Episodes 1 and 2: Broken Bow

I remember sitting down to watch the premier of Enterprise with no small measure excitement. I am a fan of The Original Series (TOS) and, like many other Star Trek fans, watched the vast majority of The Next Generation (TNG), much of Deep Space 9 (DS9) but drifted away from Voyager.

Enterprise promised a re-birth, a re-dedication of the Star Trek franchise to the principles that imbued TOS and TNG, and an exploration of the roots of Star Fleet and the Federation.

It never occurred to me that Enterprise would, instead, focus on the worst characteristics that had crept into Star Trek, especially in later seasons of Voyager:

• the sexualisation of female characters and their relegation to support, background or subservient roles; 
• the introduction (or re-introduction) of the nastier side of human nature, that mean, aggressive, calculating streak that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry strived so hard to argue would have been, if not removed, then significantly reduced in human society if it were to survive the 20^th and 21^st centuries; 
•  the glorification of the modern American male, the good ol’ boys, dominated by their hormones, hyper-aggressive and hyper-sexual, complete with the boys-will-be-boys attitude that seems intended to excuse even the most egregious behaviour.

And would add a series of significantly problematic characteristics as well: racism and xenophobia; the dominance of white males to the point where women and people from currently-racialised communities would be relegated to background roles; the contradiction of long-held Trek philosophies and long-known Trek truths; sloppy, inconsistent plots; and lazy writing.

When I look back at why I stopped watching Voyager, however, I realised that these characteristics, and their introduction/growth through the middle and later seasons of that show, were exactly what drove me away from Voyager in the first place. Seven-of-Nine, a Borg drone separated from the Collective who is seeking to rediscover her humanity, could have been an interesting character but it quickly became clear that she was introduced to the show to attract the masturbatory male teen viewer, not to add intellectual interest. The relationship between Kim and Paris degenerated into a road-movie-in-space, where two good ol’ boys take to the galactic highways in search of hijinks and adventure. Chakotay’s role diminished and his spiritualism, his dedication to his cultural roots, started to be presented as suspect, as weak.

“Broken Bow” promised so much but failed to deliver. Within the first ten minutes, you could tell something was wrong, that the show was off track already:

• The show’s title shows up as Enterprise, with no mention of “Star Trek” at all. Is this a repudiation of Gene Roddenberry’s source material, of his philosophy, of the Trek lore that has been created through the first four shows? 
•  The musical theme is a pop song, complete with lyrics, another significant move away from the franchise’s traditions; 
•  We are introduced to an entirely new alien race, the Suliban, that is never even mentioned in the future shows yet seems to play a major role in the 22nd century; 
•  The Vulcans, our beloved rational, logical, seemingly emotion-free Vulcans, are presented as manipulative, conniving, nasty and, let’s face it, angry; 
•  The man who will be Captain of our first Enterprise is an aggressive, entitled, self-important man who feels he can bully his way into what he wants, potentially racist and xenophobic himself; and 
• Star Fleet is all men, and white men in particular.

The episode starts with a Klingon ship crashing in a field in the American heart-land. The pilot escapes into a field, pursued by mysterious aliens. The Klingon manages to kill the shape-shifting aliens but then gets shot in the chest by the farmer.

Cut to Star Fleet medical, where a group of Humans and Vulcans watch a Dinobulan doctor work on the massive being that the Vulcans identify as a “Klingon”.  The mighty captain Archer arrives, son of the man who designed the warp-five engine. He bullies everyone into keeping the Klingon alive (when we all know, and the Vulcans advise, Klingons would prefer to die in battle than to be saved) and permitting his ship, the first human Warp-Five ship, to launch early to take the Klingon back to his home world.

Admiral Forrest agrees, over the angry (yep, angry) protests of the Vulcan ambassador (Soval), and Archer is permitted to gather his crew. We meet, in rapid succession, Sato, the Communications officer, Reid, the security officer, Mayweather, the pilot, and Tucker, the Engineer.

The Vulcans demand to put one of their officers, the cat-suited Commander T’Pol, on board as an advisor and Dr. Phlox, the Dinobulan, agrees to go along to take care of the Klingon.

There are some cute moments, moments that would bring a smile to the Star Trek fandom:

• Forrest gets the name wrong, calling the Klingon a “Klingot”; 
• Reid introduces the crew to the new hand weapons – phase pistols, with two settings: stun and kill; and 
• Everyone is afraid of this new-fangled transporter device, which apparently has been approved for transporting people.

On the way to the Klingon home world, Enterprise is boarded by Suliban, who steal the Klingon, and have to chase them down to a shady planet to retrieve him. Archer proves his mettle in a gun fight and off they go to Klingon again.

We learn that the Suliban are being directed by an entity from the future and one of their goals is to break apart the Klingon Empire. It's a "Temporal Cold War", dontchaknow, and we're in the middle of it. Not that this TCW is ever mentioned in any of the future (earlier) shows -- that doesn't seem to matter to our network or our creative team. They also don't seem to care that the introduction of time travel as a viable option basically undermines every possible plot they could create... I'll talk a great deal more about this throughout the course of this blog.

The Klingon soldier has, somewhere on his body, evidence of the Suliban interference that will help to bring peace to the warring factions. Archer and Enterprise manage to deliver the soldier back to the Klingon Council and all is well.

In many ways, “Broken Bow” is not a bad pair of episodes. The Enterprise itself is cool and sleek and ultra-modern, with enough of the bones of the Kirk’s ship to make it believable as part of the development. Whatever reservations we have about Archer, I think we like Mayweather, the space-boomer, who is by far the most comfortable of the crew living in space. Dr. Phlox shows promise and, in spite of the skin-tight costume and the decon scene, T’Pol also hold hope of intelligent, thoughtful characterization.

Of course, we also notice that the senior crew of this Enterprise is almost exactly the same as the senior crew of Kirk’s Enterprise. Yes, the Vulcan science officer on Archer’s ship is female instead of male but, after that, we have a white male captain, a white male engineer, a third white male (Reid versus Chekov) and then two members of raclialised communities at helm and communications.

TOS was filmed in the mid-1960s and the racial and gender makeup of its principal crew were considered extremely progressive (almost riskily so) for the time; Enterprise was filmed in 2001 and the racial and gender makeup of its principal crew seemed to be regressive, as if the human race would of the 22^nd Century would be less advanced socially than it was at the beginning of the 21^st.

I remember coming away from "Broken Bow" feeling decidedly mixed: I had hope, that the less positive stuff from this premiere episode would fade, and I had fear, that it wouldn't. Unfortunately, the hope soon faded and the fear took over.