Sleeping Dogs

DVD, Enterprise S1 (Sleeping Dogs)

It's taken three encounters, but Archer has at last begun to realise you have to treat the Klingons on their own terms. By the end of the episode he's ready to bluff the weakened, but angry shipful by threatening them till they go away! It's always good to have the Klingons aboard (though not literally!), and as I've said before, you can't beat a creep round a dark, mostly empty ship. There are always striking visuals, with the torchlight and atmosphere, and they nailed the Klingon side of things too - the terrible smell, clunky design and throbbing under the deck plates.

I supposed the only fault is that nothing much happens, it's not about anything, or a straight up actioner, or character-driven drama, but it has a bit of most things, and the interest comes from the atmosphere and the view of a Klingon ship, right down to live Targ's in the galley! It is also very nice to see Hoshi fight down the urge to avoid her fears and face danger head on, in true Starfleet fashion. The only bit I didn't like was the Vulcan mysticism. Can you imagine Spock twiddling some crewmates hand to make them feel better?!

I was so glad the cold Reed had didn't become the inevitable solution to the episode, as it so often does in sci-fi, and was merely a side story, maybe even a decoy in case you guessed where things were going. A rounded episode, though you'd have thought Mayweather would have been selected to pilot the shuttlepod. At least we got an example of Klingon Warrior spirit as the captured female takes on several security and a couple of phaser blasts to be subdued!

And Vaughan Armstrong, the ever-versatile, must be mentioned. He who usually plays Admiral Forrest - I saw his name and that's what I expected, but he turned up as the Klingon Captain. A brave move as he's so associated with the Admiral role on this series, but he pulled it off convincingly (not being a stranger to multiple roles, to say the least!).

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