Somehow anticipating a comedy from last week's preview I had looked forward to a show I could laugh at hard. Sadly that's what I got, only without the comedy.

It started out OK with Reed conducting Sato through target practice and Mayweather listening to cool "siren calls." As Enterprise explores a gas giant an unresponsive ship is detected and an expedition launched, T'Pol in command.

Like Spock in "Galileo Seven" she soon demonstrates questionable command abilities. While boarding the Klingon vessel she doesn't provide a live report (like Geordi and Riker did in "Heart of Glory"), does not continually scan for life signs and is thus surprised by the Klingon officer. She doesn't even try the comm systems and apparently can't read a word of Klingon at all.

(And what kind of medical officer is Phlox anyway, sending a snotty Reed over to infect another ship? Better add something in the procedure book about that.)

It wasn't Malcolm's best effort either. He declares "no intention of losing a valuable shuttlepod" then promptly does so after taking a beating from a female. (Better add launch codes or safety interlocks to that procedure book too!) And it turns out he won't even invent photon torpedoes at all - he steals them from the Klingons!

Hoshi fared a little better, finding her space legs and interstellar trigger finger. (Why not simply call out to the Klingon female officer instead of shooting?) T'Pol asked Archer to include Sato on the away team but now I think it was just to hold hands using a new Vulcan technique: the palm-meld. ("Think about calming turbulent waves ... I'll teach you more about touching later.")

So anyway throughout this gassy situation the plot meandered like particles drifting in an EM33, all calm then suddenly overcome by danger. First the hull panels are buckling then we're calmly talking on the comm system. With his away team in great peril Archer miraculously finds the time to learn Klingon. For that matter, in a crisis the captain is arc-welding rollbars into his shuttlepod - is there no one better available?

There were a few live worms among the gagh. Klingon ships are always cool - reactor pit rumble, skull stew, and stench. I admire the gall of the Klingon captain ordering a surrender from his obviously devastated vessel. In fact that Raptor class scout ship took a pretty good licking and kept on ticking. Enterprise could use a fresh coat of that coherent molecular alloy while installing those new photon torpedo tubes.