Episode Review - Fortunate Son
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
Admiral Forrest’s first communiqué since ordering the Enterprise on its first mission tells Archer that he should make contact with the Earth freighter Fortunate. Upon arrival the crew finds that it is badly damaged and is not responding to any hails. Archer arranges an away team to board the Fortunate, which is eventually greeted by the ship’s first officer, Matthew Ryan. He tells Archer that the Fortunate was attacked by a group of space pirates known as Nausicaans, which have actually been harassing Earth freighters that travel through the sector for years now, including - as Ensign Mayweather reveals - the freighter that Mayweather himself grew up on.

Ryan claims that the distress call that was made was simply a mistake and tries to shrug off the need for help from Archer, whom persists after Phlox is adamant that the Fortunate’s injured captain will need two or three more days of treatment. As a result, Archer manages to talk Ryan into allowing some Enterprise engineers onboard to upgrade the Fortunate’s defensive systems. However, what is unknown to the Enterprise crew is that the arrangements made force Ryan and another crewman, Shaw, into taking special precautions to hide the fact that they are inhumanely keeping a Nausicaan prisoner onboard, and are torturing him for information.

Mayweather is very happy to be giving Ryan a tour of the Enterprise, especially as the two develop a bond, as they are both fellow ‘boomers’ who both grew up on freighters. However, as the two settle down for something to eat, Ryan shows discontent at Mayweather’s decision to leave his parents’ cargo ship and join Starfleet.

On the Fortunate, after she helps a child out (albeit inadvertently) who is playing hide-and-seek, T’Pol notices some strange activity. She conducts scans that then reveal the bio-sign of an injured Nausicaan. She tells Archer of her discovery, who then confronts Ryan about the treachery. Ryan argues against it – the freighters have no relation to Starfleet, therefore meaning that Archer can officially do nothing about it, as well as the fact that they have every right to keep a prisoner, especially after their continued attacks. Whilst Archer agrees, he also says that he has a right to remove the improvements made to the Fortunate. Ryan appears to relent, and leads the away team to the cargo bay that the Nausicaan is being held in. However Ryan and Shaw then trap them in the bay with a breach in its hull, and then detach it from the freighter.

The Fortunate then fires upon the Enterprise and jumps to warp. It escapes, as the Enterprise crew have to rescue the trapped crewmen; Trip then sets about repairing the long-range sensors so that they can track the Fortunate’s new position. They decide that it is likely that the crew has gone after the Nausicaans for revenge. Mayweather approaches Archer and talks about whether they should just stay out of Ryan’s way – after all they have nothing to do with Starfleet, and he feels for Ryan due to the camaraderie they developed because of their similar backgrounds. However, Archer argues that humans still have a code of behaviour; even if they don’t share the same rules, and it is because of this that Archer remains persistent. Mayweather is forced to agree with this.

Meanwhile on the Fortunate, Ryan finally manages to obtain the information he needs from his Nausicaan prisoner – the shield frequency codes for Nausicaan raider ships so that they can cut through their shields with their weapons easily. They manage to track down the ship that attacked them, yet when an apprehensive Shaw finally fires on them, their plasma bursts fail to penetrate the Nausicaan shields. A counterattack then disables their engines and thus their ability to escape, therefore leaving the crew preparing to fight the Nausicaans face-to-face. On the Enterprise, the crew has detected weapons fire, originating from the Fortunate – they set a course to intercept. As an intense battle continues onboard the Fortunate, Archer hails one of the Nausicaan ships to try and negotiate a peaceful outcome – letting the freighter go in exchange for the prisoner being held by Ryan. The Nausicaan allows this,  mostly because faced with the Enterprise’s stronger firepower. However, he tells Archer to be quick, otherwise he will take his chances with assaults on both ships. Archer therefore makes contact with Ryan and tries to make him see sense. Ryan is too stubborn and refuses to give up his prisoner, until Mayweather speaks up and tells him that he is endangering the lives of countless other freighter crews that will also have to travel through this sector – the Nausicaans will be more likely to attack a freighter in the future now, and all simply because Ryan is pursuing his quest for vengeance. When the Nausicaan ships start firing on the ships, Ryan finally gives in and allows the hostage to be rescued. The Nausicaans therefore retreat, leaving the two crews to sort out the problems. Ryan is later stripped of his rank by his now recovered captain, who himself admits to Archer that it will be hard for freighter crews to allow the space that they have travelled through for around three generations to get more crowded.

Summary
That last part is quite an interesting analogy of this young series’ current status – not only will the freighter crews have to get used to a lot more Nausicaan presence, but the Enterprise, and humanity itself will have to get used to the new species that they continue to come into contact with week after week. With that nice piece of reflection, it is also nice to say that this episode itself was nice and entertaining. We finally saw some information on Mayweather’s past, as well as some nice development character-wise – perhaps more than he has received in all the episodes shown so far this season put together! Though obviously perhaps the most significant incident in this episode is the return of Porthos. I suggest anyone with a sense of humour immediately (or after you’ve read the review… ahem) click here where you will find ‘Five-minute Voyager’ by Zeke, and look at the Enterprise parodies for the past few episodes. Then I dare you to eat chilli…

Right, you’re back? Well, this really was a good episode – as well as some development of Travis that is long overdue, we were shown the Nausicaans (first seen on TNG) in a prequel fashion. Well, OK, there may have been something odd going on here – I remember the Nausicaans being a lot more violent than diplomatic, and would have found it highly unlikely that one would have been able to be captured (perhaps the element of surprise and some very strong rope have roles to play here?), but at least here they are playing a role that does fit in with their character – space pirates – which nicely links in with our resident ‘boomer.’

It was nice to see the issues of freighter travel dealt with in space – this show being a prequel and all, the fact that the freighters have trouble with pirates like the Nausicaans, can’t travel immensely fast and don’t have the creature comforts that a ship like Voyager (or similar) has really gave the image that they really were out and about on the final frontier, making the sci-fi a bit more real.

Character treatment, as mentioned, was well distributed this week. As mentioned Mayweather inherited the back story of being a ‘boomer’ on his parents’ freighter, thus explaining his often shown enthusiasm for exploring space. As well as Mayweather though, we had this Ryan person, an anti-Mayweather to get an opposite perspective on freighter life. His bitterness at the Nausicaans was well played, and his situation was understandable, tragic and misguided all at the same time – Archer’s little speech about human beings having a code of behaviour was good, showing how easy it can be to rationalise the type of things Ryan was doing to his prisoner, whilst also forgetting how wrong and inhumane it is – perhaps a slight twist on slavery or other types of oppression.

One thing I really liked was when T’Pol helped one of the Fortunate’s girls when she was playing hide and seek, even if she really didn’t mean to be illogical. It’s nice how it appears that she is beginning to understand human behaviour and their actions – a nice bit of development that really should begin to be happening as she’s been living with the crew for how many weeks now?

Other than that though, and as you could probably gather from the blandness of whatever I’m talking about [ ] not a lot happened that was really interesting. Yes, I mention a back story for Travis and Nausicaan appearances, but other than that I thought that the story was a little predictable and dull as a result. It’s only with a little hindsight that you get to pick up on some of these things mentioned, but then again when they’re discussed it does enhance the entertainment the episode offered.

Well, Porthos did come back – maybe I was just gripped for that reason…


Final Opinion
Interesting if bland

Rating: 7/10