Well, here we are, it’s the last day for our Star Trek Anniversary celebration, and like Star Trek did on television, we’re going out with Enterprise. I’m going to mostly refrain from adding the Star Trek title to the beginning because generally speaking, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the direction that the show took after that little change was made. Anyway, I was really hard to pick episodes from this show to do in keeping with the running theme that we’ve been using throughout this series. I mean, just stupid hard. It’s something that I noticed with Voyager, but that really comes full circle here. Voyager started to shy away from the cause of the week, and started to move more towards just being straight up entertaining most of the time. With Enterprise, I felt like most of the episodes were meant simply for entertainment. Rarely, was an episode ever trying to say something. That’s cool, but it’s not so much Star Trek as previous shows had been. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the show, but it’s not my go to when I’m craving heavy hitting social commentary. That’s all I’m saying. I loved the direction the show started out in, and I loved how they were taking it towards the end, but the second and third seasons really did nothing for me. It’s a tragic loss as I think utilized more wisely, it could have been a fantastic look into the origins of the mythology.
However, there are a couple of gems still hidden within this show and that’s what we’re really here to look at so let’s do this! Our most Trek-y episode, per my guidelines, comes from the very first season. It’s the episode, “Fortunate Son”.As a very brief recap, a freighter, the SS Fortunate, gets ambushed by Nausicaans. They manage to stave off the would be pirates, but the captain is injured in the process. This leaves the job of captaining in the hands of the first officer, Matt Ryan. During the battle with the Nausicaans, someone sent off a distress signal, which is how Enterprise gets involved. They’re asked to investigate and render aid. Our heroes do as they’re told and render said aid, but during the process, the crew of the Fortunate are really standoffish., which leads to curiosity on behalf of the Enterprise crew. The audience learns pretty early on that Ryan has taken a Nausicaan prisoner. His purpose in doing so is to find out the frequency at which the Nausicaan shields operate. Ryan believes that if he can get this information, then he can deal a devastating blow to the Nausicaans and make his shipping lane safer.Once Archer finds out, he attempts to negotiate for the release of the Nausicaan. This comes about because Starfleet doesn’t actually have jurisdiction over a civilian freighter. Ryan appears to agree in order to lure some of the Enterprise crew into a cargo pod, which Ryan then damages to make the atmosphere vent, and he drops said pod to leave Enterprise to save their crew. He also disables Enterprise's sensors.
The Fortunate makes a daring escape, and head off to finish their run. They’re once again attacked by Nausicaans, who lure them into a trap with reinforcements waiting behind an asteroid. It seems like all is lost for the crew of the Fortunate because, surprise, the Nausicaan gave them the wrong frequency. Outgunned and outnumbered, it seems like the crew of the Fortunate are doomed, but just at the last minute, Enterprise swoops in to save the day. At first, they’re hesitant to join the fight, and Archer tries to call off the Fortunate, and eventually, Archer is able to reach an agreement that would save Fortunate and get the Nausicaans their crewman back. It’s a pretty straightforward episode. It’s pretty exciting and intense. The space scenes are cool, and the story is just fun. Why does it stand out? Well, the revenge plot on Ryan’ part is what really makes this episode interesting. How often today do we see people taking to social media, and real media seeking ‘justice’ for their cause? There are people who get enraged over issues that they know nothing, or very little about. We call these types of people social justice warriors. They live on the internet and they take to whichever ‘worthy cause’ happens to float their fancy that week. They’re loud, annoying, and in most respects, completely deplorable because they don’t take the time to really understand what they claim to be fighting for. Mostly, they’re just in the fight for the attention. “Fortunate Son” looks at this a little. Ryan wants revenge on the Nausicaans for all the freighters that they’ve attacked over the years, including his previous ship, upon which Ryan’s parents died. Is his cause worthy and just? Perhaps, but where the episode makes a great point is it says that while Ryan as one man could get revenge, justice as far as he’s concerned, that justice won’t actually make the Nausicaans stop pillaging. Ryan’s actions would mostly serve to further enrage the Nausicaans and make the shipping lanes much more dangerous for other freighters. Archer exhorts Ryan to leave the policing to Starfleet, whose ships are better equipped for such things, and whose crews are better trained for such things.
I know I’ve harped on SJWs quite a bit this year, but it’s been that kind of year. I’m not saying that every SJW movement ever to have existed hasn’t been effective, but I feel like we as a society need to collectively take a chill pill moment and really think about our ‘causes’ before we commit. We may feel justified in our actions, and we may even be justified in some cases, but we all have to look at how our actions are going to effect the cause later. We have to ask if our victory now is going to rob someone of a more impactful victory later. That idea of winning while losing everything has a name, it’s called a pyrrhic victory and it’s no victory at all. It’s a great theme, and seldom seen coming from Hollywood, and that’s why it’s my most Trek-y episode for Enterprise. Give it a watch sometime!
So what’s our anvil episode? It was really hard to come up with this dubious distinction, and in the end, I couldn’t pick just one so I picked three. Our anvil episodes are “Borderland”, “Cold Station 12”, and “The Augments” I’m merely going to say that Brent Spiner is in these episodes, which is awesome! I’ll forego summarizing the whole thing because that would take forever. Anyway,Spiner plays a distant ancestor to doctor Noonien Soong the scientist that built Data. I really enjoy these episodes, but there’s a reason why I’ve chosen them to be the anvil episodes of the series. We as a society are on the cusp of using genetic modification of unborn children to preemptively cure them of certain chronic, or fatal diseases. By on the cusp, I mean we might have that technology within my lifetime, and I’m still pretty young. This entire three part block focuses on Dr. Soong attempting to save his ‘augments’, or fetuses that he genetically engineered to be superhuman. Now it’s true that playing god needs to be done with some wisdom, and I don’t believe we’re actually ready for such a leap, but oh this episode… We see augments infect a space station with a deadly virus, augments murder a crew of Klingons, augments plotting to destroy a Klingon colony. I’m not saying that it isn't exciting, but it might be a little over the top. If we’re trying to say that we as humans should be careful about toying with our own genetic structures, then they’ve beat that horse into a coma. There are some great aspects of the episodes though. We get to see how Data’s ‘ancestors’ became who they were and where Noonien Soong got his inspiration to get into androids. The Briar Patch from Star Trek Insurrection is mentioned. This little throwback serves to knit the universe together even more tightly. As with all of the anvil episodes, I’m not saying this one is bad, just that it may have pushed its point a little too far. I’d still recommend giving it a watch. And stay tuned! We’re getting into Halloween season and I’ve been dying to review some spooky movies!
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