Fortunate Son

Spoilers

We are supposed to believe that Star Fleet has had loads of freighters traveling at warp for at least thirty years, given that EN Mayweather was born on one. Yet, despite what are apparently common pirate attacks, Star Fleet doesnt have any warships patrol the shipping lanes.

Second, CPT Archer is an officer so respected and experienced that he is called in to discuss the Enterprise's launch with admirals and diplomats of Earth and Vulcan, but he doesnt know what a Nausican Pirate is? That is blatantly absurd. But, it lets Mayweather, who is the reason this episode was written I guess, give us some of his boomer expertise.

Third and the most unbelievably incoherent plot nonsense I have ever seen in Star Trek, the freighter's second in command not alone maroons the captain of Star Fleet's flagship on a pod with a pressure leak (attempted murder), he fires on the Enterprise and flees. Not hanged. Not arrested. Not tried. Nope...he is reduced in rank by his own captain.

This episode highlights the insane touchy feely bent of this series, and Mayweather constantly piping up in more than one episode (but more so here) to offer his advice to Star Fleet's preeminent captain, is ludicrous and tiring. I want to like this show, and some of the characters are good, and the acting is very good, I am finding it difficult.

Captain Archer is contacted by Admiral Forrest asking him to turn back to investigate a distress call from the cargo freighter ECS Fortunate. Archer finds that the freighter had been attacked by the Nausicaans, a race of space pirates. Archer provides supplies, manpower and medical assistance to First Officer Matthew Ryan, who is in command since the captain is injured. When T'Pol detects an alien form in the ship, the reaction of Ryan is violent and the Enterprise discovers that the officer is plot revenge against the Nausicaans, jeopardizing the space route for other freighters.

"Fortunate Son" is the weakest episode of this good series so far. The story of revenge of Officer Ryan is silly and pointless, since the guy is not totally wrong. The Nausicaans are pirates and attack the freighters, and the Starfleet does not take any action, therefore his attitude of despair seems to be very reasonable. The moral message of this episode in the end is blurred. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Mercadores do Espaço" ("Merchants of Space")

Starfleet contacts the Enterprise with orders to help a freighter ship in distress.

I like the concept of freighter ships and their crews so this is an interesting area of the Trek universe that I wanted to find out more about. However, the plot, dialogue and acting in this episode languishes at impulse power. The only time it ever kicks into warp 1 is when Archer gets a bit tough with Officer Ryan.

The resolution comes from someone talking someone else round to see sense and I always struggle with these situations. Couple that with the Nausicaans resembling someone wearing a bad Predator mask and I found this one difficult to get through.

Travis is given a bit more screen time and something tangible to do but unfortunately the quality of material doesn't do the character favours. Archer tries to lift things with his ethical stand, but it doesn't improve matters that much.

I did like the discussions about advancing science and warp technologies impacting ways of life outside of Starfleet but that's about it.

I can't shake the feeling that this Enterprise crew is a bunch of amateurs. In contrast to the crews of the TNG and VOY series, there are definitely no explorers and scientists at work here. Space anomalies? Not interested! Charting stars? Boring! Diplomacy? Something for losers! This crew doesn't have an ounce of tact. Like a couple of cowboys from the American provinces. The ensign simply chats into the captain's speech without being asked to do so. The captain is a complete joke anyway. He could maybe play captain on a shrimp boat. But on the Enterprise? Speaking of boats: The entire Enterprise set seems to me like I'm watching a submarine crew. Those blue overalls, those controls... it doesn't look like a spaceship.

The story of this episode is also complete nonsense. The idea of "Boomers" being born in space, traveling the stars on freighters and being a secretive community of swashbucklers who solve their own problems is just dumb. I just don't buy Mayweather's life story anyway. And his understanding of this freighter crew waging their own guerrilla war is also completely out of place in Star Trek. But Archer then plays space police and ensures law and order in the Alpha quadrant. USA! USA! USA!

Fortunate Son was filmed in September 2001, two weeks after the Twin Towers came down but it was almost a year before the Star Trek series caught up with the public mood and transitioned to a more militaristic, end-justifies-the-means mind set. In this episode the writers were still working from the "torture is always wrong" playbook and no-one had yet heard of the expression "enhanced interrogation techniques.

Basically, in this episode the Boomers (low warp speed interstellar cargo hauliers) have captured a pirate an are determined to get him to give up the location of his base so that they can mount a revenge attack. It's not that which makes me wary of these people but the thought of a tiny, enclosed society of humans living together for decades on end and making up their own rules as they go along. It sounds like a cross between an extremist religious commune and Pitcairn Island*.

Whatever Mayweather's wide-eyed recollections are, the very idea of such a society spells out an invitation to autocracy, alcoholism, domestic violence an child abuse. Think about it for a moment. Now imagine a couple of the public figures you think most likely to want to impose their values upon a small group of people away from the supervision of a watchful society. I don't even need to name names, do I? Now give them a chance to gather up a few female chattels an head out into space for a couple of generations. It sounds more like a pitch for a horror movie to me.

Besides, it's a brave speculator who would base their livelihood on the value of raw materials projected decades into the future.

I see that other reviewers have chosen other reasons for marking this episode down so I suppose it's got the advantage of having provoked a certain amount of discussion. It was a real shame that poor Anthony Montgomery was given only this one episode as his piece of character development throughout the whole series. This likeable young man deserved a whole lot better from the writing team. He has had a fairly successful career since and I don't think he's ever been heard to complain about his blatant under-use aboard the NX-01

Senior Trekker scores each episode with a 5

(* Pitcairn is a remote island in the Pacific where the real life Bounty mutineers fled to escape justice. Within less than a generation they had almost all died at their own or each other's hands)