Star Trek: Enterprise — 2x12 — The Catwalk

Aired 2002-12-18

SpaceOpera.com rating:5

Average reader rating:4.83

Synopsis

When a deadly radioactive storm threatens Enterprise, the entire crew must take refuge for eight days in a small maintenance shaft.

Remarkable scenes

Alien Captain: "Once we're aboard, I suggest you go to warp 7 immediately." Archer: "Our top speed is warp 5."
Reed mentioning that cadets used to call the EV simulator the "vomitorium."
Archer: "You know, there is a bright side to all of this." T'Pol: "Really?" Archer: "It's bringing the crew closer together. If you forget about the storm outside, this is almost like going on a camping trip." T'Pol: "Perhaps we can sing a few songs later."

Review

And another improvement in the writing. Ent: The Catwalk is the most original story since Ent: Minefield and Ent: Dead Stop. I liked that there are plenty of natural phenomena in the galaxy that can endanger Enterprise. Without shields and without a top speed of faster than warp 5, we see how vulnerable the ship really is compared to even TOS standards. There was good continuity with TOS: The Naked Time regarding how long it takes to cold start a warp engine. The warp engine trivia was good all around in fact. I enjoyed seeing the catwalk itself. A nicely constructed set. I wonder if the planet they were planning to explore in this episode was the planet Trip discovered in the last episode. The descriptions sound about the same. Would have been nice to insert a line of dialog confirming this. The alien takeover wasn't exactly original, but well played. I liked how the alien enemy captain guy had read Archer's logs. I also liked how Archer faked his attempt to destroy the ship so as to convince the aliens to leave. A question remains regarding why the aliens didn't come back when Enterprise very clearly changed course after the aliens disembarked. However, their sensors could have been fooled. That would have been another nice one liner to have in the episode. Overall, pretty average stuff, but it's certainly above Enterprise's average lately!

7 reader comments

I think it actually would be possible to see the storm from a distance. You are forgetting that although the storm is traveling at warp, it still takes 8 days for it to pass while traveling at warp… it is huge. They wouldn't be able to look at the current location of the storm front, but they could possibly be looking at its past location.
A bigger problem is that the alien captain read Archer's ship log. First I find it unlikely that Archer wouldn't encrypt the file, and second I find it unlikely that Captain Archer wouldn't mention somewhere that they are hiding on the ship. Just in case something goes wrong and everyone dies in the storm, he would want to leave behind a record of what happened for Star Fleet (It sounds as if the the Vulcan crew that died in that previous storm left behind a record of the events that occurred).
by Crazy Tenchi | 06/18/2009 at 5:29 pm

Problem: Why is the doctor so worried about evacuating his creatures from Sickbay? They established at the start that people could survive there. Why doesn't he just wait out the storm there with his pets and not worry about the storage space?
by Rob Herbert | 07/20/2010 at 3:21 pm

rpeh: The doctor needs to be where the crew is in order to treat injuries, particularly if they expect to be in there for weeks at a time. He also can't leave his animals there on their own, as it's been established that he needs to feed them regularly.
I'm guessing there's no fully shielded pathway between the catwalks and sickbay, which explains why he is there.
by John DC | 03/27/2013 at 4:31 am

Archer's bluffing reminded me of Corbomite Maneuver. I wonder if it was intentional
by Inga | 03/31/2015 at 7:28 am

Star Trek loves thinking in two dimensional space. That storm looks pretty flat. Couldn't Enterprise just fly straight up and fly over it?
by Dstyle | 09/16/2015 at 5:33 pm

It's been a long time getting from there to here (har har), but enterprise is finally good again. Maybe I've been a bit desensitized by Enterprises long draught, but this seemed like an even better then average Star trek episode. I really enjoyed this one. Well written, well acted, mostly logical plot, exciting and just downright entertaining. It's about time.
I hope they can keep up this pace from now on.
by Zorak | 10/01/2016 at 7:37 pm

Concerning Edward's remark: "They wouldn't be able to look at the current location of the storm front, but they could possibly be looking at its past location." - nope, at least assuming the storm travels in a straight line toward Enterprise and does not vary its speed, then no matter how far back you go, the light of the storm would always arrive only after the storm. That's what it means for the storm to travel at warp speed, i.e. faster than light. It is faster than the light it emits. It will always outrun the light it has emitted on any point of its journey.
by Florian Haag | 08/17/2023 at 7:35 am