On its way to the first starbase at Berengeria VII, home of Spock's dragons, NX-01 encounters an Orion ship commanded by HITGorion. HITGorion invites Archer and Reed over to talk, ostensibly business involving ore deposits and improved relations between the Syndicate and Starfleet. In return they have to watch three Orion Slave Women dance and flirt in a manner tame enough for children. (I won't bother to bring up Susan Oliver or Yvonne Craig, since even in her mute thirty-second appearance Bobbie Sue Luther left an insuperable mark for these three.) As a sign of good faith Archer is given the three sisters, and we'd have a pretty short episode if he didn't commit the drooling stupid act of accepting them.

Well sure enough they're not aboard Enterprise for too long before the men start freaking out and the women start getting headaches, victims of some strange effect. (Phlox merely gets really, really tired.) Trip and T'Pol are back at playing amorous teenagers and it's still about as appealing as something stuck to your shoe. The OSW begin insinuating themselves to key members of the crew, and eventually convince "Trip-for-a-day" Kelby to sabotage the ship's engines by sleeping with him fully clothed (or as "fully" as OSW usually are).

Phlox figures out that pheromones from the OSW are affecting the crew, and blah blah they're tossed into the decon chamber but use their wiles to escape and try and take over the bridge but Trip's immune because his relationship with T'Pol provides him some of her protection. HITGorion shows up and grapples the disabled NX-01, but a power pulse sent up the line knocks him down to impulse. The OSW are shipped back and my wasn't that a mindless hour.

OK, at some point the incredible run of strong episodes had to stop, and this one clearly represents its "bound." Aren't Orion Slave Women supposed to be irresistible? I don't understand why they scripted three, instead of one, OSW to hold the focus since it just confuses the matter. (Who wrote this mess? Oh, Manny Coto.) Well, it does get a few points for TOS connections, with hints all about at "Elaan of Troyius," "This Side of Paradise," and "Mudd's Women," but overall it fails to satisfy. I did like the scene aboard the ornately furnished Orion ship, and the toss-off mention of the Gorns, but keep returning to the incautious idiocy of accepting slaves as a gift. And where exactly is Porthos when Archer is not in his cabin?