OEEG: Sleeping Dogs

Description: The episode begins with Hoshi attempting targeting practice. As the fish out of water, she naturally sucks at it. After this goes on for a while, we finally have something happen, which is finding a class-9 gas giant. T'Pol points out that there is little they can accomplish here, as Earth's own system has four gas giants, not including Rosie O'Donnell, which prompts Archer to say that they should investigate anyway because they're not class-9. Do you see the pattern that's developed: Archer is only interested in exploring anything T'Pol says isn't worth exploring. A supernova, a cluster of neutron stars, and a stellar nursery, p'shaw! Show me something mildly different to what we have already studied the hell out of, then I'll be interested!

They start playing the noise made by the EM patterns of the gas giant, which Mayweather calls Siren Calls because He's Been In Space. Enterprise sends a probe to check things out, and finds signs of a ship in the lower part of the atmosphere, which will almost certainly be crushed under the intense pressure. Sucks to be them, I guess. Enterprise is going to have to go check it out, which will be difficult because it turns out Reed has a cold, which was apparently lurking in a case of plasma coolant (coolant, cold, see that Star Trek wit at work?). It turns out that while Phlox may be able to cure massive neural trauama, reverse a genetic disease after a few days of research, or heal a gunshot wound using a booger, he can't cure the common cold. Well, regardless of his condition, Reed is going over there. This is what I hate about Star Trek: apparently the only one who's any good is the head of the department, everyone else is just useless. Don't frickin' tell me that even sick, Reed's a better choice than his number two armory officer. As I am writing this I am finally recovering from the common cold, and I was obviously not functioning anywhere near my best during this time - staying focused, being thorough, both essential to a job like his, were difficult, so don't tell me he's just that good. And even if that were somehow not a factor, how stupid is it to send someone over who has a compromised immune system and can infect others with a disease they've never experienced. When the exploration of the Americas is discussed, one of the main killers people bring up is disease that was unwittingly spread - so why are you spreading it on purpose?! And the best part is that this has next to no purpose in the story, it's just modern Trek's favorite thing: needless padding!

Meanwhile, Hoshi has an announcement: she's no longer afraid of everything, only most things. She asks to go on the mission, and we find out that T'Pol requested she come, so it's the two of them and Typhoid Larry to check it out. Naturally, they put the person who's both sick and pumped full of drugs in charge of flying the shuttle in on the delicate maneuver. We get the message that they can only stay another hour before the shuttlepod can't withstand the pressure. "Plenty of time," it's stated, which in a script is the equivalent of standing in a puddle and waving a copper rod at the sky during a lightning storm while shouting "There is no god!" So they finally dock and come aboard, and quickly take off their helmets (they even have Reed take his off first... idiots). Things smell bad, so naturally they keep the helmets off.

Well, turns out this is a Klingon ship, so their weapons are at the ready. I particularly like the sight of Hoshi behind T'Pol and Reed with her phase pistol out and pointing straight ahead. We just saw ten minutes ago that even in a controlled test she couldn't hit the target fifty percent of the time, yet they're apparently still comfortable with her standing behind them with a weapon out and pointed in the direction of their backs. Anyway, there's three Klingons, all unconscious, and T'Pol says they should leave them to die their honorable death of being compressed to the size of an onion while passed out. With that, we see the Klingon galley, and I've got to say, things are bad when it makes Neelix's look good. We know that the view of Klingons has been going downhill for a long time, well, now it really bottoms out. This galley is pathetic, even after you factor in the damage to the ship. Klingon warriors aren't going to want to be impaired by disease during battle just because their kitchen is a giant middle finger aimed at Lysol. This episode once again goes so over the top in telling us about the Klingons being space warriors that it becomes ridiculous. This is not Genghis Khan in space, okay!

So T'Pol fills Archer in on the situation - she thinks they were knocked out by a neurotoxin that has now dissipated, and thinks they should leave. Tucker says their pod should be okay for another half an hour, so Archer gives them twenty minutes, factoring in the one third "Tucker's an idiot" factor. T'Pol still objects, but they're cut off by radio interference caused by electromagnetic plot radiation. The three of them try to brainstorm some solutions for the twenty minutes they have, but none are practical because Klingons are morons who frankly deserve this fate. While that's going on, the Klingon woman we saw hiding in the galley slips out, so Reed pulls out his phase pistol and goes up the corridor; in his space suit, his attempt to be evasive looks like he's engauged in some kind of post-modern dance. The Klingon, who aren't fans at all of the post-modern movement, presents her criticism by beating the shit out of him, then runs off and hijacks their shuttle pod, leaving them stuck. So much for wanting to die at their posts.

So Enterprise picks up the pod, but the signal is in Klingon - it's a general signal to let any Klingon ship know they were attacked by Enterprise. So they grab the pod with the grappler and bring it into the bay. What follows is yet another in the list of things that annoy me with this episode. It's bad enough that we'll send over Reed even though he's sick rather than his second in command, but now to deal with the Klingon on board, two security guys show up along with Archer and Tucker. Why the hell is the captain and the chief engineer going down there to apprehend a Klingon instead of sending in a squad of men trained in this? Why do we have all these other people on board if none of them are actually allowed to do anything?!

Anyway, after smacking one of the nameless guys around, the Klingon gets knocked out by, of course, Archer and Tucker together. Archer plans to go back for a rescue, but it seems it's no longer possible, so he plans to bring down Enterprise to do it. The three down on the ship aren't doing too well; Hoshi's trying to translate the Klingon, but it's not as easy to read as it is to speak. Ironic, considering the way the Klingons are presented in this episode you wonder if they're even literate... actually, the more I think about that, the more I really wonder why these doofuses are literate. In this episode, they're pigish ape-men with the deductive skill of a Neanderthal, where does reading fall into this code of behavior?

Hoshi starts translating stuff, finding out that there's something up with the plasma containment. She also finds something called "photon torpedoes," which causes Reed to come running up with such visible excitement, you know he's sporting an errection you could hang a flag from. They also find info that suggests that hull integrity is failing - then again, in this episode, all integrity seems to be failing.

So, finally, Archer gets through to them, but the pressure's getting too great. Archer, showing an incredible amount of competence for once, figures they can use the probe and their own sensors to triangulate the position of the ship, but unfortunately the probe is soon crushed like a beer can at a frat party. The ship's hull is groaning, so Archer has to call off the rescue for the moment. Darn, so close... if only they had some technology that allows them to transmit matter across space, they could just transport them to safety. Yeah, okay, there's all that EM stuff out there, and we know the transporter will fail in a stiff breeze, but this is all supposed to be new to them. Why not have them try? You see here how, rather than the pointless cold that Reed has, we had two possible options crop up. First, we could have had Reed's cold prevent him from going on the mission, so that someone else went, and who would be the first victim to a transporter failure. The crew had started to become rather blase about it; this would bring the tension back. The other alternative is that, rather than Reed being sick, have the failed transport injure him, thus causing the minor plot events his cold will require. Instead, we have this stupid cold incident and the fact that no one seems to remember we have a transporter on board; no matter how desperate, nobody even suggests it. Even Galaxy Quest had them at least try that.

So Archer goes to speak with the Klingon lady, who's ranting and raving. In an admittedly funny bit, Tucker brings up that if a Klingon thinks a leader is weak, they'll try to kill and take command, and then does a little "I'm pullin' for ya" gesture. So Archer argues with her for a while, but that Klingon crap keeps getting in the way, and he finally just leaves. Tucker goes and looks up the specs on the Klingon ship, and it should last a little while, given how advanced its construction is. Again, how can these people build something this advanced while acting so goddamn backwards? I can't even come up with a goofy analogy, because how much goofier can you get than "Mongol Warriors with a space warship?" They start discussing what to do, and since everyone else is stuck on the Klingon ship, the scriptwriters are stuck actually giving dialogue to Mayweather beyond him having been in space. Under the circumstances, Tucker suggests they just reinforce a shuttle pod with some strong bracing to stop it from being crushed. It's the closest to an actual plan, so Archer lets him get started.

Down on the Klingon ship, Hoshi finds a recording by the Klingon captain, who reveals that they took damage to their port fusion injector. He's also, apparently, not happy about dying at his post (oops). So they head down to the "reactor pit" to get to work on the problem. Reed, however, is bumbling a bit because he's sick, burning his hand on a pipe. He's dehydrated, so Hoshi and T'Pol head off to get some water, instead of actually bringing the guy who needs it and letting the clear headed genius try to fix the engine. Besides, they're all dying! Rather than this silliness, they should have Reed stand aside and hope like hell they can fix it without him, rather than wasting time. What's worse is they get to the galley and continue just farting around so we can see the place is even grosser than we think. Yeah, get Reed some water from in here, I'm sure he wouldn't mind a little dysentery.

In the course of their poking around, Hoshi finds some Targs chained up for the Klingons to eat. As you can imagine, Hoshi is now in full afraid mode, which is ironic because she doesn't seem afraid of the one thing that can actually kill her: the pressure of the planet. T'Pol finally does a Vulcan thing to get Hoshi to calm the hell down, then Reed finally points out, you know, the whole imminent death thing. They haven't found a way to fix the ship, so Reed figures he'll do what he does best: fire weapons. Eh, if you're going to die, might as well die doing what you like.

While all this is going on, Archer and Tucker have been talking about how to handle the Klingons. Tucker suggested maybe learning a bit more about them if he wants to work on getting around the conflict problems they seem to have. We now see that Archer has been doing just that, even speaking a little Klingon - yeah, what better way to spend time while your senior officers face crushing death than to start teaching yourself a new language. Still, he heads down and starts talking to the Klingon lady. She's headstrong, of course, because she's a Klingon - Klingons in this episode, well, remind you of the bigoted remarks of the crew in Star Trek VI, things like only the top line ones even able to talk. It's so ironic that this is what we have ten years later, with the villains reduced right back to being a charicature rather than nuanced. Eventually, however, Archer gets through to her and she agrees to help save the other ship.

Back on the Klingon ship, Reed is firing off torpedoes, trying to use the shockwaves to push them back up out of the atmosphere. They finally jump a short way, but they already start sinking. Hoshi finally says they should just fire the remaining ones and blow them up half a kilometer away... well, nice knowing you. However, instead of blowing themselves to hell, the ship gets pushed far into the atmosphere, allowing the shuttlepod to dock. And with this is more of what you expect, so much that you could probably finish up the review without me having to write it, it's that predictible. Archer has to force the Klingon lady to let them help her fix the ship, and then, after it's left the planet and the four back on Enterprise, the Klingon captain threatens to destroy Enterprise for violating their ship, even though he has no torpedoes and his ship's barely space-worthy. Archer threatens them and they finally fly off with a snarl. Whatever, this episode is just really starting to annoy me. This doesn't make the Klingons threatening, it makes them look like jackasses.

The episode finishes with T'Pol, Hoshi, and Reed relaxing in the decontamination room. They stay a little longer than needed because it's relaxing... if only I had such comfort. You may have noticed that, with the exception of last week, I haven't awarded an annoying character to anyone for a while. Well, that's been because of late, the creators of Enterprise have annoyed me far more than anyone in the story even has. This constant, constant effort on their part to produce crap is just completely wearing me down. I'm going to have to head back to Voyager next week... you hear that? I'm actually watching Voyager because, by comparison, it's a break from this. That's what we've been reduced to. Besides, if this is what we've had until now, well, imagine when next time we see the return of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga as the writers. I just... I just can't face that right now. And you know what the alternative is? A Neelix episode with delta quadrant Ferengi... and I'll still take that over one more Enterprise right now. Come on, shithead, give me your best shot, I can take it. After the last four Enterprise episodes, I think I can drink straight window cleaner with little more than a mild headache.

Rating: 3

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