Star Trek: Enterprise (TV Series) Awakening (2004) User Reviews

Mind Melt Hangover

[claudio_carvalho · 9/10 · 21 February 2010]

Captain Archer and T'Pol meet T'Pau in the sanctuary of the Syranites in the Forge and T'Pau denies the accusation of bombing the United Earth Embassy. Captain Archer and T'Pol are arrested and sooner he discovers that Syrran has transferred the mind essence a.k.a "katra" of Surak to him before dying. T'Pau decides to transfer the "katra" to her in a dangerous ritual but she fails. Meanwhile the Enterprise is unsuccessfully trying to rescue Archer and T'Pol. Commander Tucker is contacted by the Administrator V'Las and ordered to leave the orbit of Vulcan. Further, V'Las has the intention of bombing the sanctuary of the pacifists Syranites in the Forge and does not want that the Enterprise witnesses the attack.

"The Awakening" is another engaging episode of this excellent last season of Enterprise. The similarity of Administrator V'Las with the Lord of War is amazing, and the Forge might recall Afghanistan or Iraq, with historic treasures hidden in caves. The Enterprise heading to Andoria seems to be the promise another excellent show. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "O Despertar" ("The Awakening")

A loss for T'Pol

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 19 June 2010]

After last week's opening part of this story we find Captain Archer and T'Pol in the custody of the Syrranites. Here they meet T'Pau, the woman who Archer still believes caused the explosion at Earth's embassy, not surprisingly she protests her innocence. When she learns that the spirit of Surak, the founder of Vulcan logic, has been passed to Archer she performs a ritual to move that spirit into herself but it turns out that Surak has decided to remain within Archer. While Archer is busy with the Syrranites the Vulcan High Command is ordering Enterprise to break orbit and leave Vulcan... so they can attack the Syrranites' base in secret. As the attacks begin Archer takes T'Pau and T'Pol with him to find a mythical Vulcan artefact which Surak has revealed the location of. As the episode ends Enterprise is seen heading to Andoria in order to warn them of a potential attack by the Vulcans.

This is a gripping episode which has plenty of tense moments and a well handled death scene where Jolene Blalock does a fine job as T'Pol, managing to show both restraint and subtle emotion when her mother does. Guest stars Kara Zediker and Joanna Cassidy are good as T'Pau and T'Pol's mother T'Les, both acting well and showing that it is possible to look good without wearing a revealing costume. The episode sets things up nicely for next week's conclusion of the three part story which I'm looking forward to.

The Vulcans Have Hitler of Their Own

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 29 March 2017]

The Vulcans are being betrayed by an overzealous leader. Meanwhile Archer, having been melded with great Vulcan knowledge, begins to lead the people on the desert. Once Enterprise is driven away, the Vulcan's attack the outpost. Archer begins to have visions. He is connected with the ancestry of the Vulcans. He has knowledge that no one should have. There are great casualties on the planet. This is a truly interesting episode in that it integrates metaphysics with the down to earth logic that has been the wellspring of the pointy eared people.

More exciting stuff about those jerky Vulcans.

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 14 April 2015]

This episode is a continuation of the previous one. In the first episode, the Earth embassy on Vulcan is bombed--and the trail to the culprits leads to a mystical Vulcan cult, the Syrrannites. By the end of the show, you've learned several things--that the Syrrannites are NOT responsible but were set up AND Soval has learned the truth and was, as a result, thrown off the High Council!

At the beginning of this second part, Archer somehow KNOWS how to find the Syrrannites. Their hiding place is well hidden but somehow he goes right to it. How? He has the essence or soul of Surak inside him-- the father of logic and niceness in the Vulcans. At first, the Syrrannites don't believe this but through a mind meld they learn the truth. What's next? See the show...I don't want to spoil anything.

This episode is exciting start to finish and is definitely worth your time. It is a wonderful look at the future of the Vulcans--how they so quickly changed from duplicitous and nasty to swell folks who truly embrace logic. Among the best written of the shows AND it has some really cool corpses in the tunnels late in the program! See this one.

When are Vulcans Not Vulcans?

[XweAponX · 8/10 · 16 September 2013]

In these three "Vulcanian" episodes of Enterprise.

Back in Carbon Creek, Vulcans acted like Vulcans. Here, in the middle episode of this arc, they are squabbling teenagers with too much Vulcan- Sex-Juice, whatever the hormone is called on Vulcan, on Earth we call it something like "Testosterone".

These "Vulcans" and even their new "Surak" all act as if they are in the midst of Pon Farr and participating in the "Kalifi" part of "Kunat- Kalifi" - In other words, the raging kill-each-other stage.

Even the Vulcan Officials on the planet act this way. Sorry, I just didn't believe it.

Vulcans are not HUMANS. In these episodes, they are acting very much like humans, using deceit and treachery - Even offering violence and Destruction of the Enterprise, not to mention trying to destroy a whole group of their own people on the surface.

And this is supposed to be T'PAU. In The Original Series, this character was played by Celia Lovsky and she actually ADOPTED All of Nimoy's Vulcanian Mannerisms. She was a Vulcan's Vulcan. Here, played by Kara Zediker (Who was "The Golden Hind" in one episode of Hercules: Legendary Journeys, because Kevin Sorbo's wife could not get down to New Zealand at the time) she shows none of the GRACE and AUTHORITY of Celia's T'PAU.

Even the name, T'PAU has to be yelled out loud, and spelled with all capital letters, if you think of how she was in The Original Series- She was a Human, or rather Vulcan Exclamation Mark - This was a person to take very seriously- And In that episode, Starfleet backs way down for her.

I do not believe that this is the same T'PAU. This is rather, T'Pau: lower case T'Pau. Kara has NONE of the Earned Authority we grant the older version, and it is not enough to explain this away as a "younger version" - Because even a younger version would at least have the same accent!

I'm surprised Andre Bormanis would write this episode, he was one of the main science consultants for Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. I don't fully blame him, it was the Direction. Roxann Dawson, although being exemplary on a few Voyager episodes, fails to make us believe in any of this.

T'Pol's mother "T'Les" is in these episodes, Joanna Cassidy. Had she played the character more like "Zhora" from Blade Runner, I would have believed it more.

So I give this episode 15 points for the effects as usual, but I give the episode -7 points for the masticating of traditional Vulcans.

Because I do not believe ANY of the so called Vulcans in these episodes. Vulcans, especially female Vulcans have a beauty and a Grace and a solemn charm, like the Elves from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. Vulcans should be more like Galadriel or Elrond, and less like Gimli- Or Azog the Destroyer as they appear here!

Archer is Yet Again the Chosen One

[Samuel-Shovel · 7/10 · 28 February 2018]

In "Awakening", Archer & T'Pol have arrived at the Syrrannite sanctuary and reunited with T'Pol's mother, T'Les. It is revealed that the traveler they met on the path was Syrran and he had transferred the katra of Surak to Archer. T'Pau attempts to remove this from Archer and transfer it to herself to no avail. Archer finds an ancient artifact related to Surak deep in the caverns of the sanctuary with the help of the katra. He has visions of talking with Surak and learns he is needed to show Vulcans the way. While all this is happening, Trip and Ambassador Soval are busy with diplomatic relations with the High Command. The High Command maintains that the Syrrannites are responsible for the bombing but the Enterprise isn't buying it. Administrator V'Las is attempting to find and wipe out the Syrrannites and wants the Enterprise to leave Vulcan so there no outside witnesses. He begins using force to kick the humans out of orbit. Trip learns that the Vulcans are planning a preemptive strike on Andoria. The Enterprise heads there as the episode ends.

During the first 3 seasons of ST:E, the Vulcans have been portrayed as ethically ambiguous but these series of episodes in Season 4 takes this to a whole new degree. The High Command is basically performing genocide on a minority pacifist faction. Fans of other Star Trek shows know this is at odds with their general demeanor. Everything about the Vulcans just feels off with these episodes. They aren't using logic, they convey a lot of emotion in their dialogue, they just feel off. The administrator has turned almost into a dictator in this. I find it hard to believe that the rest of the High Command would go along with his plans without pushing back because these plans border upon the illogical.

All this being said, the episode still makes for good sci-fi. I'm a bit tired of Archer playing the part of the Chosen One though. First, Agent Daniels said he was the Chosen One; now it's Surak. Archer hasn't shown us anything in his character to prove to us that he's this great, wise leader that is causing all this spectacular change. He's a tad arrogant at times but I feel it's unjustified.

I assume this story arc ends with the Vulcans culture changing to the culture we know further on in other shows. I'm intrigued as to how we get to this point. The downfall of the High Command seems necessary for this to take place.

A disastrous episode in almost every conceivable way. One point for the sets.

[sogoodlooking · 2/10 · 24 September 2020]

Roxann Dawson may have made a peachy half-Klingon in Voyager, but never are her shortcomings as a director as evident as in the episode, "Awakening," where in the first act, after an interesting if odd-angled, self-conscious establishing shot, her camera shoots a three-way dialogue in one-shots at random distances from their subjects. It's awful. Elsewhere, despite the interesting set, Dawson effectively blots it out by almost invariably keeping the camera as close to the actors as she can. That's a recipe for mediocrity, and worse.

Meanwhile Kara Zediker as T'Pau is given the worst haircut in galactic history (her hair is also a weird shade of purple, for no sane reason), and in no way resembles the brilliant Celia Lovsky, who played T'Pau ("all of Vulcan in one package" -- James T. Kirk) so superbly in "Amok Time." Zediker is so woefully miscast it's impossible to believe Enterprise's showrunner had ever seen TOS.

Not nearly enough is done with the humor of putting Surak's katra into one Jonathon Archer. Can you imagine? --As usual with Enterprise, Vulcans alternate between insults and diplomacy. They make Andorrians seem sophisticated in that regard.

Several more blunders weigh down an episode that should have been one of the most interesting in Enterprise. Archer, Earth's consummate explorer, is overeager to be rid of the "Vulcan ghost in his head"? Nonsense. But the writers had to shove the pieces around to get them to fit, just as they had to make Ambassador Soval suddenly--and absurdly inconsistently--a friend to Earth and someone hostile to the imperatives of Vulcan's High Command. Please. It's ludicrous. On top of that, T'Pau is eager to rip Surak's katra from Archer's head to the point of being willing to kill him, while T'Pol's mother helps her lie to Archer and to her own daughter so as to conceal the degree of risk. It's repulsive.

In addition, Vulcan "logic" appears to demand that ordinary Vulcans go along with mass murder, state corruption, extralegal execution of their own diplomats, and dictatorial madness just because, while Soval conceals the Vulcan High Command's intention to launch an aggressive war against Andoria until the end of the episode solely because a narrative 'kick' was needed. Pffft.

This forlorn script should never have made it to production.