LizstarTrek - Enterprise Season 1 episodes 9 - 12

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

STARTING ENTERPRISE NOW! I know NOTHING about this, other than it takes place very early in the timeline, has a guy named ARcher and a guy named Phlox, people smother gel on each other naked a lot, and a lot of people get a lot of opinions.

Civilization - ENT 4.5/10

We’ve got some anomalies on scanners. Some cool stars and collapsing stellar phenomina. And everyone is like “Ughhh that’s so booooring”. My man. Voyager went out of its way to look at shit like this, and they were going to die. How are y’all THIS bad at being space explorers? You’ve been up here for THREE WEEKS, AND YOU’RE ALREADY BORED???

Anyways they find a planet nearby with a bunch of life signs. A pre-industrial society called The Akaali. So now, before this episode EVEN STARTS, we know where this is going to go. They’re gonna send people down there (and one of those people is going to be Trip even though WHY WOULD YOU SEND THE FUCKING CHIEF ENGINEER ON THIS MISSION, he just goes on ALL the fucking missions for some reason) and they’re going to fuck everything up, Trip is probably going to fuck some alien, and then after the dust settles and an entire culture is ruined for the rest of time, they’ll go “you know maybe we should create a Prime Directive so that this shit doesn’t happen again”.

I want to say this right now, if this wasn’t clear that this was my thoughts already, this is the most incompetent, poorly chosen crew. The worst possible choices were made hiring almost everyone here.

They get a reading that there’s some weird tech shit going on. They’re trying to find out if maybe another alien force is trying to fuck with things. They’re immediately caught by a native of the planet, who pulls a crossbow on them, but is shot in the back by T’Pol. “GIRL, YOU’RE A VULCAN. JUST NECK PINCH HER.” - Neli

The owner of this antique shop appeared, and then shortly afterwards, people started dying of disease. This woman is an apothecary, and is investigating the strange disease. After talking to her, they get her help. Archer pretends he’s from another city. He also kisses her weirdly, but it was a ploy to fix his translator. It did REALLY throw me off when it happened though.

This animation of boxes being taken into space looks like an animation from Riven. Anyways he has to pull out a gun to save them from these aliens, who appear to be lizard people. And when she asks wtf, he just… tells her. Yeah, we’re space aliens. She takes it SHOCKINGLY well. The culture on this planet is not very well thought out. Compare this to TNG episodes about pre-industrial cultures. They have a well explained culture, and they react realistically when the structure of reality falls apart around them. Her? She immediately understands how to work with computers, happily takes a phaser and knows how to use it, and her first question when she finds things out is “why would you come HERE out of all the stars in the sky?” Like…. that’s not realistic.

Anyways the two of them storm the shop, and some shit happens, and they manage to win, blowing up the shop. Turns out they were mining for stuff that was irradiating the water supply. They tell the aliens to go away, and some Vulcans agree to check in from time to time to make sure they don’t come back. Archer makes out with her, probably spreading some kind of horrible venereal disease across her planet, and then it just ends like that.

Also apparently this episode was shot AS 9/11 happened, and the actors were kinda checked out. I didn’t notice, but god, we really are in the 2000s now, huh?

Fortunate Son - ENT 3.5/10

THAT AIN’T ME

THAT AIN’T MEEEE

Anyways two people are playing Football and going “oh boy I sure do love being alive!” when they are suddenly attacked by some Nausicaans. Enterprise gets their distress beacon and comes to help, where they’re told “everything’s fine, go home :D” but they insist on sticking around how help them make fixes. This 2nd in command, currently acting captain afte rhis captain is injured, is CLEARLY hiding somethin, and we see it real fast. He has a Nausicaan held captive, and is torturing him for some codes.

This episode is here to set up some lore, and also to give Mayweather an actual episode! Yes, it’s a Mayweather episode! Mayweather has a single character trait, and that’s that he’s a “Space Boomer”. People who live in cargo freighters and freight cargo and not much else. He’s proud of his time on the Freighter, and talks about it a lot. Like I said, it’s his one real character trait. And since they’re helping freighters here, he helps them get acclimated to the crew and the Enterprise. And they kind of hate him, cause he “betrayed his family” by leaving the freighter. Space Boomers appear to basically be the Human equivelent of southerners from small towns.

They find out about the Nausicaan, confront the acting captain about it, who’s a pissy butt baby about the whole thing. He agrees to take them to the Nausicaan so they can free him and heal him though… and then pull a gun on them. Though it’s important to note, Reed actually shoots first. I guess that’s his character trait. He’s trigger happy. They manage to throw the Starfleet off, then fire on the Enterprise and blasts off.

This guy is going on a revenge rampage cause “they hurt his family” and is torturing this alien. He’s also like “THEY NEED TO BE TAUGHT THAT THEY’RE NOT TO MESS WITH US!” Is the moral of this episode that “when you stand up to bullies, they’ll just hit you harder, so keep quiet and just keep taking the punches”. Also yeah Archer is like “We shouldn’t fight and kill these Nausicaans…” when they are, in fact, pirates who are killing everyone and attacking willy nilly. That’s not really like, wanton violence. Sure, the TORTURE is bad, and I agree with that, it’s a He Who Fights Monsters type situation though, and he’s trying to OVER correct.

Shit of COURSE goes south, and wow, the prisoner they took gave them the wrong codes and lied to them, WHAT A SURPRISE.

This episode is, yet again, another fucking Moby Dick episode, and for some reason I NEVER like those. It’s literally one guy who’s just a pissy whiny butt baby about everything and refuses to listen to literally every single person around them who says “this is dumb” because they are so self absorbed. It really IS like a southern butthurt conservative southern town coal miner who’s blaming everyone else for changing times and problems happening to them and their family.

Anyways Mayweather solves things by talking to him. The end. Yay.

Cold Front - ENT 5/10

At the start, we’re introduced to a crewman named Daniels, a pleasant enough guy. Enterprise runs across some alien ship filled with religious pilgrims, here to see an interstellar phenomena they consider holy. Archer invites them onto the Enterprise for cultural exchange, and it’s all ncie and pleasant. There’s even a good scene where, while THAT’S happening, the lower commands are sitting on the bridge like “well, we’re stuck here” and it’s kinda cute actually.

Things go well with the pilgrims on board, though there’s some signs there’s some weird tampering. Daniels comes and tells Archer he thinks the Suliban he fought in the first episode, Silik, is here to cause a problem, and he explains.

Daniels is from the future. 3050, basically. He’s a Future Time Space Cop, and is here to figure out who’s trying to fuck with the timeline. It seems Silik is here… apparently to save Enterprise. So now Archer is feeling a bit conflicted.

It becomes especially interesting once Silik shows up and goes “I’m actually the good guy here, Archer, this future cop is dangerous”. Of course, it’s obviously bullshit, because he’s threatening him with a gun and the music is dark and evil. So this fascinating line of though doesn’t really go anywhere. Silik just IMMEDIATELY shoots Archer and then kills Daniels.

There’s also a side plot of Phlox learning more of the pligrim’s religion and getting super into it.

Silik and Archer fight, it’s a pretty classic Trek fight scene, and actually has classic Trek fight music, but Silik managed to exist. They manage to still have The Egg, something that Daniels had. They lock it up, and that’s that.

This is trying to set up something but there are no real plans and it’s not very engaging. When DS9 set up the Dominion it was background lore that you wanted to learn more of. Why should I care about a temporal cold war???

Silent Enemy - ENT 8/10

This is maybe the funniest description for an episode I’ve seen in a while. This is some TNG season 8 shit.

“Enterprise is attacked by an unknown alien starship, as Archer orders the crew to install experimental “phase cannons”. Meanwhile, Sato is ordered to find out what Reed’s favorite food is for a birthday dinner. “

There’s a scene where Trip is like “My girlfriend broke up with me cause of the long distance” and complains that he didn’t know they’d be this long distance. Dude. Did you know ANYTHING about the mission you were going on??

If I may say, Archer’s way he handles First Contact is really awkward and kinda bad. He’s like “Yo hi. I’m a Human. We’re here to meet people. Wanna meet us?” with a lot of stuttering and awkwardness. First the aliens just leave. Then they come back, still silent, shoot once, and leave.

So for the entire series so far has been Reed going “Captain can we install good weapons so I can do my job, now?” and captain Archer going “NOT NOW, REED, TRIP NEEDS MORE SCREEN TIME”. But FINALLY he’s allowed to DO something. They’re installing some new weapons onto the ship, at the same time Hoshi is trying to figure out his favorite food for a surprise party. As stupid as this premise is, it’s AMAZING for telling us what kind of character he is. Unfortunately, he’s actually kinda boring. He seems like a straight laced gay guy who keeps to himself and eats soylent green and that’s about it.

They straight up look like the aliens from Metal Slug 3.

Also a good Archer moment. They’re dead in the water, the aliens might come back. He’s doubting if he should have pushed to make them come here, cause he did it MOSTLY to prove himself, a selfish reason, and he feels bad he might kill people for that. Trip helps him come around. Actually KINDA okay Trip scene, too.

They test the cannon and it overloads, almost blowing up the ship, but they use that to their advantage, blasting away the enemy by INTENTIONALLY overloading in a last minute gambit. It works and they run off with their tail between their legs. It’s a bit sad we get no info about these guys cause they are intentionally antagonistic and fascinating.

Also Reed’s favorite food is pineapple, which Hoshi learns cause of Phlox testing some kinda medical thing. It’s silly.

Honestly good episode? Good banter, good character moments.