ENT: Civilization

         I think this is supposed to be an episode about fracking and I guess I kinda get that, but it still manages to fail pretty badly overall. First of all way too much of this episode is shot so dark that I couldn't really tell what was supposed to be going on. Second when they do the big reveal of the alien it wasn't anything we have seen before, and we already know he is an alien. It felt like it was supposed to be a big moment, but it wasn't at all. Also Archers attempts at romance make Geordi look like a player but of course since he is the captain it works anyway. Finally, if the Malurians are flying shuttles in literally every night shouldn't Enterprise have been able to pick that up? They can literally see peoples faces from high orbit, are we supposed to believe they can't detect a spaceship flying around? I am sure there is even more stupidity that I am forgetting, but that will do for now. 
         We open with Enterprise stopping by a heavily populated M-Class planet with a relatively low technology level. Of course Archer has to get them dressed up like locals and stop by for a visit after discovering neutrino emissions. They find the emission coming from an antiques shop but before they can investigate too much a local woman shows up with a crossbow to threaten them buy T'Pol shoots her instead. Somehow Archer knows how to get her home and he wakes up there with a bunch of questions and he lies about as well as a four year old covered in frosting being asked if they ruined the birthday cake. Archer and Trip confront the shop owner who turns out to be an alien but he also figures out they are aliens and tells them to leave and they do for no clear reason. On Enterprise Phlox figures out that bad aliens are polluting the ground water somehow (the woman with crossbow was worried about her people getting sick). Archer ends up making out with crossbow lady and together they discover the bad alien is shipping crates of something off planet. They confront one of the aliens and get some sort of gizmo that lets them get to the reactor and turn off the damping field hiding it. T'Pol and Enterprise meanwhile confront the alien mothership and the only way to defeat them is beam the reactor into space and then blow it up next to them. It works and after some mustache twirling the bad aliens agree to leave.

         Review: This really could have been a decent episode, but serious problems kept it below average, at least for non-ENT Trek.

4 out of 10