Cold Front
Date: Unknown
Original Airdate: November 28, 2001
By Quinn

The Story

Cold Front is the continuation of the very intriguing story started in "Broken Bow." It follows Silik, the Suliban pawn of a mysterious man with nebulous aims. The man is inside a temporal chamber, and he says he is angered by the fact that the Klingon Empire is intact. Nonetheless, he sends Silik on another mission.

Before I continue, let me just say that the "Temporal Storyline" does show promise. I've always been curious about the future of the Federation (I really wanted to see a 25th Century Series V originally), and this allows them to do that. They also get to show some more "advanced" technology so that they can stretch their CG muscles. Plus, the phrase "Temporal Cold War" just excites me.

Well, the story finds Enterprise on their way to a "stellar nursery," after a nice little scene about the crew watching old movies. We are introduced to a waiter/crewman named Daniels who shows interest in Enterprise's plans (more on this later)

Enterprise finds a transport ship, and Archer is curious about them. He starts small talk with their captain, and he discovers that the ship is out to see a stellar event with religious significance. He invites himself along, and he offers the passengers the opportunity to take a tour of the ship.

After another nice little scene with Mayweather's "first command," we see Tucker showing the passengers around Engineering. One of them (surprise; its Silik in disguise) breaks from the group and rips a cord. When an "antimatter cascade" occurs, that broken cord stops the cascade and saves the ship.

After a very small investigation, Daniels approaches Archer with an accusation of one of the passengers, as well as information he shouldn't know. Daniels takes Archer back to his quarters, where he explains that he is there to capture Silik, and that he is from 900 years in the future. (He does claim that he is not Starfleet, so while he says he is "more or less" human he may work for an outside force. Of course, Starfleet might not exist in the 31st Century.)

After a short display of his abilities and more insight into the Temporal Cold War (including information on Silik's "friend"). It appears that the Cold War exists because people don't want to time travel for research only.

The crew begins to search for Silik (despite objections from T'Pol), but Silik finds and stuns Archer and "kills" Daniels before they can. By the way, if any of you are concerned about future spoilers, I haven't read spoilers so I'm just guessing that he might not be dead.

With some of Daniels technology, Archer finds Silik and confronts him. Silik questions anything Archer has heard, and after a small fight, he escapes (literally jumping into space and hitching a ride with a ship).

Archer lets the ship escape, but afterwards he orders Daniels' room to be locked down until an investigation can be done. The show ends on a very ominous and long shot of the lock on Daniels' door...

Review

A very good episode. Like I said earlier, the temporal storyline is intriguing in my opinion, and I like how this story continues it. Enterprise has done a great job so far, and now I expect a lot from them. I'm not sure whether or not that is a good thing; I guess only time will tell (ha ha ha...)

What I liked about this episode was the fact that the "transition scenes" were very well done. Scenes like Mayweather in the Captain's Chair that are occasionally just filler were done very well, and it made the show very smooth.

Let's start out with the bad and end with a bang...

First off, while I like this storyline, I wasn't pleased with the opening segment. While it was ominous and set up the episode, it did so too well. We are shown that the guy in the temporal chamber is still "up to something evil," and that takes away from the mystery of the episode. Of course, it had already been established that Silik is evil, but you never know what his intentions are.

Daniels' "death." The odd way he died could suggest its possible that he somehow escaped, but that's not all too likely. I liked Daniels' character, and I was looking forward to seeing more of him.

Finally, I really wish that they would stop mentioning exactly how long they've been out. Because Trek shows have had a lot of continuity errors based on time and the distance possibly traveled in that time (errors have already been pointed out in Enterprise), I would prefer if they would just leave that alone.

That's basically it. Now on to the good stuff.

While I do not like that Silik and his "master" have been painted as evil when it isn't absolutely necessary, I did like the way Daniels' character appeared. While he appeared to be good, we never know what plot he is (was) actually following. He looked to be very nice, but then again, there was always something "off" about him.

I generally liked all of Daniels' scenes. Matt Winston did a great job for the reasons above.

McNeill's direction was excellent as well. He has done a great job in the past on episodes like "Unity" and "Someone to Watch Over Me," and I hope he gets the opportunity later.

I also liked the mention of human religions. If you watch Trek closely, you'll know that with very few exceptions, there have never been very many references to human religion. This episode helped me know that at least Christianity, Buddhism, and Hindu still exist in the 22nd Century. But Archer's comment makes me think that religion and Starfleet just don't mix.

As usual, the acting was great. The story is a little more spread out, but we are still primarily focusing on the "Big Three." While it is not a big issue now, it certainly could be in the future.

Finally, this episode sees the return of Porthos. Like many reviewers have said, the idea of a pet in space is very interesting, and it is very fun to watch.

Basically, this was a great episode that made me look forward to the continuation of this storyline. Daniels gave us reason to question his identity (even if he's a good guy, there are still a lot of questions about him: his race, his home planet, his superiors). The ominous feel of the episode made you really wonder if anything we saw is true (the last shot, in particular).

Grade: 9.5/10

Cast:
Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
John Billingsley as Dr. Phlox
Jolene Blalock as T'Pol
Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
Connor Trinneer as Charles Tucker

Guest Cast:
John Fleck as Silik
Matt Winston as Daniels
Leonard Kelly-Young as Sonsorra
Michael O'Hagan as Captain Fraddock
Lamont D. Thompson as Alien Pilgrim
Joseph Hindy as Prah Mantoos

Creative Staff:
Director: Robert Duncan McNeill
Written By: Stephen Beck & Tim Finch