Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | More
Enterprise has had a tough run lately. The episodes from “A Night in Sickbay” to “The Seventh” have all been extremely weak. This week, “The Communicator” steps up to the plate and… hits a weak grounder back to the pitcher. The Prime Directive is, once again, the unnamed focal point of the series. Reed accidentally leaves his communicator behind while on a mission to study a pre-warp race. He and Archer return to the planet and are captured by the military who think they’re undercover spies for their enemy, “The Alliance”. T’Pol and Trip must figure out how to save the day, armed with only a Suliban ship and an invisible… arm.
The Wikipedia plot summary for “The Communicator”:
After returning from an exploratory away mission to a pre-warp society on the brink of war, Lieutenant Reed is unable to locate his communicator. A search of the shuttle bay area proves fruitless, so Captain Archer and Reed return to the planet to try to find it, so as not to leave a contaminant within the culture. Unfortunately, they then manage to walk into a trap set by the local military, who have already found the communicator. With their capture, the local commander, General Gosis, also possesses ‘contaminant’ scanners and a phase pistol as well.
Becoming desperate to locate the away team, Sub-Commander T’Pol‘s attempt at contact actually divulges the Captain’s identity, and Archer and Reed are physically interrogated. After a mild beating, it is discovered that not only are Archer’s and Reed’s forehead morphology not the same as the locals’, but they also have iron-based red blood, and vastly different internal organs. In response, Archer and Reed improvise a story about being genetically-altered prototypes (with prototype equipment) from an opposing faction known as the Alliance. While allaying suspicion that they are aliens, the military commander decides to hang Archer and Reed so that autopsies can be performed to discover more about their “enhancements”.
Meanwhile, on Enterprise, a rescue mission is planned by Commander Tucker using the captured Suliban cell ship (as seen in episode “Broken Bow“), but problems arise with its cloak. In their cell, Archer and Reed contemplate the irony of their adherence to an early version of Starfleet’s Prime Directive. As they are about to be hanged, the cloaked Suliban ship with T’Pol, Tucker, and Ensign Mayweather arrives, enabling Archer and Reed to escape with their shuttle-pod and captured technology. Later, back on Enterprise, Archer reflects on the consequences of their actions even in the absence of foreign artifacts, and T’Pol is impressed that Archer was willing to sacrifice himself in the line of duty.
In this episode of the podcast, Wes and Clay discuss “The Communicator” and how it’s as if someone took seven random episodes of Enterprise and stuck them in a blender. Plus! The guys talk about Reed’s masochistic streak, Archer making a bad situation worse, and the frustratingly similar cultures that Enterprise keeps encountering.