Star Trek: Enterprise started off strong with "Broken Bow," a feature-length premiere that ranks as one of the stronger series openers from the Star Trek era executive produced by Rick Berman. Enterprise season 1's best efforts include "The Andorian Incident," which introduced the popular Commander Shran (Jeffrey Combs), "Dear Doctor," a moral dilemma centered on Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley), and "Shuttlepod One," which cemented the friendship between Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer) and Lt. Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating).
However, Star Trek: Enterprise was produced in a different era, with a 26-episode season 1 order from United Paramount Network (UPN). Delivering episodes of Enterprise at that pace proved to be difficult for executive producer Brannon Braga and his writing staff, and Enterprise struggled to find its own identity as it was torn between aping the successes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: The Original Series. Hence, Star Trek: Enterprise season 1 has its share of clunkers worth skipping in a rewatch.
5"Strange New World"
Star Trek: Enterprise Season 1, Episode 4
Star Trek: Enterprise season 1 quickly fell back to Earth after the highs of its series premiere, "Broken Bow." In Enterprise episode 4, "Strange New World," an away team led by Subcommander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) and Commander Trip Tucker spends the night on an unexplored planet. which later becomes designated as Archer IV. Spores in the air act as a hallucinogen that pits the Enterprise crew against each other in paranoid delusions before they are rescued.
The eagerness of Enterprise's crew to go camping on the planet in "Strange New World" shows off how embarrassingly inexperienced they are. While the NX-01's people may be new to space exploration, they act more like a Cub Scout troop than professionals and scientists. The portrayal of Enterprise's crew as rubes compared to the characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation made them less appealing and contributed to longtime Star Trek fans losing interest in the prequel from the outset.
4"Unexpected"
Star Trek: Enterprise Season 1, Episode 5
Star Trek: Enterprise season 1 immediately followed "Strange New World" with episode 5, "Unexpected," another low point so early in the prequel's run. When the NX-01 Enterprise encounters the Xyrillians, Commander Trip Tucker is invited onto the alien ship. When Trip returns from his hallucinatory visit to the Xyrillian ship, he finds out that he's pregnant. Trip panics and is the object of ridicule until the Xyrillians safely transplant the embryo.
"Unexpected" would be a questionable episode of Star Trek: The Original Series in the 1960s, but it's a farcical eyeroller in the 21st century. Star Trek: Enterprise was too young a series to put a main character like Trip Tucker in such a foolish situation, and it's hard to fathom what the show's writers were thinking. One notable element of "Unexpected" is the introduction of holodeck technology, and it's established that Enterprise knew about holodecks 200 years before they are in widespread use in Star Trek: The Next Generation's era.
3"Terra Nova"
Star Trek: Enterprise Season 1, Episode 6
Completing Star Trek: Enterprise season 1's early trifecta of poor back-to-back-to-back episodes is "Terra Nova." Captain Archer's NX-01 Enterprise visits the first human deep space colony and discovers their civilization has been wiped out. A predictable twist reveals that the primitive Terra Novans living underground are the descendants of the human colonists and are sick from radiation poisoning.
"Terra Nova" is a groaner of a Star Trek: Enterprise episode, with an uninteresting central mystery and a disappointing presentation of the Terra Novans. Even Star Trek: Enterprise's executive producer, Brannon Braga, called "Terra Nova" "boring," and told StarTrek.com it was his least favorite episode of Enterprise. The sole bright spot of "Terra Nova" is that Enterprise finally picked up momentum after this low point, and the very next episode is the superior "The Andorian Incident."
2"Fortunate Son"
Star Trek: Enterprise Season 1, Episode 10
"Fortunate Son" is Star Trek: Enterprise's season 1 attempt to depict how humans traveled through space before Starfleet's Warp 5 engine was developed, but the episode is a disappointment. When the NX-01 Enterprise encounters the freighter Fortunate Son, they learn that Commander Matthew Ryan (Lawrence Monoson) is lying to them, and he is secretly holding a Nausicaan prisoner. A bright spot is Enterprise introducing the Nausicaans from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Star Trek: Enterprise's "Fortunate Son" gave Ensign Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery) a backstory, as he would become a character generally underserved in the prequel. Yet "Fortunate Son" offers little in the way of intrigue or twists, and even the Nausicaans become less threatening in this outing. "Fortunate Son" is a by the numbers Enterprise episode that falls short of the high standards set by the best of Star Trek.
1"Rogue Planet"
Star Trek: Enterprise Season 1, Episode 18
When the NX-01 Enterprise detects an unknown planet, they discover a race called the Eska that spent nine generations hunting the wildlife. Meanwhile, Captain Archer sees visions of an attractive "scantily-clad" woman, and he is driven to find her. Archer discovers the Wraith (Stephanie Niznik) is an alien shape-shifter, and the Eska hunt her people for the challenge. Archer and his Enterprise crew find a way for the Wraiths to mask their signature, making them more difficult to hunt.
"Rogue Planet" is another throwback to the type of episode that might be found in Star Trek: The Original Series, right down to Captain Archer being tempted by an attractive alien woman. However, the execution and resolution of "Rogue Planet" is banal. Star Trek fans who are completionists would naturally want to watch every episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. But if time is of the essence, go ahead and skip these episodes and focus on the best Star Trek: Enterprise season 1 has to offer.
