Shockwave

**** (4 stars out of 5)

The Paraagans are a humanoid matriarchy, but males have made great progress toward equality lately. They've got a tv show called Mad Women dramatizing the old prejudices and can you believe how much everyone DRANK back then? None of this social progress helps any when Enterprise drops by and their atmosphere ignites. Except that everyone got cooked equally.

3600 colonists are killed in the "Shockwave". Everyone feels pretty horrible but nobody can figure out if it was their fault. I mean, they definitely didn't leave the oven on...

Enterprise's mission is about to be cancelled early and ignominiously. (Best get used to THAT!)

But wait, what's this? That dead guy Daniels is less dead than previously thought! And he gives Archer a Quantum Leap into his own body 10 months ago to prove that he's a time traveller. (Or that he's got holograms and/or hypnotic drugs, I suppose.)

Be that as it may, Archer returns with all the right test answers he needs to steal information proving the explosion was a Cabal frame-job. Screw those skeptical Vulcans who said we couldn't do it on our own! We... DIDN'T of course, but why let THEM know that? Why, if Daniels stays in contact, we'll never have to think for ourselves again! Dashing the illusion of free will for fun and profit! Whee!

Oh, wait. The Bad Guys Strike Back- Silik and his squaddies demand Archer. Archer bravely complies for the sake of his friends- and walks into the future instead. Distraught Daniels reveals there's been a bit of a boo-boo. Actually, it might be more than a boo-boo. It might be a debacle. O.K., I tell a lie. It's the biggest cock-up in the history of time travel and hyperbole! Taking the Captain forward destroyed all humanity somehow. Now the 31st Century is a huge pile of rubble with no working time machines. Or toilets. Or maybe everywhere is a toilet! But Archer has a plan, right? Step One: Activate an army of WALL-Es to start digging. Step Two: Learn to like Kissing Daniels.

Time's Orphan

*** (3 stars out of 5)

If I was Miles O'Brien, I'd long since have a complex that the universe really, really hated me for some reason. At least once a year, some unprecedented awful thing happens to this guy!

What he deserves: nice picnic with the family.

What he GETS: insane gut-wrenching disaster!!!

Today his daughter falls through a time portal of unknown origin. Molly winds up all alone on the habitable but empty planet Golana, 300 years ago.
Thanks to alien litterbugs, when your kid falls down a well she never stops falling.

The crack Starfleet team beam her back: but somehow it's ten years too late. She's now a feral, disturbed 18 year old.

Molly spends a couple of days grunting and swaying like a t'ee inna win'. But Liam Neeson is unavailable to help acclimate Poor Space Nell. Perhaps the O'Brien's cat Chester will help? Well, perhaps not. He's just a cat, after all.

Meanwhile Worf, who has apparently battled Kelvans twice his size, must now face the terrible challenge of babysitting Kira Yoshi O'Brien. (Did the Kelvans turn against the Federation after all? Does Worf just fight them on the holodeck? Maybe some Kelvans are just jerks!)

"Time's Orphan" features the adult saving the child version of themselves, which is a fine thing. See "Yesteryear" for a version of the same story that I personally found more meaningful. Still, it's worth it to see Quark get bitten (he probably deserves it) and to see Worf teaching combat skills with a baby rattle.