Carpenter Street (Star Trek: Enterprise)

Temporal Agent Daniels informs Captain Archer that three Reptilians have traveled back in time to Detroit, Michigan, to the year 2004, where they intend to produce a bio-weapon to annihilate humans. The Xindi Council had banned the use of bio-weapons, forcing the Reptilians to take extraordinary measures behind the council's back. Daniels sends Archer and Sub-Commander T'Pol back in time to investigate, and provides Archer with temporal tags, allowing them to bring back anything not belonging in 2004 to their own time-line. Using a hand scanner, Archer is able to steal a vehicle, and T'Pol locates the Xindi bio-signs leading them to an abandoned factory on Carpenter Street. They notice Loomis, a blood bank employee, exiting the building. Suspecting something, they follow him home. After he tries to escape, T'Pol uses the Vulcan nerve pinch to stop him. When he awakes, he believes that Archer and T'Pol are police officers, and requests a lawyer. Archer punches him, and he admits delivering six bodies to his mysterious employers, each one for a different blood type. Archer comes up with a plan, and decides to pose as one of the victims. After being delivered by Loomis, Archer realizes that they are developing some sort of a bio-weapon. Archer begins destroying their technology, and kills one of the three Reptilians. Two others try to escape with the deadly bio-agent, and Archer kills another one as they flee. The last Xindi escapes due to the interference of Loomis, who T'Pol stuns with her phaser. On the factory's roof, Archer corners him as he attempts to release the bio-agent. Archer and T'Pol tag all non-21st-century artifacts, and return to Enterprise. Loomis, still groggy in his car, is apprehended by real police officers and attempts to explain the "lizard people" and their "ray guns." ==Production==

wanted to quit acting while appearing in "Carpenter Street" due to the makeup required for the role The episode was written by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, the executive producers of Star Trek: Enterprise. It was directed by Mike Vejar, his sixth episode of the series. He previously directed episodes for three other Star Trek series. He added that he believed the episode setting was chosen because production values were "easily accomplished" and it "deals with germ warfare, and that certainly is a relevant topic today." Jeffrey Dean Morgan disliked portraying a Xindi Reptilian in "Carpenter Street". He later explained that "I had to pay my bills. I knew I'd play some guy saying some stuff. Then I got a call saying I needed to go in for a prosthetic fitting. I remember them dripping goop on my face, and I had straws sticking out of my nose. I couldn't eat lunch. I was claustrophobic. I'd go home in tears. This was the job that made me want to quit acting." Filming began October 10, 2003, on the standing Enterprise sets as well as a temporary set which represented Loomis' apartment. It continued on the following Monday, along with production on both "Twilight" and "Similitude". On October 13, location shots began for "Carpenter Street" in downtown Los Angeles. As these scenes take place in darkness, they did not start until dusk and the shoot was conducted overnight. The first night comprised the scenes in 21st century vehicles, and the rest of the week was spent at the Lacy Street Production Center, which had urban settings which could represent the downtown Detroit area. During the following week, the production moved back to the Paramount lot where the standing New York Street back lot was used; this included the use of one area where a scene from Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) had been shot. The episode finished filming on October 23, including an overlap with the production of "Chosen Realm" on October 22. ==Reception==

"Carpenter Street" first aired on November 26, 2003, on the UPN network in the United States. It received a Nielsen rating of 2.9/4 percent, meaning that it was watched by 2.9 percent of all adults and 4 percent of all adults watching television at the time of the broadcast. This was the lowest ratings received by any episode during the third season. This slump had been attributed to the date of the broadcast, which had taken place on the night before Thanksgiving, a day which typically sees a large number of people travel, thereby decreasing the overall ratings of television shows. In her review for the website TrekNation, Michelle Erica Green said that the episode entertained, but was an "ultimately pointless time-travel episode that redeems its existence primarily by not requiring a reset button." She thought that Orser was "superb" as the "repugnant" Loomis, and the episode was "entertaining fluff" but was "warm and witty and well-done." Herc of ''Ain't It Cool News'' gave the episode 2.5 out of five, and said fans would likely react to the episode "with a collective shrug" and expressed his disappointment that "nothing of consequence is changed, learned or advanced." The Digital Fix called this episode "dark and gritty" and said it brought some fun ideas. ==Home media release==

A home media release of "Carpenter Street" has been as part of the season three DVD box set, released in the United States on September 27, 2005. The Blu-ray release of Enterprise was announced in early 2013, and released on January 7, 2014. ==References==