113: Doing the Unthinkable

Primitive Culture: A Star Trek History and Culture Podcast

Jack Bauer and Jonathan Archer.

Premiering just after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Enterprise took another two seasons to fully engage with the radically changed real world in its storytelling. When the show did reveal its own 9/11 story in the third season, it followed in the wake of another intensely serialized, monster-hit TV show: 24. Jack Bauer might seem an unlikely model for a Starfleet captain, but throughout the course of the Xindi arch Jonathan Archer found himself repeating many of Bauer’s signature moves—including torture and cold-blooded killing

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by 24 aficionado Lee Hutchison to compare and contrast the two shows’ approaches to dramatizing the momentous events of the time. We discuss how Manny Coto and Brannon Braga went on to breathe new life into 24 once Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled, whether the problematic aspects of both series are, to some extent, explained by the hawkish mood of the time, and whether Archer and Bauer are actually more similar than they first appear.

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Lee Hutchison

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer)