So next up on my odyssey of Star Trek, my Star Trek trek so to speak is Star Trek: Enterprise. I thought I'd try and watch the shows in chronological order of when they are set so I am sure although this is one of the more recent shows (2001 - 2005) it's set in the earliest time, the 22nd century, 2151 (100 years before Kirk), when humanity are only just venturing out as Starfleet into the universe to boldly go and all that jazz.
I have never seen a single one of the adventures of Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and his crew upon the Enterprise but seeing people's posts about it I had the vague idea that the general consensus was not too positive towards it. It must have done fairly well though as it had 4 seasons with 98 episodes. As I write this paragraph I am still on season one and I like it. The premise is interesting, the earliest space explorations of humanity, their 1st trips to discover new life and planets. We've already had contact with other alien species, the Vulcans assisted us with perfecting our space technology, although there is some animosity towards them with feeling that they held mankind back. Initially placed on a temporary basis the Vulcan T'Pol eventually becomes fulltime and some of this mistrust is directed towards her. The ship doctor too is an alien, Dr. Phlox is a Denobulan, a jovial little character who is possibly my favourite of the series. The captain has a ship's dog too Porthos!! The 1st mission starts prematurely in the end when a Klingon, Klaang is wounded and they have to take him home. We also find a new enemy race, the Suliban (I think they're new, I don't remember them from anything else?), who are doing the bidding of a future intelligence in a Temporal Cold War. Later in an episode where Captain Archer and Mayweather are captured and held in a Tandaran internment camp with a number of Suliban we find that it is only some of them that are enemies, the Cabal. This episode is a parallel of the human history events when Japanese American citizens in the US were detained during WWII. Something that happened to The Original Series actor George Takei (Mr Sulu) and his family. I wonder if it was written or directed by him perhaps.
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| 1st contact of Vulcans on Earth: Carbon Creek |
As an early (chronologically) mission some of the tech is not so good, their top warp speed is not so fast, photon torpedoes haven't been discovered yet and the translaters have a few hiccups, Comm officer Ensign Hoshi Sato has her work cut out for her. The teleporter tech is new and they start off wary of it, favouring instead small shuttle craft for flying to planet's surfaces. They also launched early so some of their systems were not fully set up just yet. When they start to encounter new planets and civilisations we find that no official contact protocols have been devised yet. This leaves it very much up to Archer to make up on the fly with advise from T'Pol.
There are some great episodes, fun ones like when male engineer Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker gets unexplainably pregnant, and when T'Pol tells the tale of her ancestors 1st unintended visit to Earth. There are tense ones too like when Archer gets a virus that prevents him making new memories creating a whole different timeline and when they are held at gun point by Andorians at a Vulcan temple as they believe it's a spy base. Horror icon Jeffrey Combs plays Andorian Commander Shran a reoccurring character extremely well, it's funny to see him with blue skin and antennae.
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| Jeffrey Combs as Commander Shran |
Season 3 we discover a new enemy, the Xindi, the whole season is taken up with preventing them from wiping out Earth. Beings from another dimension convince the Xindi that humanity are their enemy and are destined to destroy them if they don't pre-emptively destroy us first. Enterprise has to enter The Expanse a dangerous, uncharted area of space to try and stop them from building a massive weapon capable of destroying our planet.
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| 4 of the 6 Xindi races at their Council |
Season 4 seems to consist of lots of 2-parters with stuff like alien Nazis, cowboy planets, Vulcan political intrigues and Romulan warmongering amongst the subjects portrayed. With the program coming to an end we see talk about the United Federation of Planets being born. Archer and his crew have done much to heal rifts between the Vulcans, Andorians and the Tellarites over the series and have helped to create conditions where a United Nations of planets is possible. In the final episode, told in a very unique manner we see Johnathan Archer working on his speech for the inauguration of this body but is side-tracked by an urgent plea from Commander Shran.
The series has a fair few nods at historical stuff and hints at future canon events. In one storyline for example Brent Spiner, (Data from Next Generation), stars as a criminal, Dr Soong, responsible for creating banned genetically enhanced augments. At the conclusion he determines that perhaps synthetic androids would be a better avenue for his talents. Hence he is bound to model their look on himself and thus he creates Data!
I have to say my favourite moment from the entire series has to be when Dr Phlox is stuck in quarantine with a pon farr'd T'Pol which is comedy gold! Where's the porn parody? (Joking!)
I read up on some of the dislike that this series had at the time of it's 1st airing, some called it the death of Star Trek!! I've got to say that's all a bit harsh if you ask me, but you know what it's like when people obsess over shows, they can never be satisfied and will complain about any little thing. One thing I can agree on though is that the theme tune sucks, give me a woman harmonising over a theremin anyday! (Although I've just done some research and found that the original theme actually has no theremin in it after all so that's my world view rocked!!)
