ENT: Borderlands

         First of all I have to say having Brent Spiner show up as a villain in ENT was unexpected and awesome. I wish it was a little clearer that he wasn't playing Noonian Soong since he is essentially always referred to as Dr. Soong, but having looked it up and discovering he is supposed to be Data's fathers ancestor made it a little more obvious. I am not certain if he is supposed to himself be genetically engineered or if it is just his kids. He certainly shows super human intelligence many times in the episode, but not the super strength we tend to associate with augmented people. Also, I get that earth is a little touchy about eugenics after having fought a war over it, but it seems like some genetic engineering is clearly a good idea, and if someone has created super human children, maybe don't just try to lock them up. That they would try to escape is obvious and that they would succeed and be hella resentful towards regular humans who they haven't harmed is double obvious. I am looking forward to seeing how this story plays out.
         We open with a Klingon bird of prey intercepting a shuttle only to have the entire Klingon crew killed by two apparently augmented humans. Cut to Earth were Dr. Arik Soong is in a prison cell when Archer arrives. It seems the humans who took the Klingon ship are augments he created years earlier. They get underway to start the search and we cut to the Klingon ship where the augments are fighting over who should be in charge. Enterprise doesn't get far before being attacked by Orion raiders who taked 11 crew including Hoshi and T'Pol to seel as slaves. Archer and Soong beam down to the Orion slave dealing planet but after T'Pol has already been sold. The new slaves all have a neural implant to keep them from escaping. The augments keep fighting and one kills their former leader, but since we haven't met them before it is hard to get too worked up over it. Soong helps Archer disable the implants in the slaves but it disables all of them so chaos breaks up, but they are able to get their crew back. Soong tries to escape by tasing himself or something but of course that doesn't stop him from being beamed back. The Orions pursue but the Klingon ship shows up and blast them. The augments board Enterprise and take Archer hostage until they can break Soong out. Luckily for them Soong orders them to not destroy Enterprise.

         Review: A interesting episode that delves into Trek's backstory in several interesting ways and has a solid guest star to boot. My understanding is that this season has a bunch of two and three part mini-arcs so I can't wait to see where this goes.

6 out of 10