Enterprise, season 1

FOUR-STAR EPISODES: 3
AVERAGE EPISODE RATING: 3.0
-Broken Bow 1&2 ***
Set 100 years before the classic, ENTERPRISE follows the crew of the first deep-space Starfleet vessel. To captain jonathan archer's chagrin, the Enterprise is assigned a vulcan advisor. At the launch, a recording is played by zephram cochrane (james cromwell - THE ARTIST, W.). Their first mission is to return home a wounded klingon (tiny lister - THE FIFTH ELEMENT, JACKIE BROWN - as spot-on as any klingon you'd care to name), after he crashes into an Oklahoma cornfield while being pursued by the suliban, who do the bidding of mysterious masters from the future. Great visuals, humor, and a cast you care about. Even though the rescue they pull off strains credibility, you can get away with that when things go right. The closing credits instrumental version of the theme song is far better than the clunker they finally chose.
-Fight or Flight ***
It hits the perfect note. They find a ship whose murdered crew is being drained of their bodily chemicals. Hoshi freaks out and decides to return to Earth. What is archer's duty? Take Enterprise out of the path of danger...or something more idealistic? T'pol's argument has more merit than you might admit.
-Strange New World ***
Despite t'pol's misgivings, archer sends an away team to an unexplored planet. They become trapped in a cave during a storm, and experience pollen-induced paranoia.
-Unexpected ****
-written by rick berman, brannon braga
-directed by michael vejar
TREK wonderfulness. A cloaked alien ship is discovered piggy-backing in their warp field. Trip repairs their engines, and the realism of the alien ship is exquisite. The complexities of adapting to their atmosphere is also much more realistic than in most sci fi offerings. He develops a friendship with their engineer (julianne christie - BOUNCE, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR), and is accidentally, unsuspectingly impregnated. When they track down the xyrillians again, they're piggy-backing on a klingon battlecruiser.
-Terra Nova **
Enterprise investigates a long-unsolved disaster on Earth's first deep-space colony. Survivors (including erick avari - STARGATE, STARGATE SG-1) exist as pre-industrial subterraneans, and no longer speak english.
-The Andorian Incident ***
At a vulcan sanctuary, archer, t'pol, and trip are captured by aggrieved andorians. The first of ten episodes for jeffrey combs (DEEP SPACE NINE, THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS) as the bristly commander shran.
-Breaking the Ice ***
An away team gets into trouble while exploring a comet. Beautiful visuals. The first time in TREK history a character says "poop".
-Civilization ***
Investigating unusual readings on a pre-industrial planet, archer becomes touchingly involved with a bright local (diane dilascio - ANGIE, DRIVEN). A delightful, classic TREK feel.
-Fortunate Son ***
Aliens attack a freighter. Their crew resists Enterprise's efforts to help, and take justice into their own hands. Charles lucia (THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, TANK GIRL) gives a wonderful, too-brief performance as a captain who must embrace the fact that his way of life is changing. So why won't archer have a goddamned drink with the man?
-Cold Front **
Alien guests are aboard to view a stellar phenomenon. An engine cataclysm is miraculously diverted, and a crewmember with an explanation claims to be from the future.
-Silent Enemy ***
Enterprise is repeatedly attacked by an unknown starship. Everything a four-star episode needs except that fourth star. Remember that drink that archer wouldn't have while on duty? Now he's passing out beers in the engine room.
-Dear Doctor ***
Trying to save a race threatened by disease, phlox discovers troubling truths about the "primitive" race who serve them.
-Shadows of P'Jem ***
T'pol is recalled by the vulcan High Command, because of the destruction of the P'Jem monastery. Investigating the andorian/vulcan conflict on Coridan, she and archer get kidnapped and hog-tied.
-Sleeping Dogs ***
Enterprise tries to rescue a damaged klingon ship sinking into a gas giant. Tight and dangerous, with brilliant visuals.
-Shuttlepod One ***
Tucker and reed are stranded in a damaged shuttlepod with no communications and two days of air, thinking Enterprise has been destroyed. Contentiousness creeps in. A seamless character drama.
-Fusion ***
Robert pine (CHiPs, INDEPENDENCE DAY) is captain of a ship of vulcans who embrace emotion. Sadly, his presence and a plotline involving an engineer (john bland - SPIN CITY, BLOW) whom trip befriends are short-changed, in favor of the main plot, wherein t'pol is mentally assaulted during her first mindmeld. We are NOT impressed with the message that people who stop denying emotion will become carnivores again. It's a shame this one doesn't gel, as there's almost limitless potential in the idea of emotionally-curious vulcans. The fact that there's not a single female vulcan is another dropped ball.
-Rogue Planet ***
Striking visuals for this tale of a sunless planet, where Enterprise meets aliens who may be hunting an advanced life form. Having abandoned hunting on Earth a century earlier while still showing humans eating meat, smacks of a writer wanting to have it both ways...
-Acquisition ***
A loaded lineup (clint howard - APOLLO 13, SPACE RANGERS, ethan philips - VOYAGER, BAD SANTA, and jeffrey combs - DEEP SPACE NINE, DOROTHY AND THE WITCHES OF OZ) very nearly breaks the ferengi lameness curse. They booby trap the crew into unconsciousness. Trip, in decon, is the only one left awake.
-Oasis ***
Tom bergeron (AFV)! Rene auberjonois (DEEP SPACE NINE, THE PATRIOT) is his usual superb self, as an engineer stranded with his daughter (the delightful annie wersching - 24, BRUCE ALMIGHTY) for twenty-two years. He has recreated their entire dead crew, out of holograms.
-Detained ***
Dean stockwell (GALACTICA, THE TONY DANZA SHOW) drops in for a QUANTUM LEAPalooza! He plays the commandant of an internment camp wherein travis and archer accidentally end up. Shades of george takei's childhood. A touch obvious, but a fine tale.
-Vox Sola ***
Visiting aliens leave in a mysterious huff. A gel-like lifeform accidentally left aboard grows and ensnares crew members, who begin to lose their individuality.
-Fallen Hero ***
A vulcan ambassador (fionulla flanagan - WAKING NED DEVINE, THE EWOK ADVENTURE) has been recalled in disgrace, and Enterprise escorts her home. Her enemies pursue, and an Earth ship achieves warp 5 for the first time. The tension is fantastically played out, plus some of the series' most touching archer/t'pol moments.
-Desert Crossing ***
After helping a shuttle in distress, archer and trip accept the planetside hospitality of its captain (clancy brown - HIGHLANDER, STARSHIP TROOPERS). A lacrosse-style game is funny and brilliant. They're suddenly asked to choose sides in a civil war, then face death in a desert.
-Two Days and Two Nights ****
A Risa free-for-all, directed by michael dorn! The crew get much-delayed shore leave, and how so much is packed into one episode is a head-scratcher. Travis contracts a serious infection, and phlox's hibernation cycle must be interrupted. Trip and malcolm pick up some bar hotties...who turn out to be shape-shifting muggers who leave them in their skivvies in a wine cellar (if i had a nickel for every time...). Archer has a tender romance with a woman (the wonderful dey young - FRANKIE AND JOHNNY, THE RUNNING MAN) hiding a malicious secret. Unaware of the mayhem, one crew member gets beautifully laid...our hoshi. Yay.
-Shockwave, pt. 1 ***
A gas explosion apparently caused by the ship's shuttle kills all the inhabitants of a mining colony. Enterprise is recalled in disgrace...