Terra Nova (ENT)

Enterprise is best when it's embracing its premise. Here, the show turns in a solid episode by cashing in on the recentness of Earth's acquisition of warp drive to create a generation-old mystery story that wraps around to another prime directive tale (although of course there isn't yet a prime directive).

The Enterprise travels to the home of Earth's lost deep space colony, to discover it peopled with savage subterranean aliens. In a twist so predictable you can hardly call it that, the aliens turn out to be the colonists, but the show doesn't rest for a beat on that weak reveal. The why of how the colonists came to live underground and lost the knowledge of their race is slowly revealed: in the midst of a growing political conflict with the homeworld, the colony was hit by an asteroid whose radiation killed all but the children, who inherited the mistaken idea it was an attack by humans.

The now-grown Novans are hostile toward humanity, and they kidnap Malcolm Reed. Archer and company have to build a bridge and teach one of the natives to remember the truth so they can rescue Malcolm -- and so they can rescue the colony, whose noncontaminated water supply is running out.

After last week's plot-holey story that didn't seem to know how seriously to take itself, this is a welcome installment. T'Pol's nagging had been toned down, the crew's chemistry is gelling. Amazingly, Enterprise is a much quicker starter than most of the latter shows.

The guest stars do fine here, even if the native dialect (English with keywords swapped out for other word that are related) is a bit of a scifi cliche.  The aboriginal makeup is another thing that arguably doesn't work. But the writing is solid and the story moves at a good clip -- as I said before, even when the revelations aren't earth-shattering, the plot doesn't need them to be, always moving on to another reveal.

There are some questions raised but never quite answered about what constitutes a distinct culture, and whether relocating a small number of humans one generation removed from their society is tantamount to destroying one. But better good questions that hang in the air than no real ideological meat to speak of.

Random Observations

-- It's high time for a Travis Mayweather episode. Also for a Malcolm Reed episode, which, despite appearances, this isn't.

-- This is apparently Brandon Braga's least favorite episode of the show, which shows he and I have different tastes.

-- Sorry I missed last Tuesday, and this week is so short. I'll be playing catch-up with a bonus post some time this week.