“Carpenter Street”
Page 3 of 5might be and that they have the virus. He continues to chase them and calls T’Pol again to tell her that he needs her help and tells her where they are.
She goes back to the car and makes Loomis drive to where Archer is. When they get there, she has him lower the window. She says they are coming. She gets ready to shoot but Loomis blows the car horn to warn them. Loomis attacks T’Pol with the knife and she quickly changes the setting on the phase pistol and stuns him. Meanwhile, Archer shoots one of the Xindi. T’Pol gets out of the car to go help Archer. She meets up with him. The other Xindi has climbed up to the roof. They go after him. The Xindi intends to pour the contents of the container into an exhaust fan and in effect release the toxin but Archer shoots at him. T’Pol tells Archer if he can infect three-quarters of the humans of this time, “it’s unlikely humans would pose a threat to them in the future.” While T’Pol keeps shooting, Archer makes his way to where the Xindi is. Archer corners the Xindi and makes him drop his weapon. The Xindi tells Archer: “We won’t allow you to destroy us. You’re species is doomed.” The Xindi tries to grab the container and tries to have it roll off the roof but Archer grabs it in time. They tag the Xindi as the others have been along with their equipment.
Archer and T’Pol return to Enterprise. Trip is there and seems surprised that they are back so quickly. Archer calls Malcolm and tells him to bring a security team down to the Command Centre. He tells T’Pol to wait for Malcolm and have everything brought to Cargo Bay Two and that he will take the container to Phlox for analysis. Trip asks what’s going on and T’Pol takes him to the Command Center and shows him where the Xindi and their equipment are.
Back on Earth, police show up where Loomis is and arrest him. He tells him there are lizard people around and that they have ray guns. The policeman plays along as he puts him in the police car.
Review:
The best way to view this episode is to suspend disbelief altogether and just have fun watching it because if you think about it you can’t help but wonder about things. How did the Xindi manage to get Loomis’ telephone number and talk him into helping them? How did they know that he would be interested in their offer? How did they find the abandoned factory?
Time travel episodes rarely make sense and this one is no different. For instance, how can Daniels not have the time to do *anything*? If the Xindi did travel through time how is it that nothing has changed in Archer’s time? Daniels does try to explain that it takes time for changes in the past to affect the future but why is it I find that difficult to believe? Not that time travel is a reality that can be analyzed properly but in all the Trek time travel episodes, what happens in the past does seem to affect the present immediately. The best example I can think of is TOS’ “City on the Edge of Forever” where McCoy’s effect on the past affects Kirk and crew within a few seconds of his entry into the portal. Still, the mechanics of time travel seem to depend more on the story being told than on any established rules so there’s no point in really trying to analyze any of this.
