[ENT] Season 2, Episode 22 (Netflix: S2 E22): Cogenitor

Rating: 4–
For creating a morally interesting and legitimately difficult situation, this episode gets a 4/5. More on this at the bottom of the review.
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Read more at Memory Alpha
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Notes:

Enterprise is checking out a star and they come across a species that’s also really interested in exploring. And they want to hang out!

Trip meets a couple wanting to reproduce and their cogenitor

T’Pol and Phlox keep telling Trip to be more open minded about different cultures. I like that Trip argues that there should be a limit to this attitude: “We’re not talking about taking your shoes off when you walk into someone’s house”

There’s also a plot about Reed and a lady flirting. Reed shows her some cheese. She wasn’t impressed

Trip wants to run a brain scan on the cogenitor so he invites himself over for dinner

Archer and the Vissian captain get along really well. I like that they’re making the moral situation more complicated by have the Vissians likable aside from their treatment of cogenitors.

Vissian girls seem to be more blunt when it comes to sexual advances, ya know, kind of like every alien species in every science fiction story

Trip starts to encourage the cogenitor

Archer flies too close to a corona of a star. Archer employs a technique he learned from body surfing: “If you can’t get over a wave, you’ve got to dive through it”. Yeah, just because that works with water doesn’t mean it will work with any substance or a star’s corona. Luckily their ship was strong enough

Trip gets caught and the cogenitor asks for asylum. Initially Archer is convinced but he goes to the Vissians and decides it isn’t their place to interfere. He also doesn’t want to harm their relations with the Vissians, since they have so much to offer

Archer gets word that the cogenitor committed suicide

The dialogue at the end of the episode gives me the feeling that this episode is better than the writers intended. So much time in this episode is very effectively dedicated to the audience gaining sympathy for Trip’s position and actions. They also did a decent job of showing why Archer made the decisions he made, although it seems pretty clear we’re supposed to side with the cogenitor. Trip fighting for the rights of the cogenitor is an easy position to get behind, but the surrounding circumstances made the goals tragically difficult. Usually we see the hero swoop in and teach everyone a lesson, rescue all those in danger, and fly away with no consequences. I liked how this episode illustrated how it’s much more complicated than that, and that life is full of compromises, but some compromises (like giving up the cogenitor) lead to tragedy. I interpreted this episode to show how difficult some situations can be, not to mean that we shouldn’t try to fight for what’s right. The writers clearly don’t believe such a thing because there are plenty of episodes showing that we need to stand up for what’s right.

But then Archer says it’s all Trip’s fault, and the lesson is to not interfere. Archer does blame himself…in that he didn’t set a good enough example for Trip. It’s a little outrageous that he doesn’t think maybe he shares some blame, and that he shouldn’t have let the Vissians have the cogenitor. Aside from some dumb lines from Archer, and him generally looking like a jerk, this is still an interesting take on the ongoing theme in Star Trek of non-interference. It shows how particularly painful it can be, but one can’t reform an entire society from one encounter.

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