Enterprise: Cold Front

Read on or not, I don’t care. I have the Temporal Police and I’m not afraid to use them!

Cold
Front

 

Cast & Crew

Director: Robert
Duncan McNeill

Written By: Stephen Beck
& Tim Finch

Starring
Scott Bakula as Captain
Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Chief
Engineer Charles Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as Sub-commander
T’Pol
Dominic Keating as Lt.
Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery
as Ensign Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Ensign Hoshi
Sato
John Billingsley
as Dr. Phlox

Guest Cast
John Fleck as Silik
Matt Winston as Daniels
Michael O’Hagan as
Captain Fraddock
Joseph Hindy as Prah Mantoos
Leonard Kelly-Young
as Sonsorra
Lamont D. Thompson
as Alien Pilgrim

Original Airdate

November 28, 2001

Cold FrontWhat
Happened

While visiting a stellar nursery, the Enterprise encounters a freighter
ferrying passengers to an 11-year cosmic event, "The Great Plume."
The passengers are pilgrims from various worlds that all share a common faith.

But all is never as it seems in Star Trek. One of the passengers is Silik (the
dreaded Suliban agent) in disguise. While touring the ship, he rips some conduits
out, conduits that would later come into play by stopping a power surge to the
warp core.

More perplexing in one of the ship’s waiters (or is he a cook?), Danials, reveals
himself to be a 29th century security agent, sent back to capture Silik and
stop the "Temporal Cold War." Archer is skeptical at first (but not
a bad as T’Pol) but allows Daniels to use the ship’s sensors to find Silik.

They locate him in short order, but not before blasting Daniels into several
million temporal bits and then running off. The captain later runs into Silik
in his quarters, only to have him shoot and steal a device Daniels was using
for tracking and referencing time. What follows is (literally) a chase through
the ship that ends with the captain destroying the device, but Silik escapes.

The captain orders Daniels’ quarters locked down and off-limits to everyone.

Review

I know what you’re all thinking: "Was there a cave?"

No, but we wouldn’t have noticed.

I was all excited about the Suliban’s return, hoping for a little bit
more information from what we learned in "Broken Bow." Well, we got
some information, which only raised more questions. But sadly, I’m just a bit
confused on the whole thing right now.

We’re pretty sure that the Suliban are the bad guys, but we don’t know what
their plans are. We also don’t know who these 29th century guys are. Starfleet?
Probably not, though we do know they exist in the 26th century.

All-in-all the episode was OK, but I hope for better from this story-arc in
the future.

High Point

Trip’s demo of the warp core was funny. He thinks he’s got a captive audience
to teach warp theory to, but instead they’re just as competent as he is.

Another nice bit was the pan-in of Daniels’ locked-down quarters. It was a
blunt, but cool way of telling us that none of this is really over.

Low Point

I didn’t really care for the actor who played Daniels. A little too sissy and
weak to be a Temporal Agent, don’t you think?

The Scores

Originality: Not really, but with some new elements. 3

Effects: The stellar nursery was very well done, as was all the Suliban morphing
tricks. 5

Story: Not bad, but it could have given us a little bit more from Silik and
Daniels. 3

Acting: Not much from anyone except the doctor, whom I’d like to see more of.
4

Emotional Response: Nothing nailbiting about this one, I pretty much had the
resolution pegged pretty early on.. 2

Production: We did get to see some new interior shots of Enterprise
(namely the hanger and flight deck), but everything else was older interior
sets. 3

Overall: An obvious bridge piece, but it needs more depth. 3

Total: 23 out of 42

Stills

From StarTrek.com

Fight or FlightNext
week

Fight
or Flight
(Rerun: Original Airdate: 10-03-2001)

As they continue their deep space exploration, the Enterprise crew comes across
an alien ship where they discover 15 humanoid corpses that seem to have been
part of a scientific experiment. The horrific sight inspires Hoshi to panic
and demand a return to Earth, but Archer insists on continuing the mission and
finding out more about the abandoned dead. Trouble comes calling when the aliens
that were conducting the gruesome experiments return and begin attacking Captain
Archer and his team.

14 replies on “Enterprise: Cold Front”

  1. Doin’ Time On Enterprise….

    Hooboy, it’s a good thing this episode was about cold something, otherwise it just plain would have stunk. How did it stink, let me count the ways.

    Our temporal agent doesn’t seem to even CARE about polluting the timeline, at the first hint of trouble he blows his cover to the MOST HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT STARSHIP CAPTAIN IN EARTH’S HISTORY and says, oh by the way, I need to tie into your sensor grid. Lot of good it did him, he got blasted to atoms because he forgot that Suilban are invisible or super-camoflagued or something. Dax and Cisco did better than this against the Klingons and Tribbles. Jeez, I’d have done better than this, I’d have remembered to take along a paintball gun…

    BTW, those Suliban have special DNA all right. Forget jumping into a nebula SO THICK YOU COULD BREATHE IT – they were so close to a star it would have fried him to a crisp as soon as he cleared the hull plating. And I just can’t figure out what the Time Dude us using to bribe Silick (or whatever his name is) – its got to be either a facelift or acne tratments…

    I won’t even get into who was the good guy or who was the bad guy or who was the baddest guy – the all acted like inconsistent dolts as near as I could tell and none of it made any sense to me except Athat now Archer has a pal that can call him Jon. Nice touch.

    The thing that gets me the most, tho – the ABSOLUTE LOW POINT, VIRTUALLY UNFORGIVABLE – is Archer’s response to possible having Suiliban on HIS ship, the one-and-only-precious NX-01. The best Archer can do is go down to the mess hall and goggle suspiciously at the suspects while he asks Phlox leading questions. Holy cow. Kirk or Picard or even Wesley for crying out loud would have instantly organized security parties armed with phase pistols, triple teamed every visitor on board, and hustled them straight to their shuttle pod for a return to their chartered ship at the first HINT or MENTION of the arch-enemy….and if the numbers of warm bodies didn’t add up, warn the crew with Starfleet’s very first INTRUDER ALERT…

    In closing, I say there was too a cave. It was called the Cave of Time, and Daniel’s gizmo took them there as soon as he turned it on. It was small, it was dark, and it had writing on all of the walls. That counts as a cave to me. Let’s vote!

    • Re: Doin’ Time On Enterprise….
      And BTW, I thought the “Destiny” episode before this one was not only a much better episode but also had a “cave”, too – the ejected cargo pod with the slow air leak. (OK, so I’m stetching it here.) The lo grav football passes were cool….

      • Re: Doin’ Time On Enterprise….

        And BTW, I thought the “Destiny” episode before this one was not only a much better episode but also had a “cave”, too – the ejected cargo pod with the slow air leak. (OK, so I’m stetching it here.) The lo grav football passes were cool….

        Good lord, what’re you smoking? The current episode may not have been great, but that last one: pe-ew! I was unfortunate enough to try introducing my brother to Enterprise over Thanksgiving. He walked out after ten minutes of that crappy dialogue –And I almost followed him! Not only was the story weak, but it focused what has to be the worst actor I’ve seen on a Star Trek show (and that’s saying a lot!). The ‘boomer’ kid actually descended into Shatneresque gesticulations by the end of the show; he made the original look good by comparison!

        • Re: Doin’ Time On Enterprise….
          I have to agree. the Destiny episode was way better then this one.

          Cold front had WAY too many plot holes. and the crew loooked like Id-10-t’s most of the time. (Not that they looked like Super Intellegent beings in Destiny.)

          Bad side of the show form me. Too much Trip. need to see less trip & more every body else.

          I did like the Dr Phlox bits though. Love that Grin.

          My 2 cents

        • Re: Doin’ Time On Enterprise….
          Yeah, Destiny sucked big time. The cartoon version of revenge was completely moronic, and I certainly wouldn’t mind it if the boomer pilot was the unfortunate victim of an exploding console. Or maybe a particularly gruesome transporter accident.

          Which brings me to another point, there haven’t been enough deaths. Weapons should rip holes in the ship, suck people out, and need days to fully repair. Talking one’s way out of a fight with Nausicans? What the fuck is that? Eventually they are going to have to have whole wars, with Klingons, Romulans, etc. Are they gonna pull through those with just a few sparking panels and bloody noses? I could accept the super-smart hologram with magic wands fixing people up toot-sweet (hell, I always wondered why he stopped working when the person flatlined) and tweaked out shields converting the problem from explosive forces to energy absorbtion by the ship’s power grid, but these people have no such luxuries. There need to be reprocussions from dogfights that last the next couple of episodes. “Keep our port side towards their ship so they can’t hit us where we got hit a few days ago.” Shit like that.

      • Stale Air….

        And BTW, I thought the “Destiny” episode… also had a “cave”, too – the ejected cargo pod with the slow air leak. (OK, so I’m stetching it here.)…

        D’OH!!! It just hit me!!! IF there is no cave on a planet, THEN there is a decompression accident in space!!! This is two episodes in a row where loss of air was the we-know-it-won’t-get-them threat of the week…..

  2. After careful analysis…
    … of this episode I think that we can say with absolute certainty that, umm… Archer can hold his breath really well. Beyond that, I’m pretty stumped.

    The makers of this one did a pretty good job of acting like they were saying some stuff and doing things, all without really giving away anything of substance. We are left with half-stories from two untrustworthy sources, nice.

  3. A Few Notes
    1. Am I the only one who was confused when the “warp theorist” turned out to be the (anti-)sabotuer? I thought that the alien who was hanging back at the end of the first segment was Silik, not the guy who ened up pulling the cables. The latter looked nothing like the actor playing Silik. [conspiracy_mode=on]Just because Silik took credit for saving the ship, doesn’t mean he was really the guy. Maybe there is a third group taking action here?[/conspiracy]

    2. If in fact the Enterprise was supposed to explode and/or be damaged, maybe Daniels felt that there was no reason to hide himself from the captain anymore, since the timeline had already been disrupted. This might also explain his inept handling of the Silik pursuit; he may have intended to either die with the crew, or get pulled back to his own time before the explosion. Maybe he wasn’t trained in direct anti-personnel operations, and was merely a sort of monitor sent to observe a historic Starfleet operation. The Suliban incursion may have caught him/them by surprise.

    3. Regarding the conflicting stories between Silik & Daniels: Maybe they’re both right. If the early rumors were true, then Silik’s employer is trying to shape the future to Starfleet’s advantage; and Daniels could in fact be a time-cop as he claims. In this case, both of them may believe that they’re working in Earth’s best interest (since Earth seems to come out ok either way, though the 26th century guys don’t know that). Also, Silik doesn’t seem to have much of a clue as to his employer’s true intentions or knowledge of the future; so it’s possible that he’s being lied to as well.

    • Re: A Few Notes

      1. Am I the only one who was confused when the “warp theorist” turned out to be the (anti-)sabotuer?

      Yes. ;)

      I thought that the alien who was hanging back at the end of the first segment was Silik, not the guy who ened up pulling the cables. The latter looked nothing like the actor playing Silik. [conspiracy_mode=on]Just because Silik took credit for saving the ship, doesn’t mean he was really the guy. Maybe there is a third group taking action here?[/conspiracy]

      It was Silik. Remember, they can change their appearance. He made himself look like one of those pilgrims. And to prove it was Silik, remember when he pulled the cable? He had to stretch his arm and bend the forearm part in a snake like fashion using those creepy genetically engineered bones they have. :)

      3. Regarding the conflicting stories between Silik & Daniels: Maybe they’re both right. If the early rumors were true, then Silik’s employer is trying to shape the future to Starfleet’s advantage; and Daniels could in fact be a time-cop as he claims. In this case, both of them may believe that they’re working in Earth’s best interest (since Earth seems to come out ok either way, though the 26th century guys don’t know that). Also, Silik doesn’t seem to have much of a clue as to his employer’s true intentions or knowledge of the future; so it’s possible that he’s being lied to as well.

      I think they were both lying. I don’t know WHY I feel that way, but I do. We all know that Silik is a bad guy, so we KNOW he’s lying, but I just get the feeling that Daniels was lying.

      • Re: A Few Notes

        I think they were both lying. I don’t know WHY I feel that way, but I do. We all know that Silik is a bad guy, so we KNOW he’s lying, but I just get the feeling that Daniels was lying.

        Maybe you don’t trust Daniels because his justification of why he should be trusted was the lamest thing possible. “Yeah, I know you are good with the eggs, but umm, isn’t that a bit off topic?”

        In other news, the developments work well with my idea that Archer should be responsible for including section 31 in the Federation Charter (not the public version of course, but the real one). He is getting nice big doses of reasons to be paranoid.

        • Re: A Few Notes

          Or maybe, just maybe, the producers have no idea where the story line is going so they’re keeping everything as vague as possible.

  4. how about the damn DOG
    #1) why can’t a 29th century guy find someone that is hiding with 24th century tech??

    #2) why can the DAMN DOG sense the cloaked person?

    #3) There was a CAVE – well sorta. The fight between in(between?) the bulkhead at he end,was very close combat – could sorta count…

    • Re: how about the damn DOG

      #2) why can the DAMN DOG sense the cloaked person?

      If I understand the Suliban correctly,
      it’s some sort of adjustment they make to their own
      skin that makes them invisible. This shouldn’t affect
      their scent, so the dog should perceive them.
      However, it should also mean that clothing is
      unaffected (workaround: the generate their own clothes
      as Odo did) and that the ship’s sensors would find
      them just as easily when they were “cloaked” as it
      would when they were in their natural state.

      • Re: how about the damn DOG

        #2) why can the DAMN DOG sense the cloaked person?

        If I understand the Suliban correctly,
        it’s some sort of adjustment they make to their own
        skin that makes them invisible. This shouldn’t affect
        their scent, so the dog should perceive them.
        However, it should also mean that clothing is
        unaffected (workaround: the generate their own clothes
        as Odo did) and that the ship’s sensors would find
        them just as easily when they were “cloaked” as it
        would when they were in their natural state.

        thats what I meant: If the DOG can sense him,why couldn’t the internal sensors? And WHATEVER the reason,if they had a “good reason” then DOGS should be standard on all Starfleet ships – Very Terminator.

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