Star Trek: Enterprise — 2x15 — Cease Fire

Aired 2003-02-12

SpaceOpera.com rating:7

Average reader rating:4.89

Synopsis

When a military conflict erupts between the Vulcans and Andorians, Archer is brought in as negotiator.

Remarkable scenes

Archer: "Maybe we're not out here just to scan comets and meet new species. Maybe we're out here to prove that humanity is ready to join a much larger community."
Archer: "No offense but my ears are less likely to draw fire than yours." Soval: "What is their fixation with our ears?" T'Pol: "I believe they're envious."
Soval laying into T'Pol for not having left Enterprise.
Soval getting shot.
Archer wins a fight! Against a girl...
Trip placing Enterprise between the Vulcan and Andorian ships.
Shran: "Join me in a drink. To our mutual dissatisfaction."
Shran: "I think he likes you, pinkskin." Archer: "I wouldn't go that far."

Review

Easily the best of the Andorian episodes so far, Ent: The Andorian Incident and Ent: Shadows of P'Jem both had annoying qualities to them which sort of wrecked the chance for some insight into the most canonically neglected Andorian culture. This episode doesn't repeat that mistake. We're given some fascinating trivia regarding the history of the Vulcan and Andorian people. Apparently, the Andorians colonized a planet in the Vulcan planetary system! I rather liked T'Pol's comment about what Earth would do if the Klingon Empire annexed Pluto. ;) It was a good point. And a hard conflict to resolve. I was glad to see that this episode made progress, but didn't totally resolve the conflict. Logically such a conflict should take time to resolve. The episode had a shot at being profound, but the writers decided to waste a great deal of time on the worthless hostage situation. Why does every Andorian episode have to have Vulcans and Andorians shooting at each other? Fortunately it was toned down this time, but not in time to do some real laying down the groundwork for the Federation. Maybe in another episode. Another nice quality is that Shran is becoming more and more a likable character. After only three episodes, I'm already starting to like him just as much as Weyoun from DS9, who was also played by Jeffrey Combs. The actor is just fantastic at playing characters that have a dark side. Finally, Trip placing Enterprise between the Vulcan and Andorian ships before they went to battle was just perfect practically and symbolically.

5 reader comments

I find it strange that a treaty between the Vuncans and the Andorians should be known by an Earth calendar year.
Also, why would Andorians refer to humans as "pink skins" when we clearly come in many varieties? If any one color should strike them as the most common, it would be brown, wouldn't it? The vast majority of us are brown and even the races we call "white" or "black" tend to still be some pale or dark shade of brown. I would think this commonality is what an alien would pick up on, since he wouldn't share our historical baggage with regard to intra-species racial differences.
by Jadzia Guinan Smith | 09/02/2010 at 1:10 am

"Pink skins" makes perfect sense. Shran's first humans were the very pink Archer, Tucker and Reed. Maybe if he had first encountered Sisko, Bashir and Geordi?
by Tallifer | 05/14/2011 at 9:04 am

This episode was pretty predictable and unimaginative. The only thing that saved it was Shran, who is indeed turning into a pretty great character… perhaps on the darker side of the moral spectrum, but by no means some cartoonish, one-dimensional villain…
by -_Name_- | 07/04/2013 at 4:58 pm

I'm with Jadzia on this one: I cringed every time the Andorians referred to humans as "the pink skins." Okay, okay, Star Trek, I get it: "white" is the default color of humans and anything else is just a variation on whiteness. Very enlightened writing, Enterprise writers!
by Dstyle | 09/18/2015 at 5:52 pm

I must say I found it pretty jarring that the only Andorian woman we see in the entire episode is the one who ends up betraying Shran and, in extension, the peace talks. Even more so since she is dressed up with focus on sexual attractiveness (the cleavage I could have lived with, but high heeled shoes on a battle field?), and being leader's confidante. Seems to me the message is: Never trust an attractive woman in a position of power, for she will use her womanly wiles to manipulate and scheme.
by Urdomen | 03/04/2022 at 11:31 pm