Though Archer assigns the charter to Starfleet, he knows it's human nature just not to make maps and send sensors. We experience new life and new civilizations with our own senses. True to that nature, though not the strongest so far in the series, "Civilization" evokes classic Trek style by addressing today's problem (industrial pollution) in tomorrow's terms.

(I gather from the editing that elements of this show were not filmed in episodic sequence. Rats. After last week I sought romantic momentum from Tucker and T'Pol, and felt hope as he noticed her ears again on the shuttle. But then later in an embarrassing display he openly challenged her command in front of the bridge crew. Little love on that bumpy road.)

The Akali costumes were attractive and their makeup non-intrusive. The crew disguised as "Investigators" or "Collectors" is a good trick. The scene in the forest had an eerie non-earthy quality about it.

From the cool exchange of tricorder "fire" I liked the cold-blooded Malurian Garos, yet in a way I pity him as he says, "Earth - I never heard of it." Perhaps he should wish he never had - in TOS the entire Malurian system (over four billion inhabitants on several planets) is destroyed by the errant Earth probe Nomad for being "imperfect biological units." Maybe it understood them better than we thought!

Hoshi, ear-comm and all, had lots of screentime while again Mayweather was all but ignored. Phlox predictably detects the evil synthetic industrial lubricant (but couldn't they have beamed up water samples first?). And Porthos gets a kind of mention as Archer revealed his habit of cabin chats.

The treknology was hit and miss. The emergency circuit breaker accessed above each bridge station is quite credible. But the communicator as universal translator seemed incredible as depicted, and realistic abilities of the main viewer need magnification. Should a cargo transporter be capable of extracting an alien anti-matter reactor? If Reed is alert however, he'll notice T'Pol's explosive trick as a primitive photon torpedo.

The starship Enterprise dedicates its voyages to seek out new life and new civilizations (writers Sussman and Strong pilfer Trek's intro for another title). But once you find one, then what? The Vulcans established their standard warp-achievement protocol explicitly to avoid adversely affecting the evolution of a society.

Anybody wanna take a guess at how a close-quarters ray-gun fight will affect an innocent, clipper-ship society? This "resolution" begs an eventual return to the Akali to see the mess we created, cleaning up another's mess.