1 – Broken Bow, Part 1

Grade: B

Summary

A Klingon crash-lands his ship into a farmer’s field in Oklahoma. He’s being chased by two other aliens we have never seen before in the Star Trek universe. He evades capture by running into a grain silo, then destroys it. The two aliens are killed in the explosion. The farmer comes out and shoots the Klingon, but he’s not dead.

Starfleet leaders are determined to return him to Q’onos, despite the reluctance of their allies, the Vulcans. The Vulcans finally convince Starfleet to allow a science officer to be assigned to the ship for this mission.

Commentary

This episode is a good start to the series, despite the inconsistencies between some of the details of the story and details that have already been established in the other Star Trek series. I’m not sure if I liked the flashback scenes or if they were unnecessary.

One thing that I really never liked about this series is how the Vulcans were portrayed. Seriously, does it make sense that they would prevent Earth from traveling the stars? It’s been almost 100 years since the events of First Contact, and Humans are finally allowed the chance to go out beyond their own solar system. I don’t understand the motives of the Vulcans here. Besides that, I wonder how it could even be possible that humanity would have even allowed Vulcans to hold them back. To me, it just seems like writers of this series just didn’t like the First Contact movie, so they came up with some excuse to keep humans out of space for another 100 years.

Of Note

It was nice to see James Cromwell again as he returns to play the role of Zefram Cochrane.