I liked it
By Steve Krutzler

After reading this review, I certainly had my doubts. But honestly having just seen the episode, I thought it was far from sleazy. Although I haven't exactly been looking forward to what I've often found a strange pairing in Trip/T'Pol and, let's face it, when you think STAR TREK, romance isn't exactly the first thing to come to your mind, I found this episode to be not a step back but another positive step forward for ENTERPRISE.

I found very little in the ep that could qualify as "sleaze." For one thing, there is basically no sex in this episode. We have a couple seconds of kissing, and then a very brief shot of T'Pol's naked backside. Despite the fact that here in Gainesville, the CBS affiliate cut the shot for two seconds of black air time instead, I wouldn't consider this sleazy. STAR TREK's track record is full of sexually-charged scenes involving Yar, Troi, Troi's mother, Bajoran Dabo girls, to say nothing of Green Orion Slave Girls or the various guest-starring ladies in Captain Kirk's cabin. So this was in no way a break with STAR TREK tradition.

Also, I was very surprised with the sophisticated dialogue throughout the script. Trip and T'Pol's scene was very well written and adult, in my opinion. Blalock actually gave what I think is one of her best performances and the words were witty and clever. Same goes for most scenes in the script, including T'Pol/Cole and Trip/Reed. The mess hall scene in particular was very well written and acted, one of the best scenes in the entire series.

I found Reed and Hayes' story very believeable and didn't have a problem with Reed's actions at all. It's the same kind of professional personality conflicts that happen all the time in the real world, especially in a situation as tense as the one on the Enterprise this season. The fight scenes were playful and very well choreographed. The editing was also spot-on in these segments.

The alien's plot was well done, not over done. He really didn't have much to do other than what we saw so I felt that the balance was struck well between all three plots. It was a great character-based episode. Deus criticizes the make-up and VFX but both looked just as good as they have in STAR TREK for the last 5-10 years. I don't see any evidence of slouching in this department. Archer's role was also very well written, only getting forceful after the alien accosted the warp core. For once, they also gave Phlox a little bit of backbone in standing up somewhat to Archer's demands.

The only red flag in my mind was Reed and Hayes firing their weapons right at the warp core. Instead, Coto should have had Hayes fire and Reed use his space experience to push his weapon down and tell him it's too risky, then let the scene play out as it did. This would've strengthened the notion that Reed and Hayes came to mutually respect each other after the incident.

In sum, "Harbinger" was a very well written character episode that treated the questionable romantic thread with wit and sophistication, introduced a huge Xindi arc twist, and gave us some great scenes with Reed, Hayes, Archer, and T'Pol. Comparing this episode to "A Night In Sickbay" just doesn't cut it for me. They're light years apart.