Ok, I know the headline of this review makes it sound like I hate history. In actuality, I don't. I really love history, which is probably strange because I also love science fiction as well. And don't get me wrong, there has been a lot of Star Trek episodes to where I've enjoyed some of the historical and future historical content of the episode.

The "Enterprise" episode "Carbon Creek," however, will not be considered as one of them.

Sub-Cmdr. T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) celebrates her one-year anniversary as a member of the Enterprise crew, and she does it with as much excitement as a Vulcan can muster: the telling of a story that barely kept the audience awake.

T'Pol's great-grandmother is on some Vulcan survey mission that crashlands on Earth in the 1950s -- right after the Soviets launch Sputnik. With the captain dead, and the crew unsure whether or not the Vulcan High Command has received their distress call, T'Pol's grandmother and crew assimilate themselves into a town called Carbon Creek, Pa. Since I myself am a native of a small town in Pennsylvania (although I live in the comfort of Tampa, Fla. now), this is a major suck up point. But too bad it wasn't enough.

There was absolutely no excitement, no drama in this episode. It was nice seeing some homages paid toward past Star Trek and its real-life history (the one Vulcan donning a ski cap to cover his ears similar to what Spock had done in the past, and the mention of "I Love Lucy" -- Lucille Ball being the woman responsible for giving the original "Star Trek" a place to be produced). We were given some mining accident, and some hokey rescue scene. The drama was about as fun as watching Vulcans emote. There was none there. Not even an interesting twist, like the kid being a grandfather to Zefram Cochrane or something.

When the Vulcan shipmate wanted to stay, I wasn't surprised, nor did I even care. The whole visit seemed so abbreviated, it was hard to believe that not only were they able to blend in with the small town despite their crazy eyebrows, they were able to get a very nice apartment, too.

And what happened to the Vulcan ship? It didn't seem that the rescue ship collected it. Maybe they collected it before? If they did, no one bothered to mention it.

I also have a problem making relatives look exactly like the main actors. I know that this is being done for dramatic purposes, and the laws of genetics is being ignored, but still ...

OK, I really didn't like this episode. It was dull, it dragged, it was uninteresting, and just seemed like a poor excuse to use some 1950s-era sets that were lying around the Paramount lot. The Romulans debut on "Enterprise" next week ... let's hope the writers remember the "drama" part of the word "drama."

Writing: C
Directing: B
Acting: B-
Story: D

Overall: C

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