656. Carbon CreekFORMULA: 11:59 + The City on the Edge of Forever + First Contact
WHY WE LIKE IT: Hugo-nominated.
WHY WE DON'T: Too soon to get off the main story.
REVIEW: Though it's a little hard to argue with a Hugo nomination, it's way too soon in the series to stray off the main path with a story of Vulcans stranded in the 1950s. There's nothing too wrong with the tale T'Pol tells per se - if it were an episode of the Outer Limits, for example - but it is filled with characters we've only just met, half of them impassible (not to uncharitably say "dull"). So I was really looking to see what the episode said about T'Pol herself.
The implication is that T'Pol has been able to live with humans this long in part thanks to an inherent, but not admitted, fascination with them. In addition to the visit to the jazz club revealed in Fusion, we have her great-grandmother's story, which seems to have trickled down to her. Another childhood hero? No doubt. It's all very sensible until T'Pol takes an old purse out of a drawer, a sentimental gesture that makes no sense in the Vulcan context. And why leave Archer and Trip under the impression the story was a put-on?
The story of Vulcans' first unofficial contact with humanity has a couple things going for it. For one thing, it looks great. 1950s small town America looks authentic, Sputnik in a nice touch, and I kinda like the Vulcans' leather duds too. The anthropological observations that allow the Vulcans to quickly assess and understand their temporary abode is also well done and Mestral quickly emerges as the risk taker of the group, and soon, a lover of humanity.
What isn't so well done is the character of T'Pol's great-granny, T'mir. Though lighter in complexion, she's the same kind of hardass her great-granddaughter will become, and her sudden compassion both for the character of Jack and Mestral himself comes seemingly out of nowhere. At no point does she betray the potential for contaminating human culture with velcro for the sake of a young man's college ambitions. Archer and Trip are perhaps right to question this tale of a wandering Vulcan folk hero.
LESSON: Vulcan sitcoms must be the most boring thing ever. Worse even than NBC's TGIF line-up.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: A perfectly fine episode of some anthology series, but in the context of Star Trek, it doesn't do so well by the Vulcans, nor is it relevant to Enterprise's story.
Comments
This episode provides yet another facet to the Vulcans relationship with humans, which is a constant theme throughout the series.
I do agree about T'Mir's motivations seemingly coming from nowhere. It's not really believable that a discussion about Buddhist monks would spur her on to give the gift of Velcro (in real life, invented by a guy named Mestral).