Description: As I sit here, it's September 2006, just shy of the five year anniversary of the launch of Enterprise. Since this anniversary is what prompted me to take a month out from Voyager to begin working on Enterprise once again, it seems as good a time as any to address general issues around the series. This was always the Sarcastic Enterprise Guide, even before the show was released, and that was because I had a very strong feeling that the forces that had led to such continued mediocrity in Voyager would produce more of the same here. Was I predisposed against the show? In a sense, that's probably a valid remark. However, it was because of many years of just plain bad storytelling that this was the case; if Star Trek wanted me to like it, they were going to have to work for it.

I will say that I was far less fearful of continuity conflicts than many of my fellow viewers. I basically thought from day one that it wasn't going to work, that inevitably something somewhere was going to conflict with what we did know about the series, and so I decided that I wasn't going to let that specifically affect my viewing of it. My approach is different. You see, I'm far more bothered by episodes that exist within a logic vacuum, that the implications of events are not considered on the larger scale of the galaxy or of history. The nameless aliens from last week, with their clearly advanced technology, who were they? Who knows. They're a very strong enemy that shows up within spitting distance of Earth and are never mentioned again and relevant to anything that happens historically. The episode introduced the Axanar, who actually are part of the continuity (being mentioned in two episodes of the original series), but like I said, those kinds of details are the kind of penny-wise pound-foolish approach of this - you introduce this ship that can eat Enterprise for breakfast, and that's it? It doesn't present the idea that this is the story of Star Trek, a vast vision of a potential future, but a collection of disjointed bits and pieces.

This episode is titled Strange New World, and that's why it seems as good a place as any to discuss this, because this is what the series is suppose to be about. I do not watch this show for Janeway's boobshelf, or to figure out who's screwing who this week; this is supposed to be about the spirit of adventure in pushing the boundaries of knowledge. The failure to do that is what was always wrong with this. Rick Berman said Enterprise suffered because of the franchise fatigue - balderdash. Take seasons 15 to 18 of Doctor Who, and you'll find they come from perhaps the most memorable time in that series history, and what did that have? Memorable characters like Tom Baker's Doctor, the loyal K-9, the beautiful but deadly Leela, and the smug Time Lord counterpart of Romana. The stories stayed true to the premise of the show, which similar to Trek, was about exploration, but one of time and space, and, rather than crowing about our superiority at non-involvement, revels in getting involved. It involved a season long story arc in the Key To Time that while not always great was nevertheless satisfying. In short, at the same time that the producers of Trek were saying that their show was tiring out, this other program was on top of its game. Why? Because if you give the people fresh stories that require a slight amount of thought, are populated by interesting people, and contains a modicum of wit, all while sticking to the premise of the series, then it doesn't matter how long you've been on the air, people will keep coming back. Give us strange new worlds, Paramount, and we'll put bums on couches.

The episode begins with two of the poor schumcks who live and die at the command of Captain Archer, whom we've already established over the preceding episodes: he rants at the drop of a hat, listens to things that aren't there, talks to dogs, gives rambling speeches, and does things without thinking of whether people will live or die. In other words, someone found him sleeping under a pile of newspapers in an alley muttering about putting cameras in his eyeballs, took off his tinfoil hat, and put him in charge of a starship. Given this, you have to feel sorry for these two people; they didn't sign on to be pitched into the gaping maw of death by a man one step removed from Foul Ole Ron. Anyway, these are Novakovich and Cutler, and they talk briefly about the food (again, Enterprise and food; Berman and Braga must do a lot of lunches or something) before looking out the window at a new planet.

In modern Trek, there's the A cast, and the B cast. For TNG, the A Cast was Picard, Riker, Troi, Data, Crusher, Worf, and LaForge; for DS9, Sisko, Kira, Dax, Bashir, O'Brien, Odo, Worf, and Quark; for Voyager, Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris, Harry, Neelix, the Doctor, and Seven/Kes. The B Cast for TNG was Wesley, O'Brien, Barclay, Keiko and Ogawa, very slim, and one of them was very annoying. Q could arguably qualify, given the number of appearances, I suppose. In Voyager, it was Naomi, and later on Icheb. They had and got rid of Carey and Seska early on, and there was always the occasional running holodeck theme like da Vinci (God forbid we should make real people recurring characters). Only DS9 gave a large B Cast, with Garak, Jake, Rom, Nog, Leela, Keiko, Wynn, Ducat, Martok, and Weyoun, along with others that probably deserve mentioning. DS9 had the advantage that their fixed location allowed this, but still, Voyager especially had no reason to be so limited when these were people who should have been closer by being all in the same boat. And so we get to Enterprise, with our A Cast of Archer, T'Pol, Tucker, Mayweather, Hoshi, Phlox, and Reed, and to be honest, it feels more like it's those first three with everyone else filling out the B Cast (like Sulu and Chekov filling out their Star Trek V screen time by acting like foul ups).

So we meet these two people who will even get names and everything. Will they stick around and join the B Cast to provide the occasional diversion? Ha ha, what website do you think this is? We will never see Novakovich again, and Cutler gets two additional episodes. Once again, this new take on Trek seems just like the old Trek.

Anyway, there's stuff on the bridge while they look the planet over, and conclude that no one lives there or has a claim on it. Archer is quite anxious to get down there and start looking around, but T'Pol says that it'd be better to first explore the planet from orbit for close to a week. Archer actually condescends to her in his reply, that they didn't come out here to tip-toe around, so they're going to get a shuttle and head down there.

Sigh. Starfleet has regulations about how every goddamn thing is supposed to go, but when it comes to exploration they just let the captain kind of wing it. After all, it's only the WHOLE F*CKING REASON THEY'RE OUT HERE! Again, that whole logic vacuum thing; we're supposedly at this intermittent point between submarines and Federation starships, but these people act like nimrods. If you know anything about America's Apollo program, you know they had detailed plans on how to do everything, and practiced it over and over. These people are like a collection of white trash piled into a Winnebago.

We see them coming down, and I've got to say, I do like the ballcaps; they look good. They've all got one except for T'Pol, who's not actually Starfleet, Cutler, for who knows what reason, and Tucker, because they don't have one that says "Boob Inspector" on it. They land and soon pose for a snapshot that, well, doesn't seem all that historical. In fact, it again echoes the whole bunch of tourists vibe they've got, especially with Archer letting his dog run around and piss on stuff. This grand exploration consists of, well, wandering around. They're not actually doing anything. Do you think we put Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon so they could jump around and make angels in the dirt? In fact, there's no sign they're doing anything here but farting around, not even lip-service to it. All we get is some meandering about, and then Mayweather says "Hey, I've been in space."

T'Pol suggests that she and the two B cast members stay behind to study some nocturnal marsupials, and Tucker volunteers for himself and Mayweather to stay as well so they can just, you know, stay there. It's not like they're not winging it anyway. We cut back to them gathered around a fire and Mayweather telling space ghost stories (actually, rereading this, I realize this could be misconstrued; I mean ghost stories set in space, not stories about Hannah-Barbera's Space Ghost, though that would have been a marked improvement). It's the story of a crazy guy on a ship named George Webb, which was entertaining solely because that also happens to be the name of a hamburger franchise here is Wisconsin, so it paints the picture of a psychotic Ronald McDonald.

Well, before you know it, a storm shows up, and they all go into their tents. When Mayweather comments on the speed of the winds, Tucker says it's nothing compared to a hurricane coming up the Florida Keys, to which Mayweather says, "Oh yeah, well, I've been in space!" Actually what he comments on is flying through an ion storm at Warp 2, which would be significant if we hadn't already known that Enterprise did that because you can't be afraid of the wind according to Archer's old man. However, this is soon followed up by a genuinely funny bit where we find a huge scorpion-like bug in Tucker's sleeping bag, and the two are dancing about trying to figure out what to do. "Are we allowed to squash alien lifeforms?" Mayweather asks. Tucker eventually goes looking for a phase pistol, hoping to stun it.

Back on Enterprise, Reed shows up to report the weather thing to Archer. Being in charge of security and weapons, naturally that would be his job, rather than some B cast member. By the way, wouldn't this have been a useful thing to check for before heading down to the planet? Archer checks in with T'Pol and finds out they've relocated to a cave. Being experienced explorers, they forgot to bring the food... like I said, where's the Winnebago. Mayweather goes back and gets it, but thinks he spots other people out there with him. Dun dun dun! T'Pol checks the area with her iPod, but still doesn't find anyone but themselves. Erin Brokovich, or whoever the hell the one shot crewman is, starts hearing voices, and finally just runs from the cave like a goof. Tucker grabs two phase pistols and announces that he and Mayweather will go out, and that Cutler and T'Pol will stay behind because, you know, they both have vaginas and all. T'Pol, however, thinks that she should check in the back of the cave just to make sure that no one is back there.

Outside, Tucker sees a person walk right out of a big rock; wiggy. Back in the cave Cutler sees T'Pol talking with some aliens, but when she confronts her T'Pol said she was dong no such thing, that they're alone. When Tucker gets back they start discussing the matter, but it seems that there's a bit of an impasse, since T'Pol insists she hasn't detected anyone, and the three humans have all obviously seen something. Meanwhile, Archer's piloting a pod down to pick everyone up, with Reed alongside him. At this point it means that -God help us all- Hoshi is in command, who is terrified of Enterprise and all its contents. Wonderful. And isn't it a big vote of confidence that the captain feels no one is qualified enough to do this besides him... I'd sure feel good if I was one of those crewmen whose primary duty is to fly one of those damn things.

Archer comes flying in and winds up bumping into the side of a hill. The ship is bouncing everywhere and is damaged, so he finally takes it back up. What, why?! You can't be afraid of the wind, Archer, remember? Unless, you know, it's going to crash your ship, right? Glad to see you learned something in that ion storm, duchess.

So they head back up, telling the stranded crew that they'll just have to wait out the storm. You know, it's nice that this is due to something obvious and non-technobabble-ish; in next week's Voyager review you'll hear about some stupid thing that causes transporter AND shuttlecraft to not work right, but here, it's too windy. I applaud you, Enterprise, for not resorting to the stupid for once. Anyway, our friends head back into the cave, and thus begins the Tucker-T'Pol show. Tucker's ranting about the rock people, and T'Pol says he's just becoming irrational, that there are no rock people. To compound the issue, they're running out of water, so T'Pol takes the canteen to go get some in the back of the cave, but Tucker says that it's so she can talk to the rock people. Thus, to show it isn't, she offers to let him come along, but now they're afraid it's a trap. Stuck in this moral dilemma, Tucker uses all the wit and guile he was blessed with. When this quickly turns up empty he pulls a phase pistol on T'Pol, since it can be witty for him.

Meanwhile, Hoshi is trying to raise John Malcovich, or whoever the hell the one shot crewman is, but he's out in the storm having a spaz attack. Hoshi's unsure what to do, as she's never had to deal with someone more frightened than herself before, so Archer decides he'll be beamed up. The transporter is fairly new technology, just approved for use on human beings within the last two months, and is designed to break them down and put them back together again. Thus, it's obvious that this should be done only by highly trained experts who know how to handle this thing precisely to avoid any problems. Apparently, however, there'll all on a coffee break, because we see Reed down there instead. After all, he's already the tactical officer, security officer, deliverer of weather reports, and the guy who rides shotgun whenever Archer takes the shuttlepod out, why shouldn't he operate the transporter? How hard can it be?

Well, apparently pretty hard, because Reed seems to have beamed up an Ent. Our friend is all mixed up with leaves and twigs and shit... you know, is there anything you don't screw up, Reed? Then it's back to the T'Pol-Tucker show, this time involving him yanking a data device away from her while ranting. Incidentally, this is where the whole T'Pol design concept falls apart. We have a pouty-lipped, sweaty voluptuous woman in skin-tight clothes panting in a cave... how the hell am I supposed to take this seriously when she looks like she should be in a softcore porn video?

Anyway, up on the ship, we see the poor bastard after surgery, though Phlox says he'll make a full recovery. It turns out he's got drugs in his system, swept down to where they were camping by the winds, that's why he was acting almost as crazy as Archer is in his ground state. Archer contacts them and Tucker starts ranting at him, but Archer finally gets him to put the weapon away for the moment. However, things get worse as the night moves on. You see, the drug just kind of turns off the inhibitions and filters, so they basically do whatever they normally wish they could, which in Tucker's case is to rant and express total loathing for the Vulcans.

Wait, a prejudiced redneck? Wow, that's a first.

T'Pol has trouble speaking English now, which only further provokes Tucker. He starts firing into walls and talking to people who aren't there (and just generally winning himself the annoying character award for this episode). Pretty soon T'Pol gets a phase pistol out and the two are pointing weapons at each other. This is what I like to think of as a win-win situation.

Back on the ship, Phlox calls Archer down to look at psycho boy. It turns out that each atom in the drug contains an extra neutron... well, again, new Trek, same old subatomic bullshit. This would mean that every single atom in this thing has an unusual isotope... How unusual? Let me put it this way, pretending this is PCP (just to use one drug as an example) which has the chemical formula C17H25N. The odds of one of these molecules containing one extra neutron in each atom of this drug is 1 in 6x10^83; since that's a big number, let me just state that that's even less likely than you picking the winning United States Powerball Jackpot numbers (with only one ticket) ten weeks in a row. And that's for one molecule of the stuff. Clearly the only way for this not to be completely moronic, the entire planet would essentially have to be this way, and that would have to be something they would have figured out early on, because they were drinking the water (in large amounts water with deuterium in it can be fatal, so if they were going to drink anything they'd logically check for that along with toxins, germs, and the pee from Archer's dog). As if this weren't dumb enough, Phlox says the breakdown of the drug releases a toxin because of this. There's no chemical difference caused by the presence or absence of extra neutrons; the only reason heavy water can be lethal is because the water is too heavy, and like I said, it needs to be large amounts. Even Ozzy Osbourne couldn't do enough drugs to have that much in his body.

Archer cooks up a plan to beam down a cure to the toxin, but Tucker's clearly gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, so Archer has to spin a yarn about secret missions with the rock people to get him to stop trying to kill T'Pol. Tucker finally lowers his weapon, so T'Pol zaps him with the stun setting (shooting the annoying character is an automatic best moment winner) and injects everybody. Morning came and everyone is fine, and Tucker sort of apologizes for, you know, trying to kill her like a dick. That pretty much resolves everything, except, you know, for Archer. See, this entire thing only happened because of his arrogant presumption in disregarding T'Pol's suggesting and just jumping down on the planet without learning more about it. They would have never wound up in a storm, and they would have known about the presence of drugs in the air. However, we get nothing at all that indicates he learned a damn thing from this, and next week when they show up on the planet where the grass farts radon more people will be in danger, but that's nothing surprising from our mad leader, is it.

Rating: 5

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The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the views of anyone
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"Maybe it's the ghost of George Webb." Cutler