This episode never disappoints...
By Yesterday's Lemmiwinks

...except when Malcolm Reed opens his mouth. This is one of two points where I seem to be in opposition with Deus' take on the quality of the materiel we've seen. I find Dominic Keating's "acting" to be very melodramatic and badly timed. The way he says lines, I don't know, they just come out sounding like a high school drama student auditioning for "Anything Goes." Though the writing was superb in his scenes, I just am not feeling this character as being anything close to "real."

The other point of contention with Deus is of course over the Trip/T'Pol relationship, which I've been clamoring for ever since season one. Whining to each other? I have yet to be in a stressful and/or important situation where my mind wasn't racing about a million different things that are bothering me and I'm not quick to react a little emotionally when somebody pushes my buttons, which is basically what they were doing to each other. When she said "Trip," that was cool. Jolene is doing a great job showing us her internal struggles, and this little one word line saying his first name painted a thousand pictures of how much anguish she is personally dealing with. I never really liked the Paris/Torres relationship (personally, I always thought a Paris/Kim relationship seemed MUCH more plausible in "Voyager"), but this doesn't feel disjointed like that one was. I mean, it IS disjointed, but that is the beauty of it. This is the first time that we know of that a Vulcan and a Terran are exploring and consummating a relationship together. It seems to me that for a pair of races that 150 years from "now" are the best of friends, this is the perfect opportunity to explore the dynamics of their two very different cultures' approach to romance. The real "Foundation of the Federation Arc" starts here, where we see Vulcans and Terrans start to love and try to deeply understand one another.

I thought that the "multi-layered" battle scene in "The Council," with ships of all sizes encountering each other in three-dimensional formations, was going to be impossible to beat. Indeed, there hadn't been Trek ship-to-ship combat that intense since the fall of the Dominion on "DS9." "Countdown" was right up there, though it was a different type of battle. While the "Star Wars-esque" feel of the former brought me to the edge of my seat in excitement, the latter was a gut-wrenching thing to watch. This is probably due to the fact that every time we think the crew of the Enterprise has a leg up in the hostilities, that leg is brutally amputated. It was so painful to watch the Aquatic ship burst at the seams, after Archer had worked so hard to persuade this powerful species to join him. The Insectoids even gave me a little lump in my throat when they were smashed like... well... insects. (I think it was very clever of the writers and FX folks to have the Insectoid ship careen into what is essentially the front grille of the Xindi superweapon.)

Hoshi is one clever little communications officer, and Linda Park can really turn it on when she's given good material to work with. She even had me convinced that she had been compromised when she first informed the Reptilians that she had broken through the first layer of encryption and in fact had added an extra layer. The scene where she spits in the Reptilian’s face was very effective. I love how Terrans throughout the Star Trek universe seem to always surprise "non-primate" aliens with their resilience.

At first when Reed picked his MACO team, I was thinking, "Why are you only using yourself and three MACO's for your strike team? Why not use the other four for a second team?" But I realized then that Enterprise had another mission to accomplish with the spheres and no doubt the Marines' services would be called upon then.

I like the sphere builders as a concept, though they do look a little like Odo. I like watching them bicker with each other, and they are so abstract with their words, you didn't know quite what they were going to do until they actually "interfered." This talk of the many time lines and the percentage of those with favorable outcomes versus those without is very thought provoking.

And, um, was Travis even IN this episode?

I'm dying to find out exactly what integral role this "One Man" (Archer) plays in the future of the Federation, but we only have five more days to find out. Congrats on your renewal, "Enterprise." You've earned it.