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.

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.

"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.

When the show begins, annoying Nausicaan* pirates are attacking an Earth freighter. Soon, Enterprise is ordered to change course to investigate. However, the reaction of the freighter crew is strange and they seem like they don't want any help--even though their ship has obviously been damaged. It's obvious that they are hiding something--and when their secret is revealed, the ship takes off. What is it they are hiding and how will Archer handle it?

This episode brings up an interesting idea with space travel--who will police space? So, if there are space pirates, who is to stop them and how will they punish them? The Captain Ahab-like approach of the acting commander of the freighter is certainly one way! Overall, a rather interesting but not particularly outstanding episode.

*The Nausicaans was a name that was familiar but I didn't at first realize which episodes involved them. My wife looked it up--these were the nasty brutes who nearly killed Jean-Luc Picard when he was a stupid and headstrong Starfleet cadet--which is revealed in one of the final shows of "Star Trek: The Next Generation".