[Christopher Halsey]

EPISODE DISCUSSION

Broken Bow
Original Air Date: 26 September 2001
Series: Enterprise
Episode: 1x01

SUMMARY
Earth launches it's first warp 5 starship, the U.S.S. Enterprise NX-01 on a mission to return an injured Klingon to his homeworld, unbeknownst to them an alien species under orders from the future will try to stop them.

"Imagine it. Thousands of inhabited planets, at our fingertips. And we'll be able to explore those strange new worlds and seek out new life, and new civilizations. This engine will let us go boldly, where no man has gone before." - Zefram Cochrane

DISCUSSION
This week we'll be discussing the first episode of Enterprise (later Star Trek: Enterprise), Broken Bow.

Did you watch the episode when it first aired or later? What did you think about the decision to set a Star Trek series before The Original Series. What were your thoughts on the new cast? Did you like the design of Enterprise and the uniforms? How do you think it rates against the other first episodes?

[Mark Okuda]

I thought I would like Enterprise, because I like Scott Bakula, but it just wasn't my Star Trek. I did not think it was a good idea to do a show that pre-dates the it is based off. Oh another i disliked. Klingons with Forehead Ridges before The Original series where they looked like really tanned humans.

[Solace]

I watched Broken Bow when it first aired. I love Enterprise, it is one of my favourite Star Trek series. I really love the design of the uniforms, it feels like a natural regression of the TOS uniforms, but a progression from jumpsuits that astronauts wear on the ISS. Personally the NX class ship is one of my all time favourite designs, it feels so unique. It had that potential to show where the progression into the TOS style ship designs could have started to evolve.

Especially since there are concept drawings of the Enterprise getting a refit to include a separate secondary engineering hull, it just fits in so well in terms of ship design, there is an air of consistency about it. Thats the thing with Doug Drexler's designs, he has always kept them consistent and always looked to the original Constitution for inspirational when designing the next or previous generation of Starfleet ships.

For those who haven't seen the refit design of the NX-01 here is a nice picture for you.

[Bar'ol]

I didn't see the show when it was on the air, however netflix is great for me to watch this. DS9 and Enterpirse are my two favorite series with Star Trek. At first it took me awhile to get used to the new crew. The vulcan and human bickering was something I was not expecting, but understandable in a way due to how long vulcans were holding them back, or how humans felt.

This is exactly how I could see how us as modern times would view exploring. The ship itself really wasn't outfitted to be a warship like we see in like TNG or TOS. Ranks were still part of the ship just like any job to be honest. You need the workers the managers and the supervisor but they just put it into military rankings.

Overall the direction it was going from this episode of starting of exploration or in this case dropping off a Klingon was the kick to get humans off and the vulcans to allow humans to actually start exploring.

[Christopher Halsey]

I found the episode to be a bit mixed.

The story was ok but I think it could have been just as good a story without the temporal cold war angle, something I think was handled poorly in Enterprise, I think the whole temporal cold war could have been better if it was just the Romulans manipulating the Suliban in to being their proxies to destabilise the Klingons and Vulcan. Could have made for a far more dramatic appearance of the Romulans than the one we actually got. You could also use that to get rid of the whole Xindi arc or change it to be an attack on Earth that resulting in the Earth-Romulan war but now I'm going beyond just this one episode so I'll stop.

I liked the fact it mostly stayed true to the fact that the crew were inexperienced at this kind of mission, occasionally I think they over did this though making the crew seem a bit stupid, the fact that it took brain power to realise that the reason for the 'confusing' warp trail readings was because they were following not one warp trail but several is a good example of this. Something that would end up being an ongoing problem for me was that I really didn't like the majority of the characters.

For me the highlight of the episode was probably when the crew visited Rigel X, I think the crew did a good job of creating a genuinely alien environment and the cast did a good job of selling themselves on being out of their element. I also really liked the casting of well over 6ft tall Tommy Lister Jr as Klaang, it's always nice to see a genuinely tall and built person playing a Klingon, in my opinion the actors playing Klingons rarely have the right build to come across as members of the greatest warrior race in the galaxy.

As first episodes go I would say it's on the right side of the average line but I had higher hopes.