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Title: Star Trek: Enterprise: The
Complete Second Season On DVD Seven-Disc Set
Region: One
Genre: Sci-Fi TV Series
Episodes Disc One: “Shockwave,
Part II”, “Carbon Creek”, “Minefield”, “Dead Stop”
Episodes Disc Two: “A Night In
Sickbay”, “Marauders”, “The Seventh”, “The Communicator”
Episodes Disc Three:
“Singularity”, “Vanishing Point”, “Precious Cargo”, “The
Catwalk”
Episodes Disc Four: “Dawn”,
“Stigma”, “Cease Fire”, “Future Tense”
Episodes Disc Five: “Consumer”,
“The Crossing”, “Judgment”, “Horizon”
Episodes Disc Six: “The Breach”,
“Cogenitor”, “Regeneration”, “First Flight”
Episodes Disc Seven: “Bounty”,
“The Expanse”
Stars: Scott Bakula, Conner Trinneer,
Jolene Blalock, Dominick Keating, Anthony Montgomery, Linda Park, and John
Billingsley
Guest Stars: Keith Carradine, John
Fleck, Vaughn Armstrong, Matt Winston, Gary Graham, and Jeffrey Combs
Based On “Star Trek” Created By:
Gene Roddenberry
Executive Producers: Rick Berman and
Brannon Braga
Average Episode length: 44 minutes
Extras: “Enterprise Moments:
Season Two”, “Enterprise Profile: Jolene Blalock”, “LeVar Burton –
Star Trek Director”, “Enterprise Secrets”, “Inside A Night In
Sickbay”, “Outtakes”, “Photo Gallery”, “Deleted Scenes”, “Audio
Commentaries”, “Text Commentaries”, “NX-01 Files”
Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1
Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Subtitles: English Closed Captions
and Subtitles
Packaging: Seven-Disc Book Style
Digipack Within A Molded Plastic Case
Chapter Stops: 8 Per Episode
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Year of Television Broadcast
2002-2003/DVD Release: 2005
Home Video Distributor: Paramount
Home Entertainment
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera
“Star Trek: Enterprise” second
season premiere “Shockwave, Part II” picks up right where we left the first
season cliffhanger with Captain Archer stuck in an alternate post apocalyptic 31st
century Earth and the crew of the Enterprise NX-01 being chased down and
forced to submit to the Suliban in the 22nd century. While the
Suliban search the ship for Archer’s whereabouts, Archer desperately searches
for a way to return to his present and restore the timeline. Without going into
spoilers that will be revealed in season four, it is clear that Archer’s role
in the series is a focal point within the Temporal Cold War. This is the reason
why Daniels was posing as a crewmember aboard the ship in season one and why the
Suliban have been confronting him and the ship since the events of “Broken
Bow.” The interesting point to note here is this obviously makes Archer so
important that the consequences of his disappearance are potentially harmful to
both sides of the conflict. In a sense one might say that in his own time,
Captain Archer is the most important man in the “Star Trek” universe.
Of course there are other threats
and hurdles the crew must face as the second season continues including first
contact with the Romulans in the third second season episode “Minefield,”
which stays true to what we know from “The Original Series” in that there is
never any direct visual contact of the crew within the two Romulan Birds Of Prey
and the Enterprise. Archer has several run-ins with the Klingons in
season two as well beginning with the episode “Marauders” and continuing
through the second season finale entitled “The Expanse.” Though we do not
see them in the episode, we get to see that the Tholians appear to be involved
with the Suliban and we do see their diamond like ships for the first time since
“The Original Series” in “Future Tense.” The Andorians call upon Archer
to mediate in a conflict between the Vulcans over the occupation of a small
world in an episode that brings Jeffrey Combs back to reprise his role from the
first season in “Cease Fire.” Then there is the controversial episode that
follows up on the remains of the Borg sphere destroyed by the Enterprise-E
in “Star Trek: First Contact” and sets up a causality loop going back to the
future with the accelerated first contact with the deadly collective in “The
Next Generation” episode entitled “Q Who?” The season concludes with the
Enterprise heading into a bizarre region of space known as the Delphic Expanse
to confront a hostile alien race known as the Xindi, following a devastating
attack on Earth.
Of course “Star Trek” is not
about confrontation with hostile species and interstellar war so much as it is
about the great potential within humanity to evolve as an enlightened species on
various levels regardless if the characters and situations dramatized involve
humans as a central character or are a catalyst at all. So the best season two
episodes are the character driven episodes that include “Vanishing Point”
where Hoshi (Linda Park) must rely upon herself to solve a problem and confront
her own doubts following her first use of the ship’s transporter. “Stigma”
in hind sight is even more important for viewers of the series to understand why
the Vulcans of the 22nd century behave in a different fashion from
the Vulcans that we have come to know when Spock was first introduced as a
character in “The Original Series” set a century later in the 23rd
century. It also brilliantly presents an allegory for the AIDS epidemic as well
as a person’s right to privacy in professional and personal relationships and
the issue of Doctor and patient confidentiality. Keith Carradine and Scott
Bakula work fantastic together in “First Flight,” which brings the viewer
years before the series began with Archer and is old rival A.G. Robinson (Carradine)
competing to pilot the first NX series vessel to break the Warp 2 barrier.
Another interesting episode focuses T’Pol’s great-grandmother (played again
by Jolene Blalock) who actually made what the Vulcans consider true first
contact with humans in “Carbon Creek.” This point could be argued by
Spock’s presence in great depression New York in “The City On The Edge Of
Forever.”
Getting back to the Klingons, their
role in season two, which features connections with the various other “Star
Trek” installments like the ancestors to the duplicitous Duras family first
introduced on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and Archer’s sentence and
subsequent escape from imprisonment on Rura Penthe, which was first introduced
in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” is not what I think fans had in
mind. In fact the real interesting questions regarding the Klingons are not
truly explored until season four. I think just as some “Star Wars” fans were
expecting to see Anakin Skywalker become Darth Vader in “Star Wars: Episode I:
The Phantom Menace” and ultimately having to cope with their doubts in George
Lucas’ direction until the final piece of the puzzle was finally put into
place in “Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith” for the greater
tapestry to come together and make everything better as a whole, the same holds
true for “Star Trek: Enterprise.” Season four contains the best episodes
because it bridges the first three seasons together with the rest of “Star
Trek” that we have all seen. However in order to get to season four, the seeds
have to planted in season one and then carefully developed in the second and
third seasons so we can have that important bridge that answers much of the
questions that had existed for decades regarding “Star Trek” and ultimately
show how the world of “Star Trek” as we have known it came into being. Like
“Star Trek: Voyager” before it, the Suliban were just not as interesting an
alien race as some of the others encountered on the various incarnations of
“Star Trek.” They were better than the Kazon, but in some ways I think they
reminded fans a bit too much of both the Vidians and the Son’a because of
their obvious obsession with genetic enhancement and their rather pimply
appearance, which made them look as though they were suffering from some disease
or something. They also become a throw away threat by the end of the series
since there is never anything that accurately explains why they are never
encountered in the other Trek programs other than the obvious fact that no one
had thought of them yet before “Star Trek: Enterprise.” So we now have the
Xindi threat to explore and more in season three.
Now there is no denying that some
course corrections were made during the production of season two, but once one
sees the entire series, I think the show as a whole holds up better than one
might expect. It should be fun to explore that later this year in a DVD set
review of season four. Another point that definitely upset fans was a feeling
that “Star Trek: Enterprise” was not really going anywhere that the previous
Trek incarnations had not already been before with the appearance of The Borg in
season two as well as the Ferengi in season one as two obvious examples. I’d
be a liar if I did not feel the same way to some extent when these episodes
first aired on UPN, but I stuck with the show through to the end anyway. “Star
Trek: Enterprise” season two seems a lot better to me now than it did when it
aired, but regardless of what fans reading may think, there is no denying that
the best of the series is yet to come on DVD.
All 26 season two episodes look
great as expected in their anamorphic enhanced (1.78:1) widescreen aspect ratio
though the English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack seems a bit subdued at
times. An English Dolby Surround Soundtrack and English Closed Captions for the
hearing impaired as well as English Subtitles are encoded onto all seven discs
for the entire season as options. There are lots of extra value features
included in this DVD set, which includes episode length audio commentary by
Writers Michael Sussman and Phyllis Strong on the episodes “Dead Stop” and
“Regeneration.” There are few nods to the Nomad space probe launched from
Earth and eventually encountered by Captain Kirk and crew in “The Original
Series” episode entitled “The Changeling” pointed out in the “Dead Stop
Commentary” However this commentary is bit dull at times. The audio commentary
the Writers provide for “Regeneration” is far more interesting if only
because the Writers make points regarding why having The Borg appear in the 22nd
century does not hurt continuity with the other shows. Will it satisfy all fans?
No, but I’m sure it will give Trekkers more to debate for years to come.
Michael and Denise Okuda provide their always interesting as well as well
written fact and trivia filled text commentaries for the episodes “Stigma”
and “First Flight.”
Deleted scenes presented in their
(1.78:1) aspect ratio enhanced for widescreen TVs complete with a “Play All”
option in cases where there are more than one scene are provided for the
episodes “Minefield” (1:09), “A Night In Sickbay” (4:00), “Dawn”
(1:37), “Stigma” (1:13), “Ceasefire” (: 40), and “The Expanse”
(4:46). The rest of the extra value
features found on disc seven include the featurettes “Enterprise Moments”
(19:08) with highlights from the episodes “Carbon Creek”, “Shockwave, Part
II”, “Dead Stop”, “Vanishing Point”, “The Cat Walk”, “Future
Tense,” which references some inspiration from the oldest sci-fi franchise in
the world still broadcasting new episodes, “Doctor Who.” Other episodes
profiled include “Bounty”, First Flight”, and “The Expanse.” There is
also a profile on Jolene Blalock (14:25) and Star Trek Star turn Director LeVar
Burton (7:00), and a profile on First Assistant Director David Trotti, who began
his career as a DGA trainee on “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” and
offers his unique perspective on the second season episode included in this set
entitled “Judgment” (4:48). A look “Inside A Night In Sickbay” (11:14)
concludes the featurettes on disc seven. Three more “NX01 Files” numbered
four through six are also available as easy to find Easter eggs on disc seven
and they focus on the various guests to visit the “Star Trek: Enterprise”
set (3:14), a brief profile on how being a part of “Star Trek” has changed
Actor Anthony Montgomery’s life (1:50), and another featuring Linda Park
discussing her character’s evolution in season two of “Star Trek:
Enterprise” (3:20). A reel of outtakes (11:09), a season two still photo
gallery, and a trailer for the Las Vegas Hilton attraction “Borg Invasion”
(: 32) wrap up the bonus materials in this DVD set. A six-page insert containing
a summary of what transpired in season one, episode rundowns and bonus feature
information for each disc respectively as well as a teaser paragraph for season
three is included within the molded plastic packaging that houses the book style
Digipack disc holder. The interactive menus are well rendered and easy to
navigate with images of Klingon ships, as they would appear on the Enterprise
NX-01 computer screens.
“Star Trek: Enterprise: The
Complete Second Season On DVD: Seven-Disc Set” is available at retailers on
and offline now courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment.
© Copyright 2005 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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