Twilight (ENT episode)
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"Twilight" is an episode of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise that was broadcast midway through the show's third season. It is considered one of the best episodes of Enterprise by many critics and fans alike.
Plot summary
Twilight_(ENT_episode).jpg
Like TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise" and Voyager's "Year of Hell", this episode involves an alternate timeline. While rescuing T'Pol from a spatial anomaly, Archer is infected by subspace parasites in his cerebral cortex, resulting in anterograde amnesia. His condition, reminiscent of Alzheimer's Disease, prevents him from forming new long term memories. In other words, Archer remembers everything prior to the accident, but any new memories would fade within a few hours. It becomes clear that Archer is not fit for duty, and he is subsequently relieved of his command. Admiral Forrest of Starfleet grants T'Pol a field commission to Captain. Unfortunately, the mission fails. Earth and every human colony is wiped out by the Xindi. The only surviving convoy of humans is lead by Enterprise under T'Pol's command to Ceti Alpha V.
Twelve years pass and Dr. Phlox finds a cure. Unfortunately, the Xindi track Phlox right to the human colony and begin to attack. This, however, corrects the timeline - Phlox discovers that when he uses radiation treatments to kill one of the parasites in Archer's brain, said parasite also vanishes from every medical scan Phlox took - as if the parasite never existed. Phlox and Enterprise crewmen devise a plan in which Archer will be subjected to repeated radiation treatments which will eliminate all of the parasites in his brain; therefore, since Archer will never have been infected, this alternate timeline will cease to exist. Unfortunately, the ship is attacked by Xindi vessels and is destroyed; however, Phlox's device has already completed its task - even though the Enterprise is destroyed, so are the parasites (which exist outside the normal space/time realm). The episode then goes back to when Archer is in sick bay after being injured from the anomaly. However, since the parasites themselves never existed, Archer is never infected and the alternate timeline is excised.
External link
- Episode information from STARTREK.COM (http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/ENT/episode/2906.html)
- Template:Memoryalpha article