ent s3e8 twilight

i have mixed feelings on this episode. it was well executed, for sure, but i'm bothered by the implications of its concept.

it's not the first time the show's given archer the "specialest guy in the world" treatment, the season one finale had a similar premise. take archer out of the equation and the timeline's wrecked. it didn't particularly bother me then because it didn't put any other characters down in the process. this episode did. humanity lost the war and was almost entirely destroyed specifically because t'pol took over the ship after he got amnesia. that's just insulting to her character to hinge such catastrophe on her failure. and then it goes on to have her "redeem herself" by becoming archer's live-in caretaker, his wife in every sense but legal. it bothered me the whole time.

i didn't hate the whole thing! i was emotionally compelled! i was fully sold on archer's confusion and disorientation, the tragedy of his situation specifically and then that of the destruction of earth. i even thought it was fascinating that t'pol stayed with archer the whole time, the idea of "repaying debt", her motivations in all of it. but we wouldn't have any of that without throwing the show's one significant female character under the bus.

enterprise is being misogynistic again, who could have guessed. i gotta stop being surprised. also archer looked like an ipad baby in the final scene