Sigh… Where to start…
Pros,
Early Angry Archer. Archers first scene had a nice bit of subtle acting by Quantum Leap. Archer is still pissed and focused on only his goal. There are small signs of stress showing as if Archer is being consumed and if taken to its logical conclusion may push himself to the brink of a nervous collapse. Nice touch… hope they keep it up.
Vicious flame throwers. Nice to see a species that doesn’t use phasers as its primary weapon. Though I can understand wanting to burn up the virus as well as the infected person, it seems pointless to do on a planet that is infested with it.
“Captain, Come here a body!” Finally a crew member asking the captain to see something and telling him what it is in advance.
How many times have we heard “Captain you better come down here,” “What is it?” “I think you’d better see this for yourself”?
Nice make up effects, the little sacks on their necks pulsed very well.
Finally some one uses the Transporter and at the same time has a plausible excuse for not using it to pick up the landing party. PS Nice Early Transporter effect, should have the old whine from “The Cage” though to make it better.
Trip’s Captaincy: Yes he’s still brisk but he gets the job done. His exchange with the exterminators was very good. Telling them they may visit but if they force their way aboard they’ll have a fight. Nice bit of impromptu diplomacy.
I liked that bit at the end (though it felt tacked on) where Archer decides to save the virus…. Still anyone think that little box was not for stasis…it seemed a little small to store all samples… my guess is a test tube sterilizer, unless it has a Dr Who interior.
OK Now for my usual gripes and complaints
PANDA: Same old same old… even the characters are bored with it. “You want me too…” “Yes please”
OK Why the Hell would T’Pol have cold hands?!?!? She is A Vulcan Her body temperature is Higher! Trip should not find her hands to be cold.
STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE: You Bastards! Last episode I said that The lack of a Star Trek title seemed to indicate this wasn’t really Star Trek…. Well they showed us. (Banging TV) Be more Trek… C’mon stupid show, be more Trek"
The Unga Bunga virus: Rewriting the DNA sequence suddenly changes the person completely…. Right. Any biologists out there in Dope land want to explain why this is patently wrong. Oh wait the expanse has laws of biology don’t apply in the expanse. Anybody want to think this is because the creators want to bring back 50’s Sci-Fi junk science and are too lazy to actually use any real or theoretical science. Can’t wait for the spider that grows to fifty feet tall because of exposure to radiation.
Xray shot… nifty but I picture Sam Rami using it not Star Trek…
Archer Vision: Ooooo he sees in red so they give a POV shot that really seems to have no atvantage, I guess it was supposed to be infra red but The viewer saw the same detail in both shots.
Unga Bunga Greedo: Honest to God my jaw dropped when Unga Bunga Archer turns to T’Pol and says something like “Tck guna wana solo” It sounded like Greedo’s first lines to Han in Star Wars.
What No butt Sniffing?: So our Unga Bunga crew act like primitive cave folk…. Right down to the fight over food where Malcolm backs away from Alpha male Archer and give up his food. I honestly expected them to greet each other with a good old fashioned butt sniff.
What kind of shithole city is this?: Anyone else find the CG city looking rather crappy. Sure it was a dream but for crying out loud the city in Logan’s run looked better than this.
MayWeather to the rescue:
So Mayweather is given the Con, he is ordered to get the hell out of there, does he relay the order to the guy at the helm? Nope… He gets the guy to move so he can do it! So what the hell do they have this guy sitting there for?? Is he the Orbital specialist???
“Mr Seatwarmer takes us out Warp three”
“Uhh Sorry Captain, I’m the orbital specialist I can maintain standard orbit. Do you prefer geosynchronous… if you’d like I can raise our orbit another 2,000 perigees?”
The lack of determination of the Exterminators:
Here we have a race of people who torch anything that comes in contact with the virus, right down to hunting them back to the planet and frying them. We’ve seen them burn down their own crew who were exposed. So they come across a ship that is holding diseased persons. What do they do? Destroy the ship thinking it may be infected by this point? Nope they send their captain over Sans Environmental suit to see how well the person is isolated. Then later a shuttle leaves the surface of the planet and the two ships also in orbit do nothing. As far as they knew the only other people on the planet were the infected crew so any alien shuttle would be seen as a threat. They wait till it docks and then watch as the Enterprise peels away, then decide to destroy it.
Not a very good episode but it could have been worse. It could have been 45 minutes of them chasing T’Pol around jungle world.
