When Trip's shuttle is fired upon, his pod and the attacking craft are brought down on one of over 60 moons, and as dawn approaches, Trip must find a way to contact the Enterprise before the heat becomes unbearable and fries him and the alien who attacked him alive.

I'm not entirely sure who this show is being pitched at anymore. episodes like this have been done on various Star Treks before, often better, and if the hope is to draw in new fans who've not encountered the franchise before, this is hardly likely to make them keep coming back week after week. Not only has Trip been trapped on a planet a mere couple of weeks ago and been forced into stripping off, but this episode is a sort of cross between Arena from the original series and TNG's Darmok. The universal translator isn't working, so Trip has to make do with the traditional approach to foreign language: shouting loudly and keeping his fingers crossed.

This would be far more entertaining were it not for the fact that Trip is guessing at words without having much idea what he's saying. If he'd got some wrong and found out later that everything had been a misunderstanding, that would have made for a more watchable story. As it is, we're led to believe he can sort out the words for ship, water and some more technical things without much basis in fact. We've done not being able to understand aliens before on this show, and with nothing new to offer, there's still nothing really to recommend this episode. The approaching dawn seems like a late addition, the searching scenes set on the Enterprise have to be there so we know they're doing something, but they quickly become irrelevant and repetitive. Better that we have an extended sickbay sequence with Trip finally able to talk to his comrade about things and better understand his motivations than some of the endless nonsense happening on Enterprise. More importantly, why does Trip stay on the planet's surface? It may be a gesture of solidarity, but he can be beamed up; why doesn't he take a sample of the alien's drink and bring some back to him so his condition improves and he can be transported? Instead of coming across as someone wanting to save another being's life, Trip appears to be a man who wants to sit and watch someone else die, which I'm sure isn't the point the writers want to come across.

I've said before, and it's true, that many of Enterprise's episode aren't bad. This one is an example. It's not bad, but it's flogging an already deceased horse way past the point where such things will hold audience attention. And if the fans turn off in boredom and the general public can't get involved in the first place, what is the point in continuing with this show?

**

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