I watched another favourite episode from Star Trek Enterprise last night- this one is called “Cogenitor”. Although a similar concept had been done in Star Trek The Next Generation, I find this episode to capture the concept better and it sticks in my mind a lot. I have seen this episode 3 times now and I love this episode and find it to be though provoking, sad and tragic all at the same time. This is what Star Trek or any good science fiction does to you when it is well. It resonates with you long after the episode has ended and since I first watched this episode back in 2006, it still is fresh in my memory.

The crew of the Enterprise is studying a hypergiant star when they are hailed by an alien species that they had never met before, The Vissians, who are traveling on a much larger spaceship. The technically more advanced Vissians are friendly and open to do First Contact with the humans and sharing knowledge. While captain Archer joins the Vissian captain on a smaller shuttle to conduct surveys and explore the inner workings of the star, Enterprise’s Chief Engineer Commander Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker befriends his Vissian counterpart and his wife. While eating food in the Enterprise mess hall Trip learns that the Vissians have 3 genders : male, female and cogeniter. With the Vissian engineer & his wife is a cogenitor, who are essential for Vissian couple who plan to have a baby – they supply an enzyme during the sex act which facilitated conception. Cogenitors make up about 3% of the Vissian population, are treated in a very pragmatic way, being shipped from one couple to another to keep the population growing. A side effect is that they are treated like objects, not deserving names nor education.

Trip is fascinated with the cogenitor and makes friends with “her” (as the cogenitor feels more female to him and is played by a female actor anyway) after he learned from Dr. Phlox’ analysis that they have the same intellectual potential as the two other sexes. He teaches it how to read and tries to make it understand that it has the same rights as the rest of its species. He gives her a pad and is pleasantly surprised when she learns to read quickly. He then sneaks her into the Enterprise and shows her around the ship and shows her a movie in his quarters. He teaches her to play the board game GO and is amazed when it beats him at a game, since the engineer has been undefeated for the last two years. Later T’pol is contacted by the Vissians who are upset with Trip and deny him access to their ship. She then debates him on the touchy nature of First Contact and especially with the Captain away for 3 days. When Archer comes back the cogenitor sneaks back to see Trip and asks Archer for asylum – because she won’t be able to have a decent life among her own people or do any of the things that Trip tells her about (get an education, go rock climbing, etc). The Vissians are angry as their chief engineer and her wife had to wait a long time to get the cogenitor and also they felt that the humans couldn’t possibly comment on practices of a culture that they barely know. Archer is furious at Trip, even though he wishes he could accept the cogenitor’s request for asylum, and in order to not offend the Vissians, Archer refuses.

The two ships depart and both captains are still optimistic about hat the incident will not interfere with the relation between  Earth  and Vissia, the situation gets a lot less bright when Archer learns that the cogenitor committed suicide, an evident result of the independence it developed out of Tucker’s teachings. She learned of possibilities she had never known till now and having them denied to her was  too much for her to bear. Archer  severely reprimands him for his interference, as it has not only resulted in the cogenitor’s death, but now the Vissian couple will not be able to have a child for a long period of time. Tucker is deeply shocked, as Archer reminds him that despite all his time on Enterprise, he still compares other cultures to Earth standards and interferes without thinking first. Archer is upset that first contact with the Vissians led to this conclusion, and Tucker begins to realize the consequences his actions can cause.

It is a good reminder to all of us that we have to think before we react and criticize another culture just because their ways are not the same as our own. Another culture may eat different food, have different ideas about family, sexual preferences, marriage, homes, employment, language, accents, medical practices etc. They may seem weird & alien initially but unless we take the time and effort to understand them, we cannot deem ourselves fit to comment, criticize, debate, lecture or discuss about the said culture. This will be crucial if humans ever do have contact with an alien species in real life. It seems like a distant possibility for now but if we ever do, the lessons from this episode will be crucial.

Before I end this post I must say that this does not apply to various cultures on earth among us humans. That is another post for another day :)

One of my issues with Stargate SG1 and at times with Atlantis, which was not an issue with Universe, is that at times they didn’t really try to make some of the humans or even races of humans that lived on other planets, different enough. Don’t get me wrong, I love Stargate and am a huge fan but this point really bugged me. But Go’auld living on earth working in business ventures and commerce? Some of the aliens were just too human.

Take for instance the 18th episode of SG1’s season 10, the final season. We meet Vala Mal Doran’s father for the first and only time. Jacek, played by comedian/actor Fred Willard is so American, you wonder what he was doing on another planet. Pictured here, Jacek is basically Fred Willard in a type of salwar kurta (some might say he basically plays himself in most of his roles) and does the usual wise cracking jokes he is famous for. Plus for an alien human visiting earth for the first time, he sure starts acting like us in an awfully quick time. While on Earth, Jacek proves to be a less than honest citizen, holding a charity phone scams, selling “genuine stardust”, cooking earth dishes and hustling senior citizen ladies in bingo games (with a cover charge).  In 3 weeks he learned enough to fool women in bingo?

Granted that episode is more to add some humorous elements into the show and it’s to be taken lightly (how can you not when te main guest star is Fred Willard) but they just didn’t try. It was almost like he ad-libbed most of the dialogue not relevant to the plot.

We reach the 40th & final episode of this great show, cancelled way, way too soon.

Lisa Park eye sight doesn’t return despite TJ’s treatment and care. Park breaks down in tears, comforted by TJ and Ronald Greer. Eli & Rush inform Young of their ability to track the positions of the Control Ships & drones. Wray believes this to be good news, as it means they can avoid the drones and safe places to resupply. Eli, however, cannot deliver such good news. He displays a star map detailing the location of every gate, then overlays the location of the Control Ships. At maximum sensor range, the result seems clear: every single Stargate is guarded by a Control Ship.

They have about a month’s worth of food and water. Young is hoping for a supply line from Earth, but Telford informs him that their talks with Langara are getting nowhere. Destiny is on its own. On the bridge, Rush discusses the situation with Eli, Adam Brody, and Dale Volker. Since they cannot run or hide, Rush knows that their only option is to fight. Eli points out that there are a lot of drones, but Rush only intends to attack selected targets when they need to resupply. With their ability to track the Control Ships, they can come out of FTL right on top of one and destroy it before it can retaliate. This will however cause a lot of damage and Rush looks for ways to lessen the damages. The first such attempt doesn’t go as planned; when the drones’ weapons are proved to be ineffective against Destiny’s sheilds, they do kamakazee runs hitting the hull of the ship.

Eli then comes up with his plan – put everyone in stasis &  they can fly through the entire galaxy and to the next without needing to stop to resupply. Unfortunately, completing that journey will take Destiny three years, and their dwindling power supplies leave little margin of error. However this also leaves very little margin for error; even a slight miscalculation will leave them drifting for thousands of years instead of three. Rush doesn’t agree and feels that skipping part of the journey is detrimental to Destiny’s mission. But before they do that they need supplies and materials to fix some of the pods. Using a lesson from the drones, they rig a shuttle on remote and let the drones attack it while an away team gates to a planet to collect the supplies. They also set the shuttle to ram into the control ship and destroy it. Now the crew get to say their goodbyes to their people on earth by using the communication stones before they have to go into stasis.

But one of the pods is not repaired and therefore, one of the crew must stay awake. Young volunteers to be the one to stay conscious, which with very little food left means sure death. But Eli convinces that it must be him who stays; Young doesn’t trust Rush to be the sole person awake and therefore it has to be Eli, as he will also have a chance to fix it in the next few days and enter stasis himself. Young finally agrees even though he doesn’t like it. He is worried that Eli might lose the chance to realize his potential, but Eli believes his potential is wasted if he doesn’t step forward when he’s needed. He praises Eli on having come a long way from the “video game slacker” he was a year ago, while Eli claims Rush has been “pretty consistent”. They both get a small laugh out of it. Rush goes into stasis, then Young hugs Eli goodbye, telling him that he’ll see him once they wake up. Once Young is in stasis, the ship begins powering down. Eli heads to the observation deck, looking upon the ship as it travels through FTL.

Thus ends, totally prematurely and well before it should have, a great show. Not just a great Scifi show but a great tv show. It’s sad to see the closing minutes – the closing sequence of the episode mirrors the opening sequence of the first with lights starting up and the camera moving into the “upper” corridors until the Stargate Room, although in reverse. The last scene is Eli smiling while looking out through the window on the observation desk, with a smile on his face and we see the ship go off in the distance in FTL. Such a shame that this had to be cancelled.

We are down to the final two episodes of SGU. The Tenerans have been off the ship but some of Destiny’s crew wishes that they had stayed. Volker & Brody watches from the bridge as the ship enters a gas giant to replenish it’s reserves even if they seem to have quite a bit left. However as soon as they come out of the gas giant’s atmosphere they find bezerker drones & a control ship in front of them. It will take them exactly the same amount of time to get the FTL drive active as it does for the drones to reach them. The drones reach them and begin the attack, but Destiny is able to jump mere seconds later. Rush comes to the conclusion that the drones are predicting Destiny’s course and not actually tracking them and that the crew need to find alternative stars for recharging their batteries in order to avoid the drones.

David Telford is contacted using the long-range communication device and informed of the situation. He expresses disbelief that the drones could have blockaded every available star, but Eli points out that the drones only need to be at the next one, as they don’t have the power for any more attempts. They come up with a plan to divert Destiny to a blue super giant, something that the ship would never do on it’s own. Volker objects to the plan, as the extreme temperatures would kill the entire crew. Rush explains that the crew will be evacuated, while a small team in Ancient environmental suits pilots the ship. Telford wonders why they can’t just set the ship to autopilot, so Eli explains that someone must stay to prevent the ship from aborting the attempt. Rush & Eli are the ones who stay behind along with Lisa Park who Young permission to collect the last of the medicinal plants, citing her experience with the environment suits.

The rest of the crew goes through the gate to a nearby planet, very similar to a modern town on Earth. The planet, probably a branch off from the Novus colonists, looks safe and hence two groups head off to find supplies, while the majority stay in the building that houses the gate. The groups find paved roads but oddly no vehicles and stop at certain stores. Meanwhile, Morrison has found a newspaper clipping indicating that the civilization on the planet was attacked and as he creates too much of a fuss, James is force to knock him out cold. The two groups are attacked by drones and at first hide in the stores. As they make their way back to the gate, Varro is able to  take out a couple of drones with a rocket launcher.

On the ship Park gets trapped in the hydroponics bay and they are unable to open the doors to let her out. Rush feels that her best bet is to jump into a pool of water in the bay and the environment suit should also be able to protect her. Park takes refuge in the collection pool as the garden burns around her as the ship moves through the blue giant. She is saved but loses her eyesight in the way too bright light as the dome shatters. As Eli has the doors opened to retrieve her, she cries saying that she gone blind. As the rest of the crew returns to Destiny, Young, Greer, Scott, and Varro watch as an entire Control Ship descends upon the warehouse building on the planet, though not quickly enough to stop them. Destiny now has a full tank of energy but TJ has to go and check on a despondent Park.

As We’re getting close to the end of a really good tv series that was cancelled way too early and as you will know if you have watched it, will end at a “what will happen” stage.

So in episode 38, the crew of Destiny along with the descendants are above the planet Novus, white the shuttle lands on the planet near a large statue of Col Young. They go to an underground bunker which leads to the planet’s archives. The archives shows them arriving on the planet 2000 years ago and finding shelter. In order to save as much data as possible, Eli manages to establish a communication link between the bunker and Destiny and upload the data to the ship’s computers. Some of the crew also look for salvageable supplies and Rush finds, Varro and a number of soldiers in the food storage area. Greer calls him over to show him a package of beef jerky, amazed that knowledge of it would survive 2000 years. Meanwhile the archives Kino footage shows the crew settling on the planet, building shelters, looking for material to make weapons and fences to keep possible predators away.

They also find out that in the alternate timeline, Volker was the first to die from the group. His kidney problems were not treatable as TJ lacked the equipment to do so. As Volker listens to the comments he is unable to say anything and leaves in the shuttle to Destiny. As the days, weeks & months pass by we learn of the crew settling down and people getting married. TJ & Young marry, Greer & Park marry, Scott marries Chloe and Varro and James make a connection during the wedding.  Later we see the women giving birth to their kids. We also learn that Lisa Park names her son Dale in honour of Volker. Also Eli is surprised to know that his alternate self hooks up with corporal Barnes and that they marry and have kids. We also see Wray speak about dating a woman from the crew but also admitting that she had found her soul mate and doesn’t need another.

The recordings also show the progress of TJ’s condition as she has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). A visibly upset TJ is comforted by her friends and she knows it’s only a matter of time before she starts to see the symptoms. Knowing that the archives also have a large medical database with cures for various diseases, Eli says that once the download is completed they should search for a cure in the archives. Meanwhile the videos shows the crew with their children grown up and them having kids too. They find out that the first school had Eli as their teacher.

Finally Eli is able to explain what happened to the Novans and as he tells Young, the gate got buried by a volcanic eruption decades ago. Many had already evacuated by then, but some remained. The two countries, realizing that they stood a better chance by working together, reconciled and built massive starships to cross the void between Novus and a nearby colony world. The world is ten days travel by FTL but hundreds of years by their more primitive propulsion. Soon the earthquakes cause the bunker to start breaking up and the crew has to abandon the rest of the salvaging and they only manage to get 1/3 of the archives uploaded to Destiny. As they evacuate Varro gets injured as he takes a fall. As they leave the planet Eli informs TJ that the cure for ALS wasn’t in the part of the database that they were able to download but that they could still develop a cure using the rest of the data.

A final flashback shows the dedication of Eli Wallace Elementary by his grandson, the principal. He tells about how Eli put his life into creating their system of education, and that he plans to uphold that legacy. He turns over the podium to Wray, the last surviving member of the expedition and current mayor, as well as author of their constitution. She recites the same words of greeting Yaozu gave when they first met in the main time. She gives a speech about how the crew thought they had failed their mission when they arrived, but now realizes that it’s the journey that matters. An aerial shot of the town shows how it evolves over the generations, progressing from a simple town, to an early industrial city, then finally to an advanced metropolis. The final shot shows one of the Novan starships launching from the city.