Star Trek: Enterprise (TV Series) The Crossing (2003) User Reviews

The Starship of the Lost Souls

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 20 January 2008]

The Enterprise is engulfed by a huge starship that disables the engines and weapons, but leaves the life support system working. While inspecting the interior of the ship with Archer and Reed, Trip is briefly possessed by a wispy being, having an incredible trip. Later Tucker is possessed again by the being that explains to Archer that they are an evolution of a race to non-corporeal form, and they are offering the crossing experience to anyone in Enterprise. However, Archer does not believe on the beings and T'Pol offers to try to contact one of them and find the real intention of the offer of the wispy aliens.

"The Crossing" is a good episode, with an intriguing story but I did not like the conclusion. If a race is capable to evolve to a non-corporeal level, how could they be so mean and selfish? Wouldn't be easier asking for help to Enterprise? My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Travessia" ("The Crossing")

Wispy Aliens Take Over

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 20 March 2017]

There doesn't seem to be much that is benign for these guys. But then the plot of most dramatic stories involves an adversary. The creatures that inhabit the ship at first seem to be friendly, giving people euphoria, living in a sentimental realm. As time goes by, however, they begin to want the crew. It's the typical Star Trek plot where someone has to gain a sense of sanity for a while and take charge. This is exciting as Phlox becomes a heroic figure, having to find a way to change the hosts so that the aliens can no longer invade their minds.

Missed opportunity for a good story

[sigelm · 7/10 · 5 September 2021]

I completely agree with "Wrong Story Path" review. The episode went downhill after the second time the aliens released Commander Tucker. Enterprise should have communicated better and fix aliens' ship. Everyone should have had new interspecies experience, like true explorers. Instead, they destroyed a ship containing an entire race. Humans on Enterprise very often are judgemental of other species and their laws and ways, especially Captain Archer. With that kind of attitude, they better have stayed on Earth.

Hit and miss episode

[snoozejonc · 6/10 · 17 September 2020]

Enterprise is swallowed up by a larger vessel containing non-corporeal beings that invade Trip Tucker's body.

This is a moderately entertaining episode that starts off well with a fairly cinematic take on the often recycled formula that is the 'body possession' story. The visuals are excellent and the scene (and aftermath) where Trip experiences 'the crossing' is quite intriguing.

Unfortunately, the story mostly goes wrong as the plot unfolds from the above. I find Archer and some of the crew's reaction to these highly evolved beings frustrating to watch. Malcolm Reed's reaction to his encounter is so bad it might even be considered funny. He's like a nervous LAPD cop on his first day in a rough neighbourhood. When the aliens' final motives are revealed it is deflating to say the least. As mentioned in several other reviews there are also some plot details that make no sense.

One of the positives of the episode is that it gives the Dr Phlox character a lot of important contributions to make. All the most enjoyable scenes involve him and John Billingsley is highly watchable throughout.

I would have preferred it if there was a positive outcome to the Enterprise meeting these new type of lifeforms but unfortunately the writers went down a different path.

5.5/10 for me but I round upwards.

Decent but how did Archer know these aliens were bad?!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 27 March 2015]

Enterprise is swallowed by a gigantic ship and cannot extricate itself. Within this huge vessel are a lot of swirly lights which are some sort of incorporeal beings. One takes over Trip briefly and this first contact seems very, very benign. However, inexplicably, Archer just somehow knows that these beings are bad--something that NOTHING in the show so far supports. This is a huge weakness of the show. Fortunately, what follows is pretty exciting and the show quite memorable. Not a great episode due to how Archer is written in this one but it is a novel sort of episode in many ways. My favorite part involved seeing a possessed Hoshi beating the snot out of a crew member--a nice change of pace for this otherwise wussy and annoying character.

Sorry your ship is falling apart - let's help hasten your demise with a few torpedoes

[tomsly-40015 · 6/10 · 17 March 2024]

As some of the previous commenters have already pointed out, the plot of this episode is certainly exciting and could have been a well-thought-out Star Trek story. However, in ENT (as in TOS) conflicts are too often resolved with fists instead of words. However, if you look at TNG and VOY in particular, diplomacy is clearly the focus there. As is curiosity about new species and intercultural exchange.

Here, on the other hand, Archer is suspicious and hostile towards this unknown incorporeal species from the start. It doesn't even occur to him to try to understand the motives of this species, to enter into an exchange with it in order to find out more about their way of life. In the series that take place after ENT, the captains would definitely have first tried to establish contact with this species. After all, the core of Star Trek is to make first contact with extraterrestrial life forms and help those in need. What better way of exchange could there be than to help a species whose ship is falling apart and save its crew from impending death? The authors could have shown what it feels like to be incorporeal and live through the experiences that Trip describes, thereby broadening the horizons of the body-bound bipeds.

Instead, of course, this species has to act hostile and take over the bodies of everyone on the Enterprise in order to save at least a few dozen individuals of their species. And the captain's response to this desperate act by a species that wants to save itself from a slow death: destruction of their ship and thus a quick death. Bravo Archer! This deserves an A+ in the diplomacy handbook for captains!

I still think this Enterprise crew is a bunch of trigger-happy cowboys and not at all open-minded explorers. Scouts and ambassadors who are the first of their kind to set off into the vastness of space in order to expand their limited view of their own lives on a small, insignificant sphere in the Milky Way. Instead, they play space police and leave a trail of destruction behind them.

And Reed's performance as he becomes possessed by one of the life forms can only be described as creepy. In DIS, the woman in the elevator would probably have run straight to the ship's CDO, CHRO or the works council and there would have been mediation with Reed afterwards, including a lesson in equal rights and the inappropriateness of sexually suggestive innuendos and harassment of subordinate officers.

Wrong story path

[gjenevieve · 4/10 · 9 July 2015]

I was excited at first when they met these new aliens. I did not like the way the story unfolded. I think it would have been much better if they were not a hostile species. The story should have allowed the crossing of all members into various forms so they could indeed experience what it was like to be female if they were male and vice versa. Plus being able to see what it was like to be Vulcan/human and alien. They missed an awesome opportunity. Had they written it so that everyone could have gone through that experience, I believe it would have made all the crew members a great deal closer to one another. The aliens needed their vessel to be repaired. They should have written it so that Enterprise helped the aliens make the repairs. They would have made friends with a very unique species. The writers screwed up in my opinion.

Enterprise's flaws in a nutshell

[whatch-17931 · 3/10 · 26 December 2020]

Gorgeous and wondrous first act. Then they throw out all the fascinating wonder and it turns into generic boring gunfights.

This could and should have been this series' "Where No One Has Gone Before." Were perhaps some crew interested in the non corporeal experience? Possessed Trip nailed it when he said to Archer "you're an explorer, open your mind to new possibilities."

So many ways this could have gone. Why do these non corporeal beings have a massive spaceship? Perhaps they are Zetarian? Maybe they are eeevil and stole that ship. Maybe they were kidnapped.

Maybe they are friendly, and some of the crew try the soul swapping thing, but then it's less safe than thought and someone ends up long term possessed? That could have been interesting for one of the several underused characters.

Who knows, but so many possibilities and it becomes a generic shoot-em-up.

The producers claimed Enterprise failed because of Trek fatigue in the audience. I think it was Trek fatigue, but in the producers.

Same story, different day.... pretty but vacant

[mstomaso · 4/10 · 10 April 2007]

Special effects are the highlight of this recycling of the energy-beings-from-another-dimension-take-over-the-crew plot. Enterprise is engulfed in a larger, faster ship, and members of the crew are temporarily possessed by some pretty aquamarine clouds of light. While they are possessed, they dream vividly about their homes and other fantasies, leading members of the Enterprise crew to wonder what these creatures really want. All seems promising up to this point although the dialog isn't even up to Enterprise's standards. However, the story takes a nose dive into the usual plot devices, and relies on an absurdly inconsistent portrayal of Captain Archer's approach toward alien cultures in its conclusion.

Predictable episode, boring conclusion

[Lunchbox-3 · 4/10 · 7 March 2014]

As the other reviewers said, it was a predictable episode. It's not unlike the episode of TNG where Troi, Data and O'Brien are possessed by ghostlike beings trapped on a planet. Here it's ghosts in a ship trying to take over all the bodies on Enterprise.

The first plot hole is when they decide they can defeat the non- corporeal beings by killing the host body. T'Pol says it will be like they are in space, they will die. We have already seen the beings travel through space from their ship to Enterprise and it doesn't kill them, so the explanation doesn't make sense.

Secondly, the crew members in the catwalk are shielded from possession but Trip is possessed anyway. Did the beings find a way through? Or was he simply still possessed from earlier in the episode and had been pretending to be okay for the middle of the episode? Never explained.

Third, when the beings take over the crew members, we see the crew members' "soul" or whatever leave the body and take flight, becoming non-corporeal as well. So if Archer's final plan involves killing the host body and driving out the evil beings, how can he be sure that the crew members' soul will come back to its body once the body is revived? How can he be sure that the evil being won't hang around and come back to the body once it's revived? Especially since the being inside Trip knew what the plan was; kill the host, drive out the possessing spirit, then revive the body for the crew member to return. What's to keep the evil spirit from returning first?

The ending was all very rushed. I also wondered why Phlox was acting so strange towards the end of the episode. Counting out loud as if he's never read English before, asking how to open a hatch and how to turn a handle and what to with the hatch once it's released, to which Archer says "I don't know, set it on the ground or something." Phlox seems to lack basic life skills which is exactly how the aliens act. Were we supposed to suspect he might be possessed? Not answered.

The Enterprise Meets Some Space Ghosts

[Samuel-Shovel · 4/10 · 27 November 2017]

In "The Crossing", the Enterprise finds itself swallowed by a whale of ship, filled with non-corporeal beings who claim to travel through space and time in the name of exploration. But when these beings begin to possess the bodies of the crew, Archer decides these space ghosts might have ulterior motives.

This episode is riddled with plot holes (summed up nicely by other reviews, so I won't get into it). The premise itself, while not the most original, held my attention for the majority of the episode but it all unraveled at the end. It felt as if they cut out some of the climax because it all seemed very rushed to me. The tension that had been building all episode lost all its momentum due to the truncated conclusion.

We didn't even have time for a typical post-climax where we explain away the plot holes: Why did Trip get possessed in the catwalk? Again, it was all cut off prematurely.

The writers need to make up their mind about Captain Archer and his relationship with unknown alien lifeforms. I was shocked when he decided to destroy this ghost ship at the end and leave these things to die. I figured he would feel pity on them since their ship was being destroyed (no explanation on why it was, by the way) and try to help them fix it or find permanent bodies for them to relocate to. It was all very oddly handled.

Up until halfway through this episode, I thought the whole thing might be an allegory on the Red Scare and how we can't be paranoid about people different than us and lock them up. Instead, Archer ends up killing these people.

You could argue that these people aren't even nefarious but just desperate, knowing that they will soon die if they don't do something. Archer helps speed the process along a little bit.

Conclusion: A solid first half but the conclusion feels rushed and clichéd. Definitely skippable in the grand scheme of things.

So much potential blown up in the end

[neacorp · 3/10 · 9 July 2009]

The effects were good and all, but the end was too narrow-minded only to appeal to Star Trek lore. The confusing danger feeling was a nice touch.

Enterprise comes along a flying haunted house filled with ghosts. To this episode the crew of Enterprise seemed to never even heard of ghosts (or any other paranormal activity) and ghost abilities like possession and walking through walls, even though they talked about it more than once before. But it turned out the haunted house was degrading, and the ghost would not survive in open space for long. So the obvious "take over ship and/or crew" happened… again. You'd think the ship would have been upgraded from that by now.

Archer was proud, arrogant, narrow minded and paranoid, and tends to demonstrate loathing to all unnatural intelligence. Instead of exploring the immense possibilities of an alliance, he went on about "the mind is personal space", and in the end blew up the flying haunted house with two torpedoes. The problem with exorcism, instead of fixing/extending the flying ghost house or aiding to a nearby ghost habitable planet, is that same fear new science fought for millennia.

In the end it was obvious that nothing was to come of this, because nothing of the sort corresponds with the rest of Star Trek. Just think of the tech potential: study of nonphysical existence, better understanding of subspace, faster flight with no warp signature, enemy ship paralysis, REINCARNATION. What is the point of exploration, if there is nothing to be gained from it?!.

Would the haunted house last a flight back to Earth or its colony where this could have been explored more, we will never know.

Good Show - Bad Episod

[sestrac · 1/10 · 2 November 2014]

This episode looks like it is written by a Silvester Stallone teenager. Have nothing to do with Star Trek Culture. More like the narrow minded war mongers. On short, Enterprise encounter a totally fascinating non corporeal race. They are in mortal danger so they try to kidnap some of the crew members in order to fix their sheep. Something like Archer of this episode would have done. Archer was close minded, arrogant and simply stupid at times. So wore the writers as it doesn't make any sense that these non-corporeal been didn't take over the captain first. Anyway at the end Archer didn't care to communicate or negotiate with these creatures. He hide like a rat and instead of proposing to those beings to work together and share their knowledge and fix their ship (a humongous ship who can fly way faster than Enterprise) he decide just to run fast and destroy them all (the last of their kind in the universe). I have no expectation from a mindless movie Rambo stile but from Star Trek I expect high standards. And they didn't deliver on this episode.

ghostly entities or sentient beings in subspace

[lathamv · 5/10 · 10 June 2019]

I gave this ep a 5 for its potential and beautiful scenery. as with other comments, there was so much more the writers could have done with this and kept in line with ENTs exploration.

yes the subspace entities took over tripps body wo his permission the first time. the writers could have used this opportunity for the entity to explain the problem. they werent like the ghostly criminals in TNG taking over 4 crew members, escaping a prison. They just wanted to survive. this could have been done by the crew helping them fix the failing alien ship from crew members willing to help while the entities had control of their bodies and abilities.

the writers could have taken the opportunity to allow the crew to experience the lives of subspace beings in a way that they would never find again. instead, the normally trusting archer was not himself. tpal was also not her normal self... almost like they switched personalities just for this episode.

the writers started out having them be sentient subspace beings but they turned out to essentially be ghosts. either way, how could they travel through space to get to the enterprise once its released but then wont survive in space. if they are subspace beings, why couldnt they just go back into subspace. was the ship the one thing that allowed them to travel into ENTs space? things just didnt match up and the writers couldnt decide which they wanted.

all in all, just an ok ep. i really expected a different ending. i sure didnt expect archer to blow the ship up and kill every living entity on board. what if they were they only beings of their kind. archer had no way of knowing and instead of finding a way to help them, he killed an entire race.