I did
this review some years ago:
1-01-02 Broken Bow
Reviewed by Kevin Thomas Riley
When
Star Trek: Enterprise premiered in 2001 it was met with equal portions of apprehension and excitement. First of all, it was just called
Enterprise, with no "Star Trek" in the title, and was said to be "not your father's Trek". Well, it didn't quite turn out that way and it was early on met with much scorn from die-hard old-timers. I for one never really got why that was the case. I mostly enjoyed the first season even if it in hindsight could've been better and stayed much truer to its prequel concept. For me it wasn't until the second season it got boring over a prolonged stretch of episodes. While the show in the beginning didn't really deliver on its promises and expectations it was nevertheless a good show. It wasn't like
Star Trek: Voyager that never was that consistently good. To me
Enterprise was refreshing and what it sometimes lacked in plot and stories it made up for in characters, something
Voyager never managed to do.
With
Broken Bow Enterprise started off in a great fashion. Compared with all other modern Trek pilots this is easily the best of the bunch. It manages to tell and exciting story and at the same time introduces us to the characters in an appealing way. Right of the bat I came to like and care for most of them. It was the characters on
Enterprise that made me stay even when the show made a downturn in season two (well, that and spoilers for the upcoming season). The crew of the Enterprise seemed real to me in a way the other Trek crews haven't. That's probably because they're much more like you and me, closer to us in time than the more utopian crews of the 24th century. It is much easier to identify with this crew, and even with the resident aliens.
So already from the onset
Enterprise found its tone and style. It's a more down-to-earth (pardon the pun) show, grittier and more realistic. It is set some 90 years after Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight (as depicted in the movie
Star Trek: First Contact) and after almost a century under Vulcan patronage the humans are finally embarking on their first really independent deep space mission. Untried we're going to make many mistakes but eventually learn from them in order to take our rightful place in the galaxy. The Vulcans have serious apprehensions about that, since they don't believe we're ready for it.
One of the things
Enterprise was (and still is) criticized for is the portrayal of the Vulcans, which didn't seem to mesh with the perception gotten from earlier (but time-wise later) Treks. In
Enterprise they were deliberately made arrogant, condescending and over-protective. In short, the Vulcans were assholes and not the noble creatures some fans expected them to be. Ignoring the fact that the later Vulcans never were that saintly, I must say I really liked that the
Enterprise Vulcans were different. It made for great drama and we got some very exciting and excellent episodes from it. Given how they were portrayed it is no wonder that humans feel a lot of resentment towards their "guardians", and none more so than Captain Jonathan Archer, whose engineering father had been hindered by them in the development of the first human Warp 5 engine. The flashback scenes with Henry Archer and a young Jonathan were good and you could see where our new Captain was coming from. "Don't be afraid of the wind!" And I very much liked the grumpy Vulcan ambassador Soval (or "Pointy" as young Jon called him), who'd turn out to be my favourite recurring character on the show.
Anyway, the show begins as the experimental vessel NX-01 Enterprise is about to embark on its first mission (oh, I loved how Cochrane was the first to utter the famous phrase "to boldly go…"). Klaang, a stranded and injured Klingon gives the Earth Starfleet the excuse it needs to set aside protests from the Vulcans and launch ahead of schedule. Transporting Klaang back to his homeworld seems easy enough if it weren't for the Suliban, a new and creepy-looking race that has been bio-engineered. I liked the Suliban, they were sufficiently new and different from other Trek aliens and I am sorry that they never got the development I would have wished for in the series. But for the pilot they worked well. And Silik was a great villain.
Another concept that looked intriguing at first was that of the "Temporal Cold War". It turns out a mysterious person from the future (dubbed "Future Guy" by the fans) are controlling a group of Sulibans named the Cabal. Different factions from the future are fighting with each other in the past in order advance their agendas and now Future Guy's faction for some reason wants to start a civil war among the Klingons. But the injured Klaang is carrying information that will thwart the effort and he must thus be stopped from reaching his homeworld. This is where Archer & Co comes in and gets the attention of Future Guy and his Suliban operatives.
Over the course of the series the Temporal Cold War became a huge mess and the show's creators have admitted that they hadn't planned ahead about how to tell that story, let alone the true identity of Future Guy, which is a pity. Time travelling stories can very quickly turn messy and incomprehensible and if you don't iron things out in advance it will make little sense. However, in the pilot and some episodes after that, it worked even if one must question the wisdom of introducing the concept so early on. One thing that it reinforces though, is the notion that this time period, a decade before the founding of the Federation, is so important that it gets so much attention from the temporal factions of the future. But in hindsight I'd wish the show's creators had skipped this and concentrated on other more tangible prequelian concepts. Personally I'm quite weary with time travel stories (especially on Trek) and think there's a lot of other interesting stuff to be told, particularly in this era. So even if there's never any real resolve to the Temporal Cold War I'm glad they started steering away from it later on when they obviously had no idea what to do with it.
I really like the ship, the NX-01. I love the dark and cramped "submarine" feel it has. Critics have said that it looks too advanced for its era but I cannot agree there. The visual style of the original series, which is set a century later, is more sleek and clean and it's no stretch of the imagination to see vessels develop into looking like that. Kirk's Enterprise sure has a certain sixties feel to it but at least to me it looks futuristic enough (cardboard notwithstanding) to be a credible successor to the NX-01. Besides, design styles change too, not just technology. This also goes for critics that argue that the NX-01 looks too much like the 24th century Akira class. I have to admit that I had no idea what an Akira class vessel looked like when I first started watching
Enterprise so that one never bothered me. Suffice to say is that I find the NX-01 exterior aesthetically pleasing. Who knows, why couldn't the legendary NX-01 class have inspired ship designers of the later 24th century? Besides, there are only so many designs you can make if you want to keep the saucer/nacelles concept. And don't start with the "Daedalus" class! That ball-and-cylinder design looks butt ugly and I'm so glad they didn't go with that one.
As mentioned above I came to like (most of) the characters on this show. At first it did have an ensemble feel to it, but as the series went on it developed more into the Big Three show, which was a pity. I don't mind that the biggest focus is on the major characters - it worked well enough for Kirk, Spock and McCoy on the original series - but I don't see why that has to mean that the minor characters take the backseat. In the pilot and early episodes we did see that the entire cast had potential. We have Travis Mayweather - the young helmsman from a family of Boomers, human freighters that lived all their lives in deep space. We have Hoshi Sato - the very talented linguist, needed before the era of perfect universal translators. We have Armoury Officer Malcolm Reed - the stuck up Brit with trigger-happy fingers. We have the alien Doctor Phlox - a Denobulan with a taste for alternative medicine and his menagerie of animals, not to mention his quirky smile ("Optimism, Captain!"). They all had great dynamic and the potential to tell interesting stories. And they felt real and they were all likable.
But lets focus on the Big Three. First we have the Captain, Jonathan Archer. I have to admit that he turned out to be one of my less favourite characters on the show. For me I've always liked Trek not because of but despite its Captains and Archer unfortunately was no exception. Aside from Kirk (who still could be overbearing at times) no one has really measured up. I came to find Archer petulant, bigoted, often rude and incompetent. It is all very well to have characters with flaws, especially since this is an earlier Trek era were humanity indeed has many flaws, but common sense is common sense no matter the time period and the writers didn't do him any favours by depicting him like they did. Inconsistent portrayal was another big fault. When his alleged "super" qualities were shoved at the viewer they didn't mesh with what he been seen to be previously. Thankfully, for most of the time in the pilot Archer came off good, even if his resentment towards the Vulcans (if understandable) was a bit over the top.
Second we have Sub-Commander T'Pol, the Vulcan Science Officer, who for many reasons was to become my favourite character (and not just because of her extremely tasty looks). She's forced onboard as an observer/chaperon by the Vulcans for this first mission but decides to stay afterwards, a feat no other Vulcan has managed, despite the availability of nasal numbing agents. T'Pol changes
a lot over the seasons but even from the start it is obvious she's not your garden-variety stoic stiff Vulcan. Her emotions aren't quite as in check as perhaps they should (but then again, even Soval raised his voice in the pilot). I rather like this idea of a flawed Vulcan, even if "flawed" might be the wrong term. There's no reason to think that all Vulcans should be the same. They're individuals too and frankly I think T'Pol's version of a Vulcan is much more interesting than, say, Tuvok was on
Voyager. Being the first Vulcan to serve with humans for lengthier periods must also mean you're more tolerant and receptive of other points of view. While T'Pol keeps spouting the Vulcan party line she is nevertheless forced to concede that her, and the Vulcans, view of humans aren't as cut and dried as she first suspected. It is a give and take. She must overcome her prejudices towards humans and likewise, her fellow human crewmates must overcome theirs. It is interesting to note that on at least two occasions in the pilot she does that and goes along with what at first would seem like "reckless human actions". First she agrees to go ahead with the mission to retrieve the captured Klaang after Archer has been incapacitated and she's assumed command. Then in the end she goes along with an attempt to rescue Archer from the Suliban helix. Both of those times she was swayed by Trip, the cocky Southern Chief Engineer.
And thus we come to Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III, also a favourite character of mine, and it seems for a majority of fans as well, and that's not surprising. Trip is certainly very relatable. He has an easy going and down-to-earth personality and is very likeable. Despite his Southern drawl he doesn't come off as a hick. He's actually very intelligent; probably one of the most gifted engineers in Starfleet so it's no wonder Archer picked his old friend for Chief Engineer. Perhaps unfortunately he also picked up on Archer's disdain for Vulcans but with him it's not so deeply rooted.
Trip nevertheless challenges T'Pol from the start. I just loved the way those two bicker and fight. From the start those characters had some great chemistry and it is easy to see that this was inevitably going to lead somewhere down the road. Challenging each other and overcoming differences would be the hallmark of the Trip/T'Pol relationship. While it took them many seasons (and a lot of misdirection and angst) to eventually come together, for me at least it was evident from the start where they were heading, right from the first non-handshake. Show creators Berman and Braga also admit this in their DVD commentary. Before
Enterprise I was certainly never a part of the sub-set of Trek fandom that is called 'shippers but I unexpectedly got caught hook, line and sinker with Trip and T'Pol from the very beginning. I have no idea how it happened, it just did. But whenever they graced the screen the chemistry just oozed and I got excited. I've always found the "opposites attract" thing appealing and fun to watch and an emotional human Chief Engineer and a cool logical Vulcan Science Officer would be the very definition of that. That's not to say that they haven't things in common. They're both "geeky" scientists, if from different starting points, and that makes them work well together, as when T'Pol helps to modify the sensors in order for them to track down the Suliban ship in the pilot.
I would be amiss if I didn't mention the infamous decon scene in this context. The interaction between Trip and T'Pol in the pilot would certainly have worked well without it. It wasn't seeing those two attractive characters rubbing decontamination gel on their semi-naked bodies that made me think "whoa, now those are going to end up together"! The scene has however, I must admit, grown on me over time. I recognize that it was a blatant attempt at titillation and I remember thinking "what the hell are they doing" when I first saw it. At least in this regard
Enterprise wasn't my father's Trek. While miniskirts, catsuits and skimpy outfits never had been a stranger to Star Trek this was taking it to new levels. Anyway, the contrasts are big. We have Trip and T'Pol talking about some serious stuff about whether to abort the mission or not but unless you focus on that it gets lost under the lights in the decon chamber. It is interesting to note, however, that while they both have a heated argument they can hardly keep their hands off each other. Both Trip and T'Pol, while sharing some apprehension about the other species, are very curious about the other too. So besides the titillation factor I do think that was the other thing that scene tried to convey. Neither of them is prepared to dismiss the other off hand. And in the end T'Pol decided to go along with the mission. Or maybe I'm just trying to give too much credit to this controversial scene?
I have some minor nitpicks with the pilot. There's the "Rigel" thing that they unfortunately inherited from earlier Treks. I'm surprised Archer never heard of it since Rigel (Beta Orionis) is one of the most well known stars in the sky. Unfortunately it isn't very suitable for having a life-bearing planet (let alone ten) since it's a hot blue super giant that is extremely young. So chances of life to ever have evolved in that system are pretty much non-existent, and since it's in the process of burning out fast none will come. But stars in science fiction and stars in reality have never made much sense. I just wish they writers weren't so lazy about it since it's fairly easy to gather the astronomical facts.
Then there's the location of Kronos, the Klingon homeworld. All of a sudden it is not that far away since it doesn't take the NX-01 that long to reach it (and this in an era with much slower warp speeds). A big error on the writers' part. Why couldn't Archer have delivered Klaang to some outpost or something? Even in the original series we never got to see the Klingon homeworld.
But all in all, I liked
Broken Bow very much and I give it a grade of
9- on my 10-grading scale. Maybe I'm too generous but this pilot really got me hooked on the show, which is a feat in itself after the huge disappointment that was
Voyager. Excellent work.
