Captain’s log: unknown

Rick Berman and Brannon Braga pen this episode that puts Trip (Connor Trinneer) in a fun place with something Kirk never had to go through(as far as we know) in Unexpected. It first aired on 17 October, 2001.

Trip, in an effort to foster relations, is helping out an alien race repair their ship, after they were caught in Enterprise’s wake, using cloaking technology to siphon power. He begins to get friendly with one of the crew, the engineer, Ah’len (Julianne Christie). She shows him some of the wonders of their technology, including a holodeck.

Things get complicated after an ‘encounter’ and Trip ends up pregnant.

There’s a cautionary tale here to be sure.

Archer (Scott Bakula) is less than impressed when he learns of the incident, and is disappointed in Trip, though we see that the impregnation wasn’t intentional, and in fact, ‘just happened.’ But then, when he realises Trip isn’t at fault, he sees some of the humour in the situation, especially with some of the comments T’Pol (Jolene Blalock) makes.

The Enterprise still needs some fine tuning as their mission is also their shakedown cruise, but the ship and the crew grow together (including Archer’s dog, Porthos), and the writers really are paying attention to continuity for all the characters, making for a layered and real universe.

The crew also have a bit of a hostile encounter with the Klingons, their first appearance since Broken Bow, who also have a moment with the aliens, known as Xyrillians.

Captain’s log: unknown

LeVar Burton directs this episode that came from a story by Berman and Braga and became a teleplay by Antoinette Stella. It first aired on 24 October, 2001.

The Enterprise heads to Terra Nova, the home of what was supposed to be the first Earth colony outside of our own solar system. But all communication with the colony stopped long ago, and mystery has grown around it. What happened on Terra Nova? And what happened to the colonists?

Archer and the crew find out. There are humans living in the caverns underneath the surface, and they may in fact be the descendants of the original colonists, though they don’t recognise the Enterprise away team as human, and come into a conflict with them.

This conflict causes Malcolm (Dominc Keating) to be shot and captured, and while Archer struggles to find a way to find a peace with the colonists, referring to themselves as Novans. Archer suggests cooperation to find out what happened, and perhaps improve the situation for the Novans, and the truth of what happened is sad, but that they survived serves Trek’s continuing story of hope.

In terms of series continuity we learn for the first time that we learn Phlox’s (John Billingsley) species is Denobulan.

The Human Adventure continues next week as I explore more of the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise – The Complete Series on Blu-ray, now available from Paramount Canada.

Boldly go…