How the hell are the crew supposed to be able to tell that Archer is acting crazy? It is basically his every day routine honestly. I guess it is just that the focus of his madness shifted in an unacceptable way. Also, this has come up so many times before, but Starfleet really needs a better procedure for what you do when the captain has his or her mind or body taken over or replaced by an alien. You shouldn't have to mutiny to stop the "captain" from ruining everything all the time. In theory it is the most acceptable on Enterprise since it is the earliest time it has happened as far as we know, but it continues through all the series as a regular plot device. Also, they commit one of the cardinal sins of science fiction, taking off your helmets on an alien world/spaceship and immediately getting infected with something that you inhale/get sprayed with/have literally crammed down your throat. This is an automatic point off for the episode, writers take note.
We open with the discovery of an crashed Xindi ship that turns out to be insetoid. Archer leads a team down on a shuttle and they find several adult bodies before entering a pressurized section of the ship. For no clear reason they take their helmets off and find a hatchery of Xindi Insectoid eggs. Archer gets sprayed by some goop from one but seems fine after going to sickbay. However he becomes suddenly obsessed with saving the eggs from destruction, even at the possible cost of the failure of their mission to save Earth. When T'Pol questions him he has her relieved of duty and confined to quarters. Archer orders much of Enterprise's anti-matter, literally the fuel that makes the ship go, transferred to the Xindi ship to save the eggs. When some Xindi show up and attack Malcolm destroys their ship and is relieved of his post for the trouble. Trip and Phlox decide they need to do something and threaten Archer with removal from command if he doesn't go through with a medical screening so he threatens to have them confined to quarters. Luckily Archer heads back to the hatchery leaving Hayes in charge of the bridge. Trip and Phlox free T'Pol and Malcolm and set about taking over the ship. The only real trouble is the bridge, but they prevail as Trip knocks out Archer in the surface. Phlox discovers that the stuff Archer got sprayed with made him think he was the insects mother or something and he has fixed it.
Review: Would have been more fun if it hadn't been done a bunch of times before, but fairly well carried out in any case. Taking off the helmet only to get sprayed was already a cliche at that point so for sure one point off for that.
4 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment