Daedalus

After Archer has shown so much good judgment lately, he now reverts because of his own selfishness. There are some absolutes. I know others would disagree, but when the nutcase old friend who has been obsessed with the death of his son commandeers the Enterprise, that should have been it. The young man was Archer's childhood friend and this man like a father. If anything, this conflict of interest is at the center. When the crew member dies because of the old guy's self-interest, we now have a different equation. This is an aberration from the development of the type of things needed for the explorers to move into space.

In this episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise", familiar character actor Bill Cobbs stars as Dr. Erickson. Erickson is aboard to the ship for a stated reason...but really is there to try to correct a transporter accident many years ago. It seems that in these early days of transporters, accidents were common and Erickson's son was lost during this time. His plan is to try to get his son back...but is it possible if he's been lost all that time? As for Trip, he's worried about Erickson's experiments and the Captain is all for letting the old guy give it a go.

This is an amazingly bland and adequate episode. While there was nothing particularly bad about it, there wasn't a lot right--other than getting a chance to see a guy whose face is a bit scrambled due to the transporter! Fair to middling at best.

In this episode, Archer once again clearly demonstrates why he was given the unofficial title of "Worst captain in Star Trek History." And that's saying something, since Michael Burnham, another aspirant, is fighting tirelessly for this title and, with season 5 of DIS, is well on the way to dethroning the previously undisputed champion of this dishonorable award.

When the experiment of an aging scientist driven by selfish delusion, arrogance and self-importance goes awry and costs the life of a crew member, Archer seems little emotionally affected. Even when he learns that this entire experiment is based on a lie and that the crew of the Enterprise was assigned to this mission under false pretenses, Archer does not immediately abort the mission. He doesn't report the scientist, who was like a second father to him when he was growing up, directly to Starfleet, but lets him continue to carry out his experiment. That, as it turns out, is to bring back his son, who was lost in a transporter accident 18 years ago in subspace.

Instead of protecting the crew and his ship from further harm, Archer appears to be emotionally blinded by his longstanding connection to this scientist, his daughter (who, by the way, he kisses on the lips when she comes on board) and his son. He neither listens to Tucker nor consults his other senior officers for advice. His leadership qualities as a captain essentially consist of overreacting emotionally, trying to get his way with a raised voice, shouting at his subordinates in a commanding tone and repeatedly making it clear to them that he has given them an order and that they should do their jobs. Maybe he would be better off as captain on the bridge of a Bird of Prey. On a Starfleet ship, however, he has no place at all. I'm not sure why this character was designed to be so one-dimensional and why he wasn't given more senior foresight and diplomatic eloquence.

The actual plot itself though isn't bad at all: a scientist who has been working for many years on transporting matter through subspace and thus bridging distances of many light years in an instant. However, on his first attempt, the test subject, who happened to be his son, did not materialize again and was lost in subspace. Since the signature is not yet completely disintegrated and appears to concentrate at a subspace node at regular intervals, it seems possible to capture the signature and re-materialize it. Unfortunately, this very interesting scientific setup is overshadowed by the erratic actions of Captain Archer.

In addition: It has always been interesting that in Star Trek there is always this ONE brilliant inventor working all alone on such monumental inventions as the technology of matter transport. Today we can already see in almost all areas of science and technology that the complexity has increased to such an extent that entire teams, which are also distributed globally, are now working on researching new scientific findings or developing groundbreaking technologies. For an experiment the importance and size like the one in this episode, an entire armada of scientists would have arrived on Enterprise, their suitcases packed with instruments and lots of technical gadgets.

Others have already mentioned the basic plot of this episode, and you've likely already seen it so I won't go into it again.

This is one of the most boring and ridiculous episodes of the entire show. I tape and the shows on my DVR regularly on H&I and everytime this episode comes up, I just delete it right away which I don't do with any of the other episodes.. Oh.. Other than the HORRIBLE series finale that is. What an absolutely horrible way to end the show. There was a lot of lazy writing in this series it seems and to a lesser degree, Voyager to.

What really aggravated me about Archer was that he was quite mentally unstable. I don't know WHOSE idea it was too play the character that way. Was that the way the character was written..? If so then it was terrible writing. But I'm much more inclined to believe that this is simply how Bakula chose to play the character, for he and God only knows what reasons. Regardless, the result is that I believe most Star trek fans are in agreement that Archer was the WORST Star Trek Captain of them all!

And I don't just mean so the leading captains of the series, but any Captain in Star Fleet period. He should have never even made it to ensign with his terrible attitude, being Soo QUICK to anger, quick to raise his voice, right away getting it your face all the time, being constantly belligerent, arrogant, argumentative, selfish and always more concerned with being in control and getting his way than anything else.

The only time it was good that he had those traits was against the Xindi where those traits helped them to perservere and get the job done. Otherwise, he can barely go back and forth in any conversation two or three times before he starts to raise his voice, get an attitude, run up in your face and act like he's so tough.

Such traits are very unbecoming of a Star fleet officer let alone a captain and ass someone else said, I don't know how he remained in Star fleet as long as he did.

It brings back something that Janeway once said when she first encountered the Borg I believe it was. She was talking about Kirk and how things were back in those days. She mentioned how their ships were twice and fast as they were in Kirk's time, said some other comment and then said that the whole lot of them would have been kicked out of Star Fleet if they acted that way today. I guess this is an indication that in the early days of Star Fleet and the federation, they had to be far more tolerant and let people get away with much more than they ever would later on, probably because people weren't exactly clamoring to join you at that time and even once the federation got going and started exploring the Galaxy, they needed everyone they could get.

Still, Kirk could be just as tough, strong and determined when needed but he was far more mature, in control and could hold a Civil conversation as the norm, something that Archer only seems to be able to do when he's watching his water polo lol.

Captain Archer welcomes his old friend and inventor of the transporter technology, Dr. Emory Erickson, and his daughter Danica on board of Enterprise. Dr. Erickson is assigned to perform tests on sub quantum transportation to long distances in a desert area of the space called The Barrens and is worshiped by Commander Tucker. However, Tucker suspects that the scientist is not telling the truth about his experiment and discloses his concerns to Captain Archer. When a crew member of Enterprise is killed by a strange life force and T'Pol is wounded in her hand, Dr. Emory finally reveals that the experiment is indeed his last attempt to bring his son Quinn back from an accident with the transporter fifteen years ago.

"Daedalus" is one of the weakest and most incoherent episodes of Enterprise, with the attitude of Captain Archer risking Enterprise and its crew to satisfy the experiment of his friend to bring his son back. The hand of T'Pol, injured by Quinn, apparently is recovered by Dr. Phlox since there is no further reference to the incident. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Dédalo"