The "Enterprise" back-to-baction double feature climaxes with a loaded tale and two hairy bare chests. Responding to another ship's distress call Enterprise meets Zobral, a hearty and rough robed shipmaster desperate for repairs. Tucker pops his vessel into order soon enough and Archer earns a grateful invitation to come down to his desert world ("dress for warm weather"). Archer twists Trip's arm into neglecting his engineering duties to join him in the shuttle ride planetside.

They (T&A - I laughed too) manage to stomach a meal of cactus wine and "essence of the male" and are soon both shirt stripping bohunks caught up in a good strapping manly game of lightball lacrosse (geskana). Aboard Enterprise though, T'Pol receives transmissions from another party on the planet warning her that T&A are in the company of "terrorists" and are in great danger.

So we don't know who's who, really even after the show ends. At first I thought Zobral was acting sneaky, but overall he was portrayed fair and level all the way through. For a backwards-type, Zobral seemed pretty plugged in, tossing Suliban artifacts and information around. He reminds me of a superior military commander. Anyway, some sort of caste system was supposedly destroyed in the planet's past but the old ways turned repressive and the situation soured into a sad internecine war.

Zobral's people learned of Archer's jailbreak in "Detained" and see less the man and more his reputation as a Great Warrior with desert tactics (exactly what they need). To compound this misperception, T'Pol officially botches contact with the opposing Terothans and their Chancellor Trelit. The camp is blown up and everyone scattered. (These effects were simple but effective throughout. The camp attacks were violently convincing.) T&A find themselves on a Sand Trek to another shelter and get rescued at the last minute by T'Pol and Reed using Zobral as navigator.

Nothing is resolved but it seems like we made a friend. Veteran actor Clancy Brown never disappoints, and certainly not in this episode. Did you see Zobral physically dominate Malcolm Reed's space in the shuttlebay? (Finally took a Vulcan female to stand up to him!) I would definitely like to see this character again, fighting alongside or even against the Great Warrior.

And OK, so even after writing this I'm not sure it wasn't all softcore slash. But what do we have left after the sweat dries? Another planet at war, another problem now involving Earth and its young StarFleet. The Great Warrior is building up an infamous reputation.