Worth watching Themes: first contact, Reed development, Enterprise development
Enterprise is making way for future human space exploration by deploying subspace amplifiers, which apparently draws attention from a ship that even T'Pol doesn't recognize. They don't respond at all and just go away after taking a look. They return later, causing ship wide power failure, docking their shuttle, getting all old school alien with probing incapacitated crewmen and escaping before the crew can do anything. This makes Archer realise they are ill equipped for dealing with something as alien as this and turns them around to Jupiter station so they can get their phase cannons mounted. Reed and Tucker are certain they can do it themselves but Archer is too shaken to approve their request. That doesn't stop them from giving their all to do it themselves, which is the decision that ultimately saves them as they encounter aliens one more time, where it's finally clear their intention is to capture Enterprise. Aliens themselves have a part in their own defeat as their monitoring device causes power surge that boosts power of the cannons at the expense of other systems, which is something they use to defeat aliens and once more reverse course and go further into space.
Now this is really good. We get character development with having a character in question barely in that storyline at all, which is actually brilliant way to show just how much of a private person Reed is. We get truly alien looking aliens, not just humans with a little prosthetic detail to make them different (and also some slick looking ships). This goes a long way to show us there are other warp capable species in the universe whose motives and intentions can't be understood by usual human logic. Mystery surrounding them really brings a dose of scariness that isn't that usual in ST universe, as they genuinely seem as a threat, which really brings home the point of Enterprise and its crew not really being prepared for anything galaxy throws at them. Moreover, it also gives an opportunity to show us what the crew is made of, as they work relentlessly to mount those cannons themselves. It's everything one would hope for out of a Star Trek episode.
Fun fact: we get to learn there are 81 humans, 1 denobulan and 1 vulcan onboard.
Review by ChronosusBlockedParentSpoilers2019-10-14T08:21:48Z
Worth watching
Themes: first contact, Reed development, Enterprise development
Enterprise is making way for future human space exploration by deploying subspace amplifiers, which apparently draws attention from a ship that even T'Pol doesn't recognize. They don't respond at all and just go away after taking a look. They return later, causing ship wide power failure, docking their shuttle, getting all old school alien with probing incapacitated crewmen and escaping before the crew can do anything. This makes Archer realise they are ill equipped for dealing with something as alien as this and turns them around to Jupiter station so they can get their phase cannons mounted. Reed and Tucker are certain they can do it themselves but Archer is too shaken to approve their request. That doesn't stop them from giving their all to do it themselves, which is the decision that ultimately saves them as they encounter aliens one more time, where it's finally clear their intention is to capture Enterprise. Aliens themselves have a part in their own defeat as their monitoring device causes power surge that boosts power of the cannons at the expense of other systems, which is something they use to defeat aliens and once more reverse course and go further into space.
Now this is really good. We get character development with having a character in question barely in that storyline at all, which is actually brilliant way to show just how much of a private person Reed is. We get truly alien looking aliens, not just humans with a little prosthetic detail to make them different (and also some slick looking ships). This goes a long way to show us there are other warp capable species in the universe whose motives and intentions can't be understood by usual human logic. Mystery surrounding them really brings a dose of scariness that isn't that usual in ST universe, as they genuinely seem as a threat, which really brings home the point of Enterprise and its crew not really being prepared for anything galaxy throws at them. Moreover, it also gives an opportunity to show us what the crew is made of, as they work relentlessly to mount those cannons themselves. It's everything one would hope for out of a Star Trek episode.
Fun fact: we get to learn there are 81 humans, 1 denobulan and 1 vulcan onboard.