Fortunate Son

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")

The Enterprise is asked by Star Fleet to investigate the silence of a space freighter. In the opening, we see it attacked by Nausicaans, known as space pirates. They follow the pattern of the bad guys being ugly. The captain of the freighter, Fortunate, lies unconscious in their sick bay. His second in command happens to be a man whose family was killed while on board a freighter. He has spent his whole life in this line of work. Unfortunately, he is consumed with revenge and has taken on of the invaders hostage. He routinely beats him, forcing him to give up defensive codes. When the Entriprise away team comes on board, this man is resistant to their interference, knowing that their scanners will find the Nausicaan. Soon, he traps the away team, sends them off in a pod, and goes off to attack the pirates. Archer realizes that this will lead to the deaths of either the crew of the Fortunate or a herd of Nausicaans. This is really heavy handed and moralistic. The conclusion is really unacceptable when one considers what this guy did.

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.

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.

... 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".