Borderland

Dr. Arik Soong (Brent Spiner...again) has been in prison for doing bad things...making 'augments'. While they never say it, they seem like the same sorts of beings that caused war on Earth and from which the dreaded Kahn was a member. However, they are willing to let him out of prison, at least temporarily, because some of Soong's 'children' have grown into psychopaths who murdered a Klingon crew and stole their ship. The big question is why would Soony help them?!

On the way to apparently get these renegades, pirates from Orion kidnap a bunch of crew from Enterprise and Archer goes with Soong to the Orion home world to rescue them. Again, you wonder why they trust Soong. And, after Soony does EXACTLY what the audience expects, the Captain and his crew seem pretty stupid--like they have no plan or idea what to do.

While this episode is interesting, the stupidity of the Enterprise crew makes this all seem a bit contrived and disappointing. As a result, it's all very weak.

The Klingons are preparing for war against the Starfleet after the attack of two enhanced humans to a Bird of Prey that was stolen and the dead bodies of the crew launched to the space. The Starfleet command assigns Captain Archer to capture the Augments that they believe that have been created by the imprisoned genetic engineer Dr. Soong to prevent the imminent war. The Enterprise heads to the borderland with Dr. Soong on board but nine crew-member including T'Pol are captured by the Orion Syndicate to be sold in a market slave. Captain Archer and Dr. Soong are beamed to the location to rescue the group. Meanwhile, there is a dispute for the leadership of the Augments between the leader Raakin and the ambitious and rebel Malik.

"Borderline" is an engaging episode of Enterprise and it is great to see Brent "Data" Spinner in the role of a dangerous villain that is a sort of combination of Hitler and God. Let's see how Captain Archer and his crew will deal with the powerful and skilled beings. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Fronteira' ("Frontier")

There is no end to the problems that show up for Enterprise. Arik Soong (Brent Spiner) is the mega-geneticist who has caused untold destruction in the universe. Millions have died because of his engineering. He is being held in prison because he is beyond genius in the most evil way. Now, some of the products of his work, augments, young people who have been given superhuman strengths and intellects, have taken their powers and are ready to become a force. They capture a Klingon war bird, killing the entire crew and jettisoning them into space. The now have the vehicle to start their destructive plans. They have the goal of being reunited with their "father" Soong. Together, they feel they can rule the universe. They have it in for earth because they were rejected by the planet in their infancy. If they have a weakness, it's an internal power struggle. They still have the weaknesses of jealousy and arrogance.

And he is great, and he made these Canon-Breaking episodes watchable.

The Problem with Enterprise is that although this is 100 years before KIRK, excuses are always being made to bring in Tech we know never existed until the 24th Century - In the hands of the Federation! This was because one of the Show Creators, Braga, was stuck forever in a Season 7 Next Generation Temporal Causality Loop.

We all loved Star Terk Next Gen, and some of us even liked Season 7 - I Know Brent did, but many people DON'T. Why? Because of Brannon Braga. I personally liked the guy's ideas, but he could never really move on from that High Point. As Troi tells Mr Barclay in "The Nth Degree" - "We always have that one time in our lives where we surpass ourselves- The Trick is leaning how to live after that." - But Braga, who did great as a writer most of the time, could not move away from that Season 7 Next Gen dynamic - And when he tried, what did he do? He destroyed the best Trek Ship ever- When we KNEW that the Enterprise D was to appear in the Future- Per both Next Gen and Voyager canon.

Now, it is not that Temporal Causality Loops are bad. But Braga would always return the universe to it's original state. Except for the Voyager Arc, "The Year of Hell" - He actually kept the changes, which was an excuse tor Janeway to lose that lousy "Bun" hairdo. Actually, this was the only major change in the time-line that was carried over - This was done one time more, earlier in the series, with Kes, she has Short Pixie hair in the beginning of one 'sode, then long beautiful blonde hair after.

So, Braga will change time-lines, IF it only has to do with Hair, or maybe, Uniforms or Com Badges.

Stet? OK, so what have we here? AUGMENTS. Funny, neither Khan Noonian Singh nor Dr Julian Subatoy Bashir were ever referred to that way. Hmph.

But then again, we have Paul Atreides aka Alec Newman - With A MULLET - With one other guy licking the Arses of a WHOLE ship of Klingons. A Bird of Prey, even.

It's not that I never liked the effects of Enterprise - It was the whole DS9 crew, Marvin Rush, Dan Curry, Mike Okuda and Rick Sternbach maybe, it all LOOKED great.

But this is supposed to be a more primitive time than TNG DS9 and VOY. Starfleet didn't use PADDS back then, they used a large surface with a Stylus.

Plus, the Orion Syndicate. Don't know if they existed back then, BUT, it is a good idea, but they kidnapped half of the NX01 crew TOO QUICKLY. Maybe it is because these eps are only 41 Minutes long- Very short compared to TOS which was always 50 minutes, and TNG/Nine/Voy which was always 45 minutes. However, we DID get to see the selling of an Orion Slave Girl. But we know from Canon, Orion Slave Girls DID NOT wear compulsory gadgets on their necks to control them- We were taught THEY controlled MEN.

But there was this one HUGE Orion guy, he lifted up T'Pal as if she were a kitten! I loved that she kicks this guy in the Groin and he comes tumbling WAY down.

There were a lot of things I liked about this, ergo, the 8 rating. I love the Effects, of which there are a LOT in this series. I loved the Wide Screen aspect Ratio- Babylon 5 broadcast every episode in 16/9 - Why couldn't TREK do this? It depresses me to this day.

Well, this Gang of Mulleted Intergalactic Hoodlums, led by Alec after he kills his way to the top, was not really "made" by Arik Soong - Soong merely found the Embryos, so as "bad" as they were, they were built that way. Newman was a good choice for Male Mullethead, but this story has a chick that Newman and another Alpha Male are fighting over- Sorry, but I DO NOT see anyone fighting over the Skag from these eps. Sorry, Nope, Shudder and Ugh. Shudder-Brrr. These Kids don't even look as dangerous as the Gang that lives down the street from me, they appear to be a Quasi Military Cadre of Ugly Kids.

Spiner brings this episode down to reality level, his performance is actually great.

We also get to see "Martok" again - Or at least the same Actor once again in great Klingon makeup, JG Hertzger, who seems to be one of the High Council. The Klingons in Ent were done well, but WHEN did they ever do away with their Brow Ridges? Maybe that was an Ent Ep that was going to be made, before Brannon caused this series to end prematurely. Oh wait, what?! That happened *this* season... at the time I wrote this review, I had not watched those episodes where the Klingons had kidnapped Dr Phlox... and those episodes actually relate to these episodes. Because, the Klingons couldn't have humans that could actually beat them up easily...

It's too bad my whole review can't just consist of that word over and over -- and honestly, it wouldn't be fair: the first scene of Brent Spiner is awesomely promising -- the man has such great presence ... then the rest of the episode completely fails to deliver on that promise, although a lot of things happen, usually with a lot of people explaining to each other why we should care. Young people in tight black clothing is quite the fetching visual as well.

But I'll ask again: where is the Star Trek? Yes, yes, this episode is essentially filling in details of things mentioned in TOS, but so what? These stories should matter in themselves. I'm glad some people are enjoying them, but I'm still waiting for the Enterprise episode that really works, on a Star Trek level, on its own terms.