The Communicator

Reed loses his communicator on a planet and returns with Archer to retrieve it.

Not an original idea but it's a fairly strong episode. Archer and Reed play it as tight lipped as possible not to cause cultural contamination with their technology or their true identities and have to suffer for it.

This is a moral stand based on ideals created in the original series but it is as relevant today as it was back then. All you have to do is look into history where nation-states have interfered in other less developed nation-states and left nothing but war and destruction behind.

Archer and Reed are pretty good. Although the writers make Reed look like a muppet for losing the device in the first place, thank goodness all his usual hysterical pessimism is toned down and he takes what appears to be the ultimate form of punishment with stoicism. As for Archer, he stands firm as an oak tree in the face of violent interrogation which is pretty impressive.

What frustrates me is watching yet another annoyingly mistrusting, antagonistic alien species. I'm not sure how many more episodes with this formula I can take. On the other hand, each one should be judged on its own merit, so just because I've seen something similar in others I won't let it put too much of a dampener on it.

There is also a pretty funny sub-plot involving Trip Tucker and an accident he has with working on a Suliban cloaking device.