History Series / StarTrekEnterprise

** No mater how much he begs for it, do not feed cheese to Porthos.

->''"On this site, a powerful engine will be built. An engine that will someday help us to travel a hundred times faster than we can today. Imagine it -- thousands of [[PlanetOfHats inhabited planets]] at our fingertips... and we'll be able to explore those strange new worlds, and seek out new life and new civilizations. This engine will let us go boldly... [[MythologyGag where no man has gone before]]."''

* HybridsAreACrapshoot: Zigzagged in a two-part story arc towards the end of the series. A baby is created from the DNA of Trip (a human) and T'Pol (a type of alien called a Vulcan) such as that she's essentially their daughter even though T'Pol was never pregnant. Throughout the episodes, the baby has a fever and high white blood cell count which ultimately kills her, and other characters wonder if it's because humans and Vulcans have incompatible chromosomes. As it turns out, however, the baby was just created imperfectly; humans and Vulcans are indeed capable of safely interbreeding.

* TrainingThePeacefulVillagers / TheMagnificentSevenSamurai: "Marauders"
* TranslationConvention (unless [[CunningLinguist Hoshi's translating abilities]] are crucial to the plot). Also ExpospeakGag, MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels, EitherWorldDominationOrSomethingAboutBananas, PardonMyKlingon, and CurseOfBabel (any episode where Hoshi can't translate).

* DoubleBlindWhatIf: The episode “In a Mirror, Darkly” has Mirror Universe Archer tell T’Pol that in his universe Zefram Cochran killed the Vulcans and stole their ship, and idly wonders what would have happened had FirstContact been peaceful... which is in fact what happened in the “main” universe.

* MoreThanJustATeacher: Before she got her job on the ship, Hoshi Sato was a language teacher.

* MovingAngst: In "Fight or Flight?", Hoshi is unnerved by her new home on a spaceship— she thinks the stars are "going the wrong way" out her window, she feels like she's bad at her job when dead bodies make her scream, and she's afraid of the noises the engine makes.

* VoodooShark: The show’s creators tried to explain away its CosmeticallyAdvancedPrequel nature by claiming that it took place in its own timeline, created by the Borg’s actions in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact''. Fan reaction to this explanation was almost universally negative — at best it was viewed as a silly solution to a problem that only a tiny minority of fans really cared about, and at worst it was felt to make the show’s prequel status meaningless if it wasn’t in the same continuity as the prior shows — and so the reboot movies and ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' unsurprisingly ignored it, presenting this show as fully in-continuity with both.

* TheOneWith: "Regeneration". Known fondly as the "The One With The Borg".

** Purposefully invoked and deconstructed in "Damage", where Archer realizes that in order to reach Azati Prime in time to prevent the Xindi from destroying Earth, he ''must'' engage in piracy and steal a replacement warp coil from the Illyrians. In other words, become [[NotSoDifferent no different]] from the Osaarian pirates from "Anomaly" that he so despised. This happens a couple of times in the Expanse, where Archer takes actions that he would never have dreamed of before and would have thought of as completely hypocritical when it was only his ship, crew and mission he had to take care of, but which become horribly necessary when the fate of his entire species (and throw in half the quadrant too) are on the brink of extinction.

* NotSoDifferent:

* SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay: SpaceIsAnOcean, SpaceIsNoisy, TwoDSpace [[note]] though this was actually [[AvertedTrope averted]] in "Acquisition" [[/note]], InSpaceEveryoneCanSeeYourFace, and every other standard ''Franchise/StarTrek'' misrepresentation.

** In "The Aenar", Regulus is used as a staging ground for [[spoiler:a Vulcan invasion of Andoria]]. Considering how far away Regulus is from those systems, it's likely the writers took some [[ArtisticLicenseAstronomy creative license]] here for the sake of using a familiar name.

** A literal example of the trope is in "Carpenter Street," which takes place in Detroit and ends with a shot of some mountains which aren't within a hundred miles.

* NeverTrustATrailer: Season 2 had trailers for three episodes ("A Night in Sickbay", "Cogenitor", and "Bounty") portrayed as light-hearted, sex-filled episodes. Sickbay was a disaster, and Bounty had the sex stuff as a cheap b-plot. Cogenitor, on the other hand, was very dark, but also critically very well received. "Cogenitor" actually tried to analyze the moral questions of oppression and whether non-interference is the best course of action, and is generally considered one of the few standout episodes from the first three seasons. It's just that fans look back and chuckle at how goofy the trailer looked.

* MythologyGag: There were three major Admirals in the series, Admiral Forrest, Admiral Leonard and Admiral Williams. The original series PowerTrio was [[TheKirk Kirk]] (William Shatner), [[TheSpock Spock]] (Leonard Nimoy) and [[TheMcCoy McCoy]] ([=DeForest=] Kelley). Kelly was the first of them to pass away; Admiral Forrest is the most prominent of those Admirals in the series.

* SpacePirates: "Fortunate Son", "Acquisition", "The Catwalk", "Anomaly." The Klingons have a habit of plundering undefended colonies ("Marauders", "Sleeping Dogs", "Judgement"), and even Archer has to resort to these tactics during the Xindi War ("Damage").

* YouKeepUsingThatWord: T'Pol invokes "logic" whenever dealing with the subject of TimeTravel. T'Pol has met time traveller Daniels, seen his advanced technology and even once parsed through a futuristic archive which included a complete history of Vulcan ships that ''haven't been built yet''. She has encountered a pod that is BiggerOnTheInside that contained a dead human corpse that had ''Vulcan'' DNA, something that is currently impossible by today's science. When the evidence is repeatedly standing right in front of her, concluding that time travel is possible would be called a ''logical'' conclusion.

** {{Deconstructed}} with T'Pol's Pa'nar syndrome. The Vulcan Mind-Meld subculture and related Pa'nar syndrome disease served as allegories for homosexuality and AIDS, including the scorn heaped upon the former and the stigma attached to contracting the latter. Archer and Phlox repeatedly expressed their distaste for the Vulcan bigotry related to this issue, but they themselves continually point out that T'Pol, who has Pa'nar Syndrome, is not a member of the Mind-Meld minority, and attracted the disease through a non-consensual attack. T'Pol eventually pointed out to them that, by attempting to "excuse" her having the disease, they are supporting and even justifying the DoubleStandard that the High Command has against the Mind-Meld minority.
** In "North Star", the theme of overcoming prejudice and tolerance is slightly undone as Bethany, the only person willing and able to give them ''any'' kind of respect and consideration is later revealed (for no reason) to be a [[HalfHumanHybrid quarter-Skagaran]] herself. As a result, the Sheriff [[TookALevelInKindness taking a level in kindness]] and becoming more tolerant is the ''only'' thing that preventing this aesop from being completely mangled.

** Dr. Phlox took advantage of the medicinal properties of several nonsentient alien species in his sickbay.

** Time agent Daniels leaves a holographic database in cabin E-14 that only is accessed when Daniels gives permission. Justified, as Archer is probably inclined to not attempt to access it by force simply because it's probably well protected by extremely advanced technology. Not to mention, screwing around with time travel, even simply in the form of an information database from the future, is probably not a good idea. It's still odd that breaking in is never mentioned in season three, however, where the crew is often in extremely bad circumstances, where failure means the destruction of the Earth.

** "Dear Doctor" manages to provide an unusual instance of evolution being both the real life version, and the Hollywood version. The Menk are going to evolve into a superior lifeform to the Valakians, and so the Valakians 'evolve' a genetic defect to make room for them. So that the Menk can evolve due to their altered environment. Basically, it manages to mix GoalOrientedEvolution and evolution influenced by environment into a single plot point.
** However, in the end, the small bit of realistic genetics gets overshadowed by Hollywood inventiveness. Evolution (in simplest terms) is the accumulation of genetic traits and mutations passed into successive generations by natural selection and adaptation. In other episodes Phlox seems to understand the fact that as soon as you involve ''anything'' external to an ecosystem (technology, medicine... doctors) you are changing the parameters for selection and adaptation, however [[SelectiveObliviousness he doesn't seem to realize how this applies to the situation at hand]]. What is truly frustrating is that in nearly all other episodes Phlox actually shows a good understanding of medicine and ethics, so this drop into IdiotBall stupidity is particularly noticeable.

* HumansAreDiplomats: While this era clearly stumbles occasionally, Series 4 has Starfleet begin to forge an interstellar alliance, even managing to unite the Vulcans and Andorians who have thus-far been at war for ''centuries''. With the Tellarites on side, this eventually leads to the formation of the Coalition of Planets, the precursor to TheFederation. Not that we actually get to see most of that...

** Purposefully invoked and deconstructed in "Damage", where Archer realises that in order to reach Azati Prime in time to prevent the Xindi from destroying Earth, he ''must'' engage in piracy and steal a replacement warp coil from the Illyrians. In other words, become [[NotSoDifferent no different]] from the Osaarian pirates from "Anomaly" that he so despised. This happens a couple of times in the Expanse, where Archer takes actions that he would never have dreamed of before and would have thought of as completely hypocritical when it was only his ship, crew and mission he had to take care of, but which become horribly necessary when the fate of his entire species (and throw in half the quadrant too) are on the brink of extinction.

** Archer's actions in "Fortunate Son" where he tirades against Ryan for seeking revenge against pirates who have repeatedly attacked his ship and nearly fatally injured one of his crew, compared to "Silent Enemy" where Archer seeks revenge against unknown aliens who have repeatedly attacked his ship and nearly fatally injured one of his crew. Bad enough already, but the latter takes place only ''two'' episodes later!
** On a more broad scale, Archer is always advocating open-mindedness and embracing other lifeforms, and yet as the series goes on, we find that he falls into the occasional habit of being suspicious, paranoid and almost hostile upon first contact with truly alien forms of life or humanoids that are very different from the human norm for absolutely no good reason (except maybe his "feelings"), while he is warm, welcoming and forgiving to more familiar humanoids for the exact same lack of reasoning. Sometimes his paranoia ends up being justified by the plot but not for any reason that he could determine beforehand. And this suspicion isn't around when he meets human-looking aliens who turn out to be devious, so you can't put it down to an indefinable sense of "gut" instinct. It edges onto WhatMeasureIsANonHuman in his interspecies treatment.

** An in-universe version: the creator(s) of the Augments enhanced their aggression, ambition and tendency for violence (or in other words, all primal human instincts left over from basic humanoid evolution before higher cortical functions took over) and ''didn't'' make sure that their dis-inhibition wasn't lowered at the same time? How was that a good idea ''at all?'' These geneticists basically made sure that the reasoning and complicated thought processes inherent in the cerebral cortex (particularly the frontal lobes) that makes humans human (also the limbic system and capacity for compassion) was enslaved to uncontrolled primitive desires. In their Augments they reduced humanity to a primitive animalistic group-society with the added cruelty and violence of intelligent humans and the disinhibition to not control that cruelty or violence. All that their "higher intelligence" did was make sure that they lived in such a manner with advanced technology. [[SarcasmMode Yes, this was clearly the way forward for human evolution and genetic science]].

** Archer does some pretty impressive rhetorical gymnastics to convince himself that the Valakians simply are not ready to handle warp drive technology yet, and won't be before they become extinct. This despite the fact that they have what is definitely a late-21st Century level of technological development and slower-than-light space travel, as well as what appears to be a peaceful civilization. As shown in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', humanity's first warp drive spacecraft was designed, built and ''flown'' by a borderline alcoholic living in a post-WorldWarIII shanty town in the wilds of Montana out of salvaged materials in an abandoned missile silo! On what basis is Archer casting aspersions on the Valakian's being "ready"? Or does humanity privately acknowledge that there were fair odds that Cochrane might have blown up North America when he tried to launch the ''Phoenix'' and they just try not to think about it too much?
* InscrutableAliens: In the episode ''Silent Enemy'' the ''Enterprise'' encountered an alien ship that did not speak when hailed and soon turned inexplicably hostile.

** [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Terra Prime]] are a human-supermacist organisation, which promotes openly racist, highly xenophobic rhetoric, as well as the belief in maintaining racial purity. This is despite the fact many of their members are shown to be from ethnicities subjected to the [[{{Hypocrite}} same kind]] of harassment, throughout human history. Of course, this was probably [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything the whole point]].

** Then there's Terra Prime - quite figuratively a terrorist organization who values human supremacy over all other forms of life and who thinks interspecies offspring are an abomination, and that Starfleet is contaminating Earth by letting other species come and visit or live there. Turns out they have the same rationalizations and paranoia as every white-supremacist, anti-semetic, religious-extremist, misandrist[=/=]misogynist or any other group which believes they are superior to another group of human beings in the world today.

** Later on a Klingon Scientist - actually a Klingon Doctor - brings up a similar problem, that his house was a warrior caste and his family ''actually disowned'' him for becoming a doctor, even when he served in the Klingon Army as The Medic, and that the High Council delegates so few funds to medical research that he was not only forced to steal the Interspecies Medical Exchange database in order to help his patients, but he's not even allowed to ask for help from anyone because the Warrior Caste would see it as being weak, dishonorable and exposing their vulnerabilities to their enemies.

* PlainPalate: The Vissians in "Cogenitor" don't have very flavourful foods because they prefer to focus on how their food smells.

* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Archer specifically. The show tends to go to great lengths to emphasize the good that will come from his actions in the future (i.e. the creation of the Federation) in order to rationalize away all the morally-dubious things he does in his present. He is also the subject of admiration in-show for the results of what his actions (especially when they benefit Earth), and is frequently praised and respected by other characters. This despite the fact that he often performs acts that he himself denounces others for doing and is incredibly arbitrary about what his values are.

** The crew never suffered any fatal casualties in the first two seasons (despite incidents like a Romulan stealth mine blowing away a section of the hull), no doubt to avoid the 'phaser fodder' cliche. All this changed in the third season Xindi war arc with 27 crewmen killed. The trope is lampshaded in "The Forgotten", when Trip has to write a letter to the parents of a dead crewmember but [[ForgottenFallenFriend can't remember much about her]], so he keeps getting her mixed up with his dead little sister. There's also two classic redshirt incidents: in "The Council" three main characters and a MACO enter one of the mysterious Spheres, and in Season 4 "Daedalus" Reed goes searching through a dark room for a NegativeSpaceWedgie with an unnamed crewmember -- no guessing who gets killed on both occasions. Deliberately parodied in [[MirrorUniverse "In A Mirror, Darkly"]] where Mirror Reed puts on an [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Original Series]] redshirt with near-fatal consequences.

* RoguePlanet: "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS01E18RoguePlanet Rogue Planet]]" features such a world, called Dakala. It's a Minshara-class planet with a breathable atmosphere and a temperate climate, provided by hot gasses venting from its interior. It somehow has plant life despite not having anything to fuel photosynthesis.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: In "Terra Nova", we're told that the original 200 or so colonists objected to Earth sending another 200 people to settle on their world. While it's understandable why they might have felt they couldn't fit more people in the ''Conestoga'' colony, they apparently failed to realise they had an entire ''planet'' at their disposal!