Sounds like they're succeeding in their nefarious plan to suck us in for another season.

My guess is that they're going to blame that dark chapter of our history on the secret intervention of some hostile aliens - that would fit in with the Star Trek producers' generally utopian portrayal of human nature. Like that stranded Vulcan expedition in Season One (or was it Two?), history never recorded the truth about WWII; probably because all the Nazis who were in on the secret were killed or in hiding after the war.

But... how did both the Enterprise and Archer get pulled into the same past? They weren't together in the "present".

"But... how did both the Enterprise and Archer get pulled into the same past? They weren't together in the 'present'."

That one has me scratching my head as well. Tripp and Mayweather both made comments indicating that looking down at San Francisco "everything looked fine". Would they have said that if it looked as it did in the 1940's as far as landmarks and buildings???

Vic

They absolutely should have noticed something amiss right away. Just the bridges would be obvious, since they've built new spans in my lifetime. Furthermore, in the earlier episode where they went through the subspace corridor into the past, Mayweather immediately noticed the stars weren't in their correct positions.

Plot holes aside, maybe Daniels and his agency sent Archer and the Enterprise into the past to deal with a new threat to the timeline?

Up until now Daniels has only every snatched Archer. Daniels is so sensitive to "preserving the timeline" that I can't see him sending the entire crew of the Enterprise into the past.

I still think that *only* Archer is in the past and the Enterprise crew is in an altered future. However this begs the question of why in 200 years there would still be prop-driven plans being used by the military.

Oh well, we'll all find out in a few months. :-)

Vic

I didn't bother watching the finale, because I just don't care. I haven't watched most of the season of Enterprise because it was poorly written, had one dimensional characters, and just seemed to be going nowhere. Most of the plots seemed to answer the question: "how stupid do we think you are? This stupid".

To add insult, the much heralded story arc this season is nothing more than thinly disguised USAian jingoistic bullshit.

At least the other Trek series made an attempt to be international, Enterprise is only about xenophobia. And it's not even subtle.

Reminds me of Norman Spinrad's book "The Iron Dream".

I think when Enterprise collapsed the expanse, time "reversed" back to the time when the expanse was first formed. Since space and time are intertwined, reseting space would reset time.

...But that still doesn't explain why Archer is there, nor the Reman...

Still pondering.

I thought the expanse was formed thousands of years ago...? Not 100.

Vic

In general I like Enterprise. I'm forgiving a lot because I've put much hope in Enterprise to be better than the space soap voyager - and I think it is. Some things have been worked out very nicely, like the vulcan-human relationship that began in 'First Contact'. The Suliban and Andorians are pretty cool (love the antennas), Dr. Phlox is quite entertaining. (That T'Pol looks good of course doesn't count.) The story about Daniels and time travel is also interesting, though it doesn't make sense to me that to 'preserve' the timeline one needs to go back in the past and influence people. It also remains to be seen what kind of agenda that future guy has who warned Archer about the Xindi.

Unfortunately the episodes of season three that were about tossing ethics aside for the sake of the mission to me had a sour taste to them, especially since TNG (the best Star Trek series in my opinion) used to be very deliberate about ethics.

Towards the end of the season, I think they managed well to build up suspense. However, this weird ending will require a very good explanation. If they deliver one, I have no complaints about the ending.

My take on the finale is that the writers got to put Archer in an impossible odds situation and save him with a Q-like duex ex machina executed by Daniels.

Daniels' lack of adherence to the rules was also established in this episode - by showing Archer his place developing the Federation. And we are assuming that breaking the rules matters if something needs to be done to fix the timeline.

Also, the timeline has been screwed up before by Archer/Daniels and the bad guys in the temporal fight. Wasn't that a season ender in an earlier season?

I suggest that both Enterprise and Archer, are in the 1950's or somesuch. It makes sense that they could be deposited there by Daniels' monkeying around as a way to save Archer, and consequences be dammed.

Or maybe it's a side effect from vortex travel, especially if we look at the vortexes as simply localized and portable subspace corridors, "flying carpet" style. We know from an earlier episode that a subspace corridor in the expanse can do funky things including dropping you into the past; what could go wrong with a vortex initiated in a (collapsing) expanse, even if not "active"? A bit of a stretch, but the transdimensional folks certainly have temporal technology, and if time is a dimensionally bound item then they are monkeying with this technology as part of the spheres plan.

I do have a nitpick, since this post is way past geek at this point. After a contact failure when hailing Starfleet why didn't Enterprise (or the shuttle crew sent down to investigate) simply monitor any frequencies being broadcast on? That would have alerted the ship to their problem in time, if one. My .02 is that Archer is on some German war front, not San Fran



Other notes:
- I agree that the actors playing Hoshi and T'Pol shone this episode; I suppose we will get to see if Jolene Blalock can actually act.
- I don't recognize the alien Nazi - a separate temporal player?
- What's up with the transdimensional beings looking a fair bit like the shape shifter Founders from DS9?
- Does the Andorian have his own agenda (don't they always?) that makes his "lucky" appearance more explainable.

Requisite Wild Speculation:
The alien Nazi in WWII is a type of Jem'Hadar... with an easter egg that Jeffry Combs played both the Andorian and a Vorta in DS9. The Vorta's controlled the Jem'Haddar for the Founders, who promised to make the Vorta's powerful in an eventual interstellar empire, and then genetically engineered them to be better servants.

Hmm... the Suliban use genetic engineering...and are cannon fodder for the bad guys in the temporal wars...

That's certainly clever. But after showing the birth of the UFP do we really need another species thrown in the mix?

Time travel in the vortex does not really fit, for upon arrival the earth orbital station was destroyed by the xindi reptilian commander. Which suggests that time travel (if any) happend during the explosion of "the weapon". Would not be the first time (in a Star Trek episode) that a temporal rift/flux occurs as a result of an explosion. But then where does that alien german come in? Perhaps another timeline alteration by the "sphere builders"? Or a new enemy all together?

I like the entire third season of Star Trek Enterprise. But what was the deal with the demon in the Nazi uniform at the very end of the last show? Give me a break. I like to see battle on Star Trek, but this looks like it is sinking into Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

First two season were decent, not next generation quality but I'd watch it over "most" voyager episodes any day of the week. What the hell happenned in third season? It wasn't bad, but the whole spirit of the show took a wrong turn, it was like a Bush campaign or something, evil people attack earth and kill millions, enterprise is sent after them, morality thrown out the window, torture rationalized, basically it's a big load of hypocracy, and fortunately the writers stuck that little fact in there when they let T'pol spell it out at some point, shame they swept the argument under the rug and kept the story moving in that direction. The ending sorta shapes up a bit though so that's good, but still, the road the writers took to get there sorta made archer look more like a war criminal candidate.

I think that Archer is still in his correct time, but events somehow affected the outcome of WWII in that the Germans won, and now control the planet.

hence the German aircraft firing at Tucker and Merryweather's shuttlepod.

as for the alien... no ideas...


would have been nice to end the series without a cliffhanger.... just strings us along, much like we've been for the whole of this series.

I'm not a regular here but I have to chime in.

I think that this series is slaughtering the star trek universe.
The time line is a mess, a Vulcan is a slut, and there is only one interesting character, Flox. The rest is a sham.

Regarding the season end, it must be an alternative time line since both Enerprise and Archer are in the setting. Additionally, so are the aliens whose ship they rode in.

I hated that Archer stole the warp coils. In TNG: Jordi - In theory, if we wrap an old coke cans around the deflector dish Data - It may be possible.....In TOS, Scotty would have had spares.

Daniels? Why pick Archer to defeat the Dominion-like multi-dimensional beaings? Why not bring Kirk, Picard, and Sisko to do it..and their more advanced ships? For that matter, why not tackle it himself?

These guys are bankrupt for ideas.

Personally, I've really enjoyed the 3rd season. I'm not a complete purist so I found it very entertaining.

I think that the ethical struggles Archer has been faced with are vital to the story. Other real life captains / leaders / individuals have had to make similar decisions (though not involving aliens...) , and it is very believable that Archer would make the decision he did. The events of this season are no doubt what lead to the creation of the Prime Directive.