For some reason it saddens me that this isn't about Geordi.

Good episode, but the death was a bit of a ripoff. Accurs'd promos!

At least it looks like Manny is going to patch up continuity (i.e. explain why TOS Vulcans weren't the pricks we've been seeing). It seems pretty clear that the events of this arc are going to set in motion a process that'll end up leaving the Syrranites in control of Vulcan (or at least as a major influence) by the time of TOS. Syrranites -- T'Pau is one, they don't think mindmelds are evil, etc., etc.

Very deus ex machina-y for Suval to suddenly be Mr. Nice Guy. Even if the Admiral did save his sorry ass.

Loved all the shoutouts to TOS (and even TAS!)

LOTS of movie refs. First Desert Hermit quizzes Quantum on the same things the computer did in STIV, then he gives him his katra like in STII-III.

Next week I expect Quantum to be all sweaty and deranged and saying, "Climb the steps! Climb the steps of Mount Seleya!"

Incidentally, T'Pau is the old lady from that TOS ep. She's 32 in this timeframe, according to Phlox.

Good ep, too bad Evil Admiral Forrest had to die. He was the good kind of evil.

Come on, he's not dead. This is all just part of his eeeeeeeviiil plan.
I liked this episode. However, its episodes like this that also make me sad because I have that sick feeling that this show won't be around much longer (I had the same feeling during John Doe and Jake 2.0).
BTW, I love those Rachet and Clank commercials.

Mmmmm....continuity porn.

Yaaay! It was the 6 foot teddy bear with fangs!!

Soval was actually...*gasp* cool.

Captain Trip...excuse me, Captain Trip the hardass, making the slightly callous but necessary decesions.

OMG! They killed EvilAdmiralForrest! You bastards!

It was...fun. Much more enjoyable than the Augments arc...and whaddya bet that the katra Archer's carrying is Surak's ?

Holy shit, Forrest died? I came in ten minutes late. Well, it's fitting I suppose, if Admirals Leonard & Williams from Broken Bow are still alive. Maybe we'll see them again.

I just came from a screencap site, and I see I missed a basketball game too.

So many TOS shoutouts ... T'Pol's third eyelid, her pet sehlat, (I did like her delivery of "Vulcan children never forget to feed their sehlats.") the movie stuff Pellando mentioned.

I really, really enjoyed it. I'm all excited -- as much as I've liked Enterprise on its own this last year, it wasn't til tonight that it felt like a hybrid of Enterprise & Star Trek. Well, you know what I mean.

The shot of the caskets was a bit of a jolt. Good work there.

And I should have known Soval was a filthy, perverted 'melder. :) Seriously, maybe his standing up and letting people know that such an influential Vulcan mindmelds will work in concert with the Syraanites (sp?) taking over to start a change whereby we'll get a cure for Pa'nar Syndrome.

I liked this, even though it looked like it was shot on a $10,000 budget what with all the fake caves and '50s B movie desert and all. As long as the stories are good, though, I don't need a lot of fx.

Curse you, evil Admiral! You carry the secrets of your evil schemes to the grave! That was a pretty odd decision to off him that way, didn't really add much to the enormity of the embassy terrorism. Makes Suval's transformation into a traitorous pro-human degenerate mind melder a bit more believable -- the human he probably felt closest to saved his life and he has good insight into the basic decency humans have achieved by this time -- but not enough to justify killing off a fairly major semi-regular it seems to me.

Remind me again who T'Pau is in TOS? I haven't watched TOS in ages.

Edited to add: hilarious that Phlox is the go-to B-ball stud of Enterprise, and that he likens the game to some alien naked swinger ritual.

She officiated at Spock's wedding in "Amok Time".

T'Pau, of course, is the person who presided over Spock's and T'Pring's Kali-fee; an extraordinaryly high profile woman who was the first to ever turn down a seat on the Federation high council (now we know why she doesn't like or trust councils that start out being for space exploration and turn into de-facto galactic governments.) She is also, is she not, connected with Spock's family? Why do I think we are going to meet a little boy named Skon next week?

Because you've read the same fanfic I have? :)

And an ENT post makes me a Video Archivist. Yay!

I liked it. Bakula proved he still has some acting chops -- some of his scenes seemed very natural. It was spotty though. There were other scenes when he was wooden.

The "one of their own" that they lost was Admiral Forrest? Give me a break.

43 died. 12 were Vulcans. 31 were Humans. Yet I only counted 3 rows of 7 coffins. Where are the other ten? And yes, I am anal about such things. Why do you ask?

Best line of the night:

T'Pol: You're not human.
Archer: Right.

For some reason that made me laugh. I also liked "Porthos doesn't try to eat me if I'm late with his dinner."

This is what I was worried about when I heard the Reeves-Stevenses were coming aboard: fanfic-y episodes. I think that was the fanfic-iest episode of Trek I've ever seen.

That doesn't make it bad. There's a reason fanfic like this gets written, and that's because it's quite satisfying. This show has been in a unique position to tell us more about Vulcans than any of the other shows, and now they're finally delivering on that.
I've been waiting for this since "Fusion". I knew this was coming, and I'm glad they're doing it now.
I didn't. I watched it twice. I had to because the first time I was too distracted by Hoshi's tank top and shorts to pay attention to what was happening.

I think this is the best ep this season so far. I enjoyed it way more than the Augment arc. Manny Coto is definitely trying to fix the screwed up Vulcan mythology that Bermaga inflicted upon us. Will T'Pau have that crazy accent or is that something she picked up in her old age?

Archer seems to be carrying the katra (definitely Surak's) a lot better than McCoy carried Spock's.

Well, I guess Admiral Forrest ain't evil no more. And we never did find out who Shower Man was.

It was never explicitly stated in Amok Time that T'Pau was connected in any kinship way with Spock's family; Kirk (IIRC; could have been Bones) just comments that he had no idea Spock's family was important enough to have T'Pau officiate at his wedding. I think the line includes a phrase about Spock's family being "well connected", but the memory's going, so I could be wrong on that.

And was I the only one who screamed at the TV when the DNA evidence indicated T'Pau was behind the bombing?

I was? OK; just checking.

But overall, good ep. Glad someone's finally trying to straighten out some of the Vulcan mess Bermaga made.

I liked it. It's what I've been wanting since Day One. Well, maybe not day one. Since they started making the Vulcans screwy. But whenever that was exactly, I've been wanting this for a long, long time. I don't care if it's fanfic or fanwank come to life or whatever. It's canon now, and thank goodness. We'll finally get to see some real Vulcans.

And Cap'n Trip can come visit me any time he has vacation time he doesn't know what to do with.

No, but they didn't make an accidental mess of the Vulcans. They deliberately made the Vulcans different from the Vulcans we know, so they could eventually make this story.

This isn't Coto doing damage repair. This is a story that was always meant to be told, ever since "Fusion" was made. I'm glad Coto's group is telling the story well, but we would have seen this story eventually no matter who was running the show.

Maybe all T'Pau wanted was to give a little bit of heart and soul. (Sorry, I'm 31 and adore 80s references.)

The Evil Admiral Forrest can not die. Because he's Evil! He's just changed his shape, is all.

Quantum's new haircut is interesting. It shaved a couple of years off.

It's frightening how human they were all acting during the b-ball game. Too little too late. "Firefly" did it early when they didn't even have to.

Perhaps all the chairs should be removed from Enterprise completely. Furrows doesn't use them so if they all copied his method of lurching and giving the camera headaches in lieu of pretending to write a script that would be something different! It's not as though this show is allergic to gimmicks.

Giving the routes of the satellite-network to ShutUpTrip is brilliant, brilliant, since Soval, a politician, is totally not one to have his own minions.

And now T'Pol has a white cleavage-baring catsuit that passes as a desert-uniform. How logical and all to have grit and windburn getting in there. She'll have to take it off! Is that why they didn't give T'Pol her robe when she was shivering in a ball?

I'm a little sad that Admiral Forrest is gone. Gone in the middle of a scene that was actually reaching for HoYay, too. With his boyfriend Soval continuing to out-act the regulars I suspect the lovers will soon be united in death. I'm sorry Soval had to rein it in and not bite Trip's head off when Trip gasped that they could all be in on it. Though if Soval had I probably would've complained about sexism since T'Pol is by rights, the one who should get to bite Trip's head off.

Nice. T'Pol has no inkling of what's to come in the hideout because she was never an infiltrator, except for the fact that she was. So we should forget about that. Why else would the young female Vulcan ex-agent need help from Furrows when climbing a hillside?

Oh, I forgot about Evil Admiral Forrest in my previous post. That was odd. His death was just such a...footnote. Almost like he was a redshirt

I was only half watching the first half of the episode and I kept thinking they were saying "LaForge".

I also thought they said the supposed bomber was named K'Pau which made me laugh, because... Kapow! Bomber! Then I realized it was T'Pau. Which, like Make It So, made me think of the 80s band. Which finally made me think of TOS.

My favorite part was the basketball game, though. I want to see Phlox's naked ritual now! And as much as I don't care at all about Archer, I have to say: Man has some nice arms on him.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way is that Bermaga have been trying to erase all evidence of Roddenberry's original vision for years and their assault on the Vulcans was the latest in a long series of gaffes and missteps.

Guess it depends on your point of view.

Wow, the characters actually had...personality. Loved the b-ball game and liked the fact that Quantum did something with his Qrew other than ordering them to eat with him. There was even banter with T'Pol on the rock. Now, Manny just needs to upgrade to witty banter.

Liked the kinder, gentler Soval. Great mind-meld scene music too. It felt very Spock, without feeling Tuvok-lame. I also just enjoyed seeing something with a large connection to Star Trek for once on this show.

Hee. I thought the same thing. I don't think Forrest is dead either. They never showed him dead, so it doesn't count.

Boy T'Pol could really run in the desert. Since she doesn't eat or anything I figured she wouldn't have the strength to run that way.
Those lighting strikes during the dust storm sure were accurate!

Am I the only one who almost didn't recognize Michael Nouri because of his non-bushy Vulcan eyebrows?

Unlike the last 3-parter, this one appears to not be all about the guest stars. Which is a nice change of pace. Of course, there are two more episodes to go.

Maxwell Forrest? Would this make Soval Agent 99?

Great episode. I loved the solid look at Vulcan, even if it was a bit too much ConPorny. But, hey, it was written by Trek Novelists, so that's what they do. I guess erring to far into continuity is a good thing some times.

I enjoy reading the Star Trek novels of Reeves-Stevens. I'm so glad they are now part of the new writing staff. This was a great episode.

Several things I liked. The discussion where Soval admits Vulcans 'don't know what to do with humans'. ;)

The references to the later TOS things like the Selat (sp) and the 'third eyelid'.

I tell everyone on every board I vist, including my live journal, about how much the show has improved. I hope the word gets out.

So Phlox is all "DNA analysis" and "telomeres," and a full-on crime procedural is breaking out in sickbay, with our investigators hovering around a comatose stiff, performing a mind meld, and hazy Rashomon flashbacks to the scene of the crime, culminating in Soval's desperate inquiry...

Whah?!? Computer, was that a contemporary pop culture reference in a Trek script, he sputters into his computer mouse?

Phlox. (aside to Soval) Commander Tucker though... well, he's pretty, but he's not so bright upstairs, know what I'm sayin'? Trip. (whining) Heeeyyy! I could prove it too! (Note to director: maneuver Phlox behind Soval during an exchange like that.)

Respected the green bruising on Soval's face. Location shooting, always good; shooting on existing cave set, ever-lame. Can't T'Pol lift big hollow rocks, like the menfolk? Should sandfires involve more fire, less horizontal avalanche? Admire the challenging, obscure continuity references, even though I'm a person who hardly ever recognizes them (makes the show seem deep); gag on the forced, threadbare continuity references like "needs of the many" and "infinite diversity in infinite combinations." (Don't you get sick of overhearing friends and strangers say things everyday like, "When the calamity of time affects one limb / down will come baby, cradle and all"?)

Overall, a strong episode (finally!). Well conceived. Mostly wish they'd spent 30 minutes on the first 20 minutes, to add more atmosphere, and gave us "To be continued..." after the mind meld so we could spend a week debating whether the prominent chin might have belonged to Koss or an Archer doppleganger. The cliffhanger we got was -- once again -- ho hum. (Is Archer... IN DANGER?)

In that first 20 minutes, they killed off a recurring character without much ceremony for anyone who's committed three-plus years to the show, and without providing the slightest reason to care for the theoretical TV watcher who just showed up this week. It's like the raid on the Klingon ship at the beginning of "The Augments" -- I'm thinking, "I wanna see more of that," and they seem to be insisting, "No, no -- whatever for? This isn't the interesting part. We want to get to the good stuff. Moving on!"

Hee, no shit.



Has there ever been anything to indicate why Forrest would be "friends" with Furrows, aside for the possible political-spotlight and more than likely under-the-table favors? (For that brief time when Furows wasn't so hateful as he is now.) I feel like Soval has more right to talk about Forrest with some sense of grief than Furrows ever did, and I say that not just because I could've done away with yet another scene where Furrows is self-righteous...even though it is the only reason one needs.

If I remember, in the various novelizations developed about the culture of Vulcan T'Pau was the senior female member of Spook and Sarek's clan...possibly descended from the House of Surak itself. The use of the "S" honor's his memory in Spook's time within the family-clan.

The two central books on Vulcan's history, Spook's World and Sarek, presented an interesting "history" of the Vulcan people...though there are differing historical discontinuities. One of the other names of their planet is "The Forge". Their "great wars" reduced their world's population to a 1/10th of it's previous popluation, and ended space travel for centuries as they lost their industrial and scientific-base. The Romulans fled with some of the remaining spaceships at this time.

The planet's history and ecology is explained that unlike Earth that suffered mass-extinctions by asteroid bombardment and climate shifts, Vulcan literally went through the flames...hence one of it's other names, "The Forge". Vulcan's sun has periodic flares that stirke Vulcan's atmosphere and affect it's weather. In the early days of the Vulcan species...in their initial Stone Age-period...a massive flare blasted the planet' surface directly, boiled away much of the oceans, blasted away some of it's atmosphere and incinerated the vast bulk of the world and it's species. There are supposed to be high mountain peaks on the stike-side of the ancient world that are melted and slumped like candle-wax from the flare.

Only a handful of early Vulcans survived the flare's effect and the struggle for survival on a suddenly arid world. The survivors adapted to the Arrakis-like new world and became the Vulcans. This also explains the limited diversity of species of flora and fauna on Vulcan, the surviving species adapted into the vacant ecological niches of the now-desert world. The lack of oceans and great rivers also hindered Vulcan's ability to travel, explore and move materials and products through it's modern history.

It's interesting that the writers are addressing the odd governmental form of Vulcan in CQ's time...they are a "pacific" people yet they have a military governmental-form at present....a benevolent Junta, the High Command. One would think that Vulcans, seeped in logical and ethical thought, would be raging Participatory Libertarians, yet they are more like Lenin's "Soviet Man". I wonder if they are communistic? Not "Communists" in our political sense of Lenin and Mao, but in the communal-sense "...the needs of the many out-weigh the needs of the few, or the one" sounds like a marxist-utopian socialist of the 19th-century speaking.

Hello everyone: I'm a long time reader, first time poster. This episode surprised me: it took a very different direction than I was expecting. Also, I laughed in astonishment at Furrow's seemingly anachronistic baseball cap and sunglasses.

Then the final, desert scenes just SCREAMED Dune to me: the outsider mysteriously knowing their ways, entering the siech (sp) with a touch of prescience. M'audib is back!! Not that this is a bad thing: I love it! A tip of the hat to Frank Herbert and Dune.

Phlox is great!! Casually winning the basekball game, then bemusedly mentioning its similar to an alien fertility ceromony, yet fully clothed: classic!

I gotta say that this episode rocked. It had great continuity porn, humor, and even the music at spots was good. I usually have reduced expectations for Enterprise but Im looking forward to this vulcan martin luther miniarc.

So the reformation comes to Vulcan. As Archer said, it sounds familiar. Not what I was hoping for but it could have been worse. Colour me perplexed, but how can logic have more than one interpretation? I thought the whole point was either it's logical or not eliminating the need for interpretation and argument, thus bringing peace to Vulcan.
Evil Forrest does the sacrificial tackle for ambassador pissy pants, leading to a change of heart. Touchdown!

Well perhaps some were in the other cargo bay. More likely, as with bombings, there may not have been enough parts left to fill a casket for everyone.
Let’s see how it all plays out. I just want to shove promo guy down a black hole.

Cafeine first, then posting.

I thought the shot of Trip looking over Soval's shoulder was freakin' hilarious and in character for such a wild-eyed southerner. Enterprise is rarely genuinely funny!

I loved it. I had forgotten to watch on Friday nights since "Storm Front, Part I", and only jumped in the last two weeks with the finale of the Augments arc.

But I'm glad I came back. This was excellent Trek, I think. The continuity, the characterizations and the tie-ins to non-canon novels (though given who the writers were, that's not surprising) was excellent.

My wife became quite annoyed with me in the bottom half of the hour. Between suddenly turning to her and wheezing, "Climb the steps! Climb the steps of Mt. Selaya!" and banging my head on the coffee table until I remembered that the third law of metaphysics is that "Nothing unreal exists", I think I convinced her that I may be truly insane. I haven't felt like this much of a Trek fan in years.

Now, one hour isn't going to convince me to jump back full board on Trek, but I really like what I'm seeing with this episode and hope that the slow start this season is finally revving into gear.

The only thing that just made me want to slap Quantum was telling Carrier of Surak that he was just a student on a pilgrimage while wearing his NX-01 ballcap. Not that every Tom, Dick and Surak is going to get that those are the numbers of the Enterprise, but still... way to advertise, Quantum.

What the HELL does that supposed to mean? It occurs to me that this was the first time a mind meld was ever done in front of a human bean; I bet any genus of homo sapiens sapiens might be curious about it.


What struck me about the scene was how Ambassador Nouri kept kneading the Red Shirt's face, very unlike Spock and son. Reminded me of Dr. Hibbert playing with Homer's face after his heart attack. D'ohplana-hath.

In The Undiscovered Country, Spock moves his fingers quite a bit when melding with Valeris. I assume it's a method of "concentrating" more during difficult melds (it may not actually do anything, but it helps you visualize doing something), and that melding with a comatose human would be difficult indeed for a Vulcan.

At the risk of nitpicking (oops, too late!), Skon would have to be an adult since if I have the timeline correct Sarek was born in the 2160s.

LOVED IT. Although it was tough for me to get my eyes back to focus after the b-ball game. Too much beauty for this shallow gal. I'll have to rewatch tomorrow but did I hear the score right? 22 to 2? I always play to 21, but I guess this is future-ball, so who knows.

I ain't believing Forrest is dead until I see the bits. Even so, nice grieving from Archer. First Silik, now the Admiral, this man is losing boyfriends all over the place.

If nothing else, I love that this episode brought B17 & I to a 1/2 hour conversation today about the intricacies of Vulcan canon & how this episode matched/moshed what we already know. At the end, we both burst out laughing & admitted we are such Trek geeks. Bonding, I guess.

You make your fun where you find it.

I applaud ENT...they always show the aftermath of death. It's never "oh, we lost another red shirt today, can you please pass the pepper?"

This was good. Restored my faith in the show after the last 6 shows which had dashed my hopes of getting a 5th season. That glimmer of hope is back (I'm a glutton for punishment).

Sure it felt like a fanfic, but I think that in this case, that's a good thing. They're finally giving us what we want. And taking care of that pesky Vulcan discrepancy problem. Finally! I'm even willing to bet that T'Pol's Pa'nar syndrome is actually going to be addressed in this arc.

And I loved Soval in this one. His "I can perform the meld."? Very nice. Not to mention his reaction to Trip looking over his shoulder. It's nice to see those two (sort of) getting along.

Archer getting the katra by meld? Spock anvil anyone?

I am getting a little tired of the "To be continued" at the end. 7 episodes so far and four "To be continued"s. We know. Although this time at least it wasn't really an "Archer's going to die" moment. His statement to T'Pol to not resist took care of that "worry."

Oh, and yay to the person on the writing staff who got the telomere theory of aging right. It's nice when they use real science instead of technobabble.

When Syrannite, Quantum and T'Pol were sealing the cave entrance against the storm, they all looked like they had the same strength, despite the Vulcans' superior strength.

So, Ambassador T'Flouncy has the ability to meld, eh? Hee. I have the feeling almost all Vulcans can do it, they just don't admit it. Denial ain't just a river at the bottom of Saleya.

Quantum gets to carry katra? Quantum?! He can barely carry his own intelligence! Quantum, you are no Bones. Sorry, I'm getting a little tired of Quantum being the Universe's Favorite Human all the time.

Hey! How come they were caskets and not sunglass cases? Granted, they were draped with flags, but they looked liked caskets to me. Are sunglass cases only used when someone is "buried in space"?

I would think so, since conventional caskets aren't built to fit in the torpedo tubes, whereas "sunglass cases" are. (Being actual torpedo casings.) And since the victims were ground folk, it wouldn't make sense for them to be buried "at space."



Me too. I almost wish they could have contrived to have Travis along, and have him receive the katra.( To give AM something to do.) Or if we were going for TOS symmetry, Trip, since he's basically a synthesis of Bones and Scotty.

But Travis and Trip were busy playing (respectively) Warrick and Brass on CSI: Enterprise.

They used coffins because even the torpedoes don't go into sunglass cases yet...

Furrows is so important to the show, not an episode goes by where he doesn't try to drive it into people's brains.

They forgot to mention that humans need tri-ox compound in order to comfortably move around on Vulcan's surface due to its oxygen poor atmosphere. And others have mentioned, Archer should have been having trouble with those boulders given his lower human strength.

I just have a hard time believing they're so lazy that they just made up their own Vulcans and ignored what came before. Braga was a TOS fan before he started writing. I've always figured they were trying to give the Vulcans depth by making this chapter of their history different from what we expected.

This is also something I've believed since the first time they said only some Vulcans could meld: that someone (The Man) was filling the Vulcans' heads full of lies. All Vulcans can meld, they just don't know it.

In all this talk of melding, I hope T'Pol's Panar Syndrome comes up. If someone melds with her and she doesn't even mention it as a warning, I will go crazy.

I know. What's up with that? Kirk was about to fall out at the least bit exertion when he was on Vulcan. In this episode, T'Pol seemed more winded than Quantum when they were trying to escape that CGI cat.

Desert Syrannite spoke of Surak transferring his katra before the end of the last battle with 'those who fly under the raptor's wings - those who chose to pursue the savagery of the past'. I assume these would be the Romulans.

I suspected Investigator J'ohn M'ayer of being shady from the beginning. He just couldn't pull off being law-abiding well at all. Or perhaps the actor was just lousy. I am looking forward to seeing how high the conspiracy goes and if the Administrator is involved.

It's comforting to see that T'Pol is still on the verge of bursting into tears in almost every other scene.

If we put together some stuff from posts up above, there may be another change on Vulcan between the Ent era and the TOS era: Further solar flares deplete oxygen beyond natural Human limits, but as Vulcans have evolved in less and less oxygen, they take it in stride.

Just one possibility, anyway...