Enterprise’s Archer Copied Picard’s Star Trek: Insurrection Romance – Screen Rant

Summary

Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) has a romance in Star Trek: Enterprise season 1 that essentially copies Captain Jean-Luc Picard's (Patrick Stewart) romantic tryst in Star Trek: Insurrection. In Enterprise season 1, episode 9, "Civilization," the NX-01 Enterprise investigates the Akaali, a pre-industrial humanoid civilization whose population's water supply is being poisoned by another alien race, the Malurans. As Captain Archer, Subcommander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock), Ensign Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), and Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer) get to the bottom of what's happening with the Akaali, Archer becomes attracted to a local apothecary named Riann (Diane DiLascio).

Star Trek: Insurrection, the third film starring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, saw Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the USS Enterprise-E defy Starfleet to protect the Ba'ku, a long-lived peaceful race residing in the section of space called the Briar Patch that has regenerative properties. Picard put a stop to Admiral Dougherty's (Anthony Zerbe) conspiracy with the Son'a and their leader, Ru'afo (F. Murray Abraham), to forcibly relocate the Ba'ku and take control of the Briar Patch. Meanwhile, Jean-Luc found a new love interest in Anij (Donna Murphy), who helped the Enterprise crew defend the Ba'ku planet from the Son'a.

Related: Star Trek: Enterprise Cast & Character Guide

Although the Akaali were not a seemingly immortal race like the Bak'u, there are similarities between Captain Archer getting romantically involved with Riann in Star Trek: Enterprise season 1, episode 9, and Captain Picard's romance with Anij in Star Trek: Insurrection. Neither Starfleet Captains expected to become attracted to a woman from the pre-industrial worlds they found themselves defending from hostile aliens out to exploit their respective planets. Anij comes from the Ba'ku's agrarian society that shuns technology. Riann is, similarly, from a pre-industrial race, and she is a dealer in holistic cures and medicine. Both Anij and Rianne are quite the opposite of the space-faring starship Captains who fell for them, albeit briefly.

Star Trek: Insurrection hit theaters in 1998, four years before Star Trek: Enterprise season 1, but it seems the basic idea of Captain Picard's lone movie romance with Anij was recycled for Archer and Riann on Enterprise. However, at the end of Star Trek: Insurrection, Picard promised Anij he would return to Ba'ku and use up his shore leave to be with her - something he apparently did because in Star Trek: Picard season 3, Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick) mocked Jean-Luc for throwing "the Prime Directive out the window so they could snog a villager on Baku." Archer's actions on Akaali also would have been a violation of the Prime Directive, had General Order 1 been instituted in Enterprise's 22nd century era. Unlike Picard however, Captain Archer didn't promise Riann he would return for her, and their lone kiss was evidently a farewell.

At the end of Star Trek: Enterprise season 1, episode 9, Captain Archer left Riann on her planet, and they didn't see each other again. Archer's behavior is indicative of the playbook established by Star Trek in the 1960s wherein the Captain of the Enterprise has no permanent relationship, no family, and is devoted entirely to his starship seeking out new worlds and new lifeforms. This is why Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Captain Picard, and Captain Archer were essentially lonely men whose sole purpose was commanding their starship. Enterprise was also the last of the episodic Star Trek legacy series, at least in its first 2 seasons, so Archer was bound to the show's format of moving on after solving whatever problem there was in that week's Enterprise episode.

Star Trek: Enterprise could have broken the mold as a prequel, but the show largely played it safe and stuck to the tried and true Star Trek formula. If Enterprise were made today, the show would likely be structured differently and take more "big swings," like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, whose Captain, Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), also commands the USS Enterprise but has a girlfriend, Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano). But Star Trek: Enterprise was a show of its time, which means drawing inspiration from the most successful series of the era, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the films that followed it.

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Enterprise's Archer Copied Picard's Star Trek: Insurrection Romance - Screen Rant