Broken Bow, Part 1

Captain Jonathan Archer, T'Pol and Trip meet Sarin and she explains that Klaang is a courier, bringing an important message from her to the leaders of the Klingons in Kronos about rebels Suliban that intend to promote the Temporal Cold War among the Klingons. Archer feels the need of rescuing Klaang and travels to the Suliban mother-ship with Trip to bring the Klingon back to Enterprise. T'Pol seems to understand that loyalty is an emotion that cannot be avoided by humans.

In spite of being a huge fan of Star Trek, I have not followed the episodes of "Enterprise" on cable television. I have decided to buy the DVD box of the First Season and this first episode surprised me. The adventure of the first Enterprise, Captain Jonathan Archer, the gorgeous T'Pol, Reed, Mayweather, Dr. Phlox, Hoshi and Trip is excellent, at least in this pilot. I have noted in IMDb that this episode is actually divides in two parts, but on DVD they are just one, therefore my review is valid for both. I did not like the music score theme, which I found very annoying, but this was an exception in this great show. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Broken Bow"

A strong pilot, this two-hour episode does an excellent job of setting up the characters and background for "Enterprise," the "prequel" to the original "Star Trek" series. It stumbles a few times into "Trek" convention and cliché--candy-colored space strippers never seem to go out of style, and I can already foresee snickering references to T'pol as "Seven of Vulcan"--but the ensemble looks strong, the characters are well-drawn, and one can already see hints that this particular crew will have to be more resourceful, in different ways, than those of earlier (later?) series. Scott Bakula hits the right note as a captain with Kirk's brashness and daring but without his smugness and swagger, and I look forward to the ways in which the series will feature the engineer, weapons master and communications officer (not just a glorified phone operator anymore!) as supporting players. The writers seem to have picked up on the one big mistake made in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Deep Space 9" and "Voyager": Instead of starting with a big ensemble cast and giving characters short shrift, it's starting with a smaller core of characters to which a little more variety can be added later--which I hope happens, because after about a half-dozen episodes, more variety will be needed.

"Broken Bow" takes us back to where it all began. Set 150 years in our future and 100 years before Kirk, Spock and McCoy. This installment of the "Star Trek" franchise, is in my opinion the first series since "TOS" to recapture the feelings of wonder, danger and excitement of "Going Where No Man Has Gone Before". Scott Bakula is perfectly cast as Jonathan Archer, the first Captain of the first "Star Ship Enterprise". He and the entire cast truly show a true reverence for the Star Trek legacy. John Billingsley is Brilliant as the alien Dr. Phlox, and Jolene Blalock is totally luscious as the tempting but logical Vulcan science officer T'Pol. Broken Bow is in my opinion the best premier episode of any of the Treks, and I believe Gene Roddenberry would surely be proud.

Just saw Enterprise: Broken Bow, and I would have to say that it is different. It's like one hundred years before Kirk and it's interesting to see how Starfleet gets to where we know it. The uniforms are different than the standard color coordination that Star Trek has used before. It's more of a more military look. The starship shots are all computer generated, on The Next Generation they used models, boy I miss that. Great way to start off a new show, especially when they used the transporter on a human for the first time. The show looks to be promising from this pilot.

After reviewing the entire first season here in 2002 following its original airing, I gave the season 7/10 and the opening pilot 7/10 with other episodes ranging from 9/10 to awful... I vowed to give second season a chance, but the reality is that I gave up as it aired and felt uninspired and moreover couple with the dismal tenth Trek movie : Nemesis (3/10) which to me was the nail in the coffin of a fine franchise. so it was R.I.P. in 2002.

However, ten years later, and on the eve of Star Trek Into Darkness, although I was not extremely pleased with Star Trek (2009) (6/10), I decided to buy the entire Enterprise series to finally see what Enterprise season 2,3 and 4 were about, perhaps (but probably not!) tired of watching even excellent DS9 episodes for the umpteenth time and some mix/match of vibrant Voyager and dated TNG which I actually never finished in its entirety either.

Low and behold, I was absolutely hooked seeing Broken Bow in one sitting! I loved the intrigue, the tension, the action, the dialogue and the characters. T'Pol is brilliant and beautiful. Travis and Hoshi have possibly their best episode here as I remember them being underutilized after this. Phlox is enigmatic and endearing. Trip and Archer are slightly typical bravado, but solid and softened by Archer's apt back story with his father. The both makes amends with patronizing T'Pol, Trip taking his shirt off in the decon and challenging her on the bridge. The supporting character from the Ambassadors, Admirals, Klingons, Suliban (including seductive and believable Sarin) all add to the rich tapestry.

Also, the idea of the show to be early explorers is omnipresent and we are as excited as the characters to discover new civilizations and learn their peculiarities, to try new technology, etc.

Add time travel and foreign worlds who give way to amazing audio and visual effects (including sci-fi elements and sexy elements) and you have a two-hour plus episode that looks like a theatrical release. It helps that it was filmed in 16:9 way before it's time. So revising this pilot I am pumped to see Enterprise again. If nothing else and the series still feel flats, at least I can now be assured that the premise and the production was promising.

Rating changed from 7 to 9/10!

End personal log.