"Azati Prime" is the eighteenth episode of the
third season of the American
science fiction television
Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s, during what is called the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary ...
series ''
Star Trek: Enterprise
''Star Trek: Enterprise'', titled simply ''Enterprise'' for its first two seasons, is an American science fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. It originally aired from September 26, 2001, to May 13, 2005 on Uni ...
'', the 70th overall. The episode was written by
Manny Coto
Manuel Hector "Manny" Coto (born June 10, 1961) is an American writer, director and producer of films and television programs.
Coto was the executive producer and showrunner of ''Star Trek: Enterprise'' in its final season, and executive produc ...
from a story developed by Coto,
Rick Berman
Richard Keith Berman (born December 25, 1945) is an American television producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work as the executive producer of several of the '' Star Trek'' television series: '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', ...
and
Brannon Braga
Brannon Braga (; born August 14, 1965) is an American television producer, director and screenwriter. Best known for his work in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, Braga was a key creative force behind three of the franchise's live action series. He la ...
. It was directed by
Allan Kroeker
Allan Kroeker (born April 10, 1951, in Winnipeg, Manitoba) is a Canadian film and television director, cinematographer, screenwriter, film editor and film producer. He has the distinction of directing the series finales for '' Star Trek: Deep ...
, his second of the season. The episode featured several guest actors, including those playing members of the
Xindi Council, as well as
Matt Winston
Matthew Winston is an American actor. He is the son of special effects artist Stan Winston.
Career
Winston's television appearances include the HBO dramas '' Six Feet Under'' and '' John from Cincinnati'', and as Crewman Daniels in '' Star T ...
who reprised his role of Temporal Agent
Daniels for the second time this season.
Set in the 22nd century, the series follows the adventures of the first
Starfleet
Starfleet is a fictional organization in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. Within this fictional universe, Starfleet is a uniformed space force maintained by the United Federation of Planets ("the Federation") as the principal means for conduc ...
starship ''
Enterprise
Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:
Business and economics
Brands and enterprises
* Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
* Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
* Enterprise ...
'', registration NX-01. Season three of ''Enterprise'' features an ongoing story following an attack on Earth by previously unknown aliens called the
Xindi. In this episode, the crew track a Xindi superweapon down to a planet and Captain
Jonathan Archer
Jonathan Archer is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. He is the protagonist of the television series ''Star Trek: Enterprise'', where he is portrayed by Scott Bakula.
Archer is the commanding officer of the first starship ' ...
(
Scott Bakula
Scott Stewart Bakula (; born October 9, 1954) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in two science-fiction television series: as Sam Beckett on ''Quantum Leap'' and as Captain Jonathan Archer on ''Star Trek: Enterprise''. For ''Quantum L ...
) seeks to destroy the weapon in a suicide attack. He is captured, and the ''Enterprise'' is seriously damaged after an attack by four Xindi vessels.
The USS ''
Enterprise
Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:
Business and economics
Brands and enterprises
* Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
* Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
* Enterprise ...
''-J appeared in this episode, based on designs by
Doug Drexler
Doug Drexler (born in New York City) is a visual effects artist, designer, sculptor, illustrator, and a makeup artist who has collaborated with such talents as Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, Meryl Streep, and Warren Beatty. He began hi ...
. The ship was from 400 years in the future from the timeframe that the series is set in, and the bridge set was created mostly using
green screen
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to r ...
.
John Eaves also created several designs of aquatic Xindi vessels for this episode. "Azati Prime" received
Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...
of 2.6/4 percent. Critical reaction was mostly positive, with praise directed at the pacing of the episode and the plotting of the overall arc.
Plot
''Enterprise'' approaches Azati Prime where the Xindi are constructing their super weapon. Captain
Archer
Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In mo ...
sends Commander
Tucker
Tucker may refer to:
Places United States
* Tucker, Arkansas
* Tucker, Georgia
* Tucker, Mississippi
* Tucker, Missouri
* Tucker, Utah, ghost town
* Tucker County, West Virginia
Outer space
* Tucker (crater), a small lunar impact crater in the s ...
and Ensign
Mayweather
Mayweather is a surname, and may refer to:
* Anthony Mayweather (born 1985), professional wrestler, also known as Crimson
* Earring George Mayweather (1927–1995), American blues harmonica player and singer
* Floyd Mayweather Sr. (born 1952), fo ...
on board a Xindi shuttle they had just captured to investigate the planet. Working their way past security, they approach the weapon, which is being built underwater. Archer orders ''Enterprise'' to destroy a Xindi detection facility on the planet's moon to prevent it from signalling the ship's presence. The shuttle returns with scans of the weapon and Archer decides to pilot a suicide mission to destroy it. The crew try to talk him out of it but he is resolute.
Archer then finds himself 400 years in the future on board the USS ''
Enterprise
Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:
Business and economics
Brands and enterprises
* Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
* Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
* Enterprise ...
''-J, alongside Temporal Agent
Daniels. They are at the battle where the
Sphere Builders (the alien species first seen in episode "
Harbinger
A harbinger is a forerunner or forewarning, but may also refer to:
Companies
* Harbinger Corp., an Internet-oriented business
* Harbinger Capital, a hedge fund
* Harbinger Knowledge Products, an eLearning products and content services company
...
") are defeated and Daniels gives Archer an initiation medal from a Xindi who had joined
Starfleet
Starfleet is a fictional organization in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. Within this fictional universe, Starfleet is a uniformed space force maintained by the United Federation of Planets ("the Federation") as the principal means for conduc ...
as temporal evidence. Back on his ''Enterprise'', Archer rejects the notion of a Human–Xindi
détente
Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduc ...
and leaves on the shuttle. He arrives at the super weapon construction site but finds it gone, and is rapidly captured by the Xindi Commander
Dolim.
The Reptilians begin to interrogate Archer, who then asks to speak to
Degra
This is a list of recurring characters from the live-action science fiction television series ''Star Trek: Enterprise'', which originally aired on UPN between 2001 and 2005. The television show takes place in the 22nd century of the ''Star Trek' ...
, the Primate scientist from episode
Stratagem. Using Daniels' medal, Archer tries to convince Degra that the Reptilians cannot be trusted but Dolim arrives with armed colleagues and takes the
Primates
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
away. Sub-Commander
T'Pol
T'Pol () is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. Portrayed by Jolene Blalock in the series ''Star Trek: Enterprise'', she is a Vulcan who serves as the science officer aboard the starship ''Enterprise'' (NX-01).
Concept and cr ...
, in command of ''Enterprise'', displays signs of an emotional breakdown. She also decides to go on a mission, to negotiate a peace and reacts angrily when Tucker tries to stop her. An attack from four Xindi ships follows, and the episode concludes with a
cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode or a film of serialized fiction. A cliffhang ...
, as ''Enterprise'' is left severely damaged.
Production
"Azati Prime" was the first episode of ''Enterprise'' to be filmed in 2004, starting on January 5. Filming took eight days, concluding on January 14. The eighth day overlapped with the production of the following episode, "
Damage
Damage is any change in a thing, often a physical object, that degrades it away from its initial state. It can broadly be defined as "changes introduced into a system that adversely affect its current or future performance".Farrar, C.R., Sohn, H., ...
". The story was developed by
Manny Coto
Manuel Hector "Manny" Coto (born June 10, 1961) is an American writer, director and producer of films and television programs.
Coto was the executive producer and showrunner of ''Star Trek: Enterprise'' in its final season, and executive produc ...
alongside
Rick Berman
Richard Keith Berman (born December 25, 1945) is an American television producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work as the executive producer of several of the '' Star Trek'' television series: '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', ...
and
Brannon Braga
Brannon Braga (; born August 14, 1965) is an American television producer, director and screenwriter. Best known for his work in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, Braga was a key creative force behind three of the franchise's live action series. He la ...
. Coto developed it into a script, his third of the series. The director of the episode was
Allan Kroeker
Allan Kroeker (born April 10, 1951, in Winnipeg, Manitoba) is a Canadian film and television director, cinematographer, screenwriter, film editor and film producer. He has the distinction of directing the series finales for '' Star Trek: Deep ...
, who also directed "
The Xindi
"The Xindi" is the 53rd episode of the American science fiction television series ''Star Trek: Enterprise'', the first episode of the third season. It first aired on September 10, 2003, on the UPN. The episode was written by executive producers ...
" earlier in the season as well as the final episodes of both ''
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' and ''
Star Trek: Voyager''.
The episode featured a number of guest stars, including Smallwood, Oglesby, MacDonald and Worthy who appeared in their recurring roles on the Xindi council. Winston appeared as Daniels for the second time during season three,
having made his debut in season one's "
Cold Front
A cold front is the leading edge of a cooler mass of air at ground level that replaces a warmer mass of air and lies within a pronounced surface trough of low pressure. It often forms behind an extratropical cyclone (to the west in the Norther ...
".
The Xindi shuttle set had been constructed for "
Hatchery
A hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial conditions, especially those of fish, poultry or even turtles. It may be used for ex-situ conservation purposes, i.e. to breed rare or endangered species under controlled condit ...
", while a new set was constructed for the bridge of the ''Enterprise''-J which consisted mostly of a
green screen
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to r ...
.
[ The future ''Enterprise'' was designed by ]Doug Drexler
Doug Drexler (born in New York City) is a visual effects artist, designer, sculptor, illustrator, and a makeup artist who has collaborated with such talents as Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, Meryl Streep, and Warren Beatty. He began hi ...
, who drew the first design only two days prior to the production meeting for the episode. The computer generated model was created in a few hours, and Drexler later said that they would have finished it differently. He imagined that the vessel was so large that there would be universities and entire parks on board, with the turbolifts replaced by short range transporters. More than one design was created, with the final version created with elements from different designs. One of the elements incorporated into the version seen on screen was a reduction in the size of the warp nacelle supports as Drexler said that he did not like that they had increased in size. John Eaves also created a number of designs for aquatic Xindi vessels for use in the episode, as well as a rejected design for the superweapon.
Reception
"Azati Prime" was first aired in the United States on UPN
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which prod ...
on March 3, 2004. It received a 2.6/4 percent share among adults. This means that it was seen by 2.6 percent of all households, and 4 percent of all of those watching television at the time of the broadcast. ''Enterprise'' was the sixth most watched program in the timeslot, behind ''Smallville
''Smallville'' is an American superhero television series developed by writer-producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, based on the DC Comics character Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The series was produced by Millar Gough ...
'' on The WB
The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...
. It was estimated that "Azati Prime" was watched by 4.02 million viewers, which was less than recent episodes had received.
Michelle Erica Green of TrekNation
TrekNation is a reference and community website for the ''Star Trek'' franchise. It also serves as a hub for its network websites: TrekToday, a news site updated nearly daily; The Trek BBS, which describes itself as the largest ''Star Trek'' ...
compared elements of the episode to the ''Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' franchise, such as the Xindi superweapon standing in for the Death Star
The Death Star is a fictional space station and Weapon of mass destruction, superweapon featured in the ''Star Wars'' Space opera, space-opera franchise. Constructed by the autocratic Galactic Empire (Star Wars), Galactic Empire, the Death Star ...
. She found the pacing made the episode "engrossing" and thought that the action sequences would qualify it for technical Emmy Awards
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
. She said that the one flaw in the episode was the characterisation of Archer and T'Pol, as she felt that some of their actions were implausible. Jamahl Epsicokhan on his website Jammer's Reviews
TrekNation is a reference and community website for the ''Star Trek'' franchise. It also serves as a hub for its network websites: TrekToday, a news site updated nearly daily; The Trek BBS, which describes itself as the largest ''Star Trek'' ...
, gave "Azati Prime" a rating of three and a half out of four. He thought it was compelling and was impressed with how elements of earlier episodes were brought together, also saying that it was "possibly the most entertaining episode of ''Enterprise'' yet this season". Aint It Cool News
Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book proj ...
gave the episode a rating of 3.5 out of 5, and generally praised the episode but complained that Archer found himself in a prison cell yet again. Film and television critic Jordan Hoffman
Jordan Hoffman is an American freelance film critic and former actor, director, and producer. He is best known for his work with ''New York Daily News'', ''The Guardian'', Film.com, ''Vanity Fair (magazine), Vanity Fair'', ''ScreenCrush'', and ...
gave the episode four out of five, and said that the Xindi storyline was reaching a peak.
In 2005, James Gray writing for ''The Digital Fix'' said "Azati Prime" was probably the best episode in the series yet, and had the best space battle scene of all ''Star Trek'' television and movies up to that time.
In 2019, Io9
''io9'' is part of Gizmodo media since 2015, and it began as blog launched in 2008 by Gawker Media. The site initially focused on the subjects of science fiction, fantasy, futurism, science, technology and related areas but over the years has ...
/Gizmodo
''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...
ranked the fictional spacecraft design shown in this episode, the Enterprise-J, as the 11th best version of starship Enterprise of the ''Star Trek'' franchise.
Home media release
The only home media release of "Azati Prime" has been as part of the season three DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
box set, released in the United States on September 27, 2005. The Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
release of ''Enterprise'' was announced in early 2013 and season three is expected to be released in January 2014.
References
External links
*
{{Star Trek time travel episodes
Star Trek: Enterprise (season 3) episodes
2004 American television episodes
Television episodes written by Rick Berman
Television episodes written by Brannon Braga
Television episodes about time travel
Star Trek time travel episodes