Of the Berman/Braga races the only one that really works is strangely one they nabbed from TOS, the Andorians. In this episode they again arrive with both confidence, but also competence. Their distrust of Vulcans is very justified and they are shown to be individuals capable of making their own decisions unlike so many races that are super strong mono-cultures. I was thinking Archer was just being a classic jerk when he insisted on being in charge, but sure enough he was betrayed. And the betrayal wasn't a mustache twirling one, it actually makes sense that the Andorians would want a super weapon to at least keep them safe from the Vulcans. Finally, the conclusion actually worked well I thought. Detonating the weapon inside the Andorian ship is exactly what they needed to do. The only thing missing was the reaction of the Xindi. I suspect we will get that in a later episode so I am not that worried, but it felt like something that belonged in this episode.
We open with Enterprise back to their allegedly main mission of tracking down the Xindi weapon. They miscalculate though and get stuck in an anomaly only to get rescued by the Andorian Commander Shran. He is super friendly and offers to help them with repairs. And he is true to his word, the crew of Enterprise and uniformly impressed with the work. Malcolm even hits it off with their head of security, it turns out they are both from long military families. While work continues they detect a group of Xindi ships and what appears to be a version of the weapon. We cut to the Xindi counsel who are preparing to watch what they hope will be a full power test. But they are interrupted by Shran showing up (with Archer and T'Pol observing) and pretending to be miners (kinda unreasonable since he is in an advanced warship, but it worked for me at the time). After getting scans they bug out and the Xindi proceed with their test. Only something goes wrong and it almost overloads and has to be shut down.
The weapon turns out to be dangerously radioactive after use so it has to cool off for a while. This makes Archer want to fly in and grab it, but Shran points out Enterprise is insufficiently shielded for such things and offers the use of his ship. Archer agrees on the condition that he be in command which Shran hesitantly agrees to. We see Malcolms lady friend messing with something in the armory about the same time Shran takes a call from space central ordering him to seize the weapon which he is hesitant to do. The plan goes great in terms of Enterprise disabling the Xindi while Shran grabs the weapon, and takes off for Andoria. He dumps Archer in an escape pod confident that Enterprise's sensors and disabled. But Malcolm wasn't slipping and already has things working. Enterprise catches the Andorians who seem unworried, until Archer uses the captured activation codes to turn the weapon on inside their ship. Shran dumps it just in time, but his ship is damaged. He refuses to the offer of repairs, but a few days later Archer receives a coded Andorian transmission with detailed scans on the weapon, presumably from Shran.
Review: Still not sure I can strongly recommend these episodes, but things are coming together a bit. That and Shran turning into an actually interesting character made this an actually good episode.
6 out of 10
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