Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective "Silent Enemy"



Courtesy of the Drexfiles. No copyright infringement intended.

Silent Enemy is another very simple episode. After launching two subspace comm relays, Enterprise encounters a mysterious that refuses communications. This prompts Archer to turn the ship around and head for Jupiter Station to fully install Enterprise's phase cannons. Trip and Malcolm Reed decide to get the work done themselves quicker, which they manage to. While all of this going on, Hoshi is using the new subspace amplifier to contact Malcolm's friends and families to find out his favorite food for his upcoming birthday. The mysterious alien returns several times, scanning the ship and eventually boarding it to run invasive scans on two crewmen. They eventually get the phase cannons online and fight off the alien, and Hoshi learns that Malcolm likes pineapples. Everyone lives happily ever after, except for the aliens, who remain mysterious.

That is "Silent Enemy". It is cool, kind of creepy, and effectively shows the evolving state of the ship and crew at this still early phase of the show. I like the fact that they care about the crew enough to go to an effort to make him a special birthday meal. I also actually appreciated the fact that they hadn't installed the phase cannons, and that they channeled them through the impulse engines to increase power, in a precursor to TMP channeling phaser power through the warp drive. But there are also notable issues.

In TOS (approximately 100 years later), they didn't have real-time communications with Earth. Now they do. This is one of several instances where a technology is readily available on Enterprise but not on TOS. Sloppy, folks. 'Stealth' technology (cloaking even, later on in the series), Phase pistols before lasers. Romulans with warp drive. Some of that is excusable, most is not. This is not a condemnation of Enterprise, or of this episode. But it has its faults.

I liked the idea of these mysterious baddies, but I would have liked to have known who they were and what their agenda was. Was this episode a seed of sorts for a future episode that never happened? I like to think so. In the end, I can live with the faults of "Silent Enemy" and recommend it as a well done and creepy, if imperfect episode. It gets a definite but conditional thumbs up.
Next Up: "Dear Doctor"



Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective "Cold Front"

The episode starts with Silik having his enhanced vision removed as punishment for not stopping Klaang from returning to Qo'noS, but is told he'll get it back if he succeeds in his next mission. Cut to...
After a disappointing movie night featuring "Night of the Killer Androids", the Enterprise is changing course to investigate a stellar nursery. We meet crewman Daniels, swapping shifts with crewman Taylor to serve the Captain his breakfast. Daniels takes an apparently unnecessary interest in the course change. Archer tells him anyway, declines a refill of orange juice, and Daniels disappears.

Enterprise makes it to the stellar nursery and finds ships inside. They communicate with one, a freighter. Captain Fraddock tells Archer that he is carrying pilgrims to the Great Plume of Agosoria. He explains that every eleven years, one of the protostars gives out a neutron blast. The pilgrims believe it's a sacred event. Archer invites them all over for dinner (assuming that they can eat human food). Everyone but Fraddock comes over, and they get a tour of the ship. While there, the pilgrims explain that they believe that the stellar nursery is where the universe began, and the plume represents the continuing cycle of creation. Nice idea.

During the tour of engineering, one of the aliens breaks away from the group and opens up a panel. He uses Suliban shape-shifting tricks to sever three connections, then rejoins the group. Shortly thereafter, the Enterprise is caught by the edge of a plasma storm and gets knocked around. In engineering, they get in trouble when a plasma bolt hits the warp manifold and begins an antimatter cascade that will destroy the ship in seconds. Then, suddenly the problem is over as quick as it started. Trip tells Archer how it was stopped, and that nobody in engineering did it. After determining that none of the pilgrims took credit, Archer is confronted by Daniels who convinces Archer to meet with him by having knowledge of the Suliban and what Archer did on the helix (in Broken Bow). Daniels reveals that he's from 900 years in the future. He is part of an organization enforcing laws that regulate time travel. To that end he is hunting Silik, because Silik is working for another faction, represented by 'Future Guy'. Daniels reveals that Silik was the one who stopped the reactor breach, but won't say whether that was Silik's mission. Then he tells Archer that he needs to tie into Enterprise's internal sensors to find Silik. Archer is skeptical, but Daniels convinces him he's on the up and up. Next Archer briefs T'Pol and Trip.

A few minutes later, Trip and Daniels are in Engineering. At one point, Daniels puts a device on his hand, like a futuristic glove, to walk through a bulkhead and fix something.

Meanwhile, Silik shows up in Archer's quarters, threatens him, and wants to know who is looking for him. He tells Archer that he saved Enterprise because he was ordered to. He also says that the people who are supposedly trying to enforce the Temporal Accords are just another faction. During the course of the conversation, T'Pol calls to announce that Daniels is eager to get started. Silik thanks Archer for the help and shoots him with a stun blast.

Then, as Trip and Daniels are starting their search, Silik shows up from thin air (as always) and shoots Daniels. Daniels ripples and seems to blow apart. After that, Silik has Daniels' holoprojector device (that the Temporal Cops use to track events through the timelines) and he is headed for the launch bay. Archer uses Daniels' magic glove to walk through bulkheads to get to Silik. Silik threatens Archer, who shoots the holoprojector out of Silik's hands. Silik threatens him again, and opens the bay doors. As Archer holds on, Silik dives into space where he is picked up by a cell ship. Archer finally gets the door closed.

In the aftermath, they let the Suliban ship go, and Archer goes to bed. The next morning, he puts a security seal on Daniels' quarters. End of episode.

Cold Front picked up the crucial Temporal Cold War theme that formed the real basis for the series. It introduced the wonderful character of Daniels, who is still amazingly alive and well. It was fast moving and well written. Silik was nicely menacing even while saving the ship, (though they never explained who if anyone tried to destroy it), while Daniels was mysterious and actually funny. Especially in the following passage:

TUCKER: The grid can handle it. So I take it your brother isn't really an orbital engineer at Jupiter Station.

DANIELS: Actually, I don't have a brother.

TUCKER: And you didn't grow up in Illinois.

DANIELS: Oh, I'm from a place called Illinois, sir. Just not the one you're familiar with.

TUCKER: It's good to know Earth will still be around in nine hundred years.

DANIELS: That depends on how you define Earth.

TUCKER: Beg your pardon?

"Cold Front" was an excellent example of how good Enterprise can be when it follows a good storyline. It is also a fine example of just how good the writing is on Enterprise, particularly during the first season, when Trek series typically struggle. The last series that was, in my opinion, so dependably good in its first season was TOS. Absolutely enthusiastic thumbs up.

Next Up: "Silent Enemy"

Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective "Fortunate Son"

Fortunate Son, like many Enterprise episodes, is quite simple. The ECS (Earth Cargo Ship) Fortunate Son is on its cargo run when it is attacked by Naussican pirates. A distress signal is sent, Enterprise is dispatched to help. They arrive to find the Fortunate Son damaged but under repairs with the first officer running things while the Captain recovers from serious injury. We first start to get an idea that all is not what it seems when the first officer of the Fortunate Son initially declines any help from the Enterprise. He eventually relents. We soon find out that the cargo haulers have captured one of the Naussicans and is interrogating him for shield frequencies.


While the Enterprise crew helps repair and upgrade the Fortunate Son (and Phlox helps the Captain), Mayweather gets to know the first officer. We learn that the 'boomers' are an independent breed who tend to look down on people who aren't boomers, or worse yet, boomers who leave the ECS fleet (as it were), for the cushy, easy life of an NX Class ship.

As repairs proceed, T'Pol detects the life signs of the injured Naussican on board the Fortunate Son. There is the inevitable confrontation. Archer threatens to take all of their spare parts, and the wily first officer of the Fortunate Son fools his way out the jam, leaving our heroes frustrated and left behind.

The Fortunate Son arrives at the Naussican base, thinking it is chasing a single ship and armed with the shield frequencies. As it turns out, there are three ships (I saw that coming), and the shield frequencies don't seem to work (I saw that coming too). They are in a bad spot and losing the fight.

On Enterprise, while they are speeding after the Fortunate Son, Mayweather confides in Archer that he has doubts about interfering with what his fellow boomers are doing. Archer makes a speech about the moral code we are all subject to, and how boomers are just as human even if they're born in space. Mayweather comes around (way too easily for my taste), and they continue.

They finally arrive, just in time to save the Fortunate Son. They eventually convince the Naussicans to let the Fortunate Son go in return for their hostage. In the last scene, Archer talks to the fully recovered captain of the Fortunate Son. He says that the first officer will be punished but kept on the team and put to work. He tries to get Archer to have a drink with him, but Archer declines, because he's on duty. You get the feeling that they are two entirely different kinds of captain's from this, which sums up the episode aptly. End of episode.

This episode was good for the series, because we learned a bit more about what it is to be a boomer, and what boomers think of people who leave their ranks for fancy NX Class ships. There is also a hint of independence and almost rebellion from Travis Mayweather (that shows up more strongly in the Enterprise relaunch books). There was also the issue of boomer crews looking at the potential end of their lifestyle due to an engine that does warp five (as opposed to 1.8 of the Class Y Fortunate Son, or the Class J Horizon that Mayweather comes from). On the other hand, it is a very simple story that has been done a thousand times. I wasn't impressed by the Naussicans, who seem to be the favored boring stock villains. I also was unimpressed by Archer's moralizing speech with Mayweather. It made sense enough. but it came off stiff and wooden, and Mayweather gave in too easily. Still, the episode was interesting enough, and the plusses outnumbered the minuses. I'm not going to pull out the DVD specifically to watch this one, but I wouldn't skip over it if it was playing. Thumbs up.

Next Up: "Cold Front"

Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective "Civilization"

Civilization is hardly an original story. They encounter a “Minshara” Class planet along their path with an interesting-looking pre-industrial society. This gives T’Pol a chance to remind them about the Vulcan’s non-interference policy (that will of course become the Federation’s Prime Directive), and it gives Archer and Trip a chance to remind her that Enterprise is a human starship and they’re in charge. Anyway, as they’re scanning the planet and Hoshi is learning that she is going to go down there when they pick up massive neutrino emissions that T’Pol suggests come from an antimatter reactor. Obviously someone else is down there. So Archer, T’Pol, Trip and Hoshi all submit to Phlox’s plastic surgery (two small, vertically placed sets of ridges) and put on period costumes and take a shuttlepod down.

They track the neutrino emissions to a curio shop, which is closed up for the night. Trip uses a 22nd century lock pick to break in, and they are led to another door, which is protected by an energy screen. While they’re contemplating this, they’re accosted by a (hand-sized) crossbow-wielding woman who thinks that they are part of the same group of people making secret night time deliveries that she is convinced are contributing to many unexplained illnesses. While Archer is trying to talk his way out of trouble, T’Pol stuns her with a phase pistol blast in the back. Archer doesn’t like this, but it works, and he gets the woman back to her attic, hoping to get answers from her. All he gets is the name of the guy who owns the shop. Archer comes back the next day to see the guy, Garos, who quickly realizes that Archer and Trip are from another province. Archer scans him, and says that they know he’s knows he’s an alien. Garos scans him and says the same thing. Archer tells Garos where they’re from, and Tucker says that they detected the signature from Garos’s reactor. Garos says that he’s from the Malurian system (slated to be wiped out by Nomad in the 23rd century) who led a survey mission to the planet two years ago, but decided to stay because he liked it so much. He says that he uses the antimatter reactor as a fabrication device (like a TNG replicator). Archer implies that the reactor is tied to the illnesses. Garos denies it and says that the apothecary (Riann, the pretty girl that Archer likes) is lying. Archer wants to look at the reactor, but Garos turns him away.

In Riann’s shop, Archer and T’Pol talk to her about the illness, and she explains that the illnesses start at the same time that Garos arrived. Archer orders T’Pol to take the others back up to the ship to give Phlox some samples to analyze. He wants to stay to see if he can learn more about Garos and the mysterious night deliveries. T’Pol cautions him about cultural contamination, rather snidely tells him, to enjoy the tea that Riann made, and leaves.

On the ship, Phlox remarks that Riann has done some excellent forensic work, and discovers that the water sample is contaminated with tetracyanate 622, a highly toxic synthetic compound used as an industrial lubricant.

On the planet, a glitch in the (invisible) universal translator gives Archer an excuse to kiss Riann. Then they catch someone making a night delivery. They follow him in. Eventually the man unloads a crate and conveniently leaves it in the forest. Archer moves to investigate when a ship descends from the sky and tractors the crate up and away. A man jumps out of a tree and gets in a fight with Archer, who eventually knocks him out. Then Archer sees that the guy is wearing a latex map. Archer peels the mask away to reveal a scaly face. They scrabble for the phase pistol. Archer gets to it and stuns the guy. They come back to the lab and use the guy’s equipment to deactivate the force field and go in. Looking from a control room, they see a huge cavern with other people and machinery. Archer informs T’Pol that they Malurians are mining a veridium isotope that T’Pol explains is used to manufacture explosives. Archer and Riann take a guess at deactivating the dampening field, so that Trip can beam the reactor up, but when they do it, they are locked in and the Malurian ship rises from orbit and fires some heavy weaponry at Enterprise. On the planet, Archer and Riann are arguing with Garos. Eventually they manage to get the power cut (somehow) and rush out of the room.

Trip beams the reactor up, and (on T’Pol’s orders) out into space where they detonate it to bring down the Malurian ship’s shields. Then T’Pol orders their weapons arrays destroyed. That finishes the fight. After losing a shoot-out on the planet, the Malurians leave. The Enterprise removes the mining equipment, and Archer delivers some medicine to cure the population. He tells Riann that T’Pol’s people will make sure the Malurians don’t come back. Then he steals one more kiss before moving on.

This story really has been done a thousand times in a thousand ways, and honestly, there is nothing that Enterprise does to improve it. At the same time, we get to see a Malurian before Nomad wipes them out, and we get to see T’Pol with long hair that suits her. Overall, the episode itself isn’t bad. Not great, not original, as I’ve said, and not one that I’ll feel compelled to go back to specifically. But it was also not stupid or poorly done. Not the most enthusiastic recommendation, but a rather unenthusiastic thumbs up.

Next Up: “Fortunate Son”

Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective "Breaking the Ice"

Breaking the Ice is a fun episode, one that I enjoyed when it first aired and again the second time around.
It is another fairly simple episode. The crew are looking at some drawings from Trip's nephew's fourth-grade class when Enterprise comes upon a comet that isn't on the Vulcan starcharts. Archer is intrigued while T'Pol is, as usual, unimpressed. There is a brief interlude in the mess hall. T'Pol is tired, not sleeping, and Trip talks to her essentially about the virtues of comfort food. He explains that he's had a long day and missed dinner. Then someone told him that Chef made pecan pie, which has been his favorite since he was a kid. That brightened his life and made him feel better. She looks down on it as being mostly sugar. She goes to bed.

In the next scene, they discover that the comet contains large amounts Eisilium, a rare mineral. That means that T'Pol is now interested. They need to get a drilling rig down to the surface, so Reed and Mayweather suit up and off they go in a shuttlepod. Soon afterward, a Vulcan starship shows up, gives Archer a hard time, and seems to just want to watch them. Archer bristles under the surveillance while T'Pol appears to make excuses for them. While this goes on, Travis and Reed head down to the comet.

In the meantime, Hoshi picks up an encrypted transmission sent from the Vulcan ship to T'Pol's quarters. Concerned that they're being spied on, Archer orders Hoshi to decrypt it.

While this goes on, the crew uses a new comm relay system to answer questions from the fourth-grade class. There are a few interesting questions, then we get to the funny bit where Trip has to explain how they recycle waste products to help make their food. Very funny.

On the comet, Reed and Mayweather have taken time out to make a snowman before they set the charges to excavate the comet. More to come on that...

Hoshi decrypts the message and gives it to Trip, who has to put it through a translator. Turns out that it was a very personal letter. He admits it to T'Pol, who is not amused. Fortunately, she lets it go.

In the meantime, Archer decides to invite the snooping Vulcan captain, Vanik, to dinner, with the goal of getting him to leave.

Meanwhile, the snowman has gained a huge set of Vulcan ears. Very funny. Worth remembering unquestionably. Not necessarily nice, but definitely funny. Then they blow the charges.

After that, it really gets funny. Archer has Vanik over for dinner. Archer does his best to annoy Vanik while Vanik sits as still as a statue. He doesn't eat, he doesn't drink. He just sits there being rude. Among great lines in the conversation is Archer saying that "it's nice to know that no matter how big the universe is, there'ws always a Vulcan ship nearby." Again, very funny. The conversation struggles on for a while longer, until Vanik caps it off by saying "Humans have never held much interest for me." Archer then accuses him of spying, Vanik says something snooty, and the love-fest is over.

Shortly thereafter, they discover that they set off the charges on the comet, they shifted the its rotational axis, and in two hours, the spot where the shuttlepod landed will be directly facing a nearby star, and the ice will melt.

T'Pol has decided that she needs to talk to someone about the letter, and since Trip already knows, she talks to him. Seems that she has a prearranged marriage to a guy named Koss. She has been postponing the wedding while she's on Enterprise, but Koss's parents are insulted that she's put it off to serve on a human vessel. She doesn't want to go, and seems to be looking for a way out. Tucker insists that arranged marriages went out with slavery, she defends this custom that she doesn't like, and it isn't resolved.

On the comet, they are prepping to leave when Mayweather gets hurt. They grab a core sample and make it back to the shuttlepod as the comet starts to crack apart under them. As they start to lift off, the shuttlepod falls through the weakened ice. They try the grappler, which doesn't help. Vanik offers to help, using their tractor beam, but Archer doesn't want to accept the help. Finally, T'Pol reminds Archer that Vanik expects Archer to refuse due to human pride and arrogance. He agrees, and moments later, the shuttlepod is being tractored up to safety. Archer offers to share some of the data. Vanik of course refuses. At that point, T'Pol asks permission to contact the Vulcan ship. Archer agrees. The episode ends with T'Pol meditating after having finally tried the pecan pie.

There is really nothing to dislike about this episode. The only fault I can see is the continued rudeness between humans and Vulcans. There is a reason, and this is really still early in the series, and I have to admit that it does make for some funny moments. I just don't always care for it. Aside from that, the comm relay ends up making realtime communication with Earth possible, which they couldn't do a hundred years later in TOS. The Vulcan snowman is hilarious, as is the dinner with Archer and Vanik. The chemistry between Trip and T'Pol is starting to show itself, which is welcome. And of course, we see that the Vulcans had a tractor beam before humans.

And there you have it. "Breaking the Ice" is a good, solid episode, better than most Trek first season episodes. This is an episode to rewatch. It rates an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Next Up: "Civilization"

Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective "The Andorian Incident"

I liked this episode when I first saw it, so I really wasn't in the position of anticipation of changing my mind much. The story is pretty simple. Archer finds an interesting planet in their flight path, one that appears on the Vulcan starcharts called P'Jem. It is home to an ancient monastery where Vulcans go to undergo the Kohlinahr, or purging of emotions. Archer wants to visit, but T'Pol isn't in love with the idea, because, as we discover during a chat between her and Phlox, she would be embarrassed to be seen with her human crew. Phlox steals a bit of celery from her plate and lectures her about Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, she quietly fumes, and the episode moves on.


When they arrive on the planet, we see that the monastery has been ransacked. They meet of one the residents, who tries to get them to leave. Archer figures that something is wrong and finally spots a blue-skinned alien (he learns it's an Andorian) hiding behind something, waiting in ambush. Archer and Trip start a fight with them and end up getting locked up with the Vulcans.

It seems the Andorians don't like the Vulcans, and suspect them of using the planet as a surveillance outpost (and of course, that is exacerbated by Archer showing up with a Vulcan). They're rooting around, ransacking, and beating people up, looking for answers. Eventually, Malcolm beams down a security team, and a firefight ensues. Then we're shocked, shocked to find out that there's spying going on here. Yes, there is a massive spy outpost built underneath the ancient catacombs. Archer runs scans of the whole place hands the info over to Shran. Shran now owes Archer a favor (that we'll see repayed soon) and the Vulcans find a way to blame Archer.

This was very refreshing, following the drab "Terra Nova". I'd looked forward to seeing what was done with what were, at that point, the rather mysterious Andorians. Phlox was as interesting and fun as always, dispensing a bit of wisdom and deliberately annoying T'Pol. And of course, Jeffery Coombs. He has always been a treat since he appeared on DS9 as Weyoun, and as Shran he didn't disappoint. The dynamic that would be the relationship between Archer and Shran is obvious in this episode. Of course, many fans out in Trekdom objected to the negative portrayal of Vulcans, and it cannot be denied that the Vulcans' image suffered throughout most of this series. That's a fair gripe, but they redeem (and explain to an extent) themselves in the fourth season. "The Andorian Incident" gets a very enthusiastic thumbs up.

Next Up: "Breaking the Ice"

Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective "Terra Nova"

This was probably the simplest story so far. Enterprise approaches the location of the lost Terra Nova colony, mankind's first attempt to colonize a planet outside of Earth's solar system. After five years, the colony was a definite success, so Earth wanted to send more. Terra Nova said no. They argued back and forth until Terra Nova cut all communications.

Seventy years later, Enterprise arrives. They find the planet bathed in low-level radiation and hostiles living underground. The hostiles injure Reed, who ends up their captive. Archer discovers that the hostiles are in fact humans. Most of them are descendents of the colonists, but one old woman was a young girl from the colony. It turns out that radiation from an asteroid impact at the same time that the colonists landed poisoned the rain and drove the colonists underground. They were convinced that Earth was responsible, trying to drive the 'Novans' off the planet. Young kids survived underground, believing that humans had wiped them out.

Archer eventually convinces them that they're dying from radiation in the ground water, and they allow Enterprise crew to move them to another continent that is unaffected by the radiation.

Everybody lives happily ever after.

So what is there to say about "Terra Nova"? Not much, in fact. It is a simple story. I liked the ship, a Discovery Class. It is a good, clean design, and I was interested that the colonists used the ship itself to build the colony. It is also interesting to think that this ship was the pinnacle of technology twenty years after Zephrame Cochrane. Aside from that, the story was good enough if unoriginal. Nothing to get excited about, just an average 'not bad' story. Little to talk about, and quite honestly not much to recommend. Not a waste of time, but I don't see myself going back to it. I'll still give it a thumbs up, but with little enthusiasm.

Next Up: "The Andorian Incident"

Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective "Unexpected"

As always seems to be the case, I enjoyed "Unexpected" more this time around. After a few amusing malfunctions, a 'stealth' ship is detected riding in Enterprise's wake, siphoning plasma exhaust to replenish their teraphasic coils. That is causing the warp bubble to brush against the port nacelle and create the malfunctions. (okay...). So Trip agrees to go over and help them out. After 3 hours in the Xyrillians' decompression chamber, Trip is weirding out, but refuses to rest up before getting to work. He starts to freak out to the alien lights and sounds, as is finally ordered by Archer to take a nap. After a nap, he's okay. The woman engineer wakes him up, snacks on grass growing on the walls. feeds him their version of water (like ice cubes) by putting them in his mouth. Little sparks go off when they touch. He flirts, she flirts, then they get back to work.


Soon they get to the point where they have to wait. To pass the time, she shows him what is essentially a TNG era holodeck. In there, they see her homeworld, and ride in a row boat. While in there, they play a game, involving putting their hands in clear beads, reading each other's thoughts, and flirting some more. Then all seems good. They warp away, happily ever after. A short time later, Trip grows a nipple on his wrist. Yep, he's pregnant. After many gags (most of them not entirely unfunny), they figure out that it was the game with the beads. They find the Xyrillians again... Hiding in the wake of a Klingon battlecruiser. (comments below) Archer and T'Pol talk the Klingons into not destroying the Xyrillians, and convince them to bring Trip onto the Xyrillian ship (at the cost of Trip's dignity). They board the Xyrillian ship, the woman takesTrip's problem off him, the Klingons get holo-technology. Archer tries to talk nice to the Klingons, who thank him by threatening him. And everyone pretty much lives happily ever after.

Okay...

My first impression of this was not good. I mean, four episodes in, and we're resorting to 'guy gets pregnant' gags. I still have to say I'm not thrilled with that. But there you go. The TNG hologram is good (although I think it's odd that they need Trip to help them fix their advanced warp drive). Trip is funny. Phlox is funny. Archer is obviously enjoying himself. T'Pol has a great time giving Trip a bad time. The pregnant jokes are old, but not overdone. Overall, I'd say they pulled it off. But the Klingon ship. Oh, the Klingon ship. That was an early opportunity for the producers to score points with fans, and an early missed opportunity. They reused the K'Tinga model instead of John Eave's beautiful D-4 battlecruiser.

Really disappointing. So disappointing.

Aside from that, the episode was cute, funny, not boring and not stupid. Not really memorable, but worth the time spent watching it. Not the most ringing endorsement, but it was okay. Worth a thumbs up.

Next Up: "Terra Nova"

Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective "Strange New World"

So far I've been pleasantly surprised by my retro-perspective of "Enterprise". "Strange New World" continues that, but not by the same degree as the others. Our crew has found their first 'Minshara' Class planet. That obviously is where Class M comes from in TOS. So they come down against T'Pol's recommendation. (Let me just say here and now that I didn't like that Archer continued to pick on T'Pol like that. Just as the First Officer has to respect the Captain, especially on the bridge, the Captain has to respect the First Officer. Especially on the bridge. But we are seeing Archer's character growing. I just didn't care for it. ) All seems well, and Trip, T'Pol, Mayweather, Cutler, and some poor guy who seems destined to be a red shirt in a later life spend the night to continue research and sleep under the stars. Mayweather tells a ghost story, and then we have a real dark and stormy night. A storm sets in, trapping our crew on the planet, in a cave for the night. Cue dramatic music. Soon everyone but T'Pol starts to see and hear things that aren't there. When I first saw this, way back, I stopped being interested. So...


Crewman Cutler hears T'Pol talking to someone who isn't there. Trip and Tucker see rock people. And our red-shirt-to-be runs out into the storm... and lives long enough to get beamed up. But he is sick, oh yes, quite sick. He beams up with pieces of trees and bushes embedded in his skin. Phlox removes all that but discovers remnants of a psychotropic compound in this blood. The compound is slowly breaking down, so we all breath a sigh of relief. Archer figures that if our increasingly paranoid landing party can avoid killing each other overnight they should be fine. But no. In what struck me as one of the episode's better moments, Phlox has to tell Archer he missed something, and the crewman may die. The same goes for the landing party. It was one of Phlox's best moments, and one of Archer's. But on with the show. Our crew is going increasingly nutty in the cave. Trip is starting to target rock people and shout and sweat. Finally, Archer and T'Pol pull a fast one on Trip. Medicine gets injected, and we're all okay. Even our future red-shirt is okay.

If that all seemed rather lacking in detail, it's because an hour after I watched it, I'd lost details. That pretty well sums up my opinion of the episode. While people are settling into their roles, and the episode wasn't a bad one, it was forgettable. The ghost story thing was fun, there were some fíne performances, but I don't see myself going back to it like I do many others. And before I forget, let me point out that while it is a fun and even understandable idea to bring Porthos down to the surface, it hardly seems responsible.

Thumbs up, but not with great enthusiasm.

Next up... "Unexpected"

Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective: "Fight or Flight"

The first time I saw this episode, I found it very simple and boring. I thought Hoshi was annoying, and I thought the worm was silly. That was several years ago.


Revisiting it now, I find myself much happier about it. Two weeks after returning Klaang to Qo'noS, the only first contact the crew has made is with a big worm nicknamed 'Sluggo'. Hoshi takes it for a pet, it doesn't make out, and as Phlox is trying to nurse it back to health, he's starting to think about feeding it to one of his bats. Dr Phlox is turning out to have this wonderful mad scientist element to him that I am really trying to enjoy.

As this is going on, T'Pol picks up a ship along their course. It turns out to be a derelict. Archer, Malcolm, and Hoshi (who gets claustrophobia in the EVA suits) head over to the ship. They find a crew, basically hanging on hooks and having bodily fluids sucked out of them. Hoshi freaks, reacts by screaming (in her own words) like a twelve year-old. They head back to Enterprise, where Archer lets T'Pol talk him into leaving the area. Fortunately, Archer's conscience gets the better of him and they fly back. There they figure out that the fluids are being harvested. They send a distress signal from the derelict and start looking around. That's when the bad guys show up. Then we find out that Malcolm hasn't got the targeting scanner running and can't defend the ship. Bad guys scan them to find out that they have valuable bodily fluids and set to capturing them. Enterprise is defenseless, and it looks bad until another bigger ship shows up, from the same species as the murdered crew. But the bigger ship thinks Enterprise did the bad deed. Finally Hoshi manages to talk to the captain of the bigger ship. Together they blow up the baddie. Hoshi feels better about herself, and we meet an 'Axanan' (Google 'battle of Axanar' for TOS context on that.) In the end, Hoshi puts Sluggo down on a suitable planet, and end of episode.

It would be easy to dislike this episode. Sluggo. Hoshi screaming like a twelve year-old. And this is the best and the brightest? No, it's not. They are the first ones out. They are paving the way for the legends that come later. Hoshi (the main focus of the episode) is a relatively weak-spirited character who is the kind of person who picks up pet worms that she can't take care of, is afraid of space suits, and screams when she sees dead aliens hanging on meat hooks. But that's just the point, and just why I liked this episode. Hoshi represented the crew, the ship and the show. It isn't perfect. It isn't TNG. Archer isn't as polished as Picard, the ship is a redo of the Akira (and left spacedock without working targeting scanners), and the opening theme irritated lots of people. There isn't even supposed to be an Enterprise NX-01. All that is true, but what we have with Enterprise is something other than another perfect, polished, boring series. We have a series about real people as they overcome obstacles and frailties. That, to my mind, is closer to Gene Roddenberry's vision that the jaded, far-flung Empire that Next Generation became. Another enthusiastic (if unexpected) thumbs up.

Next Up: Strange New World

Star Trek Enterprise Retro-Spective: "Broken Bow"

My wife and I recently made the fairly major investment of buying a used copy of the whole of "Enterprise" on DVD. It is interesting that, if I'm correct, Enterprise is more popular now than it was during its short original run on UPN. Considering that, as well as renewed activity in Trekdom (the reboot movie, Star Trek Online, the upcoming relaunch of StarTrek.com, as well as continued books coming out), I thought it might be interesting to watch the series from start to finish, "Broken Bow" to "These Are the Voyages..." and do a bit of a retrospective look at the series. Not as involved as a full-blown review, because there are lots of reviews out there already, but a discussion. A "retro-perspective", or Retro-Spective.  

I'll start with the title. The words "Star Trek" were intentionally left out, to show that this was going to be different. And it was decidedly different. While it wasn't the first theme to have lyrics, (Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to accompany Alexander Courage's amazing theme for the Original Series in order to get writing credit, though they never made it onscreen), it was the first to air the lyrics with the theme. Many fans violently disliked this, but I didn't. I found it rousing and inspiring, and a great breath of fresh air. It is my second favorite Trek theme (right behind A. Courage's theme).

 The first scene of "Broken Bow" changed the course of Trek history, pushing up, by decades, Earth's 'disastrous' first contact with the Klingons. That disaster was supposed to help to bring about the Prime Directive. We can only assume that Earth tried to interfere with the Klingon culture or their development. As it turns out, that still played a part, because while Archer's determination to return Klaang to Qo'noS was proper from a human point of view (and obviously served the greater good), the Klingons didn't like a human imposing their values on them. It is easy to speculate that Enterprise's first mission could be regarded from a historical perspective, as the start of more than a century of unremitting hostility due to a perceived lack of respect for Klingon values and culture. Certainly it changes the history books a bit, but that was always going to be a result of the temporal cold war. And for you canon-purists out there, just remember that canon was taking hits before TOS finished its three year run. (McCoy once made a reference to Vulcan being conquered. Later on in the series, Spock said that Vulcan has never been conquered. So I'd say it isn't worth worrying about). I could also point out that Enterprise takes place post-"First Contact", so some details can show how Zephrame Cochrane was influenced by people from the future, from an organization called Starfleet, on a ship called Enterprise. So a case can be made, I think. Indeed, that is addressed in the fourth season episode "Regeneration" (many of the series' detractors cite that episode as a major violation of canon, apparently without having watched the episode, but I'm getting way ahead of myself).

Back to "Broken Bow". The Klingon Klaang is carrying evidence back to Qo'noS that the Suliban are behind attempts to start a Klingon civil war, and he is being chased by members of the Suliban cabal when his ship crashes in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. He kills the Suliban, but is then confronted by a farmer named "Moore". Moore shoots Klaang, and that sets up the episode. According to the Vulcans, the Klingons were going to attack Earth because of this when the Vulcans agreed to return Klaang's corpse to Qo'noS. The only problem is that Klaang isn't dead, nor is he really dying. After some arguing, Captain Jonathon Archer essentially bullies the Vulcans into 'allowing' him to return Klaang to his home alive, with a Vulcan 'chaperone'. That is the mission.

Along the way, we have introductions to the crew. They are all experts in their field, all uniquely qualified to be aboard Earth's first warp five starship. And as with every series premiere, we see short scenes to tell us about the main characters. All of the characters struck me as interesting. For example, the concept of a 'space-boomer', a person who was born in space and spent most of his life in space is something never before explored in Trek. Otherwise, we've seen Vulcan science officers. We've seen alien crewmembers. Of course, there is the controversial idea of rude Vulcans as an obstruction to Earth and Starfleet. In this case, Jolene Blalock's performance as T'Pol made what could have been an annoying character an absolute joy to watch. Her chemistry with Archer and Tucker is unmistakable, and I knew right off that I was going to enjoy watching these characters as the series went on. And of course, the interaction between T'Pol and Archer's beagle Porthos was hilarious. She doesn't like dogs, she doesn't like their smell, but Porthos instinctively likes her. That was an absolutely true-to-life moment, and again, I knew I was going to enjoy seeing more develop as the series progressed. There are only two real issues that I have with the otherwise excellent "Broken Bow". There is an early, inexplicable reference to Klingon warbirds. No such thing, until they started to add them in various places following Enterprise's run. Star Trek researcher Richard Arnold blew that big time. And right at the end, Travis Mayweather warns Archer of a nearby ion storm along their course. Archer says "You can't be afraid of the wind." An ion storm presented a danger to the much sturdier, more advanced Constitution Class a hundred years later. The NX Class would probably be destroyed. So you should be afraid of that particular wind.

Enterprise was meant to harken back to the idea of a tough, lead from the front captain, a ship largely on its own, without a starbase to fall back on, and an untamed galaxy. Literally boldly going where noone had gone before. With "Broken Bow", it did just that. Humanity pushing the envelope, taking chances, doing what they were told was too risky. In short, Star Trek got back to "risk is our business". "Broken Bow" was, to me, probably the strongest Trek pilot episode. It gets an enthusiastic thumbs-up from me.

Next up: "Fight or Flight"