Enterprise – the first episode “Broken Bow”

Original Airdate: Sept. 26, 2001

After a long break, I bring you the next installment in “Star Trek Through the Years.” We’ve made it past the beginnings of the franchise, through the three middle series, each achieving seven year runs, and we have now made it to the ever-controversial (among Trekkies) Enterprise.

Notice that’s just Enterprise. No “Star Trek” in that title. Part of the goal of Enterprise was to rejuvenate the series, try something new while bringing it back to its roots. So they went back in time, in terms of Trek chronology, to 2151 (for those looking for a frame of reference, the Original Series took place in 2265). The show chronicles the adventures of the first Enterprise and Starfleet’s (and mankind’s) first steps into the great beyond of space.

The ship is led by Captain Jonathan Archer. His dad worked hard on developing warp vessels with the Vulcans (the first alien race aliens encountered–that story is chronicled in the movie Star Trek: First Contact). The senior Archer never really got to see his ship take off, however, because the Vulcan’s were never too willing to give away information and Mr. Archer died before they perfected the technology. Due to this Cpt. Archer’s got a chip on his shoulder. He’s not a fan of Vulcans and likes to mock them snarkily whenever possible.

This becomes problematic when Commander T’Pol, a Vulcan woman, is ordered to accompany him on his first mission. By the end of the episode she’s reassigned to stay aboard the Enterprise to chaperone them through space as Vulcan’s have already done a bit of exploring and Starfleet wants access to some of their information.

Others on the crew include:

• Phlox, a Denobulan doctor. Denobulans are a new species to the Star Trek canon and new odd details are learned about them throughout the series.
• Travis Mayweather (helmsman) – an African-American ensign who spent his life aboard a cargo ship where his parents work. He will go on to be one of the least developed characters on the series
• Malcom Reed (armory officer) – Reed is a british man with a strong military tradition in his family. From what I recall from a later episode, he loves pineapple cake.
• Hoshi Sato (communications officer) – Born in Japan, Sato is an incredibly skilled linguist, however, she’s kind of terrified of being on a space ship and going on missions and the like
• Charles Tucker III (engineer) – Tucker, or Trip as he’s often known, is a youngish southerner. Not the noble plantation-style southerner, more along the lines of grits-eating, steak-loving, good ol’ American style southerner.
• Porthos – okay, he’s not so much a part of the crew, but considering he’s one of my favorite characters, I’m mentioning him. He’s Captain Archer’s pet beagle (if you’ve seen the new movie, you may have heard mention of him)

As a first episode, much of “Broken Bow” is about establishing the characters and the relationships that will unfold throughout the rest of the show. We meet the characters, we learn that Starfleet is just learning what a Klingon is, that most people on the ship have never set foot on alien soil, and transporters are brand new and everyone’s a little skeptical of their success.

Now that we know the basics, let’s skip ahead to the good stuff.

What Irked Me:

This crew (with the exception of T’Pol) is culturally elitist. They’re not very accepting of other cultures. This comes up a few times throughout the first episode. Many on the crew (especially Archer) reject the Vulcan’s lack of emotion and their desire to follow a more “teach a man to fish” mentality. Archer is also super peeved that the Vulcans want to take an injured, unconscious Klingon off life support as would follow Klingon customs. Tucker also freaks out when he sees a mother taking an oxygen mask away from her child causing him to gasp for air. She puts it back over his face so he can breathe again and then proceeds to take it away. Tucker yells at her only to have T’Pol explain that up to a certain age this species can only breathe a certain kind of gas. The mother is weaning her child.

We have a Ms. Fanservice in the case of T’Pol. She’s quite attractive and because she’s not a part of Starfleet, she’s not expected to wear the jumpsuit uniform worn by all the other officers. Instead she wears a Vulcan uniform which is conveniently form-fitting.

Beyond T’Pol there’s unnecessary objectification elsewhere. There are very few women in this episode, and more often than not they’re hypersexualized. At one point Reed and Mayweather chat happily about some alien species that has 3… the sentence is never finished but you can infer what you will based on Mayweather’s response that he knows “first hand and second hand and third hand.” One of them points out that that’s one of the perks of space travel. Yes, because the best reason to explore the cosmos is to establish a new intergalactic dating service.

Later, members of the crew visit a bar/club establishment on some planet where girls in tight spandex suits up on a podium (like strippers) eat butterflies with frog-like tongues that stick out and grab them. Kinda creepy, but the guys find it sexy.

Meanwhile Archer is seduced by an attractive woman. She turns out to be Suliban (kind of the villain of the series) but it nonetheless establishes this show as a return to the Kirk-like trek through space where the captain hooks up with all sorts of hot-looking alien women.

As for the crew itself, Hoshi Sato is problematic in that they kind of make her a wuss. She’s wildly intelligent and clearly capable, but space travel terrifies her. It makes her seem a little fragile and considering she’s one of only two (visible) women on the crew, it bugs me. Also, at one point she gets into a little verbal sparring match with T’Pol. Can’t the women get along?

Also, the racial diversity is much more limited. The cast is smaller, certainly, but there are only two aliens among the seven main crew members, and there are only two non-white characters. While it makes sense there wouldn’t be a ton of aliens (this is Starfleet’s first exploratory vessel… not a lot of aliens are even known about yet) one would imagine the racial and ethnic diversity would be a little more evident in the year 2151.

Lastly, the thing that bugs me most about this show: the decontamination chamber. It’s like softcore space porn. Seriously. I don’t know who came up with this idea (but I imagine it was quite popular among many of the male Trekkies in the audience). The decontamination chamber is where the crew members must go every time they return from a foreign planet so they can clear themselves of any foreign bacteria and the like they may have encountered. They do this by rubbing themselves (and each other) with gel. It’s basically an excuse to get the crew half naked on a semi-regular basis. So I guess it’s handy they hired an actress that doubles as a model and a couple male actors that are in impeccable shape, 6-pack abs and all. I gotta say, it’s a really lazy way to display sexual tension. (T’Pol is paired with Archer [loosely] and Trip throughout the series and the decontamination crops up often). This show has a lot of problems, but out of all of them, the stupid decon gel is the one that makes me want to gag.

What Made Me Happy:

Despite the Ms. Fanservice, in this series there is an obvious attempt at Estrogen Brigade Bait in Trip as well as in Captain Archer (who roams around his quarters in his undies for one whole scene in this episode). Brannon Braga (executive producer of the show) acknowledges this rather explicitly in an interview excerpt posted over at Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch blog;

Me: I just watched the last three episodes of season 3, so hopefully I’ll sound somewhat intelligent as we talk about season 4.

Braga: You’re not a Star Trek fan, are you?

Me: I’m not. But I tried to be prepared, and I enjoyed the shot of Scott Bakula shirtless very much.

Braga: We always try to get that in there. Look, the guy’s got a great body, and we definitely get him topless as much as we can. But it was not a conscious effort in the last three episodes.

This makes me happy merely because it suggests the sexual objectification is not as lopsided on the side of the women in this series.

Also, although not in this episode, there are a few episodes throughout the series where T’Pol points out that the men are making decisions with their pants instead of their brains, and when she does this, I get very happy. Of course this doesn’t stop them thinking with their pants (and causing trouble in the process) but it at least acknowledges it, making the mean appear more silly than if she hadn’t.

Along those lines, T’Pol is generally a good character. She’s intelligent, confident, high-ranking and generally no-nonsense. Much of that comes from her Vulcan nature, but nonetheless, she doesn’t let the random drama on the ship get to her and she does her job well (despite a lot of antagonism from the humans)

Hoshi is also not a bad character. She has plenty of positive traits including her intelligence. She may be a communications officer, but unlike Uhura that means more than being a cosmic secretary.

Also, Porthos makes me happy.

Final Score: 5

Improvement Score: -3 (ooh… not good)

Additional Comments:

The thing about Enterprise is they somewhat justify their own quasi-sexism, culturalism and other such things in the fact that the show takes place years before the Original Series. So while it’s implied that the future portrayed in all the other Star Trek series is totally egalitarian and progressive, this is before all that. This is when humans were just learning to explore, learning how to interact with other species. Part of the show is this crew coming to be the Starfleet that we know and love. Therefore there needs to be room for progress. Based on what’s seen in this episode, there is plenty of room for improvement.