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Star Trek Ent - Season 1 - Episode 24

Star Trek Ent - 1x24 - Desert Crossing

Originally Aired: 2002-5-8

Synopsis:
When Archer and Trip are invited to a desert-like planet by an alien leader, they discover he is a terrorist who has lured them there under false pretenses. [DVD]

My Rating - 5

Fan Rating Average - 5.28

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 15 1 3 8 8 9 8 8 23 5 5

Problems
- So in Ent: Detained, shuttlepods had phase cannons. Now they have plasma cannons?

Factoids
- Clancy Brown who plays Zobral in this episode played the Kurgan in the Highlander film.
- It's been said that three of the extras seen in engineering in this episode are sailors from the real life United States Aircraft Carrier Enterprise.
- There are eight major components to a warp engine.

Remarkable Scenes
- Enterprise's trip to Risa being interrupted... again!
- Archer citing the events of Ent: Silent Enemy as the only time he ever seriously thought about turning back to Earth.
- The Geskana match.
- Archer and Trip crossing the desert.
- T'Pol, Reed, and Zobral rescuing Archer and Trip.
- Archer: "The irony is I have a feeling his cause is worth fighting for."

My Review
I loved the guest star Zobral in this episode. Magnificent actor who played his part very well. This episode features great continuity with Ent: Detained too. I loved how Zobral heard things about Archer from the Suliban who escaped their imprisonment thanks to Archer. Zobral said he heard that Archer was an explorer who was also a great warrior and as a result of this impression he wants to enlist Archer and his crew into his fight by any means necessary. Archer is finally learning that there are consequences for his actions. It's interesting that even after his ordeal, Archer remains sympathetic to Zobral's cause, even if he doesn't agree with his methods. Not only is Archer learning there are consequences for his actions, he's learning that the Vulcan non interference policy makes a lot of sense. Maybe the episode was yet another annoying rehash of the Enterprise crew gets involved in an alien conflict plot, but this episode used it well. We got some real character development for Archer and Trip, and the desert scenery was a nice change of pace. I especially liked the Geskana match.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Pete Miller on 2006-12-11 at 12:17am:
    Injecting that water into Tripp intravenously would be a VERY bad idea!

    Again with this "chef". Do we ever get to see this person?
  • From Chris Wright on 2011-11-22 at 1:42pm:
    Zobral's accent sounded like a really bad, overdone Eastern European/Russian one. You should also recognize the actor who played him as the drill sgt. In Starship Troopers. Love this site btw!
  • From Dstyle on 2015-09-05 at 2:17pm:
    I'm really enjoying this show a lot, but I feel like the make up department had really been phoning it in with the last few humanoid aliens we've met. I can just imagine the descriptions in the scripts: "Yeah, so these aliens are basically just white guys with, uh, I don't know, give them scaly patches on their temples or chin tattoos or something."
  • From Zorak on 2016-09-25 at 4:27pm:
    I don't have any strong opinions on this episode, but it is nice that Archer is starting to see some consequences for the (completely out of line in my opinion) actions he has taken. I'm hoping they'll run with it and not just hit the reset button on this development for Archer. I'd really like to see them tone down on this savior complex Archer seems to have.
  • From Hugo Ahlenius on 2017-05-31 at 1:10am:
    The ep felt quite padded, with not much actual story, and the scenes with the guys in the desert were too long... !

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