[ENT] "Bound"
Gisele La Roche
Detailed synopsis to be posted later at: http://www.ds9movie.trekster.us
and http://www.starfleetcom.net
Story by: Manny Coto
Teleplay by: Manny Coto
Directed by: Allan Kroeker
There are two ways to take this episode, seriously or as a light-hearted
romp. Personally, I prefer the latter and to think of it as simple fluff
since the sexism in the piece would be a downer to dwell on. I will however
mention that the sexism works both ways, which is the only good thing about
it, if that is a good thing in itself. What I mean is at least the men are
as dumb as the women save for T'Pol, Trip, and the Orion women although even
Trip and T'Pol aren't up to par. Of course, this is supposed to be
acceptable as the mighty pheromones stupefy the men and give the women
headaches, which for some reason makes them unable to do anything about the
situation at hand. It's hard not to dwell on this but I'll try since
viewing it as a sex-farce makes it more palatable although to be honest, it
doesn't really work as a comedy either.
Cyia Batten (DS9's Ziyal) does a good job as the seductive Orion slave girl
Navaar as does Crystal Allen as D'Nesh. Menina Fortunato as Maras is
virtually just set decoration unfortunately. I found the acting forced at
times as when Mayweather and Reed are exercising in the gym. I did enjoy
the scene however as both men are attractive and I have wanted to see a gym
scene with all the muscles and sweat for some time on Trek.well, let's just
leave it at that. The scene at the end where T'Pol makes a joke seemed
forced as well unfortunately and didn't work as well as it should have.
What I enjoyed most were the moments between Trip and T'Pol. Yes, I am a
romantic and I did like the teasing he gave her at the end. I like that she
still wants him and vice versa; I liked that she kissed him. In "Harbinger"
, T'Pol told Trip that their having sex was simply an experiment. I guess
he gets to have some payback here. He tells her at the end: "I realized
this is where I was meant to be and that uh.this thing between us isn't that
big of a deal". She seems nonplussed and says: "Agreed" but you know she's
annoyed. I suppose some feminists, of whom I am one, would not have liked
that scene, but I did nonetheless. There were more serious situations in
this episode that I'm sure the feminists out there are angry about.
Some things stood out as really nonsensical however as when the Orion women
are in the Brig and they are left guarded by male MACOs. As it was already
established that the men were vulnerable to the women's pheromones, they
couldn't find female MACOs to guard them? Moreover, once this was
discovered, why wasn't Phlox trying to find an antidote? In addition, why
didn't T'Pol bring up the subject and why didn't she mention how the women
were still scantily dressed later on after Archer had said he'd see to it
since she thought this was the problem?
Another thing that bothered me is how T'Pol didn't question Archer more
about the deal that Harrad-Sar (William Lucking) wanted to make. Would
Starfleet really want to have talks with the Orion Syndicate, a species that
is criminal and has slaves? The Orion females had already compromised
Archer at this point so that would explain his lack of judgment but T'Pol
wasn't.
We find out that it is the Orion men who are the slaves, which again doesn't
make too much sense since they are the ones selling Orion slave girls. Then
again, maybe the women want to be sold for a purpose, to fleece their owners
and get them to release them afterwards? It would have been interesting to
find this out and may have added some substance to the episode. Knowing
more about the Orions would have given the episode some merit. However, I'm
being too serious here which I didn't want to be.
There are some nice references to TOS that shouldn't be ignored. The Gorn
are mentioned; Berengaria is also from the TOS episode "This side of
Paradise", where Spock mentions having seen a dragon there; Mayweather talks
of the Deltans. We saw one in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
There were some humorous scenes like the one where T'Pol tells Trip he is
bonded to her psychically and that is why he is immune like she is to the
pheromones. He replies to her: "I don't know whether to be relieved or
really worried." The expression on his face and the way he delivers the
line is priceless. Another is where T'Pol tells Archer that the Orion women
are causing disruptions on the ship and that it may be because of the way
they are dressed. She tells him: "It's primarily their attire." He
chortles: "Or lack of it". When he sees her reaction, he quickly makes a
serious face. It's a pity the scene where T'Pol makes a joke does not come
off right. That should have worked well if it had been given the right
timing and lines, which might have saved the episode. It would have
established it as a comedy and would have left the viewer with something
pleasant to remember. Well, I tried not to be too serious and find
something good to say about this episode and I did find some but in the end,
this episode is just empty fluff.
I give this one a C-.
Gisele La Roche
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