Star Trek: Enterprise (TV Series) Chosen Realm (2004) User Reviews

Don't Get Me Started on Religion

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 25 March 2017]

I only take issue with one part of this episode. It's a big one, mentioned by others before. It is the ease with which a small group of people can take over the Enterprise. For heaven's sake, they've been boarded so many times, you'd think they were a cruise ship. I realize other writers have said the same thing. The part that I was fine with was a commentary on religious zealots. I consider myself a spiritual person, but to me there is nothing more frightening than a bunch of religious factions that base their lives on fairy tales where they are the chosen ones. Our country is loaded with them right now. Enough of my soap box, however. I really loved the use of the transporter and the eventual retaking of the ship. The episode was about a plan to save the mission and move ahead. The final scene is terrific. Are these people going to live there now? I suppose that issue will be ignored now. I try to view these episodes on their structural value and found this fun. All the "deus ex machina" aside (which is constantly at work in ever version of Star Trek conceived), it's a pretty cool story.

Oh, one last thing. Isn't it interesting how a dominant male group would base their religion on giant balls.

Watch for the final scene

[olivertheworld · 8/10 · 26 December 2019]

Not a bad episode. But the final scene is what makes it.

Heavy-handed

[mstomaso · 6/10 · 15 November 2007]

Enterprise takes on the issue of religious fanaticism in this overbearing recycle of the old 'our new fascist friends just took over the ship' plot (i.e. see TOS - Whom Gods Destroy, The Way to Eden etc). While the episode is clearly aimed at both American fundamentalist neoconservatives and the religious extremists they consider themselves incompatible with, it makes its points so unsubtly that it is very easy to ignore.

Enterprise encounters what appears to be a derelict ship, but as they approach the ship to dock, its life support systems suddenly start to work again. The crew of the alien ship seem polite enough, but eventually it becomes clear that Enterprise's research on the spheres of The Expanse is going to be exploited as a religion-based excuse to expropriate the ship and use it to commit genocide. If any of this sounds familiar (from previous ST stories or real world history), then you are catching on.

The episode is also probability-challenged. Enterprise's security system is too vulnerable and even after the aliens show their true colors, Archer keeps trying to 'work things out'. Not one of Roxanne Dawson better directing efforts.

The final scene is worth sticking around for.

The Ole Trojan Horse in the Veins Trick

[Samuel-Shovel · 6/10 · 30 January 2018]

"Chosen Realm" takes a break from the Xindi plotline when a group of religious extremist take over the Enterprise with the intent of using it to destroy their rivals in a bitter crusade between the two factions. Archer mist figure out a way to retake the ship before the zealots do irrevocable damage.

Religious fanaticism isn't exactly a new concept in sci-fi or pop culture but that being said, ST:E doesn't do a terrible job with it. It's definitely not one of the better episodes but it's not terrible either.

There's one scene in particular where D'Jamat is comparing himself to Archer and talking about how their missions weren't so different that really made an impact on me. Watching Archer have to take a look in the mirror and consider whether D'Jamat is right was strangely effective, almost powerful.

The implausibility comes in when you consider how easily Archer gave up command of the ship. You think he might have fought back a bit more and could have avoided thus entire episode. But oh well...

The only plot develop we get from this episode is we learn that the spheres are most likely 1,000 years old (or there abouts) and that the Triannon delete all of Enterprise's data collected regarding the spheres. Time will tell whether this is recoverable or not.

The ending was very Star Trek-esque, showing how constant violence only leads to mutual destruction. The allegory of a post-9/11 world might have been laid on a bit thick in this episode, but that doesn't mean it didn't accomplish it's goal.

The premise seems quite flawed...

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 4 April 2015]

Think about it--Enterprise is set on a mission to save the Earth and thus save billions and yet they stop to help a disabled ship?! Then, making far less sense, they allow the religious zealots on the ship to have unrestricted access to Enterprise?! Does this set-up for the show make much sense?! I wouldn't stop to help anyone AND I wouldn't allow anyone on my ship!! Regardless, these nuts turn out to be a crazed lot. Using terrorist tactics, they commandeer the ship and go off on a mission to destroy the heretics! So, it's up to the incredibly stupid Captain and his crew to stop these nut cases before it's too late.

Ultimately, Archer is able to use trickery to regain his ship. You also learn why the battle between religious factions is a lot like the Dr. Seuss book "The Butter Battle Book", as the disagreement is so incredibly unimportant...yet the battle has gone on for over a hundred years. This is the only aspect of the show that I really liked--the rest just seemed a bit contrived.

Thoroughly enjoyable!

[warlockofliechtenstein · 10/10 · 11 August 2020]

This episode is very consistent with some of Roddenberry's key themes for Star Trek. It reminded me a lot of several of TNG's prime episodes where the dangers of extremely dogmatic and "one-truth" based faiths are laid bare.

I'm sure some religious people who aren't open minded will be offended by parts of it. Personally, I found it fabulous and a welcome break from the Xindi arc.

Another TOS Recycle

[gregorynewton5 · 6/10 · 21 August 2021]

It was interesting to see this a couple days after watching the TOS episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and realize mid-episode that it was a rewrite of that older treatment I had just watched. And although a few things were changed along the way, the ending is virtually identical.

Others have mentioned that this episode shows the Enterprise crew to be exceptionally slow learners regarding ship security, and I agree it's getting annoying. Some internal defense strategies definitely need to be established.

Religious Fanaticism

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 10 February 2008]

After receiving a distress call from a Triannon ship, the Enterprise welcomes on board a group of religious followers leaded by the zealot D'Jamat. They call the Delphic Expanse of Chosen Realm and that the spheres were created one thousand year ago by the Makers along nine days. When the security team relaxes, the fanatics take control of the Enterprise using biological explosives that transform each one of them in a bomb-man or woman. D'Jamat plans to use the Enterprise to destroy the population considered heretic in his planet, but he finds the fate of their intolerance when he returns to Triannon.

"Chosen Realm" is a tense episode with no originality that explores the religious fanaticism but has an excellent anti-war conclusion. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Reino Escolhido" ("Chosen Realm")

Has Anyone Writing This Show Ever Taken A Religious Studies Class?

[Vvardenfell_Man · 6/10 · 21 April 2024]

Oh, 2004, will you ever stop reminding us of our hubris? Like so many pieces of media that may or may not have been trying to say something about the Iraq War, this is muddled. Battlestar Galactica, which started airing in the same year, ended up doing a much better job of examining questions about the relationship between faith and science, and it did so by taking the time necessary. A fictional religion is only as interesting as the way its belief system is portrayed for the benefit of the audience. We don't know or care about *why* these people believe what they do. This is, in fact, a problem when they start shooting at people who disagree with them--because then we don't care about the conflict.

Darth Helmet would have been a more intimidating villain. Apparently everyone who disagrees with them is a heretic and deserves to die. We don't understand what they believe, though, other than "the spheres are sacred," which is boring. Not to mention the ease with which our invaders take over the ship. This doesn't make any sense at all. The people OKing the scripts for this show--that is to say, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga--clearly thought too highly of their own ability to tell thematically heavy stories like this one.

Good concept but devoid of originality and plausibility

[snoozejonc · 5/10 · 28 October 2020]

Enterprise is taken over by a group of religious extremists.

I like the concept of what the writers do with religious fanaticism. It was written at a time where Christian fundamentalism and Islam extremism was a prominent source of material in the media. The application of the theme contains no subtly whatsoever, but many episodes within the franchise are similar.

Also similar are the plot and characters. I've seen this formula applied so many times within the franchise it's now quite tiresome. Hard nosed antagonist, one within the ranks who is more liberal-minded and open to being talked round, pregnant woman and a plot to take over Enterprise.

When the Triannon take over the Enterprise it is under the most laughable circumstance. I can suspend disbelief when I need to, but the implausibly of this plot is just funny. Series 3 places the Enterprise crew in pretty much a state of war and they expect an audience to accept that in a dangerous part of the galaxy they take a group of strangers aboard and give them access to all parts of the ship.

The saving graces for me were some good performances, Malcolm Reed being pretty cool during some hand to hand combat and the very last scene.

A very interesting story, from a surprising introduction to an awesome ending!

[habat4Ever · 8/10 · 26 December 2020]

I started watching the episode after having a quick read at a negative review about assimilating this episode to a human religion when the episode is around an alien religion with believes in multiple gods who had created the "Chosen Realm" (a.k. Expanse) 1000 years ago.?

Anyway I gave myself a chance to view the episode and I am not disappointed at all, on the contrary! The story is intriguing but the way the Enterprise Crew is reacting to an imminent danger for saving the Enterprise starship is very welcome.

A very nice conclusion which has the merits to let understand that being human and smart will always win against thinking that suppressing lives for satisfying imaginative gods is the way to go...

Overall a very fine episode to be followed, hence a very much deserved 8/10 and a good break in the Xindi / Expanse episode timeline for this third season.

Good episode, religious fanatics lead to conflict.

[MuggySphere · 5/10 · 10 October 2013]

This was a great episode however yeah Enterprise now has the security of a jar of lollies.....

Yay! Captain Archer helps a band of people that look helpless. Then what do you know the help is turned back on them because they're all living bombs, led by a fanatical nut case...

And speaking of security what the hell. A toddler with a rattle could take over the ship. Where is the system backup? The database is deleted and there's no backup. Not even a password to the vital commands, like say the ones that delete important data? That bit left me kind of speechless, sheer bad writing..

But overall I thought it a good episode.

Enterprise can be stolen by anyone now

[neacorp · 1/10 · 13 July 2009]

After finding a third anomaly making globe in space, Enterprise encounters a pushover ship with a bunch of monks on it. A problem with life-support indulges help and rescue. If you saw many Star Trek episodes before this than you know that a big group of people on board spells immanent takeover, which will be done by the end of the episode.

Feels like a filler episode, but… being taken over by a dozen of zealots/monks from a pathetic ship through terrorism is as low as you can go. Hell, Archer just calmly surrendered after he was told that 2 bombs were in the reactor room. OK, suicide biobombing is a nice twist, but you think by this time Enterprise would have had something installed to protect it from hijacking. Let's start with not gullibly giving strangers access to sensitive areas and equipment. How about introducing protocols on aiding ships in distress, and what to do with the survivors after? Let's install locks on weapon storage. Let's back up important PC data and prevent children from deleting star charts and system files.

Unfortunately writers concentrate too much on the stories, and not enough on the organizing systems. The further this season goes, the more childish the scripts become. The army team quickly became just another useless security team, and the danger of human annihilation is watered down with star fleet incompetence.

If this continues, I will soon confirm for myself that Star Trek proves the need of a strong military for life to exist in space, and good will alone amounts to nothing.

Good concept. Dumb execution.

[smiledaydream · 4/10 · 25 September 2021]

Good concept. Dumb execution. Hey visitor, we have no security, hang out by our warp core and enter quarters even we aren't allowed to enter. Use your magic password ability to erase all our data. The entire crew can't defend themselves, but one man suddenly can. My suggestion: Have more security plans than Starbucks.

Deeply disappointing.

[sogoodlooking · 5/10 · 22 September 2020]

Instead of making the zealots' beliefs interesting and a worthy contribution to the plot, the writers turn those beliefs into something as trivial as their believing the "Chosen Realm" of the spheres was created in 9 days, whereas the zealots' enemies believe it took 10 days.

In addition, there's a weakly written, overlong, running gun battle, which in my house is referred to as the "pew-pew-pew" problem. It adds nothing to the episode.

The ending, too, is far too easy, offering us little more than "war is bad."

Yes. Yes it is.

Enterprise apparently not allowed to be subtle

[phenomynouss · 1/10 · 7 October 2010]

In this week's filler episode that has nothing at all to do with the Xindi arc beyond the coincidental, religious fanatics take over Enterprise, and the Enterprise crew fights them off successfully.

That's literally it. The rest is filled in with the same old tired, cliché' trash that litters bad television, particularly the kind of Brannon and Braga and their Star Trek style.

And in typical Brannon and Braga style, the religious fanatics are at war with heretics literally because they believe the Sphere Builders built the spheres in 9 days, and the heretics believe they were built in 10 days.

That is the sort of thing you see in farce, like the South Park episode in which Cartman ends up 500 years in the future, and three groups of atheists are at war over what to call their unified group.

Except here, it's PLAYED STRAIGHT. That's right, these people are literally involved in a gory civil war over how many days the Gods built their spheres.

This doesn't even begin to resemble a parody or a referencing of actual historical differences and fractures in the Christian Church or Muslim faith. The differences there were many, and varied, and never lead to war over theological differences, unless they were also supported by ulterior motives; hint: the Thirty Years War was less about Catholic-Protestant theological differences than about politics, regal rivalries, and power.

That's not even remotely hinted upon in this farce of an episode.

And in a move that not only beats you over the head, but comes literally out of nowhere, and with no real explanation as to how Archer found their homeworld, the homeworld of these fanatics is in ruins, as both sides have extinguished themselves.

This was done before, and better, and more believably in The Original Series episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"

Pure Imbessility

[renegadephalanx · 2/10 · 7 July 2013]

Enterprise stumbles on a smaller inferior ship that has been damaged by gravimetric anomalies. Obviously, being the jolly good guy Captain Archer volunteers to help the supposed "Religious Monk" aboard the other ship.

This is all fine but from here the story takes a total logical dump and goes haywire. But, when you have an episode about religious people they always turn out to be nut cases which is exactly what this episode turns into.

Archer agrees to - Delay his Xindi finding mission for a couple of days to help repair this monk ship. Why? Waste hours of manpower, resources and time to help out some mentally disturbed imbeciles. -The "monks" are allowed free access to all the ships critical areas; warp reactor room, bridge and apparently the armory. -The "monks" are given a pass from detailed medical scans because of their religious bs customs. Oh brother, who let political correct police write this script.

The chief religious nut job threatens to destroy Enterprise by placing to monks with implanted explosives in the warp reactor room. As a gesture to show that these religious nut jobs mean business one of the monks blows himself up in a corridor.

Besides that there are other predictable subplots and characters. The 2nd in command is doubtful about the mission and his crazy faith. The religious leader is a nut job who wants to take enterprise to massacre another religious faction that opposes his beliefs.

No amount of acting mastery can carry this episode, its downright horrible.

Predictable and done before, but still

[tidusbautista · 5/10 · 8 February 2014]

Yes it's been done, but so have half of all the other stories in Enterprise. Yes it is as subtle as a charging rhino, but still. There were, in my opinion, redeeming qualities to this episode. Flox's bat plays a bigger role in saving the ship than the marines. Archer also demonstrates that intelligence wins over religious fanaticism. The message may have been too extreme for some to grasp its full implications, however. Religious bigotry and hate don't just exist between the fanatic groups on our world. Turn on the news and you see people using religion to oppress the rights of others because they find their beliefs at odds with their own. In the end it didn't matter if the spheres were built in nine days or ten, the hate destroyed them all. Yes this episode is preachy, but you can apply the lesson on many levels. Still, not the best. 5/10

Interesting premise, poorly executed, anticlimax ending.

[cheesustoast · 5/10 · 25 May 2014]

I have had difficulty working out how to grade this episode because it was actually somewhat entertaining. Maybe the entertainment is down to the dreadful plot.

As other people have pointed out... they must have extremely lax security to allow these people right next to the warp reactor in the first place. That part of it made it somewhat unrealistic.

This episode could be considered offensive because it is only showing the very negative aspects of certain religious stereotypes. It could have been written by any one of the "... religious people want to destroy the universe!" people. I noticed that it was not written by Christopher Hitchens. Maybe he should have been credited as an influence!

To round everything off, the end was very much an anticlimax. Going by the profile of the extremist leader, the destruction of the planet that is shown to him at the end would not have had any real impact on him. The question is then: why is he shown as being in awe of the destruction? Is this not the very type of destruction he would want for his "enemies"? Is it being suggested that his ways have been changed because he sees the result of battle? Seriously? He seems like the kind of guy who would readily destroy a planet full of cute kittens just to satisfy his deities.

The premise of this episode could have been handled with great eloquence. It was not!

Captain Archer is a Wet wipe

[carwynrmorris · 4/10 · 7 February 2023]

Terrible Writing makes Archer look like the most incompetent captain of all time. Given everything Enterprise has already gone though you'd think that not giving a group of strangers unrestricted access to the most sensitive parts of the ship would be a no brainer. But here Comes Archer with another one of his "Hold my beer" moments.

The story tries to be about terrorism but at this point just about anyone could take over Enterprise armed only with sharp wit and low and behold Archer would buckle and fold like a wet paper bag in a hurricane. This show had to go 4 seasons because of Archer, a more competent captain would have got it done before the end of season 1.

Izzlum in space

[samwonelsie · 5/10 · 5 June 2021]

While Archer is forced to perform a Steven Seagal-like stunt, boring and redundant.

Reminding us that karma is a b*** aka "who sows the wind", the wrecked structure resembling the Dome of the Rock was a nice touch in the finale.

Terrible teleplay

[twillbox · 3/10 · 28 August 2023]

Not a bad premise for a story but really badly written all the way around from start to finish. From the small details to the larger plot points this is a terribly written story. People act like idiots and the way in which the episode unfolds is literally ridiculous. It makes everyone on Enterprise look like weak idiots. As I re-watch the series I am remembering why I FFed through a bunch of episodes like this. I am going to assume that they intended this to be a blow off episode and knew the writing was bad and didn't care. I like the Xindi/temporal cold war story line, but episodes like this are why the show got canceled after 4 seasons, especially given that they exhausted the good ongoing plot lines at that point. More evidence it was really the show runners that ruined Enterprise not 'Star Trek Fatigue'. The B Boys were really messing the show up. And just to reiterate what everyone know and suffers through, 20 years later the theme music is still horrible and hurts me when I forget to forward it. Another huge B boys error they refused to correct and instead doubled down and cemented their reputation as total jerks who killed Enterprise and any hope of another show for...oh how long was it...16 years.