Proving Ground

This Story: Season 3 Episode 13 (production code 165)
ENT Overall: Episode 65
Trek Overall: Story 654, Episode 693
Airdate: 21 Jan 2004
Written by Chris Black
Directed by David Livingston

Notes

• The fourth of ten episodes with Jeffrey Combs as the Andorian Shran.
• The Andorian General was recast during production.  It was originally Ted Sutton, but he was unable to complete the episode, so they cast Granville Van Dusen in the role after production had begun.
• The first time we saw the home planet of Andoria (in any capacity), and the first time we got a good look at the inside of an Andorian ship.
• Voyager’s Captain/XO chair is reused here as the Kumari’s Captain’s chair.
• Shran’s “Ready Room” uses a table that was in Chakotay’s office in Voyager.
• Events of this episode are recalled (as motivation by the Vulcans) in the episode “Kir’Shara“.
• Events of the episode “The Shipment” are followed up here.  Not a sequel as such, but we see repercussions of what happened there.
• The first of three episodes with Molly Brink as the Andorian Talas.  I always felt this was supposed to be Suzie Plakson’s character Tarah from “Cease Fire“, but when Plakson did not return, they pivoted with the character being someone else.
• The data erasure from the prior episode was real, as they start this one talking about recovering it from a redundant data core.

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