The away team comes down with a case of the hallucinations.
This story wouldn’t have worked as well in the other series. Everyone turning on each other would have made the viewer go ‘Oh, they’re drugged’ almost instantly. But there’s enough distrust established with respect to T-Pol that what seems to be going on initially almost makes sense. My main criticism of the episode is that we get to the reveal a little too early, and then spend a lot of time with guns pointed at each other and people being talked down.
There isn’t a lot of character development, but there are some good bits. Phlox as the doctor is shaping up to be one of the most interesting characters – his role is mainly as an exposition dumping ground, but he puts a feeling and emotion into it that’s quite fun, plus his reaction to his misdiagnosis of the crewmen works well. But I still don’t really know who Archer is, it’d be nice to do something about that soon.
Callbacks: the origin of ‘M-class’. A Y-500 freighter, suggesting Khan’s DY-100. The first vulcan nerve pinch.
“Where no dog has gone before”? Many people wouldn’t take their dog on away missions, but I love that Archer does. (Don’t worry dog lovers, the dog was safely back in the ship before the nasty bits).
641 down, 96 to go.