Strange New World
Date: Unknown
Original Airdate: October 10, 2001
By Quinn
The Story
While on the way to a nebula, a new planet is discovered that
is surprisingly like Earth. Archer decides to take an away team
to explore it, against the wishes of T'Pol, who suggests
a more conservative approach (beginning with several days of
probes and surveys).
There is no humanoid life on the planet, but other types of life
are present, mostly insect. T'Pol decides to stay overnight
on the planet with several crewmembers to do more surveys.
Archer returns to the ship. The away team runs into a bad storm,
and is forced to take shelter in caves. They are not able to
be retrieved by shuttle due to the severity of the storm.
The team begins acting erratically. All turn on T'Pol,
the mistrust between the humans and Vulcan come to the forefront.
Everyone begins to have hallucinations. T'Pol is affected,
but to a lesser degree than the humans. Tripp and T'Pol
end up pointing phase pistols at each other. One of the crewmen
runs out of the cave into the storm. He is beamed up to Enterprise,
but a transporter problem leaves him with leaves and debris fused
into his body.
It is discovered in treating this crewman that tropolycine is
present on the planet. The away team will need to be treated
if they are to survive. However, Tripp is too paranoid to listen
to reason, so Archer concocts a story to convince him to trust
T'Pol and drop his weapon. Once he does, T'Pol is
able to stun him. She then is able to retrieve the cure, which
has been transported down, and administer the antidote. When
the storm passes, the away team is rescued.
Review
ENT continues to drop little references to TOS. Plomeek soup.
Also an amusing reference to Dune with a mention of Arrakis Prime.
The crew interaction is good, and it was great to meet some
new crewmembers. And in a surprise, ensign "red shirt" did
NOT die!!!
The scorpion bugs. Can you say "TNG "Conspiracy""?
The Very Good
The story held the interest very well. I was never sure until
later on that this was all hallucinations, at first; it seemed
like there might well be some strange lifeform. Rock people – reminded
me of the Horta from TOS' ‘The Devil in the Dark",
especially when Archer told the story to Tripp about the "silicon
based life form".
The Bad
The tents? K-Mart!? Sure didn't seem very futuristic to
me! Ghost stories around the campfire? O-KAY…
Archer was a little too impetuous. He should have done a little
more research and survey on the planet before rushing in – and
letting his poor doggie out on a potentially unsafe world.
Just because it LOOKS like Earth, doesn't MEAN it's
exactly LIKE Earth.
My Opinion
I really enjoyed this show. At first, when I saw the tents and
head the ghost story, I thought "Oh no!". But the
story soon grabbed my interest and held it for the rest of the
show. It seemed to me to be a cross between TOS "The Naked
Time" and VOY "The Haunting of Deck 12".
Grade: 8/10
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:
Henri Lubatti as Ethan Novakovich
Rey Gallegos as Crewman
Kellie Waymire as Elizabeth Cutler
Creative Staff:
Director: David Livingston
Teleplay By: Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong
Story By: Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
