Enterprise - Episode Review (With Spoilers)

[JRTStarlight]

Okay, now you're getting better and better. You should have been a writer. You could probably come up with a story or two about any of the Star Trek series!

Thanks. But a review isn't the same as an original story. Still, I'm glad you appreciate the reviews and comment often enough to allow me to go on.

Episode 16

Shuttlepod One

Despite some unexpected damage to their shuttlepod, Reed and Tucker arrive earlier than planned at their rendezvous point with the Enterprise, but they can't locate her anywhere. Then Reed sees the wreckage of a ship on an asteroid, some of which bears clear markings that could only have come from the NX-01. With only 10 days of air left and every safe harbor much farther away than that, Malcolm and Trip contemplate their own impending deaths since no one is left to rescue them after the tragic loss of their friends and colleagues aboard their destroyed starship.

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Spoiler

Some unknown problem knocked out several systems aboard shuttlepod 1, including communications and scanners, so when they arrive at the rendezvous point 3 days earlier than planned, Reed and Tucker cannot find the Enterprise or call them. They'll just have to wait.

But then Reed spots some wreckage bearing familiar markings in an impact crater on an asteroid. From the markings on the wreckage that they can see, all evidence suggests the Enterprise crashed there, and with no apparent escape pods in the area, that all hands were lost.

And if the loss of their close friends and colleagues wasn't bad enough, they only have 10 days of oxygen left, and the closest safe port is much farther away than that at the shuttle's top impulse speeds. Without a miracle, it seems likely that soon they'll both die.

Reed's attitude is morose and pessimistic, and quickly begins to get on Tucker's nerves while the engineer is attempting to maintain a more optimistic and hopeful attitude, holding out for the small chance somebody may yet find and rescue them. So while Malcolm records multiple farewell letters to various women of his past that he really doesn't know all that well, just so some will mourn him and feel they were more important to him than they thought, Tucker grows increasingly irritated and tells him he just wishes Malcolm would shut up.

They discover one of Reed's girls is Ruby, a waitress at a place they both knew, and who it turns out was also involved with Tucker as well. Friendly girl, it would seem. We'll actually get to see her in a flashback in the second season episode, First Flight.

Reed even thinks leaving a good looking corpse is important and proceeds to shave, though Tucker tells him his hair and nails will continue growing a while after death anyway (though it's actually more shrinking skin than growing hair that will be most noticeable). In any case, Reed puts the razor down.

Tensions continue to mount when the shuttle is rocked with a collision by something small but powerful, puncturing the shuttle's hull in two places. Following a visible nitrogen gas trail Tucker arranges, they find and plug the two leaks with Tucker's left over mashed potatoes until a better sealant can be employed, but soon discover one of the oxygen tanks was also ruptured, reducing their 10 days to 2.

Despite his gloomy attitude while awake, apparently Reed's dreams are at least more optimistic when he dreams they have not only been rescued, but he was quite heroic during the rescue, and even better, T'Pol is strongly attracted to such heroic men and moves in to kiss him – but then he wakes up, so I guess that's still more pessimistic than optimistic, even losing the girl in his dreams.

The story delves more deeply into each man's character as they face death, drink captain Archer's stashed bottle of bourbon, and get drunk, while they lower the shuttle's temperature to near freezing so they can use the extra power to ramp up the efficiency of the air recyclers and stretch 2 days into two and a half.

Then good news arrives in the form of incoming communications from the Enterprise – they hadn't crashed, after all, but an alien ship they were helping did after running into the Enterprise and taking off their launch bay door (which had the identifying markings on it). Apparently some micro-singularities are in the region, which are nasty, as the duo could attest since their shuttle had been hit with one, and maybe even more than one (which might explain their earlier problems). Unfortunately, however happy they are to discover their crewmates are alive and well, they cannot respond due to the shuttle's damaged systems. But the Enterprise gives them new rendezvous coordinates in two days' time, but doesn't know they were early so they have no idea their shuttle is already waiting for them and in trouble. Worse, Reed and Tucker are still too far away and have no means to ask the Enterprise to hurry up, and with only one day of air left, it looks like they will still die from asphyxiation 11 hours before the scheduled meeting.

Reed suggests dropping off the impulse engine and then blowing it up, like an emergency signal, though as an engineer, Trip dislikes the very idea of discarding a good engine. However, impulse speed isn't going to save them, he admits, so they gamble and blow up the engine and begin to drift in deep space.

When finally down to the last 12 hours or so, Tucker decides Reed will double his remaining time if Trip sacrifices himself by going out the airlock, but Reed points a phase pistol at his superior officer and insists he won't allow that, thinking he'd rather they both lived, or both died, together. And so with only a short time left, and suffering from hypothermia, they both fall asleep or pass out.

They awaken in sickbay and are told the Enterprise saw the signal of the exploding impulse engine and hurried back double quick and got to them with only 2 or 3 hours to spare.

Reed asks T'Pol if she wanted to say something to him about heroics, referring to his dream with her, but she has no idea what he means and just bids him a good night.

****************************************

There is very little to this episode for new scenes or characters or anything we actually see, most of the entire story being just Trip and Malcolm in the shuttle, and their two respective and sometimes clashing attitudes about life and survival.

I suppose blowing up an impulse engine for an emergency signal would be reminiscent of Spock's jettisoning and igniting the Galileo 7's emergency fuel supply in 2267, but this is 2151, so they'll be able to sue Spock for stealing their idea.

It's a good episode, but I suspect it's not everybody's cup of tea. For insight and character development, it rates highly, but for action and newer and interesting things, not so much, so I gave it a 5 out of 10 as I feel it averages out that way, though I'm sure many might rate it higher.

Shuttlepod One: Transcript
http://www.chakoteya.net/Enterprise/16.htm

Next Review: Fusion

 

[Ensign Ellora Dannan]

I know there wasn't a lot of action in this episode but it did give us more on the friendship of Reed & Tucker. Even the actors themselves enjoyed doing this as they had become close friends which is evident because they always are together at the Star Trek Cons. Good Review!

 

[Ensign Ellora Dannan]

Forgot to add, I loved (and laughed myself silly) when Reed referred to his nick-name while dreaming, "Stinky". Cmdr. Tucker asks him "who's Stinky?" He never responded to it.

 

[MacLeod]

"Shuttlepod One" was one of the highlights of the first season. And I would disagree that Reed was being pessimisitc but rather realisitc given their apparent situation. As for their being little action in the episode, sometimes you need to be character focused than action focused. That isn't to say I wouldn't have made some changes to the episode, I would have got rid of most of the scenes that take place on the Enterprise.

 

[JRTStarlight]

I think there's a difference being realistic in a bad situation and pessimism. The former is "We're probably going to die," while the latter is "We're definitely going to die." In the up coming 22nd episode, Vox Sola, Archer states it well – "As soon as you give up, the game's lost." I think Reed gave up, or at least was much closer to that than Tucker since he never gave up. Still, as it turned out, it was Reed's suggestion that ultimately saved them.

Episode 17

Fusion

While exploring outer space, the Enterprise encounters a splinter group of Vulcans exploring inner space. With a radically different interpretation of Surak's teachings, these Vulcans embrace their emotions. T'Pol warns Archer this is a dangerous path for any Vulcan to take, but the captain thinks it's a refreshing and welcome change of pace and he tells her to keep an open mind – but he soon changes his own when T'Pol is mentally assaulted and ends up traumatized and in sickbay.

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Spoiler

An old style Vulcan ship, the Vahklas, hails the Enterprise, their Vulcan captain happily greeting them. Quite unusual for a Vulcan, captain Archer immediately grants their request for help and repairs and invites them to be his guests aboard the Enterprise.

During dinner, captain Tavin asks Archer if he might try what he's having, the chicken, surprising Archer who informs the normally vegetarian Vulcans it is "meat," to which captain Tavin eagerly acknowledges the fact and digs in.

Straight up, Captain, this is delish.

T'Pol immediately recognizes the behavior as that of a splinter group of radical Vulcans known as V'tosh ka'tur (Vulcans without logic). They explain that is a misconception, and it's not without logic, but with logic they also can embrace their emotions and control them rather than suppress them. Later, a young Vulcan, Tolaris, convinces T'Pol to keep an open mind like her captain suggested and try not suppressing them through her nightly meditation, promising her dreams will be far more interesting.

Go on, just try it. You'll see.

Meanwhile Trip and the Vulcan, Kov, a fellow engineer, clear up some of each other's misconceptions about their respective species regarding mating customs and other cultural and biological differences, developing a friendship while working together on the repairs to the Vahklas. Later, though Kov rejects Archer's overtures to call Kov's estranged and dying father, Trip manages to convince Kov by sharing a heartfelt revelation about one his deepest regrets, telling him regret is one of the more unpleasant emotions, and Kov eventually relents and calls his old man, thus providing a favor to the Vulcan High Command who initially passed along the request.

After skipping her meditation at night, T'Pol's dream were indeed more vivid, but unsettling, raising her blood pressure and causing some concern in the doctor for her health. But Tolaris continues to manipulate T'Pol into going further, until he convinces her to try something called a "mind meld," which is an ancient but discarded practice on Vulcan.

She agrees, at first, but when it becomes too intense she tells him to stop – but he doesn't, forcing himself further into her mind until T'Pol finally fights him off. He leaves, chastising her, and then the visibly traumatized T'Pol calls sickbay.

The next morning captain Archer has a face-to-face with Tolaris, eventually confronting him about what happened to T'Pol. The Vulcan says it's personal and none of the captain's business and he wants to see T'Pol, but Archer refuses, telling Tolaris sickbay is off limits, even goading him with further, flat refusals to Tolaris' insistent requests to see her, causing the young Vulcan to lose his temper and attack the captain and finally throwing Archer across his quarters. Though the reaction was more violent than anticipated, it was apparently not unexpected when Archer pulled a hidden phase pistol from the back of his chair, obviously something he put there ahead of time knowing he'd probably need it. Tolaris is forced off the ship, Trip and Kov say goodbye, and the Vahklas departs.

Later that evening, Archer goes to T'Pol who is meditating in her quarters and he asks her if she does that every night. She says she does, to which captain Archer confesses he finally gets it and understands why. T'Pol asks Archer if he dreams. He says he does, and T'Pol admits she envies him before returning to her nightly meditation.

****************************************

Trip says he had a brother in this episode, but later, only his sister is mentioned, as if they retconned the brother into a sister. Though I suppose there is some other possible explanation.

Chronologically, this is the first time the pon farr is mentioned, though not by name, and the first time a mind meld is seen. While it is explained Vulcan males are driven to mate every seven years, this doesn't really preclude the possibility they may mate more frequently, though not by such a biologically fevered compulsion. And mind melds, at this time, are obviously not common on Vulcan and are even stigmatized. Maybe by the time of TOS, the practice is more common, but it is still relatively infrequent, particularly with people outside one's immediate family.

I've always felt forcing oneself into another person's mind like that would be comparable to rape in many ways, and I have to confess, I was quite disturbed Spock would choose to force information out of Lt. Valeris with a forced mind meld like that in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country.

A forced mental union like that is such a mental trauma, in fact, it can cause an eventually lethal neural degenerative condition known as Pa'nar Syndrome, much of which will be revealed and discussed later in the series since, as it turns out, T'Pol contracted the socially unacceptable affliction during this event.

The Vulcan captain, Tavin, is played by actor Robert Pine, father of actor Chris Pine. Chris goes on to play some other noteworthy Star Trek character who shall remain nameless.

Another fine episode, and this one T'Pol centric, with greater insight in her character and culture, as well as foundational to future episodes, making this a must see episode just for that. And Trip also has a touching moment as he relays his tale of regret (though it's a bit of a mystery whatever happened to his brother. One could retcon him into a sister, though, and that would fix that).

I gave the episode a 7 out of 10. It's not an action packed story, and apart from hearing about Echo 3, their subspace relay and noting real-time communications with StarFleet Command even at this distance, there is little else to note about the fictional Trek universe. Well, the Arachnid Nebula isn't a real nebula in the real universe, though with a color change, it does resemble the Tarantula Nebula, but that's not close enough for the Enterprise to visit since it's actually outside of the Milky Way Galaxy and in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Fusion Transcript
http://www.chakoteya.net/Enterprise/17.htm

Next Review - Rogue Planet

 

[JRTStarlight]

Episode 18

Rogue Planet

In deep space, along a course where no stellar systems are located, the Enterprise detects a rogue planet and goes down to explore the wandering world. But there's something down there, something unexpected, besides the group of visiting alien game hunters they encounter. Something strange is going on, something unsaid by the hunters, perhaps even something dangerous, and yet, somehow, whatever it is, it's familiar to captain Archer. But how?

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Spoiler

While Trip tries to capture a good image of captain Archer for official use back home, the Enterprise detects an unexpected planet drifting free in space far from any stellar system. But this rogue planet is unusually high in thermal activity, making numerous oasis-like areas where diverse life is thriving, despite no sunshine to support such life. Scans reveal no sapient life, yet there is a power signature of a ship near the equator, but it does not respond to any hails. So captain Archer, Reed, T'Pol, and Hoshi form an away party to investigate and then head down in a shuttle.

Breaking out some night-vision equipment, they wade through rather thick foliage and strange funa.

Soon, they find an encampment, but no one is there.

Archer and Hoshi stay behind in case anyone returns, but Reed and T'Pol continue on toward the alien ship. Unexpectedly, since no signs of humanoids were detected, the duo is attacked and subdued by some alien hunters (of the species, Eska).

But since T'Pol and Reed aren't the game they were hunting for, they all return to camp and find captain Archer has already met the leader of the hunting party, Darmus.

Darmus, an Eska or Eskan, played by Keith Szarabajka.

On the rogue planet they call Dakala, they are hunting elusive and dangerous game, as their people have been for 9 generations now. Invited to stay and share the camp, Archer takes them up on their hospitality, partaking in a meal of local game and telling what each party is doing there. It's a friendly affair, though the hunters aren't telling the whole truth, saying they are only after particular animals – boar-like or wolf-life creatures, yet their sensor cloaking equipment and firepower suggests they are after something far more dangerous.

Everyone turns in except Archer, who soon hears a voice calling to him from the darkness. Investigating it alone, he sees a young woman in a nightgown but quickly loses track of her.

He tells the others, and how she seemed familiar to him, but most seem unconvinced he wasn't just dreaming, particularly since a human woman light years from Earth really couldn't be there.

The next day while exploring further, Jonathan encounters her again, and she talks to him, explaining how he is different from the others. The hunting party elsewhere is attacked, and one of the hunters is wounded so badly, captain Archer offers the services of Dr. Phlox and sickbay. They accept since it will save time and allow the wounded man to hunt tomorrow. But our good doctor finds peculiar residue in the hunter's wound, some shape-shifting cells trying to become something, but lacking direction. Whatever it is, it was not a boar, so he knows the hunters are lying.

During the next night in camp, the hunters confess, it was a wraith, a lifeform on this planet, but they say it is not intelligent – it only mimics such things instinctually. But they have an edge – a way to detect the shape-shifting creatures since they exude a chemical signature when frightened. The Enterprise crew doesn't believe the wraiths are unintelligent. Though they don't have a problem with hunting, per se, and say humanity gave up that practice a hundred years ago, hunting intelligent creatures is another matter. With the doctor's help, they synthesize a counter agent to the chemical fear signature, masking the wraiths, and they give it to them. Once the hunters realize something is wrong and they can no longer detect the wraiths, they decide to abandon the dangerous hunt since they have become sitting ducks.

Darmus suspiciously notes they have never failed before the Enterprise showed up, but Archer suggests they are probably just bad luck, and the two groups part company.

Later, the woman appears to Archer and thanks the captain for the masking agent, and Archer tells her he figured out why she was so familiar. Her appearance is that of a woman Jonathan imagined in a story by Yeats that his mother, Sally, used to read to him about a man's eternal search for a mysterious woman he had once met. Since the shape shifting telepath can read minds, it picked that form as the one mostly likely to inspire the captain's help.

As T'Pol had earlier suggested, it would be less likely the captain would have been so driven to help if what he saw was some scantily clad man.

The wraith tells Jonathan to never stop seeking the unobtainable, touches his face and asks he never forget her, and then she walks way, finally morphing into her true form, a giant flat-worm/slug-like creature that slithers away into the forest. The captain says, "I won't." (forget you).

****************************************

Once again, advanced futuristic medical science is amazing. In this episode, the doctor quickly synthesizes alien blood and heals an Eska, though they've never met that species before. One might think replicating even rare Vulcan blood types wouldn't be a problem with that level of tech, but I guess not. Maybe this guy just has saline in his veins - or maybe synthetic blood was too far out an idea in the late 60's. And also, from just a little cellular residue, Phlox whips up a chemical masking agent PDQ. It's a little too easy.

While I think life is possible on a dark, rogue, sunless planet using just thermal energy, I highly doubt it would take the form of a thick, green, skyward reaching, jungle forest-like vegetation.

Unlike Kirk, who was many things, but never a boy scout, both Archer and Reed earned 21+ merit badges to become Eagle Scouts. There are over 100 of these things one might earn today between the ages of 11 and 17, and with Exobiology and more newer ones, who can say how many there are in the 22nd century, or even if the core required 13 are the same? Regardless, Archer earned 26 while Malcolm earned 28, though there is really no higher honor than the Eagle badge for 21+, like a double eagle or triple eagle, so . . . just bragging rights, I guess.

They use the term "sentient" instead of "sapient" and some say the term is interchangeable by the 22nd to 24th century, but it's really not, and that's just to excuse the misuse by many different writers. Oddly, TOS more consistently used the correct term, "sapient" to mean intelligent, wise, shelf aware, tool using, etc., than any other Trek series, choosing not to use "sentient" that just means conscious and/or capable of feeling. While all life may be precious, the so-call "higher" life forms are better described as sapient than as merely sentient.

This isn't an anti-hunting story, really, and it isn't too preachy, but it's not really all that interesting to me, either. A rogue planet is a good idea, and though there might actually be, on average, one of these drifting through the galaxy for every star (so billions), I imagine they are hard to find, and typically far less interesting than one with such diverse life, and that's actually class-M. It's pretty rare. Still, the story isn't really about that – that's just where the story takes place, and this dangerous game hunting story only rates a 4.5 or 5 out of 10 from me.

5 out of 10? Me? I'm better looking than . . . ohhhh, the story. Yeah, O.K.

Rogue Planet Transcript
http://www.chakoteya.net/Enterprise/18.htm

Next Review Acquisition

 

[JRTStarlight]

Episode 19

Acquisition

The Enterprise appears to be drifting in space, but why? Well, that small ship closing on them probably had something to do with it, and when the crew of four Ferengi Enter their Prize wearing gasmasks and we see the Enterprise's unconscious crewmembers strewn about the ship, what probably happened, as well as the Ferengi's intentions, become obvious. Acquisition.

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Spoiler

A small Ferengi vessel approaches the drifting Enterprise and docks with it, finding the NX01's unconscious crew strewn about the ship.

After clearing the air, the Ferengi removed their gasmasks.

How they managed to knock out the whole crew is a bit of a mystery at first, but it quickly becomes apparent the Enterprise picked up some container someplace, and when they opened it, a knockout gas rapidly propagated throughout the entire ship. Well, almost the entire ship.

In the sealed off decontamination chamber, Trip is relaxing in his skivvies while waiting for the doctor's all clear. But he's been waiting over an hour now for something the doctor said would take about 20 minutes. And since he can't get any response on the com-systems from anyone, he breaks out of decon and soon discovers he's the only crewman still awake, everyone else drugged into unconsciousness.

In the meantime, the four Ferengi raiders have been stealing most anything not nailed down, including the better looking women they feel will bring a good price in the slave market, and even stealing pieces of pie from the galley, throwing them in their swag bad for later. It's sort of silly, really, like they have no real sense of what is more valuable and worth the effort – but they only have 3 hours before the crew wakes up, so they're in a rush, taking anything and everything until they can sort it out or analyze for replication later, I guess.

Unfortunately, they can't find the vault where the ship's main assets are stored. Even more unfortunate, Trip discovers all 14 of the weapons lockers had already been cleaned out, so he's unarmed and still in only his underwear.

Since they can't find the vault, the Ferengi revive the captain and try to force the information out of him after they get the translators working and everyone seems to be speaking English (finally).

Where's the vault? Archer explains his ship of exploration doesn't carry such a thing, but this is unthinkable to the Ferengi, so they "know" he's lying and resort to mild torture tactics to force the truth out of him. The captain then decides to confess to having a vault, but says they'll never find it without his help. But he's willing to show them if they'll let him keep half the gold (the Ferengi assume gold pressed latinum, and Archer doesn't really correct them). They haggle, but the Ferengi leader won't accept Archer's bottom line of 35% and says they'll find the vault on their own. Krem, the lowest Ferengi in the pecking order, is ordered to watch over Archer and force him to load their much smaller ship with stolen goods while the other 3 search for the vault and continue to acquire items of value and interest.

Archer sees Trip, so he has Krem go off to get him a glass of water, but only after Krem handcuffs him to a rail. Trip takes that opportunity to talk to his shackled captain, and Archer tells him about the hypospray with the antidote and where it is. The chief engineer goes to find it and awakens T'Pol, but after that he discovers it's empty and he can't revive any others. Maybe he should have awakened the doctor first. But no.

Krem returns and the captain works on him, learning something about what motivates them – the rules of acquisition – and he points out how badly and unfairly the others treat him and tries to convince Krem to step up and be a player rather than a life-long lowly servant, encouraging him to betray the other 3 Ferengi so the captain and Krem can split everything 50/50 and Krem could finally have his own ship and be his own boss. Krem is tempted, but he's not quite there. Archer throws T'Pol into the deal to sweeten the pot since Krem feels she's got the most fascinating ears, and he's about to accept, but . . . he's too afraid to betray the others, including the boss, Ulis, his cousin.

T'Pol watches the Ferengi on some monitors for any opportunities, and soon finds one and she begins to sow descent amongst the remaining Ferengi putting Muk's stolen scanners into Ulis' swag bag after distracting them with an alarm. Then she makes a scanner remotely beep so Muk discovers them in Ulis' pack. Tensions and distrust mount.

The Ferengi find and demand answers from Porthos, Archer's dog, but determine it's just a lower animal, after all, though it's worth stealing so they put him in a box and close it. Why Porthos is even awake, I couldn't tell you.

After Trip arranges a trap, he allows himself to be captured and brought before Archer. The Ferengi worry the gas is wearing off so things become even more urgent. Trip says he'll tell them where the vault is if they don't take his wife, Hoshi. Archer, catching on, plays along and orders him to shut up, saying he'll buy him a new wife later, until Trip and Archer fight. The Ferengi pull them apart and take Trip up on his offer to take them to the vault, leaving Krem and Archer behind again since all 3 must go to the vault to ensure the other two don't cheat them.

T'Pol confronts Krem, who wonders why she's awake, but she says she's an alien and the gas didn't work as well on her. But she's just a slave of the cruel humans and would happily go with Krem and be his wife. Krem wants her to perform Oo-mox (stroking his ear lobes) on him, and she does to his great delight, but T'Pol soon delivers a Vulcan nerve pinch, knocking him out.

She finds a phase pistol amongst the swag and quickly heads down to where she saw Trip planning the ambush on the monitors since he was leading the Ferengi there in a round about way, taking his time, but when they get there Trip says he should go in first since Archer probably laid booby-traps for the unwary. Distrustful of Trip and thinking he may have a hidden weapon in the vault, they insist on going in first, so they go inside only to discover T'Pol hiding in ambush, but too late, and she quickly stuns the trio.

The tables turned and the crew revived, the Ferengi are forced to return everything they stole. Archer finally locks up 3 of them on their little ship, but leaves Krem free and in charge of the others as the new captain of the Ferengi vessel. Then captain Archer threatens them with the promise of Human and Vulcan retaliation should they ever come within a light year of their stuff again, and Krem promises the captain he will never see them again, and they are allowed to leave, without ever having even revealed the name of their race.

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Introducing the Ferengi like this long before Picard's historic first contact for humans with that race is slightly problematic, but since the race goes unnamed, it's possible nobody ever made the connection. I'm more concerned the small Ferengi vessel is even this deep in what will be Federation space. It makes little sense, unless the Ferengi frequent the area, and they surely don't. But one lone, independent Ferengi group could certainly be doing this. It's just not probable given the distance to their homeworld or home space.

Still, in the episode, Dear Doctor, one of the other two warp capable races the Valakian mentioned they had met was the Ferengi. They wouldn't cure them, either because they didn't know how or it wasn't profitable to do so, but they had met them. It may even have possibly been this small group of intrepid Ferengi explorers looking for far flung business opportunities. Muk even mentions the Menk, as in, "What do I look like, a Menk?" (Meaning a slave or servant, so even he was of the opinion the Valakians weren't treating the Menk very well).

Krem told captain Archer there were 173 Rules of Acquisition, but by TNG and DS9, they had expanded to 285, adding well over 100 more. This may suggest the Ferengi are relatively new to space, too, as such new opportunities and experiences probably necessitated many new rules to cover many new situations. Otherwise, that would be a lot of new rules in a short time for some ancient tried and true approaches to business.

It seems pretty unlikely to me one gas source would easily permeate the entire ship. I would imagine there would normally be many independent compartments on a space ship, so unless they decided to open this unknown container in a main ventilation shaft, and open each area to that one shaft, I find this means of knocking out the whole crew to be pretty hard to believe for any large ship. I would at least hope the gas was invisible, and the effect so quick nobody had time to even sound an alarm. It did appear to be quick since people were mid task when they collapsed.

Still, the episode was fun, and it was nice to see some Trek vetrans made up as Ferengi.

Jeffrey Combs as Krem (Jeffrey plays many roles, most natable in this series, the Andorain commander Shran).
Clint Howard as Muk (played Balok in TOS and a more minor character in DS9).
Matt Malloy as Grish (not a Trek vet, but the 4th Ferengi here).
Ethan Phillips as Ulis (played Neelix on VOY, and another Ferengi and a holo character in other Trek series).

Finally, I seriously doubt Archer would or even should just let these pirates go. He should have at least dumped the computer records of the alien ship. I'd have taken the ship as a prize and sent it back with a prize crew to the nearest friendly port with 4 prisoners. This is not to acquire personal profit, but to make space safer for honest shipping. Maybe Archer doesn't feel like he has the authority to act like the police in space that is not technically their own, and wishes to avoid bad relations with any new species. But even if so, I'd have still copied their computer core and sent that back home for analysis. So again, there's no realistic reason quality information about the Ferengi wouldn't have been in Federation hands 200 years before Picard met them.

Of course, one might assume allowing his whole crew to be captured like that looked so bad and made him look so completely incompetent, that Archer dishonestly wiped the whole encounter from the computer records. Then he ordered those who knew to remain quiet, and the remaining unconscious crew were given a different story as to what happened that they believed. But I dislike making such assumptions since that level of dishonesty seems out of character for the captain and hard to believe everyone would obey such an order. So no matter how much it might help explain why no detailed records of the Ferengi survived, I find such a suggestion to be less probable than some of other unlikely things that already happened in this episode, and I try to make as few assumptions as possible when trying to figure out the mysteries of Star Trek.

Anyway, because we whipped the Ferengi in a fair fight, or, actually, one where we had a huge disadvantage, and it's fun and nobody got hurt, it's a feel good episode, and quite funny the way Archer was at first disparaging T'Pol to the Ferengi to discourage them from taking her. We knew T'Pol was awake by then and could hear Archer's unflattering description of her, though the captain did not know this, or that what he said about her would come back later to bite him the ass at least in some minor way. With that, I'd have given the episode an 8 out of 10, but for dancing too close to canon violations and doing more than one improbable thing to make it work, I'll only go as high as a 7 out of 10.

Krem (played by our good friend, Jeffrey Combs).

Acquisition Transcript
http://www.chakoteya.net/Enterprise/19.htm

Next Review Oasis

 

[Yanks]

Love your reviews JRT.