North Star (episode)
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
| This article is written from the Real World point of view |
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| This article is written from the Real World point of view |
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| "North Star" | ||
|---|---|---|
| ENT, Episode 3x09 Production number: 061 First aired: 12 November 2003 | ||
| ← | 60th of 97 produced in ENT | → |
| ← | 60th of 97 released in ENT | → |
| ← | 689th of 726 released in all | → |
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| Written By David A. Goodman Directed By David Straiton | ||
| Unknown (2153) | ||
- For another meaning of "North Star (episode)", please see ECS North Star.
Archer and the crew try to discover why a 19th century-era Human settlement has been placed in the middle of the Expanse.
Contents |
[edit] Summary
A group of men on horse take another man and hang him. They refer to that man as a Skag. They shoot their guns in the air and ride off.
While searching for the Xindi in the Delphic Expanse in 2153, the NX class starship Enterprise, commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer, discovered a planet inhabited by Humans in a setting that resembled the late-nineteenth-century American West. Wearing period dress, members of the Enterprise crew visited the planet surface and learned that the Humans were descended from Americans abducted from Earth in approximately the 1860s by a species called the Skagarans, who after bringing them to this planet used them as slave labor. T'Pol, Trip, and Archer scout out the town to find useful information. Reed, back on Enterprise informs the captain that there is a smaller town filled with aliens only ten kilometers away. Archer tells T'Pol and Trip to go to the town and find out what they can, while he heads off to a local bar. Trip and T'Pol go off to find the town, but Trip thinks getting a horse first will speed up the journey. Trip finds a horse dealer, and trades him his gun (a gun from the nineteenth century period) and a harmonica. T'Pol asks Trip about his experience handling the creature, and Trip says he has seen every John Ford western.
While at the bar, Archer finds out that a man called Cooper Smith was the man that liberated the humans from the Skagaran. He met the deputy sheriff Bennings, and stopped him from harassing a skag, that also was his waiter. When the sheriff came in to see what the trouble was, the deputy informed him that Archer butted into a conversation he was having with the waiter. The sheriff asked what his business was in town, and told him it was too hot for coffee, a drink he got for free from the bar. Archer said he was passing through on his way down south, to meet his brother who was herding bluehorn. Once Archer left the bar, the Sheriff told his deputy to "keep a eye" on Archer.
Archer went to the house of a teacher, that he saw earlier, in the day standing next to a dead Skag in a coffin. After a short conversation with the teacher, asking him why he barged into her home, he said he would like to know more about the Skagarans. She replies that everyone knows about the skagarans. Archer says in response that up north quite a ways, where he lives there are none. He goes on to say that his actions in the bar, was because he thinks that the Skagaran life was any less valuable than his. The teacher asks Archer if he would like to meet more of them, and when Archer nods his head in agreement they go off in a carriage to skag town. On the way the deputy, and some men come out of a ally way and watch the pair leave.
When the teacher and Archer arrive at the place, the teacher has to inform some Skagarans that Archer is alright. While Archer walks through some metal archways he spots T'Pol, and Trip. He calls the teacher, Bethany, over and says these are the friends from up north he was telling her about. Bethany goes back over to a fire pit, and lets Captain Archer talk to his friends. T'Pol show him some data logs retrieved from the wreckage of what was apparently the spacecraft that had brought the Humans to the Delphic Expanse. Archer tells Trip and T'Pol o go back to enterprise and find out what they can. T'Pol asks what John was going to do. He told her that he doesn't want to miss his first day of school. Bethany starts to teach six skagarans, among them Yral and Kret multiplication tables. She says next week they will start long division. The deputy Bennings and some men, Nash and Franklin then come out from the shadows to arrest Bethany, she tells the kids to run home.
These logs and the short lesson form Bethany, they learned that shortly after the Humans' arrival, they had revolted against their Skagaran oppressors, overthrown them, and thereafter subjugated them as a means of preventing them from regaining control. As a further means of keeping the Skagarans — or "Skags," as they were disparagingly called and referred to — subjugated, the liberated Humans had made it illegal to teach successive generations of the aliens to read, write, or calculate. When Archer's involvement indirectly led to Bethany's being discovered doing so, she was given a minimum ten-year prison sentence and incarcerated. Feeling responsible, Archer helped her escape from jail, but during the effort she was shot and seriously wounded by Bennings. With Bethany incapacitated and facing the deputy's gun himself, Archer was forced to beam up to the ship in full sight of the locals, some of whom became convinced that Archer, although evidently Human, was a Skagaran sympathizer.
On board the ship, Dr. Phlox treated Bethany's injuries. Archer asks him if she was going to make it. Phlox said he believes so, their are a few things about her physiology he does not understand. Archer wonders what Phlox means. Phlox thought Archer was familiar with Bethany ancestry, he says that Bethany is one-quarter Skagaran. Archer goes off to talk with his senior staff. Meanwhile on the planet, Bennings has a debate with the sheriff about his handling of the skags. Bennings hands in his badge and walks out the door. After the meeting with the senior staff Archer leads T'Pol, and a security team to the planet in a shuttlepod, wearing their twenty-second century uniforms. Archer explained to the sheriff, MacReady, that he was from Earth, which MacReady had come to believe was a mythical place, and that Humans had evolved past bigotry and the subjugation of other sentient species. Archer informs the sheriff that unfortunately the Enterprise wasn't equipped to take the entire colony of 6,000 Humans to Earth and promised to send help once their Xindi mission was completed. Archer also informs the sheriff that humans have grown to be more tolerant of other cultures, and says their band of humans will have to grow before they can live normal lives on Earth.
Archer, and the sheriff leaves the building where they were in, and goes to the shuttlepod. Once there Archer introduces MacReady to his first officer T'Pol. As Archer says that they were going to take MacReady up to Enterprise the former deputy Bennings shoots MacReady. Archer, T'Pol, Malcolm, and a security force engage Bennings and his men in a shoot off. Close to the end of the shoot off, T'Pol is captured by one of Bennings men. He tells Malcolm that he will kill her if he does not put his gun down. Malcolm precedes to shoot T'Pol with his phase pistol and then turns to T'Pol capturer and shoots him. While this was going on Archer engages in a hand to hand fight with Bennings. The shuttlepod departed the planet and returns to Enterprise. Once on Enterprise, he talks to Bethany reassuring her that the humans on the planet will be able to change, before ships come to rescue them. Once Bethany returns to the surface Enterprise leaves orbit, leaving behind a more enlightened community and apparently some historical materials, as Bethany was seen (openly) teaching a classroom of students skagarans, humans, and Sheriff MacReady about the Wright brothers' first flight, which had taken place forty years after her Human ancestors had left Earth.
[edit] Memorable Quotes
"You must think we are Barbaric. All the things humanity accomplished, building ships like this, traveling to other worlds, and we are still down there shooting each other."
"The progress on Earth, it didn't happen overnight."
"But it was progress all the same. You have managed to change. We haven't, even if you could take us back, we aren't ready."
"It may be a while before we are able to start sending ships here."
- - Bethany and Archer, staring out a window of Enterprise
"Do you have any experience riding these animals."
"I have seen every John Ford western."
"Who?"
"Look, how hard can it be?"
- - T'Pol and Trip, while T'Pol was getting on Trip's horse
[edit] Background Information
- In plot, this episode bears a strong resemblance to the Star Trek: Voyager episode, "The 37's".
- "Spectre of the Gun" from Star Trek: The Original Series and the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "A Fistful of Datas" also take place in Western-themed settings.
- Exteriors of the town were shot primarily at Universal Studios in Universal City, California.
- This is the second time that Emily Bergl has played a one-quarter alien woman. She previously played Lisa Clarke, whose paternal grandfather was an alien, in the Steven Spielberg mini-series Taken.
[edit] Links and References
[edit] Main Cast
- Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
- John Billingsley as Phlox
- Jolene Blalock as T'Pol
- Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
- Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
- Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
- Connor Trinneer as Charles "Trip" Tucker III
[edit] Guest Stars
[edit] Co-Stars
- Paul Rae as the Bartender
- Steven Klein as Draysik
- Gary Bristow as the Stablehand
- Alexandria M. Salling as Taliyah (credited as Skagaran Girl)
- Jon Baron as Yral (credited as Skagaran Boy)
[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars
- Kevin Derr as Corporal Kelly
- Tom DuPont as a cowboy
- Jeffrey Eith as Nash
- Ricky Lomax as Private W. Woods
- Cliff McLaughlin as Franklin
- David Moore as a child in school
- Dorenda Moore as Private S. Money
- Robert Sidney Mellette as Henry, the barber
- Paul Townsend as a cowboy
- Mike Watson as a Skagaran
- Unknown actor as a cowboy
[edit] References
airplane; Ancient West; arithmetic; barber; bartender; bluehorn; buffalo; cemetery; checkers; coffee; data module; crime; dentistry; deputy; DNA; Earth; feather; Ford, John; interspecific reproduction; harmonica; heat exhaustion; horse; Human; Human history; MACO; mathematics; New York; Ohio; Pacific Ocean; parlor trick; phase rifle; projectile weapon; revolver; rotgut; San Francisco; sheriff; shuttlepod (22nd century); Skagaran; Skagaran colony; Skagaran language; Skagaran starship; Skagaran whiskey; Skagtown; slavery; smoking; spittoon; Smith, Cooper; Stanton, Clay; sun viper; teacher; United States dollar; unnamed Alpha and Beta Quadrant planets; western; Wright brothers; Xindi incident
[edit] Timeline
- 1860s
- A group of Humans are kidnapped from Earth.
- 1903
- Wright brothers have their first flight.
- 2153
- Enterprise finds the failed Skagaran colony.
| Previous episode: "Twilight" | Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3 | Next episode: "Similitude" |
