Malcolm's first pre-warp encounter goes terribly wrong as he loses his communicator to a warring pre-atomic culture, in the best written episode of "Enterprise" to date. At first suggestive of the contamination hazards found in "A Piece of the Action," it strongly recalls the Prime Directive struggles addressed in "Bread and Circuses" as well. For Archer and Reed, this most definitely was not an academy training mission; they were being taken to die. All because they don't yet use velcro on their belt!

Reed doesn't deserve thirty years in the brig but writing his carelessness off as "an accident" doesn't do the situation justice either. (Ah, the irony that his admiration of a local "Churchill" coincidentally begins the mess.) Admirably he did stay focused on his mission to recover the equipment and deserves credit for his prompt and honest admission, unlike McCoy with the Iotians. He has hopefully redeemed himself having now not wetted himself even facing the gallows. And in a pleasant surprise for me at least, finally he remained optimistic about a rescue while in captivity unlike his Captain.

Speaking of the Great Warrior, Archer's back into the beatings and it's a debatable pity that he ignored his Tactical Officer's prudent recommendation to "tell the truth." Prepared to die in order to conceal that truth, Archer stands in paradoxical contrast to his "logical" First Officer, who launches a calculated risky rescue brazenly leaving contamination. Violating whatever primitive prime direction she may profess improves the recent interesting dimension to her character.

The "difficult to forget" Hoshi certainly helped resolving Reed's accident and furthermore Travis got good screen-time too ("steal popcorn" indeed). The less said about Trip's tingly "Dose of Particle Radiation" the better - may Trip the DOPR not turn into a recurring theme (like Trip the gravid). Continuity takes another bruise - sigh - since in "Enterprise Incident" Starfleet risks its best crew and ship to acquire the unfamiliar Romulan military secret. And tell me again, once planet-side how do these guys hide their shuttlepod - throw a DOPR blanket over it?

Oddly unnamed like the similar species on Planet 892-IV, this world's species flies impressive fighter jets while still using gallows and guns. A round of Alakis malt for all the quality acting, especially the perfectly paranoid presentation of Dr. Temec's anatomical tests - hemoglobin based on iron ("Acid for blood!"). I can't easily imagine how WWII might have ended, had deformed rubber-faced aliens landed during it, phasering up the place. NX-01 simply must return to follow this experience up.