4x21 Terra Prime

[Dimitris]

Production: 097
Season: 4 Episode: 21
Air Date: 05.13.2005

A human isolationist leader threatens to destroy Starfleet Command unless all aliens leave Earth immediately.


Synopsis

In the first steps towards the foundation of the Federation, Captain Archer and the crew must stop Paxton, a well-armed, radical human isolationist leader, who is threatening to destroy Starfleet Command unless all aliens leave Earth immediately.

[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:
Peter Weller as John Frederick Paxton
Gary Graham as Soval
Harry Groener as Nathan Samuels
Johanna Watts as Gannet Brooks
Peter Mensah as Greaves
Adam Clark as Josiah
Derek Magyar as Kelby
Eric Pierpoint as Harris
Joel Swetow as Thoris

Creative Staff:
Director: Marvin V. Rush
Teleplay By: Judith Reeves-Stevens & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Manny Coto
Story By: Judith Reeves-Stevens & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Andre Bormanis

[Dimitris]

03.01.2005
Production Report: Mars Main Setting of Penultimate "Terra Prime"


SPOILER ALERT!!! Warning: Information here may also spoil previous episodes!
Peter Weller continues on as the villain in the conclusion of a two-part story where human goes up against human, but this time at the fourth planet from the Sun, in the next-to-last episode of the series.

The episode title, "Terra Prime," refers to the human isolationist movement which Weller's character, John Frederick Paxton, leads from his lunar mining colony. Picking up where "Demons" left off (related production report), Paxton has moved his Orpheus mining complex — which, it turns out, is detachable and has warp drive — from the Moon to Mars, where he has tied his reactor into the "verteron array" there. That array is a huge row of particle cannons used to redirect comets for terraforming purposes, but Paxton has turned it into a formidable weapon against any target in the solar system. He lays down an ultimatum: all non-humans must leave the system within 24 hours, or Terra Prime will "defend the rights of every human." And he'll start by destroying Starfleet Command in San Francisco with a verteron beam. Enterprise is vulnerable also, so Archer, Reed and Mayweather devise a plan to infiltrate the complex undetected, that involves using a comet as camouflage. Complicating things is a potential Terra Prime operative aboard Enterprise.

Besides Weller, Harry Groener ("Tam Elbrun" in "Tin Man," etc.) remains on as "Nathan Samuels," a human politician trying to hold together talks with alien diplomats to form an interstellar alliance in the face of the crisis. Johanna Watts continues as "Gannet," a reporter and an old flame of Mayweather. Also staying on from "Demons" are Peter Mensah as "Greaves" and Adam Clark as "Josiah," two Terra Prime members working for Paxton.

Recurring players joining this episode are Gary Graham as "Soval," plus Derek Magyar as "Kelby" and Eric Pierpoint as "Harris" (the latter two were introduced in "Affliction" and will be seen several times hence).

The guest cast also includes Joel Swetow as an Andorian Ambassador named "Thoris." Swetow played "Gul Jasad" in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine pilot "Emissary," and "Yog" in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Firstborn." Swetow has also lent his voice to several Star Trek video games including "Armada" and "Voyager: Elite Force."

Principal photography on "Terra Prime" began halfway into the day on Tuesday, February 15, and went halfway into the day last Friday, Feb. 25 (the day of the "Save Enterprise" rally outside Paramount's main gate), for a total of seven days. Marvin Rush, normally the director of photography (DP) on the show, took the reins as full director for only the second time in this series, stepping into pre-production on this episode immediately after completing "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II." Camera operator Doug Knapp took the DP title in the meantime.

Day 1 of the schedule was more-or-less a continuation of shooting for "Demons," with a second day being spent in the Paramount Theater lobby representing the Assembly Hall of Starfleet Command. Like Day 7 of the previous show, this set was filled with a wide array of aliens, from Tellarites to Rigellians to several new species, and the production hired at least two dozen additional personnel in Makeup, Hair and Wardrobe to populate these interstellar conference scenes.

Sets representing the interior of the Orpheus Mining Complex were re-used from the previous show, including the Control Center and Crew Quarters. Built specifically for this shoot was a set depicting an Access Tube of the Verteron Array.

About half a day was spent with four of the actors in a very rocky ride on the Shuttlepod setpiece. Normally the bumps and rocks of a ship under attack or duress are simulated by camera movement coordinated with the actors' responses, but this time the Shuttlepod was set on tubes to create actual motion. This was for the scenes where Archer and company hitch a ride to Mars on a comet. Among the props on the set that day were two white paper bags — one fresh, and one "used" (Reed, we find out, can't handle so much motion).

Several pieces of existing rock walls combined with a full-sized greenscreen backdrop served as the surface of Mars, for when the characters land the Shuttlepod and cross the terrain to the Verteron Array (the landscape will be rendered in post-production and inserted in the green portions of the shots). Because the Martian atmosphere has been partially terraformed, the characters do not need the usual EV suits, so instead the actors were outfitted in thick cold-weather gear, clear goggles, and "re-breather" units resembling a fighter pilot's breathing mask. Wardrobe and Makeup covered their clothes, hair and faces with red dust for the appropriate shots.

The usual standing ship sets were also put into use, including the Bridge, Ready Room, Mess Hall, Launchbay, Engineering, Brig, Sickbay, Corridors, Crew Quarters, etc. Paramount's Wood Mill was used again, as in "Demons," for a San Francisco Alleyway scene between Reed and Section 31's Harris.

A couple of things to look out for in this episode: The script calls for a shot where the Shuttlepod flies over the resting place of Sojourner, the Mars rover depicted in the show's opening credits, now dusty and motionless among familiar red rocks. Plans call for a close-up of a Mars Historical Society plaque identifying that 1997 landing spot as the "Carl Sagan Memorial Station." We say "plans" because this shot will be created in post-production, but sometimes budgeting, scheduling and editing demands force compromises. Let's hope this homage to the real space program survives the cut.

Also, the episode depicts a baby with Vulcan ears (played by a pair of six-month-old twins). You'd probably expect that the infants would have undergone a couple of hours of makeup to get those pointed ears on. But no, not quite. Actually, all Makeup did was apply "tracking dots" on the babies' ears, and the Vulcan-points will be applied later through computer graphics.

As for the writers of this episode, "Story by" credit is assigned to Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Andre Bormanis. "Teleplay" credit goes to the Reeves-Stevens couple along with Manny Coto. Coto was the sole writer of "Demons." Judith & Garfield's last script was "Divergence," and Bormanis last wrote "The Aenar."

"Terra Prime" is tentatively scheduled to air Friday, May 13, at 8:00 p.m., followed immediately by the season finale at 9:00 (ET/PT). Updates will be posted in Episode Detail.

As for the upcoming airdate schedule, this Friday the show will be pre-empted, but last season's "Hatchery" will be available to UPN affiliates to air over the weekend per their local schedules. The next two weeks will see repeats of "Storm Front" and "Storm Front, Part II." Then for the subsequent three weeks, UPN.com is holding a sweepstakes for fans to determine which episodes from all four seasons will rerun in those spots; see this related story for details. The final six new episodes will commence April 15.

The current airdate schedule for the rest of the season (subject to change) is as follows:

3/11 Repeat of "Storm Front"
3/18 Repeat of "Storm Front, Part II"
3/25 Repeat TBD per sweepstakes
4/01 Repeat TBD per sweepstakes
4/08 Repeat TBD per sweepstakes
4/15 "Bound"
4/22 "In a Mirror, Darkly"
4/29 "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II"
5/06 "Demons"
5/13 8:00 "Terra Prime", 9:00 Season Finale

[Dimitris]

Plot Summary:

With Paxton showing the half-Vulcan baby on all frequencies as proof that human genetic heritage will be destroyed if Earth enters an alliance with people from other worlds, Archer first tries to rescue T'Pol and the baby via scans from space, then refuses an order from Samuels to destroy the array until he has had a chance to try to rescue both of them and Tucker from the Martian surface. Reed uses his contact in Section 31 for advice on how to approach the planet and learns of a comet whose tail they can hide behind. Leaving Sato in command, Archer takes Mayweather, Reed and Phlox on a rescue mission, where a rough ride is followed by a nearly fatal landing.

Paxton allows Tucker and T'Pol to see their child in exchange for Tucker's help focusing the verteron array, which he says may destroy most of San Francisco rather than just Starfleet if his demands are not met and he fires on Earth. While working, Tucker attempts to talk to Josiah about how he used to understand hatred of Vulcans until he met them, but Josiah insists that the Vulcans allowed World War III to progress so Earth would be easier for them to control. Tucker punches him after attempting to sabotage the circuits, and Paxton says that he will be responsible for millions dying instead of a few hundred, locking him up. The engineer escapes from his confinement and meets up with Archer and the Enterprise crew. Meanwhile T'Pol accuses Paxton of being a hypocrite: she has recognized that he has Taggart Syndrome and is obviously getting Rigellian gene therapy, making him less than pure according to Colonel Green's standards.

T'Pol is concerned because her daughter is ill, which Paxton says is inevitable because she's a half-breed. Paxton prepares to fire the array while Samuels insists to Sato that she needs to give the order to destroy it immediately, whether or not Enterprise's senior officers are still there. She holds out long enough for Archer to lead his team against Paxton's men and take over the controls, but when the room begins to depressurize after one of the viewports shatters, Paxton regains control and fires a beam at Earth. It shoots harmlessly into the water by the Golden Gate Bridge. Tucker says that Paxton's aim must have been off, and Archer asks, "With a little help from you?"

Mayweather tracks down T'Pol and learns that the baby is very sick. Back on Enterprise, she and Tucker name the child Elizabeth after his sister, but Phlox discovers that there was a flaw in her DNA and cannot stabilize her. Mayweather - who has already been told by Brooks that she worked for Starfleet Intelligence rather than Terra Prime and that the real enemy agent was still on the loose - discovers that his shuttlepod was sabotaged. The person responsible is Ensign Masaro, who apologizes to Archer, then kills himself. Samuels addresses the conference delegates, saying that they have all seen humanity at its worst but they cannot allow the dream of a coalition to end there - a sentiment with which Archer agrees, to great applause. Some of the delegates want to go to the funeral service for Elizabeth, Tucker later tells T'Pol. He also learned from Phlox that there was a flaw in Paxton's doctor's cloning process, and a human and Vulcan should be able to have a child if they wished. He weeps, and she holds his hand.


Analysis:

While "Terra Prime" doesn't resolve all the issues brought up in "Demons" and has some obvious plot holes, it still feels like a real Star Trek episode, despite its bleak ending. For once we get a multi-parter where the pacing and characterization match the first installment, and where plot and character aren't sacrificed to action. Again there is surprisingly little violence considering that this is a storyline focused on terrorists; Tucker throws a few punches, Paxton tries to blow up a city, but there aren't any gratuitous space battles and Enterprise under Sato's command never even gets off a shot. This is in large part because Hoshi stands her ground and has her finest moment all series - the hell with Empress Sato, this is a crewmember who proves that she knows which orders to follow and when.

I'm of a double mind about T'Pol in "Terra Prime." On the one hand, she's unrecognizable as the very sort of Vulcan that Paxton's people despise her for being; she's emotional, irrationally attached to an infant she knows for only a few hours, and she's passive while the rest of the crew do the fighting, staying in quarters cuddling the baby instead of fighting to escape as Tucker does. On the other hand, those are precisely the reasons one might give to Paxton to point out the absurdity that any fundamental differences between humans and Vulcans or any other species should inevitably result in hostilities. Paxton tries to appeal to her logic at one point, saying that her people are at much at risk from miscegenation with humans as humans are from breeding with Vulcans, and she argues that her people have changed so much over time, as have his, that it's absurd to fight growth. Given that her character has changed and grown the most of any Enterprise crewmember of the course of their mission, for better or worse, it's hard not to appreciate her having feelings on the subject.

Wisely, the Mayweather and Brooks romance gets very little screen time - it got too much in "Demons" - and there are a few moments of lightness, notably involving Reed and an airsickness bag. It's a disappointment that there isn't more interaction with Earth and the delegates, whom we hear are being besieged by humans who may be sympathetic to Terra Prime but who may simply be terrified at the idea of being fired upon by the giant array on Mars and want to protect their own children. It's one thing to support an interplanetary alliance in theory, quite another to stand on the front lines and be willing to die for principle, and the Xindi attack isn't that far in the past. I think the delegates from Tellar and Vulcan are too quick to judge human behavior; it isn't as if Andorians aren't still using the contemptuous phrase "pinkskin" themselves.

I also wish we'd seen more of Mars apart from the glimpse of the Carl Sagan Memorial Station (thank you Reeves-Stevenses) and the terraforming that we hear has given the planet a warmer, higher-pressure atmosphere. Given that this pair of episodes has focused on all the things humans get wrong, it would be nice to see more of people getting things right...and I don't mean the Starfleet officers, who tend to be noble and hardworking more often than not, but the civilian engineers and doctors and lawyers and scientists who are presumably the reason there are colonies thriving on Mars. I'm unclear why in such an environment Brooks couldn't have declared that she worked for Starfleet Intelligence the moment she was accused of spying, to Archer in confidence at least, and I really don't understand why Paxton was so stupid as to leave no guard outside Tucker's cell, why his own command center had so few people protecting it and particularly where he was getting the gene therapy that one would think all his followers would have repudiated.

"Demons" and "Terra Prime" are by no means perfect episodes, but they're reaching very earnestly for what Star Trek was in the beginning. Kirk ran into people on his own crew and in every alien culture who chose the wrong path, let prejudice overcome hope and used technology for violence rather than progress. It didn't stop him and it didn't make him cynical. The intensely personal pain of T'Pol and Tucker - whose story would have been better had it ended here, rather than in "These Are the Voyages..." as well as their ability to reach out to each other in spite of it and Phlox's discovery that they had all formed a new family form one of the most moving endings of any Enterprise episodes.