Star Trek: Enterprise — 3x03 — Extinction

Aired 2003-09-24

SpaceOpera.com rating:3

Average reader rating:3.04

Synopsis

On a mission to investigate an abandoned Xindi vessel on a jungle planet, Archer, Reed and Hoshi succumb to a virus that mutates them into a primal life form.

Remarkable scenes

The crew transforming into the Loque'eque
Archer dreaming of the Loque'eque city.
Archer, Hoshi, and T'Pol discovering the destroyed Loque'eque city.
Archer: "This was created as a final effort to preserve a civilization of people. That species we became, they cease to exist the moment this virus is gone."

Review

What we have here is the first filler of the new season. Granted Archer justifies this deviation by saying that he's discovered evidence that a Xindi ship visited this planet, which I liked, I personally feel we just didn't need to sit through an hour of the crew acting like alien neanderthals, complete with Alpha Male Archer beating up Reed, especially when it's been done better by episodes like TNG: Identity Crisis. It's remarkable how much Archer's opinions have changed since Ent: Dear Doctor. Phlox refused to cure the Valakians, for "natural selection" reasons and uses the same logic to justify the eradication of the Loque'eque. In this case, the Loque'eque were already extinct long before this episode. This virus that was created is totally unethical and never should have been created. In this respect, I agree with Phlox. Yet Archer does an about face on his morals and orders it preserved. Moral strike two Archer! I wonder why the writers have a fetish for bad ethics? DS9 did some morally shady stuff, but this is getting downright ridiculous.

2 reader comments

I thought when I first saw this episode that Archer might be saving that virus to use as a bio-weapon against the Xindi. Of course he knew he'd never get Phlox to cooperate so he just lies to him and makes up a reason to preserve the virus, one that sounds noble instead of calculating. If the writers had this in mind, I wish they would have brought it up at some future time as a desperation option… it could have been done in one of the "reset button" episodes that came later, such as the one with the duplicate past/future NX-01 or the one when Archer loses his memory due to parasites and Earth is destroyed, but then it all didn't happen… no harm in using the viruse since that timeline didn't "really" exist anyway.
by TashaFan | 10/15/2008 at 1:06 am

I laughed out loud when the alien captain said:
"Your vessel is under quarantine. Prepare to be boarded"
Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose? Then the captain has a whole scene with Phlox where he details how easily the virus spread and the horrible consequences. The whole time they're standing in sickbay with no protective equipment.
PHLOX: The Decon chamber's sealed. I assure you there's no danger. TRET: You wouldn't be so confident if you knew how easily this virus can spread. It infected tens of millions of people on my world. They all had to be destroyed.
To top it off, he goes back to his ship!!
Good stuff. Reminds me of all those high energy weapons tests from TNG that were done in engineering right next to the warp core, or with Data standing directly behind a phaser target while it's firing.
by Nick Counts | 06/04/2017 at 2:15 am