Did I miss an old saying of the Eska, "Drajan meat is best served tepid?" Interesting stories should not be told with lackluster and they should never be spoiled unnecessarily with a gimmick like the unheated sunless condition of "Rogue Planet."

It did have one upside - while the show was in space it was gorgeous. The unlit approach to Dakala of NX-01 with lights blazing was downright eerie. Concerning a "rogue planet" like Dakala, teeming with life: not likely. Thermal vents would barrel-roll a patchwork red-hot and black-cold ball crazily out of control. The surface could not support green plants that require photosynthesis (and there's that little trick of oxygen production in that reaction too).

Maybe a lack of oxygen was affecting the crew since Archer assures us no psychotropics were in play (like in "Strange New World"). Everybody who went to the surface sure acted - well, out of character. Reed abandons the Captain on a hostile world to merely return a patient to Enterprise. (At 28 merit badges to his captain's 26, Reed is certainly more boy-scout than Archer. Big deal, since "Jim Kirk was never a boy scout" according to Carol Marcus.)

And Malcolm must be nuts to approve that GlowvisionTM "nightvision sensors" action accessory. Not only does it brightly give one's position away it also provides an excellent bull's eye for an enemy to an extremely vulnerable point.

Trip tags along with little or no responsibility but plenty of limericks and Vulcan quips. Hoshi and Mayweather got some screen time but similarly weren't necessary to the story. The Eska seem rather blithe about sharing any time at all in a situation for which they've waited for years, anticipating a mental trap. And why light a fire on a world with no sun, since "night" would be no colder than "day?" Too many questions and for all the wrong reasons. There's just no reason for dark in the story at all.

For that matter there's no need for the diaphanous gown and dulcet voice and long blond slime trail. If the she-wraith believed Archer's pacifism made him in some way "different," wouldn't T'Pol have seemed even more "different" (dare I add, "well ordered?"). Or in a weird mix of Salt Vampire and Horta, it should've just scrawled "NO KILL I" in glow in the dark multilegged creatures or something.

Archer's long-elusive mystery woman turns out to be a shapeshifting supersized slug. Hoshi should be glad she left Sluggo to evolve on a real planet a long ways away.


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