“The Forgotten”
Written by Chris Black & David A. Goodman
Directed by LeVar Burton
Season 3, Episode 20
Production episode 072
Original air date: April 28, 2004
Date: unknown
Captain’s star log. While en route to their rendezvous with Degra—which, it becomes clear, is why the Aquatics took Archer back to Enterprise rather than to the council last time—Archer holds a memorial service for the people they’ve lost on this mission.
T’Pol visits Phlox in sickbay, and the doctor reports that there’s only minute traces of trellium-D left in her system. However, she is still having trouble controlling her emotions, and Phlox says that the damage the trellium did to her neural pathways is still an issue, and may be for some time. It may be something she has to live with.
The bodies of the last of the unaccounted-for crew have been found: Jane Taylor, one of Tucker’s engineers, and Kamata. Archer orders Tucker to write a condolence letter to Taylor’s family; when Tucker tries to fob it off on Rostov, Archer refuses to let him do so, saying it’s important for Taylor’s family to know what happened from her CO.
In the shattered remains of the mess hall, Tucker confides his struggles in writing the condolence letter to T’Pol. She notices that he’s exhausted, and tells him to get some sleep. But then there’s an explosion. Tucker rushes to deal with it, though he misses the fact that there’s a hull breach that’s venting both atmosphere and warp plasma.
Enterprise rendezvouses with Degra and Jannar inside the cloaking field of a sphere. Degra explains that they lied to the Reptilians because they wanted proof of Archer’s accusations. First the captain shows them the bodies of the three Reptilians that Archer and T’Pol shot in 2004 Detroit. Degra recognizes one of them as a Reptilian scientist who disappeared shortly after the council rejected the bio-weapon plan. Then Archer shows them the bio-weapon itself. Then he takes them to sickbay, where Phlox shows them the scans of the alien who tried to sabotage the ship before he faded away. Phlox’s theory is that he was, in essence, allergic to this universe. The general theory is that the alien—who’s the same species as the woman Degra and Jannar talked to last time—was being tested to see if the spheres had altered this dimension enough for these aliens to be able to survive it.
Degra and Jannar return to their ship to examine the physical evidence Archer has provided. There is evidence of chronometric distortion on the bodies and the bio-weapon, but Jannar thinks they could be fabricated. He’s skeptical—there’s plenty of evidence of Reptilian deception, yes, but that’s all it is. Degra, though, is concerned.
After Phlox orders him to get some rest lest his rapidly increasing sleep deprivation causes him to blow up the ship or something, Tucker goes to his quarters to take a nap. He has a very vivid dream where he talks to Taylor, and the deceased engineer berates him for not writing a proper condolence letter to her family.
Archer brings Degra to the command center to show him all the data they’ve collected. Tucker takes the opportunity to make many snide comments about his murdering seven million people on Earth (he just says Florida, even though the weapon also took out chunks of Central America, but then again, Tucker’s sister was in Florida).
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The crack in the hull grows, and the plasma fire is now huge. Tucker and Reed put on EVA suits to go out onto the hull to shut down the flow regulators. They manage it, but Reed gets very close to the plasma fire, and has to be brought to sickbay to get his temperature down. Degra expresses his regrets for Reed’s life being endangered, and Tucker goes nuclear on him, asking what’s one more dead human? Seven million is okay, but seven million and one makes him sorry?
Archer and Degra talk in private. When Archer says they’ve determined that there are fifty-nine spheres, Degra corrects him: there are seventy-eight. The Xindi have had more time to study them. However, no Xindi has gotten as detailed a scan as what Enterprise got when they found the damaged sphere.
A Reptilian ship closes in on them. The Reptilian captain reprimands Degra, since this meeting was obviously not sanctioned by the council. Degra and Jannar agree to dock with the Reptilian ship, refusing Archer’s request for data on how to fight the Reptilians. Instead, Degra and Jannar’s ship fire on the Reptilians, with Enterprise ceasing fire after the ship is disabled, but Jannar and Degra actually finish the job. Degra ruefully says that they had no choice, as the Reptilians would have reported them to the council.
Degra gives Archer the coordinates for the council chambers, as well as a way to navigate the subspace corridors the Xindi use, which will get them there faster. He can present his evidence to the council there.
Tucker opens up to T’Pol, telling her that the reason why he can’t write a condolence letter to Taylor’s family is because he keeps thinking about his sister. He’d been able to compartmentalize it up until now, but having to write about Taylor just makes him think about Elizabeth.
T’Pol comforts him and eventually he’s able to write the letter, ending it by touching his framed picture of his sister and saying, “Goodbye, Elizabeth.”
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Hull breaches can sometimes lead to plasma fires. So that sucks.
The gazelle speech. Archer is magnificently low-key and determined when showing the evidence to Degra and Jannar. Here’s one piece. That’s not enough? Fine, here’s another piece. Still not enough? Okay, here’s more. And so on.
Archer also reveals to Degra that they erased his memory of the deception on the shuttle.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol has been weaned off trellium-D (which happened really fast, but whatever), but the emotional turbulence is still there. She also reminds Tucker that Vulcans have emotions, they just suppress them, mainly because they’re so turbulent that the most intense of them would overwhelm.
Florida Man. Florida Man Has Nightmares About Dead Engineer, Sister.
Optimism, Captain! Phlox won’t take no for an answer when Tucker insists that he doesn’t need sleep, and his calm, smiling demeanor as he forces the engineer to get some rest is beautifully done.
I’ve got faith…
“And I realize that I’m not thinking about Taylor at all, I’m thinking about Elizabeth. There’s so many people dead—I tried not to see her any differently than the other seven million. So I’ve spent the last nine months trying to pretend she was just another victim. But she’s my sister, T’Pol! My baby sister! I envy you Vulcans…”
“You think the loss of a colleague or friend doesn’t affect us? It does. But if we give in to those emotions, they overwhelm us. You’re the ones to be envied.”
–Tucker and T’Pol both realizing the grass is greener on the other side.
Welcome aboard. The “big” guest is Seth MacFarlane, who makes a gratuitous cameo as an engineer Tucker yells at. At the time best known as the creator and star of Family Guy, and a huge Trek fan, MacFarlane is but the latest in a series of guest appearances by actors who are big Trek fans (see also Mick Fleetwood, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Alexander, etc.). MacFarlane will return as the same character in “Affliction.”
Kipleigh Brown plays the dream image of Taylor.
In addition, Randy Oglesby and Rick Worthy are back from “Damage” as Degra and Jannar, respectively, while Bob Morrisey plays the Xindi-Reptilian captain. Morrisey previously played Strom in “Stigma.” Oglesby and Worthy will both return next time in “E2.”
Trivial matters: Earth was attacked—and seven million people, including Elizabeth Tucker, were killed—in “The Expanse.” Enterprise encountered a damaged sphere in “Anomaly.” The Reptilians’ time-traveling creation of a bio-weapon was stopped by Archer and T’Pol in “Carpenter Street.” Archer and Degra had lengthy conversations that Degra’s memory of was erased in “Stratagem.” The extra-dimensional alien sabotaged Enterprise and then faded away in “Harbinger.” Most of the people who are mourned at the top of the episode, including Taylor, were killed in the Reptilian attack on Enterprise in “Azati Prime.” T’Pol’s trellium-D addiction was revealed in “Damage,” where it was established that she started the trellium injections following “Impulse.”
While Joseph Will does not appear in the episode (and indeed, will not be seen onscreen again on the show), Rostov is mentioned more than once.
Guest star Seth MacFarlane will go on to create, executive produce, and star in The Orville, a science fiction series that is very obviously inspired by Star Trek, which ran from 2017-2019 on FOX and in 2022 on Hulu. Among the folks on his production staff for that show were Enterprise co-creator and executive producer Brannon Braga, this episode’s co-writer David A. Goodman, and Trek scripters/producers André Bormanis and Joe Menosky. Many Trek actors made appearances on The Orville, among them John Billingsley, plus one—Penny Johnson-Jerald—was a series regular.
It’s been a long road… “Just remember me—is that asking so much?” Star Trek has always had a redshirt problem. Indeed, it’s Trek’s tendency (particularly in the original series, but it’s been all over every aspect of the franchise) to have disposable security guards that led to the coining of “redshirt” to mean “dead-meat character.”
It’s one of the most despicable tendencies in all dramatic fiction, truly, having disposable characters whose deaths are barely acknowledged or paid attention to. To be fair, Enterprise has been generally free of this tendency, mostly by not having anyone die, at least until they buggered into the Delphic Expanse.
However, it should be noted that when Trek manages to avoid the redshirt phenomenon and make the deceased folks someone we care about—TNG’s “The Bonding,” DS9’s “The Ship,” Discovery’s “Project Daedalus” and “The Red Angel”—it really really works well, and “The Forgotten” is a worthy addition to that list.
Connor Trinneer absolutely knocks it out of the park here, as Tucker is in eighteen kinds of pain. His ability to compartmentalize his grief over his sister has been completely blown to pieces by the bodies dropping all around him, plus the ship is being held together with, as he himself puts it, spit and bailing wire and he’s responsible for fixing it. Then, as the rancid cherry on top of this awful sundae, the guy responsible for the weapon that killed his sister is standing there on the ship being all chummy with the captain.
Randy Oglesby hits a back-to-back homer here (he says, abusing the baseball metaphor), as he also is having a great deal of trouble reconciling his need to save his people with everything he’s learning from and about the Enterprise crew. At one point when Tucker is yelling at him as he leaves the room, Degra hesitates, and you expect him to turn around and say something. But instead, he leaves, shoulders slumped, saying nothing—because what can he possibly say? It’s a brilliant choice by writers Chris Black and David A. Goodman, phenomenally executed by Oglesby and director LeVar Burton.
T’Pol’s issues serve as a nice complement to Tucker’s, as both of them are losing their ability to rein in their emotions. In Tucker’s case, it’s due to a combo of grief and sleep deprivation, and in T’Pol’s it’s due to her being a dumbass junkie, but it results in their superlative conversation about grief and emotional control.
Credit also to Scott Bakula, who gives us an Archer who—in direct contrast to his chief engineer—is able to not only keep control but channel that control into a calm directness and persistence. The barrage of evidence he throws at Jannar and Degra is beautifully shown (though I was surprised he didn’t break the lock on Daniels’ quarters by way of proving that time travel is a thing that they’ve done).
Finally, the dream sequence where Tucker is confronted by his memory of Taylor is a masterpiece, with Kipleigh Brown making you feel like Taylor herself is right there, practically begging Tucker to eulogize her to her family, and being very confused and hurt when he says he can’t. In that scene in particular, Taylor serves as a proxy for all eighteen Enterprise crew who died, just as Elizabeth Tucker has been for the seven million who died on Earth.
It’s one of many great scenes in an episode that reminds us all of the brutal consequences of war—because this is a war, one that started when the Xindi weapon cut a swath through Florida and Central America—and the devastation of losing a life. Of losing any life.
Warp factor rating: 10
Keith R.A. DeCandido’s latest release is Double Trouble: An Anthology of Two-Fisted Team-Ups, co-edited by him with Jonathan Maberry, and featuring team-ups of classic characters. The contributing authors include Trek scribes David Mack (teaming Prospero and Don Quixote de la Mancha), Greg Cox (Night of the Living Dead and The Brain that Wouldn’t Die), Dayton Ward (Captain Battle and Blackout), Kevin J. Anderson (Captain Nemo and Frankenstein’s monster), Diana Dru Botsford (Lemuel Gulliver and Sacajawea and Ernest Shackleton), Derek Tyler Attico (Dracula and Jekyll & Hyde and John Henry), David A. McIntee (Tripitaka and Emperor Taizong), Rigel Ailur (Annie Oakley and Marian of Locksley), and Keith himself (She Who Must Be Obeyed and Egungun-oya), among many others. Check it out!
This episode reminded me a little of the penultimate M*A*S*H episode, where Hawkeye was assigned to write a eulogy for a dead nurse and realized he hardly knew anything about her, as well as Peter David’s final Star Trek comics story “Once a Hero,” which was inspired by that episode, with Kirk being the one who had to eulogize a crewmember. I often thought the season 1 writers were trying to emulate M*A*S*H, with their slice-of-shipboard-life episodes and “letter to Dr. Lucas” episodes, but it was less common by season 3 when they were trying to be more of a hardcore action show. Although Trip’s reason for struggling with the eulogy turned out to be quite different.
Definitely a good idea to juxtapose that with Degra’s arrival on the ship, to force him to confront the cost of what he did.
Minor correction, Christopher: “Who Knew?” wasn’t the penultimate episode of M*A*S*H. It was the fifth (of 16) episode of the show’s final season.
(The penultimate episode was “As Time Goes By,” which is the episode that introduced future Trek regular Rosalind Chao’s character of Soon-Li Han.)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
A wild mix between high-stakes diplomacy, high-stakes damage control, and coping with loss.
I wonder, did Captain Archer know his officers so well that he kew Tucker needed a break from one technical emergency after the other, or did his insistence to do justice to Taylor’s memory push Tucker over the edge into lapses of judgement? Doctor Phlox ordered Tucker to take time off, and he was partially successful. Yet Tucker did not get undiluted rest, the letter was clearly on his mind.
I believe it’s on record that I had fond feelings towards ENTERPRISE even before this rewatch, but this past stretch of episodes has left me more and more convinced that this unfashionable fondness needs no apologies AND NEVER DID.
Honestly, my only ambivalent feelings while watching NX-01 steam on through the Xindi War are based on the question of whether it’s a crying shame the show never got to depict the Earth-Romulan or whether it would have been very difficult to top this sober treatment of the Pity of War when dealing with war against an actual Evil Empire…
Also, I’m quietly confident Doctor Phlox hits Peak Dad in this episode: the only reason I’m sure he hadn’t hit it before is that attempt to set up a threesome with Trip and Mrs Doctor Phlox … no, not that one, the one we actually get to see.
Original Trek episode “Balance of Terror” starts with Kirk officiating a wedding and ends with him going back to the chapel to eulogize the (now deceased) groom.
I really have nothing to add; I consider this to be quite possibly the best episode of Enterprise and one of the best episodes of Star Trek overall.
I know I am in the minority but I am happy the Earth/Romulan War never got shown as part of ENT. The books, however, were an excellent read now I just need to read The Rise of the Federation books that follow.
@2/krad: Hmm, you’re right about “Who Knew?” And judging from its production code, it was a holdover from the previous season, so that rules out it airing last in syndicated reruns (which were shown in production order, sometimes creating continuity issues). So I wonder why I was so convinced it was the second-last episode.
Also, I keep forgetting that Rosalind Chao was only in one episode before the finale.
“I’m trying to help you but I need to know my world isn’t being destroyed while I’m doing it.”
There’s a lot of good stuff in this episode. The main thing being that there’s no magic snap-back. Enterprise is still falling apart and now short-handed. And its crew aren’t in much better shape: They look wrecked physically and Tucker in particular is falling apart mentally and continuously on edge. Archer attempts to use the deaths of their friends as the basis of an inspirational speech but it seems only partly successful, especially when he’s having to deal with a chief engineer whose personal growth seems to have ended about nine months previous.
Sadly, I found Tucker the weakest part of the episode, which is a shame given how much he’s in it. There’s only so many scenes of him snarling at people that I could sit through, and the only one that was particularly enjoyable was Phlox playing hardball with him about getting some rest. Otherwise, he comes across as a less sympathetic character than a mass murderer. Degra retains his dignity throughout, refusing to rise to any of Tucker’s constant baiting, and just made Tucker seem more and more petty, however justified his anger is. He’s been itching to get his hands on the people who killed his sister, and now one of the main guilty parties is in front of him and being treated like a visiting dignitary. Not for the first time, he seems to have forgotten that the mission is to save Earth, not strike back against the Xindi. It doesn’t help that it feels worryingly like his character arc is just an excuse to have T’Pol give him a hug and keep the shippers happy.
The scenes of Archer trying to gain allies among the Xindi are better but suffer from being a bit repetitive. Degra is largely convinced Archer’s telling the truth, Jannar is an entrenched sceptic, and they don’t really shift their position throughout the episode, except maybe at the end. Degra ends up all-in as he sides with Enterprise against another Xindi ship. It’s a decision that obviously pains him and we suddenly realise he’s basically made the same decision he made when he deployed the Xindi probe weapon: Killing people he doesn’t really want to because he’s convinced it’s the only way to save his race.
It’s said to be two days on from the end of ‘Azati Prime’, nine months on from the beginning of ‘The Expanse’ and three months since T’Pol started taking trellium (so, at least that long since ‘Impulse’). I think that’s the first mentions of Rostov since Season 2’s ‘The Crossing’. Degra indicates the Xindi’s Sphere Builder contact was the one who formed the council: Remember that in ‘Stratagem’ he said it was formed after their planet was destroyed to find a new home. (To be fair, he didn’t say how long after their planet was destroyed.) Archer apparently fills Degra in on the events of that episode off-screen. And yes, he still has the totally-not-stunned Reptillians from ‘Carpenter Street’ on ice.
This was an episode where all the plot threads, even some clumsy ones, came together in a satisfying manner.
@10. cap-mjb: I agree that Mr Tucker is not at his best in this episode, but calling him less sympathetic than Degra of the Xindi strikes me as over-egging the pudding.
While he might have timed it better, Mr Tucker gives us a much-needed reminder that Degra is a decent person but STILL more a villain than a hero: it bears keeping in mind that, by destroying the Reptilian ship, Degra ensures that the only eyewitnesses to his treasonable manoeuvrings are his own trusted crew and a human vessel utterly dependent on him for it’s continued survival.
Helpful Degra undoubtedly is, selfless hero he is not and I feel that Mr Tucker’s diatribe is a valuable corrective to the notion of Degra as “Our Guy”: this is a pretty dirty-grey situation all round.
A very good episode although I don’t love it. That’s probably because of the somber tone throughout and Tucker snapping at everyone. Still, Enterprise has been on a good run in this stretch of the season. It would have been a tighter arc overall if the season was shorter like how 10-13 episodes today is considered the norm. Of course, it was a different business model on television 20+ years ago.
Hot damn, this one. Just reading that dialogue excerpt, the “Baby Sister” speech just started me crying again. Connor Trineer absolutely killed it. T’Pol’s “you are the ones to be envied” was like speaking for generations of Vulcans enduring the down side of what the Romulans left to keep. While grief is something we don’t want to experience, as Vision so eloquently and iconically stated, “What is grief, if not love persevering?” The “You’re jealous” neuropressure session conversation is where I was fully on board with Trip and T’Pol, but this moment is when I wanted them for the road.
Archer bringing the evidence was spectacular stuff, Bakula at his best and Oglesby played Degra’s growing doubt and guilt to perfection.
Also, shout out to Kipleigh Brown from the Star Trek Online fans, she plays a Lukari administrator/scientist/Captain named Kuumaarke and almost everyone loves her. (She also played Kuumaarke’s mirror counterpart and we all wanted to strangle her, it was great.)
Looking at Degra vs Tucker, I’m reminded of Damar and Kira, “What kind of people give those orders?” Degra is of course literally and figuratively a much more sober person than Damar, and not a fanatical patriot as much as a father trying to protect his children, and all his people’s children. But Tucker gave him a very real reminder of the consequences of his actions.
One of Trek’s best hours. Period. A raw, heartbreaking story about letting go.
A companion piece to “Damage” that carries on the consequences of “Azati Prime”. It is all about the physical and especially the psychological scars of the Xindi arc. “The Forgotten” adds the icing on the cake: dealing and coping with the loss, and having to face those scars upfront in order to move on. Using the Redshirt theme to shine a light on Trip’s own pain brings about what I consider to be Connor Trinneer’s best performance across the show’s entire run.
Trip Tucker has never been an easy character to stomach. Racist, ignorant, lacking any sort of moral and social brakes. And yet, he’s always been honest, forthcoming and mostly fair. A lot of that is due to Trinneer’s charisma and performance. And here he bares it all. Having spent most of the Xindi arc feeding his anger over his sister’s death, he buried his pain and fears until, denying and repressing those feelings until he could no longer do so. Just like a Vulcan. It’s fitting that he breaks down embracing T’Pol of all people – herself damaged, at this point herself likely unable to fully go back to her stern, composed Vulcan self ever again. It’s a turning point for both of them and their relationship.
Also some major advancements for the Xindi members, as Degra and Jannar not only get to realize how the Xindi have been played by the Sphere Builders, but also realize the extent of the violence that’s been inflicted on mankind. Degra’s own evolution plays like classic Trek. It takes lot of trust and empathy for him to move past the old fears and prejudices and be in a place where he can fire on one of his own in order to give Archer and company a fair chance at setting things right. Well written stuff.
This is easily LeVar Burton’s best work behind the camera. I’d rank it up there alongside last season’s “Cogenitor” and VOY’s “Timeless”. It still baffles me he’s not currently directing episodes of the current Kurtzman ST shows.
@12/ED: I think given the events of the previous episode, where Tucker is cheerily standing there at the end telling Archer that he did the right thing in attacking and stranding innocent people, no-one’s entirely capable of taking the moral high ground in all this. Tucker seemed to spend the entire episode doing everything he could to sabotage Enterprise’s mission, from childishly sniping at Degra while Archer’s trying to win him over, to throwing a tantrum at the idea of accepting technical help from the Xindi and literally throwing their gift away. Archer does pull him into line a bit but I really wanted him to send Tucker to his room and tell him to not come out until he’d learned to behave like a grown-up.
Excellent review that I very much enjoyed, but the dismissive and cruel phrase ‘dumbass junkie’ felt like having cold water dumped on me in the midst of a review of an episode taking such an empathetic and emotional look at grief.
@17. cap-mjb: An entirely fair point – what needs to be said is not always spoken at the best of times or by those we entirely agree with.
@18: I felt that too, a little. On a related note, It’s not outside the norm for a drug, particularly a stimulant, to get out of one’s system “really fast.” I found trellium to be a particularly fitting analog for methamphetamines here. You are typically done with withdrawal from stimulants (including amphetamines) by about 36 hours, after which they are also usually out of the bloodstream. And meth can have lasting consequences ranging from impulse control issues that can last 18 months up to and including a chronic psychotic disorder that mirrors schizophrenia, but isn’t.
TL;DR: the drug that is out of the system in a flash and can lead to extended emotional problems exists. The idea of a Vulcan having to deal with that – I understand the envy and the (to her) frightening loss of control that would lead her to even share that.
On an unrelated note, I’m sure that the aquatics bringing Archer back to Enterprise were supposed to lead us to question “why is he there?” and add intrigue. Instead, the fits and starts of the prior 2.5 years of Enterprise (the show) lead many of us to the conclusion of “that’s a pretty egregious plot hole, even for them!”
Lucy: I stand by the “dumbass” adjective, there. What T’Pol did was an overwhelmingly stupid thing to do, particularly in the middle of a critical long-term mission where the option of medical care beyond what Enterprise‘s sickbay could handle wouldn’t be available.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@20 insightful comments, and thanks for the education about the meth side effect “a chronic psychotic disorder that mirrors schizophrenia, but isn’t.” I always assumed it *was* schizophrenia, gleaned from my personal experience with both diseases.
The great trilogy of episodes that really show the potential Enterprise had as a show ends here. The rest of the season is good, but not Great. Meanwhile I will always wonder why they made up the Xindi instead of just doing a Romulan War story which could have hit all these same great thematic notes while also fitting into the established fictional history. Oh well!
@22: As meth has become…I guess endemic is the word? As meth has become endemic and you have real long-term data on both extended amphetamine use and schizophrenia, I have started to see this come up in the literature over the past 3-4 years. It’s worth looking up.
@23/Derek: “Meanwhile I will always wonder why they made up the Xindi instead of just doing a Romulan War story which could have hit all these same great thematic notes while also fitting into the established fictional history.”
Probably because “Balance of Terror” stated explicitly that “no human, Romulan, or ally ever saw the other.” They would’ve had to do an Earth-Romulan War where the heroes never met their enemy face-to-face, and that would have been logistically difficult and dramatically unsatisfying. Or else they would’ve had to go the “classify everything” route that Discovery later ended up taking with the Mirror Universe and Section 31, but maybe they didn’t want to go there.
Also, the timing didn’t work out. It was a few years too early for the war going by the dates given in the Star Trek Chronology. True, those dates were conjectural and could have been changed, like the way First Contact changed the date of Cochrane’s first warp flight to 2063 after the first edition of the STC put it conjecturally in 2061. But given their choice to start the show in 2151, the producers probably always intended to save the Earth-Romulan War for the 6th-7th seasons they expected to get. So they had to come up with a different enemy when they decided to do a war story for season 3. They knew they were at risk of cancellation, hence the big retool, but they were probably still keeping their options open for the future.
@20/Autochef: “On an unrelated note, I’m sure that the aquatics bringing Archer back to Enterprise were supposed to lead us to question “why is he there?” and add intrigue. Instead, the fits and starts of the prior 2.5 years of Enterprise (the show) lead many of us to the conclusion of “that’s a pretty egregious plot hole, even for them!” “
I really don’t think it was meant to be some big secret. In the scene after Archer returns, T’Pol asks why the Xindi released him and Archer says he thinks he got through to Degra. That’s then supported by them finding a secret message referencing Degra’s children and giving the time and place for the meeting here. It might not be until this episode that Degra actually states outright that he arranged Archer’s release, but it was basically repeating what had already been suggested and implicitly confirmed.
I’d also say that it’s difficult to do “Humanity’s first steps into the stars” and jump right into “Humanity’s first interstellar war with an extant militant empire”. They’d need to gain some levels to make beating the Romulans viable.
A phenomenal episode