Advance Reviews Find 'Chosen Realm' Uninspired
By MichelleJanuary 14, 2004 - 2:22 PM
See Also: 'Chosen Realm' Episode Guide
Three advance reviews of tonight's new episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, "Chosen Realm", give the episode mediocre ratings.
Hercules of Ain't It Cool News, KJB of IGN Filmforce and The Apostle of God at The New Age all found the episode derivative, with Hercules and KJB referencing several original Star Trek episodes while The Apostle of God lamented the simplistic real-world parallels.
"It’s a remake of 'Let That Be Your Last Battlefield', protested Hercules, right down to the ending, in which it is revealed that the world of the fanatics has already been decimated by warfare. “'Your faith was going to bring peace?' scoffs Archer. 'Here it is.'”
In the episode, Enterprise rescues a group of religious fanatics who worship the spheres of the Expanse - their "chosen realm" - as divine.
Because Enterprise crewmembers have interfered with the spheres, the alien leader determines that one of them must die when the fanatics take over the ship, planning to use it to kill nonebelievers on their homeworld.
The reviewers noted that the religious fanatics are seen deleting Enterprise's database on the spheres after the fanatics and T'Pol disagree on the number of spheres, with T'Pol insisting that there are likely less than 60 and the worshippers claiming more than a thousand.
"Chosen Realm", said The Apostle, "brought up legitimate social problems, but showed no solution to them." Though calling it a "solid episode," The Apostle rated it seven out of ten.
Archer's response, said KJB, was stronger than previous episodes in which aliens took over the ship, but that has happened too many times, and this sort of storyline seemed like too little, too late, with no indication about whether the Bajoran-like worshippers might return.
Hercules gave the episode two and a half out of five stars, having seen most of its themes already on the original series.
You can read more of Herc's review at Ain't It Cool News, KJB's review at IGN and a very detailed summary at The Apostle of God at The New Age.
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