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Fortunate Son (Star Trek: Enterprise)

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"Fortunate Son"
Star Trek: Enterprise episode
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 10
Directed byLeVar Burton[1]
Written byJames Duff
Featured musicDennis McCarthy
Production code110
Original air dateNovember 21, 2001 (2001-11-21)[2]
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
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"Cold Front"
Star Trek: Enterprise season 1
List of episodes

"Fortunate Son" is the tenth episode (production #110) of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise, and was written by James Duff. LeVar Burton served as director for the episode.

Captain Archer is contacted by Admiral Forrest to assist ECS Fortunate, a Y-class freighter. Archer, Lieutenant Reed, Doctor Phlox, and Ensign Mayweather learn from the first officer that the Fortunate was attacked by Nausicaans and that the captain was injured. Enterprise helps repair the Fortunate until sensors show that the 23-member crew has an additional person aboard.[4][5]

Plot

An Earth freighter with a crew of twenty-three, ECS Fortunate, is attacked by Nausicaans and Enterprise is sent to help. When they arrive, the freighter is relatively unharmed apart from Captain Keene, who is lying unconscious in the ship's infirmary, but the rest of the crew are secretive and reluctant to provide explanations. While helping repair Fortunate, Sub-Commander T'Pol detects a Nausicaan bio-sign. It transpires that Commander Matthew Ryan and his men are secretly torturing the captive for his shield access codes. Ryan admits the Nausicaan pirate is their prisoner, but refuses to let the Starfleet personnel see him, and Captain Archer threatens to retract his assistance to Fortunate.

Ryan seemingly relents, but as Archer and his away team enter a cargo section of the freighter, the cargo pod is suddenly jettisoned with the away team inside. Before Fortunate warps away, it attempts to damage Enterprise in order to delay pursuit. Enterprise recovers its people and begins pursuit of the rogue freighter. Meanwhile, Fortunate arrives at the asteroid used by the Nausicaan pirates, but discover the acquired shield codes are useless. The pirates attempt to board the freighter and rescue their captured crewman just as Enterprise arrives and begins to engage the Nausicaan ships.

Archer is soon able to broker a temporary truce: if they can return the Nausicaan captive, the boarding party will stand down. Ryan is uncooperative until Ensign Mayweather intervenes, saying that Ryan's motivations are not about preventing future attacks on Earth ships; they are about personal revenge, and doing so simply exposes other freighter crews to revenge attacks as well. Ryan relents. Later, Archer and Captain Keene of Fortunate discuss Ryan's actions and his demotion to Crewman 3rd class. They agree Ryan acted rashly, but Keene also muses that acting on their own is the primary motivation his people are out here — to both challenge and prove themselves.

Production

This episode explored the culture of "Space Boomers", the lives of people working and living in space long term on slow moving commercial freighters, rather than the more advanced Starfleet vessels such as Enterprise. The writers planned to further explore Boomers culture and had another story or two in mind, but Brannon Braga said they didn't want to keep meeting humans because "it made it feel like Enterprise was still a little too close to home." They also wanted to try and develop Mayweather and not have him only talking about Boomers all the time.[6] The show would revisit Boomer culture in season 2 in the episode "Horizon". This episode was written by James Duff, who would later become an executive producer on season two of Star Trek: Discovery and season one of Star Trek: Picard.[7] This was the second episode of Enterprise directed by LeVar Burton. Burton directed 28 episodes of Star Trek television in this period, including for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise.[8]

Guest star Lawrence Monoson praised director LeVar Burton for his understanding and ability to communicate with the actors: "there was a scene I felt went particularly well, except for one point where I thought I was really awful and missed the beat. Afterwards Levar came up to me and before I said a word he knew which part I wasn't thrilled with. He's got a great eye. Levar makes you feel part of the creative process, and that means a great deal, especially if you're a guest star."[3][9] Monoson spoke of his approach to the character of Matthew Ryan: "He's not Starfleet. He's a blue-collar worker, and I wanted to keep him as natural as possible. Conversely, like the Enterprise crew, he's an astronaut, a trained professional. It was a bit of a challenge trying to find the balance between being naturalistic and playing the style of that world, but it's one I enjoyed."[3] Guest star Danny Goldring previously appeared on Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and also returns as a different character in season two episode "The Catwalk".[10][7]

Reception

Fortunate Son was first aired in the United States on UPN on November 21, 2001. According to Nielsen Media Research, it received a 3.8 rating share among adults. This means it had an average of 6.1 million viewers.[11][12] The relatively low ratings were attributed to the episode being broadcast the night before Thanksgiving, the share of the audience watching at 7% remained comparable.[13]

Michelle Erica Green of TrekNation said the episode was "a bit didactic and predictable" but interesting for revealing something that had not been addressed before, the relationship between civilian merchant ships and Starfleet, and the character development of Mayweather.[14] Darren Mooney of the m0vie blog called it "a solid premise ruined by an overly simplistic execution."[15] In 2014, Jordan Hoffman writing for Playboy ranked this episode 446 out of 695 Star Trek episodes, and called it a "Nice bit of world building".[16] Keith DeCandido of Tor.com gave it six out of ten in his 2022 rewatch.[7]

Home media

This episode was released as part of Enterprise season one, which was released in high definition on Blu-ray disc on March 26, 2013;[17] it has 1080p video and a DTS-HD Master Audio sound track.[18]

References

  1. ^ "Star Trek: Enterprise - S1 - Episode 10: Fortunate Son". Radio Times. Archived from the original on 2021-04-24.
  2. ^ "Next on Enterprise: Fortunate Son". StarTrek.com. Archived from the original on 2001-11-18.
  3. ^ a b c Krutzler, Steve (March 7, 2002). "Guest Actors Waymire and Monoson Talk with 'Cult Times' About ENT Roles". TrekWeb.com. Archived from the original on March 7, 2013.
  4. ^ "Fortunate Son". StarTrek.com.
  5. ^ "The Trek Nation - Fortunate Son". TrekToday.com. 3 October 2021.
  6. ^ "Enterprise Year One". Star Trek Communicator Issue 139. August 2002. p. 24.
  7. ^ a b c DeCandido, Keith R. A. (24 January 2022). "Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: "Fortunate Son"". Tor.com.
  8. ^ "Star Trek: Every Actor Who Also Directed Episodes Or Movies". ScreenRant. 2021-04-09. Retrieved 2021-05-15.
  9. ^ "Lawrence Monoson on his "Enterprise" Guest appearance in 'Fortunate Son". Cult Times. 6 March 2002. Archived from the original on 2007-01-29 – via Sci Fi Pulse.
  10. ^ Jordan Hoffman (April 4, 2015). "ONE TREK MIND: Trek-Batman Crossovers". Star Trek.com.
  11. ^ "Episode List: Star Trek: Enterprise". TVTango. Archived from the original on February 15, 2016. Retrieved April 1, 2021.
  12. ^ "ENTERPRISE Nielsen Ratings". UC Davis. 3 December 2003. Archived from the original on 2003-12-03.
  13. ^ Christian (December 7, 2001). "TrekToday - 'Enterprise' Remains November Sweeps Hit".
  14. ^ Michelle Erica Green (November 22, 2001). "The Trek Nation - Fortunate Son". TrekToday.com.
  15. ^ Darren Mooney (2015-01-13). "Star Trek: Enterprise – Fortunate Son (Review)". the m0vie blog.
  16. ^ Jordan Hoffman (December 11, 2014). "Every Episode of Every 'Star Trek' Series Ever, Ranked -- Part Three". Playboy.com. Archived from the original on 2014-12-12.
  17. ^ Scott Collura (March 26, 2013). "Remembering Star Trek: Enterprise with Scott Bakula". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on July 28, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  18. ^ "Star Trek: Enterprise - Season One Blu-ray Release Date March 26, 2013". Retrieved 2021-06-11.
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