Broken Bow

Caution: May contain spoilers!

The first episode of Enterprise introduced the viewer to a bit of the history from the events detailed in Star Trek First Contact when the first warp engine was created and tested, and earthlings were introduced to their first alien species, the Vulcans. Jon Archer's father was an engineer who was (at least his son thinks) held back by the Vulcans and prevented from achieving the things he should have been let to. An alien ship crash lands in a field and a Klingon (with a new style head) is chased by a couple of green aliens. The green guys are blown up, but the Klingon survives (barely).

Starfleet, against the wishes of the Vulcans, decides not to pull the plug on him. Archer convinces them to send him and his newly commissioned warp 4.5 ship to Qo'noS to return the still unconcious Klingon to his people, with the hopes that he'll be up and going by the time they reach his homeworld (as a warrior race such as the Klingons, being a vegetable is not an honorable fate).

A Vulcan science officer is sent along with them to observe and help. This of course causes some tension but is also used as a plot device to get Archer to eventually trust Vulcans, and for T'Pol to eventually realize that sometimes humans aren't completely wrong.

Along the way to Qo'noS (go figure) they lose their patient to more of the green skinned aliens, called Suliban. T'Pol wants to turn around and consider their mission as over, but of course Archer wants to go and recover him.

Much adventure ensues, including an almost soft core decontamination scene, reference to a temporal war, and much else.

At the end of the show, T'Pol decides to stay, the ship is sent on it's way out into space to Boldly go where no man has gone before, or some such non-specific orders.

Note: This is a shamless rip of my Star Trek: Enterprise node, as I had already put a plot summary in there. Soon I will re-organize all the Enterprise nodes to make more sense.

This is part of the Enterprise Episode Guide, hopefully well maintained. Please message me with corrections or any important details I left out.