Star Trek: Enterprise (TV Series) Storm Front, Part II (2004) User Reviews

Finally Some Rest

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 27 March 2017]

I appreciated that this set of events was handled in two episodes. I don't know if I had the staying power to try for 24 episodes to handle the Nazis. Archer must enlist the Suliban commander and the earth people to attack the time machine being built. One problem with the Suliban is their shape shifting which added an element of doubt over who and what was real. The whole business with a bunch of gangsters was a bit absurd. They were able to overcome the Nazi's with nary a casualty. I wasn't as engaged in this one because the villains weren't as well developed.

A History of Errors

[filboid2000 · 7/10 · 2 December 2020]

Clearly the writers of this episode knew more about science fiction than world history. Reed explains that Lenin was assassinated in 1916 and that it left a vacuum in leadership; that is quite unlikely as that Leon Trotsky most certainly would have stepped in to fill Lenin's shoes. Furthermore, Germany never really saw Russia as a threat (at least not a big one) even when Stalin was its leader. In fact, Germany saw Russia as a target; "Lebensraum" (living space) for the German people as per Hitler's "Mein Kampf" doctrine (they were eventually going to attack Russia no matter who was in charge). Also, Reed mentions how Germany took over France, then Belgium and The Netherlands, before overrunning England. In reality, the French Maginot Line was a major obstacle to a German attack from the east and that's why Germany attacked The Netherlands and Belgium first (and in that order) so as to mount a much easier invasion of France from the north. In addition to which, Germany had already been concentrating on the west long before training its sights on Russia (who happened to be an ally at the time). Finally, Germany was unable to invade Great Britain because they could neither attain air superiority nor mount a massive amphibious invasion force, and if the mere 21 to 350 miles of the English Channel posed as an insurmountable obstacle, crossing the 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean would have been next to impossible. But even if the impossible were possible, it is doubtful that the United States would have happily sat on its hands while Germany sailed across the Atlantic with conquest in mind. In short, even in "re-writing history", the writers of this episode managed to get it wrong.

Timeline Restored

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 27 September 2009]

Captain Archer and Silik organize with the resistance an attack to Vosk's facility to destroy the conduit that he is building to travel back to his century. Silik is killed by a shot of a Nazi and Trip gather to Archer. The Enterprise flies over New York City heading to the plant and firing photonic torpedoes to destroy the time machine. Daniel is alive again and tells Archer that the timeline is restored back to normal, and the Enterprise returns to two hundred years ahead.

Despite the paradoxes, "Storm Front: Part II' is a good conclusion to the last episode. The evil leader of the Temporal Cold War Vosk is destroyed and I believe that if Daniel is resuscitated, the same might have happened to Silik. The Enterprise is back to the normal period of time and ready for a new adventure. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Tempestade Temporal - Part II" ("Temporal Storm - Part II")

Alien Space Nazis! Part Two!!

[sogoodlooking · 9/10 · 23 September 2020]

This two-parter was a lot of fun (though exhausting, binged after the wild ride that was Season Three), had numerous clever and affecting scenes, and several excellent guest actors.

Why do you do this to me, Enterprise?

[phenomynouss · 10/10 · 12 October 2010]

After two years of being as bad or worse than "Voyager", Season 3 of Enterprise pulls the Xindi story arc, a full season set entirely upon the Enterprise going into the Delphic Expanse, trying to contact and stop a race called Xindi from destroying Earth---a race that is surprisingly NOT all evil wicked villains, even the stereotypical bad guys, the Reptilians and Insectoids, though they are clearly the more antagonistic of the five sub-species.

Then season 3 ends with the big resolution payoff and... ALIEN Nazis! And before I can bawl with laughter at the stupid, they put forth a compelling storyline, intriguing characters, and deep layers to the story, including the Suliban.

In the first episode, we are introduced to an alternate timeline, where Nazi Germany has invaded and occupies the eastern coast of the United States, and characters like the stereotypical 30s gangster are now insurgent freedom fighters. A wicked-looking alien race is apparently helping the Nazis, giving them technology and military assistance in exchange for supplies and resources to build a Conduit, to send them forward in time to where they came from.

These aliens apparently went back in time with the intention of starting an actual war from the Temporal Cold War and changing the timeline.

And yet in completely un-Star Trek Enterprise fashion, these "wicked-looking" aliens are not just outright bad guys. Even though they share in common with the Nazis beliefs of racial superiority and purity, they're willing to help Enterprise, and even revert the changes to the timeline in exchange for helping these aliens.

And yet the layers of politics and diplomacy with the aliens, the Enterprise crew, the Suliban Silik, the future-Federation, are so complex (for Star Trek post-DS9) that Daniels' faction of the Temporal Cold War helps the Suliban, and is considered to be tyrannic by the evil-looking aliens for their constant interference and meddling in the timeline, and Archer ends up helping Silik after an agreement with the aliens falls through.

Season 3 was a huge step up for Enterprise, not just in being "not as awful as Voyager" territory, but even coming close to matching the average TNG episode in terms of quality. Hard decisions were made ("Damage" was incredibly blunt in this regard, with Archer forced to attack and loot an unarmed civilian vessel in order to fix his warp engine, stranding these people 3 years from their homeworld), character development evolved even the stupidest, hackneyed characters like Trip "Catfish" Tucker, and Archer became so involved in his mission and so desperate, he becomes prome to fits of anger, he would resort to torture, threats, and as mentioned above, attacking civilians for a greater good.

This is no longer "Voyager"-style Star Trek, where strict adherence to the Prime Directive (or smug referencing of a future potential Prime Directive) is maintained even at the cost of lives and moral decency, with a technobabble resolution or hackneyed plot device to save the crew from making any realistically harsh decisions.

I hope season 4 continues to better itself in this regard. If so, it'd be an immense tragedy that Enterprise fell to cancellation so soon. The first two seasons of Enterprise were truly terrible, however, and apparently they were the deathknell of the series entirely.

Which is a tragedy, given that "Star Trek The Next Generation" had two full seasons of awful episodes before Season 3's vast improvements saved the series and even elevated it to iconic status, or Voyager having all seven seasons of mediocrity continue unabated.

Resetting the time line

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 8 May 2010]

This second part of a two part episodes starts with Trip and Travis in the custody of the Nazi aliens and Archer back on the Enterprise along with a resistance fighter who seems remarkable calm considering she has just been beamed to a space ship. Archer manages to negotiate for the freedom of his two but soon finds out that one of them isn't who he seems; instead of Trip he finds he has rescued Silik, a Suliban temporal agent. As Salik has the same aims as Archer the two of them work together to return to the surface and destroy the time conduit being constructed by the alien Nazis.

This was a decent episode with some nice action scenes. It was an enjoyable twist when the person we thought was Trip turned out to be Silik. Of course it is always nice to see Nazis having their evil plans thwarted and if they are alien Nazis so much the better.

bad history, big plot holes, but entertaining

[kindofhere · 6/10 · 7 July 2011]

Clearly, the writers of the series have issues with their knowledge of history and their "temporal cold war" timeline play. Assassinating V. I. Lenin before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution would probably not have stopped it, and even if it had, precluding the Bolshevik Revolution would likely have drastically altered the end of World War I to Germany's disadvantage, not given Germany an advantage in World War II. Even assuming their treatment to be correct history, however, the writers still failed to explain how the timeline damage done by that particular event (an event that happened 28 years before the time of the episode) was reversed by killing one Nazi commander and a dozen aliens. The only solution I can think of requires about 5 different time-related paradoxes. Still, it made for a very entertaining few episodes, despite the horrific flaws in writing.

The second part of this WWII era episode is even weirder, as Archer and Silik become allies!!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 11 April 2015]

Of all the episodes of "Star Trek: Enterprise", this two-parter is the strangest. I am not sure if it's because the show jumped the shark or they were being really clever. All I know is that it is strange and I could see how fans might be a bit put off by this.

Part one brought the Enterprise to WWII-era Earth. The Nazis, inexplicably, are being helped by aliens!! Because of this, they are kicking American butt! So why would these ugly-faced galactic dudes be on Earth and why would they help the Nazis?! If that isn't strange enough, you'll see Archer team up with mobsters to help defeat them...as well as Silik!!! If you remember, Silik is the time traveler who battles the good time cops! To see how all this works together and actually makes sense, see the show. It's well done but perhaps too goofy for my taste.

Hard Reset

[Samuel-Shovel · 4/10 · 22 February 2018]

In the second half of this two part episode, Archer must work with Silik to destroy Vosk's time machine in order to fix the timeline. He also needs to track down Trip, still within the compound somewhere. If he can't do this in time, everything maybe lost!

It seems like the show's creators are tying up loose ends by killing off Silik and ending the Temporal Cold War. Boy, do time travel episodes make my head hurt! None of this really makes any sense but I guess that they just wanted to start fresh and get all this behind them. After building up this Temporal Cold War practically all series long, it really ends in a bit of a whimper. Very lame but hey, we no longer have any through lines holding us down and this gives the writers an opportunity to explore new plots and characters. Could they have dealt with ending the Cold War better? Yes, of course, but it's shadow no longer hangs over the series.

Note: Did we really need to bring Nazis into this to finish up this plot thread? Very silly... I will moss the character of Silik though.

Draws a line under the Temporal Cold War

[snoozejonc · 5/10 · 24 November 2020]

Archer and the Mafia conclude the Temporal Cold War against the Alien Nazis.

Again this is one of the most daft concepts in the Trek franchise and I really hope it was their way of having a laugh whilst wrapping up the story arc. It contains some amusing scenes, a good wartime newsreel and one epic line from Archer in response to Trip realising he is not dead, but the best thing about it is that they draw a line under the Temporal Cold War.

Nazis and Aliens v Enterprise and Mafia: That should say enough, without even mentioning the dodgy special effects, particularly the Nazi flag on the White House. Some of the acting is also quite ropey and the less said about the writing the better. When you know a story can only be the characters journey to the reset button you need some major entertainment to get you there. Unfortunately, this at best is moderately entertaining for me.

Most of the actors do their best with the material they have and there are some decent action sequences, but it's a bit uninspiring.

All the time travel in this series pretty much exhausted my interest

[tomsly-40015 · 4/10 · 11 April 2024]

After the last three episodes of the third season were basically one long episode in three parts and brought the Xindi plot and the threat to Earth from the weapon of mass destruction to a happy ending, the authors shouldn't have jumped into the next double adventure straight away. Both the crew and the viewers needed some time to breathe deeply and reflect on the events.

Instead, in the final episode of season three, Archer and the crew of the Enterprise were catapulted back in time to World War II, where a strange alien species changed historical events in Nazi Germany's favor. So the fourth and final season begins with a double episode: Changes in history, the Temporal Cold War that has gotten out of control and the Enterprise crew that wants to return to their time.

It's never a good sign when evil Nazis form the core of the plot in time travel stories. But when it is also about Nazi aliens, it usually becomes ridiculous. Unfortunately, that also applies to this double episode. Thanks to the aliens, Germany even managed to invade the USA. With these two episodes, the story about the Temporal Cold War finally and rather abruptly ends. This theme was built up over four seasons and is then presented with a rather sobering resolution to the conflict. All timelines are straight again and the villain has been eliminated. The fact that this whole story made pretty little sense and that we saw this new faction for the first time in the Temporal Cold War, although they seem to be THE central faction that ultimately messes everything up, didn't help the story at all. I'm still wondering how the timeline in which Nazis invaded America was corrected at the end. In the scene with Daniels and Archer, this timeline apparently corrects itself automatically, but that doesn't make any sense.

The whole story seems like a hasty attempt to wrap up the "Temporal Cold War" theme - with no regard for leaving plot holes so big that Enterprise could fit in them five times over. Silik is dead, Vosk is dead, Daniel is alive again, the timeline has been restored and everyone can now devote themselves to new adventures.