Star Trek Enterprise 1x26 - Shockwave Part 1 - TAFM 026

There Are Four Mics: A Star Trek Podcast

The Temporal Cold War heats up as Future Man and Silik continue to meddle with Archer's historic mission. The death of 3600 Paraagan colonists rests on Archer's shoulders, the Enterprise is ordered to return to Earth, and Crewman Daniels visits Archer despite shedding his mortal coil earlier this season. Season one of Enterprise wraps up in a big way!

Enterprise 1x26 - Shockwave Pt. 1 Directed by Allan Kroeker Written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga Guest Stars: John Fleck, Matt Winston, Vaughn Armstrong, Breezy

There Are Four Mics is a weekly Star Trek podcast discussing the Star Trek episodes and movies in stardate order. Join Chris Keeley, Jason Allen, Joe Heiser as we discuss the 26th episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, Shockwave Pt. 1.

Music credits: Faith of the Heart/Where My Heart Will Take Me - Written by Diane Warren, performed by Russell Watson, Jerry Lubbock, and the New York Trek Orchestra Archer's Theme - Dennis McCarthy and New York Trek Orchestra

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Show Notes

Cold Open

The Enterprise approaches a mining colony of a matriarchal society for a visit, while Trip, Archer and T’Pol discuss the possibility of future human settlements as large as the nearly 4,000 people that populate this one. The Enterprise receives the colony’s strict landing protocols, but as the shuttlepod descends to the planet there is an explosion that quickly spreads across the planet.

Act I

In the medbay, the crew tries to figure out what happened as Trip’s injuries from the explosion are being treated. Hoshi assures the Captain that there is nobody left in the colony to answer because they watched it burn. After all scans and logs show the plasma ducts were closed, but do still show the point of origin for the explosion being directly under the shuttlepod, Archer calls Earth to deliver the bad news to Admiral Forrest. T’Pol requests Phlox keep a close eye on the captain because he’s being emotional, but the doctor assures her that he is behaving naturally for someone dealing with so much grief. Scans of the planet reveal evidence that the atmosphere must have been ignited by a plasma, but Reed remains certain the shuttle’s plasma ducts were closed as ordered. Archer takes Trip and T’Pol into his ready room and informs them that he has heard back Admiral Forrest with the news that the Enterprise mission has been canceled and they have been ordered to return home.

Act II

T’Pol joins Archer in his quarters to tell him that while there have been some questionable decisions he’s made, there have also been many unimpeachable ones. She advises him to convince Starfleet to continue the Enterprise’s mission, and she will makes the same case with the Vulcan government. Phlox is packing up Medbay while Trip is hollering about how terrible everything is, but Doc maintains faith in humanity’s future. In his quarters, Archer crawls into bed and turns off the light, but turns it on moments to find himself on Earth ten months earlier. Crewman Daniels appears and tells the Captain that he sent him back because the destruction of the mining colony was never recorded in history, so must have been caused by a faction in the Temporal Cold War. Back aboard the Enterprise in the present, Reed brings Archer a device discovered just where the Captain said it would be that was designed to emit a plasma beam. The Captain tells Hoshi to make the coms go on the fritz for a few hours, and reverses course back to the destroyed colony.

Act III

Archer tells the crew he’s met with Crewman Daniels, and uses the knowledge he gained from that conversation overcome a quantum engineering problem for Trip, and to provide instructions to T’Pol on how to extract Suliban logs from data discs. Reed and Archer enter Crewman Daniels’ old quarters to extract Suliban ship schematics from a toy the time traveler left in his quarters after his last visit. The mysterious flurry of orders Archer issued previously culminate in them locating a cloaked Suliban ship hiding on a nearby planet and disabling it. Trip, Archer and T’Pol board the disabled vessel, taking down a bunch of Suliban. After they retrieve the data disks, they retreat back to their shuttlepod and order the Enterprise to set course for the Vulcan ship as soon as they are aboard.

Act IV

The Suliban Data disks reveal a cloaked Suliban ship attaching the device responsible for causing the destruction of the mining colony to the shuttlepod. Silik relays the events to Shadowy Future Man, who orders him to capture Archer but let Enterprise continue on its journey. T’Pol stands by her belief that time travel is impossible in spite of seemingly overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Reed calls the captain and Trip to the bridge because something is fishy with their warp field. That something fishy turns out to be a fleet of heavily armed cloaked Suliban vessels. Silik orders the captain to turn himself over, or he’ll destroy the Enterprise. Archer agrees, and leaves T’Pol in command of the ship and Hoshi in command of Porthos. To the puzzlement of the bridge crew, the Suliban hail once again after the captain has left, frustrated that Archer has not turned himself over. The captain exits the turbolift, but he no longer finds himself aboard the Enterprise, but instead amidst the wreckage of a city in the 31st Century. Crewman Daniels appears and tells him there is no way to send him back to his own time.