Fortunate Son

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)

... S_cked!

I don't like that this series redesigned several alien races. The Nausicans were the worst. The Tellerites were the 2nd worst. Even the Klingons were fiddled and diddled with.

As far as the episode, I did not think it was that bad. Chip DeLucia, Who portrayed a Dorian Greyish slimeball in TNG "Man of the People" S6E3, is a more positive, normal person type Captain here. Unfortunately, he is taken out of the picture for most of the ep, his place usurped by Lawrence Monoson from "starship troopers 2" and DS9 "The Storyteller" - He plays a real jerky here... and he almost gets his just desserts until Kieran Mulroney from TNG's "The Outrageous Okona" steps up with help from Mayweather. Too bad Billy Campbell did not make an appearance.

Ensign Mayweather of course is able to assert some authority here, as this episode involved Freighters, which Mayweather previously crewed.

But what we have here is basically a confrontation between the second officer of this freighter, and the leader of a gang of Nausicans.

Which is totally unbelievable, as the Nausicans that we are familiar with From next generation and deep space nine never spoke complete sentences. The grunted and mostly fought wielding serrated blades.

So they are a little bit too educated here, I don't know if that is the proper word. Sophisticated maybe. And they should not have been. Also The new make up was terrible.

One of the other reviewers explains it well: Monoson depicts the average incompetent who is suddenly in charge, while De Lucia represents a man with no agendas, and operates without malice.

I think this was the main point of the entire episode, and as such it was almost a kind of prophecy about the kind of leadership (or lack thereof) that we have right now.

Of course, the episode is problematic, but if we just ignore those things that don't make sense, the redesign of an alien that is not even acting the same way as we know they act... and other issues, the main point becomes obvious from early on in the episode.

Also, the name of the episode, is also prophetic:

"It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son".

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.

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.

"Fortunate Son" is a muddled mess and quite possibly the worst episode of "Enterprise." I know, it has some competition there, but let's go through it.

The plot revolves around interstellar piracy and the lack of law enforcement in space. We learn that there is a fleet of earth freighters that have no protection against raiders, so their crews take matters into their own hands. These freighters take years to travel between destinations, turning the crews into "families" or, less euphemistically, armed gangs that basically do whatever they want on their journeys.

So, "Fortunate Son" at its heart is about lawlessness and how people exposed to it handle themselves. This isn't the most exciting concept, and there isn't a shred of originality about anything in this episode aside from the inevitable introduction of a new race (who really cares what they're called because they're just another variety of Klingon-variants with the standard forehead ridges, but they're the "Nausicaans") and the concept of freighters. Neither idea is particularly interesting and both seem a bit fanciful given the time periods we're dealing with, but we'll go with it.

The plot is the major problem. Put as succinctly as possible, it's insipid. It also makes virtually no sense. Freighters taking on not just warships but multiple warships, crews who haven't thought through at all what they're doing, a resolution that can be seen a light year away... it's just a cauldron of confusion and banality.

On the bright side, this is undoubtedly the best episode of the series for Ensign Mayweather. We learn through endless tedious monologues about how he grew up on a freighter, what he knows about freighters, how tragic life can be on freighters, blah blah blah. Are you really that interested in freighters and Mayweather? Then this is the episode for you (and I know there are some of you out there). I didn't find anything shown in this episode to be particularly interesting or insightful, but may the speed at which freighters travel is just fascinating to you.

Back to the banality. There is some heavy-handed moralizing going on, and not in a subtle way. They brought LeVar Burton in to direct this (think really hard to figure out why), and the pacing is horrible because we keep getting sidetracked by Mayweather opining about this and that. Maybe Burton's a good director elsewhere, but not here. We get pointless and banal discussions over meals, an extremely forced relationship between Mayweather and the villain or antihero (what he is is unclear from this muddled script), and a truly bizarre climactic moment when Mayweather just leaps into sensitive negotiations and embarks on a pointless monologue where he tries to say something meaningful. He's still trying. Maybe he'll manage it eventually. Oh, since Mayweather is the only person who knows anything about freighters, apparently that's why he's entitled to just talk over Archer and start pacing around the bridge expounding on his own theories.

So, the moralizing of this episode is off the Richter scale. At one point, Archer says to Mayweather in a condescending tone, "You in particular should understand (treating everyone equally)." Oh, geez, I wonder what he's really talking about there? And guess what, vigilantism is bad. Wow, shocker in a show centered around a military ship! The vigilantes resent the sudden appearance of law enforcement for some reason because they've become as bad as the pirates (at least that seems to be the lesson of the week). There are other such "lessons," but I'll stop there.

"Fortunate Son" is an unfortunate episode. We get little of interest from anyone other than Mayweather, T'Pol has a few cameos here and there, and everyone else is basically invisible or ineffective, including Archer. Oh, and the title has nothing to do with the song, if you were wondering about that. Nice little misleading trope there, Rick!

So, if you're a big Ensign Mayweather fan, tune in, but virtually everyone else is going to wonder why this was even made.