Episode cast overview: | |||
Scott Bakula | ... | Capt. Jonathan Archer | |
John Billingsley | ... | Dr. Phlox | |
Jolene Blalock | ... | Sub-Cmdr. T'Pol | |
Dominic Keating | ... | Lt. Malcolm Reed | |
Anthony Montgomery | ... | Ensign Travis Mayweather | |
Linda Park | ... | Ensign Hoshi Sato | |
Connor Trinneer | ... | Cmdr. Charles 'Trip' Tucker III | |
Vaughn Armstrong | ... | Kreetassan Captain | |
Joseph Will | ... | Crewman Michael Rostov | |
Renée Elise Goldsberry | ... | Crewman Kelly (as Renee E. Goldsberry) |
A group of Kreetassans are on board of Enterprise for a friendly meeting. But they leave rather unexpectedly as they seem very offended by something. The crew have no idea what however. But as their ship leaves an alien gel like creature manages to crawl aboard. The creature is growing and growing and shows rather hostile tendencies as it encapsulates five crew members, including captain Archer and commander Tucker. T'Pol, Hoshi and Reed have to come up with a solution quickly. The lives of the five are at stake as the creature begins a symbiotic relationship that in time can't be reversed. Written by Arnoud Tiele (imdb@tiele.nl)
Enterprise encounters an alien stowaway.
This is sort of a nice version of Ridley Scott's Alien. I can't say I particularly enjoyed it but it did have a few redeeming elements.
One of the qualities of Star Trek is the abundance of situations where problems are solved by non-violent solutions and this is one such example.
There are some decent character scenes between Archer and Trip Tucker, particularly them relaxing with a beer watching waterpolo.
It is always refreshing in Star Trek to see a non humanoid life form and this feels like the series creators making an effort to be a bit more creative than usual with production design.
There are a number of problems that drag it down, namely the unoriginal plot, poor CG animation and annoying character moments, particularly Sato whining at T'Pol in the middle of a crisis.
With hindsight I would have skipped this one.