4x04 Borderland

[Dimitris]

Production: 080
Season: 4 Episode: 4
Air Date: 10.29.2004

When genetic supermen left over from the Eugenics Wars hijack a Klingon ship, Archer must rely on their creator, the criminal Dr. Arik Soong, to help hunt them down and avert an interstellar war.


Synopsis

After a dangerous group of genetically engineered humans called "Augments" escapes from their secluded planet intent on causing all-out war between Earth and the Klingons, the Enterprise crew is called into action and Archer enlists the help of criminal genius Dr. Arik Soong, the scientist responsible for creating the Augments.
While searching for the Augments in the Borderland — the volatile region between the Klingon Empire and the Orion Syndicate — Enterprise crosses paths with a band of ruthless Orion slave traders, who kidnap T'Pol and eight other crew members off the ship so they can be sold at auction, forcing Archer to enact a risky rescue mission with Dr. Soong's help.

[Dimitris]

Cast & Creative Staff

Cast:
Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox
Jolene Blalock as T'Pol
Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
Connor Trinneer as Charles "Trip" Tucker III

Guest Cast:
Brent Spiner as Dr. Arik Soong
Alec Newman as Malik
Joel West as Raakin
Abby Brammell as Persis
Dave Power as Pierce
J.G. Hertzler as Klingon Captain
Paul Wight as Orion Slaver #1
Gary Kasper as Orion Slaver #2
Dayo Ade as Klingon Tactical Officer
Bobbi Sue Luther as Orion Female

Creative Staff:
Director: David Livingston
Written By: Ken LaZebnik

[Dimitris]

08.27.2004
Production Report: Brent Spiner Begins Trilogy with "Borderland"

SPOILER ALERT!!!
Well, Ol' Yellow Eyes is back — but this time his eyes aren't yellow. Brent Spiner has returned to Paramount to create his fifth major character in Star Trek (after Data, Lore, Dr. Noonien Soong and B-4), and was able to do it without a lot of makeup. With "Borderland," which completed principal photography on Monday, Spiner began a three-episode arc featuring an ancestor of Noonien Soong, Dr. Arik Soong, a notorious figure of the 22nd century whose crimes now threaten to ignite a new Eugenics War.

The episode also features an appearance by J.G. Hertzler and the largest wrestler in the WWE. Oh, and there's an Orion Slave Girl.

Many of the details of "Borderland" and its sequels were spilled by showrunner Manny Coto at a recent UPN press party (related story). Arik Soong has been incarcerated in a high-security facility after stealing 20 embryos of genetically enhanced humans and bringing them to life. "He believes that genetic engineering was on the right track," Coto explained. "He wants to improve humanity, and he believes that the Eugenics Wars were an aberration, that these individuals are the future of humanity. Of course he's wrong." Those individuals — referred to as "Augments" — have grown up on an isolated planet, and now they have begun to wreak havoc by hijacking a Klingon ship and massacring its crew. It's a very volatile situation which could lead to war with the Klingons, so Archer and the Enterprise crew must interrupt their leave (per "Home") and hunt down the Augments. But Archer needs the help of their creator, Dr. Soong. Soong is very much a "Hannibal Lecter"-type character — he is widely feared, he's constantly trying to escape, and he loves to psychologically toy with everyone he talks to.

"Borderland" refers to the area of space between the Klingon Empire and the Orion Syndicate. That is where the trouble erupts.

Spiner's presence on the set of Star Trek: Enterprise was certainly auspicious, and greatly energized the cast and crew. "When Brent and Scott [Bakula] are on screen together, it's just electric," one crew member told us. "It looks really, really good."

Army Archerd, senior columnist for Daily Variety, interviewed Spiner and wrote this in his Tuesday column: "Star Trek: Enterprise welcomes back Brent Spiner after a 10 year absence... Now he plays the great, great grandfather of Data's creator, Dr. Soong. I asked Spiner who does he look like? 'I look like me,' he said — no gold makeup or yellow eyes. 'The yellow eyes — that's what was difficult in the original. Remember, in those days we filmed 16-20 hours a day.' Does Spiner survive this outing to return in another 10 years? 'I've only been shown two scripts' he admitted, 'and I'm told I live in a third.' Stay tuned..."

It was a very involved and elaborate production which began on Friday the 13th. Not risking any bad luck, the company stuck to basic Bridge scenes on that day, with only the principal cast plus one scene with Alec Newman as the Augment named "Malik." You might recognize Newman from the "Dune" TV miniseries. Other standing ship sets took a day and a half, then another day and a half was spent on the swing sets of the Klingon ship.

J.G. Hertzler, best known as "Martok" in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, played his third Klingon role, that of the unnamed Klingon Captain. Hertzler had previously donned a ridged forehead to play "Kolos," Archer's advocate in "Judgment." He's also been a Vulcan, a Shapeshifter and a Hirogen (and even a human once).

A half day was spent in a Starfleet Detention Cell where Archer first approaches Soong, a scene that could go down as one of the most memorable of the entire series. The remaining two days of the schedule were some of the craziest this crew has seen — they staged an Orion Slave Market, occupied by several dozen extras dressed as "Slaves," "Slavers" and "Traders." It's one of the widest arrays of aliens seen in Trek outside the movies — some familiar (such as Tellarites) and many new. Needless to say, the makeup people and the costumers had some very long days preparing for and executing these scenes.

The most striking aliens in this group were the Orions themselves. This is the first time we've actually seen Orion males, and their look was extrapolated from the Orion females introduced in Gene Roddenberry's first pilot for Star Trek, "The Cage" (and aside from "The Menagerie," only seen one other time in "Whom Gods Destroy"). We'll talk about the males in a second. The "Orion Slave Girl" we see in this episode — played by model Bobbi Sue Luther — perfectly captures the seductive presence of the similar role performed by Susan Oliver ("Vina") in 1964. Pitch-black hair, dark lips, mysterious eyes, and an outfit that's barely even there. And of course, she's green.

Based on that, the Enterprise team decided that the Orion males should also be green, and should look the part of slave traders (as they have been established several times to be). And that they should be really, really big.

Where do you turn for the largest, most intimidating guys you can find? How about taking a cue from "Tsunkatse"? Enter the largest wrestler in the WWE, known as "The Big Show," Paul Wight — at 7'1" and 450 lbs. — as "Orion Slaver #1." It took a lot of green body makeup to cover that hulking form. (Sorry for the pun.)

There were several other Orion Slavers, all played by professional stuntmen, all very tall, shaven bald, with bolt-like objects in their scalps, dressed in intimidating leather-strap costumes. Not exactly Jolly Green Giants. There were quite a number of other stunt people employed for this episode, in the roles of "Stunt Slaves," "Stunt Traders," "Stunt Augments" and several of the regular non-speaking MACOs (Paul Sklar, Dorenda Moore, Shawn Crowder, Kevin Derr, etc.). They were all directed by stunt coordinator Vince Deadrick Jr., who performed a few scenes himself.

There was a very special guest stuntman on set for the Slave Market scenes — Vince Deadrick Sr. The stunt coordinator's father has a lengthy Hollywood resumé that includes several Original Series credits, including a Romulan in "Balance of Terror" and the unfortunate redshirt "Matthews" in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" He was also the stunt double for Finnegan in "Shore Leave," for Decker in "The Doomsday Machine," and McCoy in "Mirror, Mirror." The elder Deadrick was a prominently placed alien Trader in the Orion Market. Two days prior to his set call, Vince Sr. celebrated his 72nd birthday, so the production crew all signed a large card created from a still of his appearance in "Little Girls."

The episode wrapped Monday, the 23rd, but Spiner and several of the Augment guest stars were right back on Tuesday to begin part 2 of the Arik Soong arc, called "Cold Station 12."

"Borderland" was helmed by veteran Trek director David Livingston, whose last Enterprise job was "The Council." Though Coto, as head writer, guided the conception of the story, the script itself was penned by Ken LaZebnik, a new staff writer on the show with the title of Supervising Producer. He has previously written for Providence and Touched by an Angel. Ken is the brother of Philip LaZebnik, who wrote episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and DS9.

The fourth episode of Season 4 — and the 80th hour of Enterprise overall — is tentatively slated to air Friday, October 29.

[Dimitris]

Plot Summary:

A Klingon ship tractors in a small shuttle with two humans aboard, who proceed to escape from custody and massacre the command crew. Soon after on Earth, Jonathan Archer arrives at a penitentiary to visit Dr. Arik Soong, who shows Archer his handwritten notes for altered human DNA sequences before learning that Archer has come because the crew of a Klingon ship was massacred by humans bearing the DNA that Soong stole from a medical facility 20 years before. Archer tells his own command crew that Soong took embryos from the Eugenics Wars from Cold Station 12 and refused to say where he had taken them. They were ten years old when he was captured and incarcerated; it is now ten years later, and the adult Augments must be brought back to Earth to divert a war with the furious Klingons. Soong has promised that he can get them to surrender without a fight, and moreover he is familiar with the Borderland - the space between the Klingon Empire and the Orion Syndicate, containing dangerous elements from both.

On the Klingon ship, a power struggle emerges between Raakin, the leader, and Malik, who was responsible for capturing the Klingon ship that allowed them all to escape. Both of them desire a woman named Persis, who says that she wants the strongest man for herself and chooses to side with Malik, helping him trap and kill Raakin in the name of their "father" - Soong. On Enterprise, the doctor argues with Phlox about the value of genetic enhancement, with Soong pointing out that it can cure disease and end suffering while Phlox notes that it also caused a war that killed thirty million people. The debate is interrupted by an Orion attack during which nine crewmembers are beamed off the ship, including T'Pol. On Soong's advice, Archer follows the Orions to a processing station where his crewmembers are being sold as slaves. He beams down with Soong, who is the only person on board familiar with the Orion Syndicate trading system.

T'Pol discovers that she and the other prisoners have been fitted with neurolytic restraining devices that give them seizures if they don't behave or if they try to escape. She finds another Enterprise crewmember but he cannot help her when she is taken to be auctioned, purchased by a Tellarite. While most of the Orions are distracted by the auction of a green-skinned slave girl, Archer and Soong track down their crewmembers, but since T'Pol has already been bought they cannot hope to buy their freedom. Instead Archer bids for one ensign, uses tritanium cobalt to disrupt the restraints and ignites a riot as the prisoners discover that they can free themselves without the devices torturing them. He is able to beam all the crewmembers aboard, but Soong grabs a prod from a guard, knocks Archer down, then uses the prod to disrupt the transponder he is wearing so that Enterprise can't track him. He sends a message from a console on the processing station before Archer recaptures him.

Orion interceptors hail Enterprise, telling Archer he is holding their property and launching an attack. The ship is under heavy fire when a Klingon vessel appears and fights off the Orions. It's the Augments, who request permission to dock and demand to see Soong. Archer initially refuses, telling Malik that he has orders to escort them back to Earth, but Malik says Earth, which opposes their very existence, is not their problem. He grabs Archer by the throat, forcing the Enterprise crew to give him free run of the vessel. The other Augments board, taking out MACOs to rescue Soong from the brig and greeting him as their father. Because Enterprise is disabled, he lets Archer and his crew go, taking the Klingon ship with the Augments, telling them that he is proud of them but there are thousands of brothers and sisters waiting to be born.


Analysis:

One of Enterprise's finest episodes, "Borderland" has something for every Star Trek fan who watches it. For those who love the original series, there are Eugenics Wars and supermen, Orions and Tellarites, hostile Klingons; for those who love Next Generation, there's Brent Spiner; for those who love Enterprise, there are character moments for Archer and Phlox and particularly for Tucker and T'Pol. There's also action aplenty, a fairly engrossing storyline and some of the arguments we've heard about the value of genetic modification from Khan, Bashir and Tyr Anasazi...oh wait, that's Andromeda, but it's difficult not to make comparisons, particularly when Malik starts quoting Nietzsche.

Spiner owns every scene Soong is in, performing with a maniacal glee that's fun to watch. Everyone else looks stodgy beside him, from Phlox whose people do practice genetic modification but nothing like the redesigned species Soong advocates to Tucker whom Soong quickly guesses he can needle about T'Pol. At one point Soong announces that the crew needs a sense of humor, and he might have a point. He's so sweetly paternal with the Augments that one is tempted to forget how dangerous they are in combination. I'm a little bit confused about whether Starfleet knew that the Augment children had remained on the planet after they took Soong into custody; if not, I'm surprised none of them resent having to rescue the "father" who never returned to rescue them, and if so, their utter disinterest in the fate of Earth seems quite justified. In any case they have a lovely bond, quite apart from what it might mean for anyone else.

As for Augment society itself...all right, I've been very restrained this season on the feminist rants, I only grumbled a little teeny bit about Hernandez taking time from getting ready to launch to nurture Archer, I didn't say anything about Alicia's uselessness in the second half of "Storm Front"...I am entitled to loathe everything about Persis. She grew up in the absence of adult humans, so she certainly did not learn sexuality from observing them, nor from watching bad UPN shows; therefore one must conclude that we're supposed to believe that her behavior - playing around until she's chosen the strongest man and then standing behind him to kill her other lover and his rival - is innate. The would-be alpha males have read Nietzsche, which presumably explains their survival of the fittest competition, but must we believe that women will define themselves as inferior sexual objects, even apart from enlightened 21st century society? Orion slave girls, bred and raised to be sex machines, are easier to take than genetically enhanced superbimbos. Coupled with Hernandez, who's boning the only boy that's her superior as a captain, I'm starting to feel like we really are back in the days of original Trek, with Hoshi to answer Uhura's hailing frequencies and T'Pol to play damsel in distress in a slave market.

But that was really the only thing I didn't like about the episode, other than Archer's silliness in not beaming down a disposable MACO to the processing station to keep a weapon surreptitiously pointed at Soong. Away from the big green tough guy (at least before she's free from the restraints and taking aim at his genitals), T'Pol has some lovely moments: receiving a compass from Archer congratulating her not on her wedding but her promotion, evading Tucker's questions about what happened on Vulcan after he left, telling off Soong when he tries to bond with her over insults to humans, trying to comfort a panicked ensign in the prison cell, reluctantly explaining to Tucker that she spent what might have been her "honeymoon" in private meditation at Mt. Seleya. Tucker, meanwhile, must put up with what must be unbearable teasing from Soong about her and put aside his personal fears for her to concentrate on the engines, since there are eight other crewmembers to rescue and a mission to accomplish. I must say, I'm not sorry she got married, since I don't expect Koss to live as long as most Vulcans and I think the enforced separation is allowing for better relationship development than we might have gotten otherwise, with this writing staff that obviously believes girlfriends are to be shagged and not heard.

There are many marvelous bits of dialogue in this episode: Archer's comparing genetic experiments with nuclear experiments, Soong's sarcastic "Permission to come aboard?", Phlox's retorting "I can read" when Soong asks how the doctor knows he hasn't learned from the past, Soong gleefully explaining what Orion slave girls are best known for, Soong earnestly telling Archer that he respects him and did not risk the Enterprise crew lightly, Malik quoting Nietzche's "Mankind is something to be surpassed." Did Malik remind anyone else of Joachim, Khan's sidekick from Star Trek II ("I shall avenge you!")? Okay, the Augments' dialogue was pretty horrible with all the "You are my brother, you are my leader" schtick, but let's attribute that to them having had no proper education.

There are also many superb visual sequences though I was frustrated at times with how dark they were. I gather that there wasn't much beyond the cages at the Orion processing center, and the Klingon ship we saw was already more elaborate than any we've seen from the era after this one, namely Kirk's. The Augments on the Klingon ship very much resemble Khan's crew on the stolen Reliant, though as in Star Trek II I am curious about the artfully ripped clothing and how they found a Hot Topic on such an isolated world. Those neck restraint devices are creepy, cross between a dataport, the colorful disciplinary devices from "The Gamesters of Triskelion" and those exploding collars from The Running Man. I was a little bemused by some of the S&M overtones in the Syndicate but that auction board was neat.

It's hard to evaluate the actual story in a segment of a three-part arc, so I am going to hold off on talking about the plot. Let's just say I'm engrossed, I'm eagerly looking forward to next week, and Brent Spiner rocks.