Season One - Silent Enemy by Hoshi’s Sis
We begin with the ship deploying a subspace amplifier, which will enable everyone on board to communicate better with friends and family back home on Earth. Suddenly they are confronted with an unknown ship (unrecognisable to the Vulcan’s also since Tpol states that she is not familiar with the configuration), which is reluctant to identify themselves. In the meantime Archer has set Hoshi a task of tracking down Malcolm’s parents – it seems his birthday is coming up and he wants to surprise him with a meal based around his favourite foods. Communication with his Malcolm’s family is not quite forthcoming, since he seems to be just as distance and a mystery to his parents as he is to his friends on board. A fact that Archer finds quite puzzling. So he sets Hoshi the task of finding out the information.
Next scene – We see Archer strolling through the corridors taking Porthos for a walk meeting Trip along the way and then casual starting up a conversation about back home and Malcolm. We find out that Trip’s long – distance relationship with Natalie has come to an end, just before the aliens return – this time more menacingly as they blast a hole through the hull plating before fleeing.
After admitting to himself that they need more firepower so they can defend themselves, Archer sets a course back for home. He tells Malcolm and Trip that he is returning to Jupiter Station for weapons upgrades, even though they both insist that they are capable of doing the job themselves. Reluctantly they both agree, though they manage to get a small concession – permission to begin the work and get it started, so they can cut down the time needed in space dock.
Next scene – Trip and Malcolm explain to their team the specs for the new phase cannons, explaining what is needed of the job and that double time will be required. After one engineer nervously asks if it is because they are expecting another attack, Trip calmly puts him at ease with – “We all signed up for this trip because we wanted to do something' no one had ever done before, not because we thought it'd be easy or safe. But we're not here to take foolish risks. The Cap'n and the rest of the crew are depending on us to keep Enterprise ready for anything.”
Next scene – Hoshi sets forth on her investigation, searching info from his sister, best friend, two spinster aunts and finally from Malcolm himself – but to no avail. The aliens return blasting the Nacelles, causing the ship to come to a standstill, then infiltrating the ship and rendering two crewman unconscious by their scanning devices. Unknown at the moment, they have also hidden a device in the launch bay, which will overload the weapons once Malcolm tests the new weapons.
Next scene – Trip addresses Malcolm for coming down too hard on his men and for abusing his position by modifying the ships systems without consulting him first Unable to ask for help from the Vulcan’s, since they have destroyed their recently deployed subspace amplifiers, Archer searches out Trip who has been busy hard at work getting the ship repaired and capable of flying at Warp again.
Here again we see Trip take on his
counselling mode again reassuring Archer that they didn’t take the ship
out before they were ready, reiterating that everyone knew the risk involved
and the need to take chances in the name of exploration – “If we
hadn't launched when we did, they'd have sent Klang back to Kronos in a box.
Archer: I keep reminding myself of that. But I rushed us out of
space dock because I had something to prove. And I risked the lives of 81
humans, a Vulcan, and a Denobulan to do it.
Trip: In the old days, astronauts road
rockets with millions of litres of hydrogen burning' under their seats.
Do you think they said, 'Gee, I'd love to go to the moon today, but it seems a
little risky'? I think if you asked any one on board if they thought this
mission was worth the risk, you'd get the same answer from everyone of
'em.”
This makes himself think he may have trying to play
it to cautious with Malcolm, so he reluctantly backs down and concedes to take
the chance of letting him tie the phase cannons into the impulse engines.
Next scene - Hoshi consults the Doctor in her quest and finds out that Malcolm is allergic to Bromalin, which he has been taking injections to counter act. Bromalin is a plant enzyme found in Pineapple – his favourite food. The alien ship returns ordering them to surrender, so Archer tells Malcolm to overload the phase cannons so they can penetrate the alien’s shields and stop the ship attacking. This has the required effect causing little damage to the ship.
Last scene Archer, Malcolm and Trip
celebrate the success of the engineering teams work in the Armoury with a beer,
while Archer tells them that he is proud of them and that he has called off the
trip for home. Hoshi comes in with a birthday cake for Malcolm made with
pineapple, much to his delight.
An enjoyable episode where we get to see a major presence of Trip and witness a multitude of his skills, humorous witticisms and counselling talents.
At the beginning, Archer searches Trip out during his walk, asking him where he was at dinner, while inspecting his recent maintenance and upgrades. Here we get two of his classic quotes of the episode, accompanied with memorable facial expressions – “You missed T'Pol's latest bout with chopsticks. Trip: Damn, dinner and a show.”
and “I thought you were going to upgrade this. Trip: That is the upgrade....If you want I can change the colour.”
Friendly banter, which emphasises how at ease they are with one another, not being afraid to trade sarcasms.
During the conversation back home we gets hints of their past - the conversation around Duvall’s recent promotion hints possible of a past colleague too both of them and Archer’s response to Trips “I got a letter from Natalie.”- Archer “The Natalie. From Pensacola?” hints that he knew she was a big part of his friend’s life and that Trip talked to him about her a lot.
His hurried response of “You okay?” suggests a guilty undertone that he feels he is responsible for this break up and he doesn’t want to see his friend hurting, but Trip’s hurried response of “Uh, yeah”, suggests that the relationship may in his eyes not been going anywhere and this mission was an easy way out for them to take a break. So the letter did not really come as any surprise – it was what he expected to happen.
Both times after the aliens attack, we see him calmly and professionally getting down to business doing his job, first inspecting the damage giving orders for how the repairs should go, “That support frame's bent. We'll need to reinforce it.”, only allowing himself to pause for moment to reflect on the danger of what might have happened, “There were 13 people work' in this section, Cap'n, including yours truly. If that bulkhead had blown....” Secondly, refusing to stop and rest until the job is done despite looking like hell.
The nice development touch here I thought was, even though he was tired and extremely busy, he could still sense his friend needed him to talk to. So he casually involved Archer in the repair work asking him to “check the dilithium alignment for me?”, while drawing out what was the problem and working it through putting his mind at ease.
Finally we also
get to see some of his quick thinking during problematic times, “Hold
on a minute. I think there's a way to handle the recoil.”
Reed “ How?” Trip “ All that excess energy's go to go
somewhere. Why not put it to good use. If we repolarize the gravity
plating to absorb the recoil, then we can shunt the energy to structural
integrity.”, along with his skill and finesse
completing the job in time to save the ship.
Score, using the patented EntEp Scoring Guide:
Hair and Stubbly face: 20 (didn’t you want to just sit him down and massage oil all over those stiff tired muscles after that long period of repair work)
Food: 0
Reed blowing something up: 10
Swears: 10 (Damn, dinner and a show – shame he missed it. That probably would have produced some memorable quotes in itself)
Cuteness factor: 30
Engineering skill and ability: 100 (Wow, we got an abundance of that)
Screen time: 75
Bare skin factor: 0 (Damn, why couldn’t we have seen him washing off all that grease and dirt – must petition B&B for some of these scenes!)
Episode rating: 8 out of 10
Trip rating: 9.5 out of 10 (would have been 10 if we had some bare skin factor)