Enterprise Scores First Major Hit with "Unexpected"

Written By: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
Directed By: Mike Vejar

Pre-Game Show

Staying away from spoilers really makes the episodes so much more fun. I figured the "Unexpected" of the title would be a disease or spy plans. Ha! Little did I know I was in for a treat...(two, if you count the shower sequence).

Kickoff (skip this part to avoid spoilers)

Archer is taking a shower with a strategically placed, somewhat minimalist metal door. The drops of moisture glide over his rippling muscles, highlighting the dark curls of his chest hair and falling reluctantly away from his strong legs. Suddenly, the water isn't falling, and Archer is floating. Glimpses of hip and thigh taunt us unmercifully as he reaches for the com and finds out the gravity is acting up. For some reason, Archer seems to think this is a bad thing. He also doesn't brace himself for the gravity's return.

THUNK! (and nice peek-a-boo shot)

Other technology is acting up all over the ship, and after a bit of investigation, Archer and crew discover the problems are being caused by a cloaked ship (though they don't call it that) lying inside Enterprise's warp drag and using the plasma exhaust to replenish their teraphasic coils so they can share their warp field. A little fiddling with the communications, and we find out the Xyrillians are quite friendly and helpless. They're also having engine trouble.

It's Tucker to the rescue, with his tool case and good 'ol boy attitude. Turns out, though, that the atmosphere on the other ship is quite different, and he has to spend an extremely uncomfortable three hours in a decompression chamber. Frazzled, he steps into the alien ship and refuses, for some reason, to take the nap the Xyrillians say he needs to take. He freaks out so much that he asks to return to Enterprise, but Archer orders him to nap.

And, indeed, he feels all better when he wakes up. Ah'Len, a female Xyrillian, is there, making all smiles and offering him water cubes. (The high pressure doesn't allow the water to liquefy fully -- cool!)

In fact, the entire ship is cool. Their food grows on the walls, and everything is funky lights and scenery. The engine room is full of huge Slinkies and steaming tubes.

Anyway, Ah'Len feeds him some water and they discover that contact between them results in little electric arcs that obviously feel reaaaallly good for both of them. Eventually, however, they have enough eye contact and go back to the engine room. Tucker proves himself a wiz, and then there's one of those break times while they wait for something to come up to something, so Ah'Len takes him to see...

THE HOLODECK!

AAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Run for your lives!

Fortunately, it's just used as a pretty room. We see a depiction of Thera, her home world, and then they sit in a boat.

Then...Ah'Len wants to play a little game. She gets this box of crystals and puts her hands in it. Then she has Tucker stick his hands in there, and they read each others' minds a little. It's fun, and they're flirting like crazy, but then the engine room calls, and the coils are going down stairs, alone or in pairs, and making a Slinkity sound, so they have to leave the holodeck and get back to work.

Next thing we know, Tucker's done with the work and comes back to Enterprise after three days. On the bridge, they all say good-bye to the friendly aliens. T'Pol says something snotty, and Enterprise resumes course.

Oh, isn't it nice that nothing bad happened? Tra la la.

Tucker's getting some food and telling Reed about his time with the aliens. He enthuses about the holodeck (not knowing, of course, its true nature as a ferocious deathtrap and horribly overused plot device) and keeps shoveling food into his mouth. He also talks about Ah'Len. Reed smirks, "Interesting scales..."

Tucker agrees she was sensual, then both of them notice an odd bump inside Tucker's wrist. He stops by Sickbay to see Dr. Phlox, who promptly announces that he's got a nipple growing there. It seems Tucker is pregnant.

T'Pol and Archer join them, and Phlox explains that although the child is 100% Xyrillian, Tucker is playing host to the embryo. While Tucker writhes in embarrassment over the whole thing, everyone gives him a hard time for having sex with an alien. Tucker swears all he did was...that box!

Phlox tells him he can't extract the embryo without knowing more about the baby, and Archer decides the only thing to do is find the Xyrillian ship. Tucker asks them to keep it a secret for the time being. However, the one who's worst at keeping the secret is Tucker himself, as he gets all pissy about dangerous elevators, eats like a pig, grows another nipple and start to, er, "show." At dinner with Archer and Phlox, it's all he can do not to whimper as the others talk about the real possibility that he may have to deliver and then care for the baby. A steward even gets to overhear Phlox' remark about how Tucker "may very well be putting those nipples to work before [he] know[s] it."

News comes, however, that they've found the Xyrillian ship hiding in the warp wake of a Klingon battle cruiser (looks just like a TOS ship, too). Unfortunately, when Tucker tells the Klingons about the little alien ship, they want to destroy it. Archer tries to reason, with no success. T'Pol, however, points out that this is the same Captain Archer who helped the Klingon High Council. The Klingons are in Archer's debt.

The Klingons don't like that, but they do stop firing for a moment.

Archer suggests that if they help the Xyrillians, the friendly aliens might share their holographic technology with them. He also asks that they take Tucker with him.

"He talks too much," snarls Captain Vorok. "I'll bring a security team."

Archer explains Tucker has unfinished business.

The Klingons aren't interested.

Archer explains there's a pregnancy involved.

"I thought you said you were there to fix their warp reactor, not to impregnate one of their females," says Vorok. "This should be a lesson to you. Forget it happened."

Finally, poor Tucker has to show them his impregnated torso. The Klingons have a good laugh.

So, three Klingons take Tucker with them to the Xyrillian vessel. While the Klingons go to check out the holodeck, Ah'Len apologizes for impregnating Tucker and says they can transfer the baby girl to another host.

Standing in the holodeck, looking out over a simulation of Kronos, Vorok points and explains, "I can see my house from here!"

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The Klingons agree to let the Xyrillians continue on their way home (via impulse power) in exchange for the technology. Tucker tries to be all friendly as they say good-bye, and announces, "I hope the next time we meet, we can be of some help to you," having no idea that in Klingon, this means, "You're all a bunch of sissy boys."

Vorok snarls at him appropriately, and Enterprise sails on with Tucker left to enjoy his knowledge of being an historical precedent.

Post-Game Show

Wasn't I saying something in my last review about how difficult it is to give us something really new on Enterprise? Well, I've read fanfic with male pregnancies (and they're always gawd-awful), but we've certainly never gotten it on the show before.

While I've liked all the episodes so far, this one had me laughing all the way through while truly feeling quite sorry for poor Tucker. Thank goodness TPTB didn't use the script as an excuse to moralize about working mothers, rape, abandoned babies, or any of that. It's a comic episode, and such issues are not to be dealt with while smiling. The Klingons, for once, are absolutely right about their attitude. This is a laughing matter. Flyboys wander about with their reputation for a girl in every port. Turnabout is only fair play, especially as the solution to the problem seems obvious: find the real mamma. And he did stick his hands in that box.

What makes this work is Tucker's own attitude. While he is long-suffering, he doesn't whine or turn noble. He recognizes this as bad luck and tries to keep the best attitude he can, considering that his estrogen levels are rising alarmingly. I love the scene in the elevator where he worries about the safety for "shorter people," and while I don't think there's a chance T'Pol ratted on him, Tucker's behavior is so telling, I do wonder if anyone guesses what's going on before the shirt is lifted.

Major kudos to Connor Trinneer for handling the scenes with comic desperation that neither cloys nor gets hysterical. I've had my doubts about Trinneer, I admit, especially after I saw his publicity photos:

(Not the most casual stance, there. The red lining's a particularly "Vegas" touch.)

But I'm won over by him during this episode. Trinneer's approach to Tucker isn't just that he's Mr. Reliable, but that Tucker takes a great deal of pride in being Mr. Reliable. Tucker seems far more "self-made" than organic now, and I'm starting to wonder if his super-laid-back attitude doesn't hide more than just his prejudice against Vulcans. Faced with his sudden status as a potential "working Mother," Tucker is freaked, but Trinneer keeps him sympathetic. He's even a little vulnerable without being any less "manly." I love the way he stuffs his face without apology and grabs breadsticks for the trip up to the bridge.

Does the script exploit stereotypes of pregnant women? Sure. But it's true that pregnant women "nest" and need to eat more, so that's fair game. We don't get jokes about peeing all the time or strange cravings or stretch marks, which may be just as true but really aren't amusing.

There's also no attempt to laugh at the decidedly unfunny aspects of pregnancy, such as health risks. Phlox warns about morning sickness seriously, and Tucker's horror over the nipples strikes me as much akin to what women really go through when faced with such unexpected things in their pregnancies as gray or thinning hair, changes in skin tone, permanent shifts in their center of gravity, and other oh-so-lovely physical changes doctors rarely discuss.

Even Tucker's comments about the elevator, while delivered somewhat harshly, are quite correct. The thing does look like an accident waiting to happen.

And if you just have to have morality, it's great that there's no question but that if Tucker doesn't find the mother, it will be his responsibility to care for the child. Women in similar positions often don't "ask" for what they get, either.

The episode is unpredictable, quite appropriately so for an episode called "Unexpected." Even after we get used to the pregnancy thing, there's little to hint we're going to get Klingons. And the pacing of the episode is spot-on: somewhat slow in the beginning, then speeding up as time becomes more and more a factor in the pregnancy and then in dealing with the Klingons.

Yet despite the surprises, the script stays right on target with the characters. Archer is more amused than concerned for his friend until it looks like the condition may be permanent, when he sobers up fast. His sending the tape of the ocean is also a nice touch. T'Pol looks on the whole thing as more human foolishness. Ah'Len is enjoying what she thinks is a little harmless sort-of sex, but then immediately takes responsibility when she finds out what's happened.

The Klingons are a little nicer than they should be, but T'Pol's comments about the High Council are pointed enough to excuse it. Archer once again bumbles and stumbles in dealing with the Klingons, but his ignorance is quite understandable. Someone sometime has just got to explain to him that Klingons don't like to make nice. Soon, though, Archer needs to stop being so trusting about alien races. If he's acting like this towards the end of the season, it's just not going to work.

The look of the episode is excellent. The Enterprise is really starting to feel like a place with depth and character, and the alien ship is the wildest one we've seen in a long time, with the grass and the food-covered walls. I hope this is a sign of things to come, with more alien races who go beyond the big forehead to show they're not human. The change in air pressure is handled very well, as are the concerns about food and changes in the components of the atmosphere.

Highlights

"You don't have any dermal plating. How do you detect other people's moods?" -- Ah'Len.

"Seems you did a little more than repair work." -- Phlox
"Meaning?" -- Tucker
"This is a nipple." -- Phlox

"How the hell did I get knocked up?" -- Tucker

"Perhaps the next step would have been to meet her holographic parents. If I'm not mistaken on some planets, that's a precursor to marriage." -- T'Pol

"I can see my house from here. Can this technology be adapted to our power matrix?" -- Vorok

"The only thing worse than spending three hours in a decompression chamber with a bunch of Klingons is doing it twice in one day. I smelled things in there I hope I never smell again." -- Tucker

Wrap-Up

Definitely a home-run for the series. Funny without being sentimental, a good adventure with enough outrageousness to compensate for the lack of any real danger. It's too fluffy to watch every week, but a few times a season will keep us smiling.

For a really different take on the episode, check out Michelle Erica Green's review.

Previous Features

Site Map

From Julia Houston, Your Guide to Sci-Fi / Fantasy. FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!