This is a fairly decent episode that succeeds more from its fine direction and character development despite the obvious cribbing from the Alien franchise. We have the "Game over, man! Game over!" guy in Sam Kirk who isn't the pride of the family name in this episode, and a Newt stand-in. It's so on-the-nose it's shameful.
We also get our first "red shirt" in Lt. Duke, and a fairly impressive creature in "Buckley." Spock has his "Khan!" moment, and the Enterprise "miracle workers" who, with a small team, can manage to repair and raise a crashed star ship where the entire original crew couldn't.
There's also some budgeting in this episode, where the Enterprise sets are redressed as "damaged" to represent a vessel with only 90+ crew members. Given that last week's episode was also a set redress episode we can see that the budget is being stretched in the SNW production offices. It's franks and beans at the Craft Services wagons.
Despite all of this, the episode is extremely satisfying. The characters are easing into their roles and have toned up their performances.
This episode ushers in a lot of changes, which I cannot go into without spoilers. Since this is the penultimate episode of season 1, it will be interesting to see how the season finale plays out.
The highest praise I can give for a production is "I'm glad I watched it." And I watched this episode twice.
We also get our first "red shirt" in Lt. Duke, and a fairly impressive creature in "Buckley." Spock has his "Khan!" moment, and the Enterprise "miracle workers" who, with a small team, can manage to repair and raise a crashed star ship where the entire original crew couldn't.
There's also some budgeting in this episode, where the Enterprise sets are redressed as "damaged" to represent a vessel with only 90+ crew members. Given that last week's episode was also a set redress episode we can see that the budget is being stretched in the SNW production offices. It's franks and beans at the Craft Services wagons.
Despite all of this, the episode is extremely satisfying. The characters are easing into their roles and have toned up their performances.
This episode ushers in a lot of changes, which I cannot go into without spoilers. Since this is the penultimate episode of season 1, it will be interesting to see how the season finale plays out.
The highest praise I can give for a production is "I'm glad I watched it." And I watched this episode twice.