Star Trek: Enterprise (TV Series) Demons (2005) User Reviews

Xenophobia

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 3 May 2010]

On Earth, the Enterprise and her crew supervises the peace conference leaded by the politician Nathan Samuels that has the intention to form an alliance among humans and aliens. After Nathan's speech, a woman wounded by phaser trespasses the building and tells T'Pol that they are going to kill somebody and gives a vial with hair to her before dying. Dr. Phlox investigates the DNA of the hair three times and concludes that it belongs to a daughter of Tip and T'Pol; however, T'Pol objects telling that she has never been pregnant. Archer presses Nathan to disclose the investigation of the murder and he finds that the deceased woman is Susan Khouri, a medical attendant that belonged to the xenophobic organization Terra Prime. Archer orders Reed to contact Harris to know what is happening, and the mysterious man advises him to find the baby to unravel the truth. Trip and T'Pol go to a mining compound to snoop Terra Prime while the journalist Gannet Brooks, who had a past with Travis, comes to the Enterprise with the pretext of news coverage in the ship. But sooner Trip and T'Pol are captured by the xenophobic leader of Terra Prime, John Frederick Paxton while Gannet is arrested by Captain Archer accused of espionage.

"Demons" so far is an intriguing episode of Enterprise. The reason is the mysterious baby of T'Pol and Trip and I look forward to have an explanation how she was generated and the real purpose of the fanatic John Frederick Paxton with the child. The writer makes analogies of the Xindi attack with the September, 11th and the subsequent xenophobia of part of the North American population with foreigners with the xenophobia of Terra Prime with the aliens. Let's see the conclusion of the good show. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Demônios" ("Demons")

A surprise for T'Pol and Trip

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 11 September 2010]

The crew are back on Earth for the signing of the agreement that will lead to the formation of the Federation. A woman who hands over a small vial and says 'They are going to kill her' before dying interrupts the proceedings. The vial contains DNA from a baby; a baby whose parents are T'Pol and Trip, they are both very surprised as giving birth is the sort of thing T'Pol would remember. The woman had been involved with a xenophobic group called Terra Prime and tests on her body suggested that she had been living in a low gravity environment, the most likely location being on the Moon where there is a lot of anti alien feeling, Trip and T'Pol head there to try to find their daughter. Back on Enterprise Travis has met up with his former fiancée, she is a reporter claiming to be writing a piece about Enterprise but she might not be telling the whole truth. The Terra Prime group on the moon capture Trip and T'Pol and their leader, John Frederick Paxton, has quite a surprise for them; his operations room is actually a warp capable space ship which blasts off for Mars where it takes control over the verteron array, a device which is designed to deflect comets but can also be used as a very powerful weapon, with control of this Paxton demands that all aliens leave Earth. Following this threat the words '... to be continued' appear.

This was a decent episode starring Peter 'Robocop' Weller as Paxton; he gave the character a suitable mix of authority and charisma. Johanna Watts put in a good performance as the beautiful Gannet Brooks who used her past with Travis to gain access to Enterprise to spy for Terra Prime. It was an interesting twist making the child's parents T'Pol and Trip as it raised a mystery as well as causing some distrust between them.

Great villain

[Hughmanity · 8/10 · 11 June 2021]

I enjoy almost anything with Peter Weller in it, and this is no exception. He makes a great xenophobic villain as he tries to disrupt the formation of the Federation.

This fourth season of 'Enterprise' is the best yet, wish they hadn't cancelled at that point. I like how most episodes are 2 or 3 parters, little mini-series of Trek.

Some of the dialogue is a bit naive for the 22nd century, like Trip saying he and T'Pol could only have a baby if she was pregnant. Like they wouldn't have cloning from DNA tech by then, or at least the idea of it?

Loved the mobile moon mining base; a great Legion of Doom/Spectre/Hydra headquarters for Weller's character.

It Speaks to Us Today

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 31 March 2017]

The group Terrra-Prime is like today's white supremacists. They have an agenda to rid the earth of aliens because of the activities of the Zindi who slaughter seven million people. This kind of hatred is certainly understandable, but it is directed at entire races and species, not at the perpetrators. Of course, it's being run by a zealot who wants to purify things. A baby has been born and it has the DNA of Trip and T'Pol, even though she has never given birth. There is tension because of this, of course. A woman died giving the DNA sample to the council meeting where they were forming the United Federation of Planets. This "half-breed" baby apparently is something that these idiots consider an abomination. It's an interesting episode. As it ends, Trip and T'Pol are in the hands of these crazies.

Excellent wind-up for the last stretch.

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 24 February 2017]

This final 2-parter gathers up everything that has happened so far in Season 4 and dumps it into two beautiful Episodes.

Speaking of Beautiful, it's Travis' Ex, the lovely Johanna Watts as Gannet Brooks. A "So Called" Reporter, you'll find out why later. Peter Weller is yet another reactionary Meathead Sean Hannity-type who has done some very bad things.

Harry Groener from TNG "Tin Man" is a future politician, "Nathan Samuels", who used to be a member of the Xenophobic Group "Terra Prime". which is a lame future version of the lame "America First".

As Samuels tries to preside over a meeting of ambassadors from several planets, the Brietbart of the future has been soapbox- spouting, and people eating it up because of, of course, the Xindi wiped out 7 million people. Isil hasn't quite caught up with that yet, although Germany surpassed it previously, and people forget that Nazism started with Xenophobia. Then came the Deportation forces and the Concentration camps.

So, this preliminary meeting of the "UFP" does not bode well, because of this Breitbart style Xenophobia spreading. Phlox had been targeted during "Home" by a redneck in a bar.

Other things that didn't help much were a woman appearing and dying in front of everyone from a Disruptor blast, cryptically saying "They are gonna kill 'her'", whoever 'her' is.

And then it appears that Starfleet Security wants to shovel it all under the carpet. Archer finds a way around it, and Malcolm must needs meet his "Section 31" associate once more.

This 'Sode is a bunch of puzzle pieces being creatively put together, and it's marvelous. But just wait until the Conclusion!

Trip & T'Pol are Famous. So Why Try to be Spy's?

[Samuel-Shovel · 6/10 · 8 March 2018]

In "Demons", the Enterprise is back on Earth for a conference regarding an inter-species alliance (eventually leading to the Federation). Their stay is disrupted when a dying woman approaches T'Pol asking her to save "the baby". She gives T'Pol a sample of hair which turns out to belong to the child of Trip & T'Pol, the world's first Vulcan-human hybrid. The crew begins their own investigation into the mystery child and this leads to Trip & T'Pol going undercover on a lunar mining operation that is apparently a hotbed for a xenophobic outfit known as Terra Prime. Meanwhile, Travis reconnects with an old flame who is a reporter covering the conference. When Trip & T'Pol are caught however, it becomes apparent that Travis' friend is a spy, working for Terra Prime and feeding them information. As the episode ends, Terra Prime take over a meteor-destroying laser on Mars and calls for all non-humans to leave the system or else...

You'd think a man-machine hybrid such as RoboCop would be a bit more inclusive of people that are different than him.

By 2155, Earth has appeared to have solved its racism issue but it has replaced its xenophobia of other human races for that of other species.

I found it humorous that Trip & T'Pol thought they could infiltrate this group undetected. They are two high ranking officers on the ship that saved the planet. They're world famous I presume! They are not the two that should have gone undercover.

This episode shows a lot of parallels with modern society. As globalization continues to bring the world closer together, people tend to push back against others that are slightly different than them, externalizing their problems against them. This episode is a nightmare scenario of what would happen if a zealous bigot was able to take control. Crazy idea, right guys?

The final two-parter in the series.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 10 June 2015]

This is the last two-part episode in "Star Trek: Enterprise" and it's the logical progression of the plot line about the creation of the Federation. The various future members of this organization have come to Earth to formalize this agreement when a group of xenophobic nuts derail the dream. What is their qualm? They want the human race to be pure--not adulterated by ugly alien genes--and the evidence of this ugliness is a hybrid baby--the love child of T'Pol and Trip. But how? They never had a baby?! However, their agenda involves MUCH more than showing everyone a freaky alien hybrid baby...they aim to destroy the negotiations and drive all the aliens off Earth using a super-weapon.

The leaders of the baddies is ably played by Peter Weller. He's menacing, nasty and cold. My only reason for giving the show a 7 is that the whole hybrid baby plot line never really made sense nor seemed necessary. Fortunately, part two is better.

Strong themes in a clichéd story saved by Peter Weller's performance

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 6 January 2021]

A child is discovered matching the genetics of Trip and T'Pol.

I enjoyed this one for the performances and plot themes, but I thought parts of the script used pretty hackneyed formula.

The story was very interesting from a thematic perspective, as xenophobia in relation to the Federation of Planets is an excellent idea. It stands to reason that this would be a natural occurrence in this type of situation and the show actually underplays the divisions in humanity. At the time of writing, only 35 years away from the Enterprise era, nation-states are deeply divided with Earth as a whole nowhere near the type of unity that would make people identify as 'humans' rather than members of a group based on factors like ethnicity, gender, sexual persuasion, political ideology, social class or geographic location. Nevertheless I thought this was a strong theme to address at an important point the development of the Trek universe.

Performances were all great with the regular crew doing well in combination with some strong guest characters. Peter Weller is excellent as John Frederick Paxton, looking, sounding and acting the part perfectly.

I found the script very heavy on exposition and littered with cliches, particularly the scenes involving Paxton and Terra Prime. It's testament to how good Weller performs that he made the dialogue sound good and scenes that feel like they have been lifted from a first draft script of a bad bond movie work. Everything in relation to Mayweather and Gannet Brooks is so predictable that the build up scenes feel pointless other that to give Anthony Montgomery a love scene with a hot girl after years of character neglect by the writers.

For me it's a 6.5/10, but I round upwards and hope for a strong conclusion.

Hard To Watch Today

[Vvardenfell_Man · 7/10 · 26 April 2024]

The idealism at the heart of Trek is on full display here, although the themes it chooses to tackle have been addressed better elsewhere already. "Human supremacy" is a thinly veiled metaphor for white supremacy and with the way America is going in 2024 it's a hard thing to stomach. Where DS9 managed to actually have some depth with its outings like Far Beyond the Stars--which may be the best episode of Trek--Enterprise found a way to shove race relations in at the tail end of its run. In a world edging toward totalitarianism, it's hard to watch something produced at such a pivotal moment in modern history have such an innocent naiveté w/r/t all of this. In the world of Jonathan Archer, people who try to overthrow governments in the name of legalizing prejudice immediately face justice. We can only hope that the future follows this example more than the recent past and present.

Lazy plot writing

[skywalker-60-692510 · 5/10 · 8 January 2021]

So there is a superweapon on Mars and all you need to control it is a stupid clamp connected with its outside and you can threaten the whole solar system. Wow, that is a lazy writing. Overall bad ending for a great series.