“Carpenter Street”

I have to disagree on one vital point here.There was a moment of key interest to me and that was that learning that my tricorder at home can be a very effective carjacking tool...soon as I work out the bugs.otherwise,I have to resort to my standard theory which is that all the temporal damage done to the space-time continuum has collectively rotted the integrity of spacetime to the point that it no longer has to make any semblance of logical,rational sense!

Let's face it, these Star Trek time-travel episodes are always interesting the first time around, no matter how well they are done, as long as they follow the action-intrigue formula. Admit it, once you started watching it, you had to stay with it to the end, no matter how ludicrous it seemed. That's hollywood! Question is, did you buy any of the products they advertized during the commercials?

To expand on Jammer's review, this episode reminded me of DS9's third season "Past Tense" two-parter. In both, the United States is portrayed in a negative light. In "Past Tense", it was the interment of the poor in "Sanctuary Districts." In this episode, it was T'Pol's commentary of humanity based only on one criminal. Why did the writers and producers feel the necessity to negatively portray the United States?

Honestly, given the quality of this episode, I doubt that Berman and Braga were attempting to make any sort of social commentary at all. Likely it was just scripted filler dialog to fill up the hour.

When I remember "Past Tense" I have trouble believing that. Fortunately, T'Pol's comment was in this terrible episode.

I normally agree with these reviews, but I think you're being harsh here. Granted the plot was routine, but this episode got the pacing, feel and performances spot on. Leland Orser convinced me that his character would have behaved in exactly this way, and the threat was not just to Detroit, but actually to three-quarters of humanity. It certanly kept me watching.

I think you're spot on with your criticisms here. Daniels is a frustrating character that serves only as a convenient plot device. Still, the change of setting was nice.

"It takes time for changes in time to ripple through the timeline"

lol.

How much time? 20 minutes? 150 years? If we go back in time will it catch up with us sooner? What if we go forward in time? Can we stay ahead of it? Even out pace it? If we go forward in time fast enough maybe we can overtake ALL these ripples and discover the ORIGINAL timeline!

whatever. stay away from time-travel, star trek.

I guess that means if Archer fails it's no big deal. Because Daniels will still 'have time' before the ripple reaches the 31st century. Maybe with someone in the 24th or 26th century. They could have a stab at it. Why does this need to be Archer's problem? Oh yeah, Daniels doesn't have his permision slip yet.

I guess he should go forward in time a couple of weeks and pick it up. Or, I don't know, just f'ing do it regardless. It's only the fate of humanity.

Well, there were some things that I enjoyed about this and some that were not so consistent.

When T'Pol stunned Loomis... it was at short range. Was it not told in ST:IV that a phaser on stun at short range would kill? Maybe I'm looking too close.

There is one thing I thought was pretty funny about the episode. I only noticed this because of the date and you can probably guess what movies I've been watching recently.
The kidnapper's name was Loomis. The man that wanted to watch Conan, his name was Strode.
Just thought that was in interesting. I'm guessing this episode was written at about this time of year.

This probably only bothered me because I'm originally from Detroit. But, why did they bother claiming this whole adventure is supposed to be taking place in Detroit when they were so obviously in LA? I knew they weren't in Detroit from the get go, but that last shot of Archer and T'Pol on the street was too much for me. There are no hills or valleys in Detroit! I mean, they could have edited around that obvious shot of the hills of LA. It made a lame episode that much lamer for me.

And, good lord, this episode WAS lame! Archer got surly and punched someone in the face - AGAIN! Daniels showed up and said something that made no sense - AGAIN! The last half of the show was all phaser fights and no plot - AGAIN!

Honestly, I wasn't even watching during the phaser shoot out at the end. I looked up right around the time that Archer grabbed for The Weapon, only to see the skyline of LA seconds later. These actions scenes are so boring. They're exactly the same in every episode. At this point, I find myself only watching the first three acts of most episodes and then jumping over here to read the review during the final shoot outs at the end. For all of Similitude's faults, I would take that mess of an ending over a phaser shoot out any day.

Also, "changes take time to ripple through the timeline"?!? Don't even get me started on that one!

Jammer wrote: "Star Trek is supposed to be about ideas"

Yeah, when B&B are involved... BAD ones. Case in point: another pile of trash of an episode.

In addition to your question of why 2004 when it would be easier to hide in 1404, why hide in Detroit? Why not pick a place where people disappearing would be much more unnoticed, someplace like Mumbai or Juarez.

"It takes time for changes in time to ripple through the timeline"

Oh, come on. Sure, you can do some wave some things away when talking about time travel. Yes, you can get away with some things which seem utterly impossible or even have stories that have internal conflicts in time travel when it's not too obvious.

However, this is where I draw the line. That sentence has no meaning. Okey, time travel may not be easy so it may not be the easiest to write about, but at least you can think about what you are doing. Heck, this thing makes so little sense that I am having trouble coming up with an equivalent sentence that does not involve time. I'll find it, though. Be warned, the sentence is going to make no sense at all.

"It takes distance before me moving a piece of paper affects the other side of the paper."

I have no clue what "distance" in "it takes distance" would mean. And that's the idea, as "time" in "it takes time" makes equally little sense.

Re: "It takes time for changes in time to ripple through the timeline"

Think of it like what we saw in "Year of Hell" but with time rather than space. In other words, changes in 2004 will first be felt in 2005, then 2006, and so on. If I remember correctly, Asimov does this in "The End of Eternity" ("Eternity" there is a sort of timeless structure that is not affected by changes, much like the timeship in "Year of Hell", so an observer has a frame of reference from which to see changes rippling). Argue about plausibility all you want, but it's not nonsense.

"Heck, this thing makes so little sense that I am having trouble coming up with an equivalent sentence that does not involve time."

Say you're on a train and you release poison gas at one end. Now it takes distance (traveled by the train) for the gas to reach the other end of the train. You're dealing with two different frames of reference for measuring distance/time.

@Nathan:

I would like to read "The end of Eternity" some time. However, wore than just a frame reference, Eternity seems to add an entirely new time, which is independent of normal time. And that is what makes the concept possible.
Such an idea is very well possible, but only if you present it as such. However, Enterprise never does such a thing.

More so, Daniels is not talking about such a parallel timeline, but talking about not being able to view it from the future. He is never suggesting he looks at it from some different time stream, and oftentimes does suggest that he is just from the normal future. As such, the statement he makes is still nonsense.

Your example with the train and the gas feels quite wrong to me (in the sense that it can't quite compare to the time travel thing), but I am having trouble putting my finger on just what is wrong about them. I have some ideas, but before I make a claim, I want to make sure it isn't a bogus claim, so let me get back to that later.

Man, Jammer is Jaded. He needs to stop watching television.

I'll stop watching TV when it stops entertaining me. Just because this episode was lame doesn't make me jaded. So there.

For the first 3 minutes, I thought Loomus was being played by Braga--then I thought, "hey, this guy seems to know a lot about how hookers behave when they get picked up," then I thought, "that actually makes a lot of sense." All that was missing in the teaser was Loomus taking a hit from his bong...as someone who grew up near Detroit, however, I can say the backdrop (gratuitous or not) is pretty accurate.

DId anyone else guess long before this that the Xindi War was never supposed to happen?

I would like confirmation that Daniels is a member of the same Time monitors from VOY's "Future's End" and "Relativity."

I think, as a series, Enterprise should demonstrate that continuity and story arcs do not constitute quality writing. As I have stated in the comments to numerous DS9 and VOY reviews, it is a METHOD of storytelling. It can be really fun (and it has been on DS9 and ENT) but it is no guarantee of good stories, an explanation of good or bad storytelling, or a requirement of good storytelling.

This has been a series of running comments, so let me close with an actual reaction to this episode :

It's quite palatable on its own, "fun" in context of the continuity with the TCW and largely forgettable. In comparison with its look-a-likes from the other series ("City on the Edge", "Time's Arrow", "Past Tense", and "Future's End") it ranks last (big surprise), but I don't think it is as deserving of the lambasting it gets on this page either. It deserved to keep its 2 stars at least.

"I thought Loomus was being played by Braga--then I thought, "hey, this guy seems to know a lot about how hookers behave when they get picked up," then I thought, "that actually makes a lot of sense.""

A cynical observer might question you on that, Elliott - how do YOU know know that it's accurate for how hookers behave? ;)

Anyway, Carpenter Street. Loved the look of Detroit, I'm English and went to LA on vacation last November - amazing how similar it looks ;)

Oh, and sure there was an episode there somewhere...

Wow, this episode stunk. It stunk even worse for me as I live in the suburbs of Detroit and work in downtown Detroit.

First, I'll tear apart the plot. So why the hell are they trying to get the virus back to the future? Wouldn't they just release it right there in 2004? Killing all the humans in 2004 would be better than killing them in 2154 when they're scattered about the universe in space ships.

I totally agree that it makes no sense that Archer would be sent to 2004 two months into the Xindi mission. It would make more sense for them to be sent right on the heels of the Xindi and to spend the episode right on the heels trying to predict their next move and stop them.

Also, I totally agree that it makes no sense whatsoever that they need to make this virus specific to all blood types. There are very few things on this Earth in present day that are specific to a blood type.


OK, now I've got to tear apart the "Detroit 2004" part.

First off, apparently in 2004 Detroit had very few black people. In fact, Detroit now only has two black people, a cop and a hooker.

Secondly, not a single scene was from Detroit. The shot of the skyline was LA! I mean, c'mon, you couldn't even throw in a shot of the Detroit skyline?

Thirdly, on the radio there's an advertisement for a monster truck rally at the "tri-city" whatever. There is no "tri-city" in Detroit. There's the "tri-county" area of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb. There is no tri-city.

The only thing they got right were the police cars which were either actual Detroit police cars, or extremely similar.

If you're going to say that a plot is in a certain city, you actually have to make an attempt. You can't say "Detroit" and show the LA skyline.

The only thing that seems accurate about the setting is:

1) There is a Carpenter Street in Detroit\Hamtramck (I think they just got lucky on that one)
2) Detroit did exist in 2004 and had hookers


Sucky plot. No attempt made at depicting Detroit. More time-travel wizardry.

The ripple in the timeline took effect immediately in Shockwave. Daniels had breakfast in the morning, got Archer from the turbolift when Silik was pestering Enterprise and found himself in the ruins of the future he just left. Why didn't the writers keep tabs on their own stories? If idiots like me see this, why don't they?

Well, I found it to be a nice episode considering the way Archer and T'Pol worked together. And I found Loomis to be a fantastic creep. That's a much better villain than those latex Xindi's.

And Daniels should try to find another barber. Really.

Hah...
'twas alright. I didn't hate it quite as much as Jammer.

Teeny bit of ST:IV borrowing. Good thing they were in the US (of course - rest of the world doesn't exist unless you have a French captain) and he didn't have to deal with the clutch and manual gears we have over here :)

T'Pol says something like, great, the first person they interact with has the qualities of "greed, violence and moral corruption" - why you so surprised SubCmdr, the guy you work for represents two of those qualities...

Not sure how "things taking time to ripple through time" works, but as Janeway always said, don't even try to think about temporal mechanics.

Wouldn't mind a tricorder. Same function as a sonic screwdriver (magic wand), but much prettier.

I was able to suspend disbelief on the technical issues and enjoy the show. It was much, much better than Similitude; I couldn't figure out all that episode asked me to believe. DNA can do anything, and you just had to watch and wonder what it would do next. In this one they laid out some rules for how time travel worked, and they stuck to it. Since time travel isn't a phenomenon in the real world, I could accept Daniels having ability to send them back in time without having details on what they were looking for. One you accept that, the story is nothing amazing, but it was an interesting hour of television.

The worst failing of this episode was that it gave us Archer and T'Pol in 2004 and it couldn't mine that fish out of water idea for even a single entertaining scene. Yes, the overall plot was dumb (for instance: why doesn't Daniels and his crew simply stop the Xindi themselves? Aren't they supposed to be policing the timeline? They're from the 30th century and three 22nd century Xindi are too much for them to handle?) but I could've forgiven the plot if Archer and T'Pol's reactions to the year 2004 were at least entertaining. Unfortunately they weren't, at all. City on the Edge of Forever managed to tell the best Trek story ever while still making room for a few wonderfully humorous scenes with Kirk and Spock adapting to the 1930's ("stone knives and bear skins"), while Carpenter Street gives us the bare bones of a story and still can't find room for any entertaining scenes.

One star at best, and for everyone who says season three was the savior of this series, I'm not really seeing it. Sure, there's urgency, and the changes to Archer's character are welcome, but this season seems to be giving us the same number of lousy episodes as season two did, and now we have the obligatory Temporal Cold War Tedium episode to add to the list.

Leland Orser was the only good thing about this episode. He was also a highlight in VOY's "Revulsion". He's a very underrated actor.

"Leland Orser"

The poor guy only ever plays deranged jerks, it seems, although I think I saw him in some movie in which he was a sympathetic character. I really like him as an actor.

I hate time travel in movies. It's never done right. People who write time travel stories never seem to be clever enough to think the damn thing through properly. (Primer is the only good one I can think of right now.) But setting my hatred for time travel aside and also setting aside the car door unlocking tricorder, I liked this episode. I'm glad they didn't get into silly fish-out-of-water stuff and just stuck to the story.

Rick Berman once said that he loved time travel stories. Which, I guess, is why TREK had an overabundance of them from TNG on (although there aren't that many TNG ones). I know Braga said they came up with the TCW because UPN told them ENTERPRISE needed to be more sci-fi, but something tells me Berman had this idea for a while. But time travel is not, in my opinion, what TREK is about. It's OK to do one once in a long while, but DS9, VOY, and especially ENT went way too far with it. It's "Star" Trek. Not "Time" Trek. That being said, this is a pretty useless episode. You would think the drive thru scene could have had some good comedy, but the scene is played straight. We're just watching the three of them order burgers. It's a wasted opportunity.

@Mark

"The worst failing of this episode was that it gave us Archer and T'Pol in 2004 and it couldn't mine that fish out of water idea for even a single entertaining scene."

It would have been cool if they had run into Mestral, the guy from "Carbon Creek."

How many times in Star Trek have we seen dialogue similar to this:

Character X: Have you ever operated a vehicle from this period?"

Character Y: I've piloted a starship.

It's an absurd exchange. Just because you've learned how to fly a starship doesn't mean you've learned how to operate anything and everything that's ever existed.

Personally, I've always been a sucker for ST time travel stories. Was this one of the better ones? Certainly not, but I still enjoyed it. Sometimes I think people think to hard about these episodes. I just sit back and enjoy the ride.

And Jack (comment above mine), you're taking seriously a remark that's supposed to be humorous.

Jammer wrote :

"I don't know about you, but my patience with some of this temporal nonsense is wearing thin. I'd like at least an inkling of ...why they are dead-set on destroying all of us. "

Not that I disagree, but can't one say much of the same about the Founders? I mean a vague back-story is offered (and never corroborated) to basically say "Changelings hate solids." That's it. I don't seem to remember reading that complaint anywhere...

That was actually explained. The changelings used to live among the solids, but they were always treated as outcasts and shunned by the solids. They withdrew and decided the best way to protect themselves was to conquer those around them.

In time, their empire grew and their hatred was aggravated as they started considering solids as less than themselves and "unable to understand something as great as the great link". Moreover, they started considering anyone outside their influence as a major threat to their existence.

I didn’t hate this one, but I didn’t like it, either. I agree that it was missing some more fun with their reactions to being in 2004 (T’Pol got in a little, but Archer seemed oddly at home, like being 150 years in the past was perfectly normal for him).

What really threw me (like many others here) was Daniel’s claiming “the effects take time”. WTF? In all the Trek time travel episodes, this notion has not once cropped up. On the contrary, changes in the past are invariably shown as having immediate — and, usually from the point of view of the participants, unnoticed — effects on the present (like “Yesterday’s Enterprise“). I don’t mind time travel stories, but this is so different from how Trek’s handled it in the past that it seems a pretty bizarre and blatant (yet unexplained) contradiction. I don’t mind the change so much, but they need to explain it better than just have Daniels say so. After all Archer and T’Pol clearly returned exactly the moment they left, which fits previous time travel stories, so…why the abrupt major change? Really sloppy thinking on this one.

The mixing up of Detroit and LA is also pretty…um…amateurish.

Just badly written all around, and a real let-down after the last few episodes. One star, mostly for the drive-thru scene and Loomis.

Meanwhile five stars for our host’s snarky summary of the ep regarding Eminem. I lulzed.

"Are Berman and Braga convinced that the only way this series will hold our attention is if humanity's entire existence (ostensibly) hangs in the balance every week"

Yup, thats exactly what they thought. Going into season 3 they though increasing the stakes was the only way to go.

I thought Carpenter Street was an interesting change of pace from the other Xindi Arc episodes. I also think it's fun that Enterprise is inspired by classic genres this season. The zombie episode, and the Western were also fun homages to genre films. This episode felt like an homage to the gritty police drama genre, and/or to the noir genre.

I don't understand why there are so many criticisms of the logic behind the conception of each episode in this series. At some point you have to just accept that its Star Trek; it is not intended to be realistic. If I were to criticize the logic of a story that is not intended to be realistic, I would criticize the logic within the story, not the idea abstracted from any context.

I actually enjoyed this episode. Star Trek has criticised our current society on countless occasions, but, for me, it never gets old, and I thought Blaloock played T'Pol's disgust at human greed, fossil fuel consumption and meat consumption very well - the scene in the drive-thru where the piece of meat fell on her, for instance, was well played, as was her dislike of Loomis, as this review notes.

Well, I understand the criticisms but I have some time for this episode.
I would have liked the plot to have included some explanation of the Reptilian trio's time hopping but the show makers wanted to keep the Xindi's 'patron' alien race a secret until a later episode.
I hadn't watched this episode in ten years but it was one that had stuck in my mind.
Yes,the action sequences were nothing new but ,to be fair, shooting and punching were Archer's favoured method of dealing with opponents ( after getting out of a jail cell).

"...but Archer seemed oddly at home, like being 150 years in the past was perfectly normal for him."


Yeah I noticed that he had no trouble adapting, myself. Ready with those fists of fury. Complete with the smack-your-granma-in-the-face mug too.

Still, the completest in me needs to see this show to the end since I have no idea how it will pan out. But like self-immolation it will be a one time experience with zero repeat potential.

How about Enterprise: STVU (Special Temporal Victims Unit)?

I found the drive thru scene actually rather amusing because I sympathize with T'Pol completely; that stuff they call food is absolutely revolting.

But, yes, on the whole, this is an exceptionally pointless episode.

Yeah, wow, that was pretty bad and boring. Can they ever time travel someplace besides the US (particularly California, even when they say it's Detroit and obviously LA), and not the present day? In any case, I'm so sick of Trek time travel episodes, they just overdosed on it to the point of it being silly and trite. At least DS9's Past Tense was about something interesting, it had a point. This episode was completely by the numbers and pointless.
And I agree with the other commenter that Daniels needs a new barber.

I hate Daniels. The last thing Enterprise needs is temporal cold wars and time leaping Federation space police.

This episode had some good direction, some nice music, some atypically dark atmosphere. Unfortunately, it's all in the service of a lazy script. With episodes like this, Enterprise seems to be chasing ratings and attempting to be hip. It's cringe-worthy to watch.

"Wouldn't it be interesting to have our assumptions proven wrong for a change?"
YES. It would be very refreshing, but not a popular angle. It's partly why later shows like Game of Thrones stoked interest - the audience couldn't be on autopilot.

And yes the drive through scene was funny. I can't even smell that rubbish without feeling nauseous.

The only thing that really pleased me in this episode was the many allusions to John Carpenter's Halloween.

The first being in the episode's title, Carpenter Street. Followed by our main scum Loomis, who has a file on a man named Myers. Also the wheelchair bound gent is named Strode. All three happen to be the last names of the main characters: Dr. Loomis, Michael Myers, and Laurie Strode in the Halloween films.

Last little thing, in the episode our Loomis drives a 70s Ford LTD Station Wagon, that being the same model that Dr. Loomis drove in the film Halloween.

I thought this was OK. No, it's not especially challenging as a watch, but it does what it does effectively and I found it engaging enough. If there's one thing that this series is doing is trying out some different genres - they're not all working by any means but this did have a fairly effective atmosphere. 3 stars.

I thought the part where Archer steals money out of an ATM was amusing when he said after: "People used to go to jail for this." Umm, ya, you would know all about jail, lol.

'Period' time travel episodes on Trek rarely do much for me. This probably did even less than usual. Plus why the heck do they need another bizarre Xindi plot to destroy Earth when they're not dealing very well with the established one?

Time travel!!!!!!! Love it!!!!!!

So does T'Pol now believe in time travel? Shame there was no follow up to that, just wasting time running around shooting. It didn't hold my attention. Was low budget filler. B&B have no respect. Shame. For me the 3rd series had raised its game.

Season 3 had been rolling along fairly well so far, with quite a few mediocre outings but no complete and total duds ... until this one. Episodes like 'Carpenter Street' make me feel like Berman and Braga should be paying ME to rewatch this series on DVD, rather than the other way around.

The opening scenes of a filthy apartment and a loser abducting a hooker put a pretty bad taste in my mouth; "it takes a while for changes to ripple through the timeline" just exposes the absurdity of time travel, and if I see T'Pol wearing that Victoria's Secret outfit one more time I'm going to scream. Then it's off to 2004 (apparently "Detroit" has palm trees and a population of roughly 10 people), where Archer uses his magical tricorder to unlock and start a pickup truck, then learns to drive it in 20 seconds! Will the wonders of lazy writing never cease?

LOL at the disabled guy who, for the promise of 25 bucks, allows a total stranger with a ridiculous story to drive him somewhere at 11 o'clock at night. Maybe some homeless dude would be desperate enough to fall for that, but otherwise, no chance. Watching our heroes abuse Loomis is somewhat enjoyable, but the finale is empty and mindless action that makes the Xindi a one-dimensional plot device. The writing is drivel. There's no depth, no lesson to be learned, no explanation of who these Xindi are or why they needed to do this when they're already developing a weapon to use in the present. This is not Star Trek. One star.

How disappointing. I was expecting the criminal to be revealed in the end as an ancestor of Archer - after all, they look incredibly similar, and both have the same criminal tendencies.

This is your typical ENT Archer-led action phaser-fight conclusion that is motivated by a melding of the TCW/Xindi over-riding story arcs. It has plenty of holes, as most time travel episodes do, but I think it's an interesting contribution to Season 3 and not quite as bad as Jammer's review would have you believe. It was definitely watchable, albeit predictable -- and annoying at the same time due to flaws in logic.

Certainly the question of why 3 Reptilians have to go back to Detroit in 2004 to create a virus based on all the blood types is left unanswered. Surely if they want to destroy humanity, there are easier ways to do it with time travel. And how did they travel back in time? Perhaps they are working for those who are screwing with the timeline? Anyhow, too many questions about how this situation is arising, not to mention Daniels' wishy-washy role (the Xindi had been in 2004 Detroit for a couple of months -- why not send Archer/T'Pol back 2 months earlier?). The whole TCW arc is a mess, but the Xindi doomsday weapon arc is more promising at this stage.

The episode benefits from Leland Orser's performance -- but he portrayed a cliche deadbeat sleeze-ball well. And there were the other cliches like Archer driving a pickup truck (made me think of Kirk driving a car in "A Piece of the Action"). What's weird is where this episode chose to focus on details -- it focused on the wrong ones like how long it took Archer to find a suitable vehicle to drive (1st one's wheels were locked, 2nd one had an angry dog). Instead, how about some dialog amongst the Xindi about their plan instead of being just stock villains? I couldn't believe the episode even threw in the bit about going through the drive-thru. What for? Is "Carpenter Street" trying to capture the magic of Star Trek IV?? It didn't.

Barely 2.5 stars -- I thought T'Pol was quite good in this episode managing Orser's character and the main guest actor was credible. Still, the story/plot is too simple and it's inconsequential to the 3rd season's arc. Too many flaws, although the pacing was good, there were some moments of intrigue and ultimately it's slightly better than ENT's purely standard mindless action-oriented episodes.

Given that I’m not a hardcore Trekkie, I’m able to watch this episode— all episodes, actually— for their entertainment value. I kinda liked this episode. Also, to further alienate myself from other commentators, I happen to like Archer. Not sure if this matters, but I’m a gray-haired 69 year old woman who was around at the beginning of the Trek series.

Karel,

Don't let the nay-sayers get in the way. Enjoy it!! Season 3 is fantastic!!

I can not believe how many people are griping about it not looking like Detroit.

The entire concept of time travel as presented in this episode (and in Star Trek in general) makes no sense whatsoever. They've been in the past for two months? What does that even mean? Drivel like this is why I hate time travel stories. It is impossible for them to make sense, because time travel itself makes no sense.

The only thing interesting about this episode--and the only think I'll comment on--is the trivia behind it.

Apparently Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who played the Xindi who always talks to Loomis from the shadows, nearly quit acting altogether because of his experience with Enterprise.

Morgan would go home every night on the verge of tears because of how "uncomfortable and suffocating" the costume he had to wear was (reportedly, as part of the mask, plastic tubes had to be inserted into his nostrils just so he could breathe). Good to know he stuck with the craft despite this terrible experience.

Morgan truly made the last few seasons of The Walking Dead great with his skill at playing Negan.

This episode is just so much pointless filler. As Jammer pointed out, it's uniquely and especially idiotic in light of prior episodes where the Xindi reptilians already had detailed scans of human physiology. So their little time travel plot was made explicitly redundant by a prior episode!

And they needed to "hide" the weapon in the past? Ummm why? Can't they just hide it under the rug? Since when did *time travel* become an efficient means of hiding things?

Which reminds me: if they have access to time travel, wouldn't that be far more effective a weapon than a virus? Just go back 100,000 years and bomb some homo erectus villages or whatever. It's like someone using a rocket launcher to blow open a door to get access to a safe that contains a knife so they can stab you with it.

And really, is all this bioweapon stuff necessary or reasonable? Just from a narrative standpoint, yes we get it: the Xindi want us extra extra dead. I mean sure they plan to blow up our world with a death star, but it couldn't hurt to unleash a viral plague on us too.

I am really beginning to lose it with this series. I may have to just start skimming these episodes.

@ Jason R.,

If you're going to quit, at least check out S4's Terra Prime. I can't quite guarantee it's gold, but it would suck to miss out on Peter Weller.

@Peter G.

Ha I won't skip that far ahead. I think now I'll just start being more selective. I'll watch the next blue Weyoun episode because I like Jeffrey Combs, plus the big episodes resolving the Xindi arc and then go for a more "curated" run of Season 4.

All I can say at this point is it's no mystery why the show was cancelled.

Soooooo much time travel. Time travel this. Time travel that. I can't even keep track anymore of the time travel plots. Was Daniels from the 31st century? The 26th? Is the shadow man a Romulan? (Why is my head canon that he is?) What kind of "cold" war involves handing death stars to your proxies? Then again to be fair I guess the USSR tried to do it with Cuba. But America didn't just look the other way or hand one guy a pocket knife and a scrap of metal and say: "you take care of it we can't get involved"

@Jason R. I agree this ep is pretty awful, but I would recommend sticking with it at least a while longer. There are still few stinkers, including the next one (which you can straight up skip), but after one more the plot finally picks up andmany consider upcoming three-parter near the end of the season Enterprise's high point.

@Peter G. Demons/Terra Prime two-parter might be my personal favorite Enterprise episode. Not the best mind you, I recognise there are genuine problems, but the good is to me is so good and in a way extremely fitting as a Enterprise finale. Big reason could be that it might be the only bit of Enterprise that I think actually makes Star Trek canon better for existing as part of in-universe history. And admittedly that it's in a way subtextually apologizing for its first two seasons helps.

Certainly a boring episode. Really hard to rate 1.5 or 2.
Loomis is so one dimensional. He makes no sense as a character. He himself points out that the moment the cops put 2 and 2 together they will be onto him. All that for 55000$ without any escape plan. In the end he gets what he deserves.
The audience can lean back and think:"Haha, you thought you had a deal, scumbag." *eyeroll*

Blalocks performance, as always, completely flat. I don't understand why they hired her. Probably thought: Oh, she cannot act but she plays a vulcan so it doesn't matter." I also learned that the blue satin v-neck belly-free top is her sleepwear. So in the last bad episode I watched, she massaged Tucker in her sleepwear? jeez.

Archer will always be my least favorite captain. Archer always feels more like a teenager to me, not like a seasoned captain. Kirk was a guy who was adventurous but Archer always comes across as someone shouting on the bridge:"I will go on an adventure and you can't stop me mom... I mean T'Pol."

Maybe it was revealead in an episode but where does Porthos go to shit and piss. Is Archer just walking around with his dog picking up poop and calls the cleaning people to clean the 3-6 places where the dog made it's urine mark. Is there a dog park on Enterprise?
Plus he tortured Loomis which of course works immediately. mhh 2004 simpler times.

That was supposed to be a "flashback" to 2004? Then why did it look like the 1980's? The car, the adult worker, the telephone? All very 80's and didn't convince me it was 2004

Rewatching again, every time I get a little bit frustrated I do look on TOS. The plots there can be really stupid.

This is to me a quite funny and good episode. Blalock's subtile acting. Guest actor Leland Orser comes magnificently through like a real arse.

I very much disliked the "temporal cold war" theme, I mostly dislikes the logics around time travelling. But to me this episode had a lot of things I appreciate. Run down area, T'Pol trying to make logic of a primitive world. The word plays referring to common situation like going starboard in a card, the burger drive through.

To some extent I like the Xindi plot more than many other plots, also the expanse component . But the more important the main plot gets, you concentrate to much on that. This episode does not bring much to the Xindi plot, I agree. But when I remove the Xindi storyline from my mind I get a funny and enjoying episode.

To Jammers defence, I am not sure I liked this the first time I watched it.

I am certainly finding myself disagreeing with the ratings of Enterprise episodes much more than any other series. A number of episodes like this one and Carbon Creek that are given low ratings I think are fantastic and then a few episodes that were given high ratings I thought were dull. I really enjoyed this one. After a string of ho hum episodes this one came at the right time and provided something truly different. Loved the ending as well where the human Xindi helper of 2004 was ultimately left in a abandoned building with kidnap victims who were strapped to gurneys and having their blood removed. When the cops show up all he has is “Sir I swear it was the reptile people with ray guns!”. 3.5 stars from me

Cody B, I agree. Loved this episode, and loved Carbon Creek. I also loved Similitude. To me, "North Star" and "Raijin" were two low points. To each their own.

Thank you, Cory, for that bit of trivia. Love Jeffrey Dean Morgan! Glad he stayed with it!

Also, I agree with whoever said T'pol did a good job of not quite fitting in, but Archer looked right at home. It reminded me of Quantum Leap, where he had to quickly adapt to a new time period and place every week. He also looked right at home in the western setting of "North Star." I'm not sure how I feel about this.

This was one of my favourite episodes! Time travel and the return of Daniels!

A question though-if the Xindi "never happened" as Daniels said, than the timeline HAS to be messed up. I mean not just the 7million people who died, but this entire situation so early in human space travel would more than likely skew the Federation's ideas on encounters with other species

I actually kind of liked this one. Important caveats, though... I was not able to get into Enterprise before this. I wasn’t even able to get through the pilot.

I was vaguely aware of the Florida zapping arc, and knew little else. So I popped in with nearly zero baggage. Seeing T’Pol claiming the Vulcans had proven time travel impossible was nifty.

I found the man to man action sequences had taken a huge leap from prior Treks. It definitely felt modern in that sense. It was nifty weird seeing the futuristic alien costumes in very real settings.

I later tried to watch the whole arc, but quickly got bored. I’m thinking the best way to watch this arc might well be just randomly picking maybe 1/3 of the episodes.

This felt like an episode of the X-Files. The cold open was especially reminiscent of how an X-File ep starts. Unfortunately, Archer and T'Pol don't have the amusing banter of Mulder and Scully. I enjoyed this anyway as a small, well-made hour.

Would have been better to not have Xindi in this at all, and replace them with ANYONE else. This barely makes sense as presented in the arc. Don't give the Xindi time travel. It's bad enough that the Borg did this in First Contact -- but at least the Borg gave good value there (and in Regeneration, to give credit where due). The Xindi are barely interesting villains and the Reptilians especially suck the air out of everything. There's a way to do that kind of character right, as in Farscape, with the Scarrans.

The idea of having different sapient species of Xindi is really cool -- imagine if we had a mix of societies here from intelligent velociraptors, ravens, dolphins, chimps, elephants, and pigs? We don't even have different species of humans, although at one point in time different types of Homo co-existed. I would have liked to see the plots dive into some world-building about the Xindi. How does each species develop a culture, do they have castes, do they live together in tolerance, and what is that like? What was it like when they realized the Avians had completely died out?

We could have explored some very unusual, interesting, and timely topics.

I also wish we could have less Archer. Besides him playing his Quantum Leap character every time they do something like this (like this and the cowboy ep), it doesn't seem like Bakula has a handle on the captain's personality.

I actually lay the blame at Bakula's -- not the writers' -- feet. Look at Kate Mulgrew. Janeway was wildly inconsistently written, but her captain was always forceful and compelling. She actually made it work: Janeway became a megalomaniacal despot, ruling her tiny kingdom with an iron fist -- while staying compassionate and caring to her 'subjects'. She's probably loving being an Admiral.

Archer, OTOH, just seems like a stressed out jerk who is in over his paygrade. Which is probably intentional, but it's the actor's (and director's) job to make him interesting. Trip and Phlox are interesting. Porthos is interesting. Archer is cranky.

Anyway, taken as an X-Files episode, it's not too bad.

Not a great episode, but, imo, Archer and T'Pol make one of the best character tandems in Trek. The actors just have great chemistry. It's fun to watch how easily they slide into "90s cop show" mode.

To me the biggest thing wrong with this episode is the fact that it takes place in season three. It just doesn't fit at all with the Xindi arc, imo.

I think it would have worked much better as a season two TCW story featuring time travelling members of the Suliban Cabal.

Wouldn't be Trek without an episode in which the crew travel back to the approximate year the show is being broadcast.

Dated badly as a consequence.

Luckily I managed to go back in time and stop myself from seeing this episode. I watched Conan instead. Do you think they watch much of Schwarzenegger's 80's oeuvre on their film nights ? I think they would enjoy 'Commando'.

They should have done more of an X-Files homage. After all they were going around in a car. After all T'Pol was skeptical of everything, including if time travel exists in the first place. After all it was night and dark (they should have had flashlights). After all Archer was unquestioningly sold on a crazy theory.

Since it was supposed to be 2004, they should have let T'Pol speak to Archer from the car instead of stepping outside to do so. Then when the medic refers to "all y'er fancy equipment", he should have said "y'er fancy equipment, y'er fancy flip phone". It would have been ironic because flip phones were inspired by Star Trek. :)

The American obliviousness of vegetarians' queasiness circa the early 2000s was well depicted. The fries "might be ok". Indeed!

What do they references to Halloween actually accomplish here? Is there a thematic significance to be link between this episode and Carpenter's film? Or is it just a case of "because we can"?

This episode was diabolical because it presented a huge elephant in the room.
If it's the case the Xindi can just take themselves into our past, why don't they just murder us in an easier time?

The Xindi are the worst kind of TV villains-- they do everything the hardest and most contrived way possible and no one (for example, MacGuffin Daniels) explains why the easier/more straightforward approach was ignored. Obviously the reason is the writers and the producers. It's very annoying though, to have very obvious questions that demand answers "in universe" (why go back to 2004? what's up with needing each blood type? why specifically Detroit-- or the US for that matter? why not just use an existing virus? Why use a bioweapon at all? Why pick T'Pol to go when she doesn't believe in time travel and would blend in with humans less well than the *human* crew members (not to mention shouldn't second in command stay with the ship? BUT OK)?) because when there are no answers given, it takes you right out of the story and exposes the quarter-assed effort that was put into it.

Also a grim underuse of the talents of Jefferey Dean Morgan: I can't believe he was under all that rubber! Glad to hear JDM stuck with acting after the terrible experience :-).

Yup, this was a completely asinine waste of time. I'd give it 1 star at the most. In addition to all the flaws Jammer pointed out:

- It was ridiculous that the Xindi, with all their technology (including transporters and cloaking fields) couldn't scan for and abduct the 8 humans themselves

- It was ridiculous that Archer and T'Pol automatically assumed that the Xindi's plan was to take the bioweapon back to their own time. If they had a working bioweapon, why wouldn't they simply deploy it in the 21st century, when humanity had zero defenses against them? The episode makes this out to be the Xindi's Plan B, but it would have been logical for it to be Plan A.

- T'Pol is right that Daniels would have had "all the time in the world" to attempt to stop the Xindi, especially since he clearly has the means to protect himself from timeline changes. The writers have the bad habit of putting all the time travel inconsistencies that they haven't figured out into the dialogue as objections from the characters, but then just not bothering to address those objections! They did this in Shockwave as well. If you've identified so many flaws in your own time travel plot, maybe it's a sign that you go back to the writers room and figure out how to at least mitigate those flaws, if not scrapping the story entirely.

Very timely, would we ever get to the stars if we lost 75% of the population?

This episode feels like the writers of Enterprise wanted to take a stab at an X-Files episode. It's kind of strange. It feels like filler, but it was entertaining enough, I guess. I'd give it like 2 stars. Doesn't really have too many negative aspects to it, but there aren't many positives either. It just exists.

This is not a very good episode. It just doesn't do a whole lot to keep my interest. I actually think the pacing is kind of slow. I will say that the idea Daniels would send Archer back instead of handling it himself actually does make sense. The Temporal War is constantly referred to as a "cold war". In cold wars factions avoid direct conflict. To do this they fight threw proxies. So two temporal cold war enemies, are fighting a proxy war through the humans in the Xindi in the past so they don't have to enter a direct engagement with each other.

It was really just a stupid cop show.

It's like they found a script from Hill Street blues.

How is this even Star Trek?

I also thought that in the bit we saw trip he’d be somehow changed or affected by the death of sim but it didn’t because sim didn’t matter

Just watched this episode on its native streaming service. I have to assume I have seen it before, because I watched all of Enterprise “live”, and I’m pretty sure I watched it all again on an early streaming service. I have no memory of having seen it before, like the majority of the episodes leading up to it. Similitude did make an impression, by virtue of its high concept plot.

There was a hilarious moment when Loomis and Archer ordered burgers at a drive through, and T’Pol is recoiling in horror at the sight of it. Loomis offers her a French Fry which she refuses with disgust. Loomis, with a shrug, says, “Have it your way.”

Well, there are many good comments here about this episode, so I don’t think it’s necessary to repeat them as they’ve all pretty much have been saying what I’ve been thinking 🤔.

What I do want to add is there is a better than even money chance Archer has now contracted the HIV 🦠virus from that obviously unsanitary needle and syringe 💉that ugly-ass space asshole stabbed into his neck while he was lying on that table pretending to be asleep.

That’s it!!! I’m off the job ! So you’re vaporize me with your stupid looking ray gun for having a cigarette?!?!?!? Drop me off at the next traffic light!

What the hell kinda future do we have to look forward too????

What’s next honey, you gonna zap me into orbit for scratch’n my ass ???! What’d that Captain dude call you? a bulk’kin?

What the are you anyways? And what’s with the ears? God, I’ve met before chicks with sticks up their ass, but man, you take the cake sweetheart!

I found it amusing that Archer. Mr. Sometimes Moral Sometimes Not, not only steals a car, but immediately knows how to drive at night. I really expecting them to be pulled over by the cops for some reason.

I recognized "Loomis" from several other Star Trek episodes/series in the past.
Not a bad actor.

And, has anyone ever noticed that, in so much of Star Trek, the "bad guys" almost always have long hair and/or beards?

Years later STD would make this episode look like King Lear by comparison!

Overall I don't like season 3, both for artistic reasons and because, as a symbol of 9/11 etc, instead of offering a Star Trek critique it endorsed the irrationality. At the time, like many non American fans, I saw it as a betrayal of Star Trek principles. In real life, America did not face an existential threat, but the government pretended it did, so in season 3 the story makes 9/11 really an existential threat.

But there are some good episodes. Alas, this isn't one. Time travel logic can be loose as long as there's something interesting, but what's the point here? There isn't any interesting change of history theme. There isn't interesting soxial commentary. There isn't fish out of water. They need a car, and Archer can just drive it? - we don't even hear about him playing with museum pieces on Earth. Compare the driving scene in A Piece of the Action, or in "Millennium" (1984). They need money - compare the interesting way Kirk gets it and his problems with it ("Is that a lot?")

There's too much running and shooting instead of ideas, but that's not peculiar to this episode. IBut it's watchable, which is not bad for season 3.

Yeah, only 3,000 people died. No biggie.

"You're from the 30th century. Hasn't this all happened already?"

"It takes a while for ripples to make it through the timeline."

This has to be the stupidest line in all of trek. It "takes time for the past to travel through time to the present"?

Who wrote this shit?

Time travel stories needs to be rare in trek. You do it only for two reasons: coz you want two fascinating people to meet - Picard and Cochrane, or you wanna see how your hero deals with WWII or Salem witch trials. Seeing Spock on a 20th century bus is worth it.


You otherwise avoid these stories because they make NO SENSE. I literally get pissed when I hear these fools talk about changes in time as if they are still active events 8 centuries later. The sense of 'urgency' of someone 8 hundred years from now needing to go back and 'fix something' is just beyond stupid.

So, for example, I want to cure the plague. For some reason I believe that saving all those people would lead to a better world now... maybe we lost out of five Einsteins and Martin Luther King Jr.s due to their great great grandparents dying from a plague.

Do I need to rush? No. They are all already long dead. They can't get deader. All I need is to pick the right period of time, introduce the cure, and then go back home. I know what time is right. I know what the cure is.

And when I change things, is there any way I can't see the change immediately? No. They live, they have offspring and I can travel in time back home, I see the changes. I don't have to wait for 'ripples', whatever the fuck that would even mean. The changes already happened, beginning 700 years ago.

Allie :38pm (UTC -5)
I also thought that in the bit we saw trip he’d be somehow changed or affected by the death of sim but it didn’t because sim didn’t matter


Great point. They could have done something beautiful with this: have trip realize that Sim was still alive... that he experienced a second personality, one so similar, yet with its own existence, point of view. They could have even had disagreements that they had to work out, yet clear benefits to sharing.... having Sim's memories, eventually melding in a way with Trip.

Or, even just acknowledging that they had all murdered someone... Deal with the reality of how cold blooded they are.... maybe Trip learns what happens and insists that he should have never come back by murdering what was essentially a child.

Wait a minute. If the goal of the Xindi is to destroy earth... and they can time travel....

Um, why not just go back to any time when killing humanity would be very easy... and just do that.

You could kill us when we were still living in caves.

Or just make sure the dinosaurs survive the comet.

It makes no sense for them to go back a time when humanity can defend itself.