North Star (Star Trek: Enterprise)

Plot

While in the Delphic Expanse, Enterprise discovers a planet inhabited by about 6,000 humans living in the fashion of the 1860s American frontier alongside an alien race called Skagarans. Captain Archer, Commander Tucker and Sub-Commander T'Pol beam down in period costume to investigate. In a town, Archer stops Deputy Bennings from belittling a Skag waiter.

Sheriff MacReady tells Bennings to watch Archer. Archer enters the house of a teacher named Bethany, and they depart for Skag Town, the remnants of a 300-year-old wrecked spacecraft. Tucker and T'Pol travel back to Enterprise to investigate data logs found in the wreckage.

Ensign Sato discovers the humans overthrew their Skagaran masters after being abducted from Earth centuries earlier. Bennings arrests Bethany for teaching Skagaran children; Archer helps her escape, but she is shot. Archer orders an emergency beam-up.

Production

"North Star," the third episode of the season, was directed by David Straiton. Writer David A. Goodman, who had previously penned "Judgment" and "Precious Cargo" as well as the Star Trek-themed Futurama episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before," took on the challenge from executive producer Rick Berman to craft a "parallel Earth" story suitable for Enterprise, inspired by The Original Series episodes "A Piece of the Action" and "Patterns of Force." Goodman included a nod to "Spectre of the Gun" by naming a character Cronin, while the name Kitty came from the 1940 film "Santa Fe Trail," not the series "Gunsmoke."

He later called "North Star" his favorite episode of the series. It stands as the third Western-themed Star Trek episode, following "Spectre of the Gun" and The Next Generation's "A Fistful of Datas." Guest stars included Emily Bergl (Bethany), who had appeared in the miniseries "Taken"; Glenn Morshower (Sheriff MacReady), a veteran of The Next Generation and Voyager; and James Parks (Deputy Bennings), also from Voyager. This was the first season three episode filmed on location, moving from Paramount Studios to Universal Studios' back lot to use the "Six Points Texas" Western town set.

Filming there began on the second day of a five-day shoot, utilizing the main street, livery stable, saloon, and schoolhouse. The livery stable had appeared in the 1940 film "My Little Chickadee." A shuttlepod set-piece was brought from Paramount. Twelve horses were used, with stunt doubles for main cast members riding scenes, and stunts were supervised by Vince Deadrick Jr. Scenes on Paramount's standing sets were shot on the first and last days, overlapping with the first day of shooting for the next episode, "Similitude."

Reception

North Star first aired on November 12, 2003, on UPN, receiving a 2.6/4% share among adults 18–49, the same as the previous episode Twilight but showing a loss of 200,000 viewers overall. It received lower ratings than the following episode Similitude, which had a 3.0/5% share. Michelle Erica Green of TrekNation in 2003 said she expected something similar to Spectre of the Gun but found it more similar to Voyager's The 37's, describing it as stylish and beautifully paced with a morality play that did not get too heavy-handed or silly, though she felt it was one-sided due to lack of information on the Skagarans, summing it up as a fun, throw away episode.

Jamahl Epsicokhan on Jammer's Reviews called it a shallow Trek adventure by the numbers, all about setting and rarely about substance, giving it two out of four, and later described it as one of the mediocre episodes of season three. Shannon Nutt wrote in a 2014 High Def Digest review that it was one of her two favorite episodes of the third season, but acknowledged most fans disliked it. Keith R. A. DeCandido wrote a 2023 retrospective considering it one of the absolute worst episodes of Enterprise, giving it a 1/10 ranking, calling it a bog-standard Western story while granting that guest stars Emily Bergl and Glenn Morshower put in good performances.

Did You Know?

• Jay Chattaway's music for the episode was released as part of the four disc Star Trek: Enterprise Collection on December 2, 2014.
• The season was released on Blu-ray in the United States on January 7, 2014.