Season two was far from perfect but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any good episodes. Right?
Plot Synopsis:
After the encounter with the Romulan minefield, Enterprise is severely damaged. Engineer Trip fears the worst. Archer decides to send out a distress call and it isn't long before he gets a response from the Tellarites.
They give the coordinates of a strange repair station. Upon approaching Enterprise is scanned. The atmosphere and the docking port are automatically changed to Enterprise' specs. The station is able to repair Enterprise in only 36 hours.
The price seems fair until Mayweather turns up dead. The crew is grief stricken until Phlox realizes it’s a clone and the real Mayweather is being help prisoner. Archer conceives a plan to rescue him and get away from the strange station.
Guest Stars:
None except sort of one I’ll discuss below.
Episode pros
This episode was directed by b’elanna torres herself Roxanne Dawson. She also provides the computer voice. She would direct another episode also which is famous for…other reasons.
It’s really not hard to see why I would like this. It’s a character episode and I love me a good character episode. Course Mayweather was horribly underused so it’s nice to see him get attention for once. Even if he’s dead/kidnapped. And the scenes with the crew grieving are well handled. Archer struggling and Hoahi gets a nice scene in sick bay. Nice to see Archer realize how much he ignored his crew.
Of course it’s a prequel so it’s nice to see that they can’t fix damage as easily as in the other shows and that they need to learn what a distress call is, We also get glimpse of “advanced tech” that would be standard on the later shows like food replicators.
That final scene is fantastic. While Tripp distracts the computer Archer Tucker and TPol manage to sneak in and locate Mayweather. As well other aliens the computer kidnapped and is used as a power source. After rescuing Mayweather they ignite the plasma they had offered as payment and escape the station. Nice action.
Episode Cons
While I think the scenes when they think Mayweather is dead are good I should point out that it’s also lame. I don’t think there’s a character in Trek who hasn’t died and cone back so the scenes only have so much weight because we know he’s coming back.
As I said it is a character episode, and man are these characters boring. I really want to love them like I do voyager but I just can’t. Course they’re not as boring as the characters on Starfleet Academy so there’s that. Archer just can’t pull off what Janeway did he just comes off grumpy in every scene. Why does T’Pol seem so passive here? The way Phlox discovers the deception is a little convenient to referencing something that happened off screen that we never saw before.
So what’s the story behind this repair station? Who designed it? Why does it operate the way it does? What happened to it afterwards? How long has it existed? I dunno. Episode decided we didn’t need to know I guess.
Finally, that music is awful! I mean it’s trying but man I just feel nothing.
Fast Forward Moment:
Not a moment but while its not called so the episode is really part 2 and admittedly you may be a little confused if you didn’t see the previous episode, I barely remember that one so decided to just discuss this one, which I always remembered.
Final Thoughts:
Not a bad episode. Why did they have to be so rare? But you know watching it again…man this series feels like it’s trying but the passion just isn’t there. The show is watchable but it’s also so…zzzzzz.
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