Exasperated Calculator: Star Trek & Economics

Archer steals the USS Defiant from the Tholians. The first half is a bit lost, with the only highlight being a Gorn fight – nice callback sure, but not the most interesting way to spend time during the episode. They don’t make nearly enough out of the mirror universe nature of the ship – it…

Commander Archer leads a mutiny to take command of the ISS Enterprise. So, remember 668 episodes ago, when the Tholians tried to steal the USS Defiant? It turns out they were from the past of the mirror universe, and this episode tells the rest of the story. In a welcome departure for mirror universe stories,…

Archer acquires three slave girls, apparently traded for most of his brain cells. Archer and Reed (among others) wander around the ship panting after three Orion Slave Girls, in the most embarrassing thing Star Trek has put on screen since *Precious Cargo*. Of all the various elements of the Star Trek universe that did not…

Enterprise has to stop the Klingon’s from destroying their own colony to stop the virus. Phlox may need an ethics refresher. While I agree with him on the ‘don’t kill patients’ thing, I think that engaging in biological warfare probably also fits under ‘not ethical’, even when done to save a planetary population. It was…

Phlox is kidnapped by someone who needs his medical expertise. Ever since *Star Trek: The Motion Picture*, Star Trek fans have been plagued by one question – why do the TOS Klingons look different? For a long time the accepted explanation was ‘they didn’t’, and that the TOS appearance should just be thought of as…

Stopping the Romulan ship means finding an Aenar to help. Dammit, does everyone except humanity have a secret subspecies? We might be feeling a bit left out. A mysterious, half mythical, blind and telepathic species at that. Well, I don’t suppose I can say we’ve seen enough of the Andorians to expect to have heard…

Archer assembles a fragile alliance to hunt down the Romulan probe. One of my narrative weaknesses – I love a good origin story. It’s clear now that this season is focusing much more on the origin story of the Federation – how did those four races settle their differences, and become a united force. I’m…

Enterprise escorts a Tellarite ambassador to a conference with the Andorians. Back onto the dangerous ground of *Minefield* – can we have an episode about the Romulans without breaching continuity. You can see the writers struggle with it, but they have succeeded so far. The first Romulan war is meant to be very soon in…

Trip and Hoshi catch a really nasty alien virus. An ambitious episode that ultimately falls short of its goals. It was interesting to see these observers inhabit different people, and assemble their views on humanity. But it’s not at all clear what they were trying to learn from this, or why this will tell them…

The inventor of the transporter comes aboard for a mission. The first entirely standalone episode Enterprise has done since *Bounty*, 35 episodes ago. Let’s just say they should stick to the bigger stories. For a large part of this episode it danced on the edge of ‘awful’, before plunging over the edge with a dreadful…