LizstarTrek - Enterprise Season 2 episodes 20-24

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!

IT’S BEEN A LOOOOONG ROOOOOAAAD

Judgement - ENT 8/10

Our episode starts with Archer dragged in chains in front of a Klingon tribunal, claiming he’s accused of crimes of sabotage against the empire. He pleads not guilty.

Some of the best Trek episodes are Klingon Law episodes. Please be good.

Archer is being defended by Not-Martok here. Archer is being accused by someone named Duras… that name is important. Duras says he was going after Klingon traitors, who were on the Enteprise. When he demanded they be handed over, Archer said “No, I’ve made an alliance with these people, back away now or join your ancestors in the afterlife”. I’m starting to think Archer didn’t actually say these things! Archer also fires first. When Archer objects, he’s yelled at, as that is against the rules of the tribunal. Ahh, kangaroo courts. Not-Martok (his name is Kolos) defends ARcher very poorly, and Archer gets tazed for trying to defend himself.

Kolos is an old attorney, and has been doing this for a while, and he’s pretty pissed at what they’re doing. But he’s doing his best to get Archer found guilty so he can make his sentence less violent. Archer calls him out on it. He’s afraid of it, but he ends up stepping up to the plate after all.

Archer tells his side of the story, after Kolos argues for it. He found some Klingon civilians who were fleeing the empire after their colony was abandoned by the empire. They are willing to help them, and then Duras shows up. They are ready to defend their ship, but not violent of course. All the while the prosecutor is mocking and claiming he’s a violent savage who has declared war on the empire, all nonsense. Of course, when Duras shows up, Archer is like “Hey, let’s sit down and try to=” and is immediately fired upon.

Something I’ve noticed from Enterprise is that it keeps reusing old ideas. A Klingon tribunal episode with some Klingons who are corrupt and self serving, desiring violence and aggression, and the few noble Klingons willing to work things out helping out.

Kolos eventually is like “If Archer is guilty, he’s guilty of being a nuisance”, and uses the fact that Archer has help Klingons a lot recently to show that he’s clearly not an enemy of the Empire, and has no interest in starting a rebellion or war with it. While they’re waiting for the outcome, Kolos is like “you don’t expect Klingons to all be warriors?” “Yeah, kinda”. This is it! This is the episode that’s like “What the fuck, no, of course Klingons have things that aren’t warriors”. His dad was a teacher. Hell yeah. Teachers have honor.

Archer is guilty, but because of his help for the Empire in the past, he won’t be killed. He’s just going to be sent to Rura Penthe for the rest of his life. Hey, that’s the place from Star Trek 6! Nice. Kolos is PISSED, and declares that that IS death, life expectancy there is like six months. He declares the court has no honor and is thrown to Rura Penthe for a year, too. Whoops.

Reed comes to break them out. Kolos refuses to go with him. He’s spent 50 years being an advocate, and 20 years of that holding his tongue and sending honorable men to places like this. He’s going to survive that year and change things. Shine on, you beautiful Klingon.

That was just a good episode. Thank god.

Horizon - ENT 8/10

Holy shit, a Mayweather episode???

In my Discord, we have a meme sticker based on a random Memory Alpha image.

I dunno why but it tickles me. I hope this episode is just this for 28 minutes. Enterprise passed by the Horizon, Mayweather’s family’s ship, then coming back soon after. So Mayweather asks to visit his dad, since he’s sick. Unfortunately, before he can get to the ship, he discovers the news. His dad actually passed away six weeks ago, but he never got the news. Mayweather is DEVESTATED, especially cause they didn’t leave on good terms. His dad was unhappy he left the barge. Genuinely fantastic scene with Archer, where he tells Mayweather about a letter his dad sent telling him to hire his son. “I’ve never met a better stick and rudder man and you’d be a fool not to choose him”. Genuinely great scene.

The B-plot in this episode seems to be “T’Pol is convinced to watch horror movies with the crew”. Usually I’d hate B-plot nonsense like that but I kinda love this idea and I hope she likes them. They’re watching Frankenstein.

I really hope this episode continues to just be Mayweather spending time with his family in a slow, chill, slice of life way. He meets his mom and brother, now acting captain. It’s still his old home, but he kind of has a new home now, it’s a good kind of story to tell. But I’m afraid there’s gonna be a thing like they try to kidnap him or they need his help through some major problem.

YES, TRIP, THAT’S WHAT MARY SHELLEY IS KNOWN FOR. THAT’S WHAT’S MOST IMPORTANT ABOUT HER. THAT SHE’S THE WIFE OF A FAMOUS POET. YOU FUCKING HACK.

No one but me can name a fucking Percy Shelley poem, and I have a fucking degree. But everyone knows Frankenstein. Go fuck yourself, dog.

Things aren’t all peachy on the Horizon. Mayweather’s brother is a nice enough guy but he’s tense, and not really ready for this. He also gets testy at Mayweather for overstepping his new captain duties (Mayweather was SUPPOSED to take the captain job, so there’s some bad blood there). An old crush of Mayweather’s tells him things are tense and he’s not a great captain. And then they’re attacked.

The pirates have a VERY weird strategy. Plant a beacon on a ship, then send a really big scary ship to demand the cargo later. Mayweather goes above his brother again and they get into a fight. There’s still lots of grumpiness there, but his mom is like “ah give him time, you’re doing good shit”

Holy shit. “What did you think of the movie?” “I found the main character interesting.” “Doctor Frankenstein, huh?” “No, the creation” “…that’s one way of looking at it”. YES, TRIP. I SUPPOSE THAT IS ONE WAY OF LOOKING AT IT, SURE. AND BY ONE WAY I MEAN THE FUCKING ONLY WAY, YOU GOD DAMN HACK. THAT’S THE FUCKING POINT OF THE MOVIE. Anyways she’s like “the villager’s reactions remind me of Vulcan first contact, I’ll suggest Soval show this to every Vulcans arriving on Earth.” Very funny.

The pirates come around and the Captain’s plans to deal with them by giving them everything don’t work, so they have to rely on Mayweather’s strategy. It works, smooths things over with the brothers, and they part on good terms.

Again, another good episode. Holy shit, two in a row.

The Breach - ENT 6.5/10

Holy shit, Phlox has a tribble. Imagine that. Well, he has one to feed to one of his pets. Which he does violently. It freaks Hoshi out.

Anyways, he gets a message and asks Archer for help. Three Denobulans are on a planet that recently fell under a new government, an extremely xenophobic one. Trip, Reed, and Mayweather have three days to go down, find them, extract them, and get the hell out before they are considered illegal and arrested. Meanwhile, they rescue a ship that is exploding above the planet, and Phlox has to treat the crew, one of which he seems apprehensive about. Uh oh!

Reed and Trip are so fucking incompetent, why do they outrank Mayweather?

We found out the problem. The patient is Antaran, and apparently they and the Denobulans were at war a few times, and they were very bitter disputes. The last war was 300 years ago, but there is VERY bad blood. The Antaran refuses to be treated by him, and would rather die. Archer orders Phlox to perform the surgery anyway, but Phlox refuses, because uh, that’s how medical ethics works. Archer tries to force him, but Phlox refuses. Also he outranks the captain on medical issues anyway, Archer?? There are two kinds of Archer. Good, honorable Archer…. and Angy Archer. We’ve got Angy Archer today. Boo.

Apparently the Denobulans did some REALLY sketchy strategies in their war and killed a shiiiiit ton of Antarans. 20 million of them. Phlox admits it is not a proud history, but one they try to move past. But also, it seems like his side isn’t willing to try and reconcile either.

You know what this episode about racism needed? Cave slapstick. It doesn’t help that we can barely see anything cause of the lighting. And of course Mayweather is the one to get hurt, but also save everyone’s lives.

The Antaran treats Phlox like shit, and he gets fed up and leaves. The Antaran is now like “Ha ha I win, I proved that he’s not the perfect goody twoshoes he claims to be”. And he’s going to die. Congrats on your victory, dude.

Phlox talks to T’Pol about this. When he was a kid, he wanted to go to a beautiful planet. His grandma told him not to go, because the Antarans had once lived there, even though it was a very long time ago, and now the planet was tained. He didn’t go. But when he had kids of his own, he took them there. Because he didn’t want them raised like he was raised. Phlox is, in fact, actually a good person. But he has internal biases from being raised as such. But he refuses to let them continue.

Trip and Reed make their way to the Denobulans deep in the cave, who are like “Thanks but we’re good, we don’t want to leave”. Good thing they sent the two diplomats here! Trip orders them up at gunpoint. Oh good. Glad that’s the end to this storyline. A shaggy dog story that makes Trip look like even more of an asshole.

Phlox explains to the Antaran about his family. He has five kids. He tried to teach them to be better than his grandmother was. All are, except one, who was persuaded to far right xenophobic politics. Phlox stopped talking to him because of this. His racist son would want nothing more than for Phlox to just let him die. But he doesn’t want to. Eventually he agrees to the procedure, and has his life saved.

We did it! We solved racism!

Everyone goes their seperate ways, and the episode ends with Phlox writing to his son, hoping it changes something in him.

The episode was pretty good for the most part… but the cave plot was unneccesary and bad.

Crogenitor - ENT 2/10

Before this episode started, we took a break to make popcorn. I read this episode’s description and found out it’s about gender.

I got some whisky. I might need it.

Enterprise is studying a hypergiant star. While there, they discover a ship floating along nearby. They talk, and are very friendly! They offer to help trade info, and are excited to become friends, they’re a very nice species and are almost like Humans in their xenophilic stance… except one thing. While chatting up the captain, Trip says hello to one, who seems shocked by the hello. They explain its a “Crogenitor”, they’re trying to have a baby.

Trip is confused, and talks to Phlox. They’re a three gendered species, the crogenitor is used for mating. They use it/its pronouns apparently. Phlox has pictures, and is excited to share them! Trip is not interested… until he talks to the captain, who wants to share info about his engine, but all Trip wants to know about is their Crogenitor. They are a bit weirded out by him asking about it.

Trip is REALLY hung up on this. Specifically, he’s hung up on the fact that they appear to treat this Crogenitor like dirt. It has no rights. He comes to T’Pol about it who’s like “the captain wants a working relationship with them, it’s not our problem” and Phlox goes “It’s not our problem, it’s their society and reproductive system”. I’m honestly stunned this is their reaction to a blatant problem. There’s clearly a slavery type situation happening here and they’re ignoring it cause hey we might make friends. Why would you WANT to be their friend? Trip has the right idea IMO, but he handles it in the WORST, CLUNKIEST WAY. He has NO tact, NO grace, and no understanding that he’s wading into a mother fucking minefield. It’s straight up punishment to watch.

He sneaks around the ship and tries to teach it how to read. It’s confounded by this. Like, this episode isn’t offensive, cause it has the right idea, it’s just poorly written, and frankly unable to meet the moment. It should be NO surprise Brennan and Braga wrote this. They are a plague upon Star Trek.

Trip is THE WORST FUCKING CHARACTER TO HAVE DONE THIS.

This episode also is REALLY overloaded. There’s a C-plot. A: This third gender thing. B: Archer and his new boyfriend explore the sun. C: Reed gets a new girlfriend. He’s totally straight, guys.

Pauline in my chat described this episode pretty well. This is not an episode about a mistreated slave class. This is a white savior episode. It’s not really about the slave itself. It’s about Trip being the white savior. It’s like the opposite side of the Harry Potter SPEW shit, and I’m sorry for bringing that up, but its like the opposite of that and it’s just as well written. Trip has ALL the agency here, and that feels bad.

Excuse me I need to be a pedantic Trek nerd for a second. Yes it’s fun to have Dixon Hill here, but Bride of Chaotica? THAT SHIT WAS WRITTEN BY TOM PARIS LIKE 200 YEARS AFTER THIS. 0/10.

Or maybe this has EXTREME implications for lore???

Trip names it (calls it her, so I will call her her, but he only calls her her cause she has an actress so whatever) Charles. Charles learns VERY fast and realizes it has a shitty life and asks for asylum. Archer thinks about it, which stresses his new friends and stresses relations, but eventually denies asylum. For some reason. I guesss so the episode can happen. They leave on tense, but still friendly terms… until Archer learns that Charles committed suicide.

YES, TRIP, IT IS.

Archer tore him apart about this, telling him that his impulsive actions killed someone. Trip, at least, is kinda traumatized by this. I hope this means Trip will cool off with his impulsive bullshit but I am not confident.

Bad. I can see ways this could be good. As Neli says, “an episode where Trip’s bumbling incompetence and impulsive bullshit causes him to fuck up first contact, and pushing to form a prime directive, can be good, but ALL the framing is very bad”. And I agree 100%.

Regeneration - ENT 3/10

Oh Christ. I was so worried this is something we were going to do.

In the arctic, some researches find a crashed alien ship. They find aliens under the ice. Humanoids with cybernetics where their eye should be. YEP. A BORG EPISODE. 200 years before Borg First Contact. And we can thank the movie First Contact for this. It’s creating suffering long after its creation. Fucking garbage-ass movie. Anyways, what follows is basically The Thing. They’re studying the Borg, wondering wtf their deal is, as the nanotechnology begins to repair systems. Dude. They’ve been dead for literally 100 years. I don’t give a shit HOW good Borg technology are, they cannot bring themselves back to life after dying a hundred years ago in a ship crash. And if they DID have that technology it wouldn’t be in random fucking drones, they’re replacable.

I’m not a fan of late-stage Borg, but now it’s even MORE late-stage Borg. People complain about Voyager? This is FAR worse.

The dude in charge says “let’s not freeze them again even though it might be dangerous, we can learn so much from them,” and is killed because of it. Good job, dog.

Enterprise is sent after the Borg when it escapes on the researcher’s ship, kidnapping them as well. Enterprise finds the Borg attacking a vessel, and saves them, but they were already injected with nanoprobes. Meanwhile, Archer finds that Cochrane talked about the Borg once while drunk.

The aliens wake up, are like “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?” and then for some fucking reason IMMEDIATELY act like Borg, even though they’re not fully turned. They immediately can tubule Phlox, who’s infected with the nanoprobes now. That’s not how indocrination works.

I’m starting to think this episode is dumb. This isn’t consistant with normal Trek, OR with First Contact’s terrible stupid interpretation of the Borg as like, zombies.

The Borg tubules a computer and it magically morphs into a Borg system. What in the mother fuck? They also have energy shielding already. What in the WORLD. Archer has to send them out of the airlock, he’s extremely unhappy about it, but he intends to recover them, and save anyone if he can. Phlox, for the record, makes a fucking poison and goes “if I can’t cure this with this treatment I’m designing, kill me with this, thank you, I do not intend to turn into one of those”.

They find the Borg, and they manage to overpower Enterprise, of course. They then send a message. “YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE”. Notice, if you will, that they did NOT add “WE ARE THE BORG” at the start. Which is an important notable omission. They are desperate to maintain continuity here, but dude. Maybe if you need to work this hard to maintain continuity by CHANGING THE WAY THE BORG WORK IN EVERY WAY, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS EPISODE.

Archer and Reed beam over, but don’t worry, it’s fine. They updated their weapons and made them powerful enough to take out the Borg. Dude. They couldn’t do that in VOYAGER, WITH A BORG ON THEIR SIDE, WHY CAN THEY DO THAT NOW????? They also disable a Borg Drone by pulling the tubules out of their heads. Wow its really fucking easy to kill a Drone.

Archer decides he can’t save anyone on the ship, and sets a bomb. The ship is damaged, but alive, and they send over the borg they used to invade Enterprise to fix it. For some reason. That’s very dumb, cause Enterprise just blows it up and kills all of the Borg, gg.

Also Phlox is fine, he just had to suffer through a dangerous radiation bath. He warns them that the Borg were sending a message. somewhere deep in the Delta Quadrant… coordinates of Earth. If that ever comes back… it doesn’t. It’s not important.

This sucked. However, here’s a thing:

“The events of this episode form the basis of the story for the 2006 game Star Trek: Legacy. A Vulcan scientist named T’Uerell is assigned to study the Borg debris and after learning their true nature, injects herself with Borg nanoprobes. Armed with knowledge of future events, she spends the next two centuries building her forces and waiting for the opportunity to seize control of the Borg Collective in order to use them to bring a state of total logic to the Alpha Quadrant.”

what

Was that game any good? I doubt it.