"Minefield" is the 28^th episode (production #204) of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise. A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ... The starship Enterprise (NX-01) Star Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. ...

Synopsis

The Enterprise begins to orbit a seemingly unclaimed planet for observation when it runs into a cloaked mine, heavily damaging the ship and flooding sickbay with injured crew members. The NX-01 then makes first contact with the Romulan Star Empire when two Romulan Warbirds arrive and demand that they leave the Romulans' terriotory. However, the Enterprise crew is without warp speed so they can't leave, and it is still inside of the cloaked minefield. Soon, another cloaked mine attaches itself to the hull but doesn't immediately explode. Lt. Reed performs a spacewalk in an EVA suit to try to disarm it, but accidentally activates a magnetic grappling spike that impales his leg before attaching to the ship's hull, thus pinning him to the mine with limited air. Any attempt to cut the spike might just set off the mine. The Enterprise (NX-01) is a starship in the Star Trek fictional universe commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer. ... Jump to: navigation, search In several science fiction universes, a cloaking device is an advanced stealth system which causes a spaceship or individual to be invisible and extremely difficult to detect with normal sensors. ... Mine can refer to a number of things: Mines are tunnels used in mining for extraction of resources. ... The Romulans, a fictional race in the Star Trek universe, are descended from Vulcans and are characterized as being deceitful, cunning, and treacherous. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Enterprise-D goes into warp. ... Astronaut Bruce McCandless on an untethered EVA Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth and outside of his or her spacecraft. ... Woodblock print of Vlad III Dracula attending a mass impalement. ... A hull is: the outer covering of a fruit or vegetable, may also be called a husk the body or frame of a ship; see hull (ship) Several places in the world are called Hull: Kingston upon Hull - a city in England usually referred to as simply Hull. ...

Analysis

A complaint about this episode is that the first appearance of the Romulans doesn't really build up a plot: Berman and Braga would later reveal that originally this episode was to feature just a nameless enemy of the week, but at a writers' meeting is was decided to make them the Romulans at the last minute. Therefore, this was seen by fans as something of a shameless attempt to garner more ratings by throwing around the name "Romulans", because ultimately they didn't do anything very "Romulan" at all. Berman and Braga would later say that they adamantly refused to use Romulans on Enterprise, as the first time a human physically sees a Romulan doesn't happen until Kirk's time. However, the Earth-Romulan War was supposed to be fought in the late 2150's and the episode is set in 2152. Indeed, the conflict with the Romulans is essentially the World War II of space. However, their criticism was "What do you want us to do, have them wear helmets?". This upset many fans who realized that the Romulans are the major nemesis of pre-Federation Earth. It was not until two years later, apparently under the influence of newly added executive producer Manny Coto, that the Romulans were introduced again as major recurring villians. Jump to: navigation, search World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atom bomb World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a mid-20th-century conflict that... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Also, this was some of the gravest damage that the NX-01 had taken in the series at this point. Although often criticised for making nothing but standalone episodes for Enterprise, the entire next episode is devoted to trying to repair the crippled ship. Another problem is that because there are only 83 crewmembers aboard Enterprise, it was felt during Enterprise's first two years that the death of any extras should be avoided as it would make a major drain on the crew roster. Thus, despite the heavy damage taken in this episode, once again there are no Redshirt deaths on the series. Jump to: navigation, search A redshirt is a stock character in science fiction whose sole purpose is to die violently soon after being introduced. ...

Plot

This list of Star Trek: Enterprise episodes is accompanied by each episodes original airdate on UPN in the United States, along with its Nielsen rating, and number of viewers. ...

External link

• Minefield article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki