Captain’s log: date unknown

Mike Sussman pens the first episode up this week, which originally aired on 22 October, 2004.

The Enterprise finally returns home, and the crew, tired from their travails with the Xindi, and the temporal travel of the previous episodes, face the repercussions of their journeys both good and bad.

Archer (Scott Bakula) has problems reconciling his command decisions with what he was supposed to be, an explorer, but a climbing expedition with a fellow captain, and former lover, Erika Hernandez (Ada Maris) helps him sort things, and deal better with his mission debriefing.

But not everything is good on Earth, because of the Xindi, there is a growing xenophobia, which Phlox (John Billingsley) encounters on a night out with Reed (Dominic Keating) and Mayweather (Anthony Montgomer), though a little advice from Hoshi (Linda Park), who is still recovering from the parasites the Xindi infected her with, helps out.

Meanwhile, Trip (Connor Trinneer) joins T’Pol (Jolene Blalock) on a trip to Vulcan, where  number of things happen. The engineer discovers the depth of his feelings for the science officer, but it may be too late, as T’Pol’s mother (Joanna Cassidy) may have been used as a scapegoat for the incident at P’Jem. The Council punished her instead of T’Pol, and if she marries her betrothed, there is the possibility of her mother being reinstated.

A quieter episode, but a great character piece that shows how things have changed, how the events of the past few seasons have affected other things than our characters, and the planting of seeds for what is to come in the episodes ahead.

Captain’s log: 17 May, 2154

Ken LaZebnik puts the repaired, and refit Enterprise (including a new captain’s chair) back out into space, a few months after she’s returned home, with this episode that first aired on 29 October, 2004. It also launches a new story arc, that introduces some story ideas and threads that would come to fruition in earlier series (that’s the beauty of a prequel series I guess).

When a Klingon ship is attacked, Archer and the crew learn that it is a crew of Augments, genetically altered humans (just like the 20th century’s Khan), that are responsible, and that the DNA can be traced back to their creator, Dr. Arik Soong (Brent Spiner).

Archer will need the brilliant doctor’s help if he is to prevent a war, but things take a side trip when Orion’s abduct nine members of the crew, including T’Pol, to be sold as slaves, and Archer goes after them, while Malik (Alec Newman), amongst the Augments continues to cement his power base.

Malik and his crew, aboard the captured Klingon ship, confront Enterprise, and retrieve Soong, who warns of impending war with the Klingons and that there are thousands of Augment embryos waiting to be born, they just have to get them. And this leads us directly into a To Be Continued…

The Human Adventure continues Thursday as I delve deeper into the fourth and final season of Star Trek: Enterprise as I explore The Complete Series on blu-ray now available from Paramount Canada.

Boldly go…