Star Trek: Enterprise — 4x03 — Home

Aired 2004-10-22

SpaceOpera.com rating:6

Average reader rating:4.94

Synopsis

Once the NX-01 finally returns to Earth, the weary crewmen face repercussions of their journeys, both positive and negative.

Remarkable scenes

Archer: "I've been told that people are calling us heroes. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me."
Archer freaking out at Soval for his questions about the events of Ent: Impulse.
Archer: "Things have changed since Enterprise left spacedock. You spend a lot of your time boldly going into battle."
Phlox' blow up face trick.
The joke references to the kalifee from TOS: Amok Time when T'Pol first met with Kos were nicely placed.
T'Pol and Trip visiting the Fire Plains of Vulcan.
Archer and T'Pol making up.
The Vulcan dignitary performing the marriage ceremony. He used the exact same words as T'Pau did in TOS: Amok Time.

Review

Somehow I expected this episode to be just as good as TNG: Family, but it fell short on several levels. There are three plot threads in this episode, one dealing with Archer and his difficulty in accepting hero worship, another dealt with T'Pol and Trip and their relationship, and another dealt with xenophobia on Earth. There is nice continuity all throughout the episode such as that with Ent: The Andorian Incident and Ent: Shadows of P'Jem regarding T'Les and her forced retirement which makes it pleasant to watch and a nice change of pace, but this episode left me with a feeling of inadequacy. More time should be spent on Earth exploring these and other issues, but unfortunately we're not going to get it. Archer was the most interesting character in the episode, with all his self doubt and anger. It was also nice to see more of Vulcan, even if the scope was still somewhat limited. Finally, the xenophobia on Earth is definitely something that wasn't sufficiently elaborated, but a nice idea. Ent: Home is merely a nice idea for an episode incomplete at best. Each plot threat cannibalized the others until none were sufficiently developed. This episode could have easily been a two parter. Or some of the plot threads could have been saved for later episodes. Less time spent on things like Archer dreaming of fighting Xindi reptilians which was totally inappropriate and more time spent on developing the plot threads would have made for a better episode.

6 reader comments

I feel like giving this episode a 10 or something, for the same reason they gave Obama a Nobel Peace Prize once he got elected. I am just so relieved to see the Temporal Cold War over and someone good at the helm of the show.
A decent President? PEACE PRIZE!
A decent Trek episode? 10!
by Pete | 01/11/2011 at 3:07 am

Here's a problem: TOS:Turnabout Intruder had as a major plot point that women were still struggling to get command positions in Starfleet. And here we have a female captain for the second NX-class ship in the Fleet, with absolutely no problem and no big deal. I know it was the '60s in the TOS era, and I understand and applaud their motivations, but for the prequel it would have been nice to see even a little something by way of explanation of this discontinuity.
by zooky | 09/12/2013 at 7:40 pm

Zook, that's a fair criticism, but I'm not sure how they could have addressed it on Enterprise. Unlike the Klingon forehead problem, this is a social issue, not a technical one. I always got the impression that the 23rd century when viewed on TNG's perspective or the perspective of later productions was simply meant to be seen as an actual throwback to older culture values.
Or, in other words, in Captian Kirk's generation, the Federation somehow experienced cultural regressions in women's rights… not to mention fashion. ;)
That's a weak rationalization, but it's not impossible. And it's also all we've got. It would have been nice if there was an episode somewhere that went into this in more detail, but I think the place to explore that would have been in 24th century Trek, not 22nd century Trek. Indeed, it's a pretty big missed opportunity to account for apparent anachronisms in-universe.
by Eric Newport | 09/13/2013 at 2:34 pm

Given the comment from Zook about Turnabout Intruder and female starship captains, there's a couple of factors to consider:
The restriction, if there was any, might have just applied to the 12 ships of the Constitution-class starships like Enterprise NCC-1701.
The one talking about women not having command positions, Janice Lester, was off her box, who in 2013 might have gone all bunny boiler over not being selected as an X-Factor finalist.
by Deggsy | 10/01/2013 at 7:56 pm

It appears I'm alone on my opinion of this episode. Personally, I despised almost everything about it. The cheesy sudden romance of Archer, the over the top and pointless xenophobia induced bar fight.. the Trip and T'pol thing was completely uncalled for as well.. I just don't understand what the point of this episode was.
I can only assume that the point, like the Nazi 2 parter, was to wipe away the established norms of the first 3 seasons and begin with a clean slate. To cancel out the Trip and T'pol relationship, to cancel out Archers moral ambiguity and give him a fresh start, and to give the other characters something to do while they're just faffing about, namely getting all superior and indignant about the easiest and most clichéd injustice there is.. a reminder that our heros are always 100% the good guys and everyone else are a bunch of racist evil bad guys.
by Zorak | 10/15/2016 at 5:37 am

So Archer regrets marooning that ship with its innocent crew…well how about going back for them or least sending someone to bring them back the stuff they stole? nope sorry
by bodner | 01/29/2020 at 6:52 pm