Title :
Borderland
Series :
Rating :
Overall Ep :
80
First Aired :
29 Oct 2004
Stardate :
17 May 2154
Director :
Year :
Writers :
Season Ep :
YATI :
When the "Augments" are taking over the Klingon ship, one of them kicks a Klingon in the chest and sends him flying down the corridor twenty feet or so. No matter how strong we assume the Augment to be, simple laws of action and reaction would dictate that he would go flying off in the other direction.
Great Moment :
Brent Spiner. I never once thought of Data during this episode, Spiner is brilliant!
Body Count :
The entire crew of a Klingon Bird of Prey - probably a dozen or more people. Various Enterprise crew are beaten up or shot in the raid to recover Soong; it's not clear if those shot are killed, though the Augments are apparently using Klingon weapons and you have to wonder if those would have a stun setting.
Factoid :
This is the first episode of a three part story which ties Enterprise into the Eugenics wars which were part of the back-story to TOS Space Seed and Star Trek II. It's also the first episode to ever show an Orion male, a group about which there has been much non-canon created.
Lots of interesting little touches in this episode. For instance, there's a Human Y Class freighter in orbit of the Orion slaver's planet - are Humans buying slaves? Or something else - Soong did say he bought supplies and equipment here. Also, several TNG-era aliens are seen in the Orion compound - there's what looks like a Boslic male, the folks we saw on DS9 who wear blue bags on their heads, and I think there was a Nausiccan in there somewhere. I'm not sure, but I also thought I spotted one of Tash's people - he's the guy from "The Voyager Conspiracy", the one with the subspace catapult.
Archer's father died young of Clarke's disease. He was in great pain in the last stages of his life.
Archer's new chair was built as a new Enterprise-E chair for a deleted scene in "Nemesis". The two slots on either side of the shoulders originally had seatbelts which wrapped around you at the touch of a button.
Plotline
A group of "Augments" - genetically engineered Humans created in Earth's 20th century - capture a Klingon bird of prey, murdering the entire crew. As the fastest ship with the most experienced crew, Enterprise is sent to capture them before the Klingons retaliate against Earth. Archer enlists the help of Doctor Arik Soong, the scientist responsible for creating the Augments. Unfortunately, whilst looking for the ship Enterprise is raided by Orion slavers and several crewmembers captured.
Analysis
A pretty solid episode all in all. My only real complaint is that the whole section dealing with the Orions felt like a big wad of padding that was only really there to take up time and help spread the story out over three parts. On the other hand I don't mind all that much - it was nice to finally see the Orion males, forty years or so after we saw the first female.
