Cold Front

Enterprise lost its first "crewman" in this amazing. However, this personal Jeeves, Archer's butler, turned out to be a time traveler from 700 years or so in the future and he was fighting some kind of temporal cold war with the Suliban. So we will count this as our first crew casualty with an asterisk. Luckily, the Suliban only stuns Archer, but he kills "Daniel". We really don't know for sure who the bad guy was, but we assume it was the Suliban. Daniel had some nice technology he brought back with him to the 22nd century, but unfortunately Archer lost it all when he dropped it out of a space dock. All of this drama takes place when Enterprise visits a star nursery to the "Plume of Agosoria". However, there was already a group of hippie pilgrims camping out in an old freighter commanded by a really surly captain named Fraddock.
A few interesting notes here: 1. Archer's dog is named Porthos...which is one of my favorite characters in the Three Museketeers series of books by Dumas 2. At the conclusion of the episode they seal off Daniel's quarters with a special lock basically creating their own Area 51 right on board Enterprise. 3. I assume we will have more trouble with this time traveling cold war protocol treaty business. I am sure subcommander Bennett is keeping tabs on this!

Fortunate Son

Apparantly there is a whole trucking industry going on in the 2150's, with big old freighters like you see in this photo. This particular model is the old J Class only capable of lumbering along at 1.8 Warp. This crew of earthlings was cruising along with a load a dilitheum ore in the hull, when they were attacked by the Nausicaans...a breed of pirate that like to dress up like the old rock band KISS. The Fortunate Son sends out a distress call, Archer and the gang show up to save the day, but the 1st officer, filling in for the injured captain, doesn't want help. He wants revenge and he has taken one of the Naussis hostage and plans to attack the Nausicaans with the advantage of knowing their shield codes from the tortured Nausi. All turns out well in the end though, Travis, who also grew up on a freighter, talks some sense into the 1st officer, but in doing so he rudely interrupts Archer, but Archer was cool with it, he's a laid back captain for sure. Everyone gets along in the end and nobody is killed, not even the Tenebian skunk the kids on freighter have for a pet.

Civilization Season 1 Episode 8

Stardate: July 31, 2151
Captain Archer and the crew discover an M-Class or Mirishara class planet full of primitive people. T'Pol tells them they can't go down there and mess around and change the course of their future until they achieve warp speed technology, but then they find a big reactor down there and down they go. Archer falls in love with a pharmacist down there named Riaan, which officially begins a friendly competition between the captains to see which one has the most interstellar relationships. Interestingly enough, T'Pol was a bit jealous, so now I don't know if she is in love with the engineering fella or Archer.
Turns out there are some bad aliens down there posing as natives, but really they are mining some rare mineral, the byproduct of which is making the locals sick.
Archer decides to put a stop to all of this and has to tell Riaan who he really is. Luckily, the crew have this really cool translator thing Hoshi hooked up on their communicators that allows them to understand and speakk the local language. Anyway, there is some trouble, Archer beats up some of the aliens and shoots them "on stun". Tucker mutinies against T'Pol while she is trying to deal with the alien's ship. Enterprise beams up the reactor and T'Pol fires it at the ship then shoots it with its lasers, which brings down the enemy ship's shields and then they leave. Archer sends some meds down to his girlfriend and she cures the locals and promises not to tell anyone about what she's seen. So far I can't really figure out Archer...I keep waiting for Al to bail him out into another life. He certainly isn't Kirk...but then who is? Finally, I am waiting for some Romulans...I thought they had some nice spaceships in the original series.

Mission Update

7 episodes are now behind me....but....I still have a long journey ahead. I have 90 more in the Enterprise series, 80 in the original, 22 cartoons, 177 Nextgens, 183 Deep Space and 168 Voyagers!!! So, I have 710 episodes to go, not including the movies. Luckily, I have a good crew backing me up, so I will continue to Boldy Go!

Episode 7: Breaking the Ice or "Guess who's Coming to Dinner"

Trip annoys T'Pol because she is in love with him. In fact, she broke off her arranged marriage to stay on the ship with him, but enough of the love story...in this exciting episode Archer chases down a big comet and modestly names it after himself. Then he sends Travis and Malcom to land on it with the shuttle and do some mining for some rare minerals. But, that is when they noticed that their cosmic "babysitters" were going to watch them....the Vulcans. Archer decided to try to break the ice with the Vulcan captain whom he invites to dinner on Enterprise. It didn't go well. Here is a sample of the stimulating convo during the meal:
Archer: "Tell us about yourself."
Vanik: "Why do you want to know?"
Reminds me of many of my interactions and meals with my German acquaintances. I have actually had that identical response many times in Germany when I have asked someone I didn't know well Wie geht's (How is it going?).
OK, so back to the plot. Travis and Malcom were jacking around making snowmen on the comet ( I especially liked the one they put Vulcan ears on) and squandered away the time they were supposed to be using for mining and drilling. As the comet rotated, the sun around which it was orbiting heated up the surface and the shuttle fell through the ice as they started their takeoff roll. Archer and Trip try to attach a winch from Enterprise and reel them in ("like reeling in a big bass"), but it was no use. Archer, with a little persuasion from T'Pol, swallows his pride and asks the Vulcans to use their top secret classified tractor beam. The Vulcans save the day and kept our new "Red Shirt Memoriam" nice and empty!
While the earthling Archer may have had to swallow his pride and ask the Vulcans for help, it was the Vulcan T'Pol who had to go the earthling Trip for help with her love life. Trip talked her not only into breaking up with her boyfriend, but more importantly into eating a piece of pecan pie...well played.

The Andorian Incident

Captain Archer decides to drop in uninvited on some Vulcan Monks and their sacred monestary/spa planet. However, they already had some guests...Andorians...the Vulcan's cold war enemy. The Andorians are blue devil humanoid type  beings with some really freaky antennae, the function of which, I haven't yet determined. The Andorians, love kicking butt and the butt they loved to kick the most in this episode was Archer's. Captain Kirk would have been rolling in his grave if he had been born yet watching how Archer took beating after beating without even throwing a punch back. The Andorians, who call humans "pinkskins" take the landing crew hostage while they search the planet for some illegal spying equipment that they believe the Vulcans have on this planet in violation of their treaty. Even though Archer took a good whipping, that didn't slow him down from kind of forcing T'Pol to cuddle with him as the night became colder in their cell. Unfortanutely for T her nasal numbing spray had worn off and she had to endure the full human scent during the whole cuddle session.

Well, turns out the blue devils, whom my wife thought bore an eery resemblence to Billy Idol, were right, the Vulcans had a massive hidden spy station hidden underground. Archer and the Andorian make up and the Andorian said he was in Archer's debt.

The best line of the episode was when the Vulcans were explaining something, Trip said he "was all ears...no offense."

Terra Nova

Some humans left earth and started a new colony on a new planet 70 years ago, back when it took 9 years each way to get to the planet from earth. Something goes wrong on the new planet and the humans forget somehow that they are humans, move underground, eat only "digger meat" and start hating humans, whom they all accuse of speaking "shale". Unexplained was the severe acne and extreme dis-coloring of these "humans".  The fate of these folks had been a bigger mystery than Flight 19 in the Bermuda Triangle, but luckily Archer and his crew, especially the Boomer, who is obsessed with the Terra Nova mystery, got the credit for solving it.

Unexpected

Trip goes over to help an alien ship fix some engines, gets seduced by a lizard humainoid woman and ends up getting himself pregnant. Some Klingons they run into give him the old school advice of moving on and forgetting it, but in this instance, that was of no help and he didn't want to admit to the ultra macho Klingons his situation. They finally track down the lizard girl, she agrees to have the child transfered to "another host" and Trip keeps on steppin'. Trip seemed to be in love with the lizard woman, but both lizard and their offspring are quickly forgotten by Trip. Strange....

Strange New World

Stardate: TBD
The crew go on a camping trip on a planet that is much like earth. The pollen starts making all the humans hallucinate some rock people and T'Pol has to hold it together and save everyone. I wasn't especially impressed with the crosswind landing in which Tucker damages a shuttle craft, but that happens. My favorite part of the episode was when they looked up and found our sun in the sky while telling ghost stories around the campfire.

Fight or Flight

Stardate: Unknown, tbd by the crew
In this episode once again T'Pol recommends strongly that Archer NOT approach a ship disabled out in deep space, where it turns out that all of the alien crew have been murdered and had theri lymphatic fluids harvested (unfortunately no morphing salt buffaloes this time). Archer ignores T'Pol and almost gets everyone killed. Hoshi uses her developing skills to save the crew and overcomes her lack of confidence and fear that she doesn't have the "right stuff" to be a crewmember and overcomes her fear that she was better suited to her former position at the University. Not only did Hoshi find that she is suited for her new environment aboard a starship, she also finds a suitable new environment for her space slug pet.

Broken Bow Parts 1 & 2

Stardate -309952.5
OK, the mission officially begins with my observations on the first Star Trek if we go in Star Trek chronological order (but there is the flashback scene in one of the movies when Dr. Cochran makes the first Warp speed flight I think, but we'll ignore that issue for now and let my navigator worry about that). So anyway, I think the date is like 2150 maybe and it is several years since the first warp flight attracted the attention of the Vulcans and it looks like they invaded us and took over sort of, logically and benignly, sometimes they help us, but they often tell us what to do. The show starts with a good 'ol boy in Oklahoma shooting a Klingon with a Plasma Rifle. Captain Archer then takes the first Star Trek Enterprise (our first Warp 5 capable starship) with his crew to return the wounded Klingon to his people. The Vulcans allow all of this to happen as long as Archer lets T'Pol, an attractive, sarcastic, told you so, logical, science officer, subcommander go on the trip. They have a bunch of adventures out there and at one point Archer threatens to "knock T'Pol on her ass"...hmm this Star Trek series seems to have a sharper edge than the other series, but OK, I'm not watching it from my playpen as I did with the original series in the early 70's. Archer calmed himself down by spending time with this beagle which he brought along. They have some other crew members along as well of course. The doctor is some kind of alien, but he seems competent and friendly enough. As a German teacher I was especially interested in the language/cultural officer Hoshi...she speaks fluent Vulcan (if there is such a language) & Klingon (which makes German look easy). Then there is Trip, the engineer...seems to come from my part of the country (Southwest Missouri/SE Kansas). I will describe the others in future entries. Luckily, their mission, with T'Pol's help is successful and even though she acts like she hates the humans she signs on to be a permanent member of the crew. My favorite part of the show was the young Archer flying his model spaceship with his Dad who gives him the advice "don't be afraid of the wind" which Archer repeats at the end of the show to the Boomer before they foolishly fly directly into an Ion storm instead of going around it, but it was a nice threading of the theme from the beginning to tie things all together at the end and I loved the reference to flying and fearing the wind, especially crosswinds is something with which we pilots often struggle. This series will never match up to the original with Kirk, but it looks entertaining enough.

Mission Log

Stardate: -309958.4
My 5 year mission to watch every Star Trek ever made has begun. I am working in "Star Trek" chronological order and have started with the Enterprise series. I will then rewatch the original series with Captain Kirk, even though I have seen all of these episodes to the point of memorization, then the Star Trek cartoon and that is when it gets a bit tricky, but luckily I have a true Trekkie navigator who will no doubt chart my course in the comment section below.
The Enterprise series looks promising. I always enjoyed Scott Bakula's acting on Quantum Leap. The intro theme song doesn't seem to fit with what I was expecting, but I do enjoy seeing the history of flight go by: The Wright's Flier, Lindbergh landing in Paris, Alan Shephard getting ready to blast off and the Space Shuttle Enterprise that I watched in its test flights back in the 70's.  As a Private Pilot myself (and yes obsessed with all things flying whether they are real or science fiction), I was really impressed with all of these scenes. OK, now to officially launch this mission. Description of Episode 1 to follow: