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Enterprise
Episode 2.04, "Dead Stop"
Written by Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong
Directed by Roxanne Dawson
Air Date: 10.09.02
Picking right up where "Minefield" left off, "Dead Stop" begins with the crew assessing the damage to Enterprise. It's pretty severe, and they need repairs ASAP. Archer figures they've done enough for the quadrant, and that it's time to call in a favor. So they send out a distress signal. It's a pretty neat set-up, and not surprisingly, this is the best episode so far of Enterprise's second season.
An anonymous tip leads to them a (conveniently) close-by repair facility. Now this place is sweet. Fully automated, super-advanced, and utilizes brainwaves of imprisoned passers-by! Oh wait - I guess that last part wasn't really in the brochure. The place seems too good to be true, with machines that can repair the ship, and the injured Lt. Reed, in record time. And it only costs a few liters of warp plasma!
So sure enough, it is slightly too good to be true. The supercomputer in control creates a duplicate dead Mayweather so that it can steal the real helmsman. Apparently, it steals one crewman from each passing ship. At this point I was thinking that these bastards were creating some sort of galactic zoo. But no - it makes even less sense. They use the brainpower of each prisoner to enhance the main CPU.
Okay, so I don't think it makes sense either. But for once, I'm not gonna belabor the illogical nature of this (after all, it makes just as much sense as The Matrix I guess) because overall, it was a really entertaining episode. Basically, I love a good mystery. I mean, who built this damn station anyway? The Borg? Will we ever know? Amusingly enough, the destroyed station (oh yeah, Archer & Co. couldn't leave well enough alone, so they blew it up) starts to repair itself as the episode ends. Pretty neat. I just hope we get some answers down the line.
By the way, this ep was directed by Roxanne Dawson, whom fans will know as Torres from ST: Voyager. I know it's not her first, but it's notable. She's certainly a competent director.
My only question is this - wasn't it still a fair trade to give up Mayweather? Well, maybe he'll be an interesting character someday...
Episode Rating: 8 out of 10.
-- Ultra Magnus would not have ordered the catfish. Have they no appreciation for chiliburgers in the future?
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