Enterprise finds a disturbing scene on an abandoned ship.
This episode serves two main purposes – first, establish a different tone to the previous series. This isn’t the incredibly powerful Enterprise of TOS or TNG, or even Voyager. This is a weak ship, and a crew who are out of their depth this far out in space. Diplomacy isn’t important to them because it’s their values, it’s important because they don’t have the strength for all out combat. So we need to feel a bit more unsettled, and less at ease. I was worried that they were going to try for full on horror-style after the initial scene in the alien ship, but fortunately they dial it back a bit.
The other purpose to the episode was to give Hoshi’s character some time, and that part didn’t work as well. The ‘cowardly lion’ story line, of someone who doesn’t think they can perform but can when needed, is old hat, and nothing interesting is done with it here. They go a bit too far in establishing her concerns, making her sound more of a whiner. Someone doesn’t get as far as she has without at least a little bit more patience with new problems.
640 down, 97 to go.