Fight or Flight (ENT)

Fight or Flight is a smart second episode for Enterprise. When the show committed itself to filling in the gaps between today and Star Trek, to showing the early days of Starfleet, it committed to a scary galaxy. The Enterprise is always the only ship in range. Everything is new, a lot of it is scary, and the only friends they'll have are the ones they make.

It's smart to focus this story on Hoshi Sato, too. She's the first communications officer in the main cast since Uhura, and Uhura's character was woefully underdeveloped. (Sigourney Weaver's character in Galaxy Quest is essentially a parody of that reality.) By contrast, Hoshi is at this point probably the most relatable character on the Enterprise after Captain Archer. And she's not a space cowboy like everyone else on board. She's excited about the academic opportunities and very very good at her job as a linguist, but being a linguist doesn't usually involve being shot at or interacting with dead bodies or climbing into a claustrophobic EV suit.

Hoshi Sato is most of us, if we found ourselves being asked to go on an interstellar exploration mission. She's terrified and she's in way over her head. But in the end, she finds her mettle and proves that Starfleet didn't make a mistake putting her on the mission.

Around the story of Hoshi Sato, which is really the emotional meat of the story, is a lot of storytelling that builds up the background of the show and sets trends for the future - basically solid second episode stock.
So Fight or Flight finds the crew itching for first contact, upset that the only alien life form they've met yet is a slug, and it's about to die.

When they drop out of warp to do some target practice, their dreams come true: they encounter an alien ship. Unfortunately, instead of being full of aliens, it's full of alien corpses whose blood is being drained out through tubes.

A classic Archer-T'Pol debate ensues. Archer wants to hang around and try to lend aid, attempting to contact the dead aliens' homeworld. T'Pol wants to get the hell out of dodge before the fluid-stealing aliens return. They both make good points, but T'Pol turns out to be right and the aliens come back, scan the Enterprise, and discover that human fluids are equally delicious.

Luckily, the dead aliens' compatriots arrive at about the same time. But only Hoshi Sato's language skills can convince them to save the Enterprise.

The day saved, the Enterprise stops off to drop Sluggo the slug off on a planet similar to, but not the same as the one they found him on, to be a metaphor for humans struggling out in the larger universe. But also, very possibly, to irrevocably damage an alien biosphere.

At the end of this episode, I find myself excited about this show and its potential. Looking forward to delving more deeply into some of the other characters.

Random observations:

- Pretty great scene between Phlox and Trip in the mess hall, and some cute Archer/Hoshi scenes. The difference between how Kirk interacts one on one with female subordinates and how Archer does shows us that, if nothing else, sexism has become less overt since the 60s. On the other hand, T'Pol's catsuit and decon gel.

- Speaking of comparisons to classic Trek, this episode's basic "whoa space is scary" conceit is quite reminiscent of "The Corbomite Maneuver." Pretty solid episode 2 fare, I guess.

- Meanwhile, Hoshi's stars are going the wrong way and Archer's floor is squeaky. Isn't spaceboard life wacky?