700. The ForgottenFORMULA: Mine Field + Stratagem + (In the Pale Moonlight - the lies) + Cogenitor
WHY WE LIKE IT: Trip. Degra. Trip and Degra.
WHY WE DON'T: Effects a little to extreme?
REVIEW: Damage basically continues, but with much more focus on the lives that were lost. Connor Trinneer turns in a moving performance, making Trip the emotional center of the story. He's lost a young engineer full of potential, and forced to write a letter to her family, he must confront his own delayed grief for his own sister's death. Specifically, the guilt of thinking about Elizabeth when he should be thinking about Taylor.
Archer gives a eulogy and pep talk at the start of the episode, but we soon start to follow Trip, burnt out and over-tired, making mistakes and having nightmares as soon as he closes his eyes. Phlox has a amusing, but strong, moment when he forces Trip to bed. T'Pol is too out of sorts to really comfort him, finding our herself that she'll have to deal with heightened emotions for the rest of her life (cost of hitting the pipe). Much of his frustration is spent on Degra who is, after all, the man responsible for the death of his sister. Though Archer would probably not have him snap at a promising new ally, Trip's sincere outrage is probably more convincing of Archer's good intentions than anything else. Their scenes together are electric, and I give full props to Randy Oglesby as Degra, playing a man suffering another's anger, knowing full well he deserves it and yet not backing away from his responsibilities. In fact, by the end, Degra will have to betray his own people when a reptilian ship finds them out. As for Trip, he'll eventually write the letter, and a kind of catharsis will come of it, but kudos to the creators for not "fixing" him easily as so often happens in episodic television.
There's also an action plot concerning a gas leak that becomes a gas volcano off the hull of the ship. While I'm sure the plasma is normally compressed, it still looks like Enterprise should be deflating like a balloon with the massive amounts of it being ejected. Still, it's a cool visual, and gives Malcolm another evac adventure, this one ending up almost boiling him alive (it's a wonder he ever puts on an EV suit).
LESSON: Don't shoot the messenger of death.
REWATCHABILITY - High: The loss of life has never been dealt with with such earnestness on Trek (from both sides of the conflict).
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