Star Trek: Enterprise — 1x16 — Shuttlepod One

Aired 2002-02-13

SpaceOpera.com rating:4

Average reader rating:5.26

Synopsis

During a shuttlepod mission, Tucker and Reed are cut off from Enterprise and become convinced the starship has been destroyed and that their days are numbered.

Remarkable scenes

Trip and Reed picking on each other's heritage.
Trip complaining about Reed's pessimism.
Reed dreaming about T'Pol.
Trip and Reed getting roaring drunk and discussing T'Pol.
Trip and Reed blowing up the impulse engine in an attempt to attract Enterprise's attention.
Trip trying to sacrifice himself to save Reed.

Review

Like Ent: Dear Doctor, this episode is a mixed bag. I loved the episode, but some of the plot logic just didn't make any sense. Why didn't Enterprise retrieve Shuttlepod One immediately after the accident with the Tesnians instead of abandoning them to the asteroid field? Maybe the Tesnians couldn't survive on Enterprise very long and getting them back to Tesnia as soon as possible was the only way to keep them alive, but this is never explicitly stated, nor does Enterprise ever even contact shuttlepod one to explain the change of plans until well after they're underway! For this annoyance, I subtract points, but beyond this the episode is a lot of fun. Watching Trip and Reed pick at each other on that shuttle was some great humor, especially after they got drunk and started discussing T'Pol. With some more careful writing, this episode could have been above average easily. I'm also kind of annoyed that we never got to see the Tesnians.

1 reader comment

I was also confused by the plot of this episode. I didn't much understand any of what happened with the Tesnians or the debris of the Enterprise or the situation at large. It was all kind of glossed over. Putting that aside, I liked most of this episode. I've always liked Trip and have wanted to see more Reed and it was a good episode for both of them.
Mostly, this episode was about developing Reed. Trip is already so well developed that he was just Trip. There were a few things that bothered me though, about Reed.
1 Reed is a bit mysterious. That's a big part of his characters appeal. I think by showing so much of who he was they diminished the mystery quite a bit.
2 What is with Reed and food? First, when a hostage on Terra Nova, he grimaces at the presumably disgusting "digger" meat. Then on his birthday they explicitly make a big deal out of how much he doesn't care about food and will eat whatever is in front of him. Now in this episode he seems to have a significant reaction to the Sea Bass meal. It's like the writers are going out of there way to contradict themselves.
3 The worst scene of the episode and one of the worst things I've ever seen on Star Trek. Reeds dream of T'pol. I have so far found the humor on Enterprise to be spot on. Hilarious at times. But this scene was one of the worst pieces of anti-comedy I have ever had to sit through. Had this scene not lasted so long, I'd have overlooked it. But apparently someone thought the "stinky" thing was so cute and funny, that they just kept running with it for what was really an absurd amount of time.
by Zorak | 09/22/2016 at 10:40 am