Star Trek: Enterprise — 2x04 — Dead Stop
Synopsis
Enterprise docks with a mysterious high-tech space station which proves too good to be true.
Remarkable scenes
- Archer and Trip surveying the damage from the last episode.
- Enterprise transmitting a distress call.
- Reed: "It can't be ethical to cause a patient this much pain." Phlox: " It's unethical to harm a patient. I can inflict as much pain as I like."
- Trip: "They've isolated every hull breach, every damaged system... I'll be damned. We scratched the hull right there a year ago. I bumped it with the inspection pod, remember?" Archer: "I thought I told you to have that repainted?"
- Trip and T'Pol playing with the replicator.
- The automated station repairing the ship section by section.
- The automated station repairing Reed.
- Trip and Reed being most embarrassingly beamed from the station to the Enterprise bridge.
- Hoshi describing a prank Travis pulled on her with strawberry jello.
- Phlox discovering that Travis' body is not really Travis.
- Archer and T'Pol recovering Travis and escaping the station, destroying it in the process.
Review
Another above average offering from Enterprise. The story is fairly original, but the devil is in the details. The damage from last episode's minefield is still very much a problem. How often has Voyager suffered severe hull breaches only to repair them in short order a week later? And remember when the Jem'Hadar destroyed an entire pylon on Deep Space Nine? That was sure fixed fast. This episode is a reminder of just how low tech the 22nd century really is. The alien space station is of course an exception to this. It featured some amazing replicator technology. You've got to wonder what kind of power requirements a station like that would need in order to sustain the advanced bio computer and the advanced replicator. Personally, I don't think 200 liters of warp plasma will sustain all that technology for long. It would have been nice if we could get a look at the power source as well as the computer core. There's some other great continuity in this episode, besides last week's damage. I liked how Reed was still injured. I also liked the mentioning the scratch Trip made on the hull when he bumped it with the inspection pod in the first episode. I also liked Archer getting annoyed with his squeaky floor again. A Tellarite freighter responds to Archer's distress call, they were an alien species featured in TOS. Finally, Phlox says mentions Rigelian fever, which was featured in TOS: Requiem for Methuselah. Obviously by then it mutates into something more deadly. While the episode is not without its flaws, it was a pleasure to watch. It managed to retain almost as much excitement as Ent: Minefield. In fact, it almost felt like Ent: Minefield, Part II. I home we see more of this careful attention to continuity.