According to a computer display in the episode "In a Mirror, Darkly", historian John Gill considered Archer "the greatest explorer of the 22nd century."

[1][2] The second-season episode "First Flight" depicts in flashback that he spent many years as a test pilot in the nascent Starfleet's NX program, based in San Francisco.

Archer grew up with a distrust of Vulcans, perceiving them as having held back humanity's progress, particularly with regard to his father's warp five project.

The suspension of Archer did not completely stop the progress of the Enterprise's construction, as the program eventually resumed after a six-month halt.

During Seasons 1 and 2, he is somewhat uncomfortable with this role, especially in the episode "A Night in Sickbay" when his pet beagle, Porthos, contracts a deadly illness on an alien world.

Also during this period, Archer has the distinction of making Earth's official first contact with dozens of alien races, including the Akaali, the Andorians, Axanar, Suliban, Tandarans, Tellarites, Tholians, Xindi and Romulans.

Following the Xindi attack on Earth in 2153, Archer becomes a changed man.No longer a congenial captain, he is now driven and determined to seek out and confront the perpetrators.

Archer commits desperate, controversial acts of questionable morality to ensure a future for Earth, including torturing a prisoner, cloning Tucker to harvest body parts to save the chief engineer and thus killing the clone, and stealing a vital warp coil and leaving a ship of aliens stranded in space.

With the help of Daniels, Archer, along with T'Pol, travels back in time to the year 2004 to prevent the release of a Xindi-Reptilian bio-weapon.

Since that experience, he has used that knowledge at least once: To assist T'Pol with conducting her first mind meld to gain information about who kidnapped Dr. Phlox (the episode "Affliction").

Archer is also involved in one of the first, and possibly most significant, treaties yet, being asked to escort Gral, the Tellarite ambassador, to the Tellarite-Andorian negotiations.

The time traveler Daniels revealed that Archer would eventually have a major role in the founding of the United Federation of Planets in 2161.

Archer's fate is revealed in the episode "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" when a computer information screen aboard the 23rd century Starfleet vessel USS Defiant is briefly visible.

Unused production artwork would have shown[8] that Archer dies peacefully in his sleep at his home in Upstate New York in 2245, exactly one day after he attends the commissioning ceremony of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701).

However, this biographical computer display contained a number of discrepancies, including listing 2160 as the year that Archer's captaincy of Enterprise came to an end.

Star Trek writer Bob Orci went on record to clear up the issue, "Admiral Archer is a reference to the Archer we all know and love, and yes he would be over 100, which is a likely life expectancy in a futuristic space faring race of humans (as depicted by McCoy’s (DeForest Kelley, playing the 137 year old Admiral) appearance in The Next Generation.

One of four males born in a litter of English Beagles, Porthos and his brothers, Athos, Aramis and d'Artagnan, were named after characters from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père.

In "A Night in Sickbay", Porthos nearly dies when he contracts a deadly pathogen on the Kreetassan homeworld, but is saved when Phlox transplants a gland from a chameleon-like creature.

Although Porthos is not the first domesticated pet to be featured in a Star Trek series (Data owned a cat, Spot, in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Captain Jean-Luc Picard owned a lionfish named Livingston), Porthos has the distinction of being the first pet to maintain an ongoing presence in the series, and even – as illustrated above – become the focus of an episode.

"[citation needed] In the episode "Acquisition", Porthos was interrogated by a group of Ferengi pirates while the rest of the crew were incapacitated, but the aliens' universal translator could not decipher his barking.

After successfully crushing a rebellion against the Empire, Archer attempted to take the futuristic vessel to Earth where he would proclaim himself Emperor.

[11] They note Archer as being interested in exploration, but also having a relaxed attitude and that he also enjoys spending times with friends and his pet dog.

[17] In 2016, Captain Archer was ranked as the 9th most important character of Starfleet within the Star Trek science fiction universe by Wired.