Horizon

DVD, Enterprise S2 (Horizon)

One of the best of the season, we finally get a proper Travis Mayweather story. The sad part is realising that this is pretty much the only fully Travis-focused episode of the entire series, and as Anthony Montgomery shows, he deserved more development like this to grow the character. A lot of ground is covered very quickly. For a start we get to see the return of the gravity sweet spot that was a fun gimmick in the pilot, but its appearance here points up its absence from the rest of the series, another example of the many threads and unique nuances that were forgotten or not bothered with. That private place that Travis goes to could have been something special for his character, a place to show him being himself rather than the helm robot he can often come across as. It was a brilliant idea yet it's only used twice as far as I remember, and that's not good enough.

This episode is about showing the series could pull off family-oriented tales as well as the other Trek's, and in that regard it succeeds. Similar to the first season's 'Fortunate Son,' which was also about life aboard a freighter being bullied by aliens, the ECS Horizon has the personal connection of being Travis' home ship, the place he grew up on, even linking back to Zefram Cochrane who built it, according to Trip. In some ways this freighting life is even more interesting than the exploratory mission of Starfleet because of their lack of technology, having to live on wits alone, far from any help. We already know how dangerous space, or at least, many of the inhabitants are, through Enterprise's adventures, so to think this crew have to deal with the same kinds of problems with less resources gives their work a lot of respect.

Although Paul, Travis' brother, has a streak of jealousy and all the usual brotherly rivalry you'd expect, his Mother's confidence in him, and the fact that he could bend when he chose to, leaves us with the impression he'll make a good captain once he's got more experience of command under his belt. When Travis steps into the airlock, his new, exciting life with Starfleet is locked off behind him and he steps back into the life he's known before, and it takes a little adjusting. I wish they'd made more of the snobbery between the freighters and Starfleet - they're proud of what they achieve with so much less, but at the same time they have a grudging respect for the pioneers. They also feel their lifestyle is under threat to some degree because the best people are joining Starfleet. The situation was compelling enough for me to speculate on a series charting the progress of some of these kinds of vessels. I think it would be a real fascination to see the day to day life and trials these people went through, a bit like 'DS9,' where they were interacting with aliens in a hostile environment, but obviously, on the move. It was obvious they were simply redressing NX-01 sets for the Horizon, with similar readouts and such, but it makes sense that even an old freighter would be kitted out with upgraded equipment closer to the Enterprise.

There's a fun little tip of the hat to 'TNG' when Travis suggests Starfleet should include families aboard ships in the future. Reed follows it up by saying in that case they'd need a psychologist too, so Deanna's practically referenced there! I think the amount of amusement is actually something that stops the episode from achieving classic status in my eyes. The B-story of Trip and Archer trying to get T'Pol to go along to a showing of 'Frankenstein' on film night was at odds with the more serious main story of Travis finding things weren't quite perfect on the Horizon. Going from Paul getting angry at his brother, to T'Pol trying to come up with a reason to get out of going to a horror film, or Phlox annoying everyone by talking through it (urgh! I hate people doing that - talk about what you've watched afterwards!), took some of the momentum away. I also didn't buy the reason Enterprise was visiting the planet and its light show. Perhaps if that had been the core of the story it might have had more weight.

Despite minor flaws it's a very solid episode, showcasing Travis, giving him some real feelings to show, enhancing his friendship with Archer, especially in the revelation that his Dad had recommended him for the helm, and giving us some more insight into the other human 'explorers' out there on the final frontier. They may not have a personal chef, film night and phaser cannons, but they've got guts and a job to do, and I personally wanted to see them again. Sadly, in a common theme for the series, it was one of many things passed by. Sometimes they needed to keep stock of what worked and get those human elements into the episodes - if there were more scenes such as the ones between Travis and Archer the series could have competed with the best of the other Trek's, but so often action took precedence.

That's not to say there wasn't action here - the mini space battle is about as close as you were going to get to a proper skirmish on the series, and it looked good. But the trivial things interested me too: learning it's been eighteen months the NX-01's been going, and in that time they've visited twenty-two homeworlds. The Orions also have an early mention (best not to get mixed up with them!), and on an obscure note, I noticed one of the desk microphones from 'Star Trek VI' (also on Wesley's desk in 'The First Duty') cropping up again in Travis' room.

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