Weird Star Trek Episodes - Impulse aka "Twilight of the Dead(?)!"

Well, Halloween is upon us, and the usual “Look at Somewhat Scary Things” has started. Let’s face it, “Look at Somewhat Scary Things” has been a thing this year if you look at the state of the world. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about what Lafreeze, the Orange Lantern is doing today. I wanted to find and look at some horror-themed Star Trek episodes. There aren’t many unfortunately. If I hadn’t talked about Enterprise’s “Resurrection” a few years back, that would be a contender. I then remembered that Star Trek tried to do zombies at some point, so I set out to watch that.

"Impulse" is the 5^th episode from Season 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise. This is where the show started to take a turn for the better with its season-long Xindi arc. At this point, Earth gets attacked by a new race called the Xindi. Starfleet sends the Enterprise into the Delphic Expanse, the region of space where the Xindi live. It also a region that has weird space anomalies, and this is something that the Vulcans have experienced. They lost a couple of ships in there and what they saw through ship logs was pretty disturbing.

The episode starts out with Archer and Phlox trying to restrain a crazed T’Pol in Sickbay. We then flash back to a day earlier where the Enterprise picks  up a distress signal. It’s from the Seleya, one of the Vulcan ships that was lost years ago. They find the ship in an asteroid field full of Trellium ore, a mineral that can help block these space anomalies. T’Pol, who once served on the ship, is intent on going over there to see if there are any survivors. While Archer, T’Pol, Reed, and Hawkins (a MACO) head over there in a shuttle, Trip and Mayweather do their best to mine the Trellium ore. 

I'm guessing T'Pol found out about Archer's thoughts during "A Night in Sickbay."

Once they make it over there, they find out that the Vulcan crew has gone mad and zombie-like. They try to kill the four, but they’re able to fight them off. Things start to get worse as T’Pol starts to exhibit some weird attributes. She starts to get paranoid and easily agitated. The Zombie Vulcans (I’ll call them “Zulcans”) even cut them off from their shuttle. They eventually make it to the bridge and contact the Enterprise. Unfortunately, Trip and Mayweather’s excursion with the other shuttle didn’t go too well and it got damaged. They also find out from Phlox that the ore itself has a bad reaction to Vulcans which results in them going crazy.

Thanks to T’Pol, the crew starts to make their way back to the shuttle. Unfortunately, the Zulcans did something in Engineering that’ll make the ship explode, so they got limited time. Also, T’Pol ultimately loses herself and she ends up acting how she did at the start of the episode. After playing some “Zulcan Shoot-em-up”, they make it back to the shuttle. With some timely help from Trip and Mayweather, they make it back to the Enterprise. The episode ends with Archer putting the ore in storage until a cure can be found for T’Pol. Meanwhile, T’Pol is resting but this is something that’ll stick with her for a while… Oh yeah, JUMP SCARE!!!

If you wonder how working third shift looks, this is it. Yes, there are  sparks.

I thought this was an entertaining episode of Enterprise. By this time, things just felt better. Usually, it takes Trek Shows a couple of seasons for them to get better, and Enterprise was no exception. We got what’s technically our first zombie episode of Trek even though I count the Borg to be zombies of a sort. Things move at a pretty brisk pace and the action is pretty nice. There was some buildup to this since the show hinted that the Vulcans went into the Delphic Expanse before. Here, we get a payoff and a reason on why Vulcans lose their crap here

I though the stuff with T’Pol was pretty nice. This is something does stick with T’Pol for the rest of the season and that does get weird later. We’ve seen Jolene Blalock go off in previous episodes, but this felt better. I think the last time she went nuts was a pon’farr thing, and… I think she wasn’t wearing much in that episode. It was from Season 2 which is more or less a blank to me since it was mostly bad. I also liked the setting and how the Zulcans looked. There actually isn’t much bad with the episode. It’s light on story, but it’s more of an action piece. Also, the business on the Enterprise could have been better. Other than that, this was good.

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Overall, this was a pretty entertaining episode. It’s more action-oriented and horror themed, so if you’re looking for something more thought-provoking, look for another episode. Trek’s got plenty of them. Well, I think it’s time to get back to some Universal Studio goodness with the Count himself. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there. Oh yeah, watch out for them Zulcans!!!!

Zulcan: Hi there. Have you heard of our great one, Surak? He can teach you logic like he did us!