Date: Unknown
When the crew discover a ship hiding in Enterprise's wake in an attempt to make repairs to its warp drive, Tucker is dispatched to assist. But the engineer gets more than he bargained for when it is discovered that he has been impregnated by one of the female Xyrillians.
Summary
Annoying malfunctions are plaguing the Enterprise, causing all manner of problems, not the least of which is the gravity plating malfunctioning, causing Archer to float around in the shower and then crash to the floor when power is restored. Tracing the cause to a problem with the ship's plasma exhaust, investigation reveals a cloaked ship in Enterprise's wake. The aliens apologise for their intrusion and introduce themselves as the Xyrillians. Their warp reactor is damaged and they are far from home. Seeing the chance to make another friend, Archer sends Tucker over to do what he can for the engine.
After suffering a three-hour decompression cycle, Trip sets foot on the Xyrillian vessel. He perceives his surroundings as abnormally sluggish, but refuses to rest, despite his host's advice. After a funny turn while working, he's ordered to rest by Archer, and wakes an hour later to the sight of the female engineer Ah'Len hovering near him. She feeds him synthesised cubes of water, with the result that whenever she touches him, small charges of electricity arc between her fingers and his lips. The two engineers work well together on the engines, and when some free time presents itself, Ah'Len takes Tucker to a reflective chamber which turns out to be a highly advanced holodeck, showing everything from Ah'Len's home to an image of a rowing boat in the middle of a lake. On that boat, Ah'Len materialises a "game" involving some pebbles in an open-top box, which Tucker realises are telepathic. The two enjoy a brief mindlink, during which it becomes clear that they are attracted to one another, before they are interrupted by the news that the engines are repaired.
Tucker returns to Enterprise and the ship goes on its way. Everything is back to normal - except for the chief engineer's increased appetite - until he notices that a pimple is growing on his wrist. Thinking he may be having an allergic reaction to something on the Xyrillian ship, Tucker goes to see Phlox - who instantly recognises that something rather more drastic has happened. Somehow, Tucker has gotten pregnant! Despite T'Pol's disbelief that Tucker couldn't "refrain from putting his fingers where they don't belong", Tucker insists that he was a complete gentleman the entire time ... except for the pebbles. Realising that those pebbles could have served as the medium for a lengthy genetic exchange, Phlox sympathises but doesn't recommend the removal of the embryo in Tucker for fear of harming it. The obvious course of action is to find the Xyrillians, but their stealth technology makes the job almost impossible.
Eight days later, with Tucker continuing to develop nipples and the promise of morning sickness and mood swings to come, the crew locates the Xyrillian ship, but its engines have once again broken down - and this time they've chosen a Klingon ship's wake to hide in. Realising that he'll have to deal with the Klingons before he can speak with the Xyrillians, Archer attempts to communicate - but the Klingons simply swing around and open fire on Enterprise in their equivalent of a warning shot. Although the KLingons initially appear to be unwilling to cooperate, threatening to execute the entire crew of the Xyrillian ship, T'Pol intervenes and notes that the Empire is in Archer's debt, his having rescued Klaang from the Suliban and prevented a Klingon civil war. Grudgingly, and then only after the promise of a look at the Xyrillians' holography, the Klingon captain agrees not to kill everyone.
Tucker boards the Xyrillian ship with the Klingons - who demand some holographic simulators - and Ah'Len tells him that there should be no problem in finding another host for the blastocyst. Although Archer tells the Klingons that he hopes next time they meet, he can be of help to them, the Klingon captain sneers at him that the next time Klingons meet humans, the humans will regret it.
Review
"Unexpected" begins with a nude captain, involves a pregnancy and a pseudo-rape and has dirty Vulcan jokes about not putting your fingers where they don't belong in it. It's easily the poorest Enterprise episode so far, although there are redeeming features in terms of design and execution. That doesn't save the instalment from being ill-advised and Tucker from coming away from it looking like a complete fool, both literally and in terms of his character.
There are serious issues being dramatised here, and I'm not sure if Enterprise, aiming as it is for an 18-25 male demographic, is up to the task. One can tell that this was an episode about pregnancy written by men. That's not to say that men can't talk about pregnancy, of course, but Tucker's panic at his conceiving a child and his horror at the mention of "post-natal responsibilities" and "becoming a working mother" show a character who has no interest in taking on dependants and who wants to avoid familial responsibilities at all costs. This stereotype of men as being panicked by the idea of having to take on added pressures which are clearly too much for their adolescent minds (a notion reinforced by Tucker and Reed's conversation in the mess hall when the chief returns from the alien ship) is both unwelcome and to this viewer a little insulting. God, I'm in that 18-25 age bracket and I thought Tucker was behaving like a schoolboy. Clearly, 12 years in Starfleet hasn't been quite enough.
There are even greater issues at work here, though, which the episode completely skirts around. In fact, not a great deal actually happens in the second half of the show, as the story skips off to its consequence-avoiding, happy-clappy conclusion. Let's consider the facts here. Ah'Len meets Tucker, an alien to her culture who has no idea what the rules of any given situation might be in terms of societal or gender interaction. She seduces him - something which T'Pol readily identifies in her cutting comment, "Maybe the next step would have been to meet her holographic parents" - and then subjects him without his knowledge to a procedure which she is aware might result in his conceieving a child. At the end of the episode she states that she "didn't know this was possible with another species" - so if she didn't know, why did she do it at all? Isn't she rather playing games with Tucker's life here?
In fact, "games" seem to be high on the Xyrillian agenda. Misleadingly, Ah'Len refers to the telepathic granules as "a game we play". Whether she means that between Xyrillians it's merely a game and that the pregnancy was a side effect unique to Tucker, or that it's esome sort of fetish game among her people, or they really do view sex as a game, is completely unclear. If it's the latter, then personally I find that attitude rather cavalier (altthough, of course, that's just my personal opinion). I'd like to think that the writers are making some sort of comment on the generation which views sex as less of a spiritual, loving experience and more of a one-night indulgence in lust, but I seriously doubt it. If Ah'Len thought that there was even a chance that Tucker could fall pregnant, then what we're looking at surely isn't all that far from rape. How is the Ah'Len/Tucker situation any different from the Seska/Chakotay storyline in Voyager, when the Cardassian steals Chakotay's DNA and impregnates herself with it against his will and without his knowledge? There's an inconsistency in morals here which betrays Enterprise's motives and direction.
This story's potential to be read in so many bad ways overshadows anything the rest of the episode has to offer. Tucker's initial enthusiasm for the mission is much more endearing than the casual prejudice towards T'Pol we've seen him display on occasion. Phlox once again is a quietly amusing character and likeable presence, and the contrast of his insatiable nature with T'Pol's lack of a sense of adventure in the opening scenes was well played. The return of the Klingons, so soon after the pilot, is interesting and welcome. The use of holography is disappointing so soon into the series - especially after I commented in my "Broken Bow" review that I was hoping we'd be able to avoid some of the things that had been done to death in Voyager - but it was completely necessary to the storyline and represented a neat filling-in of the gaps between the founding of Starfleet and the time of TNG. Design-wise, the Xyrillian ship and the aliens themselves were nicely realised, although it didn't escape my notice that Ah'Len wore a tight-fitting costume. And the music during a couple of scenes - the boat scene, and the appearance of the Klingons - was right on the money. Panpipes always receive a thumbs-up in my book.
Alas, why notice any of this when there's a crime of a story taking place on top of it? Why wonder what contribution the Xyrillians will make to Federation holotechnology in the future when we can concentrate instead on the affront to sexuality and serious issues of parenthood occurring? Four episodes in, Enterprise has scored a massive own goal. I sincerely hope that this is an example of a series finding its feet, and not an episode indicative of the series' morals as a whole. Because even though I'm 18-25, I won't stand for such blatant offence. |
