“Broken Bow”
Written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
Directed by James L. Conway
Season 1, Episode 1/2
Production episode 001
Original air date: September 26, 2001
Date: April 26, 2151
Captain’s star log. We open with young Jonathan Archer putting the finishing touches on a remote-control spacecraft model. His father, Henry Archer, looks on; he’s supervising the construction of a real-world version of the spacecraft, and they discuss how the Vulcans are being parsimonious with assistance with the project. It’s 2121, fifty-eight years after first contact.
Thirty years later, a Klingon ship crashes on a farm in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Its sole occupant, Klaang, is on the run from several Suliban. Klaang leads them into a silo, then leaps out of it, blowing it and the Suliban up. The owner of the farm, a man named Moore, then shoots Klaang.
In orbit, Archer, now all grow’d up and a captain, joins his chief engineer Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker III in a flyby of the newest ship in Earth’s Starfleet: the Enterprise, NX-01, the first Earth ship to be capable of warp five. The tour is interrupted by Archer being summoned to Starfleet HQ.
Klaang is being cared for by a Denobulan physician named Phlox. Archer meets with several high-ranking personnel: Admirals Forrest and Leonard and Commander Williams of Starfleet, as well as several Vulcan diplomats, including Ambassador Soval and his aides Tos and T’Pol.
The Vulcans have been in contact with the Klingons and wish to send Klaang’s corpse back to Kronos. Archer is confused, as Klaang is still alive, but Tos points out that the Klingons are a warrior culture, and he would prefer to die. But Klaang is a courier, and the Starfleet personnel insist that they use Enterprise to bring him to Kronos. The Vulcans think this is a bad idea, but ultimately it’s the humans’ decision, as this happened on Earth. However, the Vulcans do insist on sending along a Vulcan to serve as science officer in exchange for their star charts telling the how to get to Klingon space. T’Pol, who holds the rank of sub-commander, is given the assignment.
Enterprise also doesn’t have a chief medical officer assigned yet, so Archer asks for Phlox to come along, since he’s already treating Klaang. The ship wasn’t intended to set off for another few weeks. Archer has to convince his communications officer, Ensign Hoshi Sato, to cut her teaching assignment short due to the quicker departure time, and she only agrees because it’s an opportunity for her to be the first human to communicate with a Klingon.
Buy the Book
You Sexy Thing
We get to meet Enterprise’s chief of security, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, and pilot, Ensign Travis Mayweather, as cargo is beamed aboard using the fancy-shmancy new transporter they have, discussing whether or not it’s safe for organic life to use. (Reed is against the notion.)
There is a launch ceremony led by Forrest, who plays a thirty-two-year-old clip of Zefram Cochrane giving a speech at the dedication of the Warp Five Complex, which eventually resulted in Enterprise.
T’Pol reports on board, and there’s a certain amount of tension among her, Archer, Tucker, and Archer’s pet beagle Porthos (though Porthos really likes her because he’s a good puppy).
Enterprise takes off, and T’Pol gets into a minor verbal spat with Sato, who is very nervous about her first major space flight. Meantime Mayweather shows Tucker the “sweet spot” on the ship where the gravity is reversed; Mayweather is a “boomer,” having grown up on one of the many human colonies that sprung up over the past ninety years. Phlox settles into sickbay, having brought numerous bits of flora and fauna that have useful medical applications.
Klaang awakens, and Archer tries to interrogate him with Sato’s help. It goes slowly, and then suddenly main power is gone. The Suliban board the ship and take Klaang, though Archer kills one of the invaders.
The Suliban ship buggers off with Klaang. Phlox’s autopsy of the Suliban corpse reveals that he has been radically genetically modified via technology that is beyond anything Phlox has ever seen.
T’Pol thinks they should return to Earth, but Archer refuses to give up that quickly. With Sato’s help, they determine that Klaang visited Rigel X before Earth. They set course for that world to try to find whoever it was who gave Klaang whatever it was he was carrying home.
Some Suliban capture the away team, and their leader, Sarin, questions Archer. Turns out she gave Klaang proof that the Suliban Cabal—of which she used to be a member—is trying to destabilize the Klingon Empire.
More Suliban soldiers attack, then, killing Sarin and wounding Archer. The away team escapes in the shuttlepod, which is also damaged, Archer falling into a coma. T’Pol assumes command, to Tucker’s chagrin. However, to everyone’s surprise, T’Pol doesn’t order them back to Earth, but instead determines where the Suliban Cabal ship went. When Archer regains consciousness, he continues the search, grateful that T’Pol chose to anticipate Archer’s wishes rather than simply do as she pleased while in command.
They trace the Suliban to a gas giant, where they find a whole mess of interlocking Suliban ships. Enterprise manages to steal one of their ships and commandeer it. Archer and Tucker then fly in to rescue Klaang.
Sillik, the leader of the Cabal, speaks with a shadowy figure, whom Sarin had mentioned to Archer, and who was directing the Suliban in a battle she referred to as the Temporal Cold War. “Future guy” tells Sillik that the humans and Vulcans shouldn’t be involved yet, and Klaang’s information must be found and kept from being returned to Kronos.
Tucker takes Klaang back on the shuttle while Archer stays behind to sabotage the Suliban helix. He winds up in a firefight with Sillik, but then Tucker rescues Archer with the transporter. Enterprise then breaks orbit and resumes course to Kronos.
Klaang speaks before the High Council, where they cut open his hand and examine his blood—the message from Sarin was encoded in Klaang’s DNA. The Klingon chancellor then kicks the humans out of the council chamber.
Archer announces that they’re not returning to Earth but instead exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and boldly going where no one has gone before. Both T’Pol and Phlox are game to stay on board, though T’Pol expresses concern that Archer still doesn’t trust Vulcans. Archer allows as how he needs to let go of his preconceptions and welcomes her on board.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Transporters are not rated for sentient life, but Tucker risks it to rescue Archer, who thankfully does not wind up like the pig lizard in Galaxy Quest.
Reed also issues fancy-shmancy new weapons called phase pistols, urging Archer not to mix up the stun and kill settings.
The gazelle speech. We get several flashbacks to Archer’s childhood where he tries and fails to get his model starship to fly, eventually succeeding in the flashback that corresponds to the end of the episode. His Dad built the Enterprise, which seems to be the only reason why he’s put in charge.
I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations. T’Pol butts heads with Archer, Tucker, and Sato, but does her duty as acting captain superbly, pretty much saving everyone’s ass, and is the only reason why the mission is a success.
Florida Man. Florida Man Gets Ship Up and Running Ahead of Schedule While Saying “Keep Yer Shirt On” A Lot.
Optimism, Captain! Phlox has an impressive collection of animals he uses for medicinal purposes. Archer’s least favorite is the one he keeps for its droppings. The doctor uses an osmotic eel to cauterize Archer’s wound.
Ambassador Pointy. Soval insists that Klaang be allowed to die and his corpse sent home to Kronos. Forrest disagrees.
Good boy, Porthos! Porthos takes an immediate liking to T’Pol, which is more than can be said for anyone else on board.
The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined… In the ninety years since first contact, Vulcans have aided humans in their becoming a space-faring world, but done so parsimoniously. Many humans resent this.
Qapla’! The Suliban Cabal is spreading rumors that certain Klingon Houses are warring on other Houses in order to foment chaos within the empire.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. When they return from Rigel X, Tucker and T’Pol have a protocystian spore on them and they have to go through decon. This requires them to take as many of their clothes off as Broadcast Standards and Practices will allow and apply gel to skin with their bare hands, which is quite possibly the most inefficient method possible of decontaminating someone, though it does allow the camera to linger on Connor Trinneer and Jolene Blalock’s scantily clad, greased-up bodies.
Also Sarin is disguised as a human and kisses Archer, only then reverting to her Suliban form. Because the captain can only kiss an alien babe if she’s hot.
More on this later… The phase pistols are very similar in design to the laser pistols seen in “The Cage,” but acknowledge that Gene Roddenberry didn’t understand how actual lasers work when he wrote the first pilot. (Neither did a lot of people.) The transporter is also a new technology that people don’t entirely trust…
I’ve got faith…
“Ensign Mayweather tells me that we’ll be at Kronos in about eighty hours. Any chance he’ll be conscious by then?”
“There’s a chance he’ll be conscious in the next ten minutes—just not a very good one.”
–Archer asking a legitimate question and Phlox bringing the sass.
Welcome aboard. Vaughn Armstrong has his ninth role on Trek, and his only recurring one, as he debuts the role of Forrest, who will continue to recur on the show all the way through to the end. It’s also the only one of Armstrong’s eventual dozen roles in which he wears no facial prosthetics or makeup.
Other recurring roles that debut in this episode are Gary Graham as Soval, which will also recur throughout the series’ run, John Fleck as Sillik, James Horan as “future guy,” Jim Fitzpatrick as Williams, and Peter Henry Schroeder as the Klingon chancellor (who will be played by Dan Desmond when he appears next in “The Expanse”). Graham previously played Tanis in Voyager’s “Cold Fire.” Fleck previously played two different Romulans in TNG’s “The Mind’s Eye” and DS9’s “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges,” a Cardassian in DS9’s “The Homecoming,” a Karemma in DS9’s “The Search, Part I,” and Abaddon in Voyager’s “Alice.” Horan previously played Jo’Bril in TNG’s “Suspicions,” Barnaby in TNG’s “Descent, Part II,” Tosin in Voyager’s “Fair Trade,” and Ikat’ika in DS9’s “In Purgatory’s Shadow” and “By Inferno’s Light.”
Melinda Clarke plays Sarin, Tommy “Tiny” Lister Jr. plays Klaang, and Jim Beaver plays Leonard.
Several Trek veterans show up: Mark Moses plays Henry Archer, having last appeared as Naroq in Voyager’s “Riddles.” Thomas Kopache plays Tos, the sixth of his seven roles on Trek, following roles in TNG’s “The Next Phase” and “Emergence,” Generations, Voyager’s “The Thaw,” and the recurring role of Kira’s Dad in DS9’s “Ties of Blood and Water” and “Wrongs Darker than Death or Night.” The late great Joseph Ruskin plays the Suliban doctor, the last of his six roles on Trek going all the way back to the original series’ “The Gamesters of Triskelion,” as well as DS9’s “The House of Quark,” “Improbable Cause,” and “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places,” Insurrection, and Voyager’s “Gravity.”
Finally, James Cromwell makes an uncredited appearance returning to the role of Cochrane, having previously played the role in First Contact. Cromwell also appeared as different characters in TNG’s “The Hunted” and the “Birthright” two-parter and DS9’s “Starship Down.” He’ll appear again in the role (sort of) in “In a Mirror, Darkly.”
Trivial matters: This series is, in many ways, a sequel to the movie First Contact, as well as a prequel to the original series (and, retroactively, to Discovery and the Bad Robot movies). The series picks up on the exploration of space and the first contact with the Vulcans established in that film.
Enterprise is the first, and so far only, Trek series to have opening credits music performed with lyrics: the song “Faith of the Heart,” a.k.a. “Where My Heart Will Take Me,” which was written by Diane Warren, and first performed by Rod Stewart on the Patch Adams soundtrack. Russell Watson performed the version used on Enterprise. (The original series theme did have lyrics, but they were not sung in the show itself.)
The Klingons in this episode all have cranial ridges, just as the Klingons do in all the productions that take place after 2270 (The Motion Picture forward). Previously, every Klingon seen chronologically prior to that movie (on the original and animated series) was more humanoid in appearance. The discrepancy will finally be addressed in the fourth-season two-parter “Affliction” and “Divergence.”
The Temporal Cold War Sarin mentions in this episode will continue to be a recurring theme on the show through to the end of the third season.
This episode was novelized by Diane Carey. It proved to be Carey’s swan song after a very long and prolific career writing Trek fiction going back to 1986, including several prior episode novelizations. Carey’s work on this novelization, which included pointed references to elements of the script she viewed as poorly written in the narration, angered the production staff.
The farmer who shoots Klaang is named Moore in tribute to Brannon Braga’s erstwhile writing partner Ronald D. Moore. Admirals Leonard and Forrest are named after Leonard “Spock” Nimoy and DeForrest “McCoy” Kelley. Tos is named after the popular abbreviation for the original series.
Picard stated in TNG’s “First Contact” that disastrous first contact with the Klingon Empire led to years of war. The events of this episode don’t quite track with that, but Picard could easily have been speaking of Vulcan’s first contact with the Klingons, which will be established in Discovery’s “The Vulcan Hello” as being similar to what Picard described. There is, after all, no reason why Picard, a citizen of the United Federation of Planets, would necessarily be referring to humans’ first contact with the Klingons…
It’s been a long road… “You have no idea how much I’m restraining myself from knocking you on your ass!” In theory, the idea of seeing the earliest days of humanity’s exploration of space in the wake of Zefram Cochrane’s historic warp flight is one with potential. But I get to the end of “Broken Bow,” and all I can think is that that potential has been utterly wasted.
(Okay, I also got to the end of “Broken Bow” the first time in 2001 and kept waiting for Archer to turn to his left and say, “Okay, Al, I got the Klingon back to his home planet. Why haven’t I Leaped yet?” For those of you who don’t get that, Google Quantum Leap.)
The Earth we saw in First Contact was a fractured, chaotic postwar mess. We saw bits of this also in TNG’s “Encounter at Farpoint,” what was described there as the post-atomic horror. So the road from that to a united Earth would be a fun thing to explore.
What a pity that Enterprise doesn’t explore it. Instead, we jump the timeline ninety years and just say that Earth’s all united and has wiped out poverty and hunger and disease and stuff off-camera, and really? That’s it?
On top of that, what we see of Earth is made up of a bit too many American white dudes. The high-ranking Starfleet personnel that are deciding what to do about Klaang are all American white dudes. Two of our three main characters are American white dudes, with a European white dude thrown in for good measure. The other two non-white humans are the lowest-ranking among the main cast. Showing a united Earth by having mostly white people with others represented here and there was progressive when the original series did it in 1966, but wasn’t really good enough by the turn of the millennium.
I will give the show credit for having an Asian in the opening credits who is actually from Asia—Trek had, up to this point, only two Asians among the main casts, and both Sulu and Kim were established as being born in North America. But overall, the show feels way too much like the United States rather than the United Earth—and a particularly limited view of the U.S., truth be told.
Indeed, the show is trying a little too hard to capture an original series feel. The dynamic among Archer, Tucker, and T’Pol is so aggressively attempting to ape the Kirk-Spock-McCoy banter it’s almost painful to watch. And, since T’Pol is played by an attractive woman, we get the added “bonus” of focusing on how hawt she is in the decon scene. Yes, Connor Trinneer’s manly manly chest gets some attention, but the camera lingers quite a bit longer on Jolene Blalock’s torso and chest. This is exacerbated by the gratuitous Archer-Sarin kiss (which they very carefully only allow to happen when Sarin looks like Melinda Clarke instead of Clarke covered in pock-marked makeup and greenish skin) and the scantily clad butterfly dancers of Rigel X.
As for the actual story, it’s okay, mostly. The Temporal Cold War sounded stupid twenty years ago, and it sounds even stupider now knowing that it won’t go anywhere particularly interesting over the next several seasons. It’s too bad, as both John Fleck and James Horan are superlative presences with great voices, and they deserved a running plotline that is actually, y’know, coherent.
What I mostly remember from two decades ago is being annoyed (as were many Trek fans) that the Klingon homeworld was close enough to reach at warp five in only a few days, which seemed absurd. Part of the point of doing a prequel is to show how much harder things were back in the day, so this should’ve been a several-week journey. (This would also make their staying out there in the end to explore more make more sense.)
I also remember large swaths of fandom being annoyed at how snotty and obstinate the Vulcans were portrayed as being, as if that was an unfair and wrong portrayal, and that annoyance never made any sense to me. Seeing the Vulcans as brilliant, controlled elves who are noble and logical and nifty was a rose-colored perception at least partly encouraged by decades of tie-in fiction and fan fiction that were often hagiographical in their portrayal of Vulcans in general and Spock in particular. But if you actually watch the original series, every single Vulcan we met was high-handed and snotty, and more than a little sarcastic—starting with Spock, who was a snot of the highest order. Not to mention Sarek, who was condescending, arrogant, and stubborn; T’Pring and Stonn, who were manipulating Spock’s pon farr to benefit themselves; T’Pau, who was arrogance personified (seriously, her response to McCoy’s legitimate medical concern for Kirk’s health was a dismissive, “the air is the air”). I had—and have—no problem with how the Vulcans are portrayed in the least.
Watching it now, I mostly think that the humans come off way worse: whiny, petulant, bitchy, borderline racist. Meanwhile, T’Pol comports herself extremely well. Everyone on Enterprise has a chip on their shoulder regarding her, and she handles all of it with dignity and a minimum of fuss. I particularly like how she takes command of the ship and proceeds to—as is proper—act in a manner consistent with the captain’s wishes, rather than her own. For the third show in a row, an actor has been cast seemingly for her looks more than anything (Terry Farrell on DS9, Jeri Ryan on Voyager), and has risen above the aggressive male-gazing of her character to prove a worthy addition to the Trek pantheon. In this particular case, T’Pol is very much the unique outsider that Spock, Worf, Odo, Seven, and the EMH were, and that Saru will be, and she plays it quite well.
Indeed, the most interesting characters in this premiere episode are the non-humans. Besides Blalock, we have John Billingsley’s delightful Phlox, who proves to be magnificently entertaining, and, of course, Porthos, who is the bestest puppy.
Would that the humans came across better. Tucker feels like an awkward mix of Scotty’s protective engineer with McCoy’s Southern cantankerousness, Reed creates almost no impression whatsoever, and Archer doesn’t create hardly any impression beyond not liking Vulcans and being a product of nepotism. (Seriously, the only reason anybody gives for why he has command of Enterprise is because his daddy built it.) I’ve liked Scott Bakula in pretty much everything else he’s been in, from Quantum Leap to NCIS: New Orleans, but his Archer is blandness personified, with surprisingly little of the charisma we’ve come to expect from our Trek captains.
Mayweather and Sato are both significantly more interesting, and I remember looking forward to seeing more of them twenty years ago. Alas. Mayweather should’ve been the most important person on the ship, since he had the most experience out in the galaxy, but he was pretty quickly marginalized, a bad look for the only African-American cast member in a show that was already well stocked with similar bad looks. And Sato’s usefulness was swimming upstream against the need to just get the story moving and not deal with language barriers, as they get in the way of telling your story in forty-two minutes.
The show has its moments, and certainly the performances—Bakula’s phoning it in excepted—are all quite good. The setup is one that is rife with possibilities, even if so many storytelling possibilities have been ignored or bypassed. While my memory of this pilot is strong, my memory of subsequent episodes is scattershot at best, and it’s going to be interesting to revisit them.
Warp factor rating: 5
Keith R.A. DeCandido will also be reviewing each new episode of Star Trek: Discovery season four when it debuts later this month.
RIP Dean Stockwell.
When I rewatched this episode last week, it struck me (like it seems to have struck you) that the Enterprise was going to start its mission of exploration from the very heart of Klingon space. I can’t imagine that the empire built around conquering everything around it would be too keen on an Earth vessel going around and making first contact with a bunch of planets they’d subjugated.
It would’ve been better (on a bunch of verisimilitude levels) if they’d just gone to the edge of Klingon space, or to a Klingon border world, and exchanged their Klingon guest with a ship waiting there.
I just want to say this episode contains the most profound quote of the entire Trek oeuvre. Hoshi: “You might think of recommending seatbelts when we get home.”
The thing about wanting to do a time-travel type plot is that you really, really need to have it all planned out before you start, or it turns into a huge mess. And it is pretty obvious that they did not have it all planned out. The idea of a Temporal Cold war is really interesting to me, actually, it was just so badly bungled, here.
Frankly, I’ve never gotten the annoyance (in universe or out) with the Vulcan’s being snotty. Ok, so they are pretentious and annoying (it is almost like they aren’t human and don’t adhere to human cultural norms…), so what? If you look at just their actions here, nothing they do is particularly unreasonable. They make suggestions, don’t attempt to force the humans to go along with their plan, and just insist “hey, bring someone along from the one civilization that actually has some real experience out there” (and good thing they did, as KRAD pointed out). Maybe I just have an exceptionally high tolerance for people who are irritating but aren’t actually causing any harm, but to me it is the humans who come across as people who don’t seem to quite understand what “being an alien” means, and who seem to feel oddly entitled to the Vulcans help.
The decon room is the weirdest part of Enterprise for me, because they took an idea that actually makes a ton of sense, but then used it in the least practical way (why is it in sickbay and not, you know, the shuttle bay? What good is decon if you have to walk halfway across the ship to get to it? Why do only some of your clothes have to come off for it to work? Why gel?) to maximize titillation (maybe it is just me, but the blue-ish light never really struck me as all that sexy. Nor did having to grease up Archer’s hairy back while he greases up a dog).
Admirals Leonard and Forrest are named after Leonard “Spock” Nimoy and DeForrest “McCoy” Kelley.
And Commander Williams is named after William “Kirk” Shatner.
At this point, I remember I was watching Trek more of out of necessity rather than any genuine enthusiasm.
I needed my fix (especially since things were rough at home with my parents and Trek was my usual route of escapism).
But I never really warmed up to ENT then or even now (Chris Bennett’s Rise of the Federation novels being an exception). As someone who grew up with the 24th Century and had my conceptions of Trek shaped by it, it was really hard leaving it all behind.
It’s easier now with DSC and the other productions and now that I’m older. But back in 2001, I think I finally understood for the first time how people who’d grown up with TOS felt when TNG left the 23rd Century behind in 1987.
Oh, and because it wouldn’t be a Trek Rewatch thread without an invocation or two of SF Debris…;)
Definitely a flawed beginning, with interesting potentials that weren’t really developed. I loved the idea of Space Boomer culture, a population of humans that arose out of spaceflight and wasn’t just more Earthicans. Too little was done with it, though. I liked little touches like the gravity “sweet spot” and the handholds all over the ship in case of gravity failure. But there were also massive failures of worldbuilding, like the writers’ shocking ignorance of basic astronomy — apparently Berman and Braga never learned that Rigel is a real star and thought it was just some made-up alien name, hence Archer never having heard of it. That drove me crazy, especially since there are multiple stars whose Arabic names include some form of Rigel/Rijl/Rijil, Alpha Centauri itself being one of them. And of course, the main Rigel, Beta Orionis, is way too far away for NX-01 to reach in days. (Star Trek Star Charts and the novels have rationalized the Trek Rigel as an imaginary “Beta Rigel” that’s closer to Earth; in my books I’ve identified it with the real star Tau-3 Eridani, which is proximate to where Star Charts puts “Beta Rigel.”)
I like the idea of showing humanity just starting out exploring space and making mistakes along the way, but too much familiar Trek stuff was put in right away under network pressure. I would’ve preferred them to leave out transporters altogether, for one thing. I believe the writers didn’t want to introduce them so early, and they tried to minimize their use in the first couple of seasons, IIRC pretty much ignoring them altogether in a number of season 2 episodes where they would’ve been useful, but by season 4 they were using them as casually as the later shows did. In my Rise of the Federation novels, I had it turn out that frequent transporter use caused long-term cellular damage, so they embargoed the technology until it could be made safer. That way I got something closer to the original intent.
“I will give the show credit for having an Asian in the opening credits who is actually from Asia” — I’d give it more credit if Hoshi had ever displayed the slightest hint of Japanese cultural background and worldview or spoken a single word of the language. Granted, American portrayals of Japanese culture tend to stereotype the hell out of it (although the reverse is true as well), but portraying a supposed Japanese native as indistinguishable from an American is hardly any better.
It didn’t help that one or two of the early tie-in novelists called her “Ensign Hoshi,” apparently mistakenly assuming that she was using Japanese name order, and unaware that Sato is just about the most common surname in Japan, while Hoshi is a very common given name. Incidentally, Hoshi means “Star,” the same meaning as Nyota (Uhura). I presume that was intentional.
@3:
The idea of a Temporal Cold war is really interesting to me, actually, it was just so badly bungled, here.
Yeah, the concept isn’t inherently bad. Given the impact the UFP would go on to have on Milky Way (and intergalactic) history, it makes sense that there would be time travelers either observing the key historical period or interfering in it for their own benefits/agendas.
It’s, as you pointed out, the execution of said concept that failed spectacularly.
This is likely an unpopular opinion, but to me, “Broken Bow” is – with the possible exception of “The Cage” – the best of all the Star Trek pilots.
There’s excitement, a genuine sense of world-building and a sense that this really is a situation we’ve not seen before in Star Trek. The Temporal Cold War bit is something that really could have given us the sense that the “future” of Picard, Kirk, etc. was in jeopardy of not occurring due to outside forces. It didn’t work out as well as it could have, but I would say that about many of Trek’s longer-term storylines (Sisko and the Prophets the one foremost on my mind).
Bakula gets much better as the show progresses, and Archer’s presence on the bridge is justified by a flashback episode down the line.
@8/Mr. Magic: “Given the impact the UFP would go on to have on Milky Way (and intergalactic) history, it makes sense that there would be time travelers either observing the key historical period or interfering in it for their own benefits/agendas.”
I used to think that too, but what I realized when I researched the Temporal Cold War to make sense of it in DTI: Watching the Clock is that none of what Future Guy and the Suliban were trying to do was actually about the Federation. Archer was just someone who happened to get in their way, or was recruited to get in their way by Daniels, and FG and Silik mostly seemed content to leave him alone, and occasionally even helped him. That was hard to make sense of. I ended up explaining in the book that future time travelers were actually trying very hard to avoid interfering with the pivotal events around the Federation’s formation (and early centuries, hence their non-presence in TOS and TNG), because they wouldn’t exist either if the UFP hadn’t kept the Borg in check.
@10/JasonD: I’ve never been much of a fan of Bakula’s acting. He’s not bad, but I find him the least charismatic of the Trek leads. In particular, I’ll never understand why people still make fun of the pauses in William Shatner’s delivery when Bakula’s delivery is far more glacial.
@9 I agree: Broken Bow felt the most cohesive of all the pilots thus far. Farpoint seems to spend a lot of time talking about how it’s different from TOS, Emissary spends far too long in the wormhole, and Caretaker is too busy introducing every single character and setting up the situation to be worried about things like pacing. Broken Bow feels like a proper story with characters who feel a little more real and fleshed out.
One can only hope that STRANGE NEW WORLDS will give T’Pol (and Ms. Blalock) a little respectful attention – she’s one of the few NX-01 crew members who would certainly be physically fit to play some role in Galactic events and I’ve been wondering for some time now what she’d make of Mr Spock (also what Mr Spock’s generation think of the First Vulcan in Starfleet).
ALSO, I remain deeply amused by (A) Porthos deciding M’Lady Vulcan is his New Best Friend when T’Pol would really rather keep her distance from this particular lower life form (B) The pet theory that Vulcans are almost entirely Cat People – no, not THAT sort of ‘Cat People’, which would more accurately describe Caitians – that occurred to me very shortly after being reminded of that particular detail.
While ENTERPRISE has given us some quality Sehlat content, one would dearly love to see Vulcan’s Favourite Family Pet show up in one of the ongoing series so that we can get a glimpse how they fit into Vulcan family life & society (I’m quite fond of the idea that Sehlat are kept around in part because their presence allows young Vulcans to start getting to grips with uncontrolled emotions in a relatively controlled manner – assuming, of course, that Sehlats have a cat’s tendency to demand a petting and given that Vulcans are tactile telepaths*).
*Not an entirely unfounded assumption, given I-Chaya himself was reportedly based on D.C. Fontana’s old cat (Though doubtless the challenges of keeping a pet Sehlat sweet are more comparable to maintaining a pet tiger … ).
@11,
I ended up explaining in the book that future time travelers were actually trying very hard to avoid interfering with the pivotal events around the Federation’s formation (and early centuries, hence their non-presence in TOS and TNG), because they wouldn’t exist either if the UFP hadn’t kept the Borg in check.
Right, right. I’d forgotten about that. Been a while since I reread DTI.
I should’ve clarified that I meant the concept Temporal Cold War in the context of the show rather than the show and the Novel Verse.
p.s. I remain willing to accept Archer as less … well, inherently Awesome … than other TREK Captains because there’s something a little charming about his being the imperfect prototype on which later generations will improve (even if the show probably didn’t go with this angle through deliberate choice), as well as due to the rather sad fact that Archer being chosen more for basic competence, political connections & the optics than for his indisputable superiority to other possible candidates helps make it more explicit that this incarnation of STAR TREK is still in the process of building Utopia.
I’m really looking forward to reading the Florida Man section of these rewatch posts each week.
I remember thinking that Enterprise came across as a conscious attempt to eliminate “political correctness” from Star Trek in time for the Bush II administration. Hence, why so many of the authority positions are filled by white/male/Americans after the last two series in particular had made a point of having diverse casts, and why, in later episodes, they made a point of saying that only about a third of the crew was women. Even the bits of space exploration history that they show in the opening credits are exclusively American.
What stands out when I look back at Broken Bow is that they killed Lady Heather (google CSI)! My biggest problem with the show was the Temporal Cold War plot line. I always wondered how much we learned in each season would be wiped out by the war. I also agree that the show tried way too hard to recreate the Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic.
@17/Queen_Iacomina: I don’t think Bush-era politics had anything to do with it. I think it’s just that they were trying too hard to create something that felt like it predated TOS, and thus they emulated one aspect of it they really shouldn’t have, namely its casting.
Or else it was their desire to do The Right Stuff in the Trek universe, so that they created characters that reminded them of the Mercury and Apollo astronauts (the way the creation of Picard was largely inspired by Jacques Cousteau).
I’ve been lurking long enough Keith to remember you insisting you’d never do a Voyager and Enterprise rewatch. Now here we are the Voyager rewatch has been completed and the rewatch of Enterprise is getting started. Funny how things turned out. Anyway looking forward to reading your thoughts on Enterprise and the upcoming season of Discovery.
“Bland, average, standard” all seem to be appropriate descriptors for this debut episode. Nothing really “fresh” feeling except for the look. I did like the submarine look of this Enterprise and the jumpsuit type uniforms. Also, nice to finally get a first run Star Trek series in widescreen, high-def picture format. So yeah, about on par with the quality of TNG‘s debut except that series had much more interesting characters and more of a diverse cast (and this was 14 years before Enterprise), plus it was inherently more exciting jumping ahead into the future from TOS rather than the giant leap back.
I wonder if anyone has ever mentioned or proposed the idea that with all of this Temporal Cold War business that the events as shown in this episode, and series in general, essentially changed the timeline as we witnessed it from The Original Series on through to the TNG era.
I will say that, even in comparison to Discovery and the other new series, I still think that Enterprise is the nicest looking of the Star Trek series. Its visuals are crisp, clear, and cinematic without ever looking busy or overproduced.
Since so many have had such strong opinions about the opening credits theme song, let me just say I was perfectly okay with moving away from traditional orchestral theme music, but did they have to pick a song that sounded dated even as of the time of this premiere? Lke a forgotten ballad on a bad 80s hair band album, complete with forced guttural crooning for that “deep feeling” effect.
Agree with CLB about using the name Rigel, and having the Enterprise crew respond with nothing but blank stares. What?
There’s something about the scriptwriting here that kind of bugs me in shows like this, where sime characters, especially Trip, here,, seem to go out of their way to use 20th century colloquialisms to communicate with non-humans they should know will have no clue as to what they’re talking about. I’m not a fan of formal-speak and techno-speak for their own sake either, but I think we could probably establish Trip as a Florida homeboy without having him use phrases like “I wouldn’t call that small potatoes” when talking to a Vulcan.
All of that said I agree with it earlier commenter who suggested this was their favorite among Trek series premieres. I thought it was entertaining despite its flaws. It set up the series, introduced the main cast (some a bit more efficiently than others), and told a fairly entertaining yarn complete with lots of fancy flying and Phase pistols. I’d rate it higher than a 5.
I have to chime in on the decontamination scene too, agree with all of the criticism. I especially liked the part where they had the characters actually slow down their movements as they were rubbing the gel all over their slippery wet tight abdomens and thighs, so we got that slow-mo erotica effect. Worthy of late night Cinemax back in its Heyday, LOL
Yes, yes, and yes again KRAD; this was the show that had sooo much potential but then made it feel weirdly wasted.
The one thing that I remember, from watching it as an undergrad twenty years ago, was that they captured the “staring up at the stars” vibe that Picard (particularly in STFC and “Family”) used to go on about, that sense of wonder at the journey ahead (the theme tune probably helps with that, I’m sorry #23, I really like it). I do struggle to not get caught up in the emotion of postwar Earth sending out its best and brightest into the stars. This an Earth that is ready to put the Eugenics Wars, WW3 and Lord knows what else behind it. On this, I think that Broken Bow succeeds solidly. But KRAD is right, by setting it so long after STFC we’re denied a chance to see the very first efforts (second contact with the Vulcans must have been interesting, same for the formation of a truly United Earth etc), and Phlox’s presence is a clear sign that Earth has met at least one other species (and that is a first contact we should have seen!). It is also, by Mayweather’s presence, explicit that humans haven’t been entirely cooped up at home between Broken Bow and STFC. This would have been fascinating to watch.
Archer (shakes head), what a waste. Kirk (at least in TOS) is a product of talent being rewarded: I may be wrong, but (apart from the Bad Robot film) we don’t see his father and no Starfleet connection is mentioned, and his brother, sister-in-law and nephew are normal enough (and die as normal civilians). Picard was so amazing in part because he was a humble French country boy who was the first in his family to leave the Sol System. Sisko (until the pah wraith nonsense) was absolutely a normal man, with a strong family lacking any Starfleet connection. And then we get Archer, our first 21st century captain, whose only backstory is that his dad ran the Warp 5 project. That’s social mobility everyone, right there. If there was a compelling reason to include it, beyond some pointless flashbacks, it might have worked. But it doesn’t really take us anywhere. Other than that, he is a weird mix of bored, irritated and (occasionally) awestruck by being out in space. It is a truly bizarre performance from a Bakula that in Quantum Leap showed some real acting chops.
The lack of diversity bothered me in 2001 and bothers me more now. The whole thing feels like a US warship / survey ship with only representatives from trusted allies (a Brit and an American-sounding Asian) along for the ride. As an Englishman it is nice to see Reed on board but Dominic Keating plays him precisely like a Royal Navy junior exchange officer (which might be a case of overdoing the backstory). Sato and Mayweather are fascinating and, arguably, the most valuable people to Archer, but soon get overlooked in favour of other plotlines. I’m torn on Tucker – he reminds me of Janeway, in that the writers could never settle down on his key character traits. He has his moments, but he comes across in Broken Bow as a someone I wouldn’t want to ship out with.
Beyond that, as comment #2 says, the Vulcans come across as more reasonable than Starfleet, T’Pol is clearly cast to be the new Dax/Seven (which is poor, let’s be candid) although I think that Blalock does her best with the part. The plot is just too disjointed, and more should have been made of the journey to Kronos (rather than the “hey! We’re here! What’s next?” approach of this plot).
I sometimes have trouble with actors when I’ve seen them in something else. Having never seen Quantum Leap but having seen NCISNOLA, I had trouble with Archer in the beginning. I also did not enjoy Jolene Blalock’s performance. It took far too long (IMO) for her to figure out that ‘emotionless’ was not synonymous with ‘b!tchy’.
Things I really loved: the ship felt like a more utilitarian, prototype sort of thing. Like Firefly meets Star Trek.
I still live Archer’s expression of wonder when he comes through the transporter for the first time.
Phlox.
@21/garreth: “I wonder if anyone has ever mentioned or proposed the idea that with all of this Temporal Cold War business that the events as shown in this episode, and series in general, essentially changed the timeline as we witnessed it from The Original Series on…”
Only countless thousands of fans, starting probably the night after this episode debuted. But that was never, ever the producers’ intent. The idea was always to show the backstory that led into TOS/TNG etc., not to split away from them. Implicitly, what the Temporal Cold War did was to change the timeline to the version we know, not away from it.
But this was the problem with the producers having the time travel angle pushed on them by the network (studio?) over their resistance. They wanted to do a prequel, not a divergent timeline, but as soon as they introduced time travel, it led people to assume it was a divergent timeline, especially if they were the type who confuse advances in production technique over the decades for in-story changes rather than merely changes in how the story is depicted. (The makers of TOS would’ve been the first to want to portray the technology in a more advanced way than they were able to on a limited ’60s budget — as proven by ST:TMP, where they completely redesigned every shred of technology and costuming far more than would ever realistically happen in a mere few years.)
@23/fullyfunctional: “I was perfectly okay with moving away from traditional orchestral theme music, but did they have to pick a song that sounded dated even as of the time of this premiere?”
People always say this, but they forget that TOS’s theme was more of a dance band number than an orchestral piece, basically a pastiche of “Beyond the Blue Horizon” with a bossa nova rhythm that’s been compared to “Begin the Beguine.” So it was in a 1940s/50s song style in the mid-1960s, which sounds dated to me.
And really, I’ve never understood the concept of music being “dated.” Why the hell should recency have anything to do with quality? If something is intrinsically good, surely it doesn’t stop being good just because styles change. Heck, in last week’s Supergirl finale, the lead actress sang a cover of a Pat Benatar song from 1984, and from the comments I’ve seen, it went over great with viewers. So what does “dated” even mean when talking about music? That objection has always seemed utterly meaningless to me.
Guh, this series, more white bread than a Wonder truck.
The theme song isn’t dated so much, it just sounds like a song you’d hear come on when starting your grandma’s Oldsmobile, then desperately turn the dial away from the Christian rock stations. And that experience is timeless.
@@@@@ Well then, by all means, if “dated” doesn’t work for you, feel free replace it with “hackneyed”, “trite ” or “saccharine”, or even the more utilitarian “misplaced”.
Obviously, music of all eras can be used to great and wonderful effect in the movies and in television. I loved the use of Sabotage by the Beastie Boys in the original Trek reboot flick. Tarantino is a master at assembling fantastic soundtracks for his movies from different genres and time periods, seemingly without any unifying thread. There’s an art to it, and in my purely subjective opinion, I think whomever chose “Where my heart will take me” failed art class.
I’m very disappointed that there isn’t more discussion about the decon scene. It has to be, simultaneously, the worst and best scene in all of Trek.
@26/CLB: Well, I knew the alternative explanation to the time travel shenanigans is that they ARE in fact what lead to the timeline we are familiar with in the later chronological series. I can see though that there are those fans who would like to pretend that this series branches off into its completely separate timeline as if in a way to say it doesn’t count or because it directly contradicts later events in the other series. And I agree that the studio/network imposing the Temporal Cold War timeline mucked things up as far as the writing went. But on the other hand, I liked the idea in theory of people from the far future meddling with the past if only that meant we could get tantalizing glimpses of said future and I don’t think we saw nearly enough of that and it didn’t justify the muddled storyline anyway.
Regarding the whole thing about music being “dated” I’ll just say I think it’s a bit obvious when a composition is notably of such an era, and sometimes in a funny way, that it can actively pull/distract a viewer from what they’re watching and take them out of the story. That’s usually not a good thing. For instance, funk and disco are linked to the ’70s, punk and new wave with the ’80s, and grunge and gangsta rap with the ’90s. This music can subjectively be considered good but they’re also strongly rooted in the eras they’re from. Likewise, “Faith of the Heart” seems like a soft rock ballad from the ’90s. And in my opinion, none of this music has the timeless quality that an orchestral piece would have if that was slapped on to the opening credits instead.
@27/Rocko: Lol! Yes, “Faith of the Heart” does sound like something you’d hear on a Christian Rock station: a generally bland and unoffensive inspirational piece.
And I have to agree with everyone about how dumb the decon chamber scenes are. I mean they’re there obviously for some “hawt” skin action. Because Star Trek should emulate Baywatch as much as possible, duh. But even the “technology” of the decon chamber isn’t very forward thinking. Applying gel to one another is very haphazard and they’re not even covering every inch of their body! What happens when it’s only one person in the chamber? Will he/she/they have to contort their arms in inhuman ways to get the gel in hard to reach areas of one’s back? We have better technology nowadays where we have automated sprays to decontaminate oneself. But of course that’s not as sexy as people rubbing massage gel all over each other’s glistening toned bodies.
@13, you got me with the comment about Blalock being on Strange New Worlds. Then I checked the cast list and nada. Sad.
@31: I think bringing in T’Pol somehow into SNW doesn’t really have much priority given how much that series will already dig into existing canon bringing back so many familiar TOS characters. It’s only their first season and they have enough on their plate establishing themselves as it is. It also doesn’t look like Blalock is doing much acting these days (it looks like her last role was four years ago). However, that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be willing to come back and if not, there’s always recasting.
I remember being excited at age 14 for a shiny new Trek show. It took several episodes for the shine to wear away and leave me with the sour conclusion that I didn’t like Enterprise very much.
The common criticisms, many of them reflected in this review, I mostly agree with. I don’t know how they let Mayweather and Sato vanish into the background when they were more interesting at the beginning and the only people of color on the ship. Terrible waste. And ugh, such an ill-advised goal of replicating the alchemical brilliance of the ToS triad, that was never going to work.
Regarding the theme song, I have a friend who I introduced to TNG and Voyager which he quite liked, and when he saw his first episode of Enterprise he stopped it at the opening credits and never watched another minute. So, that’s how successful that song choice was.
Christopher: That is a fair point about Sato’s very American feeling personality — and, of course, Linda Park is Korean-American — but this still counts as progress, even if it’s very very small progress……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@28/fullyfunctional: “even the more utilitarian “misplaced””
I don’t get that objection either. I always thought the lyrics fit the show’s premise perfectly, so much so that I was quite surprised to learn it wasn’t written for the show. It’s almost like it’s expressing Archer’s own thoughts as he ventures forth.
@29/Austin: I actually quite like the idea of a starship needing a decontamination chamber, especially in earlier days before they had transporter biofilters (although they didn’t have those in TOS either). But the execution made no sense from a functional standpoint and was just for the sake of titillation. I have nothing against titillation either when it’s done well, but if you want to be sexy, just show people having romantic or sexual interactions, rather than contriving excuses for titillation in a textually non-sexual situation, which comes off as immature and voyeuristic, not to mention clumsy and forced.
@30/garreth: “Likewise, “Faith of the Heart” seems like a soft rock ballad from the ’90s.”
A characterization that means nothing to me, because I’ve paid little attention to popular music styles over my lifetime. Also, what’s wrong with soft rock ballads from the ’90s? Surely a fair number of people must have liked them, or they wouldn’t have emerged as a notable genre. I have no particular affinity for the style myself, but I’m not gonna shame other people for liking it.
“And in my opinion, none of this music has the timeless quality that an orchestral piece would have if that was slapped on to the opening credits instead.”
And I must again point out that there is nothing remotely “timeless” about the dance band/bossa nova style of the TOS main title theme. It’s just that we Trek fans have been hearing it our entire lives and have gotten used to associating it with Trek, so we don’t step back to realize how much it really is a product of its generation.
For that matter, I think it’s a myth that orchestral music is timeless. It’s always seemed to me that orchestral film or TV scores from different decades have their own distinct characters and influences. You wouldn’t mistake, say, a Miklos Rozsa score from the 1940s for a Michael Giacchino score from the 2020s, not unless Giacchino was consciously doing a Rozsa pastiche (which admittedly is very much the sort of thing he might do). And of course there have been composers like the great Jerry Goldsmith who made a point of experimenting with incorporating electronics and exotic instruments into orchestral arrangements, something that still has influence today. Or composers like Danny Elfman who came from a rock background and brought that influence to their orchestral movie scores.
@32/garreth: “However, that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be willing to come back and if not, there’s always recasting.”
I don’t see what the point would be of bringing back the character without bringing back the actress. That’s usually the main draw of bringing back a legacy character. Would people be as chuffed about Janeway being in Prodigy if she were played by Grey Griffin instead of Kate Mulgrew? (Although to an animation fan like me, that would’ve been pretty awesome.)
@@@@@ 26 – Correction. We Belong is not a Pat Benatar song. She did sing the most popular version but it was written and first performed by Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro. Credit where credit is due.
Why does the farmer have a plasma rifle? It appears that the only thing that saved Klssmg was his Klingon physiology. Wouldn’t something more akin to a stunner be more appropriate? Oh right, Klaang needs to be near death or we don’t have a story.
As so many have mentioned above, so much squandered potential. Right from our first scene with the Vulcans, we bow that they’re not the good guys because Soval raises his voice. See, they’re angry! Compare that to the interaction between Sarak and Gav in Journey to Babel. See, Vi;cans can disagree with someone who’s being an ass without getting all shouty.
Look, Archer’s a maverick! Notice how everyone else stays out of the medical examination room? Not Archer, he just bursts right in and gets up close and personal with an alien that humans have never seen before.
The James Cromwell cameo was a nice touch.
Travis seemed like a great character. Someone who’s the most experienced spacer among the crew. Too bad he quickly becomes part of the set as opposed to part of the crew. Same goes with Hoshi except she’s not only inherited Uhura’s station but also her penchant for saying “I’m frightened”. Basically, TPTB swapped the ethnicities at help and communications and called it progress.
And why does Trip have no idea that the sweet spot even exists? Travis says that every ship has one. Even says where you can find it on pretty much any ship. So why is Tucker totally caught by surprise it it’s existence?
Five days to the heart of the Klingon empire? But wait, haven’t the boomers been out in space for decades? You mean to tell me that nobody ever went in that direction? Sure, Enterprise is faster but the boomers have been out there a long time. You’d think someone would say “Hey, what’s in this direction?”
None of theses spacefarers have ever heard the word Rigel before?
My brain hurts and that’s just about a quarter of the way through the first episode.
Krad’s 5 is like a teacher being generous on the first test of the term.
Enterprise introduces conflicts with Vulcans, Klingons, Suliban, and time travellers in the very first episode. Maybe pick one or two to start with, guys, and figure out where you’re going with them. Mayweather gets to be the Maquis of the show, someone created to play a particular role on the show that the writers almost instantly decide to drop. We get the creepy pandering of the decon gel and space strippers scenes. And, just to make sure everyone notices that this is a conservative step backwards after having a black man and white woman as captains and lead characters, we go back to the 1960s with the white male main characters. Meanwhile, to show this is an attempt at getting a young new audience instead of the people who’ve been with the franchise since TOS or TNG, they drop Star Trek from the title and get a hep, groovy rock and roll theme song that wouldn’t wake up the audience of the Lawrence Welk Show, recycled from a movie that had nothing to do with Star Trek. And, finally, Bakula, who plays the oldest petulant infant to captain a starship. I thought at first it was a coup for them to get someone so well known and respected for the part (not a Quantum Leap fan myself, but a lot of people loved it), but oh boy, what a disappointment.
Warp factor rating: 5. I see what you did there lol
Broken Bow (and Enterprise in general) weren’t bad but there were some missed opportunities.
1) There are multiple stars with some variation of Rigel in their names as has been stated. We automatically think of Beta Orionis as it’s the most well known, but is it possible that there is another start in Arabic Star charts with Rigel as part of it’s name that is close enough to plausibly reach in several days at Warp 5? Also given that the system could be from an Arabic Star chart (and be relatively obscure), would Hoshi possibly be able to translate and locate the system in other charts/catalogs?
2) Speaking of Hoshi, Linda Park is Korean. Perhaps they should have made the character Korean rather than Japanese. Even as a “boomer” “Rigel” would have been beyond areas that Mayweather had visited or reasonably had knowledge of.
3) Enterprise missed the chance to follow up on Friendship 1 from Voyager. Apparently Earth had been in contact with the probe for several decades. Why couldn’t the mission of the NX-01 be to follow the path of Friendship One (even with AI, an uncrewed probe isn’t really equipped to handle an aha moment)
4) The Temporal Cold war was a horrible storyline (at least in the first 2 seasons). The Xindi arc at least gave a reason for WHY Humanity was a target.
5) As far as the transporter goes, the version on the NX Class seems to be the first rated for animal/sentient life. Don’t forget that plants/fungi/bacteria ARE living organisms. Moving supplies (including food and other organic consumables) via shuttlepod would be inefficient.
There are other issues that go beyond the scope of this episode (especially with contact with a couple of Alien species) but they’re best addressed in the episodes where they crop up.
@37/Steve Roby: “theme song… recycled from a movie that had nothing to do with Star Trek.”
There’s nothing unusual about songs being introduced in movies and then being reused in unrelated contexts. For instance, the aforementioned “Beyond the Blue Horizon” was introduced in the 1930 film Monte Carlo and has been featured in The Godfather Part III and Rain Man, and the old standard “I Only Have Eyes for You” was written for the 1934 film Dames and has been used in countless different things since.
“I thought at first it was a coup for them to get someone so well known and respected for the part (not a Quantum Leap fan myself, but a lot of people loved it), but oh boy, what a disappointment.”
If you’re not a QL fan, then I have to wonder if your use of “oh boy” there was a lucky accident.
@39 – Not only was a follow up to Friendship One a missed opportunity, so was the possibility of figuring out what the Quadros-One probe of the Gamma Quadrant was all about and why it was launched. (the probe mentioned in “Emissary” that identified the Idran star.)
And given the Cardassians were name dropped in the 4th Season, I was all stoked for a possible story dealing with Kai Taluno’s 22nd Century voyage.
Not sure if the studio/network mandated the the star of the show be a white male, or that’s how Berman and/or Braga envisioned the lead, or they were always going after Bakula. Bakula is a “get” but then at least surround him with some diversity. Like why can’t the chief engineer be an Asian or South Indian guy with a southern American drawl. I mean, the Earth of the future is supposed to be more of an ethnic hodgepodge. Let’s get a little more creative with the casting!
And the low female to male ratio of the main cast of all shows in the TNG era has always been a problem but dropping back down to only two women is especially frustrating. And then the two female characters can be essentially distilled down to the “femme fatale/bitch” and the smart meek girl. I’ll love when we get to “In a Mirror Darkly” when both ladies’ MU counterparts are a lot more interesting.
I’ve read that Dominic Keating auditioned for a prior Trek role which he didn’t get (I presume for Voyager) but that he so impressed the producers that they wanted to cast him on the next series.
@@@@@ 39 – 2) Even as a “boomer” “Rigel” would have been beyond areas that Mayweather had visited or reasonably had knowledge of.
Klaang stopped at Rigel and was on his way home. Somehow, he ended up on Earth which indicated that Rigel is in the opposite direction as Kronos in regards to Earth. And yet the Enterprise managed to zip hither and yon and still gets Klaang home in a matter of days.
@39/Charles: “Speaking of Hoshi, Linda Park is Korean. Perhaps they should have made the character Korean rather than Japanese.”
Harry Kim was Korean-American, but the writers for Voyager never took the slightest interest in exploring his Korean heritage, and Brannon Braga didn’t even seem to understand that Kim was a Korean name rather than a Chinese one. So I doubt they would’ve had any more interest in exploring a Korean heritage for the character than they did in exploring her Japanese heritage.
“Even as a “boomer” “Rigel” would have been beyond areas that Mayweather had visited or reasonably had knowledge of.”
Except it’s a real star that’s visible to the naked eye and was named 500 years ago (exactly). You don’t have to go to a star to have heard of it.
@35/CLB: Regarding a legacy character and the original actor being the main draw, well tell that to the cast and audiences of the J.J. Abrams reboot. Or Ethan Peck. I get what you’re saying but in some cases I think fans are just happy to see a popular character again and it isn’t as big a deal if it’s not the original actor. Like I would love to see Saavik show up again in some way, shape or form and it doesn’t need to be Kirstie Alley or Robin Curtis playing the part.
*Will have to look up Grey Griffin.
Getting back to the music issue and how you said orchestral pieces aren’t exactly timeless – perhaps that’s the case but in my favor just the other day I heard an orchestra piece that was really bombastic and had a strong theme and I was wondering if it was from a film that James Horner or Jerry Goldsmith scored and it turned out to be an excerpt from The Planets (in particular, the movement Mars) by Gustav Holst. It was composed between 1914-1917. I couldn’t believe it. It surely sounded like something from a modern day sci-fi action flick. Needless to say I was impressed.
@28/fully functional: “I loved the use of Sabotage by the Beastie Boys in the original Trek reboot flick.”
Another good one (I think) is the use of “Magic Carpet Ride” during the launch of the Phoenix in “Star Trek: First Contact”.
“Faith of the Heart” is terrible and I love it. (Technically, this version of the song is called “Where My Heart Will Take Me”.)
Also, Soval might be my favorite Vulcan. The easy mistake when playing a Vulcan is to not show any emotions at all, but Graham makes it clear that while Soval doesn’t let his emotions make his decisions, he does have them. (His most common emotional state is, of course, “irritated”.)
As for the decon scenes, ironically I’d like it more if they were naked, not out of a desire for titillation but because it would make more sense, and be more practical, than the hodgepodge of clothing they wear in there. (The women wear tank tops, the men go topless. What exactly needs to be exposed here?) Plus it would demonstrate a lack of squeamishness in 22nd century human culture about such matters. I’d skip the gel, though.
@7/Christopher L. Bennett: In the third season episode “Exile”, they mention that Hoshi’s grandparents gave her soba as a child. It’s not much—in fact it’s barely anything—but you did say “slightest hint”.
Another issue with doing a prequel series is that you can’t really upset the status quo too much. Like with the whole Xindi arc thing, we know Earth will never be destroyed. At most though, you can get really invested in the characters and hope that they don’t die, which was rather unlikely anyway (that is until Trip at the very end).
@48/garreth: To be fair, I think they mention that, from the perspective of the future, the Xindi attack was not “supposed” to happen, so in theory you don’t know everything will work out, at least beyond the fact that it’s a TV show.
@49/Vulpes: But it was my understanding that everything that happens on Enterprise including with the Temporal Cold War, is how it should be, and will still lead to events that we’re all familiar with on TOS, TNG, and beyond. So even going beyond the fact it’s just a TV show, I could never suspend disbelief that the Earth was actually at risk of being destroyed. If the Xindi attack was not supposed to happen, then we would have diverged into a completely different timeline. But please, you or someone else correct me if I’m misunderstanding and I’m as confused as Janeway getting a headache over temporal mechanics!
@@@@@ 45 – Nicholas Meyer originally wanted to licence Holst’s The Planets for the soundtrack to The Undiscovered Country but the licensing fees negated that.
@50/garreth: I guess what I’m saying is that since the Temporal Cold War is portrayed as an attempt to change history, then there exists the possibility that history won’t proceed as it “did”, even if that possibility isn’t realized. After all, since none of the preceding series mentioned the Xindi conflict, we don’t know if it’s part of their history or not. It’s a pretty pointless distinction to make, I admit.
@51: Ah, interesting trivia. I would love to hear The Planets in a movie theater.
@52/Vulpes: Ah, I get what you’re saying. But at the same time, I don’t think I could ever believe the writers would allow for the wiping out of basically all of the Star Trek canon that audiences know and love. It’s nice to be surprised though. Like in the Kelvin timeline, for me it was like a “Whoa! They actually did that,” when Vulcan was destroyed. But on the other hand, it’s not the main timeline that we’re all familiar and most invested with, so the writers can get away with something like that.
Re: time travel and alternate futures- when I first started watching ENT I assumed that the time travel stuff was put in place to be an eventual excuse as to why we never (at that time) had heard about Archer or the rest of the “original” Enterprise crew or their missions in the other series. It would have been neat for them to have had to remove themselves from the timeline in order to save the universe (or something)- ensuring we got the Trek universe as we know it, but explaining why none of their adventures ever seemed to be referenced the way the other shows would reference TOS or each other*.
*obviously that has changed some now, with both Discovery and Lower Decks (and the reboot films) making reference to Archer.
@46- Agreed! Magic Carpet Ride was an inspired choice. I may be misrecollecting but didn’t he play it via cassette tape? I love that.
@3: why is it in sickbay and not, you know, the shuttle bay?
Not that it matters really but i thought it was near the shuttle bay? In episode 19: Acquisition we see that Trip is nowhere near sickbay, he makes his way from decon to sickbay to find Phlox unconscious.
Yes, i have been doing my own rewatch and i concur with so many in here that the flaws are even more apparent in 2021 than they were then and it strikes me now at just how white, cishet and American the whole ship is. Even at the time watching it i couldn’t shake the feeling it was like watching War on Terror: In Space in the later seasons where the jingoism was at full throttle and Archer was happy to run roughshod over interstellar Geneva conventions and whatnot. That’s my memory anyhow, i’ve not got past season 1 yet so i’m curious if that’s how it appears now.
This is why i dropped away from Star Trek somewhat and switched to Farscape because it all felt so very pedestrian in comparison to what that show was doing.
I know I’ve seen various episodes of this series, but the only one I remember with any clarity, not just disjointed bits and pieces (like Porthos’ love of cheese causing him problems), is the one about T’Pol’s grandmother and her colleagues stranded on 20th century Earth. I recall enjoying it? But it’s seriously the only ep I bothered recalling of this series, aside from perhaps the finale which I checked in on after years of not really watching the show and it made me angry.
The only part of this debut I really remember is the klingon being shot and how terribly uncomfortable the decon scene made me.
@45/garreth: “Regarding a legacy character and the original actor being the main draw, well tell that to the cast and audiences of the J.J. Abrams reboot. Or Ethan Peck.”
Obviously different rules apply to cases where the original actors are no longer around or suitable for the story in question. This is a case where an actress who’s about 16 years older than when we last saw her would be playing a Vulcan about 100 years older than when we last saw her, which is more comparable to TNG bringing Spock and Sarek back than to the Kelvin movies or Discovery doing it. My point is that when the original actor is still available, getting them back is generally going to be the primary reason for wanting to revive the character in the first place, so recasting seems kind of pointless. If there’s a specific reason to bring back the character besides nostalgia and the actor can’t make it, then recasting would be the likely recourse, but presumably the people speculating about T’Pol appearing on Strange New Worlds are indeed motivated by nostalgia. So I don’t see the point, in that context, of bringing back the character but not the actress.
As for Holst’s The Planets, it’s been very influential on many film and TV composers over the decades, mainly the “Mars, the Bringer of War” movement. I think I do recall similarities to it in Cliff Eidelman’s ST VI score, so I guess Meyer asked for that when he couldn’t license the original.
@47/Vulpes: Funny, I felt Graham was way too irritable and not very convincing as a Vulcan, at least in the first couple of seasons. I didn’t feel he really got the hang of playing a Vulcan until season 4, at which point he was very good at it.
@55: Ironically what you just described thinking would be the case for Enterprise would happen on Discovery when that latter shipped removed itself from its “present” to go to the future and everyone back in the “present” just covered up their existence <wipes hands clean>.
@36 I had the pleasure of seeing Dan Navarro at a festival in East Lansing this summer. He told a great story about how he was working as a carpenter to make ends meet when Benatar’s version launched. He’s doing very different music these days but finished his set by doing ‘We Belong’ acoustic while walking around the audience. Great stuff. And yeah … ‘timeless’ is a loaded term, but I’ll say that that is a song that has held up well as musical styles evolved, while the ENT theme really hasn’t.
S
@@@@@ 54 – “Like in the Kelvin timeline, for me it was like a “Whoa! They actually did that,” when Vulcan was destroyed. But on the other hand, it’s not the main timeline that we’re all familiar and most invested with, so the writers can get away with something like that.”
Don’t forget they wiped out Romulus just to give Nero a reason to be mad at Spock.
I thought the whole Vulcan mini-arc (which I haven’t watched in it’s entirety) in the 4th season retroactively explains why the Vulcans in earlier seasons were noticeably more emotional and then became the more emotionless Vulcans we’re all accustomed to. Or am I imagining this and that’s not what those Vulcan episodes were about?
@63/garreth: It wasn’t so much explaining why they’re more emotional so much as explaining why they’re duplicitous, bigoted, and self-serving.
@@@@@ 61 – Dan has said that We Belong put his son through University.
My wife and I ran an acoustic music series in Las Vegas in the early ’00s. Dan and Eric were among the artists that played there and we became friends. Sadly Eric passed away a few years ago from ALS.
Dan has.a new album out with James Lee Stanley (who played numerous background extras on DS9 but mostly as one of Odo’s deputies) called All Wood and Led, acoustic covers of Led Zeppelin.
We were hoping to restart the series in our new home in Nova Scotia once my wife retired but she passed away just over a year ago. I’m still hoping to get something going once Covid is out of the way.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
@59/CLB: Cliff Eidelman’s ST IV score was excellent: so dramatic and moody and dark. I’m surprised he and it didn’t get more acclaim than what I’ve read about and that I haven’t heard more about him in the media (although it looks like he’s still had a good, productive career).
@62: Oh, I didn’t forget about Romulus and that was a bold choice and it was in the Prime Universe – almost as if it counts more and everything subsequent will now have to deal with that fallout (as we’re seeing on Picard).
@59/ChristopherLBennett: I agree that he always seemed irritated, but not implausibly so. (In contrast, I think Fionnula Flanagan’s V’Lar in “Fallen Hero” wasn’t much of a Vulcan, just a sweet old lady.) I feel it made the respect he occasionally shows for humans, like in “Cease Fire” and the Vulcan three-parter, more effective.
Pilots are often hard to judge. They’re supposed to encapsulate the show’s premise in a nutshell, but given that most shows evolve over time, it inevitably becomes dated.
Broken Bow does have a major positive. It doesn’t waste any time getting into the meat of the story. Easily the tighest, most sharply plotted of the Berman-era pilot episodes. And Conway, as usual, does a commendable job moving things along at the right pace. Some truly great VFX as well that still mostly stands up today.
Of course, it also comes with a lot of the issues that will plague these first two seasons. And a lot of it seems to come from the network’s demand to launch the ship and the adventures so soon, rather than spend time on Earth as was the original plan. Neither Berman/Braga nor us viewers had had enough time to fully divorce from the expectations of a starship-based Trek show. Voyager had just ended. So it comes as no surprise just how easily Broken Bow falls into the old Trek storytelling patterns, especially when trying to recreate Kirk-era Trek.
I’m not as critical of Archer, or Bakula’s portayal of the character, as most tend to be. I rather like the low-key approach. It doesn’t come across as bland for me. He’s no Sisko, Janeway or Picard, but I find he still has enough presence.
Of course, there’s no hiding the fact as to just how racist he and Trip end up being. I can understand the general feeling of distress and frustration towards Vulcans over their role in mankind’s recent developments. It’s still no excuse to the way they treat T’Pol, who’s very much in the right most of the time.
And I really like the way Blalock plays the character, and I don’t think she’s gotten enough credit. It’s both a thankless and challenging role – not only in trying to find the real character amidst the objectification, but also having to live up to the ever lasting Nimoy legacy which is always an obstacle for any new actor playing Vulcan characters in the franchise. I agree there’s a discrepancy amongst fans as to their misguided conception that Vulcans were somehow botched in this show. If anything, Soval and the rest fit right in alongside past Vulcan characters in the franchise (and I also really find myself appreciating Gary Graham in later seasons).
I do enjoy Diane Warren’s Faith of the Heart theme – especially this slower version we get during the first two seasons. But part of me wishes we’d gotten the original Dennis McCarthy orchestral theme for Jonathan Archer instead. We listen to part of it during the end credits, but the whole thing is a masterpiece of its own (especially the last few seconds), and very representative of what Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were going for – a real feeling of exploration back when the universe was still new and unknown. A feeling of passion and nostalgia befitting a show that’s very much a sequel to First Contact.
Interesting coincidence that Meyer wanted to use Holst’s The Planets, because the aforementioned The Right Stuff does feature parts of those themes. Mars was put to good use in this scene.
The Planets is a pretty obvious choice for anything space-related. I’m partial to “Jupiter”, myself.
“Take her out, Mr Mayweather. Slow and steady.”
When I first saw this, 20 years ago now, it felt like the first step of a dense labyrinthine plot that we’d see slowly unfold. Watching it now, it’s hard not to see it as setting up a load of things that the show has no idea how to pay off, so they won’t bother. Curious about the Sulibans’ mysterious shadowy superior? Don’t bother, because we’ll never find out who he is. Just like we’ll never find out why he wanted to set the Klingon houses at war or what plans he had for the humans and Vulcans. It’s an exercise in vagueness that will remain vague.
But aside from the Temporal Cold War arc, the episode introduces the characters and the setting, both of which work well. Many of the characters will stay largely unchanged throughout the four seasons, but then that was generally true of Kirk and co as well. Even though we know they’ll come out on top (however unfeasible that might be!), there’s a real vulnerability about Enterprise. It feels less like they’re in a super-duper well-protected starship and more like they’re in a flying tin can being shot at.
This series’ attempt at ongoing character conflict that will be largely forgotten about after the first few episodes: Humans and Vulcans don’t get on. To be fair, it’ll be about three seasons before Archer and Soval are on friendly terms, but I’m not sure there’s ever as much antagonism between Archer and T’Pol as there is here. Both have a very dismissive attitude towards the other’s species, but they bond as individuals over the course of events. In between the big moments of Archer realising T’Pol stuck to his plan while in command and him asking her to stay on board (or rather getting her to ask to stay), there’s a pippin of a bridge scene which starts with Archer having to snipe at T’Pol to get her to contribute and ends with them standing shoulder to shoulder, finishing each other thoughts and running the ship together.
Of course, it doesn’t help that all the Vulcans we see in the first half hour are pretty much dicks. It’s a hilarious moment when they all look bemused after Forrest’s bad metaphor gets a round of enthusiastic applause.
I admit on first viewing I had trouble telling Tucker and Reed apart: Two guys with the same colouring, wearing the same uniform. Even in later years, I’d occasionally have trouble if the lighting was bad, notably in the Season 3 opener. One contemporary review suggested Archer has less interaction with Tucker than with T’Pol, Phlox and Sato, which I’m not sure is fair.
The final showdown between Archer and Silik, despite being a bit of a false climax, is effective, with the distorted vision, the slow-moving phase pistol blast causing a shockwave…and that brilliant look on Archer’s face when he realises Enterprise beamed him aboard.
Ah yes, the theme tune. I may be in the minority by not despising it, but what the heck. For the first few episodes, it did feel a bit odd to get the pre-credit cliffhanger sting that left me expecting the DS9 or Voyager theme only to instead get Russell Watson. But after that, it was just the Enterprise theme. Rewatching the episode, I gave a wry smile and then sang along. When you’ve sat through nine episodes of Star Cops, an easy-listening theme for a science-fiction series doesn’t seem like such a novelty.
And of course, this one has that pilot-only orchestral arrangement of it for the closing titles. The usual end theme does show up a couple of times in the score, notably for Enterprise’s launch.
In addition to the seven regulars, debuting here are Admiral Forrest, Ambassador Soval, Silik, Commander Williams and, er, “Future Guy”, who will all reappear later in the season. (I swear Memory Alpha actually called him Future Guy at one point. They seem to have changed it to Humanoid Figure, which probably reflects the script but manages to be even more generic.) Forrest doesn’t quite make it to the end of the series: He dies just seven episodes into the last season, although Vaughn Armstrong reappears as his mirror universe counterpart later. T’Pol’s statement that her rank supersedes Tucker’s implies he was originally going to be first officer. (Even before this, she takes charge of the bridge while Archer’s talking with Klaang in sickbay.) This conversation is one of the first to come up with an excuse to show the characters in their underwear in “decon”, although it’s pretty subtle compared to later seasons… Archer also gets his first alien smooch, although it’s part of a lie detector test. (That’s her excuse anyway.)
The Suliban’s name was inspired by the Taliban, who, in the spring of 2001, were virtually unheard of in the west. That would soon change… Tos’ name was an even less subtle reference to…TOS.
And I’d completely forgotten that the VHS tapes had trailers for the next two episodes bolted on the end. (“The future is closer than you think.”) Aww, I’m gonna miss that when I have to switch to DVD for Season 2…
I happen to be watching the show for the first time currently, and I am quite enjoying it. Before starting I heard many negative things about it, so I was pleasantly surprised by this episode. I liked how everything felt almost less like a prequel to Trek and more like a vision of our own future: the uniforms are obviously based on modern astronaut outfits and the admirals wear ties like many modern military uniforms. The ship also is obviously inspired by modern tech while hinting towards what we know from TOS.
I like the theme; it gives a good impression of what the series is about. I hear Archer’s characterization varies with writers, but I liked how he was in this episode; rather distinct from others before him.
I liked how they give the transporter some of the respect it deserves; honestly I was a little disappointed that the one time they used it it worked fine. It is, after all, a device that disintegrates you and than reassembles something at the other end. This is what I was hoping for more of: getting to see Earth explorers before we have everything all refined and polished. That’s why I was disappointed that they got rid of their blasters from the shootout on Rigel X in favor of the beam weapons just because we know we have beam weapons in TOS and following. It would have been cool to see them work with weapons that DON’T have a stun setting, so that they have to take more things into consideration before resorting to shooting.
Finally, my one big problem with the episode is WHY THE HECK DOES T’POL GET TO TAKE COMMAND? It is made clear that this is a Human mission; T’pol is sent along only because Vulcans have previous experience with Klingons (and because it sounds like Vulcans still don’t trust humans). Just because she would rate higher than Trip in another situation does not mean that she gets to assume command of an Earth starship. And I get why Archer kept her on as a science officer/advisor, but why does he make her second in command over a trained Starfleet officer in Trip? That kind of ruins the whole point of this mission being when Humans get to set out on their own. It’s obviously the writers wanting to redo the Spock/Kirk vibe.
Back in 2001, shortly after 9/11, this show felt instantly a bit old-fashioned, relative to the way the world had seemed to tilt (for me at a sheltered 17).
My worry, though, was that the Temporal Cold War plot would do little more than take focus away from an appealing premise — and, by and large, that worry came to pass.
Phlox was instantly my favorite Trek doctor. McCoy climbed back to the top in later years.
*
Archer.
At the top of the series, Bakula’s Archer is certainly the least polished of the lead Trek captains that we had seen up to this point. But that seems the point. As humanity is just starting out in deep space, Starfleet’s captains don’t have the seasoning that we’ll see 100-200 years hence.
Season 4 does a fine job of showing Archer’s evolution. By the various three-part arcs — or Demons / Terra Prime — he has gone from an unpolished captain to laying the ground of being a statesman. I, for one, found it entirely credible.
*
Theme.
When the series came out, i found it a bit jarring. But as a young classical musician, i had been listening carefully to the scores of the previous series, and had my expectations. 20 years on, i don’t find it jarring; i’m just indifferent. But it’s overall a very nice main title sequence that i imagine makes the series feel more ‘in reach’ for a non-Trekkie viewer.
Probably the folks at UPN put together a focus group on this topic. I’m certainly no expert.
*
RE: Trivial matters — theme music
I recall reading somewhere that Roddenberry added lyrics to the Alexander Courage theme, after the fact, to get a cut of the royalties. Savvy man, that Roddenberry — and, also, not a decision out of step with the time.
(This isn’t exactly a controversial notion, either; lyrics have been added to existing melodies since time immemorial. One example is how, decades after it was composed, a melody by John Stafford Smith was married to lyrics by Francis Scott Key. But in instrumental versions of the National Anthem, you only hear the Smith melody. I’ve advised my mother just to answer ‘Key’ to the pertinent question, should she ever apply for citizenship.)
*
RE: Trivial Matters — (first) contact with Klingons
I would propose an alternative interpretation of Picard’s speech about first contact missions generally — and with the Klingons in particular. First, here’s the quotation.
‘Chancellor, there is no starship mission more dangerous than that of first contact. We never know what we will face when we open the door on a new world: how we will be greeted, what exactly the dangers will be.
‘Centuries ago, disastrous contact with the Klingon Empire led to decades of war — and it was decided then, that we would do surveillance before making contact.’
NOW, obviously, the discussion is about first contact missions; Picard has to make the case for Starfleet’s methodology, in order to improve the chances of freeing Riker. It serves him best to cite the dangers.
But, significantly: he refers to ‘disastrous contact’ — not disastrous FIRST contact.
Enter the ‘Discovery’ pilot. Technically it wasn’t a first contact — just the first in a long time, what with Georgiou saying that almost no one had seen a Klingon in nearly a hundred years.
And it certainly was disastrous.
As for leading to ‘decades of war’, i guess that depends how one defines it. Aside from the war that consumed DIS season 1, there were regular skirmishes between the Federation and Klingons all the way to ‘the Undiscovered Country’. Perhaps they were viewed, historically, as a single conflict.
Or perhaps Picard was trying offer a succinct description of the history, to generate understanding, to free his officer.
(Obviously, ‘centuries ago’ has its own chronological issues.)
I’m recalling the creative powers of DIS, regarding the premise of season 1, referring to exploring something that had been mentioned in canon — but not explored further.
So, anything to this?
Sooo many white guys.
Coming off Voyager, with it’s diverse cast, this was really jarring.
I watched this and when the episode ended I had an overwhelming feeling of “meh”. I don’t know, maybe I was more forgiving when I watched this in 2001 because this aired just after 9/11, and I needed some Trek optimism after that. Watching it now, it’s overall kind of blah.
I really wish they hadn’t tried to recreate the Big Three here. I tolerate that aspect of the original series because it debuted in 1966. And the characters of color being sidelined to focus on the white people: also tolerated because 1966. Enterprise debuted in 2001. I mean, what the hell were Berman and Braga thinking?!
I get Berman didn’t want to do another Trek series, but the best you could do was do a prequel to TOS by borrowing directly from TOS?
I somehow didn’t noticed how bland Scott Bakula was in this. I kept waiting for that moment where it’s like, Yeah! This is the Captain! It…never came.
I truly don’t remember how I felt about this episode in 2001; today, again, just a big meh
You’d think that post-9/11 that Enterprise would do well with audiences wanting that familiar comfort of an optimistic show like a new Star Trek series. And maybe that was the case but the viewing audience found it too boring and similar to what came before. By 2001, successful shows were more gritty and serialized. 1999 was the year The Sopranos debuted and basically ushered in a new Golden Age of television with dark, brooding, anti-hero series on HBO and other cable channels. So I think in comparison the general audience found Enterprise to be downright pedestrian and didn’t really fire-up the fanbase either.
I have never in my life seen a character meant to be the good guy that’s so unlikeable as Captain Archer like Kirk if drained of all charm and ability, it might work if he was the security officer you expect them to be a hot headed jerk but a total failure as Captain.
@77, I remember watching the show and Archer would get beat up so many times that it was clear he enjoyed it. He also apparently was incapable of learning from his previous experiences. And why Starfleet sent the guy out to explore without any training or guidance is beyond me. They would have had centuries of experience with dealing with other cultures on Earth to serve as a template for how to deal with other races,
At warp 5, alpha centauri is around 10 days away. This is consistent with the expectation that they can go to Neptune and back in 6 minutes.
Rigel is 860 light years from earth, not nearly in the neighbourhood of 15.
These are details that are so easy to get right, it really breaks immersion. I can appreciate that warp speed is variable based on the needs of the plot, but hard numbers and real stars in the script should reflect the story’s needs.
I can accept that the Klingon Empire is weeks to months away from Earth, but travel even to nearby stars should be the equivalent of crossing an ocean by ship, and Enterprise should be the equivalent of the first steamship.
Isn’t the Klingon Empire mostly in the beta quadrant? If quadrants are approximately the same size, and sector 0001 is in the center of the alpha quadrant, wouldn’t that mean Voyager should have gotten home in say a month at the most? They really should have thought the distances through a bit more. UNLESS, warp 5 is code for super fast. Another thought is perhaps the Vulcan star charts T’Pol used are short cut sort of like that other space franchise used.
@80/Just Me: Sector 001 is not in the center of the Alpha Quadrant, it’s on the border between Alpha and Beta. Basically, the line between Sol and the center of the galaxy is defined as the “prime meridian” of the quadrant system, analogously to how the line between the Earth’s poles and the Royal Observatory in Greenwich defines the Prime Meridian dividing the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. And yes, the Klingon Empire is in Beta, but the galaxy is so very, very huge in comparison that it’s a trivial difference, like talking about whether different neighborhoods in London are in the Eastern or Western Hemisphere. (Here’s the Star Charts map of the galaxy. The UFP, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Breen, Tholians, etc. are all in that little white dot called “Local Space.”)
Basically, if Sol is the Royal Observatory and the Federation is London, then the Klingon Empire is, say, Canterbury, the Romulans are Colchester, the Cardassians are Reading, etc. By comparison, Voyager was sent to the farthest reaches of Siberia.
The problem with the quadrant system is that it’s on a ridiculously gross scale, only relevant for talking about galaxy-spanning distances like those featured in DS9 and VGR. It’s an utterly useless and ludicrous standard for talking about local astrocartography, as stupid as giving directions in London in terms of the hemisphere someplace is in. It’s utterly the wrong standard to use in that context. That’s why DS9 talked about the Klingons and Romulans being in Alpha when they’re technically in Beta — because on that scale, the difference is too trivial to matter, and it’s just easier to use “Alpha” as a shorthand for “the parts of Alpha and Beta immediately straddling the border.” All the local powers are so close to the border that the difference is within the margin of error anyway. It’s like how we call Europe “the West” even though the vast majority of it is in the Eastern Hemisphere.
As with Voyager, the problem many people seem to have with Enterprise is what it DIDN’T do;
It didn’t take time to build up to the launch of NX01 – People complain Discovery and Picard both have false start pilots and took too long to get going. Enterprise jumps right in, for better or worse, because a general audience probably wouldn’t have stuck around for several episodes of “stay on Earth and argue with Vulcans”.
The cast is a step back for diversity – Berman and Braga did go too far with efforts to recapture the feel of TOS. My personal issue is more about how painfully ‘American’ the show and production feels, in a way that TNG, DS9 & VOY didn’t. I assume that’s deliberate (it’s clearly meant to be a space western), but it’s to the detriment of the show. You never feel like Earth is striking out into space, but that Americans are off on a jolly with a few (American stereotype) foreign friends. It’s not a deal breaker, but it brings the show down a notch.
The temporal cold war is a waste – We can’t judge Broken Bow for the botched temporal cold war arc. It’s set up reasonably well here. It’s intriguing and a new idea for Trek, even if it isn’t what people wanted / expected to see. It doesn’t start to fall apart until afterwards.
I think Bakula works with what he was given – “you have a chip on your shoulder because condescending aliens prevented your beloved dad from fulfilling his dream.” So his short-tempered, weighed-down performance makes sense even if it isn’t much fun to watch. Stewart was shouty and authoritarian in EAFP, not at all like the diplomatic and stoic Picard we all love. Likewise, Bakula found his Archer as the material developed. The real issue isn’t his performance, but the character as written; a proto-Kirk. It works as an idea for a pioneering space explorer, but it’s saddled with constant comparison to Kirk’s finished article and the other captains who offer lots of different, interesting things.
It might seem trite, but I do think the theme song put people off. Pop music, an awkward fit for Trek anyway, is divisive in a way orchestral music isn’t – fans and detractors. The moment a pop song plays, some people in the room tap their feet and others want to leave. Whether you like the song or not, it was a poor choice.
I have a real problem with the notion that Earth knew nothing about the Klingon Empire. It’s as if the UK knew nothing of China in the 1800’s simply because the journey to get there would take a long time given the technological standards of transport. And then they get there in a day or two! At least they had the good sense to retain the TMP established appearance of Klingons (though, and I’ll say it now, they screw that up with horrible fan service in Season 4).
A better pilot than The Cage and EAFP, level with (maybe a notch above) Caretaker.
This is a matter of some debate. Christopher has made an excellent argument that the Klingons are in the Alpha Quadrant. I’m not sure I agree, but I don’t have a hard opinion.
Quadrants are another problem. Through much of Star Trek the term seams to refer to a relatively “small” area of space (small still meaning light years on a side.) However, when used with the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Quadrants, there are only four, each being one quarter of the entire galaxy. So Voyager was, after Caretaker, 70,000 light years away from the Federation. (Not from the Alpha Quadrant itself, since the AQ would extend to the Galactic axis.)
So, by that terminology, and if Kronos is in the Beta Quadrant, it should still be considerably far away. (Unless you follow the convention that the border of the Alpha/Bea Quadrant runs through the Sol system, which I think is a bit ridiculous.)
@82/lemondetective: “a general audience probably wouldn’t have stuck around for several episodes of “stay on Earth and argue with Vulcans”.”
That’s begging the question — the logical fallacy of formulating the premise in a way that justifies your preconceived solution. There are countless possibilities for Earthbound storylines they could have come up with other than that one, many of which could have been quite fascinating. After all, good stories are about characters coping with problems and striving to overcome challenges and obstacles, regardless of whether they’re on Earth or in space. It’s not just “arguing with Vulcans” — it’s characters facing an obstacle to achieving their goals, which is ultimately what every single story is about. If we were given the time to become invested in the main characters’ yearning for the stars, to empathize with that yearning and with the frustration of the obstacles they face, then we’d be rooting for them to break out into space and would be engaged by the story of them striving to do so. (Think of, say, The Martian. Mark Watney’s struggle to get off Mars was what we were invested in, what made his eventual escape from Mars satisfying as the resolution of that struggle.)
@83/costumer: “Christopher has made an excellent argument that the Klingons are in the Alpha Quadrant.”
Wow, that’s completely the opposite of what I said. Officially, the Klingon Empire is indeed technically in the Beta Quadrant. But DS9’s writers had the characters talk about the Klingons and Romulans as “Alpha Quadrant” powers because the defining paradigm of that show was between the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants on opposite sides of the wormhole and it would have needlessly confused the audience to acknowledge an additional quadrant difference that was narratively irrelevant. So they had the characters speak inaccurately, which is something that real people do all the time, so I’ll never understand why viewers are so all-fired determined to assume that every single word spoken by any character must be absolutely factual and can’t possibly be imprecise, figurative, or simply wrong in the way that real people’s utterances frequently are. If we can claim that Italy is in “the West” even though 100 percent of it is in the Eastern Hemisphere, if a town in Northern Kentucky can be called part of Greater Cincinnati, then hell yes, characters can refer to the Klingon Empire as figuratively an “Alpha Quadrant” power without us having to believe it’s literally true.
And Keith is incorrect to say there’s no canonical evidence of the Klingons being in Beta. The very first time the Beta Quadrant was ever mentioned was in ST VI when Sulu said the Excelsior was returning from a Beta Quadrant survey, just before they detected the Praxis explosion. Not conclusive in itself, but there are multiple star maps shown onscreen in Insurrerction, Discovery, Picard, and Prodigy that put the Empire in Beta, because that was the behind-the-scenes assumption of the production staff all along. (In fact, they put the Klingon and Romulan Empires in that part of the galaxy years before the quadrant names were established.)
“(Unless you follow the convention that the border of the Alpha/Bea Quadrant runs through the Sol system, which I think is a bit ridiculous.)”
As I said, it’s inspired by the real-life practice of putting the border between the Earth’s hemispheres right through the middle of London. It’s not ridiculous at all — of course the dominant exploratory/colonial power would make its capital the origin of its coordinate system. Since humans took the lead in founding the Federation and became its dominant power, they chose to invent a system centered on Earth. Why wouldn’t they?
Again, the thing to keep in mind is that what quadrant something is in would’ve been a totally irrelevant question before the Barzan and Bajoran wormholes were discovered. A quadrant is a full 1/4 of the galaxy, so insanely huge that it’s preposterous to apply it to the scale of interstellar affairs between the Federation and its neighbors. So it wouldn’t have mattered that different parts of the Federation were in different quadrants, because it would’ve been a purely academic distinction with no everyday relevance, any more than Londoners give any thought to what hemisphere they’re in.
The only thing that’s ridiculous is that post-DS9 shows have stuck with the quadrant system as if it were actually relevant on a local scale, instead of inventing a more useful astrocartographic standard.
@82 & 84
General audiences at the time were watching shows like ER, JAG, Law & Order, The West Wing. There’s a lot of room for near-future drama to expand the appeal. Just dealing with a downed Klingon could bring in crime procedurals, medical drama, and high-level politics over the course of several episodes, and give the future doctor, security chief, and engineer some meaningful screen time. Sure, it’s not typical Star Trek, but neither was DS9.
I agree with you about the warp drive and how long it takes to get to Qo’noS. But I guess I’ll still take that over what Abrams did with warp speeds.
The reason I never watched Enterprise when it first ran was because of my disappointment with the first episode. And I confess, a huge part of what solidified that with me is when I went to talk to a friend afterwards, and he had hated it. So then the things I didn’t like about it stood out and were affirmed, whereas whatever parts I might have enjoyed got swept under the rug. I’ve found that in retrospect a large part of what I found enjoyment in during my younger years was the ability to enjoy something with friends.
Years later, after my expectations were lowered and I was more open to things, I did end up watching the whole series online. While I can’t say it was anywhere as good as other Treks for me personally, I was at least able to watch through the whole thing and be moderately entertained.
The one thing that really really bugs me about this series though, and one of the major things that turned me off from it
during the premiere, is the temporal cold war. While an interesting subject, it still heavily suggests that the events of even the pilot are under the influence of future interlopers. This continues throughout the series. So from episode 1, it’s like we’re not watching the actual past of the Federation, but also an alternate timeline. And while that may not be the actual decided implications of the temporal cold war, I’m just saying that’s the impression I got from my own subjective viewing. And that in turn colors my whole objective experience of the show, because while I enjoy the occassional alternate timeline stint, I wasn’t onboard to watch a whole show about an alternate past when I haven’t already seen the “real” past. In fact, I think season 3 with the Xindi was heavily implied to be some alternate timeline incursion kind of deal. Again, I don’t know if that’s taken as fact, but my subjective experience was that this was indeed an alternate timeline, whereas at least from the pilot you might be lead to believe that the past was always a causality loop type of scenario. So season 3 especially bugged me in that regard, because you can’t kill millions of people on Earth in the 22nd century without drastic implications for the populations and technological and social advancements of the 23rd and 24th centuries. So how are we to accept that the other Trek shows would have turned out the same in this timeline?
In the same vein, it’s one of the things I don’t care for about the altered timeline of the Abrams films; I get that they did it so they could wipe the slate and have more creative freedom in their story telling, but I personally just was not interested in seeing an alternate timeline of the ToS past. If you’re going to make a movie about their younger years, I want to see their actual past. That’s just me personally (and never mind the fact that a lot of the changes in the Kelvin timeline don’t make sense solely based on Nero coming back as the only difference).
I really wanted to like Enterprise, because I just love Scott Bakula. The Suliban time war kind of turned me off and I eventually drifted away as I always seem to with Star Trek sequal/prequels.
I too never saw a problem with the snooty Vulcans. Vulcans are snooty and superior, even our dear Spock.
@@@@@ 85 – “of course the dominant exploratory/colonial power would make its capital the origin of its coordinate system. Since humans took the lead in founding the Federation and became its dominant power, they chose to invent a system centered on Earth. Why wouldn’t they?”
Because if you’re looking to establish a Federation of equals then the most powerful member should not feel the need to have every aspect of it under their control. Yet not only is the astrogation system Earth based, the Federation Council, the office of the President and Starfleet are all based on Earth.
“The Federation is no more than a homo sapiens only club.“
– Azetbur
“The only thing that’s ridiculous is that post-DS9 shows have stuck with the quadrant system as if it were actually relevant on a local scale, instead of inventing a more useful astrocartographic standard.”
There is a more local standard. Its called the sector. Ut;s like having a system that breaks a country into states and provinces and complaining that it’s not good enough to show the distance between New York and Philadelphia.
My impression of the fact that Starfleet didn’t know anything about the Klingons is that the Vulcans were being very selective about the data they were allowing Earth access to. Given that the Vulcans had a vested interest in making sure that Earth didn’t disrupt their apple cart, there is plenty of evidence – even in this episode – that the Vulcans were deliberately withholding information for reasons that weren’t entirely protective
@31. ragnarredbeard: I’m afraid my little digression was a pipe dream, rather than any sort of accurate report or hot tip – one of the sad things about living through the 21st Century is the ongoing proof we don’t live in the Best Possible timeline.
@32. garreth: As noted above, that was more of a pipe dream than anything; on the other hand I’m a little surprised that none of the tie-in media have shown T’Pol taking an interest in Mr Spock, given that her own experience with poor Elizabeth (the first known Human/Vulcan hybrid) would have almost certainly been a key point of reference for the scientists working to make Spock, son of Amanda & Sarek, possible.
Actually, given the rather tragic circumstances of that short-lived life (and T’Pol’s own integral role in the creation of the Federation and the development of Starfleet), it’s perhaps more likely that Mr Spock would take an interest in T’Pol, rather than that she would revisit an old pain.
@36. kkozoriz: At a guess that farmer had a plasma rifle for the same reasons many people in rural areas keep a gun – for predator control, for purposes of home security, as the primary old-school means of acquiring some protein and, just possibly, as insurance against some unfriendly alien showing up to do a demolition job on his silo.
Given that – at the time of the Broken Bow incident – the Post Atomic Horror is less than a century gone, that United Earth is still building up its forces and that the Federation does not yet exist, it’s not very surprising that quite a lot of Earthlings are still more than a little inclined to look to their own defences (especially in a galaxy as full of craziness, much of it dangerous craziness, as the Star Trek ‘verse).
Also, it bears pointing out that while it’s entirely possible that Boomers have charted some voyages toward the Klingon Empire, there’s absolutely not guarantee they made it home at all (much less in once piece & with valuable information) even if the Klingons themselves didn’t do a number on them – if the Star Trek galaxy can keep throwing up dangers that even USS Enterprise-E can barely survive, imagine how very lethal it must have been to starships that would look like a biplane next to a modern B-52 when compared with Picard’s Enterprise.
On a slightly less gloomy note, it also bears pointing out that Boomers are a commercial enterprise, not a scientific venture – while they might head towards the notoriously aggressive Klingons, wouldn’t they be more likely to prioritise destinations where they have stronger guarantees of a warm welcome and a relatively quick profit?
@39. Charles Rosenberg: (2) This decision leaves me a little confused personally, but the most likely explanation is the ‘Sulu factor’ (i.e. by making Ms. Sato Japanese they’re hoping to pay tribute to Mr Sulu and thereby win this new character a little bit of buy-in from audiences who liked the old).
@45. garreth & @51. kkosoriz & @53. garreth: The Planets suite really is a Thing of Beauty and (one hopes) a Joy Forever – I keep hoping some kind creative type will work up a CGI video giving us a glimpse of the Earth-Romulan War of the 2150s and set it to ‘Mars, Bringer of War’ but alas! We’re not there yet.
I also keep hoping that somebody will finally make a match between a cinematic adaptation of DRACULA and ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ but – despite coexisting for almost 13 decades, the closest we’ve come to that happy place is Mr Bela Lugosi being employed as a reference for Chernabog from Fantasia (and I’m not even sure any of those references made it into the final piece!).
@47. Vulpes: “Where my heart will take me” really is and I really do – JOIN THE DAMNED, my dear fellow! (-;
@56. fullyfunctional: The love you share with Dahar Master krad r.e. ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ gives me the mental image of STAR TREK sitting down with A HITCHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY for some old school music appreciation (I’m more of a ‘Journey of the Sorcerer’ fan, but it must be said that the use of ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ was exquisite).
Now I want to hear William T. Riker play ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ on the trombone for First Contact day and I have no idea why.
@59. ChristopherLBennett: In all fairness, if you had to deal with Captain Archer and his ilk for a living (not to mention everyone else on Planet “**** it, we’re doing it live!”) you’d probably be a little crabbier than the average Vulcan too …
@66. garreth: I’d like to think this lack of attention to this particular soundtrack is more because STAR TREK has a ridiculously deep bench when it comes to making draft picks for any ‘highlights’ reel, but it’s equally possible that the simple fact it only appeared in one good-but-not-great film probably doesn’t help its chances.
In all honesty, if there were any form of media set in the ‘Lost Era’ between THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY and ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ I’d love to see themes from the soundtrack to the former get the attention they deserve (though one would also love to hear the GENERATIONS theme get some play, since it’s one of my special favourites, I’m more interested in seeing it used as as a bridge between various era of Starfleet history, rather than as the hallmark of a particular era).
@71. Vulpes: Ditto! It has that wonderfully boisterous “Let’s go on adventures!” aura, doesn’t it?
@73. Echelon of Greg: Presumably sub-commander T’Pol gets command because she very likely has more experience of operations in deep space than everyone else on the crew (and possibly more experience than everybody else on the crew put together), also because Trip is a trained engineer (rather than a command officer) and very probably more comfortable keeping Enterprise running than working out where she needs to go.
One might also argue, on a production level, that Archer being willing to put his prejudices against Vulcans aside and recognise T’Pol’s worth to such a degree is an extremely significant display of the qualities that make him suited to command Earth’s first interstellar capital ship.
@78. ragnarredbeard: Isn’t T’Pol’s entire existence proof that Captain Archer DID get sent out with guidance, but that he tended to go his own way? (and sometimes very successfully – one word ‘Andorians’).
It also bears pointing out that, while Humanity has centuries of experience dealing with other Human cultures (A) Quite a lot of that experience is of the ‘What not to do’ stripe rather than the ‘How to’ variety (B) Preconceptions based on dealing with other human beings can be actively dangerous when dealing with non-Human species, so it’s not necessarily wise to trust that existing precedents will be sufficient to properly equip an expeditionary commander with all the requisite knowledge.
Templates have their uses, but to get up there with the Big Names you really need to draw freehand.
@84. ChristopherLBennett: For my money the challenges of getting NX-01 launched deserved a bit more build-up, but should not have taken a whole season; it’s a pity ENTERPRISE didn’t latch onto the idea of multi-episode arcs until quite late in the series, because a mini-arc of getting the band together and rigging up the amps for a grand opening would have let us get a much clearer picture of the 2150s CE.
I also most definitely agree that getting Klaag back to the Klingons would have been an excellent narrative spine for the first Season (especially if they kept in a grumpily anticlimactic Klingon reaction to all this effort).
@86. lerris: On the other hand – to play Devil’s Advocate – would it be a sensible tactical move for ENTERPRISE to try doing what those shows were already doing very successfully, rather than doing something more distinctively STAR TREK? (If nothing else, a Season that takes place solely on Earth would have made it harder to sell the studio on a Serious budget – “If they’re still on Earth why do you need all these props/costumes/prosthetics? Can’t they just use what we use?”).
@@@@@ 92 – “Boomers are a commercialenterprise, not a scientific venture – while they might head towards the notoriously aggressive Klingons, wouldn’t they be more likely to prioritise destinations where they have stronger guarantees of a warm welcome and a relatively quick profit?”
But they aren’t staying away from the Klingons. They don’t even know they exist. And they’re only 5 days travel from Earth on the Enterprise. While we don’t know just how far that is, it’s close considering how far the Enterprise travels. The point is that TPTB made the Klingons much, MUCH closer to Earth than they should have while keeping them totally unknown.
If the boomers had stumbled upon the Klingons and been destroyed then it’s likely someone would have gone looking for them. The alternatives is that they totally ignore any location or general area that a ship disappears.
@87/crzydroid: “So season 3 especially bugged me in that regard, because you can’t kill millions of people on Earth in the 22nd century without drastic implications for the populations and technological and social advancements of the 23rd and 24th centuries. So how are we to accept that the other Trek shows would have turned out the same in this timeline?”
Because it is that timeline and always was. It’s just a part of its history we weren’t previously aware of, in the same way that, say, Captain Marvel is a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s history that we weren’t previously aware of.
There’s a kneejerk tendency to assume that any time-travel story must take place in the order that we experience it as viewers, that no change in history “happens” until we see it, but that makes no sense if you think about it objectively. There’s no reason that the timeline changes we witnessed in 2001-5 couldn’t have been the cause of the events we watched on TV in 1966-2000, because stories are often told out of order.
“I personally just was not interested in seeing an alternate timeline of the ToS past. If you’re going to make a movie about their younger years, I want to see their actual past.”
To make a movie, singular? Sure, that would’ve been good. But their purpose was to make multiple movies, to launch a new series that they hoped would last as long as the previous Trek movie series. Given that requirement, sticking to the established past would’ve tied their hands far too much in the long run. Although it would’ve been much better to do a complete reboot rather than pandering to the continuity purists by making it a branched timeline (since doing that didn’t appease them at all and just made them angrier, if anything).
@92/ED: “Also, it bears pointing out that while it’s entirely possible that Boomers have charted some voyages toward the Klingon Empire, there’s absolutely not guarantee they made it home at all”
The Boomers were only meant to operate within a few light-years of Earth, a handful of neighboring systems, and to need months or years to travel between them. Warp speeds increase exponentially with warp factor, so the Boomer ships’ warp 1 or 1.5 was a crawl compared to NX-01’s warp 4 to 5. So the idea was that the Boomers never made it far enough to contact the Klingons.
Also, my understanding is that the trip to Qo’noS was originally scripted to take four weeks, but they trimmed it to four days for purposes of story pacing.
“I also most definitely agree that getting Klaag back to the Klingons would have been an excellent narrative spine for the first Season”
I don’t think I ever said that. People keep assuming I’m suggesting nothing more than a slower version of “Broken Bow.” That’s not using enough imagination. I’m talking about the possibility of telling an entirely different story that would eventually lead to starflight.
Frankly, I didn’t care for “Broken Bow” all that much. I didn’t like its inclusion of the Klingons. One thing that I realize we’ve overlooked in talking about ENT’s continuity problems is that until “Broken Bow” came out, it was always assumed that first contact with the Klingons was less than 50 years before TOS, since TUC said that there had been “almost 70 years” of hostility between the two powers. So bringing in Klingons right off the bat was an even bigger problem continuity-wise than bringing in transporters or (nearly) phasers right off the bat. They did some worthwhile stuff with Klingons later on, but at the time of “Broken Bow,” featuring Klingons just felt wrong to me, a needless jumping of the gun.
The Vulcans were snotty and superior, and that’s what made them awseome. That’s always been their thing in every iteration of these shows. It was an interesting idea to make the Vulcans something of a series villain, but they didn’t execute it too well. Like most of the things they did on this show. Good idea, but failed to use it well.
It was really grating to see so much good ol’ boy attitude in this show. Star trek made so much progress on that kind of thing, becoming more self-aware of its breathless beliefs of its own superiority and confronting it. I guess it only makes sense that because progress had been made between TOS and Voyager, they’re going to have to start from somewhere even further back. But it still hurts to see. Archer’s bitterness about all things really sucked the excitement of hitting the road on an adventure out of the show.
What is logical about eating a breadstick with utensils?
I’m puzzled by the notion of a “science officer”. Shouldn’t like half the ship be scientists?
Contemporary pop songs are dateable in a way that orchestral soundtrack background music isn’t. Pop music by its nature goes with fads of its time period. Some genres of pop music can have broader appeal than others, but its not hard to understand why orchestral mood music pieces don’t do this to the same degree that a pop song does.
@95/karey: “I’m puzzled by the notion of a “science officer”. Shouldn’t like half the ship be scientists?”
But someone needs to supervise them and report their findings to the captain. I kind of figure that whenever we see Spock reading results from his console or listening to the Feinberger stuck in his ear, he’s receiving reports from his science teams belowdecks and summarizing them for Kirk, rather than doing all the work himself. It’s the same as how they have plenty of engineers but one chief engineer.
“Contemporary pop songs are dateable in a way that orchestral soundtrack background music isn’t.”
Which may be true, but I must again stress that the TOS theme was very much done in the style of a popular song by the standards of its day (well, the older, pre-rock generation, at least). So if that’s always a bad idea, why did it work for TOS?
@@@@@ 92 – “The Boomers were only meant to operate within a few light-years of Earth, a handful of neighboring systems, and to need months or years to travel between them. Warp speeds increase exponentially with warp factor, so the Boomer ships’ warp 1 or 1.5 was a crawl compared to NX-01’s warp 4 to 5. So the idea was that the Boomers never made it far enough to contact the Klingons.”
According to Fortunate Son, both the Y & J class have a maximum warp of 1.8. Let’s assume that the idea that the warp factor cubed is the multiple of light.
1.8 cubed = 5.832
Enterprise has the warp 5 engine.
5 cubed = 125
So, the boomers are (5.832/125 = 0.046 as fast.
Since the Klingons are 4 days from Earth we’re looking at 4×125 = 500 light days or about 1 1/2 light years
It would take the boomers (1/0.046) * 4 days = 21.7 * 4 = 86 days to make the same journey. Less than 3 months.
Travis says he’s been to Trillus Prime, Dralax and both the Denebian moons. Let’s assume the Denebian moons aren’t actually orbiting Deneb, which is 2,600 light years away, He’s been to at least three other star systems and made it to Earth as well in time to attend the Academy.
Long story short, the Klingons are just too damn close and there’s no reason that the boomers wouldn’t be aware of them.
The thing about theme tunes, particularly those with lyrics, is that they have to really stick the landing in fitting the tone of the series rather than detracting from it. Just my humble opinion, “Faith of the Heart” did more of the latter. I mean, it would be a better fit if Archer were an interstellar traveling Bible salesman who became involved in people’s lives, like a Touched By An Angel to the stars, but sadly that’s not the series we got. ;-)
Either way, I think we were going to get an opening sequence that tried a little too hard to be inspirational. Star Trek had by this time solidified itself as ‘that franchise that inspires™,’ rather than well-told space adventures that just happen to occasionally inspire. You still see this today with Discovery and Picard, where the inspirational scenes have all the subtlety of a soup commercial set in an orphanage on Christmas Eve.
But hey, at least they went back to orchestral themes.
@95 said: ”Contemporary pop songs are dateable in a way that orchestral soundtrack background music isn’t. Pop music by its nature goes with fads of its time period. Some genres of pop music can have broader appeal than others, but its not hard to understand why orchestral mood music pieces don’t do this to the same degree that a pop song does.”
I would agree with this – and also state that, quite honestly, this particular pop song was dated by the time they chose to use it here. Add to that that Russell Watson was essentially doing an impression of the past-his-prime Rod Stewart who’d recorded the original several years earlier, and you end up with something that sounded tired and dated even amidst the TV themes of the day.
Sure, the bossa nova of the original Trek theme is of an earlier generation, but that opening fanfare is not a dance-band type sound and it helps to liberate the tune from feeling like something out of the Can Can Club.
@95,
“What is logical about eating a breadstick with utensils?”
Nothing logical about it. Aside from eating them with your toes, its the least efficient way of eating them. Just another attempt – a bad one – to show the Vulcans as soooooo different from Humans.
Well, I’m that guy who’s going to bring up the first Enterprise/Seinfeld connection because I think Berman and/or Braga is a fan of that sitcom too: the eating a breadstick with utensils scene distinctly reminded me of similar scenes of an episode of the half-hour comedy that featured various characters eating foods you wouldn’t normally eat with a knife and fork.
https://youtu.be/9Z-vdx_PcgU
@97 Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale
I just ignore foolishness like that and months, or even years, are plugged in for days by my mind. I’m writing a Traveller RPG campaign set within 50 light years of Sol. The Fastest ships in my non-canon campaign would go as fast as the NX01 and would need over a year to get from Sol to the edge of the map because of fuel and supply issues. According to Memory Alpha Qo’noS system is 143 light years from Sol, roughly 380 days one way at 125 times the speed of light.
If the boomers only go 1.8x light, their sphere is _SMALL_
@84/ChristopherLBennett
I agree with you completely. My point ought to have been I can see why the network thought audiences wouldn’t stick around for a Trek show that spent most of its first season stuck on earth.
I dislike Discovery and Picard, but I’ve no issue whatsoever with their unconventional / protracted starts. Enterprise would have been better served with such a slow build. Again though, that’s what they didn’t do. Putting that aside I’d say what they chose to do they did well enough.
The whole premise of Enterprise demonstrates a huge lack of imagination and ambition on the part of Berman and Braga, which was then pasteurised by the network. Absolutely no risks taken, and that’s the real shame with Enterprise.
I kind of assume that the translation between warp factor and speed depends on the current conditions in (sub)space. After all, it’s been established that areas of subspace can be “worn out” and no longer support warp drive. So maybe they could make the trip to Qo’nos quickly because of favorable conditions.
On the other hand, trying to make sense of how warp factors are used over the fifty-plus years the series has been around is probably a fool’s errand.
I never bought (or even really heard of until people started complaining Enterprise contradicted it) that first contact with the Klingons was in the 23rd century: It flatly contradicted Picard’s statement that it was “centuries” before the 2360s, and seemed to be based on references to how long the Federation and the Klingons had been enemies, ignoring the possibility of a less hostile relationship beforehand. (I acknowledge the theory that Picard was referring to a pre-human first contact but that doesn’t match the rest of his speech which refers to the policies “we” made as a result. He says it “led to” decades of war, but that doesn’t mean those decades immediately followed, just that they were the result of that first impression. The events we see here, a first contact that could reasonably be described as “disastrous” which results in humans and Klingons continually butting heads for the rest of the series, seems to match it far more than the fanon belief of a big war only about 150 years earlier…which Discovery has contradicted even more by establishing the Federation and the Klingons had only sporadic contact in the decades before the 2250s.)
Given that the boomers seem to be traders, it would make sense for them to stick to the routes where they know there’s friendly worlds. Klingon space would possibly be the equivalent of those blank spaces on early maritime maps that no-one fancied venturing into. Of course, given the boomers are independent and the ones we meet don’t seem keen on Starfleet muscling in on their territory, if they did keep bumping into people who told them “Oh yeah, the Klingons live there, you don’t want to have anything to do with them”, that doesn’t mean they’d necessarily pass the information on to Earth authorities.
T’Pol eating a breadstick with a knife and fork is portrayed as a cultural thing rather than particularly logical: Vulcans don’t eat with their hands.
@105/cap-mjb: “It flatly contradicted Picard’s statement that it was “centuries” before the 2360s, and seemed to be based on references to how long the Federation and the Klingons had been enemies, ignoring the possibility of a less hostile relationship beforehand.”
Even aside from continuity nitpicks, I just felt that bringing in Klingons right from the start was premature and pandering. Like the transporters and phase pistols, it was a result of the network not trusting the prequel idea and insisting on something with more familiar Trek elements. Viewers love Klingons, so let’s give ’em a bunch of Klingons as a cheap attention grab. I would’ve preferred it if they’d focused on building characters and ideas that could win an audience over without the crutch of prior familiarity, or taken the opportunity to flesh out more obscure bits of Trek history, like they did later on in season 1 by featuring species like the Axanar and Malurians who were nothing more than throwaway name drops in TOS.
I agree about T’Pol and the breadstick, though. To expect someone from a culture that eschews eating with their hands to just blithely accept eating finger food is culturally insensitive. It may seem silly to us that she tried using a knife and fork to eat a breadstick, but from her culture’s point of view, the silly thing was designing a food item that couldn’t be eaten with utensils.
@105. capmjb: I wholly agree with your points, but cannot resist the temptation to joke that not being willing to eat with their hands means that Vulcans should probably be using their feet (or bending down to grab things directly with their mouths).
Yes, I know you meant that Vulcans don’t eat food with their bare hands, but why gag a perfectly good tease with mere facts? (“Because it wasn’t a very good joke and I’m a pain in the … goodness me, how horribly, horribly accurate!). (-;
@94. ChristopherLBennett: My apologies for any annoyance/confusion regarding that remark you didn’t actually make – I was expressing my support for the ideas of another poster, but doing so late enough in my day that laziness got the best of me.
Also, I appreciate your point that you want bold, new stuff and that the idea of an Earthbound show isn’t inherently bad, but would also like to point out that if we wanted to stick with Mother Earth & things Earthly we wouldn’t be watching STAR TREK in the first place.
Yes, I appreciate that this is a blunt and unimaginative point (as well as frustrating for a creator to see), but the fact remains that we have 99% of all other media to give us stories set on Earth – so why should STAR TREK deliberately handicap itself by under-servicing a key part of the franchises appeal?
Also, is 105+ comments in two days a record for the rewatch series or is this a fairly typical rate, I wonder? (One may have to look up the first episode posts for other series to find out!)
Having done some research, I can now confirm that (with 108 posts and counting after less than three days) ‘Broken Bow’ has accumulated more posts in a shorter length of time than its equivalents in your other rewatch series – for those interested, ‘Caretaker’ got 99 comments, ‘Emissary’ 87, ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ a mere 64 (lifetime total) and ‘The Cage’ got exactly 100.
Either we’re all getting more communicative with age or something about ENTERPRISE just gets us talking!
Also, krad, congratulations on having stuck with EVERY series of STAR TREK thus far- add ‘Star Trek quiz’ to the long list of contests in which you could destroy me like a Dahar Master chewing up gagh!
@107/ED: “would also like to point out that if we wanted to stick with Mother Earth & things Earthly we wouldn’t be watching STAR TREK in the first place.”
People said the same kind of thing about DS9 — how can it be Star Trek without Trekking in the stars? That’s taking the title too literally. It was shortsighted and wrong then, and it’s even more wrong now in retrospect. Trek is a large enough franchise by this point that there’s room to diversify, to expand beyond the default format.
“so why should STAR TREK deliberately handicap itself by under-servicing a key part of the franchises appeal?”
You have it backward. A franchise handicaps itself by not trying to broaden its target audience. A franchise that’s afraid to try new things from time to time doesn’t deserve to continue, because it has nothing new to offer.
No franchise can ever survive by pandering solely to the pre-existing audience. That audience is always going to decrease in numbers over time, through people losing interest or (as the franchise ages) dying off. The only way a franchise can thrive is by drawing in new audiences, people who weren’t already on board. And if you have multiple different series in your franchise, it would be foolish not to make them distinct from each other in order to reach out to more than one audience at the same time. It’s not as if Picard, Lower Decks, and Prodigy are all aimed at the same audience. Or Doctor Who and Torchwood. Or Guardians of the Galaxy and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Fandom should be a welcoming community. We should be glad to see our franchises diversify their approach to appeal to new audiences, to give us common ground with people who like different things. It’s far more interesting to be part of a conversation with people who see things differently from you, because then you can learn new things and enrich your experience of life. If you only talk to people who reinforce your existing point of view, that’s living in an echo chamber and it diminishes you as a person. Trek fans most of all should understand the value of diversity in combination, and it deeply saddens me that so many of them don’t.
Correct me if I’m wrong but as I recall Vulcans are deliberately holding humans back because we scare the s–t out of them. We’re desperately emotional and our learning curve is scarily steep. They’re afraid of what we’ll do to the galaxy if allowed to run loose. Which turns out to be making friends, influence people and help bring some peace and order to the alpha quadrant.
@107 – What T’Pol actually said was “Vulcans don’t touch food with their hands.”. Makes you wonder if Vulcan has any sort of non-replicated food. Or do they wear gloves while preparing it?
I would like to see a scene someday of Vulcans preparing their food with their mouths. It would demonstrate just how truly alien they are. And of course we’d all enjoy watching that!
&106 said: “Even aside from continuity nitpicks, I just felt that bringing in Klingons right from the start was premature and pandering. Like the transporters and phase pistols, it was a result of the network not trusting the prequel idea and insisting on something with more familiar Trek elements.”
I can see where you’re coming from. At the same time, I feel like part of a pilots job is to hook you in – any way it can. Is it pandering to have McCoy show up in “Encounter at Farpoint?” Picard and the Enterprise in “The Emissary?” Quark and Deep Space 9 in “Caretaker?” Arguably so – but also useful in giving the viewers a familiar starting point. Having Earth’s first encounter with the Klingons be the starting point for this episode gives viewers an immediate investment they likely wouldn’t have had with say, Tellarites or some other TOS- era aliens.
I agree that phase pistols were a bit too on the nose, but the moment Archer is transported aboard the Enterprise works VERY well in the episode. Plus, it’s just a few episodes in that we see that using the early transporter DOES have its risks. I’d say that what happens to the crewman in “Strange New World” would account for reticence to use the transporter In future episodes.
@96 Because its not the same thing. The “closest thing to pop music of its day” doesn’t make it the same thing as pop music, and therefore doesn’t function to give the same problem. If they’d had a beatles song, a buddy holly song, or hell even a frank sinatra song it probably would have created an issue as well. Using well known pop songs only works for most other shows because they’re dramas and comedies taking place in the present day. Since they are themselves depictions of life in the present day, a contemporary pop song fits them ok. But TOS probably has the advantage of coming first and there being no preconceptions of what it should sound like, as well as being part of a time period with a different musical landscape where the popular sounds of the day could be used to more general purpose. The way music was used in TV probably wasn’t the same either. I don’t know why but it worked, as I think it has the most fantastic credits soundtrack of the franchise.
@110. ChristopherLBennett: Your point about DEEP SPACE NINE is well taken, yet it’s still fair to point out that even DS9 didn’t try to centre itself on Earth and Earthly surroundings – in fact the key inspiration for this particular series was producing a ‘Frontier Fort’ to THE NEXT GENERATION’s ‘wagon train to the stars’.
One would also like to point out that DEEP SPACE NINE enjoyed the freedom to experiment from the first because it had THE NEXT GENERATION to service those fans looking for some old-school Interstellar trekking; Given the conclusion of VOYAGER, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE simply could not expect to enjoy the same sort of backup.
Please note that I’m not disagreeing with the notion that a STAR TREK show must not orbit around a fixed point; I’m trying to suggest reasons the studios didn’t seem to favour the idea where ENTERPRISE was concerned. (-:
@114/twels: ” Is it pandering to have McCoy show up in “Encounter at Farpoint?” Picard and the Enterprise in “The Emissary?” Quark and Deep Space 9 in “Caretaker?” Arguably so – but also useful in giving the viewers a familiar starting point. Having Earth’s first encounter with the Klingons be the starting point for this episode gives viewers an immediate investment they likely wouldn’t have had with say, Tellarites or some other TOS- era aliens.”
But… they already had the Vulcans for that. And they had the ship go to Rigel specifically because it was mentioned in “The Cage” and other TOS episodes. So that was already covered.
They also had the Zefram Cochrane recording, which was the actual equivalent of the cameos you mentioned. The Klingons were something different — not just a cameo, but an ongoing piece of worldbuilding and a key element in shaping the history of the era. Throwaway pilot cameos are a completely inadequate analogy for that.
@115/karey: “Because its not the same thing.”
Not exactly, no, but it’s similar, and that’s good enough to refute the argument that “only” an orchestral theme could possibly work for Star Trek. The TOS theme was not a symphonic piece in the same vein as the movie, TNG, DS9, or VGR themes. It was indeed in the style of a 1930s-50s popular song, even if it wasn’t an actual pre-existing pop song. The style is the point. It’s moving the goalposts to claim it’s only about reusing an existing song. That’s a separate argument from what people are saying (and have been saying for the past 20 years) about orchestral vs. non-orchestral themes.
“Using well known pop songs only works for most other shows because they’re dramas and comedies taking place in the present day.”
Tell that to all the Battlestar Galactica fans who loved the diegetic use of “All Along the Watchtower” in a story set in an alien civilization thousands of years before the song was written.
For that matter, if it’s okay to use Also Sprach Zarathustra (1896) or The Blue Danube (1866) or The Planets (1914-17) as scoring in a space movie set in the future, why is it wrong to use a pop song from the 1980s or 2000s in a show set in the future? I’ve always found it a solipsistic double standard to assume that any music composed before one’s own lifetime is magically “timeless.”
@116/ED: “I’m trying to suggest reasons the studios didn’t seem to favour the idea where ENTERPRISE was concerned.”
And my point is that those reasons were dumb, like studio and network notes frequently are. My point is that the network execs’ failures of imagination on multiple levels were a major reason that Enterprise was so much less than it could have been.
Sidebar: the references to Ens. Mayweather visiting “Denebian moons” are in error.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Teneebian_moons
As for the “Boomer” culture, I’d have expected more references to their travels more often, as well as what turned out to be a lot of more unregulated expeditions from Sol across the century from First Contact to Broken Bow.
Other stuff on my “If I’d known in advance” want list:
The extent of UESPA/UEStarfleet operations.
Vulcan and Andorian holdings and tensions better documented.
Tellarite society better defined in general.
@@@@@ 116 – Not to mention that from the very first episode DS9 had the wormhole. Lots of exploring to be done from both sides. And if the crew were just supposed to sit on the station and let the adventures come to them, we wouldn’t have gotten the runabouts. Just Gove them some shuttles to get to Bajor if you don’t want them leaving the station for other planets.
Enterprise tried to give us a look at how the federation came to be and they added in a totally non-sensical time travel plot.
It makes you wonder just how much Starfleet kept secret. Kirk and Spock were amazed to discover time travel and yet Archer knew about it a hundred years earlier and just 10 years before TOS, not only was the Federation building time travel tech, the built it into a single person suit that also let you travel across the galaxy AND contained the entirety of Federation knowledge.
Who need the Vulcans to keep Earth backwards? Earth is doing the same thing on a MUCH larger scale to the entire Federation.
This is the first time I’ve ever watched this show. I decided to give it a try after just re-watching DS9 again and needing something else that’s old but new to watch.
So the Temporal Cold War goes nowhere? Oh, terrific. Well, at least you’ve given me that expectation now so I won’t be disappointed later.
Having lurked and read later half of the Voyager rewatch, decided to join in on this one.
I really enjoyed Enterprise on first run (perhaps as it aired during my teenage years and was the first one I saw through from start having seen TNG/DS9/VOY episodes out of sequence for the other shows as they aired in second run in the UK) but my opinion mellowed over the years as I fully saw the other shows.
Agree with many of the comments regarding the wasted premise though I do think there are some gems in the series.
I think Broken Bow is one of the best of the pilots, tainted somewhat now due to how the TCW ended up. Whilst I understand why the Klingons might have been seen as a recognisable Trek ‘draw’, a missed opportunity here for me was not to lean more to the prequel setting.
Instead of Klaang the Klingon, instead have say an Andorian (maybe even start of Shran’s arc) be the courier who crashed landed on Earth. Would need some tweaks to the plot but if Earth know nothing about Andorians and the Vulcan’s POV skewed by their antagonistic relationship, they might push to handle the situation without Earth’s involvement. Maybe even introduce the Romulans at an early stage as an unknown party responsible (perhaps behind a proxy race such as the Suliban), trying to manipulate the local region (in a smilier vein to S4). This would then form the beginnings of interactions between the founding Federation member races and an early prelude to the Romulan War.
I agree transporters should be left out of the show. I think Enterprise was vague on how common they were at this point. I don’t think the Vulcans ever were shown using them, the Andorians were said not have the tech in S1 but did by S4. In my head it would make more sense that the early Federation collaborated to invent and test the transporter.
The other element to the show which bugged me later on is originally the mission to explore was strongly suggested to be heading out in a straight line as far away from Earth as possible. The size of Starfleet at this point is ambiguous and much is made through S1 of how Enterprise had gone a 100 ly and further than any known Human. This seemed to be retconned later in S4 where plots involved the inventor of the transporter testing out in a region far from Earth and Cold Station 12 being a longstanding joint venture with Denobula. As a first mission with Earth’s first truly interstellar starship surely it would make more sense to explore almost a ‘radius’ around Earth and understand the ‘Local Space’ Earth was in, given they didn’t even know the Andorians and Tellarites at this point who are on the doorstep. The show could still have had the sense of exploring, first time challenges for the crew as well as having an overall geopolitical arc of showing how the Federation came to be.
I can see both sides of the argument about including the Klingons. It does give a bit of a small universe syndrome and it is possibly the show shooting its bolt a bit early. But I think it was inevitable they’d turn up in the show sooner or later. When doing a prequel, one of the first questions people are going to ask is “What familiar elements would be about then?” The Federation were already familiar with the Klingons in “Errand of Mercy”, so, assumptions about when the Federation first encountered them aside, them being in the show feels right in a way that including the Cardassians or Jem’Hadar or Gorn wouldn’t. (Or Ferengi, but that’s a question for later…) They possibly could have held off on showing the first contact between humans and Klingons instead of having it in the pre-credits for the pilot. I guess someone wanted a hook for the first episode and “launch of the first Warp 5 starship” wasn’t considered exciting enough. It’s not like the show will be all about Klingons going forward: They’re in maybe three episodes in each of the first two seasons, none at all in the Expanse-set third season, and largely confined to one two-parter in season four. Introducing new species is problematic, as viewers wonder where the Denobulans, Suliban and Xindi are in later centuries, so it makes sense to use them somewhere in the mix.
@123/cap-mjb: “Introducing new species is problematic, as viewers wonder where the Denobulans, Suliban and Xindi are in later centuries, so it makes sense to use them somewhere in the mix.”
That’s why it was so clever in season 1 to build episodes around aliens we’d heard of in passing but never seen, like the Axanar, Malurians, and Coridanites. Although I concede that obscure name drops like those would only excite TOS fans like me; the wider audience of casual viewers would need something more entry-level like Klingons to spark recognition. Which is part of why I don’t like it, that it was going for the lowest common denominator.
Really, Trek has a long history of introducing aliens who appear in one production and are never seen again — Edoans, Aurelians, the “Jihad” aliens, etc. in TAS, all the TMP background aliens like Zaranites, Saurians, and Betelgeusians, the TVH background aliens like Arkenites and Kasheeta, the Efrosians from TVH/TUC. Prequel or not, disappearing alien species are an unfortunately routine part of the franchise. (Although the newer shows have finally, finally begun reusing obscure aliens, with DSC giving us Linus the Saurian and a few Betelgeusians, and LD reviving a bunch of TAS aliens.)
Although for every one of the species you mention, there actually was an in-story explanation for why we didn’t see them later on. Denobulans were established as a people who generally preferred not to leave their homeworld, with Phlox being an exception. The Suliban were a scattered, homeless nomadic people, so it’s easy to assume that once the Cabal were defeated, the rest of the Suliban just remained on the fringes of civilization. And the Xindi were not only very far from Earth, far enough that their territory would still be fairly remote even by 24th-century standards, but at the end of their arc, they had a whole new homeworld to establish, which could easily have kept them preoccupied for centuries. (The same could go for the Suliban if they ever found a new home.)
I realize I’m the minority but I actually love the Enterprise intro. But.. Klingons. Did it have to be Klingons?
While it may have been an attempt to add the Klingons to the pilot, Klaang was basically a maguffin that could have been replaced by any other alien. Nothing is really set up regarding future relations with the Klingons from the story at all. The Enterprise drops him at home, there’s some bloodletting, some words are exchanged and Archer heads for home.
A funny aside: DIANE CAREY’s novelization of this episode is basically full of little snips at the premise of the episode and kind of full of fan rage.
“No good Starfleet captain would have done this, but Captain Archer was no ordinary Star Trek captain.”
Why did T’Pol say that? Vulcan children didn’t play with complicated astrometrics.
And so on.
I thought it was hilarious but also something that could kill your tie-in future.
Whoops. Now I feel very embarrassed.
@127 et al: Thing is, she’d done exactly the same thing in her The Way of the Warrior novelisation, constantly sniping at lines she didn’t like.
Sisko was about to pound him with a question about how the devil he would know, given that he’d spent a total of about two days with his “people” in the whole of existence
A stab of irritation ran up Sisko’s spine. If he hated to bring it up, why did he? Especially when he knew that his commanding officer knew it perfectly well? He almost snapped something about instructive comments made to superiors
It feels like someone somewhere should have realised their mistake and the gig should have been given to someone else.
I don’t think anyone’s brought this up yet, but aside from the pretty regular situations in which to justify T’Pol going scantily clad, Enterprise seemed like the first Trek show since TOS and Captain Kirk showing off his manly man physique that the male members on Enterprise also showed ample amounts of skin. This is especially evident for Archer and Tucker. I believe we’ve got more shirtless goodness coming up in an episode where Archer and Trip are on a desert planet and the Ferengi one where Trip sneaks around this ship in his underwear. I mean it’s not nearly as significant as getting our first regular gay character on Trek but I guess I took what I could get as far as this particular type of fan service went.
If anyone’s interested, here’s a lovely orchestral version of the Enterprise theme, from the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. I found I enjoy the theme far more without the lyrics.
https://youtu.be/iJqwoj96aCE
At last, the first KRAD rewatch I can follow along with from the beginning! Some background: I’ve been a “Star Trek” fan for about 30 years, but the only series I’ve seen in their entirety are TOS, TAS and TNG. I became disillusioned with DS9 and VOY after their first couple of seasons each back in the day; I’d love to watch them from beginning to end now, but don’t have the time or energy. Similarly, although I like ENT a lot, I’ve seen only the first two seasons and part of the third (and even those only after the 2009 film came out). it wasn’t that I disliked the Xindi arc, but it was depressing enough that I didn’t feel as compelled to watch the next episode. I’ve only seen DIS through “Choose Your Pain” (again due to lack of time and energy), I haven’t seen “Lower Decks” at all, and all I’ve seen of “Picard” is the pilot, “Remembrance”, which I loved. I watched the first 15 minutes or so of “Prodigy: Lost & Found” but couldn’t get into it; as with the first time I saw the 2009 film, I had the overwhelming feeling that I wasn’t the target audience.
Even without having seen all of DS9 and VOY, though, I can imagine that I would have felt a slight sense of disappointment at the very beginning of “Broken Bow” if I were watching it in 2001 having followed the other shows faithfully. Although in widescreen and HD, it’s still shot in that slightly dull, worthy style that “Star Trek” had faithfully maintained since 1987, and which would disappear forever (for better or worse) in 2009. ENT should feel different as a prequel, but (as with the “Hobbit” films many years later) one’s first impression is that, cinematographically, at least, it’s a bit too much like the shows that come before/after it.
I agree with @92 that it’s natural for the farmer to have the plasma rifle — in fact, on this viewing it occurred to me that it might be a family heirloom from the Third World War (kept in working order, of course). And responding to @123’s comment about first contact with the Klingons being in the cold open, I do think it was natural showmanship to have a big “prequel” event right at the top of the first episode of the prequel series.
I like the opening theme quite a bit, but my perspective on it is affected by the fact that I first saw the show years after it aired and knew how much fandom (including Simon Pegg!) hated it. So I greeted it immediately with an ironic fondness. In fact, I almost always sing along when I watch an episode. Concerning the title sequence, it’s embarrassing that it includes VentureStar (which ultimately never flew), and it’s deeply unfortunate that it includes Chuck Yeager, who, as is now well known, wouldn’t have thought Travis Mayweather belonged in space. (The writers sometimes seemed to agree with him, but that’s another story.) Why, oh why, couldn’t they have included Gagarin instead?
It’s interesting how some “Star Trek” shows give their captain a bigger first entrance than others. The grandest one, probably, is Picard in “Farpoint” stepping forward into the light after what feels like a continuous push-in from outer space (but actually isn’t; ironically, Pike’s first appearance actually was one, made all the way back in 1965). It’s literally been a lifetime since I saw “Caretaker”, but IIRC Janeway’s head pops up over a piece of equipment Paris is repairing at the prison camp. On the other hand, Kirk Prime is simply “discovered” playing 3D chess with Spock (which, in retrospect, was probably the best possible entrance). “Broken Bow” falls midway between extremes, revealing the adult Archer’s face under the bill of his ball cap as he tilts his head back.
Given that Tucker and adult Archer’s first scene has them in a confined space together without masks, first-time viewers five or ten years from now will probably assume they’re a married couple. However, as the episode proceeds we realize this is simply because Earth has overcome “war, poverty and disease” — a comment that certainly lands differently now than it would have in 2001, at least for First World viewers.
This episode has one of my ten all-time favorite moments in Trek — the end of Phlox’s first scene, when Archer raps on the plexiglass and beckons to him. This is the moment when the captain of the first starship Enterprise recruits the chief medical officer of the first starship Enterprise, and it’s all the more powerful for being so understated. Imagine how McCoy, Crusher or Pulaski would feel if they could see this. (Billingsley’s performance is so good that there’s almost no need to comment on it — he seems to be the one universally beloved element of the series.) Similarly, the moment when Archer plays the Klingon language recording to Hoshi isn’t the first time a human is hearing the language, but it is the first time a human who can fully appreciate it is hearing it.
In the first scene with the transporter, I’ve always hated the line “I mean armory officers and helmsmen.” That’s terribly clunky pilot writing, having the characters tell us who they are. It’s not quite as bad as Pike’s line in “The Cage” about Number One being the most experienced crewmember, but it’s close.
As others have commented, the cameo by James Cromwell as Zefram Cochrane parallels the cameos in previous Trek pilots. (Cromwell’s appearance was, I believe, unannounced before the episode aired, as was DeForest Kelley’s appearance in “Farpoint”.) The scene is, however, interesting for another reason. Although “Broken Bow” is accessible to new viewers, Cromwell’s cameo emphasizes that they are not necessarily ENT’s main target audience. Even though, setting aside time travel and flashback stories, “Broken Bow” is chronologically first of all Trek episodes and movies on the fictional timeline, there have only ever been three Trek episodes made whose primary intended target audience was people who had never seen Trek before at all: “The Cage”, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, and “Lost & Found”.
The breadstick scene demonstrates how brilliant Jolene Blalock was as T’Pol right from the outset, no matter how ignoble the reasons for casting her may have been, especially her delivery of the line, “With the proper discipline, anything’s possible.”
Every time I see the episode I laugh out loud when Hoshi says “Shut up!” to Klaang.
The scene in which the Starfleet characters fail to recognize the name “Rigel” is probably the most embarrassing moment in Star Trek’s history. The first time I saw the episode it was physically painful to watch. It proves that Berman and Braga, long-time writers on one of the world’s most popular sci-fi franchises, didn’t know something known to five-year-old children with even a casual interest in astronomy. This is Orion’s foot we’re talking about; it’s hardly Zubenelgenubi. (IIRC, The Making of Star Trek includes an exchange of memos between Roddenberry and his scientific adviser on “The Cage” script in which the scientist expressed concerns about the believability of using Rigel. Gene answered that he needed to use stars whose names were familiar to the general public!–And this, of course, also shows that Berman and Braga hadn’t read The Making of Star Trek, one of the seminal Trek books.)
The scenes on Rigel X have a nice, faint flavor of Star Wars about them. It’s nice to see Star Trek taking inspiration from a rival franchise without going overboard with it, as the Kelvin timeline movies later would. The VFX and production values throughout the episode are highly impressive in comparison with some of what Trek had done in the past; it’s nice, for example, that they could go to the effort and expense of having it snowing on Rigel X just because it looks cool. (Anyone else ever notice how modern 3D movies almost always have snow scenes?)
Concerning the decon scenes lacking credibility because the characters are wearing underwear — now that we’re supposed to imagine that Kirk’s Enterprise was much more technologically advanced than could be depicted on 60’s TV, maybe we can also imagine that the ENT characters were actually naked in the decon chamber?
@55: There is the reference to the planet “Archer IV” in (ironically, given the episode’s title) “Yesterday’s Enterprise“. As with Hoshi having soba as a child (@47), it’s the “slightest hint”. (Also, of course, there’s the model on the TMP rec deck of a ship intended to be the 22nd-century Enterprise which is not the NX-01, and which ChristopherLBennett retconned in “Ex Machina” as an in-universe mistake.)
@96: On a related note to Chris’ comments about Spock, Roddenberry and Nichelle Nichols actually discussed the fact that Uhura was in command of a whole Communications Department. In the 2009 film, it appears that Spock assigns Uhura to the Enterprise to be one of those lower decks communications people, which is what she’s doing when Kirk finds her while he has numb tongue, after which events escalate in such a way that she has to take over the main communications station on the bridge due to her knowledge of the Romulan dialects. AFAIK, although there were relief communications officers in TOS, the only reference in the Prime Timeline to Uhura having a team of subordinates goes by so quickly that it’s easy to miss. In TMP, when Kirk enters the bridge after being given command and everyone is talking over each other trying to get the ship ready, Uhura has the line, “I’ll get my people on it right away.”
Oddly enough, despite the lack of reference to it, when I watched TOS as a kid I always knew that Uhura was in charge of a whole Communications Department below decks. How, then, did I know this? I think it came through in Nichelle Nichols’ performance.
Comparing “Broken Bow” to the other Trek pilots, I would rank them in the following order from favorite to least favorite (omitting “Second Contact” and “Lost & Found”, of which I’ve seen only part or none): “Emissary”, “The Cage”, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, “Remembrance”, “Broken Bow”, “The Vulcan Hello”, “Beyond the Farthest Star”, “Caretaker”. (To be fair, however, it has been a lifetime, as I said, since I last saw “Caretaker”. This is also true of “Emissary”, but I remember it much more clearly, probably because I read the novelization, which I didn’t for “Caretaker”.) Note “Farpoint”‘s absence from this list: because TNG was always my favorite Trek show, the nostalgia factor of seeing its main characters (and Q! and O’Brien!!) coming together for the first time is so overwhelming that I can’t judge the episode objectively. It may well be a poor pilot, as many fans seem to think; I honestly couldn’t tell you.
@133/Anthony: “Although “Broken Bow” is accessible to new viewers, Cromwell’s cameo emphasizes that they are not necessarily ENT’s main target audience.”
That doesn’t follow. After all, the ideal is to appeal to both newcomers and established fans. An Easter egg should work for both audiences. New viewers are informed by dialogue that Zefram Cochrane was a colleague of Archer’s dad, so they recognize the importance of the scene on that level, while veteran viewers recognize James Cromwell from the movie and have that extra level of appreciation. You want to have more than one target audience, because they add up to a larger total audience. So just because veteran fans were included among the targets doesn’t tell you anything about whether they were meant to be the primary or secondary target. Indeed, it’s counterproductive to force that kind of hierarchical or competitive thinking on the question in the first place. It’s not a race. Everyone should be welcome equally.
@131, I wouldn’t call T’Pol’s catsuits ‘scanty’,just tight. They’re not impractical and I believe she actually says that she wears them because she likes how she looks in them.
@135: By “scantily” I wasn’t referring to the catsuits but the scenes where T’Pol disrobes in the decon chamber and her disrobing for her sensual massage sessions.
@@@@@ 133 – “I agree with @@@@@92 that it’s natural for the farmer to have the plasma rifle — in fact, on this viewing it occurred to me that it might be a family heirloom from the Third World War (kept in working order, of course).”
I suppose it seems natural for Americans, given the well known love of firearms and the Second Amendment. It just seemed a little brutal to me. Are stun weapons not a thing?
“Why, oh why, couldn’t they have included Gagarin instead?”
Seeing as all the scenes from the credits are American, It’s become my head canon that the Americans beat the Russians into space in the Trek universe. We know that there are other differences between it and our own. Why not this?
@@@@@ 135 – “I believe she actually says that she wears them because she likes how she looks in them.”
Which if course, is the writers putting their ideas in the mouth of the character. Sure, that’s what they always do but in this case it’s justifying the sexism. How many other Vulcans do we see ever dressed like that?
@136, yes, the decon scenes seem a little unnecessary to say the least.
@137, it’s obviously the writers excusing themselves but even as a heterosexual woman I got to admit she does look good. Appropriate is another matter.
I found T’Pol’s outfit disappointing because of the obvious fanservice (and I’m a queer woman myself, so it isn’t like I don’t appreciate a good-looking woman)- but also because the Vulcans tend to have really neat outfits, and I was excited to see more of that…. and instead got “Seven and Troi’s catsuit on a new actress.” Pandering and boring. Heck, “Lower Decks” at least came up with something interesting for the crew of the Vulcan ship to wear.
@134/ChristopherLBennett: I see your point. In fact, in the case of “Lost & Found”, I felt like the target audience included both new viewers and longtime Trek fans who had seen every episode of every series. Many of the familiar Star Trek elements in the first 15 minutes that make it feel like a continuation of the same franchise weren’t as familiar to me as a more casual fan. (I barely remembered the Kazon; a Medusan featured in only one previous episode, which I didn’t particularly like and haven’t seen in decades; the Brikar are from the prose fiction — although I’m happy they’re included, as I always am when elements of a franchise’s “Expanded Universe” enter the primary canon). The episode eventually introduces a Starfleet vessel and Hologram Janeway, of course, but I didn’t get that far.
A couple of points I forgot to make in my previous post: I never noticed until this viewing that the actor playing Henry Archer bears a reasonable resemblance to Scott Bakula (as does the kid playing young Archer, to a lesser extent). And I had forgotten the business with Silik insisting on calling Archer “Jon”. I don’t think it works as well as Nero calling Pike “Christopher”, which is one of my favorite things about the 2009 film.
@137: I guess 22nd century farmers use plasma rifles ahead of stunners for the same reason their modern day counterparts are usually depicted as carrying shotguns instead of tasers.
I wonder if 22nd (23rd, 24th) Century Earth has open carry? What exactly are the arms laws in the future? We’ve seen numerous cases where non-Starfleet people are walking around armed. How do they handle cases where you can not only stun someone but kill them and make the body totally disappear?
@142/Mark: There are enough stories about white dudes already.
Concerning the discussion of the TOS theme, it’s interesting to note that a different arrangement of it is played diegetically during a party scene in, IIRC, “The Conscience of the King”. So perhaps it was an actual popular song during the 2260s, a decade in which many aspects of 1960s culture seem to have made a comeback (such as miniskirts and hippies). Also, no one seems to discuss the TAS theme, which is a deeply embarrassing piece of music because it was so obviously composed as a soundalike for the TOS theme (to which TAS didn’t have the rights).
@117/ChristopherLBennett: I’m totally unfamiliar with Battlestar Galactica, but isn’t the overall concept of the franchise that time is cyclical? So maybe Dylan composed “Watchtower” thousands of years before the show takes place, and will compose it again thousands of years later?
@144/Anthony: I happen to be quite fond of the TAS theme. Yes, it’s a pastiche of the TOS theme, but as I’ve said, the TOS theme is itself a pastiche of “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” so there’s nothing wrong with that. And aside from its inspiration, I quite like the orchestration of the TAS theme, the choice of instruments and the blend of sounds. I daresay I like its arrangement better than the TOS theme’s arrangement.
And yes, the BSG remake did have a “cyclical” premise to explain how you could have humans with names like William and Laura and Lee on a distant planet long ago. But the point is not about in-story justifications, the point is about real-world audience acceptance of popular music in works of fiction set in other times. Personally, I was pulled out of the story by the use of “Watchtower” and didn’t think it was a good idea, but plenty of other viewers were able to accept its inclusion as a valid creative choice. That’s not about whether it can be handwaved in-story, because anything can be. It’s about whether you consider it a good idea to include it in a story in the first place. A bad idea that can be handwaved is still a bad idea, precisely because it needs to be handwaved and explained away rather than just working. So the fact that many viewers accepted the idea and didn’t feel it needed to be rationalized goes to show that they weren’t intrinsically opposed to using pop music in a non-modern context.
I don’t have any issue with this theme song, but I think it’s telling that the producers have chosen to go back to orchestral themes for all four Star Trek series since then.
@132/DanteHopkins: Thanks for that. The theme song sounds better in my opinion without the corny lyrics/singing. However, I don’t like this particular arrangement of the instrumental version. It sounds like Muzak you’d hear in the waiting room of your dentist’s office.
I must admit I always thought of Data as the one in that role in TNG.
@152: I believe both Worf and Data had that role as the outsider on TNG.
” … what we see of Earth is made up of a bit too many American white dudes …” – yes, that’s what’s bothering me so much about this. It’s Tom Paris and his father all over again (not the interesting Tom Paris from later on, but the typical white dude from when Voyager was just starting out. The Tom Paris who felt shoved in because – wow, we have a female captain now, so supposedly, our male viewer need a guy with whom they can talk baseball and gals and stuff. Eyes roll.
One other thing I disliked about the Enterprise pilot is how human centric it is. The emotional experience is almost exclusively based on how ‘the other’ learns to like and respect ‘us’ humans.
I’m looking forward to following the series in order during the rewatch, rather than watch it out of order during syndication on SyFy during a long illness. Looking back on it, despite its faults, the series started more coherently than TNG, which didn’t really find its feet until the second season.
As an aside, I was at a Christmas party last Saturday and was chatting up a neighbor I hadn’t met before. Halfway into the conversation somehow the subject of Trek came up and that was all it took for us to disengage from everyone else and go Fanboy and Fangirl for an hour or so. I mentioned this site and thus tewatch, and the first thing she said was Enterprise is the only one of the series she wasn’t able to get through, and she blamed it all on “that damn theme song”, which she said set a crappy tone right at the beginning of every episode. Word, sister
@157/fullyfunctional: “and she blamed it all on “that damn theme song”, which she said set a crappy tone right at the beginning of every episode.”
Hm. A lot of shows have theme music I’m not fond of, but I just mute it or fast-forward through it.
@158. CLB- Yes it is so much easier to do that these days, especially the sites that allow for you to skip the intro all together with a single slick. Sometimes though I will intentionally make time to watch, because I feel like the people who put the show together deserve to be recognized.
I’m the guy who would occasionally make his daughters sit through the end credits of a good movie at the theater just so they could get a sense of, and appreciate, how many people it takes to put it together. I know that when shows get syndicated for networks with commercials there are time constraints, but it always annoys me when they will either shrink the end credits to allow for some promo for new show coming up, or speed through them as if it was at all possible to read them if you wanted to.
@159/fullyfunctional: I hate credit-shrinking on TV, but it’s even more obnoxious on streaming sites, where there’s no reason for it. It’s particularly infuriating on Disney+, which seems to default to shrinking the credits right at the point when the cast list comes up, which is exactly when I want to pause it so I can read the list, but I can’t because it shrinks down before I can click on it. It’s like they’re going out of their way to taunt me. At least Netflix gave up shrinking the credits and gives you the option to watch them normally.
Of course, these days you can usually look up the credits on IMDb and read them at your leisure. But the whole point of including credits on the show itself is so they can be read there.
I’m with you guys about credits. I always sit through them at the theater, and not just in case there are in-credit scenes. All those people took a lot of time and energy to create the film we have just watched and they deserve to have their names seen. And shrinking the credits on TV/Streaming infuriates me.
I’m giving this series a second chance, all these years later (OK, a third chance since I half-watched the first episode once). I will say this. This is the only prequel I can think of in a franchise that gets the technology regression correct. Much as I like SNW, the fact that it’s glossier and more advanced than anything that comes chronologically after shows an extreme lack of imagination. The other Star franchise bungled it too, with all a matter of fancy doohickeys that were gone and forgotten by the events of ANH. (I don’t buy the handwaving that the Empire is in a time of decline so they forgot how to make stuff).
Anyway, that’s what I’ll watch the show for. Bakula is quite awful. As most of the other white homosapiens are bland. And I agree, it’s horribly outmoded (I hope the decontamination scene made at least a few Trekkies gay tho — despite the camera lingering a long time on T’Pol, I was surprised to see the male objectified as well to that degree).