monkee reviews 'The Crossing'
First Impression: YAWN. BORing! Having to sit through this one again was difficult. I kept wanting to switch over to an old 'Friends' episode that was airing. And it wasn't even a really GOOD old 'Friends' episode!
Summary: Enterprise is summarily disabled and swallowed up by an enormous ship. One of many wisps of energy inside enters Trip Tucker, and explains that they are explorers who merely wish to inhabit the bodies of the Enterprise crew temporarily while the consciousness from the host bodies gets to exist as a wisp and travel the galaxy and their own past memories. Archer wants nothing to do with it, though, so the wisp reluctantly exits Trip and lets Enterprise go. Not really, though. The wisp returns with friends, and they begin inhabiting many crewmembers, and exhibiting increasingly ominous behavior. T'Pol allows herself to be temporarily 'taken,' and discovers that the wisps ship is failing, and they need corporeal bodies if they're to survive. They plan to take the crew, and even that won't be enough, so they'll be preying on more ships. A plan is devised and executed, the wisps and their ship are destroyed, and all's well in the end.
Formulaic: An episode like this can go one of three ways.
All three options have already been done to death! So the only suspense we have left is to see which one is ultimately chosen. In this case, the ominous music tells us early on that it's going to end up being number three. Yes, the wisps tried to be persuasive and insidious, but the music was a dead give-away. I say again, YAWN.
Correction: No, wait. There is another option. The wisps can agree to go back, but then the original crewmembers won't want to return to their bodies. But even THAT'S been done! Still, it might have been interesting to see exactly what was happening to them in wisp-space. I, for one, would love to have seen Lisa, Trip's ex-girlfriend.
Question: Phlox and Archer trick the wisps into leaving their hosts by poisoning the bodies, planning to revive them later. But how did the crew know when to return? The timing was pretty critical, there. Oh, well. It was such a boring episode; it's hard to get too worked up over inconsistencies.
Kewl FX: Without much of a story to entertain us, our attention turns to the superficial. The wisps were fun to look at, and I liked watching Enterprise get swallowed up by an enormous, egg-shaped ship. Moving on.
Bright Spots: When characters are taken over by other entities, it's always at least a little fun to see what happens. The Hoshi-wisp, for example, ROCKED! I'd love to see the real Hoshi act like this sometime. She was creepy and assertive, and she kicked butt (Phlox's, to be precise)! And I loved it when the Trip-wisp tried out the word 'wisp.' How adorable was Trinneer? "Wisp. Wisssssp. Wisssssppp." Hee. The Reed-wisp's behavior didn't do much for me, though. He leered at female crewmembers, then came on to T'Pol, who was unimpressed. And who can blame her? "Would you mind taking off your clothing? I'd like to learn more about your anatomy." Why, you silver-tongued devil, you!
The Catwalk, Revisited: Mayweather, fleeing from a wisp, discovers that they don't like the catwalk, so Archer moves all of the unaffected crewmembers into it. This was a nice bit of continuity, plus – heck, they might as well use the set again!
The Hapless Denobulan: The wisps don't seem to be compatible with Denobulan physiology, so Phlox doesn't have to hide out in the catwalk. Consequently, a lot of the dirty work falls to him. The poor guy gets beat up TWICE – once by the Hoshi-wisp, and once by the Trip-wisp. Even the panels in environmental control have it in for him! His scenes would have been better, though, if they'd contained more of his cutting wit, and MUCH less tech talk. The technobabble in this episode was particularly tedious. Did we really need to see Archer and T'Pol talk him through a technical procedure for five full minutes? Yeesh.
Character Interactions: I liked the Trip-wisp's scene with Archer and T'Pol in the mess hall, and I enjoyed watching the Hoshi-wisp interact with both Archer and poor Phlox. Archer and T'Pol had some good scenes, Mayweather had some lines and action for a change, and it was great to see Rostov again, as himself AND as Rostov-wisp. "I don't know how to do that. This is a very complicated engine." Ha. No wonder their ship is failing!
Archer Watch: Well, at least Archer was a good captain this week. He was wary of the wisps from the get-go, displaying his command instincts, and did everything right to get his ship back, with ALL hands.
'shipper Watch: Reed won't remember his improper behavior, as a wisp, towards T'Pol, or any of the other crew-women he sexually harassed, which can only be a good thing for everyone. He'll probably wonder why he can't get a date, though! Archer's concern for T'Pol's safety when she wanted to expose her mind to the wisps seemed to go a bit beyond the professional. It was kinda sweet, I guess. Captains really shouldn't fraternize with their first officers, though. Unless they're stranded in the delta quadrant a lifetime away from home...
Have I said that before? Sorry. <g>
Best Lines:
"It's not fair! I have to find Josh, so he can…start falling in love with me!" (Rachel, to Monica and Phoebe. Oops. Sorry. Wrong show.)
"Look out there! Do you see any stars? Our engines are off-line...our weapons...seems kind of hostile to me." "I suppose it depends on how you look at it." (Archer and T'Pol)
"Have you ever tried this?" "It's called bread. You've never eaten it before?" "I've never eaten anything before." (Trip-wisp and Archer)
"Wisp. Interesting word. Wisssp. Wisssppp. Yes, I suppose you could call us that. Wisp." (Trip-wisp, to Archer)
"Something smells funny." (Archer, to T'Pol)
"It's YOU, you idiot. I keep telling you..." (T'Pol, to Archer. Just not out loud.)
"If we are to engage in mating, it would be easier if you disrobed." (smooth-talking Reed-wisp, to T'Pol)
"We polarized the hull plating as soon as we saw that ship. Obviously it didn't do any good. What's to stop them from taking us all?" (Hoshi, to Archer)
"We're kind of fond of our substance. We're not very anxious to give it up." (Archer, to Hoshi-wisp)
"Those who preceded you are safe and happy. You'll understand." (Hoshi-wisp, to Archer)
Rating: 6/10. Right down there with the worst of them on the monkee scale. Wow me or outrage me. Just please don't bore me to tears!
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