Star Trek: Enterprise 1-01: Broken Bow - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about the very first episode of the entire Star Trek franchise (chronologically speaking): Broken Bow. Sure there are episodes with events that take place before it, but this is 100% set in April 2151 from start to finish. That means it's actually a kind of sequel to the movie First Contact, revealing what happened next. By the same writer in fact!

Though First Contact wasn't just written by Brannon Braga and neither was this, as this time around he was joined by Trek overlord Rick Berman. It seems a bit strange to see Berman credited as a writer, as up until this point he'd mostly been the franchise's executive producer, succeeding Gene Roddenberry. But he had written the Next Gen episodes Brothers and A Matter of Time, and he'd been giving notes on all the Trek scripts scripted during his reign.

Broken Bow is a feature length episode with a lot to write about so I've split this article into three parts for the sake of everyone's sanity (especially my own). You're currently reading part two, but if you want to jump back to the first part you can click THIS LINK.

SPOILER WARNING: I'll be spoiling this episode and others that came before it, but everything that aired after it is safe.

Star Trek: Enterprise 1-01: Broken Bow - Part 1

Episode:

1

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Writer:

Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

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Director:

James L. Conway

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Air Date:

26-Sep-2001

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing the 629th story in the Star Trek franchise, Broken Bow! I figured I might as well, seeing as it's its 20th anniversary today.

But unlike all those other episodes, this story doesn't push the timeline forward. Trek had spent 14 years in the Next Generation era, but this took a huge jump 227 years backwards from Star Trek: Voyager to tell a story about Starfleet's early days. Prequels were in at the time, with Star Wars returning to cinemas with The Phantom Menace, so I suppose it wasn't a surprise that Trek would want to jump on that bandwagon. This was a real turning point for the Star Trek franchise though, as after the final Next Gen movie, Nemesis, the franchise spent the next 17 years stuck in its own past.

Personally I would've preferred to find out what happened next in the 24th century... and now I've got Lower Decks, Prodigy and Picard for that, so I'm happy. At the time though the franchise wasn't really inspiring much enthusiasm in people. Deep Space Nine had been over for a few years, Insurrection had been a real disappointment, and Voyager had kind of rolled past the finish line on fumes. Plus even though Trek hadn't exactly been heavily serialised, it had built up enough mythology during its Next Generation era to be daunting to some viewers. Enterprise had a premise different and interesting enough to bring some hype back to Trek and it promised to provide a jumping on point for people who didn't know the difference between a Cardassian and a Kazon. It definitely got me to jump back on board after skipping the last few seasons of Voyager... though I may have jumped ship again a few months later. It's not my favourite of the spin-offs to be honest.

I'll be going through the entire episode writing comments under screencaps, so this will contain MASSIVE SPOILERS. There may also be spoilers for episodes and movies from earlier shows as well; anything before 2001 is fair game. Though unlike the commentary tracks on the disc, I'll not be spoiling anything that comes after it.

Star Trek: Voyager 1-01: Caretaker, Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the second and final part of my review of Caretaker. If you want to jump back 70,000 light years and read the first part, CLICK HERE.

I should probably put some trivia here to fill up the space. Uh... Star Trek: Voyager started in January, so that's kind of unusual. Trek series usually like to start around September.

Deep Space Nine was already 12 episodes deep into its third season at the point that Caretaker aired, but after Past Tense the series took a two week break so that Voyager could be the only new Trek on television for a fortnight. They really wanted as many eyes on this as possible, and it seems like they got around 12.4 million viewers in the US on that first airing. It's a bit of a step down from Emissary's 17.7 million, but it's still a really good number, not much lower than what the Original Series (13.1m), Next Gen (13.9m), and Enterprise (12.5m) got on their debut... possibly. To be honest I calculated these figures myself from numbers I found on the internet and I don't trust any of them.

SPOILER WARNING: Caretaker probably isn't the only episode that's going to be spoiled here, as I'm considering everything from TOS's The Man Trap to DS9's Past Tense to be fair game.

Star Trek: Voyager 1-01: Caretaker, Part 1

Episode:

1

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Writer:

Michael Piller & Jeri Taylor

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Director:

Winrich Kolbe

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Air Date:

16-Jan-1995

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the 343rd story in the Star Trek franchise, Caretaker! It also the first story of Star Trek: Voyager, the fourth live-action Trek series and the successor to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The episode gives a 'story by' credit to Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor, who were also the show's three creators. Each of them apparently had an equal amount of input and control, so the series had three captains at this point. Berman had succeeded Gene Roddenberry as the executive producer of the entire franchise, and had worked with Piller to create Deep Space Nine. Piller had been the saviour of Next Gen, coming in as the new head writer during season 3 to fix it, and had been running DS9 for the last two and a half seasons. Taylor had also been a Next Gen showrunner, as she'd taken over from Piller for its final (disappointing) season. So they were definitely the three most obvious candidates to create a Trek series at this point.

With Next Gen over it made sense to make this another Trek show about a Starfleet crew flying around on a starship, but the three creators made things difficult for themselves by choosing to isolate it from almost everything established during the earlier shows. They couldn't fall back on the classic iconic villains, like the Romulans, Ferengi, and evil admirals. Plus their premise of a ship on long journey meant they had to give viewers something new every week. They also had to deliver an action-packed tale of survival in deep space, without being too bleak and dark for the studio. And they had a network looking over their shoulders now, as the series was airing on UPN, unlike Next Gen and DS9 which had been made for syndication. The potential was there for something great though.

Caretaker was filmed as a feature-length story, not a two-parter, but I'll be tackling it in two parts for the sake of my sanity. I'm going to be recapping and screencapping the whole story in addition to my commentary, so there's a lot here for me to cover. There's also going to be HUGE SPOILERS... but only up to January 16th 1995. I might spoil a episode like Where No One Has Gone Before or The First Duty, but I'll never say the words "Spore drive".

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the final part of my three-part Encounter at Farpoint review. If you want to jump to earlier parts you can click here: PART ONE or here PART TWO.

It's not really the most interesting looking title card I'm afraid, especially if you're seeing it three times in a row. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the only episode of all of Star Trek to just have a starfield in the background while its title is up and nothing else, but I could definitely be wrong about that. On the plus side at least it has a title for me to show. For later live-action spin-offs like Star Trek: Discovery all I can show up here is the series logo, though I'm crossing my fingers Strange New Worlds will bring them back.

SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to recap the entire episode and maybe even mention things from earlier episodes and movies. I won't spoil anything that comes after though.

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still going through Encounter at Farpoint, the very first episode of seminal syndicated sci-fi series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I feel like Star Trek: The Next Generation probably shouldn't work as a title, but it does for me. It helps that 'generation' is a sciency word and 'next' has an X in it. Plus it's arguably better than just naming the series after the setting like the next four series did (Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and Discovery). Though it was really only the next generation in real world terms, as it was made two decades after the original show but set eight decades after the last movie.

This is the second part of a three part review by the way, so if you're on the wrong part and you want to go back to the start you should click here: PART ONE.

SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to recap the entire episode and maybe even mention things from earlier episodes and movies. I won't spoil anything that comes after though.

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1-01: Encounter at Farpoint - Part 1

Episode:

1

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Writer:

D. C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry

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Director:

Corey Allen

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Air Date:

28-Sep-1987

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the 106th story in the Star Trek franchise: Encounter at Farpoint! That's such an old school sci-fi title; it sounds like it's from a tie-in novel.

Encounter at Farpoint is also the very first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which itself was the first of the live-action Trek spin-offs. The Rick Berman-era of Trek started here. 15.7 million people tuned in for the episodes in the US, and 11.5 stuck around for episode two, The Naked Now. The series then hovered around that level for the rest of the run, with even season seven pulling in 11 million, so it's no bloody wonder they kept making more spin-offs.

I got that information from Wikipedia so you know it's all true. Though hang on, Wikipedia claims that The Naked Now is actually the third episode, not the second. The reason for this is that Encounter at Farpoint is a two-hour telefilm that can be split into two parts. Though I'm going to be splitting this review into three parts, because I've got a lot to talk about. It's a fairly important episode!

CBS spent a lot of money to go back to the original negatives and remaster the entire series, and it really looks fantastic now in HD. It's one of the best remasters I've seen, it's awesome. Though you can just go to TrekCore if all you're after is beautiful high resolution screencaps, you don't need me for that. So instead I've decided to show off the authentic fuzzy 1987 version of the episode...because I've spent money buying the ancient DVDs and I'm determined to get some use out of them. You should be grateful I'm not showing shots captured from a VHS tape recorded off BBC 2 really.

I should also give you a SPOILER WARNING as I'm going to give away absolutely everything that happens in this story. I might also spoil things from other Trek stories that came out before 1987 (so The Man Trap to Star Trek IV: The One with the Whales), but that's as far as my spoilers will go.