Search
Cookie Usage Statistics Colour Key Sudden Death Monthly Poll Caption Comp eMail Author Shops
Ships Fleets Weaponry Species People Timelines Calculators Photo Galleries
Stations Design Lineage Size Charts Battles Science / Tech Temporal Styling Maps / Politics
Articles Reviews Lists Recreation Search Site Guide What's New Forum
Jonathan Archer Soji Asha Reginald Barclay Julian Bashir Chakotay Christine Chapel Pavel A. Chekov Pavel Chekov Zefram Cochrane Beverly Crusher Wesley Crusher Damar Daniels Data Dax Richard Daystrom Degra Dukat Michael Eddington Elnor EMH Forrest Elim Garak Gowron Guinan Kathryn Janeway Agnes Jurati Kahless the Unforgettable Kes Harry Kim Kira Nerys James T. Kirk James T. Kirk Geordi La Forge Leeta Lore Martok Travis Mayweather Leonard McCoy Leonard H. McCoy Morn Raffaela Musiker Narek Alynna Nechayev Neelix Nero Nog Keiko O'Brien Miles Edward O'Brien Odo Thomas Eugene Paris Phlox Jean-Luc Picard Christopher Pike Katherine Pulaski Q Quark Janice Rand Malcolm Reed William T. Riker Cristóbal Rios Rom Alexander Rozhenko Worf Rozhenko Sarek Sarek Hoshi Sato Montgomery Scott Scotty Seska Seven of Nine Shran Silik Benjamin Sisko Jake Sisko Noonien Soong Soval Spock Spock Hikaru Sulu Hikaru Sulu Surak B'Elanna Torres T'Pau T'Pol Deanna Troi Lwaxana Troi Charles Tucker III Tuvok Nyota Uhura Nyota Uhura Weyoun Winn Adami Natasha Yar Additional People The Original Series The Next Generation Deep Space Nine Voyager Enterprise La Sirena Star Trek XI Enterprise

Silent Enemy

ReviewImagesDatapointsQuotesMorals
TimelinePreviousNextYour View
Title :
Silent Enemy
Series :
Rating :
2
Overall Ep :
12
First Aired :
16 Jan 2002
Stardate :
1-Sep-51
Director :
Year :
Writers :
Season Ep :
1 x 11
Main Cast :
Guest Cast :
YATI :
Talking about the phase cannon, Reed claims that their power is 500 Gigajoules. He should more properly have said this was their energy output, as the Joule is a unit of energy not power.
Great Moment :
Reed thinking that Hoshi was coming on to him when she tried to find out what his favourite food was. The phase cannon blowing up the mountain was also rather cool.
Body Count :
Two crewmen were injured by the alien scans.
Factoid :
John Rosenfeld, who plays Mark Latrelle in this episode, had a small part as an alien technician in Voyager's "Friendship One" .

Plotline

When a mysterious alien vessel launches repeated attacks on Enterprise, the crew struggle to get the ship's armement up to specs by adding phase cannon. Archer begins to wonder if he should have taken the ship out on her maiden voyage before she was fully ready.

Analysis

An okay episode, but it never really amounts to much. Enterprise is in a bit of a bind when it comes to making alien races, because on the one hand they really can't use species that were first contacted in TOS and TNG (not that that actually stops them from doing it anyway), but on the other hand anything that the NX-01 encounters should be a species TOS and TNG already know well.

So for example it's a little weird that they encounter this alien species here, but then apparently the species is never seen or encountered again over the next two centuries.

Still, it's an interesting idea to have an enemy who you can't really reason with because they literally just completely ignore anything you have to say. And there is a creepy atmosphere. It's also nice to see the NX-01 developing new capabilities, though of course the whole "phase cannon" thing doesn't really make a lot of sense. Ships of this era should have laser cannon and atomic weapons as their primary armament. Why not just call them lasers instead of phase cannon?

It's typical of Enterprise's approach to making the ship more primitive than that TOS/TNG ships, which is to make the technology do exactly the same things in exactly the same ways whilst calling it by ever so slightly different names. So they're not phaser cannon, they're phase cannon. And apparently that makes all the difference.

I also have to say, if they're going to make a CGI alien then why stick to something humanoid? Agreed that these don't look like "man in a suit" aliens, but why not go all out and give us something genuinely different? Seems like a lost opportunity.

Still, the episode is reasonably effective, and all in all it's a decent effort.
© Graham & Ian Kennedy Page views : 45,189 Last updated : 4 Dec 2017