Archer and crew are delighted to discover a genuine, Earth-like planet, with an oxygen atmosphere, vegetation, and all. T'Pol advises caution; Archer completely disregards her (why do I have a feeling this is something I'll be typing over and over again in these plot descriptions?), insisting on an immediate landing party.
Archer is content to stretch his legs for a bit before going back to the ship. T'Pol, however, wishes to stay to complete her scientific scans of the planet. Trip and Mayweather (formerly known as Token Black Guy) stay as well, along with two guest characters whose names already escape me.
When a storm kicks up, this little vacation turns serious, however. They take refuge from the storm in a cave. But Mayweather insists he has seen alien life, despite scans from the ship reporting nothing. When Male Guest Character freaks out and runs into the storm, Trip pursues - only to see aliens coming out of the rock itself! When Trip returns to the cave, he learns that Female Guest Character saw T'Pol talking with these aliens... sparking Trip's distrust of Vulcans, and putting the landing party at odds with itself!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Archer: There's little new development here. He's still headstrong, and - along with the crew - possibly getting a bit stir-crazy inside the cramped ship. His friendship with Trip is elaborated on, as he talks an increasingly irrational Trip down from a murderous rage by drawing on Trip's trust in him. He also demonstrates resourcefulness and quick thinking at the climax of the episode.
Trip: Broken Bow harped on Archer's distrust of Vulcans, but generally portrayed Trip as more laid-back. This episode shows that Trip is at least as suspicious of their Vulcan "allies" as his captain is, and indicates that Trip may have some violent tendencies under his easygoing surface.
T'Pol: As the situation in the cave becomes heated, it is revealed that the resentment cuts both ways. T'Pol still feels very much separate from the crew, and deep-down believes that the humans are little more than savages, unfit to be explorers. She does put some trust in Archer at the finale, though, and maintains more rationality than the human members of the landing crew manage to do. Jolene Blalock's performance still isn't impressing me, but it seems to be improving - which, given the prominence of her role, is a very good thing.
The Enterprise Crew: Mayweather gets a scene! He still doesn't have a character, but at least he gets one good scene, telling a ghost story by a fire. The actor does a good job with this short bit, and my conclusion is that the actor is good enough to carry a role. Now if only the writers would actually create one for him. Dr. Phlox's medical skills are further expanded on, when he manages to save a crewmember after a transporter accident (exactly how is left very vague; apparently, in the original draft script, he was unable to save the crewman, and that probably should have been the case in the final episode). Hoshi and Reed are present in the background, but get less character development than Archer's beagle in this ep. Oh, and though I haven't particularly commented on him yet, I quite like Porthos, and it enhances Archer's quirky side that he actually brought his dog with him into outer space.
THOUGHTS
Finishing Disc One. Though this episode, like its predecessors, has its flaws and missed opportunities, I'm starting to wonder exactly when this program is going to start sucking. Because so far, it doesn't. Sure, there's a much more interesting show fighting to get out from underneath the generic writing. But three episodes in, all three episodes have been reasonably engaging. For a so-called "franchise killer," the program's not only not bad - I'd so far rate it somewhere between "fair" and "pretty good" on my personal scale.
In the first two episodes, we saw how reluctant the crew was to use the transporter. In this episode, we see why. When an emergency forces them to use the transporter to retrieve Expendable Male Guest Character, we see that these primitive transporters are a lot less reliable than the ones employed by Kirk & co, as the crew member ends up with bits of the world's plantlife mixed in with his skin. Uch! We're told Dr. Phlox manages to save him... but I'm guessing some extensive surgery was involved, and that the crew member's not going to be up to full strength anytime soon. No wonder this Enterprise crew is so insistent on using shuttlecraft.
I think I enjoyed the first half of the episode, with the crew relaxing and getting giddily enthusiastic over exploring a not-very-strange new world, more than the second half. The "crisis" in this episode seemed forced and manufactured. I also felt that there was a missed opportunity there. The pilot established Archer's intrinsic distrust of the Vulcans. How much more interesting might this scenario have been if Trip had gone back to the ship at the end of the day, and Archer had stayed? Then the climax would have had Archer waving a gun in T'Pol's face, and Trip talking down a man who was not only his friend, but actually his superior officer. The potential for drama would have been much enhanced, even if it did take the series' lead away from the "heroic" position. To me, that one switch - Trip on the ship, Archer in the cave - would have made the episode considerably more interesting.
Still, it's an engaging piece. The actor playing Trip obviously has fun getting to go over-the-top in the angry cave scenes. I may even revise my comment above if Trip's potential for violence ever comes up again.
Rating: 6/10
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