A routine visit to an alien mining colony ends in disaster with thousands dead and Enterprise is blamed for it. Faced with the end of their mission, Archer must clear his name with some unexpected help.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Air-Vent Passageway: Hoshi is sent through the vents because she's small enough to fit through them. As usual the vents look much bigger in order to fit the cameras inside. Or maybe it was just an excuse to have Hoshi lose her shirt.
- Apocalypse Wow: The Paraagan colony is completely scorched, and then there's Earth in the 31st Century. It's bombed out, and Archer and Daniels seem to be the only living people in the city.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Even after all the time travel related happenings in this episode, T'Pol still refuses to believe in time travel.
- Back from the Dead: Daniels returns, despite apparently getting killed by Silik in "Cold Front."
- Bad Future: The 31st Century, after Archer's trip to the future has changed history. Not only is the city destroyed, but it seems that the Federation never formed.Daniels: I've looked through the 21st and 22nd centuries. Everything looks right up until the Warp 5 Program. After that, nothing looks right.
- Batman Gambit: When Malcolm tells Silik that Archer wanted the device from Daniels' quarters destroyed so that it can't be used to contact anyone, Silik decides to use it to contact Future Guy, which is what allows Archer to escape the 31st century.
- Call-Forward:
- In the future library, Archer finds a book entitled "The Romulan Star Empire," but Daniel pushes it back into the shelf before he can take a look at it.
- This is the first time that Daniels mentions a "federation," which, as it turns out, Archer will have a huge role in forming.
- Cliffhanger: Part One ends on Archer staring at a devastated future Earth, with no way to return.
- Die Hard on Enterprise: As part of The Plan to retake the ship from the Suliban and rescue Archer.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Malcolm briefly, when he sees Hoshi after she lost her shirt in the Jeffries tubes.
- Emerging from the Shadows: Daniels does this when he reveals himself to Archer.
- Finish Dialogue in Unison:
- When Archer goes into his Catchphrase:Archer: We're making history—
Trip/Archer: With every light year. - Archer again when he goes back in time and realizes he's had a certain conversation before.Archer: (responding to a comm beep) Hello?
Trip: (over the comm) Sorry to call so late, Cap'n, but all three inspection pods are getting their weekly overhauls tonight. They tell me they won't be ready till noon, so I figured you—
Archer/Trip: Might wanna sleep in.
Archer: What do you say to breakfast at nine thirty, Spacedock cafeteria?
Trip: You must be readin' my mind. I was just about to suggest the same thing.
Archer: See you in the morning.
- When Archer goes into his Catchphrase:
- Foreign-Language Tirade: Implied by Hoshi."Anyone who tries to bad-mouth Captain Archer in front of me is gonna get an earful, in any language they want."
- Gallows Humor: Daniels can't help but laugh at the sight of the destroyed future."We brought you here to protect the timeline! We did quite a job!"
- Gambit Roulette: Daniels' and Archer's plan relies on Silik confiscating the device found in Daniels' quarters and using it to contact Future Guy, even though it's at best an educated guess that Silik has lost contact with him (Future Guy's timeline would be just as screwed by the change).
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Travis tells Hoshi that on Earth, people think that Enterprise is doing nothing but getting into fights with alien species. He admits that because of this, even being the first warp five helmsman, his career prospects are not good.
- Heroic BSoD:
- Archer falls into one after the Paraagan colony is destroyed and Enterprise is recalled. A visit from Daniels snaps him out of it.
- Daniels himself is in one when he sees what's left of the 31st century.
- Hilarious Outtakes: Scott Bakula is at it again.T'Pol: I still don't believe in time travel.
Archer: (Woody Woodpecker laugh) - Humans Are Special: Archer... attempts to invoke this in his speech to Soval.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Silik and his mooks subject Malcolm to this when he's caught taking something from Daniels' quarters.
- Know When to Fold Them: Faced with a swarm of thirty Suliban ships, and with Archer having disappeared, T'Pol orders the crew to stand down and let the Suliban board.
- La Résistance: Trip starts it by jury-rigging the com system to work after the Suliban deactivated it.
- List of Transgressions: Soval explaining why he thinks that, despite being exonerated for the destruction of the mining colony, Enterprise should be recalled to Earth."In less than a single year, you've engaged in armed conflict with more than a dozen species. You've escalated the conflict between my people and the Andorians, which included the destruction of one of our most sacred monasteries. You helped 89 Suliban escape from detention. You may claim to be on a mission of exploration; I, however, consider you reckless and irresponsible — a danger to the quadrant."
- MacGyvering:
- Daniels manages to send a message to the 22nd Century using nothing more than Archer's communicator, scanner, and some copper.
- Similarly, Trip uses his magic to reactivate the comm system from inside his quarters so that he and the senior officers can start La Résistance.
- Madness Mantra: Under the influence of the Suliban's truth serum, T'Pol keeps saying over and over "The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible."
- Mental Time Travel: Hinted that this is how time travel works, when Archer is brought to the night before Klaang appeared.
- Ms. Fanservice:
- Come on... is anyone in any doubt as to the real world reason why Hoshi lost her shirt?
- There's also T'Pol in a clingy midriff-exposing singlet.
- Non Sequitur Environment: Archer steps off a turbolift...into a post-apocalyptic Earth.
- No OSHA Compliance: Even though the colony disaster was revealed to be a deliberate act of sabotage, it really was an accident waiting to happen. The mining operation produces a hazardous byproduct in the atmosphere that can be ignited by starship engines. However, rather than having a dedicated ship and pilot performing orbit-to-surface transports, they let Enterprise come with little more than an instruction manual.
- No-Paper Future: Daniels is surprised to see actual books in what is supposed to be an electronic library.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Starts with Archer when he realizes that the Suliban are following Enterprise and orders the weapons warmed up.
- Followed by Trip when the quantum beacons confirm Archer's hunch."It looks like we're in a swarm of cloaked bees!"
- And finally, Malcolm when he gives his report."They're all targeting the warp core."
- Patrick Stewart Speech: Archer's infamous "gazelle speech.""When I was in my early twenties on a trip to East Africa I saw a gazelle giving birth. It was truly amazing. Within minutes the baby was standing up, standing up on its own. A few more minutes and it was walking and before I knew it, it was running alongside its mother, moving away with the herd. Humans aren't like that, Ambassador. We may come from the same planet as those gazelles but we're pretty much helpless when we're born. It takes us months before we're able to crawl. Almost a full year before we can walk. Our deep space mission isn't much different. We're going to stumble, make mistakes, I'm sure more than a few, before we find our footing. But we're going to learn from those mistakes. That's what being human is all about. I'm sorry you can't see that."
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Daniels insists that he send Archer back to the day he left, in order to preserve the timeline. However, according to him, the colony disaster was never supposed to have happened. He tries to justify this by saying he's personally screwed up the timeline, but 3600 colonists are dead and his future is destroyed. There's nothing he could do that would make things worse.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Trip gives Soval a blistering one when he continues to call for Enterprise to be recalled, despite our heroes having exonerated themselves.Trip: You guys have wanted to scrub this mission from day one! We proved to you that we didn't kill those 3600 people, but you don't want to hear it! You're pathetic!
Forrest: That's enough, Commander! - Scully Syndrome: T'Pol refuses to consider time travel as an explanation for how Archer suddenly knows how to build quantum beacons and locate a cloaked Suliban ship in order to steal specific data disks.
- See the Invisible: Daniels tells Archer how to build quantum beacons to see through the Suliban cloaks.
- Security Blanket: After her interrogation, T'Pol is shown lying in bed with a Thousand-Yard Stare, clutching her pillow.
- Space Clothes: Daniels should stick with the Starfleet-issue flight suit. That ribbed outfit isn't doing him any favors.
- Spooky Silent Library: Almost as spooky as the post-apocalyptic surroundings.
- Stripping Snag: After crawling through the air vents, Hoshi struggles to get out, and it ends with a Shirtless Scene.
- Suliban Shield: Archer takes Silik hostage to guarantee his escape.
- Technobabble: Even Trip is confused by Archer's instructions on building a quantum beacon.Archer: Take a look at the dispersal curve here and here. You'll have to isolate the sub-assembly tolerances from the emitter algorithms.
Trip: Whoa, hold on a minute. You're saying the assembly's independent of the emitters?
Archer: Exactly.
Trip: That's impossible.
Archer: Not if you generate a stable flux between the positron conductors. Then all you'll have to do is renormalize the tertiary wave functions. - Time-Travel Tense Trouble:Archer: So you're telling me you brought me back...what, ten months ago? What about Jonathan Archer ten months ago? Where's he?
Daniels: He's you.
Archer: Then who just climbed into bed aboard Enterprise?
Daniels: That hasn't happened yet.
Archer: That's a load of crap and you know it. - Truth Serum: Silik uses some on T'Pol to make her tell him the truth. She still doesn't tell him what he wants to hear, falling back on her aforementioned Survival Mantra.Silik: Your captain is gone. Did Daniels take him into the past or the future?
T'Pol: (slurred) The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible. - Understatement: Archer says that it wouldn't be very polite to ignite the Paraagans' atmosphere.
- We Need a Distraction: T'Pol continues to act drugged to distract two Suliban, giving Trip and Malcolm a chance to inject them with the off-button hypospray.
- Wham Line: When Archer finds himself with Daniels in a ruined 31st century and demands to be sent back:Daniels: You don't understand. All our equipment—the time portals—have been destroyed. Everything's been destroyed. There's no way to send you back.
- World-Wrecking Wave: The Suliban use Shuttlepod 1 to touch one off.
- You Have Failed Me:
- Implied by Future Guy."You know what happened the last time you failed me."
- And implied again by Silik's Number Two:"If he's angry with you, you'll be punished again."
- Implied by Future Guy.
