STAR TREK ENTERPRISE - THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON (2001)

Star Trek Enterprise - The Complete Second Season (2001)

Director: Michael Grossman, Terry Windell
Encoding: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Format: Color
 

DVD Features:

• Available subtitles: English
• Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• 26 episodes on seven discs
• Commentary by Michael Sussman and Phyllis Strong on Dead Stop and Regeneration
• Text commentary by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda on Stigma and First Flight
• Enterprise moments: season 2
• Enterprise profile: Jolene Blalock
• Levar Burton: Star Trek director
• Enterprise secrets
• Inside "A Night in Sickbay"
• Outtakes
• Photo gallery
• Deleted scenes

Movie:
Disc:
 

Not quite as bad as many of its detractors may claim, Star Trek - Enterprise was a watchable attempt at doing something fresh and different with the whole Trek franchise.

Besides, Enterprise didn't feature any annoying characters of the sort that the Trek TV shows seem to specialise in (Neelix, Wesley Crusher, etc.) Instead actor Scott Bakula, best known for his work on Quantum Leap, has a lazy charm and his starship crew is quite acceptable too.

Set several hundred years before the Federation, it follows the explorations of a supposedly more low-tech Enterprise - no teleporter! - than the one piloted by Kirk, Spock, Scottie, et al of the original 1960s Star Trek series. Of course, with the huge advancements in special effects, Enterprise looks more advanced than any of those old Trek Original Series cardboard sets, just as the recent Revenge of the Sith felt more advanced than the original Star Wars trilogy even though it's supposed to be a prequel. However, if one is willing to suspend one's disbelief in this regard, Enterprise can be quite enjoyable.

And if you're less anal too: Trek fans complained about how Enterprise's grittier universe was anathema to the liberal humanistic spirit of Gene Roddenberry's creation. Sure, Enterprise is flawed: that theme song is just too corny no matter how many times one sees it, but the show's biggest problem was over-familiarity.

After lord knows how many Next Generation, Voyager and Deep Space Nine shows, the scenarios and plots just aren't simply that fresh anymore and when one episode actually digs up the Seven Samurai/Bug's Life/Magnificent Seven plot template about a lonely outpost being harangued by some rogue Klingons (with even a kid thrown in for good measure!), you know the series is basically in trouble.

THE DISCS: Seven one-sided discs packaged in a snazzy designer plastic container very similar in concept to the recent Star Trek ? the Original Series DVD set. There are some not-so-interesting special features on the last disc usually of the talking heads going ?oh, it was so nice to work with so-and-so? variety. The set would look pretty neat nestled to your other Trek sets though.

WORTH IT? Enterprise feels less like a soap opera in space than Voyager and despite The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy's infatuation with Captain Janeaway there is no bossy school headmistress type around. Phew.

RECOMMENDATION: While not as good as either Firefly or Babylon 5, both Trek and non-Trek sci-fi fans should give Star Trek - Enterprise a shot and this DVD set is the ideal way to go about it.

The episodes included in this season are:

Shockwave Part II
Archer is taken 900 years into the future by Crewman Daniels and becomes stuck there.

Carbon Creek
T'pol tells Archer and Trip about her great-grandmother's accidental crash landing on Earth in the late 1950's The story is shown in flashbacks

Minefield
The Enterprise becomes trapped in an alien minefield later revealed to have been built by the Romulans.

Dead Stop
The Enterprise encounters an automated repair station and when they dock with it to make repairs, trouble starts

A Night in Sickbay
Archer's dog, Porthos becomes very ill and Archer stays with him in sickbay

Mauraders
The Enterprise is low on deuterium fuel and sets down at a station but the managers say that they don't have enough. It is learned that the Klingons stole much of it

The Seventh
T'Pol is asked by the Vulcan High Command to locate and capture Menos, a Vulcan criminal who has been on the run for many years.

The Communicator
When a communicator is left behind on an alien planet, Archer and Reed are imprisoned while attempting to reclaim it.

Singularity
While observing a trinary star system, various members of the crew are working on a variety of tasks from substituting of an ill chef, to building a new captain's chair.

Vanishing Point
Hoshi begins to believe that she is dead after using the transporter for the first time

Precious Cargo
When a group of aliens bring aboard a woman in a stasis pod, Trip's curiosity leads him to open it. The woman inside awakens and says she is being abducted.

Catwalk
A radioactive stellar phenomenon is headed for the ship and the crew must take cover for more than a week inside the shielded warp nacelles.

Dawn
Trip is attacked while alone in a shuttlepod and has to land on a moon. He subsequently gets stalked on the surface

Stigma
T'pol learns that she has become infected with a communicable disease that is only spread by mind-melding, a forbidden practice among her people. Her job is endangered as a result.

Cease Fire
The Vulcans and Andorians are involved in a territorial dispute that is in danger of becoming an armed conflict. Archer is sent in to arbitrate for them.

Future Tense
The Enterprise encounters a small ship with a dead human aboard but the Suliban and the Tholians both claim it for their own. When it is learned that the ship is from the future, Archer is forced to stop them from taking it.

Canamar
Archer and Tucker are mistakenly believed to be smugglers and arrested. They are then put on a ship headed for a penal colony

The Crossing
The Enterprise becomes engulfed in a nebula inhabited by aliens that want to exchange minds with the crew

Judgement
Archer is arrested by the Klingons and put on trial facing a life sentence at Rura Penthe

Horizon
The Enterprise meets up with the ship that Maywather was raised on and he spends time on his old ship.

The Breach
The Enterprise assists in the evacuation of Denobulan geologists from a planet undergoing a military coup d'etat. Several rescuers become trapped in the caves with the scientists and the Enterprise has a short time to leave before being shot at.

Cogenitor
The Enterprise is visiting with a group of alien scientists but Tucker becomes too curious about the species' third gender.

Regeneration
An team of scientists in the Arctic discover the remains of a Borg sphere and two frozen Borg but they reactivate, assimilates the team and takes their ship. The Enterprise is called in to stop them.

Bounty
A Tellarite bounty hunter kidnaps Archer and intends to take him to the Klingons who put a big price on his head.

The Expanse
After an alien probe launches a devastating attack on Earth killing millions, the Enterprise is called to search for the attackers. Silik returns and offers to help Archer find them. It is learned that a race called the Xindi are responsible and doing so because they were told that humanity would destroy them in the future.