This was one of the better pre-season 4 episodes. I didn't realize until rewatching it the other day how much growth the younger Archer shows in this episode.
-Keith Carradine (one of the Carradine family of actors) does a great job as a foil for Scott Bakula. I'm almost curious to see what kind of captain he would've been.
For those who know the history of the Mercury program, Robinson and the younger Archer remind me of Alan Shepard and John Glenn, respectively. While both were accomplished test pilots (Glenn had set a trans-continental speed record before the first invitation to prospective astronauts went out) Glenn had a reputation as sort of a churchgoing "good boy". Alan Shepard had more of an edgier reputation. As a naval aviator, he'd had a history of doing things like "flat-hatting" (flying at extremely low altitudes), and somehow skating by with little or no consequences, and though he was married, he didn't always resist some of the women throwing themselves at him (though he was hardly the only astronaut to do so). Although Glenn had always been the best at the PR aspect of the job, it was Shepard who was ultimately chosen for the first manned Mercury flight, with Glenn as his back-up (much like Robinson and Archer's roles in this episode). Even though Shepard would later command a lunar mission on Apollo 14, Glenn would probably become the more celebrated of the two (again, like Archer and Robinson's roles here).
I remember, upon first watching this episode, not liking Robinson as much. I remember thinking if he'd just dropped out of warp when Archer and Forrest told him to, the ship might not have blown up, which gave the Vulcan leverage to pressure Starfleet into suspending the NX program. Now, I think he probably still should've aborted but understanding the test pilot mentality, and understanding the episode's message about taking risks, I'm a bit more understanding of his side of things. (Of course, in real life, an astronaut who ignores or challenges orders like that is probably guaranteeing he'll never fly again, as we saw with the Apollo 7 crew. And that was with a civilian agency, like NASA, as opposed to a more military protocol-based agency like Starfleet).
-Having Forrest be a commodore was a nice touch, bringing back a rank that was so prevalent in the original series, but for whatever reason, effectively dropped from the movies and subsequent series. (Of course, other than this episode, I don't think we saw it used on this series either).
-Memory Alpha says the earlier parts of this episode took place in 2143, but can't really catch any lines in the episode that places the year, other than it being about seven or eight years before they laid the keel for the NX-01 (and we don't know how long it took to build, especially given how long the NX-02 took)
-This is a bit of a downer, but think it bears mentioning, given Star Trek's progressive reputation, but, between this episode and "Broken Bow", the 22nd century Starfleet seems to be very male and very white (and that's coming from someone who happens to be white and male). Considering that this is supposed to be an international agency, it doesn't look very good that for the first two years of the show, the only minorities with speaking parts were the underused Travis and Hoshi, or that a 21st century Star Trek series is no more diverse (or maybe even less so) than one made in the 60's. Heck, TOS had an African American commodore in one episode and a Russian on the bridge, as opposed to the characters on this show, which, apart from Malcolm, seem overwhelmingly American (or at least North American).
-I found it a bit of a stretch that T'Pol knew nothing about Robinson's flight, to the point that I actually wonder if she wasn't feigning ignorance as pretense to get Archer to talk. I don't want to start another argument about Vulcans lying, though I've always been a bit more tolerant of exceptions to that supposed rule.
-Michael Canavan gives the show yet another snooty Vulcan who's dubious about humanity traveling to the stars. I'm not sure why they didn't just use Gary Graham as Soval in this role (which would have the advantage of illustrating the reason for our favorite bitter old Vulcan's disapproval of Archer that he spoke of in "Shadows of P'Jem") but to Canavan's credit, his unnamed Vulcan doesn't seem to look down on humans to the degree that Soval, Vanik, Sopek, and a lot of the other Vulcans on the show did (though, again, this concept didn't bother me as much as some people).
-All in all, the second season certainly wasn't Enterprise's best, but this was one of the best (actually, coming right after "Cogenitor" and "Regeneration", this was a nice trilogy of three well-done, yet distinctly different episodes).
-Keith Carradine (one of the Carradine family of actors) does a great job as a foil for Scott Bakula. I'm almost curious to see what kind of captain he would've been.
For those who know the history of the Mercury program, Robinson and the younger Archer remind me of Alan Shepard and John Glenn, respectively. While both were accomplished test pilots (Glenn had set a trans-continental speed record before the first invitation to prospective astronauts went out) Glenn had a reputation as sort of a churchgoing "good boy". Alan Shepard had more of an edgier reputation. As a naval aviator, he'd had a history of doing things like "flat-hatting" (flying at extremely low altitudes), and somehow skating by with little or no consequences, and though he was married, he didn't always resist some of the women throwing themselves at him (though he was hardly the only astronaut to do so). Although Glenn had always been the best at the PR aspect of the job, it was Shepard who was ultimately chosen for the first manned Mercury flight, with Glenn as his back-up (much like Robinson and Archer's roles in this episode). Even though Shepard would later command a lunar mission on Apollo 14, Glenn would probably become the more celebrated of the two (again, like Archer and Robinson's roles here).
I remember, upon first watching this episode, not liking Robinson as much. I remember thinking if he'd just dropped out of warp when Archer and Forrest told him to, the ship might not have blown up, which gave the Vulcan leverage to pressure Starfleet into suspending the NX program. Now, I think he probably still should've aborted but understanding the test pilot mentality, and understanding the episode's message about taking risks, I'm a bit more understanding of his side of things. (Of course, in real life, an astronaut who ignores or challenges orders like that is probably guaranteeing he'll never fly again, as we saw with the Apollo 7 crew. And that was with a civilian agency, like NASA, as opposed to a more military protocol-based agency like Starfleet).
-Having Forrest be a commodore was a nice touch, bringing back a rank that was so prevalent in the original series, but for whatever reason, effectively dropped from the movies and subsequent series. (Of course, other than this episode, I don't think we saw it used on this series either).
-Memory Alpha says the earlier parts of this episode took place in 2143, but can't really catch any lines in the episode that places the year, other than it being about seven or eight years before they laid the keel for the NX-01 (and we don't know how long it took to build, especially given how long the NX-02 took)
-This is a bit of a downer, but think it bears mentioning, given Star Trek's progressive reputation, but, between this episode and "Broken Bow", the 22nd century Starfleet seems to be very male and very white (and that's coming from someone who happens to be white and male). Considering that this is supposed to be an international agency, it doesn't look very good that for the first two years of the show, the only minorities with speaking parts were the underused Travis and Hoshi, or that a 21st century Star Trek series is no more diverse (or maybe even less so) than one made in the 60's. Heck, TOS had an African American commodore in one episode and a Russian on the bridge, as opposed to the characters on this show, which, apart from Malcolm, seem overwhelmingly American (or at least North American).
-I found it a bit of a stretch that T'Pol knew nothing about Robinson's flight, to the point that I actually wonder if she wasn't feigning ignorance as pretense to get Archer to talk. I don't want to start another argument about Vulcans lying, though I've always been a bit more tolerant of exceptions to that supposed rule.
-Michael Canavan gives the show yet another snooty Vulcan who's dubious about humanity traveling to the stars. I'm not sure why they didn't just use Gary Graham as Soval in this role (which would have the advantage of illustrating the reason for our favorite bitter old Vulcan's disapproval of Archer that he spoke of in "Shadows of P'Jem") but to Canavan's credit, his unnamed Vulcan doesn't seem to look down on humans to the degree that Soval, Vanik, Sopek, and a lot of the other Vulcans on the show did (though, again, this concept didn't bother me as much as some people).
-All in all, the second season certainly wasn't Enterprise's best, but this was one of the best (actually, coming right after "Cogenitor" and "Regeneration", this was a nice trilogy of three well-done, yet distinctly different episodes).
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