Star Trek: Enterprise (TV Series) Strange New World (2001) User Reviews

Protocol and Impulsiveness

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 31 October 2007]

The Enterprise locates an uninhabited planet very similar to Earth. T'Pol advises to scan the planet along six or seven days for a cautious approach, following the Vulcan protocols. However, the impulsiveness of Captain Jonathan Archer sends T'Pol, himself, Ensign Travis Mayweather, Commander Tucker, Crewman Ethan Novakovich and the entomologist Crewman Elizabeth Cutler to explore the planet. They find a nice and calm place and when nightfall arrives, the team asks to spend the night in the planet, and Captain Archer returns to Enterprise alone. There is a windstorm and the group seeks shelter in a cave, leaving their tents. Along the night, the group sees people hidden in the rocks, Ethan becomes insane and Tucker believes T'Pol is a traitor. The Enterprise rescues Ethan and Dr. Phlox finds that the pollen of the flowers contains the psychotropic compound Tropolisine, a toxin that provokes hallucination, and T'Pol and the team are in danger.

In "Strange New World", again the sensate and wise advices of T'Pol are disregarded by the impulsive Captain Archer, jeopardizing the exploration team in the planet. The story is tense, with a deranged Trip threatening T'Pol, who remains calm in spite of being also affected by the pollen. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Explorar Novos Mundos" ("Explore New Worlds")

Can Carelessness Be Blamed on Enthusiasm

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 7 March 2017]

This was a very entertaining episode but it would not speak well for a true explorer community. The Captain is still hanging on to issues involving his father and the Vulcans. They are exploring the galaxy but can't take five or six days to probe the dangers of this planet. The away team is suddenly beset by paranoia after a storm takes place. Trip (well named) is off his rocker with delusions. T'Pol is seen as an enemy, even though she is the rational one. The others lie semi-conscious or out of their minds. This leader, who is learning, is such a loose cannon at this point, he is putting his entire crew into grave danger. He is jumping up and down to explore, but his recklessness right now is beyond acceptable.

Trip is tripping.

[thevacinstaller · 6/10 · 26 February 2023]

Well, it turns out that the party pooping Vulcan adherence to proper procedure when discovering a planet is a good idea. I let out a good belly laugh when Archer brought his beagle onto the alien planet and seemed like a proud father when the dog urinated on a tree.

This episode falls into the suspense category but the question of whether T'Pol was up to something nefarious fell a bit flat for me. Tripp was convincing as being a complete lunatic and is currently neck and neck with Archer as the most emotionally charged human on the enterprise.

This episode further strengthens the need for earth to have a Vulcan babysitter. At this point in the series I am viewing humanity as a rebellious teenager and Vulcan as the concerned parent allowing the kid to go through the paces of growing up ----- getting a tattoo, piercings, pretending to like punk rock.

Devoid of suspense that would have made it really good

[snoozejonc · 6/10 · 15 August 2020]

Enterprise finds a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere and decides to explore.

I enjoyed this episode up to the point (early on) that we discover the away team are hallucinating. If sci-fi horror style was executed in a more clever way this might have made for an excellent episode. It would have been far better not to let the audience know that they are experiencing hallucinations. We should be dragged along on the trip with Tucker, T'Pol, Mayweather and the others and then find out in a plot twist towards the end. That for me would have been entertaining.

I didn't have a problem with the Archer not taking T'Pol's advice and making that reckless decision to explore. The theme is to boldly go where no man/one has gone before so I don't mind suspending my disbelief here.

There were also some ropey green screen backdrops included which would probably have better to have not included rather than done so unconvincingly.

Some good performances by the cast but no real memorable characters have emerged yet aside from Trip Tucker who displays some encouraging personality traits.

Second-rate Enterprise crew hallucinate and nearly kill each other

[tomsly-40015 · 6/10 · 18 February 2024]

When this series was on TV back in 2001, I completely ignored it. Every time I tuned in, I found the whole style and actors pretty unappealing. After over 20 years, I now dare to watch this series. I've spent the last few months watching all the episodes of TNG, DS9 and VOY and saved Enterprise for afterwards so as not to spoil the fun.

But my impression back then is still the same today, even after all these years: the actors look like they were cast straight from the street. I can barely remember any of the names of these interchangeable faces, even after the fourth episode. Scott Bakula as the captain of the Enterprise is completely miscast. The guy has the charm as if he could just be the captain of a coast guard boat with a two-man crew. And with the crew on the Enterprise, and especially on the bridge, I get the feeling that there are a bunch of chickens running wild and decisions are made purely on gut instinct.

Normally, the officers in Star Trek are presented as absolute specialists in their field who follow a strict chain of command. With this Enterprise I have the feeling that there are a few teenagers playing space explorers and have no idea what they should actually do. The only one who has a plan is apparently T'Pol - but the crew has completely conspired against her because they feel that their urge to explore has been restricted by the evil Vulcans for 100 years.

The story of this episode itself isn't bad at all. It's actually typical Star Trek. If it weren't for this incompetent crew of trigger-happy and amateur cowboys, you could almost get something out of this episode. So all that's left in the end is the bad aftertaste of complete ignorance of all protocol by a second-rate spaceship crew who would be better served raising cows on a ranch in Texas.

Braga's introduction to Horror stories

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 14 February 2017]

This episode had me gripping my chair.

It starts out as your basic "Protocol" argument between Archer and T'Pol, Archer decides to ignore T'Pol's suggestions and beams down an "Away Team" to check out what looks like a fabulous Planet.

But great weather turns into a storm, and then things start happening, trapping the Away team on the surface. And then the fun really starts, until the paranoia sets in, affecting even T'Pol.

I had never seen this episode until it came up in my Player. In a way, the "Protocol" argument is something I can imagine happening. Larry Niven explains Space Exploration thus: "Anything you don't understand, is Dangerous until you DO understand it" and that certainly applies here, this planet could have endured a bit more scrutiny before people were shuttled down to it. And then leaving people on the surface overnight was rather stupid, this wasn't a National park with a Ranger station nearby.

There were moments in this episode that were enjoyably startling, and Braga's concept of turning an Away Mission into your basic Nightmare, I'd say it was successful.

really enjoyed this episode

[lathamv · 9/10 · 7 June 2019]

This ep, along with a variety of others in Enterprise, show the human learning curve for exploring our galaxy. The audience has come to this series with the knowledge of the "Prime Directive" but ENT shows human infantcy into space exploration. While I agree that Archer and his human crew show their ignorance more times than not, this is how humans learn. We are naturally curious and exert our beliefs and ideals (albiet with no intention of harm) on other cultures because thats all we know. its like letting a child make mistakes to learn from them. when that happens as adults, sometimes ppl get hurt. T'pal does a good job at trying to direct the crew in the Volcan direction and to learm from their techniques but ultimately, she comes to realize humans dont learn well that way.

The beauty of the planet is enticing. For hours, theres nothing about their exploration that leads them to believe something could go wrong. The sensors on the enterprise are advanced for that time but not enough for every unknown particle that could be encountered. Some species may never have a problem on the planet, some (like humans) can have extreme reations. luckily, no one dies.

after the experience, the enterprise logs can warn any other humans that may encounter the planet. the crew has to form their own path through the galaxy. that knowledge is what leads them to the prime directive. they learn that even the Volcans arent perfect and their "logic" isnt always the best idea for every species and culture.

Good episode, but Archer annoys me yet again.

[txriverotter · 8/10 · 6 August 2021]

Archer is fired up to go explore, and in his excitement ignores the wise advice of T'Pol, to observe and scan the planet for several days to make sure there is nothing dangerous to the crew.

Things seem fine at first, until the crew asks to spend the night, and Archer says okay and heads back to the ship. A storm brews sending the crew fleeing into nearby caves, where Trip, Mayweather and Cutler descend into paranoia and madness.

Trip is always annoying, IMHO, anyway. He rushes to judgment and interferes where he shouldn't, and never seems to learn throughout the entire series. But Archer really ticks me off this episode.

One of the crew (Can't remember his name) who stayed the night reacts even more wildly than the others, and he ends up running away into the night. Eventually the Enterprise finds him and transports him aboard where Phlox determines he is suffering from a hallucinatory element, that they later hypothesize must have come in on the pollen when the storm brewed, so he tells Archer he thinks this guy is gonna be fine as soon as the neurotoxin wears off.

However, a short time later he calls Archer back to sick bay, to urgently tell him that the situation is much worse than he thought, and the crew member could die. Apparently the neurotoxin was in his system for so long, it did more damage than was originally thought.

And here's where Archer really ticks me off: he acts like this whole problem is due to Phlox's earlier misdiagnosis, if you can even call it that. He glares and sputters around sick bay, and finally turns to leave, but not before turning back to look at Phlox in an "I can't believe you did this." kind of way.

Seriously?! This whole situation is one person's fault, and that's the captain. Archer. The one who was too fired up to use good sense and protocol before traipsing down for a field trip.

The show's not bad at all, if you just sit back and accept it for what it is, but that one scene, where Archer seems to lay blame at Phlox's feet, as Phlox stands there with his head hanging down to his chest, really made me want to smack Archer upside the head.

Hello.....LISTEN to T'Pol next time, jerk-faces!

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 19 March 2015]

This episode suffers from one big problem--the humans are really, really stupid! Too stupid, actually.

When the ship comes upon a planet that has a nice, breathable atmosphere, T'Pol wisely suggests caution and common sense, as it's a newly identified place and COULD prove hostile. She suggests several days of observations and tests before landing--all which seems very reasonable. However, the captain behaves like Buck Rogers and sends a landing party immediately! Naturally, it turns out to be a big mistake...a big STUPID mistake.

The idea of the planet and their LSD-like pollen was pretty cool. The idea of having everyone but T'Pol behave like a bunch of 6 year- olds wasn't. A bit weak.

Spoilers !

[rsteinbomer · 8/10 · 14 February 2020]

Combination of "Cloud Miners" & "Devil in the Dark " but nice mix in this story ;)

Anybody Ever Heard of a Protocol?

[Samuel-Shovel · 5/10 · 13 May 2017]

So mankind finally makes it to the stars. We're exploring around, well aware of the fact that there are many many different lifeforms out there far more advanced and physically superior to us. We're practically babies wandering around space, so you think we'd decide to play it safe and be extremely cautious right? WRONG!

Captain Archer and the crew are acting like we're out exploring a hiking trail, not the great unknown. The humans on this ship are acting so stupidly! Just prancing around, going into abandoned ships, exploring uncharted planets. Archer is constantly placing his crew in danger just for the sake of "because I want to". I kind of hope the Enterprise lose a crew member or two just so Archer will stop being so headstrong & impulsive.

This idea of a planet with a spreadable pollen that cause people to hallucinate and become paranoid is a really cool idea. But when the crew find themselves in a bad situation because they are acting like imbeciles, I have no sympathy for them. T'Pol seems like she's the only one thus far that's not completely incompetent. You have a brand new shiny spacecraft costing trillions of dollars and you're letting your head engineer go camping? No, I don't think so. Start running a tighter ship, Archer.

A Senior Trekker writes...................

[celineduchain · 5/10 · 25 March 2022]

We can tell that this series is a Star Trek prequel dealing with the earlier days of space exploration when, after last week's First Encounter with a slug, we have to deal with this week's hallucinogenic pollen. It's a little bit limited if you want to hook viewers into a new show about the exploration of space but the writers were really working in the dark with these early episodes which were written before the cameras ever rolled on the series. They were trying to make something entertaining while having very little scope for expansion outside of the narrow parameters they had been given so it's no wonder so many people switched off.

Watched retrospectively, it's not so bad. The outdoor scenes are refreshing (especially the camp fire) and the illusionary rock-monsters are well realised. The crew conflict is pretty convincing and Novakovich's transporter accident suitably grisly. Dr Phlox appears pretty distressed when he announces the latter's deteriorating condition and likely demise but the Enterprise's first "red shirt" casualty was averted when Scott Bacula pointed out that the script did not allow time for proper recognition of a crew member's death at this early stage of the first season. Hasty revisions allowed for word of his survival at the end.

This was truly a Captain going where no-one in Star Trek had gone before. An actor pointing out how important each crew member was to him and objecting to any of them being so egregiously killed off must have been something of a surprise to those in charge. It's a shame that the character didn't return, however, the other guest actor Crewman Cutler, played by Kelly Waymire, returned to Enterprise several times before her tragically early death at the age of 36 in 2003.

Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.