Star Trek: Enterprise — 3x12 — Chosen Realm

Aired 2004-01-14

SpaceOpera.com rating:5

Average reader rating:4.29

Synopsis

Religious zealots hijack Enterprise to use it as a weapon against the enemies of their faith.

Remarkable scenes

D'Jamat and T'Pol having a science vs. religion debate.
The human bomb demonstration.
Archer faking out D'Jamat with the transporter.
Archer: "These people you're fighting, what makes them heretics?" Yarrick: "We believe the Makers created the Chosen Realm in nine days. They believe it took ten." Archer: "For that you've been at war for over a century?"
Reed throwing his gun at one of the aliens when it ran out of power.
Archer: "Go ahead, try to blow yourself up. I'll wait."
Archer showing D'Jamat the aftermath of his war.

Review

This episode is a rehash of TOS: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. While a decent episode to do over again, I should point out that this is yet another filler episode with nothing to do with the Xindi. In fact, this episode erases progress (literally) made in Ent: Anomaly by having D'Jamat delete data regarding the spheres from Enterprise's computer. This annoys me greatly. Some other complaints, this episodes focuses entirely on Archer. Phlox and Reed get a good showing, but T'Pol, Trip, Hoshi, and Travis all get severely neglected. Fortunately, the episode manages to do fairly well for itself. The science vs. religion controversy is made very clear at the beginning of the episode and then the episode spends most of its time pointing out the hypocrisy and stupidity of religion as it proceeded further. If there was still any doubt that Star Trek was anti religion, that doubt is gone now. The demonstration culminates nicely at the end when Archer shows D'Jamat the result of his religious zealotry. I wonder if even that is enough to make him change. Furthermore, I wonder if Archer just left the Triannons on their planet after the episode ended.

7 reader comments

I'd say all doubt that Star Trek was anti-religion was gone after TNG "who watches the watchers", but this episode does certainly build on that. It's far less subtle, though.
by Pete Miller | 07/29/2007 at 3:20 am

Perhaps Star Trek is anti-religion in the sense that none of the human characters in any of the series professed a faith or participated in religious services, however I think the main point of this episode is that a religion based on fear, violence and a disregard of scientific fact is no religion at all.
by Kblur9 | 11/08/2007 at 4:33 pm

I guess you could call it a rehash of Last Battlefield, I think update or tribute is more appropriate. This is the kind of thing I watch Star Trek for, a way of externalizing the problems that plague us in the present. I think Roddenberry would have enjoyed this episode a lot. Did diverting from the Xindi plot affect your score that much? It's one of the weakest war stories ever done in Star Trek anyways so I looked past it.
by szycag | 05/25/2009 at 2:17 pm

it's most unlikely that D'Jamat after seeing Archer's personal logs still don't know what transporter is.
and one other thing. why didn't the deleted files about spheres go to the recycle bin, and if they did, the data could have been restored
by fan ive | 12/28/2009 at 10:54 am

Indeed, many episodes of Star Trek seem to express an anti-religious attitude of the writers and directors. I think they mostly attack irrationalism, religious intolerance and tyranny, which is close to racism and political suppression. However, in several DS9 episodes the Bajoran religion is presented largely as positive, depending on the individual believers. Of course, there were negative examples such as the bigot Kai Winn, but the majority of Bajoran religious people were sympathetic. The most interesting feature of Bajoran religion was that it was based on facts, which had "scientific" explanations, like the orbs and wormhole aliens existing outside of time. This sort of religion is completey different to D´Jamats self-made religious dogmas, which only served his greed for power.
by peterwolf | 09/12/2012 at 6:45 pm

Sure, we look at these foolish zealots with pity and disdain now, but just wait until you die and it turns out the Triannon are right about everything.
<horrible car accident, no survivors, fade to black, then fade to white>
You: "Woah, is this what Heaven looks like?" The Makers: "Welcome to the afterlife. Did you cherish the spheres? Did you protect the Chosen Realm?" You: "Huh? Wait, what?" The Makers (growing ominous): "But most importantly: how many days do you believe it took us to create the Chosen Realm?"
by Dstyle | 10/13/2015 at 8:27 pm

It is such a bummer that Trek keeps introducing new species which we never hear of again, because it would have been interesting to see how these guys will handle what happens at the end of Season 3.
by bodner | 01/27/2020 at 10:46 am