Just rewatched Xindi arc...

and it still holds up extremely well.

Here are some of my thoughts looking back:

The Expanse: I avoid spoilers but I don’t think anyone could have avoided knowing every detail about this episode since even TVGuide laid it all out and B&B were all over the various media outlets talking about the changes. I always felt that VOY and ENT had a lot in common and ENT’s second season reminded me in a lot of ways of VOY’s third season. Both suffered from pervasive mediocrity and both tried my patience so it was inevitable that like VOY, which underwent a shake up by bringing in the Borg and Seven of Nine, ENT does the same with a mysterious new enemy and an ongoing mission.

It was a good idea. For once it injected a sense of mystery that the show really needed. In some ways the Xindi storyline was a precursor to the more elaborate mystery based series such as LOST and Heroes but isn’t as complicated of course. This really was one of the first shows I watched that approached the arc with various seemingly disparate story threads where slowlyover the season the connections are revealed. It also introduced a bunch of unanswered questions where the next season would have the crew trying to find answers and putting the pieces of this large puzzle together--Was FG telling the truth? Did the Xindi really attack Earth? Does Earth really devastate the Xindi in 400 years? If so, was it aggression on the part of humanity or was it in defense? And if it was aggression how could Archer stop the Xindi from defending themselves? Or is FG lying in order to start a war between Earth and these Xindi like he tried to do by instigating a Klingon civil war? What is the mystery of the Expanse? Who is the other faction assisting the Xindi? Are they a familiar race or a new foe the Federation encounters sometime over the next four centuries? Why do they want Earth destroyed? What evidence did they provide to convince the Xindi Earth is a threat? So a lot of questions to deal with.

I liked after a year’s absence that Silik and FG make a return appearance. I also was glad that initially the writers tied the Xindi attack to the Temporal Cold War. Not only was some attention to it way overdue but it allowed for the TCW to actually take on the gravity and epicness such a conflict deserved.

It made sense FG wouldn’t want Earth destroyed, afterall in Shockwave we know his fate and the Federation’s are intertwined. So while in the past he has undermined Archer, in this instance he might be willing to help because this was a situation where both of their interests overlap. It also makes sense he wouldn’t send Silik to thwart the Xindi. Silik has failed before and FG has the advantage of knowing about Archer in the context of history and realizes he’d have a better shot in stopping the second attack. And while Archer might have doubts about FG, Archer has nothing else to go on. FG’s tactic of not warning Archer in advance of the test attack made sense as well. He realizes Archer wouldn’t believe him and needed a sobering lesson to add some weight to his claim.

With Silik/FG making an appearance I wondered where Daniels was. Before when there was a violation of the Temporal Accords he appeared shortly thereafter. I just assumed that he vanished along with the rest of humanity in the new timeline. This actually would have been a good way of removing the temptation of the writers to bring in temporal agents as a deus ex machina and would place the survival of Earth on Archer’s shoulder. Unfortunately the writers brought him back in “Carpenter Street” which had the effect of creating some logical gaffes and led to the writers via T’Pol and Archer in that episode trying to justify why the temporal agents didn’t get involved and “The Expanse” shows a bit of this by having FG not reveal to Archer the location of the Xindi. The real reason is we would have circumvented the search for the Xindi which was a large part of the first half of the next season.

The initial attack on Earth in the teaser was striking in its low-key assault. The way it quietly and swiftly appears out of nowhere before carving up a portion of Earth with a beam as the probe gyrates every few seconds as it recharges. The visual shot of the scar through Florida as seen from orbit was chilling as well. I would add it to DS9's striking shot of a mangled Golden Gate Bridge or the chilling moment as the Borg cube in BoBW passes Saturn or is in sight of Earth.

I liked the idea of T’Pol resigning her commission with the VHC. She was always heading in that direction as she grew closer with the crew. This was one of the few clear and engaging character arcs the show devised. The crew’s shock at seeing the aftermath in the wake of their bittersweet homecoming was pitch perfect. The Expanse seemed intriguing and mysterious after hearing about it driving Vulcans mad and Klingons being turned inside out. At the time I figured the Expanse would be the perfect playground for sci-fi anomalies of the week stories but surprisingly the writers pretty much avoided them in season three. The Klingon plot was extraneous. I never saw this as a strong allegory on 911 even though it was inspired to some degree by it. The visuals were good.

Once again the episode has some flaws and probably should have been a major two hour season finale event allowing more time to develop everything including the reactions on Earth, seeing the crew back home in the wake of the attack, Trip interacting with his family but it was a big step in the right direction and ultimately was the right creative decision given how well season three for the most part turned out.

I would have liked to have seen one last visit by Daniels where he showed the crew what became of the Xindi in the 24th century and the Sphere Builders could have been fleshed out better. Some of the set-up could have been sprinkled in earlier into episodes like the Guardian/Sphere Builder relationship but none of that was hinted early on. But given the task of making us believe Earth was really in jeopardy and this could really be the end of it the writers did quite a good job in making me buy into it and going along with the notion.

It also demonstrated the best writing and storytelling since DS9's Final Chapter. I dare say it was quite epic in its canvas and stakes. It had so many characters, different ship sets, locations, outstanding visuals, enough satisfying surprises and twists, neat aliens, nice alien design and make-up, interesting mysteries answered and neat sci-fi concepts and elements along with some decent character work and arcs for the Big Three that I have to come away saying it was mostly a success.

The Council:

One of ENT's best episodes as it not only is as a solid episode taken on its own but it serves as a nice end-point for the last several episodes as all the long-running mysteries of the season have been explained and now attention can be turned to a single goal:stop the weapon. It is an episode like this that reminds one that despite some frustration with the season straying from focusing entirely on the Xindi and sphere arcs and stall tactics along the way to drag out the arc for an entire season--that payoff when it finally does come when it has been held off is that much more satisfying and it was all worth it. Afterall I had been waiting for a year to see Archer confront the council.

With this episode we finally get to where time is up and the fate of Earth is going to be decided one way or the other—everything is down to the wire. Lots of great stuff in nearly every scene as the scope is widened even more with every player off in different areas contributing to the cause in their own ways—whether in the moment finally arriving and Archer actually steps into the lion’s den as he confronts the council as two sides come face-to-face or T’Pol taking a shuttlepod to penetrate a sphere to gather crucial data. This really turned up the intensity and had me all pumped up and engrossed in the unfolding events.

I also enjoyed a variety of things such as:
-seeing the Sphere Builders’ realm as they discuss timeline projections with menace. It was what I mentioned earlier about being very large in scope.

-The VFX shot revealing the location of the council's chamber and its clever backstory of once being an Avian stronghold or the nice touch of the now extinct Avian skull standing as a reminder of what was lost all little flourishes that was much appreciated.

-I enjoyed the final pieces of the puzzle coming together giving the Xindi’s actions of trying to destroy Earth plausibility as we learn that the Sphere Builders didn’t just appear out of the blue one day telling the Xindi to annihilate humanity. The Guardians earned their trust for over a century by guiding them to habitable worlds and helping them locate resources as well as being the ones who brought forth the idea of reconciliation before finally providing visual evidence of humanity destroying their new homeworld. Lots of people complained that the Xindi wouldn’t commit genocide or that they were dupes. I think the writers did a good job disputing that by providing a very carefully laid out plan and under those circumstances the Xindi really were doing what they thought was the right thing given what they had to go on. I bought into it. And it was a nice way to contrast the Suliban/FG relationship to that of the Xindi/SBs. The Suliban were proxies motivated by FG's gifts here the Council are acting on their own interests and the relationship is much deeper. The writers even supply a reason why the Sphere Builders required a proxy--they couldn't exist in our universe.

-I liked the efforts by Archer to sway the council to not see humanity as a mortal threat to their survival. I loved the moment as he and Hoshi are the first humans to enter the council chamber. You could really sense that literally the weight of the world was on his shoulders as he struggled to get through to these people. I liked the idea of the holo-image of the Sphere Builder in the escape pod as one way to prove that. And for the first time as he talks to the council and then Degra about Earth being part of a future alliance that stops the Sphere Builders in 400 years, Archer understands Earth, now a insignificant world, will become one day a major force in galactic affairs.

-Trip making peace with Degra was a nice quiet moment.

-I loved the scenes that harken back to similar ones on DS9 involving the Founders(which I loved), the Sphere Builder realizes that Archer is making headway with some of the council and their plans are in jeopardy so we see her manipulating the more aggressive and less thoughtful Reptilians into going behind the council’s back. I loved that entire scene on Dolum’s ship. The SB were desperate to stop earth and they were willing to leave the council in flames to do it who cares if it destroys the fragile alliance. They take desperate action when things don’t seem to be going their way. It made me think of the Founder telling Weyoun “I'd promise the Breen the entire Alpha Quadrant if I thought it would help win this war.” They are simply a means to an end and don’t realize it. Also it demonstrates one element of epic storytelling that I really appreciate namely with so much going on and so many characters you see a lot of interesting dynamics and agendas in play just deepening the feel of a real universe.

-Degra's surprising death—I figured he would die but in the finale stopping the weapon as a final act of redemption for the probe attack killing the initial seven million. It was done quite well. Not only it but the entire scene in Degra’s chamber with Dolum. The way it was lit with the red sky and the sunsetting through the window. It was such a quiet scene. I thought he might survive and when the transmission from the black humanoid Xindi turned out to be a message communicating to Archer that Degra had died instead of a message communicating that Degra had been attacked and was still alive I was floored and added a *great* deal more to it since it came so abruptly and the presentation couldn’t have been handled any better. It was such a sad death made even moreso with him dying not knowing whether the weapon would be stopped or his family safe from Dolum.

-The brief moment where everyone thought the worst had passed and the crew have let down their guards only to have the anxiety and tension return as we see the surprise launch in a beautiful visual of the SuperWeapon as it ascends from the desert floor. This caught me offguard since I figured it would be launched next week.

-Loved the tension captured in the last minutes of the episode with chaos occurring simultaneously all around as everything spirals out of control and the tides turn for the worse as the weapon is launched, the Reptilians/Insectoids break from the council, Hoshi is beamed away(the look on Archer’s face in response was perfection) all leading to valiant struggle of the NX to inflict as much damage as they can to this massive weapon of death that eclipses everything only to have it enter a vortex leaving Archer with the grave realization that the Reptilians got away from him with the weapon heading for Earth and the anxiety of wondering if he’ll be able to catch up with them and stop it before it destroys Earth and if he’ll ever see Hoshi alive again while the pod returns watching from a distance the battle. Even amongst all this bleakness I was cheering as the Xindi got involved and were doing the best they could to help Archer stop the Reptilians/Insectoids.

It was epic because everything was coming to a shocking head.
Little touches helped too—Hoshi tagging along because of her translation acumen, the Hoshi/Archer scene, the heating bed for the Reptilians, Degra standing up to Dolum several times throughout the hour were also welcomed.

I also liked how trellium would continue to play a pivotal role beyond "The Xindi" as it was then revealed in episode two as being able to shield starships from anomalies then in episode five we learned it was harmful to Vulcans which allowed for the danger to the ship to continue since Archer couldn't jeopardize T'Pol who unknowingly became addicted to it. Also it seems from the moment in the future in Azati Prime that future Federation ships were lined with it since they were seen engaging the Sphere Builders inside the vast disturbance.

Even the Expanse was treated as its own character whose secrets were gradually revealed by first learning of a single sphere that led to the discovery of a vast network that T'Pol studied in order to better chart and avoid the anomalies. This would not only play into the resolution of the Xindi arc where we saw the early exploration of the spheres allowed for the crew to find an entrance into one of them as well as bring down the network dissipating the Expanse explaining why we never heard of it in later series. But it also played a pivotal role in T'Pol's character arc which was quite good.

In fact, the writers really seized on lots of different pieces from earlier episodes to be utilized in smart ways later on such as the characters using evidence from the Xindi probe in their investigations--the match between the probe's alloys and those found in the destroyed planet in the premiere, the markings tied the database in Anomaly, the kemocite signature was matched to Gralik's mining colony, the future technology in the probe that was quantum dated to the 26th century in "The Expanse" coincides with the invasion by the Sphere Builders in the 26th century, the crew using the corpse and Xindi probe from the season two finale to to confirm that the markings in the Ossarian database were Xindi. Same goes for the writers remembering the Reptilians used biological components as we saw in their weapons captured in "Rajiin" and studied in "The Shipment" as well as in their interrogation techniques involving the neural parasites. They also remembered that the Xindi in Twilight had ships escorting the weapon and in Azati Prime Dolum asks Deegra about them and having a large enough vortex. The vortex that the probe exited in "The Expanse" was the same method travel we saw in "Rajiin", "Twilight", "The Council", "Countdown and "Zero Hour".


I'll continue my thoughts in the next post....

 

Countdown:

At the time I thought "The Council" and these next two episodes with some reworking could make a great film the way it is similiarly structured. And I still think that.

All of Act 3 was well executed and gripping. It had great movie-quality space battles that conveyed chaos, confusion and frenzy wonderfully. It was such a spectacle of Armageddon with all the destruction. There is a lot going on in those scenes—the destructive anomalies growing and devastating any ship that even grazed its outer regions. I especially like the far away shot of the battlefield with the numerous disturbances growing while we see the ships firing on the weapon.

The interior of the weapon was spectacular visually with its massive chamber reflecting its enormous size. Now I understand why it took a year to complete.

It is always nice when various groups work together against a common enemy so seeing Aquatics, Primates, Arboreals take on the reptilians was a nice feel-good moment.

The Reptilian/Sphere Builder scene was good where Dolum starts challenging the Sphere Builder and we learn the interesting detail that the Sphere Builder can’t see everything in the timeline chaos. In fact, I didn't have a problem with the way time travel worked in this arc. It actually made a lot of sense. I bought the idea that because there were a series of acts and counteracts by Archer, the Xindi and the Sphere Builders that originally didn't occur that the timeline would constantly be changing. This isn't an instance where we are dealing with just one event changes history and therefore changes were instantaneous in the timeline. And like I mentioned before, the Xindi arc was the first season long arc that I can recall that was driven by time travel. Heroes would do so in season one and Lost in season 5.

-The AX vessels were neat and seeing its water spewing out into the void of space and then freezing was a fresh idea.

-the scenes where the Sphere Builders begin to grow increasingly concerned about NX thwarting Dolum which leads to them intervening with a great visual of the sphere creating a field of anomalies were exciting sequences.

-I enjoyed more of Archer's interactions with the Aquatics and the concession Archer promised made a lot of sense. The fear he had for Earth’s fate and his desperation the way it was depicted was painful to watch. It had the sense of a man pleading for his life who is going before a cold dispassionate force—here the Aquatics. His argument about the Xindi being endangered in the future if Earth was destroyed now was appropriate and needed to be said.

-His voiceover as they readied for a final battle was good.

-Hoshi was great willing to sacrifice herself by jumping off the gateway. I think it would have been really bold if the writers had let her.

If there were weaknesses it was Hayes' death being less than moving given how little we really got to know him over the season and the somewhat jarring dinner scene. It just seemed to me that with Hoshi kidnapped and the weapon hurling towards Earth would that be something they would really do in the midst of all this. It was though they already knew he outcome of the war. I also didn’t again care for the Trip/T’Pol bickering however brief.

Oh and I also really liked all the recaps before each episode. I thought they were really well done.

Zero Hour: I found it to be a very solid episode and overall satisfying conclusion to the Xindi saga. It wasn't perfect but I think for the most part it captured the high stakes pretty well and resolved all the threads in a satisfying way. Granted it held very few twists. The season pretty well set up the resolution with the Expanse having to cease to exist and Earth survive to preserve Trek history. Evenso the writers did a surprisingly decent job of imparting peril into it anyway.

I thought the teaser was interesting and made for a unique sci-fi celebratory toast. Both plots were equally thrilling cross-cutted between the efforts by T’Pol to destroy the sphere network and Archer confronting the Reptilians and boarding the weapon to destroy it. Something I thought was lacking from this season was character reactions to the circumstances they found themselves in so I welcomed the scene where T’Pol tells Trip that if Earth is destroyed then the only hope of saving the universe including Vulcan is to bring down the spheres. I love character reactions. I think it works because it finally shows T’Pol realizing that all this interference from time travelers hints that Earth has a great destiny ahead and will play an important role in future events.

And speaking of future events—the scene where Daniels whisks Archer to the Federation ceremony in 2161 was a neat moment to show a glimpse at a historic moment where we learn the founders include Earth, Vulcan, Andor and Tellar. Although I must point out that Daniels’ cavalier attitude towards suggesting Archer sacrifice Sato or Reed came off not so well. I think this has to do with the difficulty the writers faced in keeping the focus on Archer instead of future time cops who would realistically be the ones sent in to take care of the weapon and eliminate the risk of Archer perishing since the whole attack stemmed from future interference.

I enjoyed seeing the Sphere Builders coming into the fray doing some dirty work themselves although I was hoping along the way they might be explored a bit more than they ultimately were. Lots of little pieces come together--I liked how Phlox used the information he learned about them in Harbinger to suggest a way to fend them off to the MACOs. I also appreciated seeing the effects of the disturbance firsthand as the ship is immersed in the pinkish haze which also goes back to Harbinger. There was a nice sense of tension present with the ticking clock.

The scene with the weapon dropping into range of Earth was chilling. I did wonder where, tiny as it may have been, Earth's forces were. I suppose one could argue that they had been erased from history but why was Yosemite still there and Archer certainly didn't act like the fleet's absence was strange.

Shran's cameo was okay but sort of came out of nowhere. As popular as he was with ENT fans I have to ask why they didn't have Silik and a few cell ships show up instead. It would have made more sense especially with the ending we got had they been sent by FG to shadow the NX in case they needed some help in stopping the Xindi.

The climax of both threads were pulse-pounding as the NX in a spectacular visual FX shot sees the sphere implode sending out waves to the other bringing down the network. Archer’s scenes on the weapon work well enough destroying the weapon. Although it could have been a bit more suspenseful. I did for some reason like the shot of Archer running as the weapon starts exploding with sparks going off around him as he takes off running down the catwalk and then of course the weapon exploding in a nice FX shot.

Other welcomed moments sprinkled in the hour—T’Pol/Phlox in sickbay,
T’Pol/Trip, Hoshi/Archer, T’Pol/Porthos, T’Pol/Xindi.

I loved how their homecoming was swiped from them. Everything has ended but the fallout is just beginning to set in. But B&B pulled the rewarding return home to Earth out from underneath the crew by jumping into yet another altered timeline. I liked it. I know some weren't too crazy about it but I’ve been a sucker for alternate reality stories and seeing Archer out of time was appealing(something Heroes would do as well in its first season finale). It would only make sense with a Temporal War raging there would be constant alterations in the timeline. Just because one campaign is over doesn't mean that others are. And I say if the writers are going to use a time war why not embrace it and go wild with it. So count me as one of the few who actually liked the Space Nazi cliffhanger. I see nothing fundamently bad about them. We only really had a fleeting glimpse of it and it could have potentially led to something fun. It served its purpose leaving me curious as to what was really going on.

And I have to say I loved the bizarre images of the shuttlepod being fired on by fighters and an unknown alien in a Nazi uniform—this image made me immediately think of Red Skull/Captain America/WW2 pulp comic book.

Overall I was very satisfied with season three.

I look forward to hearin others' views...

 

The Xindi arc is how the show should have began, with a barely out of space dock NX-01 being called into the unknown to save the planet. I'd be willing to bet it would have found and retained more viewers if they had skipped the mediocre first season which was just more of the same alien of the week stuff we'd been seeing for years already.

 

I guess I'm the only person who still can't understand why the Xindi arc ever existed in the first place. As a prequel, there are certain stories that should be avoided, such as attacks on Earth. You can't put the planet, or even the quadrant, in any real danger like that because we all know that nothing bad can happen. We've seen the 23rd and 24th centuries already. Earth is still there. The Xindi do not destroy it. In fact, we never hear much about that species in the future so they seem like fairly minor players in the grand scheme of things. So any suspense and drama that might be created is ultimately extinguished by this simple fact that the bad guys can't win. That's not interesting to me, as a viewer. Sure, the journey to stop the Xindi could have interesting moments, and it is possible that characters' lives could be put in danger, but it's not like anything truly shocking could happen. And sure enough, nothing did.

I'm not trying to blast ENT here. I actually thought the idea of a year-long story arc was good, but their story choice fell flat for me the moment I'd heard it. The Xindi? The Expanse? Earth in peril? Perhaps in a post-NEM timeframe, this might be more compelling, but in a prequel, it just doesn't do anything for me.

 

I guess it all comes down to how much one is willing to give themselves over to the idea and buy into the peril. Also even if one knew Earth would be saved it was all about *how* it was saved.

I mean a show like LOST tips it hand from the outset then works its way back to show us how the characters got where they did despite having already been shown the endpoint. I see it as the same thing.

 

You could aim that criticism at almost any series though. We know that Tom Selleck isn't going to fall off that cliff and die, and that everything will be basically the same in the next episode of Magnum PI. I knew the Titanic was going to sink and I knew Frodo was going to make it into Mordor and dispose of the ring. As in life, just as often it's the journey as the destination. Whether or not Enterprise had a satisfactory journey is up for contention, but I wasn't predisposed to liking or disliking it just because I knew that Earth wasn't going to be destroyed and that Captain Archer was going to save the day.

 

I hated the Xindi-Arc (and Season 3 for that matter) from the beginning.

The premise: they believe, humans are a threat to them and want to annihilate them, but they send a trial sphere. WTF?! That's like the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor with 1 plane a week early, just to see if the principle works.

Then the whole thing about the expanse. The Vulcans got almost emotional telling them not to go in there and the Klingons are actually AFRAID of going in there. I expected satan's realm ... and then it was just full of anomalies.

Archer. I like Scott Bacula, but they turned Archer into a moron and Bakula could not pull off the kind of bastard they expected him to be. Sometimes, when he just blabbed "I want that information!", it felt like community college acting class.

The Xindi themselves. So there are 5 (6) species of Xindi, I get that, and they're at odds with each other. So why not seperate, when their homeworld got destroyed. Seems like a good time to say "you know, maybe we'll take this planet and you that one."

The superflous action. Every other episode had some sort of lame firefight and Enterprise was boarded more often than not.

The massages. ENT basically jumped the shark in Episode 1, when they decided rubbing baby oil on Jolene Blalock was gonna become a plot device, but to actually have her massage Tucker half-naked in every episode... Really?!
Mabye 10 years earlier, that would have worked, but in 2003/4 every Trekkie had internet access, so if we want to see half-naked women ... strike that, if we want to see naked women do all kinds of things that get you into hell, we can have that. No need to ruin Star Trek for it.

Season 1 and 2 of ENT were bad Star Trek, Season 3 was just bad TV.

 

The Xindi were under the impression that humanity at this point in the timeline didn't know who they were or where they came from. So they had no reason to be concerned about a reprisal. They didn't know that Future Guy would contact Archer and even then FG didn't provide the exact location of the Xindi.

They did go their own way but as we learned in "The Forgotten" the Sphere Builders were the ones that told them that to be a great civilization that they needed to come together.

 

Just been rewatching season 3 over the last few weeks. I enjoyed it a lot. It was only the second time I've seen these episodes. From about Azati Prime til Zero Hour, the pace doesn't let up. It's like ENT goes 24. And I loved it.

 

Keep in mind, the Xindi story line was all but forced on the producing staff by the studio. In an interview which I'm sorry that I can't find right now, Brannon Braga said that Paramount decided it was time that Trek address the 9-11 tragedy. (Earth/America is attacked, so Archer/Bush has to kick some ass.) Rick Berman disagreed, saying that the Roddenberry credo forbid what would certainly be a blatantly aggressive military story. (Imagine that? Berman defending Roddenberry?) The studio insisted, so Berman spent several days coming up with a season-long ac that he felt might appease the political conservatives in the board room without alienating the remaining fans who had stuck with all the new versions of Star Trek. His plan was to have it begin as a tale of war, but end with humans seeking out new life forms, and bringing peace and understanding along the way.

Like the Real Life "war on terror," they were not always successful.

 

You're not the only person. I never cared for the Xindi season for exactly the reasons you mention. As a two or three part episode, maybe it would have worked, but I still can't believe they pissed away an entire season on this.

 

That's very interesting, I wasn't aware of this. I was very pleased, though, to see Season Three reaffirm Star Trek's hopeful vision by having the Xindi being victims of manipulation, and with a future (apparently) of peace and unity with Humans, rather than simply "evil". I also appreciated how conflicted they were, yet willing to try and work together to defend their fragile peace. You're right, I think, that the writers weren't always successful in avoiding the "I'm morally rightous, you're not, and so I shoot you" implications, but I was grateful they tried.

 

Yes, but like the Xindi arc, the Temporal Cold War was another idiotic plot device. And this one ultimately went nowhere.

 

About two months ago I rewatched all of season 3, episode by episode. During the show's run, season 3 greatly turned me off. I found that I enjoyed it much more on a complete second viewing.

 

Didn't they also say that they needed to test out the Xindi prototype on Earth itself to acquired data for the final weapon?

 

I liked it. Some of Enterprise's best episodes (and perhaps also Trek's best post-DS9 episodes) came out of it. For me, it was the point where Enterprise started to redeem itself.

 

I think about S3's "The Shipment" all the time. One of their very best eps, IMHO. Archer and Gralik are a great onscreen pair.