There Are Four Mics: A Star Trek Podcast

Last time we finished up Season 1 of Enterprise, so this week we’re going to take a quick look back at the series so far; hand out awards for “best of” and announce the winner of the Enterprise Trivia Cup.

The Star Trek Discovery trailer was released a short time ago and, like all of you, we had a lot of thoughts.. Regardless of your feelings, it's certainly an interesting time for Star Trek.

The Temporal Cold War heats up as Future Man and Silik continue to meddle with Archer's historic mission. The death of 3600 Paraagan colonists rests on Archer's shoulders, the Enterprise is ordered to return to Earth, and Crewman Daniels visits Archer despite shedding his mortal coil earlier this season. Season one of Enterprise wraps up in a big way! 

The Enterprise crew finally make it to Risa, wrapping up the three episode arc that started with Fallen Hero. Archer settles in to do some light reading, Trip and Reed seek to expand their horizons, Travis tackles a local cliff face, and Hoshi practices her language skills on the local population. Of course this is a TV show, so nothing goes according to plan, but without revealing too many spoilers--at least three senior officers shed their clothes at some point during this episode.  

Star Trek: Timelines was developed by Disruptor Beam and released in 2016. Disruptor Beam previously released Game of Thrones: Ascent. Another mobile and browser based free to play strategy game.

The Enterprise crew once again finds themselves caught in the middle when Archer and Trip accidentally befriend the head of a terrorist organization. The duo are forced to flee into the desert to escape a bombing run. Archer's sidekick, Trip, gets a mild case of heat stroke and flirts with the idea of slipping into a coma. Your hosts disagree with each other about--everything.

T'Pol learns to never meet your heroes, or at least it'll feel that way at first until you discover they were actually pretty ok in the first place? So maybe T'Pol learns about first impressions? Overall we quite liked this episode despite a few story troubles. Lots of excitement and intrigue in this episode! T'Pol gets a chance develop as a real character and we see that not all Vulcans are the cold, distant, and generally disagreeable lot we've met so far.

This is one of those rare Star Trek episodes that actually presents us with a non-traditional alien. A feat that knocked this episode into Chris' list of favorites. For the rest of us it felt like a very traditional Star Trek episode, not bad, but also not exactly remarkable.

We all learn a little about ourselves and each other during this episode as Archer and Travis face their own prejudices. Also it's a mini Quantum Leap reunion as Dean Stockwell makes an appearance alongside Scott Bakula.  Overall we liked this episode, even if we were beaten over the head with the message. For anyone who may have missed it.. The internment of American citizens of Japanese-descent was fucked.

What starts out as a creepy ghost story about a crashed transport ship turns into a creepy father/daughter story about recreating all of your dead friends and family and pretending everything is normal for 20 years.  The best thing about this episode is that it brings back Rene Auber.. Uh.. Ober.. Uhh.. Auborjin.. Auberjonois. Sorry Rene, we tried. I think we got your name right once out of like 30 tries, despite the assistance from your website.. 

Enterprise brings us the Ferengi for their first chronological appearance in the Star Trek universe until we see them again in The Next Generation, about 200 years later. Or does the Deep Space Nine episode Little Green Men count? Did that happen yet, or has it yet to have happened? Ugh. Time travel.

Ever set out to go hunting but find love instead? The Enterprise stumbles upon a rogue planet (saying the name of the episode should be a trope at this point). Archer and Co. crash the hunting party of a few Eskan. Turns out whatever it is these fellas are hunting happens to be capable of appearing as a beautiful woman, which is exactly interesting enough to get Archer's attention.. Despite Trip's track record, he and everyone else suspect this mysterious woman might be a figment of Archer's imagination.

Has there ever been such an over the top slimey Vulcan (or character) as this Tolaris fellow? Next to the seemingly harmless Kov/Commander Trip storyline this episode has a strange imbalance that really rubbed some of the hosts the wrong way.  Things take a serious tone through much of this episode as we talk about T'Pol's assault and how it was handled by the writers.. A delicate discussion to say the least.

Enterprise has a surprising number of strong episodes in their first season and I think most would say this should be counted among them. Trip and Reed face certain death, each dealing with it the only way they know how--Fightin' and drinkin'.

This direct sequel to the Andorian Incident brings back one of our favorite Star Trek regulars, Jeffrey Combs as Shran. This episode also happens to be one of the last times in my memory that the show tries to force us to think Archer and T'Pol could be a thing. I think we’re all grateful for that.