Fortunate Son

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Travis Mayweather saves the day when the Earth Cargo Ship Fortunate is boarded by Nausicaan pirates. Cops, commerce, and crooks? It's hardly Star Trek at all, at least in the evolved unselfish humanity department. You'd think they still used money and everything!

Like Horizon (where Travis grew up), ECS freighters are unguarded and virtually unarmed. In fact, in another hundred years, they'll be unmanned, too. Freeing all these people to enrich themselves and the rest of humanity with art. Maybe some acting lessons. Oh, I kid!

Something stinks like a Tenebian skunk, and it's the local Abu Ghraib. Fortunate's First Officer and 'Last American Virgin' Matthew Ryan is torturing a Nausicaan. When Archer threatens to stop repairs if the alien isn't released, Ryan shoots at Archer, too. Equal opportunity madman!

Hard to believe, but the Nausicaans have been bullying humanity longer than Klingons, yet never tangling with Johnny Starfleet until today. Also, these are the chattiest, most articulate Nausicaans I've ever seen. (Maybe the ones taunting Picard in monosyllables were dope fiends?)

Revenge is a motive that 'doesn't sit right' with Archer. "Just because someone isn't born on Earth doesn't make him any less human." Good words, Jon. Try to remember that sentiment in two years.

"Fortunate Son" abandons this series' attempted verisimilitude with language barriers. English must be the language of interstellar commerce! That or Hoshi has got the Universal Translator working so beautifully that it reaches thousands of kilometers away to another ship... before Enterprise ever gets there.

A good show for Travis, but he seems a little TOO eager to ride a transporter. 'Ooo! I wanna feel what it's like to be in two places at once! And be riddled with dirt and leaves like that Ethan guy! Rad!'