ENT: “Broken Bow: Parts 1 & 2”

Date: August 18, 2021

Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2

Music Video of the Day:

Interstellar News: Today was another insane day at work. We also watched the second episode of Marvel’s What If…? and I definitely cried a bit, it was very good and very touching.

TL;DR: A boy paints a starship. 30 years later a Klingon named Klaang runs through a cornfield after being chased by two aliens (Sulibans). Klaang kills the aliens and then a man shoots him… and then THERE ARE LYRICS… WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? Sam Beckett, I mean, Jonathan Archer is looking at the Enterprise (NX-01) when he’s called to sick bay. The Vulcans and the U.S. military disagree about how to proceed so Archer convinces them to give him 3 days to get his crew ready to return Klaang, alive, to the Klingon home-world. We meet Dr. Phlox, a Denobulan, and T’Pol, a Vulcan. The rest of the crew is human; Tucker is the engineer, Mayweather is the helmsman, Reed is the tactical officer, and Sato is the com officer/translator.

The Sulibans sneak onto the Enterprise and make off with Klaang. The crew follows them to Rigel X and find out that some of the Suliban have been attacking Klingons and making it look like other Klingons were doing it. Klaang was carrying a message to the High Council to help avoid a civil war. Archer is hurt and also put through the transporter, but eventually they carry out their mission and deliver Klaang with the thanks of the Klingon High Council. They plan to continue their mission to explore strange, new worlds and Archer asks T’Pol if she’ll stay on as science officer.

Favorite Quote:

Admiral Forrest: We’ve been waiting for nearly a century, Ambassador. This seems as good a time as any to get started.

Soval: Listen to me. You’re making a mistake!

Archer: When your logic doesn’t work, you raise your voice? You’ve been on Earth too long.

Getting a peek at Archer’s personality.

“Dr. Phlox isn’t concerned with the food and water, but he does caution against intimate contact.”: As this is a prequel to The Original Series, there are certain things that are different. There’s no Federation and it’s the early days of Starfleet, so there’s no Prime Directive. There are no star dates, they can only go up to warp 5, transporters haven’t really been used for humans yet, the universal translator is in the super early stages, the replicators only make drinks, real food is prepared buffet style by a chef, and dogs are allowed on board (every time Porthos is on screen, I yell “puppy”).

I’m not sure how I feel about the crew yet. I keep getting Reed and Tucker mixed up, they’re both white guys with an accent. Archer is still figuring his life out, but he also is the first Starfleet captain so there’s that. I absolutely love Phlox and the actor who plays him. T’Pol is, um, not my favorite and Mayweather looks like he may be interesting. Every time I see him on screen, however, I think of the guy from Down Periscope who used to be a basketball player. There’s something about him that reminds me of that character, and it’s not because they’re both black. It’s a not terrible introduction episode, as we get to meet the new crew and they get a mission and stuff happens and we get to see ALL THE WAYS that this is different than the other Trek shows. However, I can’t get over that there is A THEME SONG WITH LYRICS… so this gets 6 baby Porthos puppies.

TA Out!