Star Trek Arcs XVI: Duras Prologue

When fans think of arcs in Star Trek: Enterprise they naturally gravitate to the season-long Xindi affair. Feeding into that, however, is a three-episode arc that rounds out the second season, which actually acts as a prequel to events from The Next Generation, previously chronicled here as Part VII: Worf/Empire in this series. The impetus for the Klingon political saga was Duras creating intrigue by claiming Worf’s father had been in collusion with the Romulans.

As it turns out, as it proved true with the son and sisters of Duras, his ancestor, also named Duras, was just as despicable.

Archer had run afoul of the Klingons as early as the first episode of the series, but it wasn’t until “Judgment” that he made an enemy. The episode plays out as a courtroom drama in the style of Rashomon, in which we see the events leading up to the trial from the perspectives of Archer and Duras. There’s a neat subplot involving Archer’s public defender, who helps prove that Klingons need not be considered the enemy for a new generation.

Archer ends up in Rura Penthe (the same prison planet seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which the trial format also evokes), but his faithful crew immediately springs him. But in “Bounty,” he’s recaptured by a Tellarite. Archer once again uses the opportunity to try and make peace with an apparent enemy.

The mini arc concludes in the second season finale, “The Expanse,” which is better known for kicking off the Xindi saga. Duras pursues Archer all the way to Xindi space, ensuring that epic space battles are a part of that story before we even meet a Xindi.

The whole affair is very similar to how the fourth season would be conceived, consisting as it would be almost entirely by two- and three-episode arcs, of which we will focus on an interrelated five episodes’ worth two entries from now.