Archer deserves the beating he gets for the dim-witted behavior of his crew. Trip brings back some artifact from the surface of a "lunar survey" (as in Luna, large natural satellite of Terra) but while he's deconning, over in Engineering T'Pandora releases a booby-trap not similarly deconned. This knocks out the entire crew with a gas that strikes so quickly one can't even fall out of a chair.

Soon pirates board NX-01. Fortunately they're not some unknown menace; they're Ferengi! Though they might yet turn out as mirror-cousin "Differengi" or such (AKA Orions?), "Enterprise" re-uses the familiar - rusty ship, dirty clothes, colored socks, the whip weapon, even an annoying language with no subtitles. They steal boots and seats since all they have is a weapon that instantly affects Humans, Vulcans, and even Denobulans (but not beagles and whatever Phlox had in the box).

Some story elements worked, like Porthos theorized as everything from potential leader to the next meal. (Won't bark at a Suliban, won't bark at a Ferengi ... that's not a normal beagle, trust me.) It was funny as Trip argued with "the greedy son-of-a-bitch" about his wife Hoshi (worth more than ten bars of gold, trust me!). I missed how T'Pol anticipated the rendezvous at the "vault" but no matter. Whatever knowledge of mind-melds she lacks is made up for with her neck pinch. She's not too bad with racial banter either about the terrible, deceitful, cruel, enslaving hew-mons.

Some elements didn't work so well, like that situation room stolen sensor sequence. And using personal medical instruments as a sight gag? (Wonder why Roddenberry never thought of that.) Who watches the ship controls when all are zonked - if it's fully automatic, why bother with a crew? And since occasional power outages happen, better install a manual door release on the Decon Chamber and not just on the standardized docking port.

Real pirates, like those seen in "Fight or Flight," would not merely anaesthetize their target for a matter of hours. (Less the risk to business to simply secure anything valuable and destroy the rest - even I have the lobes for business to know that!) Among old friends, as it is we're not really concerned for the lives of the crew. Despite their parting claim: "You'll never see us again," I hope that's not true. This entire starship will soon be blabbing about first contact with this aggressive new species.

And actor Clint Howard becomes the first to leap from TOS to ENT. Tranya for all!