Enterprise 2x16 "Future Tense"

***

After the first season episode "Cold Front," this is the best episode from Enterprise's Temporal Cold War arc.  It's also the only one not to feature Silik, Daniels, or Future Guy.

That may be why it's so intriguing.  Sometimes the arc could seem like it was only there to tease Archer's role in founding the Federation, especially during the third season (the fourth season dumped the arc almost unceremoniously in the two-part premiere).  "Shockwave," the season finale/premiere that kicked off the second season, was an opportunity to truly exploit something that had been planted in the pilot, "Broken Bow," but instead was a fairly generic affair that didn't truly explore the potential of the big concept of a war waged across time.  That's what made "Cold Front" so intriguing, two agents (Silik and Daniels) dueling with Archer caught in the middle.

"Future Tense" is all about a ship Archer stumbles across and tries to figure out.  Sure, the Suliban appear and duel the Tholians (first franchise appearance since the original series, and a precursor to their later appearance in the fourth season Mirror Universe adventure), but the episode is really about exploring the full potential of the Temporal Cold War, especially as it concerns someone who has no idea what's going on, has been caught in the crossfire several times, and would like to finally get some answers.  That someone would be Archer.  In a sense, "Future Tense" is the last episode you really need to see concerning the arc.  It's the one time everything revolves around decisions Archer himself can make.  Otherwise you might consider "Detained" the other essential byproduct of the arc, in which the Suliban are explored outside the scope of the arc.

Another interesting element of the episode is the body inside the ship.  There's some funny talk about Vulcan-human compatibility, because DNA from both species is found in the body's genes, funny because it seems implausible to these characters, but walks and talks just fine a century later as Spock, not to mention the more sober events from the fourth season.  Archer also speculates before anything is known about it that the body might be that of Zephram Cochrane, whose history in Star Trek is more complicated than merely being the inventor of humanity's warp engine.  In the original series episode "Metamorphosis," the fact of his having gone missing is finally solved, but at the point of Enterprise is still a great mystery, greater still for his being so central to recent human history.  The mating element is an example of the episode being a tad hokey.  The Cochrane element is an example of the episode being clever.  That's the benefit of being a prequel series.  You can have it both ways.

There's also a sequence of repeating time, something that's been done before in Star Trek (the Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect").  It's kept to a minimum but's still another pleasure of the episode.  Good fun over all.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Vaughn Armstrong

Memory Alpha summary.

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Enterprise 2x15 "Cease Fire"

***

Perhaps the most curious development of the second season was that Shran only appeared once.  A big part of what helped spark the first season creatively was his initial appearance in "The Andorian Incident" and then return in "Shadows of P'Jem."  It wasn't just that Andorians returned to the franchise for the first time since the original series, but that Shran was a significant new character (portrayed by a significant guest actor, no less, Jeffrey Combs).

His appearances also provided Enterprise with the kind of light continuity that balanced the expectations of fans who'd grown to enjoy that sort of thing in Deep Space Nine (and other genre shows such as Babylon 5) and what Star Trek fans knew from other incarnations.  By the time of the second season with its new approach, the crew stumbling along on its own in uncharted territory, bringing Shran back was a crucial proposition, especially the manner of which he appeared.  "Cease Fire" is less about Shran, actually, and more about Vulcan-Andorian relations, which was ostensibly what the prior episodes centered on, even though Shran stole both of them.

To see him sort of take a back seat to the interspecies conflict is softened a little by the appearance of another veteran guest actor, Suzie Plakson (please don't make me tell you who she's famous for portraying, because it will only make us both look bad).  The whole episode is filled with familiar faces, actually, something that was rare for the second season, with appearances by Admiral Forrest and Soval as well.  In the first season there wasn't much reason to like Soval.  "Cease Fire" is also notable in that it presents a different side of him as well.

Part of the point of the episode is also that Archer unwittingly stumbles into a role that he's destined to fill, and the timing of it is another indication of the deliberate shape of the season.  The events of the previous season have almost become a distant memory.  The second season to this point had avoided the familiar while making subtle moves at some of the more procedural developments later generations would take for granted.  The relationships Archer previously formed now come back in new and important ways.  Soval doesn't trust him.  Shran does.  To put Archer in the middle of them at the negotiating table puts all of them in a new light.  Archer benefits from being able to provide a fresh perspective.  Soval finds this refreshing, especially since he and every other Vulcan (except T'Pol) finds Archer to be the epitome of humanity, young and naive and hopelessly useless.  "Cease Fire" is the first time he is anything but in their eyes.  And for Shran, it's the first time his relationship with Archer truly proves beneficial.

It's not a monumental moment, like "The Andorian Incident," but it's an episode the second season needed, the series needed, and even the franchise benefited from.  You can skip it, but you won't regret paying attention.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Jeffrey Combs
Gary Graham
Christopher Shea
Vaughn Armstrong
Suzie Plakson

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x14 "Stigma"

****

Paying off from the first season episode "Fusion" as well as touching on real world and fictional topics of great significance, "Stigma" is a standout for any number of reasons.

For one, it's the AIDS episode, which garnered Enterprise a fair amount of publicity at the time, a classic Star Trek social metaphor entry that deals with one of the worst health epidemics of our time.  Formerly one of the things the franchise was best known for, I think awareness and appreciation for it diminished a great deal during the period where fans started to embrace other genre properties and leave Star Trek behind, one of the reasons ratings and interest declined to the point of the first cancellation in forty years.  For that reason alone, "Stigma" is a wonderful reminder of the potential of the franchise to create drama that's not only interesting but topical.

But keeps it grounded in Star Trek, however, is the episode's Vulcan elements.  "Stigma" is a mind meld episode.  In the original series mind melds were synonymous with Spock and by extension all Vulcans.  I think one of the ways Enterprise offended some fans was by suggesting such a strongly established trait of an entire species was not always such a common or accepted practice of its society.  "Stigma" (and the earlier "Fusion") goes so far as to say that the Vulcan mainstream at the time shunned the practice!

So not only is mind melding bad socially but T'Pol has also contracted an illness from it, by the way, and so the episode is about how all of this gets dealt with.  It's strong continuity both for the series and franchise.  If you're still scratching your head about reconciliation of Vulcan society from one era to the next, there's the trilogy of episodes from the fourth season that addresses that, bringing back a more traditional practice of Surak teachings.

I would go so far as to say as Enterprise Vulcan episodes go, "Stigma" may be the essential one.

And that's not even all there is to say about it!  The episode also features a visit from one of Phlox's wives, and so also features the first time we meet another Denobulan.  As a bonus complication, this subplot involves Trip once again stumbling through understanding another culture.  It works as a commentary to other developments in the episode as well as for the character of Trip and a look at Denobulans and and Phlox, who is always great fun to watch.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Michael Ensign

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x13 "Dawn"

**

Similar to the Next Generation episode "The Enemy" (and the non-Star Trek movie Enemy Mine), the basic story of "Dawn" is being stuck with someone you really don't want to, and having to survive something other than each other.

This time around it's Trip who gets to enjoy the experience.  Like "Precious Cargo" he gets to enjoy some quality time with an alien with the Universal Translator unavailable to help them communicate with each other.  Unlike "Precious Cargo," that lasts throughout the episode, y'know, just in case things weren't already complicated enough.

I remember when the episode originally aired that a lot of what I was thinking was that "Dawn" was another Trip episode, that there was a definite different tone to the second season than the first.  In the first season a Trip episode would have meant him sharing his experiences with someone else.  Even in "Unexpected" only half the episode was spent on the alien ship where he got impregnated (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you may need to see the episode to really understand what I'm talking about).  Somehow both "Cargo" and "Dawn" leave him on his own to deal with a tricky alien contact situation.

(Of course, he makes that his own problem in the later "Cogenitor.")

It's not hard to see this one-two punch as a large part of the reason Trip started to really stand out for me.  It's rare for a character to end up on their own in Star Trek, and even more rare for it to happen several times in a single season.  (I'm not talking about Quark in Deep Space Nine, mind you.  He normally existed in his own bubble, hence the infamous Ferengi episodes.)  It was an indication to me that the creators of Enterprise had themselves marked Trip out as an unusually strong character, someone they could write into any scenario and need few crutches to support him.  And he really was that strong.

I wouldn't go so far as to say you absolutely need to watch this particular episode to understand his appeal, but you wouldn't go wrong to enjoy it.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Gregg Henry

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x12 "The Catwalk"

*

This could have been one of the real standouts of the season.  The crew is forced into an isolated area of the ship in order to survive the trip through an ion storm.  Forced into a confined space, they have nothing but themselves to talk about.  I would have been fine with that for an entire episode.  I realize that not everyone has the same taste I do.  "The Catwalk" dutifully inserts some aliens who seek the same shelter, and who turn out to have a great deal more complication beyond that.  To me, that ruins the episode.

Well, it always has in the past.  Perhaps there is some redemption to the story.  There are ripples to the complications these aliens cause.  They have their secrets.  Bad things happen.  What really happened?  If "Catwalk" is redeemed beyond my original estimation, it may lie within the answer to that.  You may find your own evaluation affected by such answers.

Me, I would have been perfectly fine just letting the crew fill out the episode.  That's all I wanted.  When it became clear that "Catwalk" had other things on its mind, my own checked out.  I used to think the episode was a missed opportunity, even one of those missteps fans kept saying the season and series were filled with.

Well, I'll keep the rating simply as a recommendation for series completists.  There could be more here.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x11 "Precious Cargo"

**

I'll make no bones that Charles "Trip" Tucker is my favorite character from Enterprise, and one of my favorites from the whole Star Trek franchise.  He might have initially seemed like a new incarnation of the good ol' country boy archetype originally embodied by Leonard "Bones" McCoy (thus creating very difficult shoes to fill), but he quickly evolved into his own.  His best seasons were the third and fourth, but Trip had notable moments throughout the series.  He didn't really start to assert himself in the second until this episode, and he never really let go after that.

"Precious Cargo" is in many ways a fairly familiar experience.  Kirk ran into damsels in distress seemingly every episode.  Picard had his moment in "The Perfect Mate" (which this one links to).  On that score, even if you're not as wild about Trip as I am, if you like Star Trek you'll find something you'll recognize.

Yet with Trip it's hard to gloss over his upside.  If there's a character who will be able to foul up contact with another species, you can count on him to make the best of it, even if things don't always turn out so well.  Here everything ends up just fine.  Not without a certain amount of hiccups, though.

There's a nice parallel arc for Archer and T'Pol as they attempt to shake another alien for information, with Archer again using his new bluffing skills.  He's grown more confident in the second season.  He doesn't know that it will get more difficult yet.  So this is a fine moment to enjoy a transition that's going in a different direction than he assumes.

Back to Trip.  The eponymous cargo is a princess.  Part of the fun of the episode is how the Universal Translator doesn't work immediately (a running gag for Trip that continues in "Dawn"), which forces a character who already makes plenty of blunders on his own stumble along for the first few beats.  And the princess ends up having an attitude.

Part of the fun of the episode is that it serves as a reminder that the alien worlds in Star Trek don't always revolve on the familiar things we know.  Too often if anyone knows anyone else, they're all connected in expected ways.  In later incarnations that usually means the Federation.  If we know anyone who makes a lasting impression, they're a military figure.  Here they're a princess, who thought everyone would know about her family.  That's the way it'd be with us.  Surely you haven't already forgotten the marriage of William & Kate?  Sometimes I wish the franchise would acknowledge stuff like this more often.  It happened all the time in the original series, but the original series was relentlessly episodic.  Most times the things you learned one week meant absolutely nothing the next.  It doesn't really count.  But then, that's why Enterprise was such a good idea, connecting some of the more abstract ideas to the more interrelated reality of later incarnations.  All those Andorian appearances was just the most obvious example.

Let's get back to Trip again.  It's kind of funny that each of his starring vehicles this season were episodes that thrust him into a situation he thought he wouldn't get in the first season, "Unexpected" not considered.  It explains a lot about his character.  He could usually get what he wanted.  The problem was dealing with the results.  In "Precious Cargo" things turn out okay.  If the series had lasted for more than four seasons, one imagines that this is one of the several episodes that might've eventually seen a follow-up.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Padma Lakshmi

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x10 "Vanishing Point"

**

"Vanishing Point" is the Hoshi Sato moment of the season.  Early in the series she was the character who was most uncomfortable entering into an ongoing space assignment.  She was the one who panicked.  (That's what "Fight or Flight" is all about!)  Yet she was also the linguist, the predecessor to the more vivid imagining of Uhura in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.  Without her it would have been a lot harder for Archer and his crew to communicate with aliens.  In the second season, notably the Trip-centric episodes "Precious Cargo" and "Dawn," Hoshi is no longer the center of that particular aspect of the series.

Instead we get this episode.  It's ostensibly an extension of the skittishness the crew feels about transporter technology, which even when taken for granted in other incarnations of the franchise from time periods later along the scale could cause panic (the accident in The Motion Picture, Barclay's adventures in "Realm of Fear"), though not quite to the point where it was a problem for Archer's gang.

Hoshi faces her continued inability to feel completely comfortable in a scenario that's straight out of a nightmare, stemming from a forced trip through the transporter that ends up making her fade away, her colleagues increasingly unable to hear or see her.

To the extent that it all seems a little perfunctory (like Reed, Hoshi can sometimes seem a little uninspired, even one-dimensional, and while this is an interesting episode it doesn't say anything new about her, which again proves that the writers had other characters on the brain this season), it still mostly works.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x9 "Singularity"

**

Episodes in which personality traits become exaggerated are a Star Trek staple, beginning with the classic "Naked Time" in which Sulu famously fences on the bridge.

Still, there's something about "Singularity" that makes it a uniquely Enterprise episode.  Other than how everything spirals out of control, there's worth to long-term viewers to watching Reed refine techniques that would eventually become the Red Alert alarm, Archer working on the preface to a biography of his father, even Trip's tinkering with the captain's chair.

The show often featured smaller moments with developments of this kind, so building an entire episode around them is a welcome change of pace.  Sometimes when an ensemble story becomes an episodic story (as in "The Catwalk"), the results can be jarring.  By the end of "Singularity" each of the characters has reached an appropriate point in the beats that were already developing before they went out of control, bringing it full-circle.  You can watch it either way and derive equal enjoyment.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x8 "The Communicator"

**

Harking to mind the classic episode "A Piece of the Action" insofar as concerns over the effects of contaminating a culture by leaving something behind on a visit to a developing world.

In this instance, the pollutant in question is in the title, naturally.

In a lot of ways, this is another Malcolm Reed episode.  Reed, along with Phlox, probably received the most attention outside of the Big Three (Archer, T'Pol, Trip) during the second season.  In this one, he's once again fretting over something.  It seems when he isn't concentrated on improving ship's weapons, Reed is always fretting over something.  Call it a character hallmark.  You can certainly watch "The Communicator" to enjoy Reed fretting (it's very similar to the fretting in "Minefield," though less existential).

It may be better to watch the episode for how it helps the season to continue tracking the more unexpected developments of deep(ish) space exploration, things our crew didn't anticipate during its first year (though there were plenty of complications then, too).  What the second season did best was explore the finer details, and the crew's reactions to them.

In this instance, it's about accidentally leaving a valuable piece of technology behind.  Reed frets, of course, and Archer calculates.  He calculates a lot of thoughts throughout the season.  The most (in)famous example is "A Night in Sickbay," in which he weighs the value of diplomatic tact.  In "The Communicator" he decides what cultural contamination is worth versus the lies he's willing to tell.  It's the first but not the last time this season he does this (another notable example would be "Canamar").  This is unique territory.  In Voyager Janeway was mindful of upholding Starfleet protocols.  In Enterprise those protocols don't exist, and Starfleet neither doesn't, either.  It's pretty similar to Kirk's famous bluffs (corbomite, anyone?), but ably demonstrates Archer's increasing ability to think on his feet.  Earlier in the series, he was more prone to self-doubt, perhaps something Vulcans saw in all of humanity at the time.

This one was designed to make most of these points, and it hit them pretty well.

And so yeah, you can see this as an Archer episode just as easily as a Reed episode.  I'll let you decide how much importance you want to place on such details.  Basically an entertaining and useful episode for the series and enjoyable for veteran fans.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x7 "The Seventh"

****

"The Seventh" is an episode I've grappled with since it originally aired back in 2002.  It seemed like such an anomaly at the time, and for many years later.

Yet what I now believe is that it keenly, and perhaps even singularly, captures the spirit of the entire second season of Enterprise, which in many ways has always been misunderstood and still remains the most neglected season of the most neglected Star Trek.

So what do I mean by all that?  For one thing, it's a spotlight episode on T'Pol.  The second season notably spent much of its time trying to get at the heart of the show's Big Three characters, Archer, Trip, and T'Pol.  T'Pol's most famous episode of the season is "Stigma," while the earlier "Carbon Creek" stands out in its own right.  "The Seventh" bridges both episodes in unique fashion, and may even help pave the way for her character arc in the third season.

It's also very similar to the Deep Space Nine episode "Necessary Evil," which was not only a highlight for the characters Odo and Kira, but for the series and franchise as a whole.  I suspect part of what made "The Seventh" such a problem for me was the unconscious connections I was making that stubbornly refused to surface.  Perhaps other fans didn't have such problems.  Perhaps they saw the episode as just another knockoff for a series that seemed to borrow at no creative inspiration much of what the franchise had already done.

Yet from the very first episode I appreciated the way Enterprise used its unique perspective to provide commentary on everything Star Trek had accomplished to that point.  It was a logical successor to a series (Voyager) that attempted to do something similar, following a crew that knew everything the fans did, but was cut off from everything familiar (mostly).  Enterprise, to rephrase the series, followed a crew that knew nothing but was surrounded by things the fans were familiar with (mostly).  How it used this familiarity seemed to become a contentious matter of debate.

The second season of the series, then, provides a lot of opportunities to figure out the true success rate of the approach.  The first season was about the crew figuring out if it could survive its mission.  The second was about how the crew reacts to the more regular rigors of the experience, now that they have a taste.  They think they know a thing or two.  In most cases they're proven wrong.

"The Seventh" explores this in interesting ways.  T'Pol's past, for instance, proves more interesting than we expected.  Her presence in the series, often scaled down to comments about physical attributes, was a unique one, and perhaps never more unique than this season.  In this particular episode, her attitude speaks volumes.  She's a Vulcan who represses her emotions in obvious ways.  She refrains from making the comments she's thinking, she holds back, she's discreet, she makes pithy remarks, she gives telling looks.  With Spock he was always direct, and let others feel the emotion of his presence.  With Tuvok he was always succinct to the point of being curt, believing he was always right.  T'Pol was demure.  She was the first long-term female Vulcan in franchise history.  Was she so different from her male counterparts?

During the second season she's continually confronted with the cost of deciding to remain with Archer's crew.  In "Carbon Creek" she demonstrates that she's making the transition well.  "The Seventh" is the first indication that it isn't as easy as it seems.  She's withdrawing into a shell, and only reluctantly admits that she needs Archer's help because she trusts him.  Why doesn't she have anyone else to trust?  Other episodes reveal such answers.  Here she simply seeks to cope with an intolerable decision, a prior posting that has come back to haunt her.

The title refers to a group of Vulcan agents who turned renegade, and the number of them T'Pol was assigned to bring back home.  Her failure with the final members of the group is explored, as well as its effects, which turn out to be at least as complicated as her attempt in the present to finish the job.

You can follow the episode for the storyline alone, but you'd be missing out on the subtle character work that elevates it beyond the material.  That's the strength of T'Pol herself, even if she may be at her most vulnerable.  Yes, she has some rough things happen to her at other points in the series, but this is a secret pain that she lives with for longer than any of them.  It's not hard to see how this may inform everything else about her.

Why does it initially seem like such a random and almost pointlessly generic episode?  Because you need to be paying attention.  You need to make these connections for yourself.  Much of the second season is like that.  You need to know why things are happening in order to appreciate it.  If you look at it from a cynical perspective, you'll end up with a series that ends after just two more season, which is exactly what happened.  If you look at "The Seventh" as the essential character piece that it is, the whole season opens up, and you see the greater strengths of the rest of the series.

So, watch this one, and watch T'Pol closely.  You'll be rewarded.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Bruce Davison

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x6 "Marauders"

*

"Marauders" is a really awesome episode, if by "awesome" you take it to mean harking back to the original series when Starfleet and the Klingons were in constant competition.

Starting with the third movie (Search for Spock), the Klingons became more traditional villains in Star Trek. In Next Generation they joined the mainstream with the presence of Worf in the regular cast, in a Starfleet uniform.  In Deep Space Nine there was a war, but not the one everyone remembers.  The Klingons were staunch allies in that war.  In Voyager there was another Klingon (only half, though) in the cast, but at least this one used to belong to a rival of the Federation.

Finally in Enterprise the Klingons went full-circle.  They were rivals again.  They didn't know a human from a Bajoran.  Archer immediately proved how much of a pest he could be in the first episode, keeping a Klingon alive and bringing him home, forcing the Empire to try and be grateful.  It wasn't.  By the second season, we see how little gratitude these warriors really felt.  "Marauders" is the lightest of the encounters from the season.  It is exactly what the Klingons were doing in the original series.  This time there aren't any magical beings forcing anyone to get along (which happened in both notably similar episodes from Kirk's time).  It's just Archer coming across a planet that's gotten a rare deal, and Klingons who come knocking only to end up with a surprise.

It's a wonder that Kirk never did something like that.

Well, there are other episodes later in the season where the full arc of Archer's relations with the Klingons is explored.  This one is another opportunity for the series simply to update us on stuff we've seen before, and it's a clever one at that.  Best to be enjoyed in this fashion.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

The Nineties Blogfest

Dave Wrote This Nineties Blogfest, which naturally I will convert into a Star Trek nostalgia event...

1990
Star Trek happening this year: second half of Next Generation third season; first half of same series fourth season

Best episode this year: "Yesterday's Enterprise," originally aired 2/19/90

There were a lot of good episodes to choose from, including both halves of "The Best of Both Worlds," "The Defector" (the first episode to air this year), "Sarek," "Deja Q," "Hollow Pursuits," "Family"..."Yesterday's Enterprise" is the one where the Enterprise-C, the immediate predecessor to Picard's ship in a rich lineage that also includes ones commanded by Archer and Kirk (and...Harriman), is displaced in time, creating an alternate reality where Tasha Yar is still alive, Guinan is the only one to know the difference, and reconciliation means one of these facts will no longer be the case.

1991
Star Trek happening this year: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; second half of Next Generation fourth season; first half of same series fifth season

Best episode this year: "The Drumhead," originally aired 4/29/91

With a movie in the mix, it's always a little tricky, and Undiscovered Country is a definite highlight of the film series.  Other noteworthy episodes include "The Wounded," "Qpid," "Darmok," "Ensign Ro," and the two-part episodes "Redemption" and "Unification," which featured Spock making an appearance to promote the film.  "The Drumhead," however, is the multifaceted  payoff to the lasting effects of Picard's assimilation by the Borg, with an ambitious judge attempting to create a conspiracy where none exists and causing all manner of mischief in the process.  One of Patrick Stewart's best if underrated performances.

1992
Star Trek happening this year: second half of Next Generation fifth season; first half of same series sixth season

Best episode this year: "The Inner Light," originally aired 6/1/92

Other highlights include "Conundrum," "Cause and Effect," "The First Duty," "Relics," "A Fistful of Datas," and the two-part episodes "Time's Arrow" and "Chain of Command."  "The Inner Light" is a bona fide classic in the form of "Yesterday's Enterprise," so I don't need to explain too much of my selection process.  This is the one where Picard is zapped by a passing probe and ends up living the memories of a man in the last decades of his world, finding a family and the things that are truly important.

1993
Star Trek happening this year: first season of Deep Space Nine; second half of Next Generation sixth season; first half DS9 second season; first half TNG seventh season

Best episode this year: "Duet," originally aired 6/13/93

With fifty-four episodes broadcast during 1993 spread across two series and four different seasons, this was a busy year.  "Duet" beat out "Tapestry," "Necessary Evil," and a lot of others for this honor.  It's the standout first-season DS9 episode in which Major Kira is forced to figure out that not all Cardassians are as evil as she and every other Bajoran might have concluded after the brutal Occupation.  The one featured in "Duet" actually attempts to take on a considerable amount of the blame for all that misery.

1994
Star Trek happening this year: Star Trek Generations; second half of Next Generation seventh season; second half of Deep Space Nine second season; first half of same series third season

Best episode this year: "The Search," originally aired 9/26-10/3/94

The final episode of TNG, "All Good Things...," is included in this somewhat less cluttered bunch, as well as the cast crossover film Generations, which features the death of Kirk, as well DS9 in its only period airing alone, the start of its third season in the second half of the year.  "The Search" is a two-part opening to that season, introducing the new Starfleet combat ship Defiant and finally answering the riddle of Odo's origins, which means we meet the Founders, which means meeting the Dominion, which means the first beats of what would later unfold into an all-out war arc that covers the final two seasons of the series.

1995
Star Trek happening this year: second half of Deep Space Nine third season; first season of Voyager; first half of DS9 fourth season; first half of VOY second season

Best episode this year: "The Visitor," originally aired 10/9/95

Compared to the last time there were four seasons airing during the same year, there's *fewer* episodes calling for attention, "only" fifty-three.  With Voyager launching in much the same fashion as Deep Space Nine two years earlier, that means a smaller first season.  Some highlights from the year: Past Tense," "Caretaker," "Prophet Motive," "Eye of the Needle," "State of Flux," "Through the Looking Glass," "Heroes and Demons," "Explorers," "Jetrel," "Learning Curve," "The 37's," "The Way of the Warrior," "Maneuvers," "Resistance," "Our Man Bashir"...(yes, it was a very good year).  "The Visitor" stands out, though.  It sits at the top of my list of the best episodes of the whole franchise, actually.  It's the one where Sisko becomes unstuck from time, and his son Jake concocts an elaborate scheme to get him back.  He's an old man when we first see him, receiving the eponymous guest (or is that Sisko?), and telling his last greatest story about that scheme.

1996
Star Trek happening this year: Star Trek: First Contact; second half of Deep Space Nine fourth season; second half of Voyager second season; first half of DS9 fifth season; first half of VOY third season

Best episode this year: "Death Wish," originally aired 2/19/96; First Contact

Out of the two winners this year, first place would go to First Contact, one of the best Star Trek films ever, depicting the Borg's return invasion and subsequent trip back in time to try and prevent humanity's first warp journey, which provokes great emotion from Picard (and one of Patrick Stewart's acknowledged best performances).  "Death Wish," meanwhile, features another return, this time from Q, but in Voyager, where he finds himself in the uncomfortable position of defending a Continuum that has turned its back on him in the past in an elaborate examination of suicide.  There are a lot of other noteworthy episodes, but Star Trek's thirtieth anniversary is perhaps best reflected in the tribute episodes "Trials and Tribble-ations" and "Flashback."

1997
Star Trek happening this year: second half of Deep Space Nine fifth season; second half of Voyager third season; first half of DS9 sixth season; first half of VOY fourth season

Best episode this year: "Distant Origin," originally aired 4/30/97

Things happening during this period: the introduction to Voyager of Borg babe Seven of Nine, "Year of Hell," the start of that Dominion War I referenced earlier, the marriage of Worf and Jadzia Dax, discovering Bashir's genetic alterations...Big stuff.  Yet the best episode of the year is perhaps the best purely episodic episode of the entire franchise, "Distant Origin," in which Voyager's intrepid first officer Chakotay stumbles into an alien scientist's quest to prove an unpopular theory.  Most of the episode ignores standard Star Trek perspective by tracking the scientist's efforts directly and only sparingly what Chakotay's crewmates are up to, and the tragic ending pushes the boundaries of everything the franchise stands for.

1998
Star Trek happening this year: Star Trek: Insurrection; second half of Deep Space Nine sixth season; second half of Voyager fourth season; first half of DS9 seventh season; first half of VOY fifth season

Best episode this year: "Far Beyond the Stars," originally aired 2/11/98

The final of four films made this decade was released, but few would be willing to argue that Insurrection was the best Star Trek of 1998, regardless of how they feel about Deep Space Nine or Voyager.  "Waltz," "Message in a Bottle," "The Killing Game," "Inquisition," "In the Pale Moonlight," "Living Witness," "Extreme Risk," "Timeless," "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River," "The Siege of AR-558," and "It's Only a Paper Moon" were all broadcast this year, but "Far Beyond the Stars" stands head and shoulders above them.  It's the one where Sisko is given a vision by the Prophets to start believing in himself again after the horrors of the Dominion War start to wear on them.  It's also an allegory of the racial prejudices that haunted black Americans in the 20th century, since that's what shape the vision takes, and a chance to see DS9 actors usually buried under mounds of rubber facial prosthetic as they otherwise look.

1999
Star Trek happening this year: second half of Deep Space Nine seventh season; second half of Voyager fifth season; first half of same series sixth season

Best episode this year: "Latent Image," originally aired 1/20/99

Deep Space Nine came to an end with an epic ten-episode arc that culminated in "What You Leave Behind," while Voyager had its share of highlights including "Dark Frontier," "11:59," "Equinox" (both parts), "Barge of the Dead," and "Pathfinder," but "Latent Image" stole the show.  It's The Doctor's finest hour, and this holographic grump was one of the franchise's best characters.  In it, his program has a difficult time reconciling an otherwise routine decision to save the life of one patient over another, which forces his most dramatic growth as an individual and the crew's acceptance of that status from an artificial lifeform, the show's answer to Next Generation's "Measure of a Man."  It's a fine way to close a busy decade for Star Trek.

Enterprise 2x5 "A Night in Sickbay"

****

Nominated for a Hugo, the most viewed episode of the season, and highly polarizing, "A Night in Sickbay" is an episode that at worst is hard to ignore.

For simplicity's sake, it's known as the Porthos episode.  Porthos was Archer's pet beagle, beloved by all, except when featured in his own episode.  The Kreetassans, previously seen in the first season episode "Vox Sola, put Archer through the diplomatic wringer when they become offended at his in.advertant insults and force him to jump through hoops in order to make amends.  If that's not bad enough, Porthos is another unwitting victim and undertakes the eponymous situation under the care of Phlox.

Of course, it can't be left that easy.  Archer spends most of the night there, too, and because even that would be too easy, he spends a great deal of that time obsessing over his relationship with T'Pol.  The Vulcan science officer was the subject of a quasi love triangle with the captain and Trip, though things never progressed that smoothly for any of them.  The third season saw the most complicated developments, notably in "Twilight," an alternate timeline episode that sees Archer and T'Pol grow old together (and yes, that's a great deal more complicated, too) while the Vulcan and Trip...well, that's not something that ends smoothly.

Anyway, the point is that "Sickbay" is easily the most involved look at the mechanics of the mission probably from the whole series.  Fans who like to be ornery will find it ridiculous, but its nuances are what those fans deride.  They're exactly the kind who consider Jar Jar Binks to be offensive, which is like saying anything remotely foreign must surely be a joke, which is itself offensive.

Basically "Sickbay" is considered character assassination by these fans.  They consider Archer to be a buffoon in the episode.  They apparently don't consider a good humbling to be, well, a good thing.  It's half of what the Kreetassans have been asking for since their last appearance, and most of what T'Pol and the rest of the Vulcans have been saying since the start of the series, that Starfleet needs to take a more sober approach to its mission.  I understand that sometimes it's just more fun to watch lessons being learned while space battles take place, but that's just not going to happen all the time.  Enterprise did a surprising number of episodes where such lessons had to be learned the hard way, with a large piece of pie.  In that sense, "Sickbay" is no different from "Dear Doctor" from the first season.  Watch both of these and you'll understand exactly what I mean.

This is an episode that squarely fits in the "Threshold" tradition, a Voyager episode that a lot of fans consider to be among the worst of the franchise, but is so notable that half the reaction also indicates how hard it is to ignore.  That will only happen if there's something worth watching.  And much of later Star Trek is governed by fans who hated what they watched, but watched anyway.  Yes, that's the "Spock's Brain" effect.  As early as the last season of the original season, fans were started to decide standout episodes were not universally a good thing.  How odd it is...

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Vaughn Armstrong

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x4 "Dead Stop"

*

This was a warmly received episode in its original airing, so you know that it's probably atypically approachable.  It was seldom like that for Enterprise.

There are some nice points of continuity in "Dead Stop," tying directly into the preceding "Minefield" as the ship is in desperate need of repair.  Beyond that, however, it's an episode best enjoyed for its own merits, a standard yet thoroughly entertaining yarn about a mystery repair station that appears exactly when needed and seems to have everything the crew needs.

Of course there's a catch.  The catch is better in this episode than in the later "Catwalk," so I do feel bad suggesting it has limited appeal, but that's the beauty of my ranking system.  It doesn't suggest that an episode that takes only one of the four possible suggestion points as unworthy of your attention.  In fact, there's always wiggle room.  This one's good to watch if you're simply a fan of the typical Star Trek adventure, weird adventures in space, but don't assume that you can just as easily skip it.  As I said, it won over the original cynics, so it has its merits.  Sometimes the most common experience can fire on all cylinders creatively, even if it's not strictly essential for any one element.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Roxann Dawson (voice)

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x3 "Minefield"

***

Malcolm Reed is the rare Star Trek character who tries to remain as private as possible.  That's most of what "Minefield" is all about.  That and the Romulan booby traps.

A recurring element of the series and the character throughout Enterprise's four seasons is trying to unscramble the riddle of the weapons officer.  In the previous season Reed formed a reluctant bond with Trip Tucker in the standout "Shuttlepod One."  Part of "Minefield" plays out like a version of that episode with Archer replacing his engineer buddy.  A lot of the second season has the show's characters exploring their own reactions to the unfolding mission of the ship, a contrast to the way relationships formed in the first season and were crucial to the third.  Reed's continued standoffishness is a testament to this theme, and is an important part of the unfolding season, which mostly sticks to standalone episodes, the only season of the series to do so.

Yet it's this episode that begins Enterprise's truncated flirtation with the Romulans, which has its brightest moments in the fourth season.  Franchise fans knew that there were rules the show needed to follow in order to maintain continuity, and "Minefield" is one of the more clever instances where continuity is maintained while the show still gets to do something interesting with established features of the Star Trek landscape.  It helps immensely that the episode balances the danger of the Romulan munitions with the one character who will be able to properly appreciate them, except in these circumstances.

What I'm trying to say is, "Minefield" makes no bones about what exactly is happening and that the Romulans are definitely involved.  Sometimes Enterprise wasn't so good articulating these points.  Yet because of the limitations of Romulan availability to take an active role in the plot, we instead focus on Reed, and how he needed to be rescued from being literally pinned by a mine to the hull of the ship.  Only at this point in the Star Trek television experience could an episode feature a situation like this, though the series pulled them off very sparingly.

Reed is still pretty much a cold fish by the end of the episode.  He's a character that risks alienating the audience as much as his colleagues, so it's a little tricky building an episode like this around him.  It works as much as it can, and to the extent that you end up caring for him.  Strangely, I think he's more sympathetic in other episodes, even though this is the worst situation he ever finds himself in.  For that reason, I cannot rate this otherwise standout episode to the full measure, but opinions may differ.  I do genuinely like Reed as a character, however, so I have little trouble recommending "Minefield."  There's always the Romulans.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x2 "Carbon Creek"

**

In a lot of ways, "Carbon Creek" is the "City on the Edge of Forever" of Enterprise.

Okay, call me crazy if you must, but hear me out.  When you strip the mystique and the Guardian of Forever from "Edge of Forever," it's basically an episode about traveling into the past and wondering what kind of impact you might have on the timeline.  "Creek" strips away one gimmick for another, having it be contemporary Vulcans visiting the past by way of T'Pol telling Archer and Trip a story.

It's worth noting that although I'm not terribly wild about "Creek," there do seem to be fans who are.  "Edge of Forever," naturally, is a classic.  It's practically the classic of classics, what many fans consider may be the single episode the whole franchise could pin its entire reputation on.

It's also a pretty thin story, once you strip away its bells and whistles, and that's where "Creek" has the edge.  Aside from the tragedy of Kirk having to sacrifice some broad he just met, the real achievement in "Edge of Forever" is how all the elements come together into a nifty package that makes you thinks and leaves you in awe.  "Creek" isn't quite to that level, but it may be a more satisfying experience.

T'Pol's ancestor (who conveniently looks exactly like T'Pol) is part of an expedition that accidentally gets marooned on Earth circa mid-20th century.  Not wanting to pollute the indigenous population with knowledge Vulcans are still going to keep guarded many years later even when humans are fully aware of them (oh, the ironies), the group attempts to assimilate into the culture, settle in like Vulcans always do, hiding their ears and whatnot (the way Spock does in "Edge of Forever"!), building ordinary lives in the belief they may be there awhile.

That's what the episode spends most of its time doing.  It's a T'Pol episode that doesn't technically feature T'Pol, a fairly bold choice for a young series.  It's also a rare chance to see Enterprise feature Vulcans who aren't suppressing rage over human illogic.

That whole storytelling thing, though, is a pretty important part of "Creek" as well.  It's reciprocated by Archer later in the season (the excellent "First Flight"), and what's more, allows T'Pol to relax and warm into her ongoing stay with humans, marking a better developing point in the mission than the preceding "Shockwave."  I'd go ahead and mark it as a full-out T'Pol episode if it featured her more directly.  Suffice to say, though, no matter how I rate it, "Creek" is worth the visit.

Of course, now that I've gone ahead and compared it to a classic, you may start behaving like some Enterprise Vulcans and suppress some rage of your own...

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
J. Paul Boehmer

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 2x1 "Shockwave, Part 2"

*

I love Enterprise.  I quickly became one of its biggest fans and defenders, necessitated by the fact that a lot of fans weren't so keen on it or Star Trek in general at the time.  As time has passed, little has changed about my attitudes concerning the show except possibly in one crucial area.  The Temporal Cold War.

Part of this may be my growing disappointment at how the series abandoned the arc unceremoniously at the start of its fourth and final season, leaving its resolution in a cloud of ambiguity.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I still find the concept to be fascinating, and there is much to recommend it.  Yet its importance and specifically how its use is now reflected years after the fact becomes more problematic the more perspective I try to gain on the series as a whole.  The biggest victim of this changing attitude is the second season premiere, "Shockwave, Part 2."

Following the first season finale, in which the Suliban, agents of the shadowy Future Guy, attempt to sabotage Archer's mission and provoke the Vulcans into withdrawing their crucial support after a disastrous incident at a mining colony, Daniels has whisked Archer away in an attempt to salvage a contaminated timeline.  The problem is that the changes his foes have wrought leave Daniels in a future that has been completely altered.  (Yes, the Temporal Cold War may as a whole be compared to the exceedingly clever two-part Voyager episode "Year of Hell," and it's this episode that makes it most clear.)  

While the crew of the Enterprise attempt to combat invading Suliban forces, Daniels and Archer attempt to get past their bad break, which is made easier by the fact that Daniels was studying time travel when he was in grade school.  It all leads to Archer getting back to his own time and essentially overlooking the dire developments of the previous episode.  

So yes, "Shockwave" attempts to play both ends of the Enterprise story at that point, the Temporal Cold War and Archer's destiny to lead a successful mission and help found the Federation (you know that's his fate because Daniels can't seem to avoid saying so every time he appears).  The problem making an episode like this so early in the series is that it trivializes everything.  Not only is there a distinct lack of consequences, but it also proves how easily the Temporal Cold War can be resolved, no matter how grim the circumstances can get.  It's a far more interesting concept when used by proxy, as the series figures out in later episodes and indeed whole arcs, except when the creators decide to listen to the fans who probably only had "Shockwave" in mind when they decided the whole thing was a giant waste of time.

Daniels is a great character, but he's done no favors in this one.  Silik is similar interesting, except in this one. Seeing a pattern?

"Shockwave," and specifically this part of the story, is a moment that was incredibly important at the time, but its significance is weakened when compared to other developments, especially the speedy resolution.  When an overriding high-concept arc can find any kind of resolution in what most other incarnations of Star Trek had routinely done in season finale and premiere two-part episodes, there's a problem.  It's the "Descent" problem, the story that began Next Generation's final season, where the Borg have been completely neutered.  It would be like Deep Space Nine attempting to resolve Sisko's role as the Emissary in anything but the final episode.

That's why I'm extremely reluctant to recommend "Shockwave" as anything but an episode you might want to watch as part of the series as a whole.  It could so easily have been something of greater significance.  But it's just an extremely awkward moment, a rare moment of true miscalculation for a show that was far better than most fans were willing to admit.  Now that some of them are softening those views, it's important to recognize that there were indeed some problems, and "Shockwave" was one of them.  But don't let this one episode color everything in its mediocre shade.  It's an exception.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Gary Graham
Vaughn Armstrong
Matt Winston
John Fleck
James Horan

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x22 "These Are the Voyages..."

****

The final episode of Enterprise has weathered its fair share of criticism for the decision to prominently feature Riker, Troi, and the scenario of the Next Generation episode "The Pegasus."  Some of the less generous observers have even called it the worst episode of the series.

I've always loved "These Are the Voyages..."  For one, it puts a big spotlight on the show's best character, Trip Tucker.  (In Pocket Books continuity, criticism of the episode reaches the point of nullifying his death in the episode.  Oh, um SPOILER ALERT.)  That alone puts a smile on my face.  I love the structure.  I love that after his death, we receive what is arguably Trip's definitive scene, and speech.  I love that he's munching on a carrot during this scene.

I love that Shran is also a featured element of the episode.  I always loved Shran, too, thought he was one of the show's strongest and most distinguished elements.  Set six years after the events of the Terra Prime Dulogy (the preceding episodes), "Voyages" is all about shipping Archer to the big moment of actually getting to give the commencement speech to the Federation.  Complications arise.  Shran, for example, has seen better days.  (Oh, how rich it would have been to see that arc, Archer rising while Shran's fortunes fall.)  He's gotten into trouble and is looking to rescue his daughter from some thugs.  Archer agrees to help.  Things turn out well, except Trip sacrifices himself so Archer can survive the decision to help Shran.

All of this technically plays out on the holodeck, as Riker attempts to make his decision to rat on Terry O'Quinn, with a little encouragement from Troi (Data makes a vocal cameo as well).  The critics would have you believe that this is embarrassing, that the final episode of Enterprise is stolen by another series.  I would say instead that it's a remarkable tribute.

Being a prequel series, it was always hard to establish the connections other shows were able to accomplish on a regular basis, even Voyager (and not just with Q, mind you).  It was set a hundred years before everything else.  Having familiar actors appear is one thing, but having familiar characters show up is like an acknowledgement that this new Trek was a worthy endeavor.  Who would argue that the point of "Sarek" was anything else?

And besides, Riker using Archer's crew as a source of support (via Troi's suggestion, though she never accessed the program herself, another notable detail) is a direct show of support for the series.  That it features Next Generation characters and sets is also a way of supporting another Star Trek.  Until this point, the only nostalgic trip to another series was the original one ("Relics," Trials and Tribble-ations," "Flashback").  But Next Generation, despite the harsh failure of Nemesis was at one point the reason anyone cared about Star Trek.

The producers said at the time that they viewed "Voyages" as a finale to not only Enterprise but that phase of the franchise as a whole.  Kirk, Archer, and Picard can all be heard proclaiming the old mission statement in the closing moments of the episode.  And yet, short of trying to shoe-horn every cast into the episode, choosing to spotlight one other cast in some way was absolutely necessary to that goal.  And Next Generation made perfect sense.

And beyond that, Riker was always a charming and welcome presence, and Troi had already proven her crossover appeal in Voyager.  That I have things to say about the episode other than their presence proves that they did not, after all, dominate it.

Trip did that.  He dominated the whole series, even though his role was carefully balanced with T'Pol and Archer, who was the captain of the ship.  Trip did it effortlessly, from the very start, even when he became pregnant in the fourth episode of the series, a story that would have destroyed any other character.  That's how strong he was.  "Voyages" serves as a testament to him, and to the series as a whole.  Sure, Archer was important in the grand sense.  But Trip was what defined the series, held all the characters together.  And this was a series about character.

Ignore what you've heard.  This one's essential.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Jeffrey Combs
Jonathan Frakes
Marina Sirtis
Brent Spiner (voice)

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x21 "Terra Prime"

****

The conclusion of a short arc that finally acknowledges that not every human was as excited about interstellar communities as the crew of the Enterprise, "Terra Prime" is one of the essential episodes of the series and franchise.

Mayweather's old flame from "Demons" turns into a knotty piece of the mess John Frederick Paxton has made, which Reed's Section 31 connection Harris helps untangle.  But the crux of the episode involves the last best statement on Trip and T'Pol's relationship.

Something that'd been in development since the first season, when Trip formeda crush on the Vulcan officer, and intensified by the bond they shared in the tumultuous third season, Paxton unwittingly brings it to a close by choosing them to demonstrate the extremes of his belief that humans and aliens can't truly get along because they can't mate.  (Well, Spock would beg to differ.)  His machincations result in a baby that dies prematurely.  The aftermath is crushing, one of the most purely emotional moments in franchise history (only Kirk losing both his friend and his son compare).

The episode has a fair bit of action, too, and developments that resonate with the rest of the season and series, including Archer delivering a speech many believe was shockingly missing from the finale, but the presence of that one moment elevates everything, ensuring the Terra Prime Duology a place among Star Trek classics.

Seriously, watch this one.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Gary Graham
Peter Weller
Eric Pierpont
Derek Magyar

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x20 "Demons"

****

Another must-see episode that the series absolutely had to do, and part of the Terra Prime Duology that many fans believed made a better finale than the actual one.

After all the work done during the season building the foundation of the Federation, we finally return to the ugly xenophobia suggested in "Home" (which might be considered the real season premiere), which was in part suggested by the Xindi crisis from the previous season.  So yes, there's a lot of material to support the developments of this story, but it also begs the question of whether or not Enterprise should have had more of it.

A character by the name of Colonel Green referenced in the original series episode "The Savage Curtain," is partly the inspiration for the story, in which his ideological successor John Frederick Paxton takes the reins and ups the ante by involving Trip and T'Pol, just in case they haven't been on enough of a violent emotional roller coaster this season.  Meanwhile Reed is compelled to use his Section 31 contacts, and Mayweather runs into an old girlfriend (which becomes more relevant next episode).

Maybe none of that sounds enticing enough, but the second act makes the whole thing stronger, so stick around...

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Peter Weller
Tom Bergeron
Eric Pierpont

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x19 "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part 2"

****

The brilliance that was the first part of the Mirror Duology concludes (just in case the title of the episode doesn't explain that already).

In what is essentially a celebration of everything that made the series what it was while having as much fun with franchise lore as possible, Archer and several other members of his Mirror Universe crew don Kirk-era uniforms and battle the rebels who are trying to thwart his plans of seizing control of the Terran Empire, including T'Pol, Soval, and Phlox (this scenario is also ironic, given the events of the Terra Prime Duology that follows).

We see a CGI Gorn this episode (following a CGI Tholian in the previous entry), but the real thrill is watching Archer truly enjoy himself, and how the episode quickly centers itself around Hoshi (making this her lone spotlight of the season, though very welcome) in its conclusion.

It's all ridiculously clever.  One of the more inspired elements is the alternate opening credits for both episodes, which feature an evil version of the clips that are normally featured, and a new theme!

Not without exaggeration, but if the Mirror Duology had occurred earlier in the season, or series, fans might have finally acknowledged the effort put into Enterprise and rewarded it by, y'know, watching.

Absolutely essential.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Gregory Itzen
Gary Graham
Derek Magyar

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x18 "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part 1"

****

The hot streak known as the final episode of the series begins!

Rarely does any episode of any series, Star Trek or otherwise, beg to have more episodes written about the same story.  I'm not talking about an arc that will by definition have more stories attached, but an episode like, say, "Mirror, Mirror," the original series episode that famously introduced the Mirror Universe, the alternate reality where everything is flip-flopped.  Deep Space Nine eventually took that ball and ran with it for five additional adventures.

The Mirror Duology brings us back.  Except it does so in such an intriguing way that it essentially duplicates the "Mirror, Mirror" effect in more ways than the obvious.  It's fair to say that how the Mirror Universe happened in the first place is at least as intriguing a topic as how Klingons lost their ridges (answered in the preceding Klingon Duology).  Enterprise decided on something extremely clever, depicted in the opening moments of this episode.

Remember First Contact, in which we learn that Vulcan's were humanity's initial encounter with aliens?  In this version of those events (borrowing just enough actual footage from the movie to make it work), Cochrane extends a gun rather than his hand, thus establishing an entirely different relationship between the two species than the one we've known.  That leads to the Empire, rather than the Federation.  (And to think Archer spent a long time resenting Vulcans for not letting humans take whatever they wanted!)

The rest of the episode features the familiar crew, plus a welcome return from Forrest, killed off in his regular life earlier in the season.  The crux of the story revolves around discovery of the original series Defiant, subject of the episode "The Tholian Web," the presence of which drastically affects the balance of power, or so Evil Archer would love to believe.  A lot of it harks back to "Mirror, Mirror" itself, especially in this installment.

But it is absolutely essential.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Vaughn Armstrong

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x17 "Bound"

*

Of interest to lovers of green people everywhere!

Okay, so this is the Orion Slave Girl episode.  The Orions previously appeared in the original series (via Orion Slaves Girls), and popped up earlier in the fourth season during the Augments Trilogy, but this is the attempt to turn the Orions into Enterprise's next Andorian project, explaining more about a culture that stood out a long time ago but hadn't been seen since.

You learn, basically, that those Slave Girls are actually in control of their husky males.  A matriarchy of hookers.  Who would've guessed?  (Other than Barney Stinson.)

There's token attention paid to Trip and T'Pol's complicated relationship, but that's basically what this one is about.  Whether or not you find this as another excuse for Star Trek to feature scantily clad females is entirely up to you.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x16 "Divergence"

***

Continuing the Klingon Duology from "Affliction," this is indeed the story that finally explains the smooth- versus ridge-headed mystery that popped up between the original series and every other incarnation of Star Trek.

Phlox gets more interesting stuff to do as he is forced desperately to solve a problem that would have made the consequences of the Klingons becoming obsessed with the Augments from earlier in the season, but again his thunder is stolen by Reed's reluctant involvement with Section 31 (as the shadowy Jack Bauers of Deep Space Nine fame) and a thrilling Speed-like action sequence wherein Trip comes back to the Enterprise as it connects to the Columbia at Warp 5 so they can undo Klingon sabotage.

That sequence absolutely steals the episode.  It's one of the most exciting moments in any Star Trek episode or movie (perhaps yet another indication of just how desperate the series had gotten to win viewers back, which...didn't happen).

I would almost, almost give the episode the full-recommendation treatment based on that alone.  The historic value of the Klingon Duology also makes it worth viewing...but again, I really wish Phlox had been given better material, and he's technically at the center of events.  The fact that Reed and Trip steal the episode from Klingons crewing up their genetics and metaphorically going bald is what makes it easy to say, "Close, but no cigar."

Still, if you're game, definitely watch.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
John Schuck
James Avery
Ada Maris
Eric Pierpont

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x15 "Affliction"

***

On the surface, this Klingon Duology is of immense importance to the franchise thanks to finally explaining why Klingons were smooth-headed in the original series but ridged in later incarnations (y'know, aside from the obvious).

"Affliction" kicks off the two-part story by tying into events depicted in the Augments Trilogy from earlier in the season, explaining rather handily that the Klingons were embarrassed by their brief encounter with genetically enhanced humans, and so pursued their own version of the program, creating Klingon Augments. Or trying really hard to.

They need Phlox to do it.  That makes the Klingon Duology in name the Phlox story of the season.  Except there's not a lot that makes it a Phlox story other than the fact that it technically features everyone's favorite Denobulan.  That's mainly what brings both episodes in the story down a peg in my book, because it's disappointing, given that Phlox was a favorite character of mine and previously one of the best-used characters in the series.

There's other character work in the episode, though, and if roles had been reversed, could easily have boasted both efforts to full-recommendation status.  The first is Tucker's transfer to the Columbia, under the command of Hernandez, previously featured in "Home."  Aside from another great bit of continuity from the season, the development ties directly into Trip and T'Pol's constantly troubled relationship (that's the whole reason why he's no longer, at this point, engineer of the Enterprise, leaving the unimpressive Kelby to fill his boots).

And Reed receives perhaps some of his best material as a previous association with Section 31 (the covert ops group first seen in Deep Space Nine) proves to be an exceedingly uncomfortable conflict of interest.

In the past I've had a hard time digesting these episodes.  There's just so much going on in them, a trend that works better in a later duology.  But it's hard to deny their extreme importance.  "Affliction" continues the fourth season ball rolling in very unusual but rewarding fashion.  If only Phlox had had a more significant part!

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Ada Maris
Eric Pierpont
Derek Magyer
James Avery
John Schuck
Seth MacFarlane

Memory Alpha summary.

Characters in Star Trek

The fans of Star Trek know and have studied a lot of things about the franchise, but I think another look at the characters that've populated its five casts can still break new ground.

Star Trek
(the original series, animated series, the first seven films, and the 2009 reboot)
Starting things off with the first cast and the one that's still the most famous, we have three obviously very prominent main characters in James T. Kirk, Spock, and Leonard "Bones" McCoy.  There's little dispute that these guys received the bulk of the material, very consistently.  Spock is the only character to appear in both the original pilot ("The Cage") and the subsequent Kirk adventures that followed.  While the style of the original episodes is different from the rest of the franchise, in that very rarely was a story built around a character so much as the characters experienced events (though these episodes heavily populate later incarnations as well), with notable exceptions like "Amok Time," the three seasons of the original series plainly utilized memorable personalities in each of the characters, who were all good friends (a point that might need reminding between Spock and McCoy).  Scotty was always the fourth lead, after all being a "miracle worker" who was the direct conduit to the starship Enterprise's inner workings.  Sulu, Chekov and Uhura each had memorable parts to play as well, with Chekov coming in fifth, Sulu sixth and Uhura seventh as far as overall importance goes.  Nothing much changed in the animated series, and by the start of the movies, some of the smaller parts started to expand a little.  Sulu was meant to have his first command in the second film (only George Takei and his supporters will ever be able to properly explain the injustice of William Shatner's implicit veto of that call), but got it in the sixth.  Kirk had a prominent part in the seventh movie, with Chekov and Scotty tagging along for a brief moment.  I think only in the 2009 reboot did the best dynamics truly work themselves out.  Kirk and Spock were left in the spotlight, McCoy stole all of his scenes, Uhura took fourth lead, Scotty fifth (small demotion!), with Chekov and Sulu picking up scraps.

The Next Generation
(including four films)
Launched in much the same vein as the original series, the new batch of characters were nonetheless on fairly equal footing aside from Jean-Luc Picard and Data.  As the series progressed, other characters grew in prominence, notably Worf, though everyone had a chance to shine in some capacity, with a rough breakdown of Riker in fourth, Troi in fifth, La Forge in sixth, Beverly Crusher in seventh, Wesley Crusher in eighth (if he'd stayed on longer than he did, the rank would be higher), Pulaski in ninth, Yar in tenth (she left because of this treatment, by the way).  While Data and Worf received the bulk of personal growth, Picard had a few key moments, notably everything that followed his assimilation by the Borg, including the film First Contact, and Riker and Troi finally completed Star Trek's first successful romance in Nemesis.  On the whole, however, characters remained secondary to their adventures.

Deep Space Nine
Famously the Star Trek with the most in-depth look at its own landscape, including an abundance of supporting characters, this series had a rough start in that regard, though the ones that received the most treatment early on remained the ones who got the most consistent treatment later: Kira Nerys, Odo, and Quark.  Sisko had a strong early push in the first episode, and a strong later push, but it took until the third season for anyone to truly know what to do with him.  It still puts him in a comfortable fourth place, the lowest rank for a captain so far.  In fifth and sixth come Bashir and Dax (including both incarnations), who were both portrayed as young characters early on with much to learn, even if one of them didn't want to admit it (Dax learned better in the second season).  O'Brien was the steady rock DS9 stole from Next Generation, and probably wouldn't begrudge seventh in such a strong cast.  Most of his development was learning to be comfortable in his new setting, and by the end of it, he happily left the station (anyone else ever note the irony of that?).  Jake Sisko comes in ninth for being used sparingly, but still ahead of Worf in tenth, who never truly seemed comfortable.  I could then list the thousands of other characters, and probably start with Dukat in eleventh, Garak in twelfth, Winn in thirteenth, Nog in fourteenth...You see how many characters there were? And they were all important to the story, because the characters were the story.

Voyager
Repeatedly knocked by its vocal detractors as nothing but a poor man's Next Generation, that's extremely hard to defend when you look at it from the vantage point of its characters, who consistently behaved a lot more like Deep Space Nine's.  In fact, Voyager was exactly like DS9 in a starship setting.  The characters were king.  Kathryn Janeway especially.  From the first episode it was clear that she was in command.  The divisions behind her get a little complicated.  Seven of Nine, introduced in the fourth season, will always vie with the subject of one of her most complicated relationships, the Emergency Medical Hologram ("The Doctor" to his friends) for second.  Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres similarly, appropriately, battle for the next spot.  Neelix takes the one after that.  Chakotay, Harry, and Kes fight over the remaining spots.  You see how it's tricky?  Things were always changing on this show.  Chakotay was indisputably in the second spot early on, but in the third season his role became a clear supporting one, as the series began to use the original series approach.  Kes was sporadically important, but left after the third season.  Harry was very clearly a classic Sulu/Chekov/Uhura figure, but he had bigger moments than they've ever gotten.  The characters almost always defined the nature of the problems face in any given episode, even if by definition couldn't have their own stories told, given that home was a long way off.  Seven and Chakotay cheated this rule on a few occasions, and so will always have special designations (and not just because one of them used to be a Borg!), while Kes lived it but didn't get to properly finish her journey (though examining what she actually did accomplish will always be fascinating).  The final episode focuses, naturally, on Janeway.

Enterprise
Taking things that were learned on Deep Space Nine and Voyager and applying it to the original series formula, the most recent new cast was led very deliberately by a trio of characters: Jonathan Archer, Charles "Trip Tucker III, and T'Pol.  Phlox would come in fourth, Reed in fifth, Hoshi in sixth, Mayweather in seventh (Shran in eighth! Soval in ninth! Daniels in tenth! Silik in eleventh! Forrest in twelfth!).  Yes, Mayweather was very clearly cut from the Sulu/Uhura model, but like Harry Kim received a lot more spotlight moments, coming from a mindset that more closely resembles Kira than Chekov.  It's unfortunate that so many fans chose to overlook this about the show, because characters were probably the most important in this series, out of all the incarnations of Star Trek.  They defined exactly what was supposed to be happening, just as in DS9, and they were always in control of the story, even when they were simply reacting to events around them, even moreso than Janeway.  It wasn't just the endless times Archer was said to be helping found the Federation, but how he conducted himself as he did it, the decisions he made, or how T'Pol pioneered friendly Vulcan-human relations (which to the show's credit fits entirely in line with the lack of progress a hundred years later when Spock is still the lone Vulcan in Starfleet), or how Trip embodied real human vulnerability and potential.

For me, how Star Trek uses its characters has always been essential to its success, no matter how it was done.  The grand adventures, big ideas, and alien cultures are fine, but they would mean nothing if I had no connection to them, and that connection comes from the characters.  From James T. Kirk to Charles "Trip" Tucker, the connection has remained strong, even if it hasn't always been possible to give every character their due.  The ones that connect do so strongly, and that has always been the case.  The role of overall characterization has changed and expanded over the years, become ever more integral to each new series and incarnation, and it's important to acknowledge that fact.  It's only fitting that one of the characters who started it all was such a standout element of the 2009 film.  After all, what would Star Trek be without Spock?  And that's really all you need to know.