10 Greatest Star Trek Cave Episodes

Because ice caves count. They count, right? Right?

Part of another excellent three-parter that did for the Andorians (and Tellarites) what The Forge/Awakening/Kir'Shara had done for the Vulcans, Star Trek: Enterprise's season four episode The Aenar showed us a rather unique set of caves within the history of the franchise.

Home to the titular species, cousins of the Andorians, and some weird burrowing bugs (not the butt kind), the ice caves visited by Shran and Captain Archer don't appear for the entire length of the episode, but they are, nonetheless, a significant expansion of Star Trek lore. This was the first time anyone had set foot on Andoria on screen, though you can understand why when, in summer, the temperature is only minus 28°C.

The episode is really the story of brother Gareb and sister Jhamel, two Aenar pacifists caught up in an interstellar conflict started by the expansionist Romulan empire (naturally never seen by our protagonists on Enterprise). If you count These Are the Voyages as canon, Jhamel would go on to have a daughter with Shran, but more certainly, the ice caves of the Northern Wastes later gave the galaxy the beloved (and much missed) Hemmer in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The Aenar is a great episode, but for Hemmer alone, it deserves its place on this list.