Title :
Minefield
Series :
Rating :
Overall Ep :
29
First Aired :
2 Oct 2002
Stardate :
Unknown
Director :
Year :
Writers :
Season Ep :
YATI :
Archer tells Reed that he heard England made it to the finals of the world cup. But the world cup is held every 4 years, with the last one in 2014, so while there should be one in 2150 and 2154 there shouldn't be one in 2152.
Why do the Enterprise space suits shine huge blue lights into your face? Surely this would make it very difficult to see anything! Of course the real reason is that it lets us see the actor's faces without having to shine studio lights into the reflective faceplates, but reality doesn't enter into this...
That self sealing mechanism on the space suits sure is handy. You have to wonder why Worf's suit in First Contact didn't have it, given that his was over two hundred years more advanced than Reed's.
How come the Romulans have cloaking devices? Kirk and Spock were amazed at the technology in "Balance of Terror", clearly implying that the Romulans didn't have it in the Earth-Romulan war which lies just a few years in the future to Enterprise.
Why do the Romulans call themselves Romulans? I had always thought that this was just what Humans called them, based on the old legend about Romulus and Remus founding the Roman Empire. Yet the Romulans call themselves by that name to Hoshi. And clearly Hoshi wasn't translating it from some Romulan word, because she initially mispronounced it and T'Pol corrected her.
Reed mentions here that his family expected him to follow tradition and join the Royal Navy. Since Earth has been at peace under one unified government for something like fifty years, why does the Royal Navy still even exist? Why would ANY national-level military force still exist? For that matter, in a time when a handful of starships or orbital weapons platforms could blast anything on the entire surface of a planet with energy weapons, how could naval warships still exist at all, even in theory?
Great Moment :
Well they messed up the cloaking issue, and they messed up the naming of the Romulans, but at least they didn't have visual communication with the Romulan ship. The FX of the explosion was also nice, and the interplay between Reed and Archer was pretty good.
Body Count :
At least seventeen casualties in the initial explosion, including Hoshi, but no fatalities. Reed gets a metal rod through the leg, but it doesn't seem to bother him all that much.
Factoid :
Enterprise space suits have a self sealing mechanism.
As well as all his allergies, Reed is also scared of the water. Sounds pretty wimpy to me...
We get a number for Enterprise's crew from the Romulans in this episode - 83 in total. In Strange New World we heard that the ship had a crew of 82... since then they have lost Daniels. So they should have 81 now, not 83.
An Enterprise shuttlepod hatch is reinforced with duratanium, allowing it to withstand a quarter kiloton blast at a range of about 20 metres.
Plotline
A large explosion disables Enterprise, and using the quantum beacons from Shockwave the crew discover that they are floating in a huge minefield. When one of the mines attaches itself to the hull, Reed goes out to disarm it - but an accident leaves him pinned to the deck plating next to the device, and Archer must go out to finish the job and rescue him. Meanwhile Hoshi translates a message from a ship in the minefield and finds that it is from something called the Romulan Star Empire...
