An alien freighter approaches the Enterprise, asking for technical assistance. Archer rolls out the red carpet for his visitors, as Trip checks out the piece of equipment that seems to be giving them trouble: a stasis pod containing a beautiful, almost human-looking woman. The freighter’s pilots claim she is in suspended animation due to the long journey and their ship’s limited life support resources. As Trip works on the malfunctioning pod, she awakens and shows no sign of wanting to be in the pod, or on the freighter for that matter. When Trip releases her, the freighter’s captain attacks him, undocks from the Enterprise and takes off. One of the pilots is left aboard the Enterprise, and Archer and T’Pol have to improvise a good cop-bad cop routine to get any information from him. In the meantime, Trip resourcefully makes his own escape with the woman – a kidnapped princess – in tow, using one of the freighter’s escape pods. Now he doesn’t know which will prove more dangerous: finding a habitable planet on which he can set up camp and send a distress signal to the Enterprise, or dealing with his arrogant passenger.

teleplay by David A. Goodman
story by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
directed by David Livingston
music by Paul Baillargeon

Guest Cast: Padma Lakshmi (Kaitaama), Leland Crooke (Firek Plinn), Scott Klace (Firek Goff)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Stardate 56844.9: On the eve of the wedding of Commander Riker and Counselor Troi (and their reassignment as Riker is scheduled to take command of the U.S.S. Titan), the Enterprise investigates sensor readings indicating positronic activity, and on a distant world the disassembled body of a Soong-type android is found. When Data assembles his newfound “brother,” it identifies itself as B-4, and it turns out to be very primitive indeed – perhaps even an original prototype constructed before Lore. Picard receives new orders from Starfleet Command: Admiral Janeway is sending the Enterprise to begin peace talks with what appears to be a new Romulan government. But when he arrives at Romulus, Picard finds a young human – almost a mirror image of himself – has installed himself as the Romulan Praetor after killing the entire Romulan Senate in a coup. Picard is given shocking proof that Shinzon, the new Praetor, is a young clone of himself. Shinzon claims to have been the remnant of an abandoned project to replace Picard and infiltrate the Federation, but now – with the same drive, ambition and charisma as Picard possesses – he claims to want peace. Picard is concerned by the blood spilled by Shinzon’s coup, especially when Shinzon commands a gigantic battleship called the Scimitar. Troi suffers a telepathic intrusion from Shinzon’s Reman Viceroy, and Dr. Crusher discovers something else – thalaron radiation, which, when used as a weapon, completely disrupts living matter at a submolecular level. B-4 also appears to be part of whatever plot Shinzon is hatching, though Geordi and Data discover this in time to prevent the android from passing any sensitive information along to Shinzon. Shinzon kidnaps Picard and beams B-4 aboard the Scimitar – though he doesn’t realize until later that he has brought Data aboard instead. Data helps Picard escape after the captain learns of Shinzon’s true agenda: to topple not just the Romulans, but the Federation as well. And unless someone makes a supreme sacrifice to destroy it, Shinzon has a weapon more than adequate to the task.

screenplay by John Logan
story by John Logan & Rick Berman & Brent Spiner
directed by Stuart Baird
music by Jerry Goldsmith

Cast: Patrick Stewart (Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Riker), Brent Spiner (Data / B-4), LeVar Burton (Geordi), Michael Dorn (Worf), Gates McFadden (Beverly Crusher), Marina Sirtis (Troi), Tom Hardy (Shinzon), Ron Perlman (Viceroy), Shannon Cochran (Senator Tal’aura), Dina Meyer (Commander Donatra), Jude Ciccolella (Commander Suran), Alan Dale (Praetor Hiren), John Berg (Senator), Michael Owen (Helm Officer Branson), Kate Mulgrew (Admiral Kathryn Janeway), Robertson Dean (Reman Officer), David Ralphe (Commander), J. Patrick McCormack (Commander), Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher), Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan), Majel Barrett Roddenberry (Computer voice)

Notes: A scene introducing Commander Madden (played by Steven Culp), Riker’s replacement as the Enterprise’s first officer, was cut out of the film. Director Bryan Singer, Patrick Stewart’s boss in the X-Men films, plays an uncredited role as an Enterprise bridge officer. One of the Starfleet ships at sector 1045 is the U.S.S. Archer, according to the viewscreen display; this may or may not be a reference to Captain Archer of the 22nd century Enterprise. In a bit of a blooper, Picard looks at a photo of himself in a Kirk-era Starfleet cadet uniform, completely bald – though in the fifth season episode Violations, it was established that he had hair as recently as when he brought Jack Crusher’s body home.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

River seems to be getting psychic flashes of the crew’s thoughts, thoughts that make her feel isolated from the crew. She has a vision of a branch in the cargo bay – but the branch she’s holding turns out to be one of Jayne’s guns. The crew’s concern about River’s erratic behavior only grows when Kaylee informs them of River’s skill with a gun during the rescue from Niska. Mal tries to figure out what to do about River, not realizing that the ship is being tracked by Jubal Early, a bounty hunter who intends to take the decision out of his hands. Jubal inflitrates the ship, incapacitates Mal and Book, and locks most of the crew in their quarters after threatening Kaylee. He forces Simon to help him look for River, holding the threat of violence against Kaylee over his head. The doctor reluctantly complies, but they have no luck. Eventually, River’s disembodied voice begins to speak to them. She claims to have disappeared, to become one with the ship. In truth, she’s inside Early’s ship, offering to go with Early in exchange for the crew’s safety. Simon refuses to go along with this – but is he staging a rescue, or simply ruining a cunning plan?

written by Joss Whedon
directed by Joss Whedon
music by Greg Edmonson

Guest Cast: Richard Brooks (Jubal Early)

Notes: Kaylee observed River’s shooting skills in War Stories. This is the last one-hour episode that Fox broadcast. A brief scene was reshot to explain Inara’s decision to leave Serenity, since Heart of Gold – where she made that choice – was never aired. Whedon restored the original intended version to the DVD version of the episode.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer

Shortly after picking up three alien refugees, the Enterprise is caught in the path of a violent neutronic storm, whose radiation will kill the crew within mere minutes of exposure. Sick bay looks like the only part of the Enterprise with enough shielding to protect the crew, but it can’t hold everyone. Then Trip remembers the radiation shielding of the ship’s warp engines – even though the warp reactor will have to be taken offline and there’s only a long, narrow crawlspace, the “catwalk” inside the warp nacelles can protect the ship’s crew, and their increasingly shifty visitors as well. But while Archer and his crew take shelter in the engine, they’re unaware when an alien spacecraft docks with the Enterprise, and powerless to stop the ship’s soldiers from taking over the bridge. The Enterprise’s new guests are in pursuit of the refugees – and they decide they’d like to steal the ship as well.

written by Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong
directed by Mike Vejar
music by Jay Chattaway

Guest Cast: Scott Burkholder (Tagrim), Zach Grenier (Renth), Aaron Lustig (Guri), Elizabeth Magness (Crewman #1), Danny Goldring (Alien Captain), Brian Cousins (Alien Lieutenant), Sean Smith (Alien Crewman), and Porthos

LogBook entry by Earl Green

In 2511 AD, humans have long since left Earth to terraform and colonize other worlds. A group of central planets have formed an Alliance and demanded that all other planets join up. Some Independent worlds on the frontier choose to fight instead. At the Battle of Serenity Valley, the Alliance delivers a crushing blow to the Independents; soon after, the Alliance consolidates its control.

Six years later, former Independent Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds captains a transport ship he named Serenity. His fellow Independent vet Zoe is his first mate; her husband Wash pilots the Firefly-class vessel. An almost-but-not-quite-obnoxiously optimistic young engineer named Kaylee keeps Serenity running, while the self-interested mercenary Jayne provides some extra muscle. Inara, a licensed Companion, rents one of the ship’s shuttles; the presence of a highly-respected Companion opens doors for the crew that would otherwise be closed.

Mal and his crew perform an illegal salvage job on a wrecked Alliance ship and travel to Perspehone, expecting to drop off the goods and pick up some passengers to bring in extra cash. Shepherd Book, a clergyman who aims to see life outside his abbey for a while, comes aboard, as does Simon Tam, a young doctor with some very large cargo, and one more passenger named Dobson. The salvage dropoff goes sour, because the would-be buyer has learned that the Alliance has imprinted the goods and thus made them very traceable. Mal is forced to divert course and find an alternate buyer for the goods. When the third passenger turns out to be an Alliance agent who broadcasts their location, that’s bad news. When Simon turns out to be fugitive on the run with some very important cargo, it gets worse. And when Simon’s cargo turns out to be his sister River, the situation threatens to reach entirely new levels of badness. Kaylee is shot, and the doctor will only save her if Mal agrees to help him run. Savage humans called Reavers get Serenity in their sights. And Patience, the only possible buyer of the salvage, has had prior dealings with Mal. She shot him then, and he’s pretty sure she aims to repeat the favor this time around – if everyone else trying to kill or capture the Serenity crew gives her the chance.

written by Joss Whedon
directed by Joss Whedon
music by Greg Edmonson
main title theme by Joss Whedon

Regular Cast: Nathon Fillion (Mal Reynolds), Gina Torres (Zoe), Alan Tudyk (Wash), Jewel Staite (Kaylee), Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb), Morena Baccarin (Inara), Sean Maher (Simon Tam), Summer Glau (River Tam), Ron Glass (Shepherd Book)

Guest Cast: Carlos Jacott (Lawrence Dobson), Mark Sheppard (Badger), Andy Umberger (Dortmunder Captain), Philip Sternberg (unnamed), Eddie Adams (unnamed), Colin Patrick Lynch (Radio Operator), Bonnie Bartlett (Patience)

Notes: This two-hour episode was the original pilot for Firefly. When Fox expressed reservations about it, executive producers Joss Whedon and Tim Minear wrote The Train Job as a replacement introduction to the series. Serenity wound up being the last episode Fox aired. When broadcast on Fox and Sci Fi, episodes end with a diagram of Serenity; on the DVD, they end with an executive producer credit for Joss Whedon and Tim Minear.

LogBook entry by Dave Thomer