So I have finally gotten around to seeing all of the episodes of Enterprise (good thing there were only four seasons), and I thought that this would be a good time to put in my Top 10 list. Enterprise is my third favorite series, and I will admit it was very slow to grow on me. By 2001, at the time of its release, I had already fallen out of favor with Star Trek. Now having gone back to revisit the series, I find that it has its moments and deserves a second chance to be embraced by fans. I have my suspicions as to why it failed to sustain ratings, but I will save the discussion for another post.
Here we go:
10. “These are the Voyages…” – OK, so for many, this was a disappointing episode as a series finale, but as a stand-alone episode I thought it was still clever and a pleasant way to tie in the TNG crew. This episode is really an expansion on the TNG episode “The Pegasus,” where Commander William T. Riker is forced to make a choice between following orders from Admiral Pressman and informing Captain Picard of an important truth about the Pegasus. Counselor Troi advises him to use the holodeck to witness the final days of the original Enterprise for guidance. I found it a little unsettling to see how little the Enterprise crew had progressed after a ten-year voyage (with only slightly different uniforms and hairstyles), but it was nonetheless a good episode. I can sympathize with the Enterprise actors for feeling pushed aside on their own series finale.
9. “The Babel/United/The Aenar” – Here’s a fantastic three-part episode that involves a new-type of Romulan ship with ‘multispectral’ emitters that allows the ship to appear like any other. The ship starts causing trouble between the Andorians and the Tellarites, and Enterprise must intervene. I liked these episodes because I thought the holographic ship was a really neat idea, and the fact that it looked like a flea that hopped around when attacked was funny and original. Seeing the Remans again was a nice touch.
8. “Twilight” – Here is one of those interesting mind-f*** stories that almost becomes a truly great episode. It starts off with a great premise: Captain Archer is afflicted with anterograde amnesia by subspace parasites and is unable to form new memories. But that really goes nowhere, and has little to do with the plot beyond incapacitating him as captain and providing a unique way of unfolding the story. The episode then falls into the classic “we-need-to-fix-the-past”-type episodes, to which I have a general aversion. But despite all of this, I recognize ‘Twilight’ as a good episode, so I put it at #8.
7. “Azati Prime” – The crew of the episode finds the Xindi weapon and plans a suicide mission to destroy it, but Captain Archer is captured by Degra. Here is an episode with a very well-done battle scene, where four Xindi ships make a major assault on the Enterprise. We also get to see the Enterprise-J, despite only seeing the inside. I only have one complaint about the episode: for a major battle scene, it has a terrible soundtrack.
6. “Affliction/Divergence” – This two-part episode was written for one purpose: to explain what happened to the Klingons that caused them to change their appearance from TOS to TNG and beyond. Obviously, from behind-the-scenes, it was simply a change in make-up. But I personally never felt it important to explain away such things. I actually felt that the DS9 episode “Trials and Tribble-ations” handled it quite nicely (Worf just kindly tells his crewmates that they “do not discuss it with outsiders”) and the whole issue should have ended there. But I forgive the writers for this episode of Enterprise because overall it is a very well-crafted story with compelling villains.
5. “Regeneration” – Again, the writers find a clever way to bring back old favorites…this time, the Borg. Remnants of the Borg Sphere that attacked Earth in First Contact are found in the Arctic, where a small group of scientists revive two Borg drones unaware of the danger that they pose. The soundtrack with the Borg marching through the corridors of Enterprise is particularly haunting. I was also glad that the writers once again gave the Borg a sense of being an unstoppable force, which I felt was very much lacking in many of the Borg episodes in VOY.
4. “Bound” – The crew of the Enterprise finds itself with three Orion slave girls as a gift, only to find more trouble than they bargained for. It was such a pleasure to see the Orion Slave girls again, who really hadn’t made their way at all in the previous three series. The idea of the Orion women being the sex in power is not only clever, but spot on in how it reflects on us as human beings. I have always argued that sex is the primary driver of everything that we as men do, whether consciously or subconsciously. So don’t want men obsessing about cars, money, and the size of their manhood? The solution is simple: women have to stop caring about those things. Near the end of the episode, I thought it was a nice touch to see T’Pol become emotionally vulnerable to Trip. I have to admit, I found it a little difficult taking the male Orion seriously looking like Shrek.
3. “Borderland/Cold Station 12/The Augments” – Here is a nice three-part episode that steps on some familiar Trek territories, including a character Arik Soong who is the great grandfather of Data’s creator (all of which at one point were played by Brent Spiner), and genetically-enhanced humans. Overall, it was a nice way to provide continuity to the other series. I thought it was also great to see Uncle Phil back in action. In regards to genetic engineering as a technology, even as we understand more about the human genome, the idea of designing humans into “super-duper” beings remains largely in the realm of fantasy. I will have a more thorough discussion on this in another post.
2. “Demons/Terra Prime” – This two-part episode is argued to be the true series finale of Enterprise; it was a good thing that it was such a good episode, too. I was very pleasantly surprised to see Robocop back in action. The episode had a slightly different feel to it, which may have been because it takes place mostly on a mining colony on Luna, or maybe it was Peter Weller’s chilling performance. Finally, the turmoil that Trip and T’Pol go through with their dying child and the ultimate discussion on whether or not a human and Vulcun could conceive was a brilliant way to lead into the character of Spock in TOS.
1. “In a Mirror, Darkly” (I/II) – This two-part episode is almost unanimously the top of everyone’s list, and rightfully so. The opening that uses footage from First Contact was clever and the entire two-parter was full of gems for traditional Star Trek fans. Every time there is a ‘cross-over’ episode, I can’t help but think that each episode must be an isolated incident, since it makes no sense that every character in this universe kills each other and seems to have no consequence on future characters. Admittedly, I did not like the way the episode ended, but it’s a small price to pay for such a fun episode.
