Production This episode explored the culture of "Space Boomers", the lives of people working and living in space long term on slow moving commercial freighters, rather than the more advanced Starfleet vessels such as Enterprise. The writers planned to further explore Boomers culture and had another story or two in mind, but Brannon Braga said they didn't want to keep meeting humans because "it made it feel like Enterprise was still a little too close to home." They also wanted to try and develop Mayweather and not have him only talking about Boomers all the time. The show would revisit Boomer culture in season 2 in the episode "Horizon". This episode was written by James Duff, who would later become an executive producer on season two of Star Trek: Discovery and season one of Star Trek: Picard. This was the second episode of Enterprise directed by LeVar Burton. Burton directed 28 episodes of Star Trek television in this period, including for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. Guest star Lawrence Monoson praised director LeVar Burton for his understanding and ability to communicate with the actors: "there was a scene I felt went particularly well, except for one point where I thought I was really awful and missed the beat. Afterwards Levar came up to me and before I said a word he knew which part I wasn't thrilled with. He's got a great eye. Levar makes you feel part of the creative process, and that means a great deal, especially if you're a guest star." Monoson spoke of his approach to the character of Matthew Ryan "He's not Starfleet. He's a blue-collar worker, and I wanted to keep him as natural as possible. Conversely, like the Enterprise crew, he's an astronaut, a trained professional. It was a bit of a challenge trying to find the balance between being naturalistic and playing the style of that world, but it's one I enjoyed." Guest star Danny Goldring previously appeared on Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and also returns as a different character in season two episode The Catwalk. Reception Fortunate Son was first aired in the United States on UPN on November 21, 2001. According to Nielsen Media Research, it received a 3.8 rating share among adults. This means it had an average of 6.1 million viewers. The relatively low ratings