Synopsis: Captain Archer leads a team that takes Degra’s ship to try to stop the Xindi weapon from annihilating Earth, while Sub-Commander T’Pol leads another team to destroy Sphere 41.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of James Hillman’s acorn theory, the idea that just as an acorn has everything inside it to become an oak tree, humans have inner daimons inside them that have all the information we need to become who we are meant to be.
In “Zero Hour,” while Captain Jonathan Archer, Lt. Malcolm Reed, and Ensign Hoshi Sato, along with the Primates and the Arboreals, are on Degra’s ship trying to intercept the weapon before it can annihilate Earth, Sub-Commander T’Pol and the rest of Enterprise’s crew try to destroy Sphere 41, to keep the promise that Archer gave to the Aquatics in exchange for their help to try to defeat the Reptilians. While en route to Earth, Daniels once again appears to Archer, warning him that he is essential to humanity’s future and to not risk his life by assigning himself the task of detonating the device to destroy the weapon. At the conclusion of the episode, the weapon has been destroyed as well as Sphere 41, and although it seemed that Archer was killed in the explosion of the weapon, he appears on Earth, but at a different ear of time.
In this episode, Archer remains true to his ideals and once again ignores Daniels, T’Pol, and the rest of the crew’s pleas to not put himself in mortal danger. And as it turns out, he escapes death once again, so likely will become the transformative figure that Daniels has told him he will be throughout this season. It could be argued that he attains the societal respect to become a historic figure precisely because he does risk his life for the rest of humanity. Archer’s ability to follow his internal compass can be analogized to Hillman’s acorn theory, in that just as the acorn doesn’t need external guidance to become a tree, Archer here does not need the advice of his colleagues in order to decide what he will do. The acorn, and Archer, have all they need to become what or who they were meant to be inside them.
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