Thanks to the Temporal Cold War….well, things are all messed up. Originally broadcast on October 8,2004 this is the start to the final season of Star Trek Enterprise, the episodes : Strom Front parts I & II.
The Episode(s):
Captain’s Starlog date sometime in 1944ish
After being attacked by P-51 mustangs, Travis and Trip return to the Enterprise with news that Earth is now a strange alternate timeline where the Nazi’s have taken over. Down on the planet Archer is learning that, not only have the Nazi’s essentially won, they have done so with the help of a strange alien race.. Archer is freed by American Freedom fighters and we soon find that Silik has hidden himself onboard Enterprise for some reason.
Before long, Archer joins the freedom fighters and a horribly deformed Daniels appears on Enterprise. The crew discover that Silik has been hiding on the ship but the Suliban Leader manages to allude them. Daniels tells T’Pol that ‘He’ must be stopped and when the crew catch up to Silik, the Suliban explains that it was not he that caused this issue, he may be able to help fix it. Knocking out Trip and stealing a shuttle pod, Silik escapes the ship and heads to Earth. As T’Pol and the others try to find some way to stop Silik, Archer assists with a mission to thwart the Nazi’s but the mission goes south. However, Archer and his new friend Alicia are rescued by being beamed aboard the Enterprise. Unfortunately the teams sent to find Silik, comprised of Tucker and Mayweather, have lost contact with the ship and are unable to return because their shuttle pod has been destroyed.
Daniels finally tells Archer that Enterprise must stop an alien named Vosk who has managed to change the timeline by altering Earth’s past. Daniels dies and Archer now knows what he and his crew must do to end the Temporal Cold War.
After learning about the changes to the timeline that lead to the Nazi takeover, and returning Alicia to her home, Archer and team begin working on a way to defeat Vosk. When Vosk contacts enterprise, Archer is shocked that the alien Nazi leader is willing to talk. Taking a team down to the planet, Vosk hands over Trip and Mayweather as a good faith gesture and explains to Archer that the Temporal Agents are the real aggressors and that Vosk and his side are trying to save the universe from their subjugation. It soon becomes clear that Vosk and his people are not evil, but possibly misguided as they believe that using time travel to benefit themselves should be encouraged and not prevented. Vosk allows Archer to leave with Tucker and Mayweather but it turns out to be a ruse when Trip turns out to be none other that Silik. Silik is captured and finally tells Archer that his contact from the 28th century was concerned when Daniels sent Enterprise to this new altered timeline. After Archer roughs the Suliban up, Silik notes that Archer has changed.
Trip awakens in the Alien compound and, now free from his confines, begins to sabotage the facility. This causes Vosk to reveal his true purpose, they need parts of Enterprise to finish their machine. Archer takes Silik to the surface with T’Pol in order to rescue Trip and stop Vosk from his mission. After several fire fights and close calls Silik sacrifices himself to save Archer leading to Enterprise ultimately winning the day by destroying the device Vosk was building thus setting the timeline right once again.. A non-deformed Daniels pulls Archer into a strange middle ground in time and agrees to never bother Enterprise again. Returning Archer to his ship, Hoshi joyously announces that she has made contact with Lunar One colony and they are being escorted home by a small armada of Earth and Vulcan ships.
Is this a ‘Good’ Episode:
What an anticlimactic way to wrap up the Temporal Cold War storyline. I mean, this is essentially what happened right? With what Daniel tells Archer, he’s done meddling with Enterprise and it was Voth and all those guys who caused this mess to happen, so…now that whole thing that literally started the series off is over now? Really? ooookay…. I mean, sure, this is the final season of the series but maybe make this whole season about wrapping up the Temporal Cold War instead of cramming it all into a two part season premiere? Oh that’s right, last season they tried the long forms storytelling and…well, that really didn’t work out very well…so yeah…
The story itself is, well, kindof a letdown as well. I mean, how could a series like this fall back to the whole Space Nazi thing? It happens on the original series, it happens on Voyager and now Enterprise, seriously….kinda a done thing doncha think? Sure, WWII is a cultural touch stone that anyone can understand and there has been plenty of fiction written about what would occur if the Nazi’s had won but this time around, this just felt very out of left field and quite forced.
The one good thing that comes from this two parter is that it acts as sort of a reset button for the Enterprise series. Having prematurely ended the Temporal Cold War and finally wrapping the whole Xindi thing, Enterprise can finally go back to what Star Trek does best, focus on the adventure and exploration in space while touching on socio-political themes as needed. While I haven’t watched the series in some time, before now of course, and I remember this season was where the series finally found it’s footing….sadly it wasn’t enough to save it from it’s ultimate demise. That’s probably a good thing in the long run really.
Overall, if you are not caught up in the whole Temporal Cold War storyline, well, this is a two part episode that you can skip and just jump to the third episode. It’s silly and really is not a satisfying end to a story line three years in the making. Space Nazi’s….yeeeesh.
Gleanings and Cool Bits:
- One of the first Nazi soldiers we see is played by J Paul Boehmer who played a holographic Nazi on Voyager.
- This marks the final time we see Silik in the series.
- We get to see Silik without his makeup for the fist time in the series, so that is cool.
- We never see Vosk’s people in the series again…I have to wonder if they will ever show up in a future series…
Thanks for reading the Retro TV Review, I look forward to discussing the rest of the series with you, one episode at a time every Monday, Wednesday and Friday! Next Review: Home
more reviews I have a weekly series called Key Movies Of My Life that comes out every Thursday and for more retro TV goodness check out the rest of the Retro TV Reviews here.
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Late To The Game 10/18/2021
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