Trek Today's sources were the first to report details about the ninth episode to be filmed in ENTERPRISE's third season, titled "North Star". The episode finds Captain Archer and his crew visiting a planet in the Delphic Expanse where humans from the 1880s old west were captured, transported and relocated on an alien world, to be used as slave labor. After toiling in servitude for three decades the humans revolted, eventually overpowering their alien oppresors and becoming the masters instead of the slaves. When Enterprise visits the planet, they find that the humans have modeled their society after the western frontier and still have cowboys, ranchers, sheriffs and saloons. Archer also finds that the aliens who brought them to the planet are now on the receiving end of the society and are treated as second-class citizens by the humans.
The episode drew the ire of some readers who compared "North Star"'s western setting with that of Joss Whedon's cancelled Fox series FIREFLY. The criticism drew the attention of the show's writer, David Goodman, who defended his story in the site's message forums. Goodman told Trek Today readers that he pitched the idea for "North Star" to ENTERPRISE showrunner Brannon Braga as similar to the classic STAR TREK episodes where Kirk and company visited planets modeled after eras in Earth's history, such as 1920s Chicago or 1930s Nazi-controlled Germany. "It was really inspired by those episodes, and since it's a Western setting, I paid homage to 'Spectre of the Gun' by naming one of the aliens Cronin," explained Goodman, recalling the episode where Kirk and his landing party were forced to relive the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral.
"North Star" will likely be broadcast closer to the end of the year or possibly in early 2004.
