Star Trek Ent - Season 4 - Episode 17
Originally Aired: 2005-4-15
Synopsis:
As a gift for negotiating with the Orion Syndicate, Captain Archer receives three Orion Slave Girls. [DVD]
Problems
- Trip calls Kelby a lieutenant, when he actually holds the rank of commander.
Factoids
None
Remarkable Scenes
- T'Pol: "They did report one distinctive feature which bears mentioning." Archer: "Which is?" T'Pol: "A species of flying reptiles, some reportedly over 200 meters long. They're also said to breathe fire. There has been lingering questions over the accuracy of this report." A nice reference to TOS: This Side of Paradise.
- The Orion slave girls putting on a show for Archer and Reed.
- The various crew's reaction to the Orion women.
- Enterprise battling Harrad-Sar's ship.
- Enterprise disabling the grappler on Harrad-Sar's ship.
- T'Pol: "At least we've learned something about the Orions." Reed: "Yeah, the women are in charge." T'Pol: "It proves that even the most disagreeable species have some positive attributes."
My Review
Ent: Bound is a rehash of TOS: Mudd's Women. Here is where Manny Coto's fetish for TOS continuity is starting to get a little over the top. While it was a good idea to give us more information about the Orions, the episode was done in a very immature way. Basically the episode floats around between the men tripping over themselves, the women getting annoyed, and Trip and T'Pol having relationship problems. This episode seemed more to me like a teeny soap opera than an episode of Star Trek. Only the short space battle and the fact that the Orions were aliens made the episode reminiscent of Star Trek. Fortunately, the episode manages to salvage some dignity over similar attempts like Ent: Harbinger (which was actually a better episode, even if less mature) and the dreaded Ent: A Night in Sickbay. For one, the revelation that the Orion women actually control Orion society is an interesting one. This episode also ended the annoying "lets push Trip over to Columbia" mini arc. I had a feeling it was going nowhere... now we know for sure. Finally, the little joke T'Pol made at the end was genuinely funny and a nice homage to TOS when Spock would make similar closing comments at the end of episodes. These details hardly make up for the general immaturity of the episode, but I generally felt somewhere in between liking and hating this episode. It's not very good, but it's not that bad either. Certainly better than most poor episodes of Star Trek.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
"Continuity Coto" didn't write this script -- Mike Sussman did. Coto wrote the story for Part II. Just FYI.
I went into this expecting to dislike it; indeed, I considered skipping the episode on the DVD to get to In a Mirror Darkly.
However, I found it really enjoyable. Look beyond the simple "men are gushing over women" to the sci-fi aspect of the Orion women being able to influence and control them with pheromones. It led to some excellent scenes, particularly the sickbay one - Phlox was great to watch.
I wish they'd played up the disgust of the woman at them a bit more, though - there were a few funny background moments, but nothing much.
The Orion man also had the right blend of menace, sleaze and charm; very well-played.
The joke scene with T'Pol capped it off perfectly, and gave it a real TOS feel.
A pleasant surprise, as far as I'm concerned.