Enterprise makes first contact with with a new race and Trip Tucker gets heavily involved.
You only have to read the other reviews of this episode to see how divisive it is and how strong opinions are on the subject matter. This is partly due to an obvious subtext within the writing about gender rights within some non-Western cultures. However, for me its main purpose is to show the foundations being laid for the Prime Directive. Other episodes have tried but none have done it as emotively as this.
'Cogenitor' sets us up with a relatively gentle and mostly non-threatening build-up, with the slightest undercurrent that something bad might happen. I got pretty much all the way to the end and thought 'everything is going to workout fine as usual' (yawn) and then was sucker-punched by a pretty brutal ending.
The final scene outraged many viewers and rightly so. We see the Captain berating and blaming Trip for doing the right thing by someone who needed help. Archer is livid with his chief engineer for putting him in a position to have to make a difficult decision with grave implications. Does Trip stand his ground? No he doesn't. In fact he reasserts he is at fault and appears emotional.
Archer is the one who made a big call that led to tragedy and for me appears to be lashing out in emotional distress from the event. The fallout could be handled a number of different ways, but it isn't. Archer voices no words of comfort or real acknowledgment that both their actions contributed to the outcome. Whether or not it was intentional to make Archer sound as sanctimonious as he does I don't really know but my guess is that it was not. I identified closely with this situation from personal experience, as I once had to inform a colleague of a fatality that was largely down to the colleague's actions. The last thing on my mind was a reprimand as I knew my colleague was distraught enough already.
I found the above scene as hard to take as many reviewers, but I thought it was still an excellent way to show the complexity of the situation and a brave decision by the writers to end it so tragically and not to have the two main characters resolve things in a typical, comfortable, Hollywood-ending way. This is refreshing from Star Trek.
The outcome also shows the writers ethical standpoint is non-interference, but in the same breath they show how hard it is not to interfere. I was as emotionally invested as Trip and do not blame him for his actions even though he initiates the whole chain of events leading to the tragedy.
There is no simple answer to the question of what is the right thing to do. When I really think about it, I find it is impossible to know how anything will turn out in the long run. I have lost count of how many times I have stuck my beak into things with the best intentions only for them to either go badly wrong or for somebody to end up disadvantaged. There have been countless books written on ethics and (as we're on IMDB) many films. Just watch Roman Polansky's 'Chinatown' for a classic example.
Archer being removed from the situation at the time of Trip's interference, and unable to take control, foreshadows the position the Federation command structure is in during the next few centuries of space exploration, hence the Prime Directive comes along to make these situations simpler for starship commanders.
Aside from the above dramatics, there is a sub-plot involving a lot of sexual innuendo between Malcolm Reed and the Vissian tactical officer which is quite funny.
There are a lot of strong performances in this episode, particularly from guest star Andreas Katsulas and main cast member Connor Trinneer.
You only have to read the other reviews of this episode to see how divisive it is and how strong opinions are on the subject matter. This is partly due to an obvious subtext within the writing about gender rights within some non-Western cultures. However, for me its main purpose is to show the foundations being laid for the Prime Directive. Other episodes have tried but none have done it as emotively as this.
'Cogenitor' sets us up with a relatively gentle and mostly non-threatening build-up, with the slightest undercurrent that something bad might happen. I got pretty much all the way to the end and thought 'everything is going to workout fine as usual' (yawn) and then was sucker-punched by a pretty brutal ending.
The final scene outraged many viewers and rightly so. We see the Captain berating and blaming Trip for doing the right thing by someone who needed help. Archer is livid with his chief engineer for putting him in a position to have to make a difficult decision with grave implications. Does Trip stand his ground? No he doesn't. In fact he reasserts he is at fault and appears emotional.
Archer is the one who made a big call that led to tragedy and for me appears to be lashing out in emotional distress from the event. The fallout could be handled a number of different ways, but it isn't. Archer voices no words of comfort or real acknowledgment that both their actions contributed to the outcome. Whether or not it was intentional to make Archer sound as sanctimonious as he does I don't really know but my guess is that it was not. I identified closely with this situation from personal experience, as I once had to inform a colleague of a fatality that was largely down to the colleague's actions. The last thing on my mind was a reprimand as I knew my colleague was distraught enough already.
I found the above scene as hard to take as many reviewers, but I thought it was still an excellent way to show the complexity of the situation and a brave decision by the writers to end it so tragically and not to have the two main characters resolve things in a typical, comfortable, Hollywood-ending way. This is refreshing from Star Trek.
The outcome also shows the writers ethical standpoint is non-interference, but in the same breath they show how hard it is not to interfere. I was as emotionally invested as Trip and do not blame him for his actions even though he initiates the whole chain of events leading to the tragedy.
There is no simple answer to the question of what is the right thing to do. When I really think about it, I find it is impossible to know how anything will turn out in the long run. I have lost count of how many times I have stuck my beak into things with the best intentions only for them to either go badly wrong or for somebody to end up disadvantaged. There have been countless books written on ethics and (as we're on IMDB) many films. Just watch Roman Polansky's 'Chinatown' for a classic example.
Archer being removed from the situation at the time of Trip's interference, and unable to take control, foreshadows the position the Federation command structure is in during the next few centuries of space exploration, hence the Prime Directive comes along to make these situations simpler for starship commanders.
Aside from the above dramatics, there is a sub-plot involving a lot of sexual innuendo between Malcolm Reed and the Vissian tactical officer which is quite funny.
There are a lot of strong performances in this episode, particularly from guest star Andreas Katsulas and main cast member Connor Trinneer.