Beginning with a breath-stopping teaser involving the awful destruction of a mining colony, "Shockwave" ran for an act or two as the best drama the series has yet offered. I've been hungry for a return to Earth and the interplanetary reaction to such a disaster, accident or not, would have been delicious. Let it also be noted herein Archer got his cajones back, ordering Trip and T'Pol around like the underlings they are - about time! The episode starts with him thinking about what his father would have wanted, only to subsequently bear the terrible story to Admiral Forrest. Bakula was crying and so was I. Our nascent Starfleet was doomed - how could it be saved?

Ah! A strange Bobby Ewing on Coruscant sequence intervenes, then a touch of TNG's "All Good Things," the chastity belt comes off Daniels' quarters, and the first season of "Enterprise" dives into a cliff-hanger leaving Archer "Lost in Time" attended by a Eloi Harkonnen instead of a useful and humorous robot. The answer is, "You didn't blow up the colonists, the Suliban did - with their invisible technobabble!"

Something about the NX-01 mission is significantly important to justify destruction on a planetary scale and yet time-critical (but good for the plot!) mistakes are being made right and left (um, yester-ways and tomorrow-wise.) "That's a load of crap." - Archer to Daniels. I'm still with the Vulcan Science Council if you can't tell.

The technobabble used to stitch the front and back halves was everything bad, then to hear it drop from the captain's mouth made it all the more painful. Watching the ship blast away made up for it in some small way but how come the transporter couldn't have made an appearance in the rescue? Great tearaway off the Suliban hatch too, upping the Great Warrior's bodycount closer to 4000! (Hefting him onto the scale near Kodos the Executioner if memory serves.)

Bit player report: Porthos made it as did Mayweather (with Hoshi in a token food scene no less) considering his life as an infamous boomer. Trip got into a face-to-ridge shouting match with Phlox, trying to cheer his human up. Archer throws a ball around with T'Pol, trying to cheer her human up. Hoshi channels Chekov defending Archer against detractors, promising an "earful in any language they want." Good for her!

But what's next? Will the drama return or will a quantum phase discriminator allow Schroedinger's Cat to be pulled from one of Phlox's boxes? Looks like summer till we find out!