fter a season-long battle to stop the Xindi superweapon and the loss of Capt. Archer (Bakula), the battle-weary crew of the Enterprise returns to Earth. However, something's not right. Trip (Trinneer) and Travis (Montgomery) head down in a shuttle to check things out, but they're fired on by World War II fighter planes. They make it back to the Enterprise only to find that they are now 200 years in the past.
Down on Earth, the Germans have a prisoner in custody who has suffered some burns. A mysterious, melty-white-skinned, red-eyed alien in a Nazi uniform is most interested in the man, Capt. Archer, who somehow survived the explosion of the Xindi weapon and is on Earth, being transported in a truck by the Nazis. When his convoy is attached by the resistance, Archer escapes, only to be shot in the arm by one of the good guys.
Archer ends up in the care of Alicia Travers (Golden Brooks), a kind black woman. He discovers that the year is 1944 and he's in Nazi-occupied Brooklyn. History has been changed, and Archer is certain the Nazi alien has something to do with Germany's successful war efforts. Alicia's resistance friends, Sal (Joe Maruzzo) and Carmine (Steven R. Schirripa), reluctantly agree to help Archer.
Back on the Enterprise, Daniels suddenly appears, and he's near death. T'Pol (Blalock) finds out he's responsible for the ship being trapped in the past, but he's in and out of consciousness and she's not able to get all her questions answered. Elsewhere on the Enterprise, an old enemy appears and causes trouble for the crew.
On Earth, Archer tries to piece together what has happened. Sal and Carmine lead Archer and Alicia to a man who has seen one of these strange red-eyed Nazis. With no way to contact the ship or even know whether the ship is in the same time, Archer sets out to put things right before his timeline is changed forever.
Star Trek's last stand
Last year was a good and a bad year for Enterprise. Those who hung in with the series through its ups and downs finally got to see a Star Trek series go places none of them had ever been before with a season-long arc, while the characters got edgier and edgier. However, the bad news is that it didn't add up to a lot of people, and Enterprise barely survived, getting shuffled off to Friday nights.
The first part of "Storm Front" changes the direction of the series but continues the heavy focus on action. The word Xindi is barely mentioned as Archer and the gang battle a very recognizable enemy in the Nazis, even if the really bad ones are melty-white-skinned, red-eyed aliens. While the Xindi and their planet-destroying weapon may be history, the temporal time war is about to explode.
Overall, writer Manny Coto does a nice job in setting up the situation while making sure getting blown up and shot doesn't slow Archer down too much. We even get a sweet and cuddly moment with Doctor Phlox and Archer's dog, Porthos. This first episode actually sets up Part 2, which looks to be the knock-down drag-out with the temporal bad guys.
While there isn't a lot of time spent with the resistance gang—Sal and his guys were mobsters before the war—there is an interesting view of America. It's the 1940s, and people of all colors, sexes and economic lines are working together to defeat a common enemy. It's an interesting view: that if we had to fight an evil enemy within our own borders, we wouldn't fight with each other. It's an enormous idea that's used in a tiny way as the backdrop for the episode. Of course, having the enemy look like a Nazi takes away any shades of gray.
However, what "Storm Front" is really about is telling a story with lots of action, without wasting too much time on any of that silly science stuff, like: How did they magically get sent back in time? How does time travel even work? And why would changing Earth's past affect time everywhere? Oh, well. It's probably just a spatial anomaly.
