Terra Prime

"Terra Prime" is the 21st episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise, and originally aired on May 13, 2005. The story was developed by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, along with André Bormanis, and developed into a script by the Reeves-Stevenses and show runner Manny Coto. The episode is the second of a two-part story, which started in "Demons". The episode was directed by Marvin Rush, his second for the series.

Set in the 22nd century, the series follows the adventures of the first Starfleet starship Enterprise, registration NX-01. In this episode, John Frederick Paxton, the leader of the xenophobic human group Terra Prime, threatens to use an array on Mars to destroy Starfleet Command, unless all aliens leave Earth immediately. Enterprise, Captain Archer and an away team covertly take a shuttlepod to the array and attempt to stop Paxton and rescue their crew-mates.

The guest actors who appeared in "Demons" were joined by Derek Magyar and Eric Pierpoint, who appeared earlier in the season in "Affliction", while Joel Swetow had previously appeared in episodes of Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation. The script called for a reference to the United States space program and so the Carl Sagan Memorial Station and the Mars Exploration Rover Sojourner were included in a shot added in post production. "Terra Prime" received a Nielsen rating of 2.0/4% and it was praised by critics who described it as a "real" episode and there were suggestions that had Enterprise gone into a further season then the story could have acted as an ongoing subplot.^[3][4] Prior to broadcast, Coto characterized "Terra Prime" as effectively the finale of Enterprise, in contrast to the actual last episode "These Are the Voyages...", which he likened to an epilogue.^[5] It was ranked as the best episode of the series by Empire.