My Review- 'Detained'

WARNING! DO NOT RESCUE THESE SPOILERS, FOR THEY ARE 'DETAINED'

There were plenty of things to draw me into 'Detained'.

Firstly, there's Suliban. Considering the last time we saw Suliban it turned out to be one of the best episodes yet I couldn't wait.

Secondly, there's Mayweather. Mayweather is possibly the most criminally underused character in the history of Trek, if not Sci-fi, so it's nice to find we're going to see him.

Thirdly there's Dean Stockwell as Grat. Quantum Leap was a brilliant show, few would deny this, and Stockwell and Bakula were a brilliant on-screen coupling as friends. So I couldn't wait to see them again.

Fourthly, and finally 'Detained' is one of those morality tales which Trek is designed for. Trek has done many tales like this before. This episode quite obviously talks about the Japanese Internment in WWII, something Mr. Sulu himself, George Takei, was a victim off. At the same time 'Detained' warns us not to do the same in the wake of.... recent events. Trek has done this before. A lot. TOS's 'A Private Little War' is the closest I can think off. The episode was an obvious Vietnamese War analogy, to the point where a little Vietnamese guy walking through the screen with a sign saying "Stop the war" wouldnt of made it more obvious. Another good example is TNG's 'The Wounded'. The episode will go down in the minds of Trekkies as the episode which introduced the Nebula Class Ship, and the Cardassians, but it has an interesting and incredibly subtle point. The episode argues that during war-time we dehumanise the enemy and looks at it in an interesting manner. The episodes first broadcast just happened to coincide with the Gulf War. Indeed it's a lesson you could apply today with the many Muslims in Arab areas which AREN'T terrorists. Still shall we continue?

STORYLINE  

Out of 'The Wounded' and 'A Private Little War', 'Detained' is probably much closer to the latter. Why? 'The Wounded' is incredibly subtle, and the message is buried under a heap of brilliant characterisation, a great storyline and the other hallmarks of a great ep. 'A Private Little War's' message however, screams "LOOK AT ME! IM A VIETNAM ANALOGY!" it's about as Blatant as they come. 'Detained' is too. I mean, Archer even mentions one of the Internment camps. Im afraid to say I prefer my morality to be subtle, so that it's more subconscious in its effect. It's still a highly enjoyable episode though, steeped in excellent story ideas, good scripting and other general excellence. On a story level it slips here and there, for example we leave Danik fighting a bunch of Tandarans, then Sajen goes back for him. Good, I like. Then we do not find out what happened to either Danik or Sajen. We're just left to assume they survived, without any visual confirmation. I assume it was probably edited out, due to time constraints maybe, but I would of preferred to off seen it. Despite the blatancy of the message it is one I like, and one I feel is especially good to point out to Americans at this time. There's no denying the Americans are in a state of 'hyper-patriotism' at the moment. That's not a bad thing and it's perfectly understandable after recent events. It just means they get a somewhat biased view on the world where all Arabs are 'baddies'. It's a good point to make to them, that there ARE good Arabs, there ARE nice Muslims and that they're not all about to bomb you. That said it would of been nicer and more realistic if the Suliban and Tandarans hadn't been so simply cut. ALL the Suliban are 'nice guy who shouldn't of been locked away.' And ALL the Tandarans are anti-Suliban. Danik mentions that the Tandarans are generally a good people, it would of been nice to off SEEN these good people. Likewise it would of been nice to see someone so jaded by the Tandarans imprisoning them they might think the Cabal are doing a good thing, that's the way many Muslims start hating the US. For example a certain George Bush Sr. promised the US Army would help Kurds in Iraq rebel against Hussein. They started rebelling and then Mr. Bush delivered the message that the budget couldn't stretch to it, and they were slaughtered. However Im starting to use this review as a way to showcase my political opinions, so I better get back to the episode, before I receive 5,000 emails saying "SHUT YER BIG LIBERAL MOUTH!" Still the episode comes off well. For example the uncertainness of the episode, the part where they're preparing the plan, we know some parts of what is happening but not precisely what is happening. Onto the ship?

THE SHIP  

I see someone's equipped the shuttlepods with phase cannons since 'Shadows of P'Jem' as then the shuttles were only armed with low yield plasma weapons, I think I actually preferred the effect for the plasma weapons but still it's a pretty impressive scene visually. One may wonder that the landed craft were beaten so easily by a Shuttlepod, but then any defences they'd have wouldnt be online.

THE CHARACTERS  

As I said earlier Stockwell and Bakula worked with each other well. Kudos.

Anthony Montgomery was a little uneven in his acting this week. Some parts were pretty bland. Others made you want to forget all that. If he had more on-screen time to develop Travis maybe we'd get better acting.

STAR TREK NOTES.

"Grat: The Cabal attacked 8 years ago." "Me: And Ziggy says there's a 97% chance that if we dont stop them attacking bad things will happen! BUT ZIGGY'S ALWAYS WRONG!" :D Oh come on it had to be said :D

I enjoyed the story about the Suliban Homeworld.

I liked the strategy used to overload Grat's sensors.

U gotta feel for Billingsley. Into all that make-up for 3 whole lines.

I get the feeling this ep will have a lot of long-term impact on the series.

Rating (out of 10): Objectively an 8, but I really like the issues it brings up so 8.5/10 :)