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Star Trek Ent - Season 4 - Episode 09

Star Trek Ent - 4x09 - Kir'Shara

Originally Aired: 2004-12-3

Synopsis:
Archer, T'Pol and T'Pau attempt to bring the Kir'Shara (an artifact believed to contain Surak's original writings) to the Vulcan capital, as the NX-01 gets involved in a Vulcan-Andorian military clash. [DVD]

My Rating - 7

Fan Rating Average - 6.69

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Problems
- While I enjoyed seeing Archer fight so well, and I realize that Surak's katra had quite a bit to do with this, Archer was performing athletic moves that just don't seem possible in air that's so thin.

Factoids
None

Remarkable Scenes
- Soval meeting with Shran.
- T'Pau curing T'Pol of her Pa'nar syndrome!
- Shran torturing Soval.
- Soval: "I'll tear the antennae from your skull!"
- Soval: "Do you know the story of Nurak?" Shran: "What?" Soval: "He was a soldier who lived a long time ago. He was standing watch over the gates of the city of Gaul. He saw a cloud on the horizon moving toward him. He thought it was a sandstorm, so he told no one. It was an army. They destroyed the city. But they let Nurak live. His name now means fool in our language! Just as yours will in Andorian!"
- Archer fighting the Vulcan soldiers.
- T'Pol lying to the Vulcan soldiers cover Archer's tracks.
- Archer Vulcan neck pinching somebody!
- The Vulcans, Andorians, and Enterprise doing battle.
- Archer presenting the Kir'Shara to the Vulcan high command.
- The revelation that V'Las was working with the Romulans.

My Review
Another good episode, but not quite as good as the previous two. Most of the lesser rating stems from the fact that the plot had no major turning points or plot twists other than the ending, which chillingly reminded me of Ent: Zero Hour, except without the alien Nazi silliness. What this episode did do is wrap up several plot threads nicely. T'Pol was cured of her Pa'nar syndrome (Ent: Stigma); it seems the syndrome is actually caused by poorly trained mind melders and the Vulcan high command suppressed the true nature of the syndrome to try and kill off Syrranites and other deviants. T'Pol's marriage was dissolved (Ent: Breaking the Ice, Ent: Home), V'Las was removed from power, and since the leader of the Vulcan high command was a Romulan, or at least a Romulan collaborator, his removal signifies the end of "evil Vulcan syndrome." The ending to the mini arc was satisfactory regarding all things, delivering some nice action and excellent continuity in the process. The Romulan revelation at the end is probably the most interesting detail of the plot, but since it's a cliffhanger, there's not much to discuss about it except for the fact that it seems that the writers are going to continue to honor TOS and never show Romulans onscreen, which pleases me. I'm also pleased that this may be the precursor to the Earth Romulan wars, though I'm not sure how.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Lee on 2012-04-22 at 3:33pm:
    I really love these 3-parter mini-arcs! I think ENT could've been the best of the Star Trek Series if the first two seasons were replaced with episodes like in this season, and instead of (or in addition to) the Xindi crisis, there should have been the Romulan war.
    After all, this series is before the Federation of planets, so we should see just as much about the Andorians and Vulcans as we see about the Humans! It's really a shame this series was cancelled after only four seasons...

  • From The HMS Obumpresidency on 2023-03-03 at 12:23pm:
    Agreed, Lee! It is amazing how much better this series got in Season 4, it even looks better, look at the colours, and the outside views of the ship are beautiful.

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