Star Trek: 10 Episode Spoilers Hidden In The French Translation
6. La Fin Justifie Les Moyens (Anomaly)
Season three, episode two of Star Trek Enterprise has a controversial reputation. It’s the one in which Captain Archer suffocates an alien prisoner for information because, you know, the Xindi will kill all humans. John Billingsley (Phlox) and Scott Bakula (Archer) notably expressed their discomfort at the subject matter.
In the episode, Enterprise is disabled by anomalies and attacked and robbed by the Osaarians. Learning that the latter have recently attacked a Xindi ship, Archer resorts to extreme measures (torture) to learn what the Osaarians know about the Xindi. He succeeds, but at what cost?
The English title, here, seems like the biggest euphemism since Data claimed he was ‘fully functional’. Are we to believe that Archer’s actions are merely an ‘anomaly’? It could also be a huge attempt at misdirect. Either way, it is not the most effective, but it does have the merit of revealing very little about the nature of the episode.
The French version, however, translating as ‘the ends justify the means’, immediately suggests far more from the outset about the content of the episode than the English ever could. It equally implies a moral absolutism to Archer’s decisions that isn’t anywhere near as clear-cut within the ethics of the episode. Moreover, if the French title is intended to act rhetorically as a question, the audience should be allowed to deduce this for themselves. Instead, it bluntly tells any French-speaking viewer of the dilemma that is to come, like a bad question on the baccalaureate philosophy exam.