Character Spotlight: Malcolm Reed
By Ames
Well, we’ve covered the three main stars of Star Trek: Enterprise, and you’ll find that we’re going to struggle a bit more to come up with highlights for the rest of the characters. Maybe Enterprise was more like The Original Series than we thought. But you know what? The hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By came to really appreciate how consistently written our security chief Malcolm Reed really is. You just have to be a little more observant to notice it through Dominic Keating’s accent.
Somewhat like Chakotay, Reed’s characterization has a subtle nuance that doesn’t hit you over the head, but it’s all there: his self-deprecating humor, his stalwart loyalty, his British gumption. It’s easy for your typical Trekkie to commiserate with our explosion-loving friend. His parents kept him at arm’s length, he never seems to luck out romantically (except in Caitlin’s fanfic, of course!), and he might be the most introverted character in the franchise. Can relate! So grab a slice of pineapple cake as we dig into our Reed moments below and on this week’s podcast (jump to 1:04:09). Reed Alert!
[Images © CBS/Paramount]
Best moments
Do you like piña coladas? Even the show seems to understand that Reed is underwritten, but that’s actually part of his charm! When, after painstaking investigations, we learn in “Silent Enemy” that our boy loves pineapple enough that he will go the distance and get inoculated to fight his natural allergy to it in order to have his cake and eat it too, it’s an early endearing moment with the security chief.
Click, click, BOOM Another of Reed’s interests is weapons. If it goes “boom,” you know Reed is 100% there for it. So it’s a cute moment in “Sleeping Dogs” when Hoshi translates some Klingon to “photon torpedoes” and Reed pops up out of nowhere, half erect already. And even more amazing, he uses this entirely alien tech to blast the failing ship into a higher orbit and save the day!
I imagine that would make quite an explosion Like we said last week, the comradeship between Tucker and Reed is one of those beautiful friendships you love to see in Trek. And it also includes more of Malcolm loving explosions! He saves both their asses in “Shuttlepod One” when he comes up with the idea to blow up the impulse drive AND keeps Trip from Captain Oates’ing himself because that’s what friends do for each other!
More possibilities than a bowl of day-old oatmeal Or so the box art for Nickelodeon Floam says. Reed is definitely up for a crazy scheme involving covering himself in bubble-gak (the original product name for Floam!) to disguise himself as a Suliban to sneak into the Tandaran prison in “Detained.” Roll it, mold it, cover it — That's the way you Floam it! Okay, I admit this was all mostly an excuse to do some Floam research.
Throw a patent on that When Archer, Trip, and a couple extras are trapped in a jizz web in “Vox Sola,” Reed basically offers to invent the forcefield, which has been eluding engineers and physicists for the last five years. But Malcolm somehow pulls it off in an afternoon. He tests out just how strong the EM barrier needs to be to keep the tendrils from passing through it, and voila! Instant forcefield!
Keep talking and nobody explodes Reed also instantly figures out how the Romulan mine works after it attaches itself to the hull in “Minefield.” And even more impressive: he’s able to communicate how to disarm it to Archer when he’s gotten himself pinned in the leg. And most impressive of all: he survives the constant chattiness of Jonathan Archer, the extrovert who makes introverts uncomfortable!
If you get tired of exploring, you’d do well in the Imperial Guard Considering how Reed never seems to make romantic strides over the course of the show, it was nice to see some successful flirting between him and Talas in “Proving Ground.” Sure, it was mostly an Andorian ruse on her part that he manages to see past, but their chemistry together was still ship-worthy. One could imagine that in another life, they’d make a cute couple.
The hull, the hull, the hull is on fire Reed is tasked with helping Tucker close down a leaking plasma conduit that was creating a huge plasma fire in “The Forgotten” and it almost does him in. Though his EV suit is rapidly heating, and though Trip specifically orders him to bail and go back inside, Malcolm puts his life on the line to finish the task that stops the leak… and then promptly passes out.
Checkmate in eight moves According to the Organian that possesses Reed all through “Observer Effect,” Reed is the ship’s chess expert and wins all the championships he plays in. That’s just a nice little detail that rounds out Reed’s character a little bit. And it makes sense as a security chief to be able to plan strategies several moves in advance while also increasing your nerd cred.
I apologize for saving your life, Commander. It won’t happen again. Though Reed’s usual modus operandi is to accept that he’s about to die and run with it, he actually fights to survive in “United.” Maybe because it’s also saving Trip from radiation, which he wouldn’t have any other way. But it’s a very clever plan to trick the Romulans by setting his phase pistol to overload on the drone ship to allow for escape and eventual rescue!
You have to choose where your loyalties lie We definitely don’t need more of Section 31, as none of us are particularly hyped for the new feature coming out tomorrow (at time of posting). But at least Reed seems to understand that he’d like no part in them either. Through the events of “Affliction” and “Divergence,” all he wants is out of that shady organization, and he ultimately picks the Enterprise over Agent Harris.
Red rover, red rover, let Trip come over Apparently the only person who can save the Enterprise 90% of the time is Trip. But the only person who can get Trip to the Enterprise from the Columbia in “Divergence” is Reed! Even while stuck in the brig for doing shifty Section 31 things, he’s able to use his grappler skill to create the tether that brings the Commander over. Ya know, for the spectacle of it all!
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Worst moments
You ever noticed her bum? Let’s move on to the bad things that Reed does. It got fully tiring to the SSHB hosts how obsessed everyone on the show was with T’Pol’s bum. Mind you, it’s a nice bum, but you don’t say it! So Malcolm starts a pretty gross trend in “Shuttlepod One” during his obnoxious dream sequence when he first notices dat ass, and don’t worry, everyone’s gonna jump on board.
This is a strange way to get to the garden Speaking of objectifying women! Trip and Reed are both made to look like fools, led entirely by their penises, when they get tricked by the shape-shifting thieves on Risa in “Two Days and Two Nights.” It’s a very tired plot that you’d expect to see in some sitcom or coming-of-age movie, but we also just don’t need to see more gross behavior from Starfleet officers, do we?
I’d prefer a burial at sea, if I’m not completely vaporized Nearly every time we see Reed in an EV suit, he tries to get himself killed for nothing. In “Minefield,” Archer needs to put his oxygen tube back in when Reed has disconnected it in order to sacrifice himself. Later, in “The Forgotten,” he specifically disobeys a command in order to fix a plasma leak and it nearly gets him killed. This boy is the poster child for therapy.
Your inquiry was not recognized This one probably belongs on the Trip list since it was his idea, but screw it, at least it’s getting reflected here. But really, how stupid is it for the two boy wonders to go sneaking around like dingbats in the Repair Station in “Dead Stop,” having no idea where things go and where the computer can transport them? They’re lucky she didn’t beam them into space.
It’s always in the last place you infiltrated Another dunce moment from Reed comes in “The Communicator” when he leaves his communicator on an alien planet they were sneaking around in disguise (for no good reason, I might add!). It’s a move straight out of “A Piece of the Action” when Bones did the same damn thing, and it’s just meant to be a little joke. A little joke that makes your character look incompetent!
When someone asks if you’re a genetically enhanced super soldier... There’s no Prime Directive in the time of Enterprise, but we can still call out when characters do stupid things, such as in “The Communicator.” Like a buffoon, Reed blurts out that he and Archer are super soldiers as an attempt to cover their identities that not only makes things worse for them, who’ll be killed and dissected, but for the society, who now think their war has escalated off the scale!
I considered your suggestion, Reed Alert, but it seemed a bit narcissistic For the sheer eye roll of it all, this one needed to make the list. Whenever Enterprise gets cheeky and makes a poorly timed, awkwardly written, fanwanky reference to something that will come later, it induces groans all around. The worst offender might be the Reed Alert in “Singularity,” which is just so clunky and obvious bait for fans that we can’t even even.
Would you like a sauna while I’m at it? Why does Reed have to be such a whiny little bitch during “The Catwalk”? It doesn’t seem particularly like him to get on Trip’s case about the preparations made to house the whole crew in the titular catwalks to hunker down through a storm, but instead Reed does little but complain. Poor Trip had mere hours and very little help for this massive excursion. Where was Reed then?
You were looking at my hands when you should have been looking at my eyes Yet another example from “Harbinger,” which has already come up a bunch of times in our Worst Moments. For Reed, this episode is all about having a juvenile spat with Major Hayes and it’s so immature I could weep. Reed is a big baby for thinking Hayes literally doing what he was brought onboard to do as a MACO is an insult to him, and he has a big temper tantrum about it.
This seat’s available It’s unappealing how the show depicts Reed as forever alone. He borders on being an incel at times, and one of those times is in “E²” when he learns his alternate self never got with anyone. It’s one of those cringe moments you expect from television of that era when the very next thing you see is Reed making an admittedly tame pass at the first woman he sees. Ick.
With my final breath, I curse Reed After Reed has finally mended things with Major Hayes and the two hold some respect for each other, Hayes gets killed off in a blaze of glory in “Countdown.” His final request is that McKenzie become his successor. As a last “fuck you” to Hayes, Reed apparently never does this! We don’t see her in the subsequent scene rallying the MACOs, or ever again on the show.
Do we need more Section 31? Finally there’s everything else to do with Section 31 in “Affliction” and “Divergence” and needlessly again in “Demons” and “Terra Prime.” What a terrible retcon for Reed. We already have a secret spy onboard in T’Pol. But instead we get Agent Harris showing up to meanly manipulate Reed and make Archer yell and yell as he so often does. It’s such fanwank because we’ve heard of this pointless memberberry before and that’s all it is.
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That’s a wrap on Reed; cue the explosions! Keep watching this space for more blogtivities as we finish up all our remaining Enterprise discussions. You can also follow along as we watch episodes of Discovery over on the podcast at SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, wish Reed a happy birthday on Facebook, and if you have you put on an EV suit and go outside, consider staying in for the sake of your mental health.
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