Not a bad episode except for a teensy problem…
If there is no light on this world why the hell is there green vegetation on this planet? Even Worse there should have been nothing visible at all!
It looked like night would here on Earth, which is fine if they had a sun and moon to reflect the light onto the planet.
Silly idea that was not necessary to the plot or could have been fixed by a oh this planet generates its own light source too.
paint. lots and lots of green paint.
Y’know, I felt like such a geek for being annoyed by the very same thing, in an episode that otherwise was pretty well handled. But is frustrating that they do such stupid bits. An ecosystem evolved to exploit geothermic energy rather than light as a primary energy source. What a fun assignment to be given to a set designing team! It wouldn’t demand a huge budget. But then they couldn’t just reuse one of the old jungle sets.
My big problem with this episode was: Okay, your prey can morph into ANYTHING and can READ YOUR MIND…how in the hell does being able to “sniff out” their fear pheromones even the playing field? Why are these beings scared of these yaboos in the first place? And why do the Enterprise people buy the sorry line that these creatures NEED to “level the playing field?” They can MORPH and they’re TELEPATHIC…don’t they have a pretty extreme advantage in the first place?
I did think that the styrofoam boulders, filter-rich lighting and cheese-tacular music was a beautiful homage to the original series, though, even if it was unintentional. 
Welcome to Star Trek, the show where the plot’s made up and the science doesn’t matter. That’s right, the science is just like the points on Who’s line is it anyway?, it just doesn’t matter.
I like Star Trek a lot, but I could not have enjoyed it as much as I do if I didn’t give up worrying about the science many, many series ago. Because you’re right, it makes NO sense whatsoever for there to be grean, leafy plants, unless each and every one of those plants is a wraith who has taken the form of a plant from the mind of a visiting creature.
Although, I have to admit, I said the same thing to my wife as we watched it. I’m so ashamed that I actually payed attention to science in a Star Trek episode. Sniff.
Hmmm. I think they did level teh playing field in that the slugs weren’t shooting the hunters who seemed to have enough logic as to not be fooled by their dead grandpa showing up in the woods warning them to go home.
I think they just wanted to stop the killing of a sentient being
My favorite scene which was deleted out was the one where the crew reaoizes what exactly they ate at the campfire.
That is realized not reaoizes. and the not teh
Me fail English that’s unpossible.
Damn it, Jim! I opened this thread expecting to see a royal roasting of that pitiful excuse for an episode, and instead I find some polite discussion of the usual scientific inaccuracies.
Now here I am the only one willing to commence flaming, and just a few weeks ago, Enterprise was my favorite show. (For those of you keeping score at home, my current favorite is MTV’s Tough Enough, with NYPD Blue coming up fast.)
“Rogue Planet” was less an homage to TOS than a bad SNL parody. Even I am beginning to see Bakula’s limitations. He had the whole Kirk “I’m the Captain, so I"ll just go ruunning off into into the jungle by myself” thing down. But instead of heroically attempting to save his crew single-handedly, he’s just chasing after a woman in a nightgown. (Nightgown? Even Archer has seen aliens wearing non-Earth clothing. So why assume that this woman’s gown, robe, dress, whatever is a nightgown? Unless it’s because on this planet it’s always night.) T’Pol nailed him (and had the best line of the ep.) when she asked whether he’d be chasing a scantily clad man into the jungle.
But other than that, this episode was incredibly boring and silly. You’d think that shape-shifting, mind-reading aliens would be able to come up with a way to outwit these hunters more easily than mere humans. And why weren’t we allowed to see more of their society and culture? Or just more of them, period? All we really learned was that Archer likes scantily-clad women – not exactly a revelation. Not exactly sure what the message about hunting was supposed to be, either. Maybe something like “don’t shoot fish in a barrel”? The crew didn’t seem to object to one sentient species eating another, even when they found out after the fact.
I know it’s political correctness, but was I the only one who cringed at the cheery mention of the Boy Scouts? Maybe their much-debated anti-gay policies have been lifted by the time that Archer and Reed participate, but completely ignoring the issue felt to me like a big slap in the face to the gay community.
I guess I’m not a true geek. I didn’t even notice the whole plant problem.
I liked the premise of hunters chasing a sentient being and the morality questions it brings up, but I could not get over the huge problem of the planet, and a few other minor niggley things.
I just assumed after 900 years of hunting on this planet the eings just ran out of great tricks. Then again how long have they been chasing this planet?
Easily one of the worst of the series thus far but you know what, when looking at other offerings out there that isn’t much of a condemnation (I could have been watching “the 80’s show”)
I thought the planet was kinda cool, even if it was a clumsy and blatant rip-off of one of Vernor Vinge’s ideas (e.g. the green plants thing).
The main thing that bugged me was the whole hunting is evil thing. Apparently, hunting as a past-time went out of practice over a hundred years before the series. Did they go where all the gay people went?
Mostly I like the new series, but this episode illustrated one of the things the new Star Trek has that annoys me: apparently the future is run solely by Soccer Moms and other Tipper Gore-like ilk…
Definitely one of their weakest episodes so far. I didn’t think about the foliage thing (but yeah, grooaannn) – I was mostly annoyed by the crummy writing. It’s not a bad premise, it was just really, really poorly handled, almost beginning to end. It beggars belief to think that Archer would be so easily fooled, that he’d go running off into the jungle, that the wraiths would be so helpless, etc., etc. It just didn’t make any sense; the characters didn’t behave in character, they were jerked around like puppets at the behest of the writers and the plot.
The exception was T’Pol’s pithy observation about scantily clad men, as noted above. The other possible exception was the poetic reference, which I thought was a nice literary touch, but it wasn’t written very well.
I give it a D. It was totally forgettable, like one of the seen-it-once and never-discuss-it-again episodes of Kirk-era Trek.
The only reason I can come up with as to why I still watch the varrious Trek spin offs, is that since I was exposed to the pure and undiluted Trek at a very tender age, I’m addicted to Star Trek.
I agree with all of the above critizims and add the following:
I have used two different generations of the miliary night vision gogles. They work exceptionally well in just star light. (And I might add, flash lights are not needed and are in fact counter productive.) I would expect the future versions of NVG’s to be exceptional. The resolution was crappy and only one eye?! I can tell you walking through a forest with monoccual NVG’s is fun. If you like walking into trees. Its one thing when Trek’s future tech is a little wonky. It’s another when they screw up current technology.
One of my least favorite episodes, although, God help me, I’m starting to like T’Pol – I guess because of that comment about Archer wouldn’t chase after a scantily clad man. But…the second best line was T’Pol’s also: “Vulcan’s are renown for their accomplishments, not their looks,” says the Vulcan sex kitten (with sculpted eyebrows, collagen lips and lip gloss, silicon boobs,and cat suit). Didn’t pick up on the greenery (but then I missed parts of the show, thanks to my s.o.), but what about those night vision goggles outlined in day-glow orange. Like, hey, if you’re hunting by stealth, maybe you don’t want your night vision googles to be visible! Well, next week’s looks like it’ll be good anyway.
Archer: “Well, I * do * like to wear dresses now and then…”
Who gets to keep all those plants? Do they have a prop greenhouse and reuse them?
They don’t hunt on earth; what about colonies?
Were the wraiths really sentient? How would a telpathic dog try to get a cookie from you?
about this week’s episode …
But next week we get to meet the Ferengi!!! 
And Porthos makes his on-camera return! Woo hoo! LOL Okay, so I’m easily amused, so sue me! 
I am looking forward to seeing Ferengi, though. Just wish they’d get around to introducing those Tellarites!
And yes, I did wonder about the “green” planet.
tarragon
Semi-hijack:
Do you suppose that by the end of this, the first season, we might actually see Travis Mayweather given something to do besides stare at the viewscreen in awe and occasionally answer someone’s question or order? Sorry to bring this up again as I do in every Enterprise thread, but it bugs me more with every passing week. The writers used him in the first few episodes last fall, then apparently forgot he was there.
There is supposed to be a Risa episode coming up soon, maybe Travis will do something then. Or more likely they will leave him in charge while everyone else has fun (even though Malcom would be the most likely to volunteer for that job)
Hey, we want to be able to suspend disbelief for an hour, and stupid gaffes like the plants (yeah, and the goggles, thought that too) are like airplanes flying in the background of a Western. It is just not having high standards. Or any standards. It makes you have to work hard at enjoying the show. This coupled with a such lack of respect for internal consistency to the various other series (canon) that even I pick up on it, is ruining the fun.
What irritates me about the green plants on a sunless world gaffe is how pointless it was. The basic plot was about the interaction of alien hunters with another set of aliens who are telepathic shape-shifters. There was no reason whatsoever to set this on a planet without a sun. (I can imagine a plot where the sunless planet aspect might actually be important to the story–say, if the they’d explored what a civilization which had never seen a sun might be like.) As it was, it’s like they just went out of their way to screw up really basic and fairly obvious science.
Geesh, there are a lot of plot holes in Enterprise! Telepathic, shape-changing aliens need help hiding from hunters? If they have those kind of powers, and still get caught, perhaps it’s just natural selection weeding out the dumb ones…
I would loved to have seen some truly alien vegetation in this episode – say, overgrown fungi or gigantic versions of those things that grow near deep-sea vents. Either of those would have made a lot more sense than the standard green-leafed trees. Of course, the show’s creators wouldn’t have been able to use “Generic Jungle Set #3” (it’s stored next to “Generic Cavern #2” between episodes).