Episode Review - Broken Bow
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
A Klingon is delivered to Starfleet headquarters after he crash-lands his ship onto a farmer’s land in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. At the headquarters, the Vulcan delegation is adamant that this previously undiscovered species (to humans at least) should be allowed to die honourably, due to their knowledge of the species' wish to 'end' that way when they do die. However, Captain Jonathan Archer, along with a group of Starfleet admirals, decides that they should escort the Klingon, Klaang, back to his homeworld.

He quickly gathers together a crew in order to accomplish the task, including Dr. Phlox, the alien medical officer that was monitoring the Klingon at Starfleet headquarters who uses his own unique blend of alien medicines, Hoshi Sato, a communications officer who is an expert with alien languages and dialects, Sub-Commander T’Pol came aboard as a Vulcan liaison officer, along with Commander Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker III as the ship’s main engineer, Ensign Travis Mayweather as conn officer, and Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, the ship’s armoury officer.

Before they set off, the crew and staff at Starfleet headquarters are presented with a recording made by an aged Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the original warp drive who helped to develop the warp 5 engines along with Archer’s father. Once that is over, the U.S.S. Enterprise NX-01 is launched for the first time, after Tucker has worried about the untested engines.

It isn’t long though, before Archer and T’Pol find themselves at disagreement with each other. She argues that humans do not yet have either the maturity or the experience to handle deep-space exploration, while he believes that Vulcans have been holding humans back for years.

Sato tries to make verbal contact with Klaang as Dr. Phlox makes more examinations on him further examines him, but has no luck – all they manage to do is to agitate the Klingon further. To make matters worse, he is soon captured during a blackout, caused by an attack from the Suliban, a strange shapeshifting race.

T’Pol finds herself disagreeing with Archer over whether to recapture the Klingon. She says that the mission has failed, and the need to report back to Starfleet and her superiors has arisen. However, Archer soon finds out from the secretive Vulcan that the Klingon’s last stop was at Rigel X, so he orders Mayweather to set course.

Meanwhile, a Suliban named Silik interrogates Klaang, hoping to find why he was talking to someone called Sarin on Rigel X. When the Enterprise reaches that planet, the away team is dazzled with an array of culture at the trading complex.

Archer eventually meets Sarin who tells him of a ‘Temporal Cold War,’ in which the Suliban are being used to cause internal conflict in the Klingon Empire. Klaang himself was going to present proof to the high council of this to avert the empire being thrown into chaos.

A firefight ensues after hidden Suliban soldiers emerge, killing Sarin and forcing the crew to battle their way back to their shuttle. However, in the conflict Archer is injured badly and becomes unconscious, leading to T’Pol taking command of the Enterprise.

This leads to uproar from Tucker, but she amazes everyone when she enables the ship to track a Suliban vessel from Rigel X, instead of ordering the ship back to Earth as she threatened earlier.

When Archer resumes command, they have arrived at a gas giant, only to lose track of where the ship went. However, from T’Pol’s help, they discover that 14 Suliban ships had entered the giant. As the Enterprise follows the general trail left by the ships, they discover a large Suliban complex with 3000 life signs onboard.

As Enterprise is attacked, they manage to capture one of the Suliban ships with the grappler. Archer and Tucker manage to work out how to fly the stolen craft, and use it to infiltrate the complex as the Enterprise remains hidden in a dense part of the atmosphere to avoid Suliban depth charges.

The two manage to locate and release the Klingon, and gain his trust as they try to escape as while Suliban officers track down on their location. Tucker takes the Klingon back to the Enterprise whilst Archer remains behind to try and shut down the complex. However, he discovers a temporal chamber, which is where the Suliban are receiving their orders from the future. The Suliban leader, Silik, finds him though, and the two fight in the time-phased environment.

Realising that he cannot find a genetically mutated Silik, who has had evolution information from the future to ‘upgrade’ his body to a higher state of being, he gains some distance by exiting the chamber where time returns to normal. Silik tries to fire at him, but just in time, Archer becomes the first human to be transported via the bio-transporter, as a worried Tucker tells the captain that there was no other option.

When the Enterprise reaches Qo’Nos, Klaang offers his blood to the high council, and a DNA test finds proof of the Suliban conspiracy against the empire. The Chancellor acts aggressively towards Archer, who takes it as a thank you, despite Sato saying that the Klingons apparently have no word for that expression.

Back aboard the Enterprise, Archer hears from Starfleet that there would be no point in returning to spacedock at Earth, as they feel that the Enterprise is ready for her mission of exploration. Archer sets aside his pride and convinces T'Pol to remain on the ship as Science Officer, though she aids him in saying that it will be she who contacts her superiors about wishing to stay aboard.

The ship then sets off on its new adventure, to go boldly where no man has gone before…

Summary
Well, it’s here, and it’s hard to know where to start.

Perhaps one of the most controversial decisions made ever by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga was to set the new Star Trek series 100 years before the original had even happened. I, for one, was very sceptical about the notion. “What about the continuity?” I said, worried after some of the things that had slipped through the cracks on Voyager had become apparent, because, let’s face it, on the outside continuity may not matter, but on the inside, if a show is not sound continuity-wise, it makes it less believable. OK, this may be science fiction, but I’m always willing to drop my sense of disbelief at the sound of a whistle.

Well, here, we were dealing with something big. Here, we have a show 100 years before the original, so surely certain things that have been established on the show must be respected, otherwise what’s the point in the show being a prequel?

So, first off, I would like to note that the setting and tone of this show were perfect. Really. Inside the ship, tactile surfaces, cramped living conditions, scary transporters, crude weapons, darker colours and a crew that knew how to have fun (and how to dress informally at informal occasions, unlike the past few Trek shows) and not be so politically correct all the time, and also be excited about going into space for the first time and encountering all of these races for the very first time. Then there was Archer bringing his cute little dog Porthos aboard as company, which, along with the rest, adds together in creating a great tone and setting for this new series.

It screams of prequel, especially if you’ve followed The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager for so long. And it is this that was this episode’s major success, setting up a worthy premise.

“So, he says that about the tone?” I hear you all say. “What about the rest of the episode?” Much of the same really, you’ll be glad to hear.

The characters: this was an interesting bunch of people, and held your attention for the full two hours despite having never seen them before. Trip was the funny man, and already looks like he could have a friendship developing with Mayweather and Reed. Mayweather pulled off a lot of enthusiasm very well (having fun in a zero G room with Trip was a nice little scene) and the good ol’ British stiff upper lip act from Reed was good for his role as military man.

Sato also seemed intriguing – she wasn’t scared to stand up against T’Pol (an amazing little Vulcan who, I’m afraid, I doubt would dress that way!) and also had good, interesting knowledge of languages. Dr. Phlox, though we only saw little of him, was also very interesting with his own brands of odd medicine (the starfish-like thing on Archer’s leg made me laugh!)

Then there’s the captain, Archer. Scott Bakula pulled off a great job here, creating a very Kirk-like captain, which could never be a bad thing.

The early relationships between Humans and Vulcans were very well played out and looked like interesting viewing for the future – Archer and T’Pol’s hostilities towards each other looked like something that wouldn’t be let down easily.

The story itself was also good – we had an introduction to the Klingons that people have wanted to see for ages (though we heard that it was a First Contact that went wrong and soured relations between them and Starfleet for years – what happened there?), and the Suliban looked like an incredibly threatening race, with a strange, futuristic slant. The Temporal Cold War mentioned sounds like something that will come back and haunt all in the future, and simply imagining the possibilities excites me already.

Now, after all that, there were some downsides to the episode (though not many!) First of all, the outright thing that is still stuck in my head was the decontamination room scene with T’Pol and Trip. If T’Pol wasn’t a Vulcan, I’m sure that the episode would have aired after 10.00pm. I couldn’t understand the significance of that scene, and all it seemed to be doing was screaming for any extra bits of audience that the show might have missed.

The same goes with T’Pol’s uniform – why would a Vulcan wish to walk round in something like that? They might as well have just wrapped her up in cling film and sent her off because the uniform was that demeaning. Though I guess UPN will miss the publicity that Jeri Ryan brought to the franchise…

One more point that I already mentioned was the Klingon situation at the end. First off, the avid fan will already know that Klingon First Contact happened too early by having it 100 years before the original series. Personally, that doesn’t matter. However, First Contact was meant to be disastrous, setting up years of conflict between them and Starfleet. However, by the end of the episode, the two seemed to be on the same relations as they were at the end of Deep Space Nine!

One hopes that they return as enemies in the future, as well as hoping that any ill feelings between any crewmembers will not be solved early on like they were in Voyager with the Maquis and Starfleet.

Final Opinion
A fantastic start to a promising series.

Rating: 9/10