"Awakening" is the eighth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise, and originally aired on November 26, 2004 on UPN. The script was written by André Bormanis and the episode was directed by Star Trek: Voyager alumna Roxann Dawson. The episode was the first of the season for both Bormanis and Dawson. The episode is the second of a three-part episode arc which started in "The Forge" and concludes in "Kir'Shara".
Set in the 22nd century, the series follows the adventures of the first Starfleet starship Enterprise, registration NX-01. In this episode, the Vulcan government seeks to make the Enterprise leave orbit so they can attack a renegade faction of Vulcans, and afterwards the long-standing enemy of the Vulcans, the Andorians. Meanwhile, Captain Jonathan Archer and Commander T'Pol have been captured by the Syrrannites, and it is discovered that Archer has the katra of Surak. He has visions which lead him to find an ancient Vulcan artifact called the "Kir'Shara" as the group come under attack from the Vulcans.
Elements of the plot of the episode were compared by executive producers to the Protestant Reformation with the Vulcan High Command representing the Catholic Church. He sought to introduce a situation which he compared to the 16th-century Protestant Reformation and wanted to include a Vulcan character who would effectively be in the role of Martin Luther, while the Vulcan High Command represented the Catholic Church. Surak had been played by Barry Atwater in "The Savage Curtain", but this role was taken by Bruce Gray for "Awakening". Gray had previously portrayed Admiral Chekote in The Next Generation episode "Gambit" and the Deep Space Nine episode "The Circle". For both of these parts, the producers attempted to cast actors who looked similar to the originals. Gary Graham returned as Soval, who he has portrayed throughout the series from the pilot episode onwards. It gained higher ratings than The WB, which aired re-runs of What I Like About You and Grounded for Life, but was behind the other four major networks with NBC's Dateline winning the hour with ratings of 5.9/11. with ratings of 1.9/3 received by the previous episode.
Michelle Erica Green, reviewing the episode for TrekNation was undecided about whether the main point of the episode where Captain Archer is expected to lead the Vulcans back to their main path of logic was a "wonderfully progressive concept or just regressive Trek in which humans have all the answers". She thought that the change in Soval's opinions in this episode was difficult to accept and that the other members of the main cast didn't get a great deal to do in the episode. She thought that "Awakening" was a visual improvement over "The Forge", she was reserving judgement until she had seen the third part of the trilogy. Jamahl Epsicokhan at his website Jammer's Reviews thought that certain elements of the plot didn't follow logical paths, such as how Archer found the Kir'shara in a few minutes when apparently the Syrrannites had been looking for it for two years even though "it sits in a chamber behind a door that practically announces, 'IMPORTANT RELIC INSIDE'?" However, he called the episode entertaining and gave it a score of three out of four.
In 2018, Screen Rant praised casting actress Kara Zediker as the Vulcan character T'Pau.
Home media
The first home media release of "The Forge" was in the season four DVD box set of Enterprise, originally released in the United States on November 1, 2005. The Blu-ray edition was released on April 1, 2014.