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Star Trek Ent - Season 3 - Episode 21

Star Trek Ent - 3x21 - E²

Originally Aired: 2004-5-5

Synopsis:
An attempt to use a Xindi subspace corridor leads the Enterprise crew to a bizarre encounter with their own descendants. [DVD]

My Rating - 7

Fan Rating Average - 5.85

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# Votes: 16 2 2 2 6 7 4 12 28 7 9

Problems
- It seems unlikely that the transporter could be used to remove working components from a starship. I imagine Archer only risked it because he knows what moving parts can be removed on the fly without destroying his ship? Still, a big risk.

Factoids
- Ent: E² is the shortest name for an episode in Star Trek history, beating Voy: Q2 by half a character. ;)
- The NX-02 is called Columbia. A nice homage to the lost space shuttle Columbia.

Remarkable Scenes
- Enterprise meeting Enterprise!
- Archer visiting the other Enterprise and meeting aged T'Pol.
- Reed, Hoshi, and Travis discussing who they married on the other Enterprise.
- Trip and T'Pol arguing about the complications to their relationship that Lorian presented.
- Enterprise battling Enterprise.
- Archer using the transporter as a weapon.
- Archer: "This is captain Archer. Looks like we've got some things that belong to each other. Why don't we call a truce and return our respective property?"
- T'Pol meeting T'Pol.
- Enterprise and Enterprise fighting the Corvallens side by side.
- Archer and T'Pol discussing whether or not the other Enterprise never existed.

My Review
Well, the episode is more filler. But it's up there on the quality level of other Xindi filler such as Ent: Twilight and Ent: Similitude. There's some plot logic in this episode that doesn't make any sense, such as how the future Enterprise could have possibly fouled up their attack on the Xindi probe, or why they made the remarkably stupid decision to not interfere with Earth's timeline. But then again, if they'd done either of those things, it would have brought a most anticlimactic end to the Xindi arc. In short, this episode shouldn't have been done in the manner that it was, because it had reset button written all over it. Ent: Twilight, on the other hand, was a marvelous way to execute such a reset button style episode. This episode tried too hard to be like Ent: Similitude, and failed. That said, if you forgive the problems with plot logic, the episode is exciting and well played. It offers insight into Trip and T'Pol's relationship and as all reset bottom episodes do, offers us a fascinating what-if style episode. There are shades of DS9: Children of Time in this episode, but I like how the ending was open ended. It's fairly certain that the other Enterprise was destroyed, but was it due to their never existing or that they were destroyed? Who knows.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Nick on 2017-06-05 at 9:40pm:
    Naming the NX-02 Columbia is certainly a touching remembrance of the lost shuttle, but it is also a fitting homage to the shuttle program in general.

    The first shuttle built and tested was the Enterprise.
    The second shuttle built, and first to actually fly in space was the Columbia

    Great naming either way. One presumes the next ships will be Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor.

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