New York has changed a lot since Archer's time.
Enterprise finally returns to Earth... in an alternate timeline in which Those Wacky Nazis are winning World War II.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Actor Allusion: Both Joe Maruzzo and Steve Schirripa were on The Sopranos, in which they also played gangsters.
- Actually Pretty Funny: The SS officer tells Archer that he will one day go to Hollywood and meet Betty Grable, then puts his arm around him and asks if he'll introduce them. Archer replies "She's not your type," to which the SS officer laughs.
- Affably Evil:
- The SS officer transporting Archer is quite jovial and says he'll one day meet Hollywood starlets.
- Vosk is rather polite and soft-spoken for an interstellar warlord.
- Alien Blood: Everyone except Archer is shocked when Sal shoots one of Vosk's mooks and he bleeds pale yellow.
- Almost Dead Guy: Despite all the gruesome damage to his body, with Phlox noting it's a miracle he's still alive, Daniels manages to survive just long enough to tell Archer about Vosk and what he needs to do to fix the timeline.
- Alternate-History Nazi Victory: What did you expect when you see German troops patrolling Brooklyn in 1944? That said, the Nazis are in a very precarious position, with the Americans poised to counterattack.
- Alternate History Wank: A successful German invasion of the U.S. East Coast probably would have needed all of the Wunderwaffen Vosk was working on. It's mentioned that the Third Reich controls all of continental Europe, the British Isles, much of Africa, Moscow, and a map shows that they've advanced halfway down the East Coast. This is actually lampshaded by the Generalmajor, who says there's a lot of talk that Germany has advanced too far, too quickly.
- Anti-Air: Trip and Travis get hit by flak cannons over San Francisco, which is their cue to hightail it out of there.
- Artistic License – History:
- At the Nazi headquarters, a map of the United States shows the American flag with 56 stars, rather than the 48 it had at the time.
- Alicia is unfamiliar with the term "World War II," even though use of the term started shortly after the war began.
- Artistic License – Military:
- When Archer is being transported at the beginning of the episode, the German vehicles are painted in the yellow and brown color scheme of the Afrika Korps. Being that they are in a wooded rural area near New York City, they should be in standard field grey.
- Also, the Kübelwagen clearly has a Wehrmacht license plate, even though it is being driven by SS personnel.
- Even with plasma cannons, the Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bomber is still a poor choice to send against an airborne target. Though they were originally created for ground attack and the only planes Vosk had.
- At Least I Admit It: When Vosk tries to make Archer believe that Daniels and his temporal watchdogs are altering history to their own benefit:Vosk: They have an agenda.
Archer: So do you.
Vosk: At least I don't hide my intentions. - Big Brother Instinct: Sal and Carmine feel this towards Alicia.
- Big "NO!": Vosk when Enterprise destroys his temporal conduit, killing him.
- Blatant Lies: Vosk tells the General that he and his men take their oath to Germany "very seriously," when they're really using the Nazis as a means to get back to their own time.
- Blood Knight: Carmine is especially giddy while leading the attack on Vosk's compound.
- Body Horror: Daniels is going through a lot of it. Phlox says that some of his tissue is over a hundred years old, while others are in a fetal stage.
- Brandishment Bluff: When Vosk loses patience with the Generalmajor, he threatens to erase him from existence. This is a bluff, as he's lost his access to time travel and won't be able to do any such thing until the conduit is complete (after which it won't make any difference to him anyway), but the Generalmajor doesn't know that.
- Buffy Speak: Alicia isn't fond of going through Enterprise's "dissolver-thing."
- Bulletproof Human Shield: At one point during the climactic fight scene in the Nazi compound, Silik grabs a mook and uses him to take a bullet from one of his buddies. Silik then takes the dead man's gun and shoots the buddy in question.
- Bullying a Dragon: The Nazis have launched an invasion of North America, but even so, they are confined to the Eastern Seaboard while the rest of the United States is unoccupied. The Generalmajor also notes that their rapid expansion has left them spread too thinly, and they're vulnerable to an imminent counterattack.
- Captain Obvious: When Silik and Archer are pinned down by enemy fire:Silik: We're in an extremely precarious position.
Archer: I hadn't noticed. - Changed My Jumper:
- Subverted for a change—Alicia sees the word "Enterprise" on Archer's jumpsuit and assumes he was off the aircraft carrier (which has apparently been sunk by the Japanese). His clothes do look like a boilersuit that might be worn in a ship's engine room - but that doesn't explain her apparent nonchalance about the very un-aircraft carrier-like starship Enterprise illustrated on the patch. He later wears some clothes that belong to Alicia's husband.
- Averted when Archer and Silik don period-appropriate clothing before infiltrating the German compound.
- Character Death:
- Daniels dies. Again. But it doesn't stick. Again. Maybe.
- Silik definitely is killed, though.
- Cool Plane: The already cool Stuka dive-bomber is equipped with plasma cannons by Vosk. They're sent to fight off Enterprise.
- Day of the Jackboot: What better way to show this than by having the White House draped in swastika banners. Currently serving as the Trope Image.
- Deal with the Devil: Vosk asks for Archer's help to complete his time conduit, and offers to restore the history he knows once his group has defeated the Temporal Agents.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After a year of hell, Enterprise finally returns to Earth and is welcomed home by an armada of Starfleet and Vulcan ships.
- Easy Logistics: Averted—the German Generalmajor tells Vosk about their supply problems, both from overextended forces and Resistance attacks.
- Enemy Mine: Archer and Silik team up to stop Vosk.
- Final Solution: Vosk proposes using a waterborne pathogen to eliminate non-Aryans. Like his other promises, he likely just thought this up on the spot to appease the Germans.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Archer and Sal, respectively, when dealing with one of Vosk's mooks. Archer has to actively restrain Sal from killing him.
- The Good Guys Always Win: Discussed by the SS officer with Archer:"In Hollywood movies, Americans always win. Too bad for you you are not in a movie."
- Historical In-Joke: The mafia are the ones leading the resistance against the Nazis, which they actually did in Real Life. Not being fans of Mussolini, the American mob families used their connections to gather intel prior to the Allied invasion of Sicily and helped the FBI root out Nazi spies.
- Hopeless War: Zig-Zagged. While the Nazis occupy the East Coast as far as Ohio and South Carolina, they are suffering major supply problems and the Americans are preparing to launch a counterattack. However, Alicia sees it as hopeless, saying it seems there are fewer places where the Germans aren't every day. She also mentions that her husband is fighting in the Pacific, where things are going just as badly.
- Implausible Deniability: Trip explodes when T'Pol orders a diagnostic to be done of the sensor array, saying that the three 50 cal bullets they just pulled out of the shuttlepod is sufficient evidence that they've time-travelled. She then clarifies that it's quite obvious they're in the past; she's trying to determine how they got there.
- The Informant: Archer is put in contact with a man who sells information to one of Vosk's men on what the Germans and La Résistance are doing. However, the informer frankly admits that he doesn't know squat, so he makes most of the stuff up.
- In Spite of a Nail: Malcolm determines that the timeline changed when Vladimir Lenin was assassinated in 1916, preventing the Communist takeover of Russia and thus allowing Adolf Hitler to focus on the west, all the way to the American East Coast. However, the rise of communism was the driving force behind the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany. In addition, Lenin was smuggled back into Russia because the Germans were hoping he would destabilize Russia to the point they would withdraw from the war. If he died before the Bolshevik Revolution, it's unlikely World War I would have ended the way it did.
- Is That a Threat?:Silik: Do we really need these people?
Carmine: What do you mean, these people?
Silik: I don't see how they can be of any use to us.
Carmine: I'll tell you how I can be of use to you. How about I start removing your teeth with my knuckles?
Silik: Are you threatening me?
Carmine: Hey, give the man a prize!
Silik: Why would you do that? - Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique:
- Sal shoots one of Vosk's mooks in the hand to make him start talking.
- Trip and Travis get roughed up by the Germans.
- Just Think of the Potential!: Vosk disagrees with the Temporal Accords because he views time travel as no different than warp drive, a technology that can improve species for the better.
- La Résistance: Italian mobsters are disrupting the German occupation of New York.
- The Mafia: Archer's allies in occupied New York.
- Mistaken for Transformed: Toward the end, Trip holds Captain Archer at gunpoint, believing him to be Silik in disguise. Justified as he thought Archer was dead.
- New Era Speech: Vosk delivers one to his assembled men."Our greatest scientist once said, 'Every moment we live, we are moving through time. We've earned the right to choose which direction.' The mastery of time has allowed us to perfect ourselves. To reach our full potential as a people and to vanquish those who oppose us. There's just one last enemy to deal with. Soon, history will belong to us. We will stretch out our hands and mold it according to our will. Not even the gods of our ancestors could have imagined such power. My brothers, we are going home."
- In the teaser for Part 2, Hitler pays a visit to New York and gives a four-hour speech outlining his vision for relations between the Reich and America.
- Not Me This Time: Just before Daniels passes out in sickbay, he warns T'Pol that "You have to stop him!" When Tucker has his run-in with Silik in the shuttlebay, the crew assumes he was the person Daniels was talking about. And just like last time, they're wrong — it's a brand new enemy, namely Vosk.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Towards the end of Part II, the Americans begin a counterattack to reclaim the Nazi-occupied East Coast. Malcolm is especially amazed by what he sees.
- Oh, Crap!: Malcolm has a very subtle one when he tells T'Pol and Trip that the dispatches he's picked up mention battles in Virgina and Ohio, indicating that the war is going very differently than the history they know.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During the interrogation in the brig, Archer slams Silik against the wall.Silik: You've changed, Captain.
Archer: And not at all for the better. - Pet the Dog: When Silik steals the shuttlepod from Enterprise, he takes the time to pull the phaser-stunned Trip out of the launch bay so that he doesn't get spaced.
- Piggybacking on Hitler: Vosk is only using the Nazis for their own purposes, and doesn't want to give them the weapons they've developed because he doesn't trust the Nazis to use them against him.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: A pair of SS troopers call Alicia a negro and a bitch and say that they'll send her and Archer (a "negro lover") back to Africa to "run through the jungle together."
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner:Vosk: I'm sorry, General, but I'm afraid I have to end our alliance. (shoots the Generalmajor)
- Also, before tossing a grenade at the German guard post, Carmine says "What a way to spend a Saturday night!"
- Pre-War Civilian Career:Alicia: Yeah, tell him what you guys did before the war.
Sal: Nothing to tell. We were delegates for the Construction Workers Union.
Alicia: Right. The loan-sharking was just a part-time job.
Carmine: We helped people get out of financial difficulty. Since when is that a crime?
Alicia: When they didn't pay you back on time. That's where the crime part came in. - Punch-Clock Villain: The German Generalmajor, who seems to be in the dark as to what Vosk's plan actually is and is primarily concerned with the imminent American counterattack.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Vosk delivers one to the German Generalmajor."You are a fool. You think we're equals because I allow you to participate in this struggle. You fight to control nations. We dominate entire worlds. We extend our will across time. If your race were to endure for a million years, you couldn't begin to approach what we've accomplished. The next time you feel the urge to threaten me, remember this: I can erase you from history as if you never existed."
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Vosk and his mooks.
- Reset Button: Killing Vosk and destroying his conduit undoes all of the damage the timeline has suffered.
- Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Inverted. John Fleck finally gets to appear without prosthetics of any kind when Silik disguises himself as human.
- Stock Footage:
- When Vosk is showing footage of a weapons test, one shot shows a plasma rifle destroying a building. The explosion is from VOY's "The Killing Game".
- Hitler's visit to occupied New York was created from footage of his visit to occupied Paris, along with footage of an actual American Nazi Party rally (which didn't really have Hitler in attendance).
- Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Subverted, actually. Vosk and his group are getting German resources to build their time conduit and plasma rifles. However, they don't actually plan on giving these weapons to Hitler.
- Tactical Withdrawal: After disabling the facility's Deflector Shields, Archer tells Carmine to pull his men out before Enterprise can blast it to hell.Carmine: Start falling back! We gotta get the hell outta here!
- Tank Goodness: A pair of Jagdtigers can be seen outside Nazi headquarters in Washington.
- Tears of Joy:
- Part 1: T'Pol and Hoshi are on the verge of tears when they hear Archer's voice again, and then he returns to the bridge.
- Part 2: Hoshi seems to tear up when Enterprise returns to the 22nd century and she successfully contacts Starfleet.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Vosk is annoyed by the Generalmajor, who in turn is upset with Vosk for not delivering his promised weapons.
- Teleportation Rescue: Enterprise beams Archer and Alicia up just as Vosk and his men corner them.
- Think Nothing of It: Of the "Save your thanks and leave me the hell alone" variety when Daniels tells Archer how many lives he's saved by ending the Temporal Cold War.
- Time for Plan B: When Trip and Travis see that they can't recover the stolen shuttlepod in time to keep it from the Germans, they go with Plan B: blow it up.
- Tranquil Fury:
- T'Pol shows all the anger a Vulcan can muster when Malcolm reports that their shuttle is being stolen by a Suliban.
- Archer barely keeps his hatred of Those Wacky Nazis in check, especially when they harass Alicia.Soldier: Do we make you angry?
Archer: You could say that.
- Unexplained Recovery: We never learn how Archer was transported from the exploding Xindi weapon to alternate 1944 Earth. Even Daniels thought he was dead.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Lampshaded by Archer when he learns that Daniels and his "watchdog buddies" saved the Suliban from Vosk.Archer: Are you saying you owe Daniels' people your lives?
Silik: They still oppose us, they're still our enemy. That will never change. - What the Hell, Hero?: Thinking Archer is a contemporary American sailor, Sal calls him out for "cut and running" while leaving civilians at the hands of the Germans.
- Alicia also wants to know why Archer doesn't just use Enterprise to demolish the Third Reich.
- Trip gives T'Pol one when he thinks she's about to deny that they've time-traveled. He apologizes to her after a cooldown moment.
- What Year Is This?: Archer asks Alicia this word-for-word.
- Worthy Opponent: A dying Silik acknowledges Archer as this.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Vosk shoots the Generalmajor when he tries to gain control of his Stuka squadron, right before the time conduit is activated.
- Your Favorite: Phlox does to console a despondent Porthos by giving him his favorite: chicken liver with grated cheddar.
