Postby putaro » Thu May 29, 2014 6:03 pm
Silent Enemy
Enterprise is dropping off some kind of doohickey in the middle of nowhere. It sounds like it's a subspace relay though, honestly, it doesn't make much sense to me that it would make a difference when they're right next to it since presumably Enterprise's subspace comms would be on par with the relay's so they should be receiving as well as the relay is. Now, when they get further away from the relay it would make sense. Oh well, moving right along. There's a ship dropping out of warp. It's kind of green. After listening to Archer yammer for a bit they warp away. Archer says to the bridge crew "Was it something I said?" - in my opinion, yes!
Archer has a crew meeting to get an affirmation that he didn't do anything wrong (I'm good enough, I'm strong enough and doggone it, people like me!). Hoshi and Archer have tracked down Malcolm's parents and Archer calls them up to find out Malcolm's favorite food. Dysfunctional does not even begin to describe his parents and they don't know what his favorite food is. OK, on to plan B. Assign it to Hoshi!
And one of my favorite lines pops out as Trip and Archer have a hallway conversation. Archer says "You missed T'Pol's latest bout with chopsticks" to which Trip answers "Damn, dinner and a show"
Trip and Archer yak some more about messages from home. Trip has gotten a "Dear John" letter from his girlfriend Natalie. Maybe he should let T'Pol read it! More pedeconferencing and the conversation has shifted to Malcolm's dysfunctional family. Archer says "We don't know that much about Malcolm." Oooh, maybe he's a spy!
Our green space ship is back again. Archer calls them back. You know, if you talk loudly and slowly everyone understand English. Loud staticy noise assaults everyone on the bridge and then the aliens start shooting at Enterprise! Maybe the translator told them you're selling Amway, Jon!
The aliens take off, Malcolm has gotten some scans indicating there's 15 of them on board and Enterprise's weapons are still crap. Archer and T'Pol go to look at the damage from the attack and it's pretty bad. Archer wants to go back to Earth to install phase cannons but Trip and Malcolm want to build their own instead of going home. Logically speaking (and where is T'Pol when you need her) better offensive weaponry doesn't really change the fact that your hull is made out of tissue paper. And it's not like you even got a shot off with the torpedoes! Oh well…Archer has made a Command Decision and Enterprise heads back to Earth.
Malcolm and Trip are giving a pep talk to the Engineering/Tactical crew to get them to bust their humps putting together phase cannons.
Hoshi is pumping Malcolm's sister for info and her advice is "extra tentacles please". Hoshi continues working through her list of contacts. This is supposedly a secret from Malcolm but she's doing it on the bridge. Where Malcolm works. Guess the budget for sets was down that week. T'Pol tells Hoshi to just ask Malcolm already.
Hoshi catches up to Malcolm in the galley but he is deep in workaholic mode. She's trying to get him to open up by offering to cook for him but he's definitely taking it as a come-on. And Hoshi is all embarassed - it's nerd love in full bloom!
Oooh, and Enterprise is being followed and now the aliens are shooting as Enterprise again. The power is off and Enterprise still doesn't have emergency lights! Every display on the bridge appears to be off but T'Pol is still able to tell Archer that the launch bay doors are opening. He wants her to close them but she says "I can't do that Dave" as an alien shuttle craft comes on in.
Seriously, no emergency lighting in a metal box is pretty damn stupid. Archer and company are wandering around with flashlights looking for the source of some funny noises and they find the aliens doing hand flashy things to some people on the floor. Well, for once Archer and I are in agreement as he shoots at the aliens with his phase pistol. But the phase pistols aren't very effective.
The aliens take off back to their ship and leave with a parting shot to Enterprise's nacelles. We have two crewmen in sick bay recovering from their invasive scanning (is that a euphemism for anal probing?) and Archer decided to take his anger out on T'Pol. Trip calls from Engineering and tells Archer they're dead in the water for a couple of days.
Back on the bridge, T'Pol tells Archer there's no Vulcan ships near by. Travis helpfully tells Archer that Vulcan is only two days away at warp 6. Though, if it's going to take two days to fix the warp drive, why make them come all the way over? You know they're just going to give you attitude. And the tow bill is going to bankrupt Star Fleet!
Now Hoshi can't call Vulcan and it's because the relay has been destroyed. See what happens when you don't pay your long distance bill?
Cut to the armory and Malcolm is being pissy. And now he's giving Trip attitude because Trip doesn't want to jury rig the new cannon system. So much for rank in Star Fleet!
Archer comes down to Engineering to help. And now Archer wants more weapons and thinks he risked the lives of everyone on board by leaving without everything being online. Yep, and let's talk about that episode where you went chasing after an alien ship even though the torpedoes weren't working!
Malcolm and Trip are working on the phase cannons. Archer is very proud that they've gotten the phase cannons working so quickly so he lets Malcolm blow up an asteroid. The phase cannons work better than expected and now there's an anomalous reading in the launch bay. Down to the launch bay with phase pistols!
And they found a gizmo that putting out a lot of energy - 600 megajoules!! Which a lot of energy but earlier Malcolm was telling everyone the phase cannons were rated at 500 gigajoues, or about 800 times more. The gizmo is tapped into the comms everywhere so Archer gives a little speech to a Big Brother cam telling the aliens to take off or else. Then he takes a phase pistol to the high powered device. Reddy Kilowatt says "don't do this at home!"
The next scene is Hoshi entering sickbay to check on the badly burned Archer and company. Oops, it's just Pholox, I guess Archer got off easy. Hoshi is really there to grill Phlox about Malcolm's eating habits but he's no help. Oh wait, he has an idea and all it requires is Phlox breaking medical confidentiality to look up all of Malcolms allergies and medical records to find out that Malcolm is allergic to pineapple but takes anti-allergy shots presumably so he can eat it. You know, there was no reason to give that out, Phlox. You could have just said "I think he likes pineapple",
Alien ship is back and Archer's ready for a fight. They get a nastygram from the aliens that consists of pieces of Archer's last speech spliced together. Now, THAT is a deadly weapon!
Archer is excited to try out the new phase cannons. Now, Malcolm is not willing to take risks to blow up the aliens and Trip is coming up with whacky workarounds. Enterprise and the alien ship are playing chicken but in slow motion (seriously, they're only 5000 meters away when Archer and Reed start yakking and 1000 meters away when Enterprise finally fires on them a minute later. So 240 kph?)
This time the phase cannons kick butt. Enterprise puts the boot in with a couple of torpedoes and the aliens take off. Archer decides there's no reason to go home and blows off the plan to go back to Earth.
And it's birthday time in the armory. Beer and cake, my favorite! And pineapple IS Malcolm's favorite. And all it took was a complete invasion of his medical privacy to find out!
The high point of this episode was the Archer/Tucker interactions. They really felt like friends who knew each other. The random aliens of the week were disappointing. They were just a plot device with no effort to even show them as anything except a plot device. I'll give this one a "meh"
Last edited by
putaro on Fri May 30, 2014 1:08 am, edited 1 time in total.