Minefield (Enterprise episode)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Star Trek: Enterprise episode
"Minefield"
The Enterprise crew assess the damage after encountering a mine Minefield
Episode no.	29
Prod. code	203
Airdate	October 2, 2002
Writer(s)	John Shiban
Director	James A. Contner
Guest star(s)	Tim Glenn Elizabeth Magness
Year	2152
Stardate	unknown
Episode chronology
Previous	"Carbon Creek"
Next	"Dead Stop"

"Minefield" is the 29^th episode (production #203) of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise.

1 Synopsis
2 Analysis
3 Plot
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Enterprise begins to orbit a seemingly unclaimed planet for observation when it runs into a cloaked mine, heavily damaging the ship and flooding sickbay with injured crew members. The NX-01 then makes first contact with the Romulan Star Empire when two Romulan Warbirds arrive and demand that they leave the Romulans' territory. However, the Enterprise crew is without warp speed so they can't leave, and it is still inside of the cloaked minefield. Soon, another cloaked mine attaches itself to the hull but doesn't immediately explode. Lt. Reed performs a spacewalk in an EVA suit to try to disarm it, but accidentally activates a magnetic grappling spike that impales his leg before attaching to the ship's hull, thus pinning him to the mine with limited air. Any attempt to cut the spike might just set off the mine.

[edit] Analysis

A complaint about this episode is that the first appearance of the Romulans doesn't really build up a plot: Berman and Braga would later reveal that originally this episode was to feature just a nameless enemy of the week, but at a writers' meeting is was decided to make them the Romulans at the last minute. Therefore, this was seen by fans as something of a shameless attempt to garner more ratings by throwing around the name "Romulans", because ultimately they didn't do anything very "Romulan" at all. Berman and Braga would later say that they adamantly refused to use Romulans on Enterprise, as the first time a human physically sees a Romulan doesn't happen until Kirk's time. However, the Earth-Romulan War was supposed to be fought in the late 2150's and the episode is set in 2152. Indeed, the conflict with the Romulans is essentially the World War II of space. However, their criticism was "What do you want us to do, have them wear helmets?". This upset many fans who realized that the Romulans are the major nemesis of pre-Federation Earth. It was not until two years later, apparently under the influence of newly added executive producer Manny Coto, that the Romulans were introduced again as major recurring villains.

Also, this was some of the gravest damage that the NX-01 had taken in the series at this point. Although often criticised for making nothing but standalone episodes for Enterprise, the entire next episode is devoted to trying to repair the crippled ship. Another problem is that because there are only 83 crewmembers aboard Enterprise, it was felt during Enterprise's first two years that the death of any extras should be avoided as it would make a major drain on the crew roster. Thus, despite the heavy damage taken in this episode, once again there are no Redshirt deaths on the series.