My Review-‘Fight or Flight’

YOU MUST FIGHT OR FLIGHT FROM THESE SPOILERS!

I must say that when I first heard about 'Flight or Fight' I was both excited and not very excited. I was excited because, as I said in my 'Broken Bow' review, Sato is one of the characters I am most excited about. And this episode centres around her. I wasn't very excited because the story is the combination of 2 unoriginal plots. First there is the 'Aliens are stealing bodily fluids' plot. I can remember several cases of that plot in Trek (most notably 'Phantasms'- TNG) but it was different enough to be fresh. Which is of course very nice. The second plot, which is in fact the more important ('A' plot as it is sometimes known), is the 'She must overcome her fears' a type of episode any slightly scared character has to go through on TV these days. It was rather clichéd in all but let's have a look at it in more detail.

STORYLINE

As I already stated I felt the 'A' plot with Sato was in some ways clichéd. First Sato is considering leaving the ship cos it's so scary and she ends up being forced into a position where she must save the ship. We haven't seen that before(!) Although to be blunt I don't think we've ever seen it in Trek due to the general characterisation of 23rd and 24th Century humans. This is just another sign that this is a far more down-to-Earth Trek. However Linda Park's surprisingly good acting during this episode results in her performance rising above the material. Something which often happens with good actors (most notably in Trek, 'Patrick Stewart', 'Robert Picardo' and 'Leonard Nimoy' always seemed to do this). I like the Axanar, from what little we saw of them they seem..... different. Considering the ending in the episode the Axanar may become an Earth ally and that's something I'd like to see. Another thing I'd like to see is an episode dealing with who the hell was on the 'mystery ship'. I've never liked things left dangling (don't ask me why. It just leaves my brain in a twist) Hopefully we'll find out. If only because I really like the design of their vessel! Now onto the ship:

THE SHIP

Nothing much to say here except it appears that seeing as we got a demonstration of Enterprise's lasers last week it appears we only get to see torpedoes this week. Not that I have a problem with that, but it would of been nice to see what effect they had on the 'mystery ship'.

THE CHARACTERS

The main thrust of this episode was the characters. As I have already said Linda Park acted well. However we should now hopefully see Sato getting less and less jumpy. She's now found out she can do this job and hopefully she should start to become more experienced with space and thus it should take less to surprise or frighten here. Just as Phlox said "It is human nature to be afraid of what you don't understand." and as Sato sees more things in space she should become more used to them. This is my number 1 thing I'd like to see come out of this episode. However we should note that considering her chosen profession Sato is probably less interested in Physical exploration and more interested in cultural exploration and those are very different things. I still have high hopes for Sato but if she doesn't slowly stop screaming she'll start to breach on annoying. I don't think it should be instantaneous, that would sacrifice all realism but it would be nice to see it happen.

I like the pairing of Phlox and Sato. It's natural. Phlox is the experienced one at exploration. He's met more species, it's normal that Sato would want to seek his counsel. Plus Phlox is a very friendly and unintimidating fellow and that's just the kind of guy you'd expect Sato to hang around with as you know he's not going to jump at you in a minute.

I liked Archer's gentle seething about leaving the ship. That's something different, Picard, Sisko, Kirk and Janeway always used to react to something like that straight away. Let's see more of it please.

STAR TREK NOTES.  

TOS buffs (the 2 of which I believe remain Trekkies) should recognise the name 'Axanar', Captain Kirk once received the Palm Leaf of Axanar Peace Mission for being on a peace mission there. Garth of Izar also won a historical battle on Axanar.

Those torpedoes are NICE. They look more like today's weapons of mass destruction and I like that.

Reed refers to the tractor beam as "A spatial- something or another" I cant remember! But last time I checked a tractor beam was made from gravitons. Of course who says all tractor beams have to work under the same principal?

I am happy to see Archer hasn't lost his grudge against the Vulcans.

"Vulcans aren't as enthusiastic about exploration as humans"- OK I can accept they wouldn't be quite as excited about it but they are INTERESTED. In 100 years time there's going to be whole ships full of Vulcans exploring places.

SUMMARY:

A rather clichéd ep but not without it's charm. I would like to see three things come out of this: In order of importance: 1. I would like to see Sato become less jumpy please.  2. I would like to see the Axanar again please. 3. I would like to see who the hell it was on that ship.

Rating (out of 10): 7. Consider this temporary. It will go up or down depending on if my wishes are executed and how well.