I don't know, I felt the beard was a little mangy. It looked like the sort of beard that I would have if I let it grow, which is one of the reasons why I don't let it grow.
Would anyone else be interested in something like that? And would you mind if we did it, TGB?
Are you talking about a separate thread? I wouldn't mind that at all, but if all the reviews were posted in here then it would make my post-season episode score and link collection take longer.
Detained (*****)
Wow, Phyllis Strong must make some damn fine coffee, because Mike Sussman has done it again!
What an astounding episode, it had everything; Archer, some Suliban, Mayweather got beaten up and Reed turned green. But most importantly of all, this is the very special episode where a popular sidekick from Don P. Bellisario's science fiction epic finally made his way onto Enterprise. That's right, Higgins from Magnum P.I. gave an award winning performance, and it is a huge pity that he didn't win any actual awards.
But the real winner here is Mike Sussman for writing such a great episode. Good work Mike.
Detained (***½)
Theorizing that he was invincible, Captain Jonathan Archer stepped into the shuttlepod, and vanished.
He awoke to find himself trapped in a Tandaran detention facility, facing a Colonel that he thought he recognised from some place, and driven by his ego to change their society for the better. His only guide on this journey is Travis; a helmsman from his spaceship, who appears in the form of a black man that only the audience can see and hear.
And so, Capt. Archer finds himself leaping from planet to planet, striving to put right what he thinks is wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap, will be the leap to his father's attention.
Archer and Mayweather wake up in a prison for some reason, and then Archer goes to meet the head of the facility, Grat, who happens to be played by John Hillerman. What makes Grat more interesting than your standard Star Trek villain is that he acts like a kind and understanding person at first, you can actually believe that he is trying to help Archer. It takes a whole 15 minutes before he turns into a sociopath, the kind of person that would screw his mother/daughter for shits and giggles.
You see, Ziggy does some calculations and determines that there is a 34.8% probability that Archer is in league with the Cabal, so Grat refuses to let them go. Enterprise manages to make contact with Archer by beaming in a communicator, but the Tandarans find Mayweather with it so they beat him up and Grat orders that they rip his eye out. Mayweather recounts that it looked like a hard boiled egg, but nobody could hear him.
Danik said:
Be careful of their wicked smiles,
their shining yellow eyes.
At night, they'll squeeze right through your door
and everybody dies.
The Tandaran children used to tease my daughter with that nursery rhyme.
It's really smart how those kids managed to create a rhyme which still worked when translated into English.
Anyway, Archer decides he doesn't like the cut of Grat's jib and orders Enterprise to organise a jailbreak for the lucky 89 Suliban whose detention facility Archer happened to end up in. There's some spaceships and some explosions and all of this stuff is very well done, it provides all the action which you'd expect from an episode about breaking out of space-prison. Grat confronts Archer in his cell but, realising that he has lost, he puts his phaser in his mouth and kills himself.
Disappearing Aliens: 7
Archer Abuse: 10
Captain Redshirt: 10
Transporter: 4
Grat's wife never remarried
She and Grat had four daughters and were due to celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary in space-June.
Capt. Jonathan Archer never earned his father's love.
