatic past which Andrew Robinson created for his Cardassian tailor - but that only serves to drive home his point. Insensitively handled, he could sound pretentious and pedantic; at the moment, however, he is moving further and further away from Neelix territory, which is to be universally welcomed.
One character who does sound insensitive in this episode is Tucker. Three times now, we've seen him insult aliens: his barb about being afraid of the Xyrillian decontamination process to the Klingon captain in "Unexpected", muttering "Something sure smells" to one of the Andorians here and continued jabs at the Vulcans throughout. On occasion, it works: when he notes that the Vulcan Elder has a "flair for the dramatic" when he reveals the hidden catacombs, he's articulating something which the audience is also thinking and, as such, helps us to identify with his character and feel a part of the unfolding drama. Sometimes, though, he's just plain rude. The Starfleet standards we've come to expect appear to be passing Tucker by once too often - if Worf ever made a sarcastic remark, Picard shot him a look or slapped him down. All too often, Archer appears to agree with Trip, ignore his insubordination, or even laugh with him. Tucker may be a good ol' American boy, but his 'wit' could get everyone in trouble. It could also alienate the audience. It's something the writers need to keep a tight handle on.
By contrast, I thought that for the first time Reed was handed a good role this time around. He got to do some commanding, which seemed to come to him very naturally; he got in a fireight, which it was obvious he was itching to do; and he got to snap at a crewman when he was hesitant to use the transporter. The fact that he was one of the first humans to use the device (after Archer in the pilot) didn't seem to bother him at all. Poor old Mayweather and Sato barely get a look in this episode. You might argue that neither does Phlox, but his scene is incisive and revealing. The two senior officers' dialogue is mere exposition as acts as foil for Reed. Speaking of which, one gets the sense that Reed may well have something to do with drafting future Starfleet protocol for away missions; he raises a lot of the questions which the audience may be asking about security. The only query I have for him is why, when Tucker informed him that the Andorians were looking for a sensor array, he didn't use the Enterprise's sensors to find it himself. Surely proving that the array was there or not would have been a powerful bargaining tool, and would have helped to stop Archer from getting his face broken every five minutes.
Other gripes with this episode centre around certain choices made regarding the Vulcans. Their continual comments that humans smell is rude, insulting (Archer is in the room, remember) and rather unnecessary. Although it serves to illustrate their continuing belief that they're "so damned enlightened", as Archer puts it, and gives the Andorians a legitimate beef, it also helps to reinforce in the viewer's mind that the Vulcans get what they deserve at the end of the episode when the array's existence is revealed. If this is to be a DS9-style political dispute, then this deficiency - viewing the Andorians as 'goodies' and the Vulcans as 'baddies' - will have to be redressed. Perhaps an Andorian massacre of Vulcan innocents wouid help. Judging from some of the dialogue (they threaten to decapitate some of the monks and rape T'Pol), the Andorians are unsavoury characters to say the least. It would help not to de-fang them, Species 8472-style.
On the whole, this is an enjoyable episode. The return of the Andorians is well-executed, the firefight scenes are better than those in the pilot and have a superior sense of pace (boding well for the Suliban conflict and perhaps for the Romulan War, too), Scott Bakula does another fine Sisko impression and Blalock puts in her best performance yet. All that's needed now is to build upon this political dispute in a realistic and measured way, rather than turning it into a black and white issue. For this, the producers would do well to look to DS9 for lessons in both how to pull that off and how to integrate one storyline with the main thrust of the series (i.e., the Temporal Cold War). In essence, "The Andorian Incident" is the first episode to begin to fulfil some of the promise of the series' premise.
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