“Enterprise” Shockwave, Part II

We’re baaaaack!

My apologies for listing the preview of Nemesis as being during this episode. It was not. It was shown during “The Twilight Zone.” According the official web site, the new trailer will be shown starting tomorrow before showings of “The Four Feathers.”

Enterprise LogoShockwave,
Part II

Cast & Crew

Director: Alan Kroeker
Written By: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

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
Vaughn Armstrong as Admiral Forrest
Gary Graham as Soval
Keith Allan as Raan
Jim Fitzpatrick as Commander Williams
Michael Kosik as Suliban Soldier

Airdate Information

Originally Aired: Sept. 18, 2002
Season: Two
Episode: One
Production: 028

Shockwave, Part IIWhat
Happened

For a recap of last season’s cliffhanger, “Shockwave, Part I,”click here. If you’d like to recap the entire first season, click here.

Picking up where we left off, Enterprise is surrounded by Suliban cell ships, all with their weapons pointed straight at her warp core. Instead of destroying them, T’Pol manages to talk Silik into searching the ship. When they fail to find Archer, but do find the remnants of temporal shift, the Suliban put the crew under house arrest and pilot the Enterprise themselves to the Suliban Helix.

Meanwhile, Archer and Daniels are still trapped in the 31st century. According to their research Archer departure has led to a catastrophic alteration of the timeline (including the erasure of the Federation from history). Unable to transport Archer back, Daniels constructs a temporal communicator from the gear the captain just happens to have with him.

Trip has managed to work the door chime into a makeshift communicator to talk with the rest of the crew. T’Pol, under Silik’s watchful eye, is tortured into revealing what little she knows about Archer’s disappearance. She is returned, understandably shaken, to her quarters. Archer uses his communicator to talk with the disoriented T’Pol and manages to work out a plan.

The crew organizes a breakout plan, which puts Hoshi into a revealing situation. They manage to knock out their captors and Reed grabs a device from Daniels’ old quarters. He’s caught by the Suliban and beaten pretty soundly. They take the device and Silik uses it to try and contact his 28th century employer.

While Reed was distracting the Suliban, Trip sets the Enterprise‘s core to overload. Unable to shut it down, the Suliban tow it away from the Helix. Meanwhile, Silik is caught off-guard by Archer, who uses the time portal (conveniently
activated by the Suliban) to return to his own time. Using some rather un-Starfleet tactics, he kidnaps Silik and uses him to keep the Cabal from following the Enterprise. With data disks in hand, Archer and company are cleared of any wrong doing, and are reinstated, much to Vulcan High Command’s displeasure.

Review

Sweet lord it feels good to have some fresh Trek in my life. And what a way to come back. Good mix of action and suspense with some enjoyable dialogue thrown in for good measure.

It’s becoming apparent that the cast is finding their niche with their characters. Everyone was smooth and comfortable with their parts.

High Point

Archer: “Romulan Star Empire? What’s that?”
Daniels: “Um, you probably shouldn’t read that.”

Well placed shot at us nitpickers. Bravo.

Low Point

T’Pol’s reaction after being tortured turned into a comic device that didn’t really mesh. The outrage we might have felt against the Suliban was quashed a little too abruptly.

The Scores

Originality: Nothing that original, but still enjoyable. 3

Effects: Great work. Pyrotechnics display for the pseudo-core breach was great to watch. 6

Story: Excellent use of getting various elements across to the viewer. 4

Acting: Everyone’s back and in full force. I still don’t much care for Daniels, but he may grow on me. 5

Emotional Response: I was hanging in there to the very end, determined to see our intrepid crew through. The final showdown between Starfleet and the Vulcans was top notch. 5

Production: Great set design from the new jeffries tubes to the ruined future Earth. 5

Overall: Welcome back kids!!! 5

Total: 33 out of 42

Episode Media

From StarTrek.com

Next Time on Enterprise (Sept. 25, 2002)

Next Time on EnterpriseCarbon Creek

T’Pol tells Archer and Trip a story about her great-grandmother T’Mir and three other Vulcans who made first contact with humans after crash landing in a small Pennsylvania town in the 1950s. T’Pol’s story shocks Archer and Trip because her account is much earlier and very different from what history books reported. [No video preview available at the time of writing]

4 replies on ““Enterprise” Shockwave, Part II”

  1. Weak ep all around
    I was hoping for a good ep. I really was.

    The action was very predictable (we all knew the “warp core breach” was a fake or cancelable as soon as it happened, of course he took a hostage, of course he contacted T’Pol as soon as it was inconvenient).

    The plotting was often ludicrous (“well, let’s just make a temporal communicator out of baling wire and chewing gum”, “we know the coordinates for the Enterprise from centuries away”, “we’ve captured the Enterprise, but we don’t use scanners to check energy emisions, crew movements, and door openings”)

    The effect was the pacing was destroyed: there was never any suspense.

    And, of course, despite being attacked by 30+ superior ships, having their armor breached on three sides, and overrunning the engine until sparks flew, Enterprise still hasn’t taken any casualties beyond “Reed was beaten up bad, but he’ll be OK.” Put it on Saturday morning, folks, if there’s no consequences and no death (other than 36,000 unnamed and unmourned aliens–their deaths don’t deserve any response other than trying to fire Archer, apparantly).

    Don’t get me started about the stupid “reaching into the hidden space in Daniel’s quarters” bit.

    Will they either stop using Hoshi’s claustriphobia as a minor plot point in every episode. Or at least do some research on phobias!

    Can we cut the T’Pol T&A scenes? Please? Pretty please?

    And worse of all, the writing bit. The cheesey speeches at the end were below the standards of last season, if that’s possible. Is Bakula–normally a decent actor–trying so very hard to come across as wooden as a less-sophisticated Kirk?

    It’s a shame. There was some great stuff: the fistfight with Selik was fun. The quote mentioned above about the Romulans was great. The way Daniels didn’t want to talk about the Federation, with the great line “in the months–um, or years–to come”. I also liked “Didn’t you think we’d be watching Daniels’ quarters?”, but it did make me wonder why T’Pol’s wasn’t watched.

    And there was at least one scene of Phlox, so not all was lost. And some Hoshi. Could I just have the Phlox, Hoshi, and Reed show? Please?

    Oh well. Wanted to give an alternate opinion to the rave review above. I do have high hopes for the season and show still.

    – Xowl.

  2. Nemesis Trailer
    The Nemesis trailer did appear during the telecast of Enterprise in the DC Metro area. (WDCA 20) I have reason to believe that it appeared during Enterprise on most of the East Coast.

    For something more useful, the photography for Nemesis seems very influenced by MTV and movies like Fast and the Furious. A lot of emphasis on sharp, and crushed, blacks and glossy surfaces. It is a style that manages to look decent, while being seriously deficient.

    My unfortunate experience is that this sort of visual glitz accompanies programs that are otherwise “questionable.” I sincerly hope that Nemesis breaks the mold.

    The effects seem to be the same clean high quality effects we have been treated to throughout Trek. They should be a treat.

    The storyline seems a little contrived. From what I gleaned the bad guy is a Picard clone, or something similiar. Also, Lore seems to be back in action. So, I think we can expect the PIcard and Data show with cameos from the rest. Of course Picard and Data are my favorites, perhaps thats what Paramount is banking on being the choice of most fans.

    Overall, despite my complaints, I remain enthusiastic about Nemesis.

    As an aside, it seems pretty sad that I, and others, look to trailers not as a bit of excitement, but rather as a show that the eventual film won’t be a bitter disappointment.

    • Re: Nemesis Trailer

      More info on the Trailer from the official StarTrek.com Newsletter:

      The trailer’s ONLINE premiere will take place Monday, September 23, at 10:00
      a.m. PDT, 1:00 p.m. EDT (6:00 p.m. British Summer Time) on STARTREK.COM! The
      trailer will premiere in small, large and FULL SCREEN formats courtesy of the
      digital wizards at Apple’s QuickTime division. For a limited time, the trailer will
      be available in FULL SCREEN for users with or without QuickTime Pro.

    • Re: Nemesis Trailer [spoilers in here]

      The storyline seems a little contrived. From what I gleaned the bad guy is a Picard clone, or something similiar. Also, Lore seems to be back in action.

      Actually, not Lore at all. From the spoilers I read back when shooting completed (which have been accurate thus far based on info in trailers and etc) it’s a Soong-type prototype that predates Lore even, and it didn’t sound like its intentions were evil. More than anything, it sounds like a subplot to advance Data’s character (Spiner’s made a lot of very loud noise about his desires to do things like that…) — I don’t think the Soong android will end up being an antagonist here.

      So, I think we can expect the PIcard and Data show with cameos from the rest. Of course Picard and Data are my favorites, perhaps thats what Paramount is banking on being the choice of most fans.

      Of course it’s the Picard and Data show. Let’s face it, they’re the moneymakers. Fortunately they’re also strong characters. You’ll probably be happy to know that, unless they’ve cut it, they’ve advanced the Riker/Troi thing at least, plus there’s a rather major event happening for Data as well (if you really want it spoiled email me or something).

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