Strange New World (Star Trek: Enterprise)

"Strange New World"
Star Trek: Enterprise episode
Episode no.	Episode 4
Directed by	David Livingston
Written by	Rick Berman Brannon Braga
Teleplay by	Mike Sussman Phyllis Strong
Produced by	Dawn Valazquez
Production code	104
Original air date	October 10, 2001
Guest stars
Kellie Waymire Henri Lubatti Rey Gallegos
Episode chronology
← Previous "Fight or Flight" Next → "Unexpected"
List of Star Trek: Enterprise episodes

Strange New World is the fourth episode (production #104) of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise. The Enterprise encounters a new world much like Earth. A small crew stays on the surface over night to continue researching the planet. During the night, a violently windy storm brews and forces the crew into a local cave. There, in the cave, crew members believe they are not alone.

Plot

The Enterprise is in orbit an unexplored M-class planet. Archer orders a shuttle to be prepared for an Away Mission. Crewman Cutler tries to make conversation with T'Pol as the shuttlepod is being loaded. After an afternoon on the planet, T'Pol requests that Crewmwen Cutler and Novakovich remain with her to study several nocturnal marsupial species the landing party has discovered. Trip and Mayweather also request to remain on the planet, with Archer's approval.

Later that evening, a storm front approaches so Trip suggests to T'Pol that the landing party use the cave that she discovered earlier in the day for shelter. In the cave, Novakovich becomes paranoid and runs out of the cave; Trip and Mayweather follow with phase pistols. T'Pol takes another pistol and walks in to the interior of the cave to look for other lifeforms, leaving Cutler alone with the remaining pistol. Cutler thinks that she sees T'Pol in conversation with an alien humanoid. However, when she moves closer T'Pol is on her own.

Trip reports in to Archer about his seeing an alien life form and losing Novakovich, they return to the cave where Cutler voices her concerns. The landing party are now suspicious of T'Pol, thinking that she is keeping information about the imaginary lifeforms from them. Archer and Reed attempt to reach the landing party in a shuttlepod but cannot, leaving the landing party to manage until the wind dies down.

Novakavich is beamed up to the ship due to his erratic bio-sign, where Phlox finds he has been subjected to tropolisine, a hallucinogenic compound found in the pollen on the planet. Meanwhile, Trip is suffering from paranoid delusions, shooting at the imaginary aliens in the walls. T'Pol uses the distraction to retrieve a phase pistol and levels it at Trip.

Phlox discovers Novakovich is dying, poisoned by an unexpected side-effect of tropolisine. T'Pol reports to Archer that Trip is irrational and that Mayweather and Cutler are nearly unconscious. Reed beams the antidote down to the cave, and Archer lies to Trip about a secret mission from Starfleet, to persuade him to lower his weapon. Trip does and T'Pol stuns him. She then retrieves the antidote and injects the landing party.

External links

• Strange New World at the Internet Movie Database
• "Strange New World" at TV.com
• Strange New World at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Strange New World at StarTrek.com