Star Trek: Enterprise: Babel One

"Babel One" is the twelfth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise, and originally aired on January 28, 2005. The episode was written by Mike Sussman and André Bormanis, and directed by David Straiton. "Babel One" was the first of a three-part story which continued in the episodes "United" and "The Aenar". The arc was intended to precede the Romulan War which had been mentioned in previously aired episodes of the franchise, while "Babel One" was a reference to the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Journey to Babel". Set in the 22nd century, the series follows the adventures of the first Starfleet starship Enterprise, registration NX-01. In this episode, Enterprise is escorting a Tellarite Ambassador, when they respond to distress calls from Andorian vessel under attack. Pursuing the mysterious attacking vessel, they begin to uncover a plot to derail cooperative relations between the Tellarites, Andorians and Humans. The guest cast included several actors who had previously appeared in the franchise, including Lee Arenberg, Brian Thompson and Jeffrey Combs. It also featured Molly Brink for the second time as Lieutenant Talas. The episode required extensive make-up for the guest cast, with Brink undergoing more than four and a half hours of work prior to filming for her first day on set as she had to be painted blue head to toe in addition to the normal prosthetics. Reviewers were positive of the episode, calling it an improvement on the previous week's "Observer Effect", and praised the ending. Although Nielsen ratings of 1.7/3 percent showed an improvement over the previous episode, the number of actual viewers was the lowest yet for the series with 2.53 million watching the episode on the first broadcast.