Star Trek: Enterprise — 4x08 — Awakening

Aired 2004-11-26

SpaceOpera.com rating:8

Average reader rating:6.8

Synopsis

Archer and T'Pol encounter the Syrrannites, a radical group hiding in the Vulcan desert, while the NX-01 crew contends with Vulcan power ploys.

Remarkable scenes

Archer having visions of Surak and the Vulcan wars.
T'Pau mind melding with Archer.
Soval: "I lived on Earth for more than 30 years, Commander. In that time I developed an affinity for your world and its people." Trip: "You did a pretty good job of hiding it." Soval: "Thank you."
Archer regarding T'Pol's "logical" explanation of what Archer is going through: "So I'm suffering from a mind meld hangover?"
Archer undergoing the katra transfer ritual.
Surak: "Logic has not won this day. But this day won't last forever."
Surak instructing Archer to find the Kir'Shara.
The Enterprise shuttle battling the Vulcan shuttles.
Archer upon waking up after the katra ceremony: "I feel like I just pulled by head out of a plasma relay."
Trip: "How many warning shots to Vulcans usually fire?" Soval: "None."
Vulcan ships attacking Enterprise.
Vulcan ships destroying the sanctuary.
Soval revealing that Vulcan is planning to attack Andoria.

Review

Another excellent episode picking up where the last one left off. It's revealed in this episode exactly what the purpose of V'Las' behavior is. He wants to attack Andoria because he believes they're building a weapon of mass destruction based on Xindi technology, a good connection with Ent: Proving Ground. V'Las and his followers have been suppressing the Syrranites for years because of their pacifist beliefs. V'Las wants to wipe them out because having a group of pacifists around doesn't help when you're preparing to go to war. You can see that V'Las is losing control of the situation as he begins to rely on aggressive tactics more and more, culminating to when he attacked Enterprise and threatened to destroy it. Even some of his cabinet are beginning to question his actions. The episode ends with a nice plot twist in the end with Trip ordering Enterprise to Andoria to warn them of the preemptive strike, leaving Archer and T'Pol back on Vulcan.

1 reader comment

One of the things that has always bothered me with Vulcans on this show is how transparently emotional they are. They pay lip service to logic and the suppression of emotions, then they act illogically and emotionally all the damn time. Those tempers flare so easily! So quick to show impatience! I have to ignore it to just enjoy the show, but some times it's harder than other times. I mean, I get it: it's hard to have effective dramatic tension when all the characters are speaking about serious matters with seemingly polite, casual disinterest, but that's how Vulcans need to play it. I'm starting to think playing a Vulcan is far more difficult than most actors realize, and we were all just spoiled by the great performances of Leonard Nimoy. The emotional Vulcan behavior was really starting to bother me during this story line, but I think this episode might perhaps be trying to provide an explanation for that, what with the "getting away from the teachings of Surak" and all. I guess we'll see how it all plays out, eh?
by Dstyle | 10/28/2015 at 2:14 pm