Review

This episode is one of the best ones shown yet on Enterprise, and certainly one of the most memorable. It's fairly obvious that this episode is supposed to serve as a precursor to the alliance that humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites will one day form as the founding members of the Federation and it was done well here. What I liked most was the fight between Archer and Shran. I was thoroughly convinced one of them would die and was pleasantly surprised when Travis and Hoshi found a way for that not to happen. Additionally, I was glad to see Travis and Hoshi play a real role in the story for once as well. Archer cutting off Shran's antenna is of course an homage to TOS: Journey to Babel in which we saw the antenna of a fake Andorian break off, which was nicely clever. The whole incident served as marvelous character development for Shran and Archer. I really like the relationship those two have forged. Besides that, Trip's and Reed's escape from the Romulan drone ship was extremely exciting to watch. I loved how they just dived into space like that, and finally the special effects depicting the arrival and departure of some of the alliance ships were just spectacular. Ent: United is showing us a pattern of writing not present in seasons 1-3. Manny Coto is taking this show exactly where it needs to go, but too little too late. Maybe if we could have had Coto as the showrunner from the beginning, Enterprise would have more than 4 seasons. Season 4 has been excellent so far, but it's too little, too late.