Terra Nova: They were instructed to check on the colony. The Novans (who appeared to me to be adults) didn't want help. Archer had to talk them into accepting it (as Trip had to talk the cogenitor into learning to read).
The Andorian Incident: T'Pol remarks that the monk they they meet is behaving oddly; the entry is a mess. Does Archer mind his own business despite having just been invited to leave? No. He strolls around the room and spots a blue skinned alien's reflection in a shiny bowl. Signals Trip and they both try to tackle the guy. That's when the guns are drawn.
Dear Doctor: Archer and Phlox end up leaving the Valakians with a palliative. Not the cure they had asked for.
Desert Crossing: No, in spite of the misrepresentation, Archer doesn't have doubts about Zobral. In fact, after Zobral leaves, Archer sadly admits he believes his cause is just.
Marauders: T'Pol approves and that makes Archer right? T'Pol should have reminded him that these are Klingons. They live for battle. And any day is a good day to die. And the miners didn't "change their minds." Archer had to talk their leader into it. If this ridiculous episode had played out with the Klingons behaving like Klingons (and needing or not needing deuterium wouldn't have been the only issue for them; they were beaten by a bunch of weaklings! No semi-self-respecting Klingon would have allowed that to stand) ... Did anybody on the miners/Enterprise side even get hurt? This plot worked well for Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, but here the writing was so convenient, it became preposterous!
Lemme get off this merry-go-round, I'm dizzy!
My point wasn't to disagree about our interpretation of the premises.
If I understand your analysis, you're pointing out that Archer has a history of 1) offering help when none is asked for and 2) refusing help when it is requested.
This is the basis for your suggestion that Archer "offer help when none is asked for," i.e., discuss Earth's history of sexual inequality and its later attitude change with the Vissians, and encourage Charles to take up the fight for equality; and your position that Trip's actions are simply Trip emulating Archer, also by "offering help when none is asked for," because the cogenitor falls in the weak/helpless category. And also the basis for your position that Archer is hypocritical for "refusing help when it is requested," i.e., turning down the cogenitor's request for asylum.
Fine. What confuses me is that your analysis suggests that Archer is poorly written in these example episodes.
If Archer were written consistently and well throughout the series, then there would (hopefully) be no hypocritical situations down the road in which Trip emulates his captain by doing X, and Archer dresses him down for it. Emulating the captain would be a good thing.
Or, perhaps Archer did something (well-intentioned but perhaps not fully thought out) in Season 1 that ended up being a mistake (
Fight or Flight is a good example), and he learned from it. Then, late in Season 2, no one on the writing staff would be having a character emulate the captain's early stumbles and characterize them as admirable. Ideally, you would see the learning curve established, so Archer would be in a position to say, "Perhaps I would have done that in the past, but no longer. I know better now."
One thing that seems to have been needed was consistency and credibility regarding Archer's decisions. These episodes worked for some viewers better than for others, so maybe the writers were on the right track, but they didn't quite get what they intended onto the page. Perhaps tweaking the circumstances, characters, motivations...something to have Archer's actions elicit more of a
response from the viewers instead of a
I'm not suggesting that the Vissian captain should have been forced to listen with a phaser to his head. But Archer spent three solid days in a stratopod with this guy and now all of a sudden he would be imposing human values if he tries to explain where Trip was coming from when he did this? Archer doesn't have to sanction Trip's actions to share our values. This is who we are. What the heck is wrong with telling them that?
Keeping in mind that, structurally, Archer represented "non-interference" and "establishing positive relations," and Trip represented "interference" in this episode. If Archer significantly switched sides, the theme might have gotten muddled. There was the "asylum" scene between Archer and the Vissians, in which Archer ran into a brick wall of cultural incomprehension pretty quickly when he tried to explain the human perspective. If there were another scene in which Trip tried to smooth things over and apologize, in order to win asylum for Charles, and the Vissians reacted in a total
way, that would have illustrated the cultural chasm. My guess is that the writers probably thought they covered that in the asylum scene. Aaaaand we're not talking about Archer anymore, sorry.
Oh, please don't be silly. Charles would have kill itself half-way through the speech!
Does he take responsibility? In the final analysis, not really.
Do we see his compassion? Well, he does look like he feels kind of bad when he enters Trip's quarters to give Charles the bad news. But at the end, when we really should be seeing compassion, sadness. Not so much.
I guess I'm with
bluedana on this one...Archer is one of those people who typically hides his deeper feelings, such as disappointment or sadness, behind a facade of stoniness or anger. He shows his compassion to Charles, who needs to see it, but he's all Toughlove to Trip, because he's disappointed.
The script excerpt is great, thank you! And very telling, describing Archer's "barely controlled anger" and "anger rising."
Yeah, but my intent was to see how people would prefer to have seen Archer characterized by the writers.
It really is a compelling and complex question, since Archer works just fine for many people and doesn't need "fixing," while other people despise him. You can pick out individual episodes that are on best-of
and worst-of lists.
If the writing staff had had a grand 7-year plan, I think there would have been more character consistency overall. Archer's father died at two different times, c'mon. If there had been a specific arc mapped out for him to overcome his prejudice, learn from his mistakes, mature because of war and loss and the weight of increasing responsibilities and the call of destiny, all the while struggling to maintain his gee-whiz love of exploring, combat his tendency toward self-sacrifice, and retain his humanity and compassion...wow, a captain for the ages.
