Enterprise the ship drops the Tellarite ambassador as quickly as Enterprise the series drops the beginning of the Alliance (Federation) as an antidote to the Romulan drone ship. Somewhere 127 ships are left floundering around while NX-01 goes off hunting the marauder with Shran's help (OK, so it's good help!). Phlox identifies the genome of the pilot controlling the drone from his brain waves, whereupon Shran reveals them to be a subspecies of blind, highly telepathic Andorians known as the Aenar. T'Pol and Phlox help mopey Trip rig up a telepresence device similar to that of the Romulans.

After routing to Andoria Archer and Shran locate them (by falling on a blue-bloody icy stalagmite), but cannot convince the pacifistic Aenar to help the Alliance. A young girl deduces the pilot as her lost brother, shanghaied by the Romulans to pilot their drone. She joins them; after some ice worms and impressive mental trickery they return aboard. The device works, the girl convinces her brother to have the drones attack each other, though he gets shot for the trouble. The Romulan failures are arrested, and Trip wants a transfer.

I'd been waiting for this arc for a long, long time. The first two parts deserve excellent marks while the last gets credit for being distinctive though it is nowhere near as impressive. Jeffrey Combs commands every scene as usual, though exceptional acting throughout rewards suffering through the farcical science. Good writing too, contrasting the gentle Aenar with their arrogant, aggressive cousins. Maybe that's why the Aenar were a subspecies of Andorians (never heard of before or since) instead of a new Halkan-like species. It's a shame the show never followed up on how the Romulan drone experiment back-fired, uniting the races they sought to antagonize. Weird spin on the War, I know.

The brother/sister relationship helped the plot along and was quite credible. For some reason this episode evoked a strong sense of TOS, such as the unusual but Theiss-ish costumes and the odd "telepresence" special effects of facial close-ups and blinking colors. It sucks though that Talas' death was essentially just to prompt the duel, since they missed the opportunity to show more of this anticipated homeworld as Shran returns her blood to the ice of Andoria. Where was the cool Andorian culture? (When Enterprise visits a part of Andoria, of course that part will be covered with caves!) After waiting what, forty years, when the chance comes to see Andoria we barely got a glimpse of its frozen allure.


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