Star Trek Ent - Season 4 - Episode 06
Star Trek Ent - 4x06 - The Augments
Originally Aired: 2004-11-12
Synopsis:
In defiance of their "father," Arik Soong's Augments devise a heinous plot against the Klingons which will surely lead to interstellar war. [DVD]
Problems
- I would imagine that by now that T'Pol is eating her words about Klingons not using escape pods.
Factoids
- The current Klingon Chancellor is named M'Rek. He likes to head into the Borderland every so often to enjoy the company of Orion slave girls.
Remarkable Scenes
- Archer's decompression beam out trick. I was surprised by the realism.
- T'Pol: "I wasn't aware the doctor discharged you." Archer: "He didn't. What's our status?" T'Pol: "Holding position near the Klingon border." Archer takes his seat. Poor Phlox... always getting ignored. ;)
- Enterprise engaging the Klingon bird of prey.
- Soong dumping the Denobulan shuttle in into the gas giant.
- Archer pretending to be a Klingon captain, bluffing to the other Klingon captain.
- Soong running back to Archer in a Klingon escape pod.
- Archer: "Superior ability breeds superior ambition. One of their creators wrote that. He was murdered by an augment."
- Soong: "How long can we sustain warp 5?" Trip: "As long as the captain wants it. Or until we blow up, whichever comes first."
- Enterprise using the grappler as a weapon on the D5 battle cruiser's warp nacelle.
- Enterprise destroying the bio weapon and engaging the Klingon battle cruiser.
- Soong: "I've been thinking... perfecting humanity may not be possible. Cybernetics... artificial life forms. " Archer: "Goodbye, doctor." Soong: "I doubt I'll finish the work myself. Might take a generation or two."
My Review
This is the best of the three augments episodes. Firstly, there was marvelous continuity. Soong wanted to take his "children" into the Briar patch, which was the setting of Star Trek IX: Insurrection. The scene when Malik dumps the Denobulan doctor and her shuttle into the gas giant is a nice parallel to Eddington's similar move in DS9: For the Uniform. The scene when Malik crawls around on the floor of the bird of prey is also a cute reference to a Star Trek film, in this case Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in which Khan did the same thing on the Reliant. Finally, Arik Soong at the end of this episode declares that he's now going to study cybernetics and that his work will take generations to complete. Maybe it was tacky, but I liked it. Unfortunately, the episode like the previous two fell short of being profound. Here it was a real missed opportunity. The biggest problem for which I subtract one point is that Malik never succeeded in releasing the bio weapon against the Klingons. Oh how perfect it would have been if he had! Now we'd have a legitimate reason for the Klingons to go to war with Earth. Not that murder and attempted murder of loads of Klingons doesn't work, but it would have been much more believable if Malik had been successful. Additionally, the scene when Malik returns from the dead to try and kill Soong was just petty, forced, and totally contrived. For that I subtract another point. But overall, the arc was pretty nice and it was thoroughly enjoyable.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
Agreed on all counts. Definitely a missed opportunity that they successfully shot down the bio weapon. I was really hoping they'd miss. Also, the return of Malik (who seems to have recovered from his burns) was totally uncalled for.
I didn't know what to think about this whole eugenics arc at first. I was worried it was going to be another Xindi thing and encompass the whole season. I'm glad to see it was wrapped up. It got pretty interesting by the end, but I'm glad it's over. I'm not so sure Enterprise has handled serialization very well. I think they've done far better at stand alone episodes.
That being said, I enjoyed this episode. I find it quite interesting how they cast augments here and in Wrath of Khan. All with that similar bone structure and facial type. It definitely gives them a unique look.. sort of like they all escaped from the set of Logan's Run. Also, Brent Spiner was a treat as always.
There is one lingering thing that is bugging me a little in this arc.. It really seemed like the whole point (the entire inside joke, reference, AND retcon) of Data playing someone named Soong was a nod at the parallel between Khan Noonien Singh and Doctor Noonien Soong. But in the end, he actually had nothing at all to do with Khan and was just a descendant of Doctor Soong. I found this extremely bizarre. They seemed to have everything set up for some kind of reveal (like Khan was named after the first Dr Soong or something), but then it turns out the similarity is just a big coincidence after all? And his grandson then gets named after Khan for some reason? Really weird.