Tom Salinsky

ENT S04E01 Storm Front (). Oh joy. Nazis. Apart from the fact that our people deserved a win, this feels like a massively stupid and irrelevant twist to suddenly impose upon a series which had haltingly, falteringly, started to figure out what it was for and how it worked. Anyway, maybe now T’Pol will accept that time travel is possible. Enterprise is still being infiltrated by the Acne Squad, who are presumably responsible, so this doesn’t feel much like the start of a whole new version of the show, more like still trying to make bits of the old show work and feel important. New showrunner Manny Coto takes over from here, but clearly had little choice but to do the dopey time travel story he’d been handed by Brannon Braga on his way out the door. He does at least try and write out Daniels, but 45 minutes isn’t enough to unravel all of this, so we’ll have more of the same next time. Ropey plotting here too as Trip and Travis beam down and get captured, essentially swapping places with Archer who escapes capture and beams back on board the ship. That’s not storytelling, it’s just busywork.

Time Magazine referred to “World War II” as early as 1939 so it’s hard to see why Alicia hasn’t heard the phrase before. First episode of Star Trek shot on digital cameras, and it looks absolutely fantastic, I’ll give it that.

ENT S04E02 Storm Front, Part II (). Some nifty compositing shows Hitler in Times Square and sailing past the Statue of Liberty, which is at least an arresting set of images, possibly proving that their might be a few dregs left at the bottom of the Star Trek vs The Nazis barrel. But British character actors doing Allo Allo accents while declaiming at people in rubber heads is still a pretty ludicrous sight, no matter the justification. Meanwhile, Archer attempts to make Alicia feel at home by listing his ship’s casualties at her, which is a pretty weird seduction ploy to say the least. Golden Brooks is a very appealing presence though, and once again gets more and more interesting things to do than many of the regular cast. Silik had formed the idea that Earth people were some kind of hippy peaceniks. Enterprise kicking some Xindi ass set him straight. Trip and Archer, who used up some screen time swapping places last episode, use up more screen time swapping back again this time. I don’t think Manny Coto’s heart was in this one. Still at least the Temporal Cold War is done and dusted now – and all it took was blowing up one not very large building. Who knew it could be so easy?

ENT S04E03 Home (). There’s a parade for the heroes who saved Earth (or seven of them at any rate). Archer knows that twenty-seven people didn’t make it back, but can’t name any of them, natch. We do find time to check in with most of the seven people that apparently did all the actual work. T’Pol is bringing Trip home to meet her mum (science fiction royalty Joanna Cassidy from off of Blade Runner). These Vulcans are still the same touchy, catty, neurotic, paranoid nut-jobs that they have been since Season 1. They fulfil obligations because it makes their parents feel good rather than for any other reason. They preferentially respond to certain “influential” members of their society, rather than judging each person’s arguments on its own merits. Why has Star Trek’s longest established culture suddenly become so hard to write for?

Phlox is disembarking with his private menagerie and hoping not to be the victim of a hate crime, despite Malcolm’s warnings. Presumably Hoshi and Travis have loved ones who are waiting for them too, but, you know, screw those guys. And Archer is helping his old girlfriend with the fit-out of Columbia, and re-opening the debate about whether Starfleet is a military outfit or not. He also has to explain some of his less than ideal ethical choices to a typically acidulous Vulcan tribunal (which feels a bit like the new showrunner marking the old showrunner’s homework). Archer again demonstrates his childish short temper and general unsuitability for the role he’s been given. Some things never change, apparently. Malcolm and Travis waste little time before getting into a bar-fight too.

It’s nice to have some focus on (some of) the characters, and although it’s clumsy, I appreciate the attempt to show what effect the Xindi attack has had on Earth (or on belligerent America males, at any rate). But this isn’t anything like as good as TNG’s Family (which it is obviously cribbed from) and some plotlines are left frustratingly unresolved or underdeveloped. T’Pol gets all the best stuff as usual, and having her go through with marrying her unsuitable boyfriend is a bold note on which to end the episode. Now can we go back to discovering strange new worlds?

While Archer was gone, another World War Three epic swept all the awards.

ENT S04E04 Borderland (). For a show whose very raison d’etre would appear to be connecting Berman-Trek to The Original Series, this final roll of the dice seems to be going back to the TNG well instead, with some very nineties looking Klingons and a guest appearance by none other than Brent Spiner, playing a nutty ancestor of Data’s daddy. In a riff on The Silence of the Lambs, crazy criminal scientist Arik Soong is the only one who can catch the augmented superhumans currently on the loose. Quite why this is Archer and Enterprise’s business is anyone’s guess, as is why Archer in uniform is giving the mission briefing to his six trusted bridge crew all of whom are in civvies. (T’Pol later appears in a skintight purple version of the uniform which cannot be Starfleet standard issue. Why the hell can’t they dress her like the others?)

It used to be the case that Archer’s mission represented humanity’s first few faltering steps outside the solar system. But now Soong, who has been in prison for years, seems to know everything about Klingons, Orion Slave Traders (who are at least part of Kirk’s series) and much else besides, of which Archer is entirely ignorant. That puts Scott Bakula back in tetchy headmaster mode, but this plays off Spiner’s casual insouciance rather well, and having T’Pol and various redshirts kidnapped and sold as slaves is a nice high-stakes twist. I’ve commented before that this is by far the most useless and ill-suited bridge crew we’ve seen, but god, the redshirts are even worse. Only one is featured, T’Pol literally doesn’t know his name and when she finds him, he’s basically wetting himself with fear. Not exactly the right stuff. And just when I was thinking “there’s a lot here to wrap up and not much time left” – it’s to be continued. But at least there aren’t any space Nazis. And there are boy slaves this time, which I guess is some kind of progress (even if the girl slaves are still in silver bikinis). One of the Augments saying “I’m going to attack you,” and still getting the drop on Archer is just the right side of ridiculous. They’re great villains, but they need to stop arguing among themselves (shades of the Xindi).

ENT S04E05 Cold Station 12 (). This is all presumably supposed to tie into the Eugenics Wars / anti-genetic engineering stuff which began in Space Seed and which was a turning point for Dr Bashir’s character in Deep Space Nine (and which played out again in Picard many years later). I don’t really know how much sense any of this makes, but if what I’m being offered is Brent Spiner as a seemingly-benevolent father figure at the head of a race of aggressive superhumans who are hell-bent on the destruction of everything we hold dear, then I’m pretty happy. The Augments are suitably creepy and Aryan and there are some nice nods to sixties NBC looking technology in the set dressing.

Naturally, the superhumans reject the gimpy one who didn’t turn out so awesome, and it’s nice that “Smike” refuses to betray the siblings who turned their backs on him, at least at first. And the prospect of power-mad Soong unleashing an army of genetically-superior murder-brats is a suitably compelling one. About the only thing which this exciting space adventure has in common with the previous three or so years is that Hoshi and Travis have nothing to do. Best scene – Soong vs Richard Riehle’s Dr Lucas vs his own conscience. Cracking stuff.

ENT S04E06 The Augments (). Part three of, I assume, three. This has been fairly thick-eared adventure stuff for the most part, with a shiny guest star executing his evil plan, the heroic captain being square-jawed and heroic, and the brave crew doing whichever job needs doing efficiently and anonymously. But within those limitations, it’s very effective and Archer’s thrilling escape from death is pretty wild stuff. My only qualm is that once again, it will be the villains squabbling among themselves which will prove to be their undoing, more than any brilliant tactical innovations on the parts of our heroes.

I think the hope of the creative team was that the eugenics theme and the vacillation of Brent Spiner’s character would provide some conceptual or emotional ballast, but neither does all that much to anchor this breezy trilogy, which kind of comes down whether our orange glowing ball of pixels will overtake their green glowing ball of pixels. What’s really missing is that Star Trek sense of wonder and optimism, to say nothing of family. We do get a nice scene between T’Pol and Trip (reviewing the former’s choice at the end of Home), but this is still The Captain Jonathan Archer Show and he’s just not all that interesting. However, the renewed sense of confidence is undeniable.

References to Khan, Botany Bay and the Briar Patch feel like slightly pointless Easter Eggs rather than a new stitch in the great Star Trek quilt of history, but I don’t object to them (maybe the Briar Patch just a little).