31 Days of Monster Mania: Day 17: Star Trek Enterprise "Impulse"

Written by Stu Cooper

It's time for yet another entry in the Monster Mania countdown! Today I'm going back to the vast Trekverse to discuss another creepy Halloween themed Star Trek episode. The episode I will be discussing isn't exactly Halloween themed, but it's the closest thing we will ever get to a live action "Night of the Living Trekkies". For today's entry I'm discussing the Star Trek Enterprise episode "Impulse" which is essentially about Vulcan zombies!

For those who aren't familiar with Star Trek: Enterprise it's the last Star Trek series to air on television, but timeline wise it's the first. It's a prequel to all the other series, so this is before Picard, and before Kirk. It's essentially about the first group of Starfleet people to explore space. This makes for a pretty interesting series that people seem to either love or hate. The look and feel of the show is far different from it's predecessors. Since it's a prequel a lot of the technology and costumes look different than what we are used to. That rubs some people the wrong way, but I'm pretty neutral about that factor as long as the storytelling is good. The captain of the Enterprise in this incarnation is Scott Bakula who plays Captain Archer. Some of the other crew members include the insanely beautiful Vulcan T'Pol (Jolene Blalock), Engineer Trip Tucker (Connor Trineer), Dr.Phlox (John Billingsly), Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating), and the always smiley Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery). The crew experiences all sorts of first time adventures while in space, but one they couldn't have possibly predicted is an encounter with zombie Vulcans!

The episode starts with Captain Archer looking battle damaged and he is hauling an irrational acting T'pol into sickbay. There is something seriously wrong with T'pol. She's acting like she is losing her Vulcan mind! Cue Rod Stewart theme tune. Flashback to one day earlier. The crew of the Enterprise receives a distress signal from a Vulcan ship called The Seleya (beautiful name) which was a ship lost in the expanse over 9 months ago. The crew follow the distress signal which leads to an asteroid field full of a rare mineral called trellium. Trip seems to think the Vulcan ship went out into the asteroid field to collect this mineral and something happened. Archer wants to investigate but realizes the Enterprise is too big to navigate through the asteroid field. Archer decides to take the shuttlepod over to the Seleya, he is joined by T'pol and Reed. T'pol reveals that she actually served on the Seleya for over a year as a science officer before joining the Enterprise. She had already left the ship by the time they had gotten stuck in the expanse. The Seleya appeared to become a victim to a "subspace eddy", never to be heard from again. Any ships sent to retrieve them were never heard from again either.

The shuttlepod makes it to the Vulcan ship, and Hawkins joins the crew as well. Reed, Archer, T'pol, and Hawkins all board the Seleya. T'pol and Archer are investigating some odd biosign readings. After Reed finds trellium and Vulcan blood covering some of the bulkheads. This is obviously not a good sign. Soon after this Archer and T'pol are confronted by a Vulcan who appears crazed. He charges at them with a weapon and takes several phaser shots to dispose of. The Vulcan also appears to have warped skin, as if he has some kind of virus. The crew continues to be attacked by Vulcans throughout the ship, all with the same crazed virus. The Vulcans seem to have lost all sense of reality and logic, bent on killing the crew. The crew uses the stun setting and continues to take out every Vulcan they see. Reed decides to set his phaser to kill, which causes a dispute between him and T'pol. T'pol believes he has no issues killing her people, despite the fact that they could be saved. Archer agrees and orders the crew to continue stunning the Vulcan zombies instead of killing them. The crew realizes that there are 147 Vulcans on board, and they are going to have a serious fight on their hands.

After battling through several decks, T'pol begins showing signs of the same Vulcan virus the crew of the Seleya have. It becomes Archer's priority to get her help before it's too late. Meanwhile Tucker and Mayweather are using another shuttlepod to mine trellium from a nearby asteroid, which isn't going so well for them. Archer and the crew eventually reach the sickbay of the Seleya where they run into a Vulcan that T'pol knows. The Chief Engineer of the ship, but unfortunately he gives into the madness and is unable to give them any answers. T'pol begins getting irrational and angry, and Archer knows her time is running out. The crew decide to continue battling their way through the Seleya, fighting off Vulcan zombies one by one.

Meanwhile back on the Enterprise Trip and Mayweather are able to gather the materials they needed from the asteroid, but as a result of their messing around a giant asteroid is now heading directly for the ship. Two asteroids collide in front of the ship and cause a serious delay in any kind of rescue. It's up to Archer and his crew members on the Seleya to save themselves. As they continue battling the zombies, T'pol begins to turn crazy. She starts making lots of snide remarks towards the crew members, including a remark to Archer about his father's failed work. She soon convinces herself that Archer just wants to kill the Vulcans and get revenge against them. She sets her phaser for kill and holds the crew hostage. Thankfully the crew are able to disarm her and subdue her. Archer realizes the only way to free themselves is to override the ship, which would lead to a warp core breach. Archer sends Dr.Phlox some bio information that will allow him to treat T'pol and the crew are rescued at the last minute by Trip and Mayweather. The Seleya explodes. T'pol is treated afterwards but is still haunted by the memories of the zombie Vulcans and feels a bit betrayed by her crew. She felt that it was not necessary to kill all of the infected Vulcans, but they had no choice.

"Impulse" was a Season 3 episode and by this point we had gotten to know the characters quite well. The crew was actually in the middle of a big story arc with an alien race called The Xindi, but it's not a factor in this episode. The episode originally aired in October 2003, just in time for the Halloween season! The episode itself is pretty one dimension but it's a lot of fun. If you ever wondered what "Night of the Living Vulcans" would be like, this does it justice. It's basic zombie movie scares, but in a Star Trek universe. The one interesting layer of depth to the story would be the psychotic breakdown of T'pol. We get to see T'pol become very emotional, which for a Vulcan is rare. She ends up expressing her true feelings regarding some of the crew members and says some things that can't be taken back. This issue reaches such a heated point that she actually requests that the Captain leave her on the next habitable planet. It provides a pretty interesting element to the bland zombie story we've seen 1,000 times. If you're looking for a good Star Trek Halloween episode, you can't go wrong with "Impulse", even if you aren't an Enterprise fan!

Abe Lincoln vs. Zombies Review

Written by Stuart Cooper

Starring Bill Oberst Jr, Don Mcgraw, and David Alexander

Four score and seven years ago, America faced a civil war and was briefly interrupted by a zombie outbreak…wait you mean you don’t remember that? Well the latest Asylum Hollywood mockbuster “Abe Lincoln vs. Zombies” centers on this idea. As most of you know there is a film coming out this summer called “Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” which is based on a novel in which Abe Lincoln hunts Vampires in the midst of the Civil War. In usual Asylum fashion a film was crafted with a similar premise, except instead of Vampires, Honest Abe is faced with a small zombie outbreak. Believe it or not this film actually ended up having a little bit of charm that makes it an entertaining watch all the way through.

Bill Oberst Jr. steps into the presidential shoes to play Abe Lincoln in the film and does so with full force. You have to give props to Oberst Jr. for taking the role seriously and actually bringing some good acting chops to the role. I really enjoyed his portrayal of Lincoln, while hokey at times, still entertaining. Though I couldn’t help but notice his voice is quite similar to that of the old police chief from Police Academy, I had to double check IMDB to make sure it was not the same guy, their voices are that similar! The film starts off with pretty much the exact same premise as Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Abe loses his mother to a zombie attack (as opposed to a vampire attack) and this causes him to form an intense hatred for Zombies and a bit of a dark side as he is actually forced to decapitate the zombie with a sickle at a very young age. Apparently Abe kept this sickle the entire time because it is his weapon of choice throughout the film (again, as opposed to the axe in the vampire version). Abe finds himself in the middle of a small zombie outbreak when he and his men are at a fort preparing for the next Civil War battle. The men accompanying Lincoln are actually an early version of the secret service, so that was kind of cool to see. After Lincoln accepts that the dead have risen, he organizes a group of men to hunt down and destroy every zombie they can find. Of course these men have moral complications since they don’t really believe in the undead, and feel as if they are being ordered to kill sick people. Funny enough one of the men that is helping out Lincoln is none other than his arch rival John Wilkes Booth. Obviously this film would not be historically accurate, so I can forgive the fact that Booth is randomly at his side during the film, though the character is actually deceptive throughout the movie, hinting at his obvious dark side. There are actually a few other historical faces that pop up throughout the film, most notably would be General Stonewall Jackson, who runs into Lincoln after a group of his men are found hiding from the zombie outbreak. Stonewall is actually quite the entertaining character throughout the film and honestly made me wish we could see Stonewall Jackson vs. Frankenstein or something. Another historical addition to the film is a Young Teddy Roosevelt who is apparently mothered by a group of prostitutes that Lincoln is friends with. It was very hard to type that sentence without laughing but it is part of the movie none the less! So there are certainly some funny moments in the film, whether they are intentionally goofy or not, I’m not really sure.

The actual look itself of the film is also not bad. Considering there is very little reason for CGI in most of the film, you aren't overloaded with low budget effects, and that certainly adds to the charm of the film. With most asylum films you are usually witnessing some type of giant CGI monster or CGI alien invasion, but since most of this film centers around humans, you only see a few little CGI tweaks here and there. Another cool little thing I noticed is that Lincoln calls the zombies "un-fortunates" instead of undead, I thought that was a nice touch. The Lincoln character definitely has that wise man persona that we've come to love about the real life figure. At one point he even tells young Teddy Roosevelt to "walk softly and carry a big stick" except instead of the original context of that quote, he means it quite literally since Teddy actually uses a big stick to fight off zombies.

If you have a free night and are up for redboxing a cheap fairly entertaining film, this one wouldn’t be a bad choice. If you keep in mind that you are watching a mockbuster and not a Hollywood summer blockbuster, there is definitely some enjoyment to be had. Compared to some of the latest Syfy originals, you could do a lot worse. Bill Oberst Jr. makes Lincoln a funny and badass character to watch, and the addition of Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth to the film makes for quite the interesting historical “what if”. I would say if you are in the mood for a cheesy horror film, this one is worth a watch. If you are a history buff like me, you might get some enjoyment out of the absurdity of the situations throughout the film. If you are very sensitive about historically accurate films then you might want to pass on this one.