review-2d

D+
“Precious Cargo”

What can I say, bad, just plain bad, even with the charming Connor Trineer.

Overall grade for the season B-, same as last year’s rating.

Character Changes
There hasn’t really been that much change for most of the characters save for Archer, T’Pol and Trip. Hoshi is still pretty much the same as is Mayweather although we got to meet his family. Still, the helmsman has learned a great deal from being on Enterprise as we see in “Horizon”. Reed is still the stickler for procedure and is fixated on his weapons. We’ve learned some things about Phlox. He’s got three wives and they have two husbands each along with him. Denobulans are very open-minded about sex but males tend to be shy discussing it. This last part (as we saw in “Bounty”) was a little odd since in “Stigma” and “Cogenitor”, Phlox doesn’t seem to be that reserved about discussing sex. We also see that he is loyal to Archer as he decides to stay on the ship for the new mission as seen in “The Expanse”. Trip has changed from the innocent, enthusiastic character to one who is angry and wants revenge (see “The Expanse”). In “Cogenitor” we see that he still is impulsive and doesn’t think things through when he feels that something is unjust. Still, now he is vengeful as well which coupled with the above may make him dangerous to the crew as they venture into the Expanse. T’Pol had the most dramatic change in her character. She resigned her commission with the Vulcan High Command to remain on the ship. We don’t know what rank she will have or if she will be able to give orders. It’s assumed that she will answer to Archer and most likely will remain his science officer but will she still be second in command? Will Archer give her a field commission? Archer has also changed. Whereas at first he was wide-eyed and open to new experiences and discoveries now he is wary and less likely to trust new alien species that he meets. He also fights back which is a welcome addition to his character. But most important is that he has a new, very specific and dangerous mission. There are to be new characters added to the show, military soldiers. We don’t know anything about them at this time. Finally, Porthos is still on the ship and there is nothing new about him.

General Changes
In “Singularity” we see that Reed is the one who invented the “Red Alert”. In “The Expanse” we see the ship refitted with stronger hull plating and equipped with photonic torpedoes. Reed was supposed to be working on shields (see last season’s “Vox Sola”) for the ship but we haven’t seen that yet. The Federation still does not exist and there is no Prime Directive. The Tellarites and the Tholians have been introduced. The Borg have also appeared but Archer and crew don’t know the name of the species.