United

United, aired February 4, 2005

Kevin Thomas Riley's review

A rocking action/adventure with lots of great interactions between the characters, a bit of humor, suspense, drama, and even a swashbuckling duel!

When last we left our Trip and Malcolm, they were stranded on a Romulan drone ship. Unbeknownst to them, they are being monitored from Romulus by an admiral and his staff who control the ship. The ship is controlled remotely by a shadowy figure in a virtual helmet. And now…

The Romulan drone ship slips on the “Enterprise” look to make a bold sartorial statement. It destroys a heavily armed Rigellian scout ship.


T’Pol and her new best friend Travis have figured out how to detect and capture the marauding Romulan ship. A group of 128 ships can create a net and snag the ship, stopping it from further destabilizing the region.


Archer tells T’Pol Earth ships can’t reach them for weeks, and that Columbia is in drydock due to engine trouble, so humans can’t contribute any muscle except for Enterprise. T’Pol responds that Minister T’Pau (yay! she is a minister!) will send only 23 vessels because, since disbanding the VHC most Vulcan ships are without crews. Archer realizes they need the Andorians and Tellarites to succeed.


Trip and Malcolm realize they are alone on the drone ship, and that it must be a prototype. Trip searches for the “off” switch, to disable the computer controlling the ship.


OMT rules! Well, he doesn’t exactly find the off switch but he does interrupt the power to the warp controls and the ship drops out of warp.


Trip finds the access panel to the ships systems!


“Maestro!” Malcolm applauds. Trip is amused.


The Romulans monitoring OMT and OMR realize what is happening and lock Trip in the service junction where he is looking for the elusive off switch.


GRRR. Those evil, evil Romulans flood the room with radiation! A disembodied voice (how do the Romulans know English?) tells Trip he has only 7 minutes to live unless Malcolm re-establishes the warp matrix!


No, Malcolm, don’t do it!


Shran is told that Talas has died! He is devastated.


Andorians are a pretty literal species and make the saying “he has blood on his hands” literally true. Shran pours Talas’ blood over the hand of the Tellarite who killed her, and challenges the Tellarite to a duel.


In the meantime, back on the drone, Malcolm disobeys Trip and re-instates the warp matrix. True to their word, the Romulans open the hatch and Malcolm discovers Trip, collapsed on the floor! Oh, no!


The radiation has been shut off, but Malcolm, that clever, clever armory officer, has set his phaser to overload and explode. The plan – to blow up the bridge!


Trip is impressed Malcolm was capable of wreaking so much destruction with a little, itty bitty phase pistol. Malcolm modestly responds, “You're good at building things. I'm good at blowing them up.” Gotta love Trip and Malcolm in this episode! They were extremely funny, smart, and brave, and their close friendship was always evident.


T’Pol’s deadpan Vulcan humor emerges as she tells Archer he should update his will. Archer has decided to fight in place of the Tellarite to ensure the success of the alliance between the Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, and humans. The only species which wouldn’t demand satisfaction if one of their own died would be the humans, so it makes most sense for a human to fight and perhaps die. T’Pol doesn’t have much faith Archer will win…


…and urges him not to do so because he may be the key to the future. “Vulcans have a saying. ‘One man can summon the future.’ What happens if that man throws away his life before his time?” Archer tells her the future is never fixed, but that he will take care.


Hoshi and…


…Travis together find a way for Archer to win without killing Shran! Yay! And it is Travis’ boomer experience which gives them the key! Yay again!


Trust Shran to have his dueling weapons on hand, despite the fact that his ship was destroyed.


Archer cuts off Shran’s antenna and the duel ends! Although upset, Shran appreciates that Archer respected Andorian tradition and allows Shran to avenge Talas’ death.

I feared that Shran would come out of this scene looking ridiculous, but kudos to the actor for infusing the whole scene with Shran’s dignity which stopped him from looking a fool. Jeffrey Combs rocks!


T’Pol has found the drone’s warp signature! Those evil, evil Romulans have disguised the drone as a…VULCAN SHIP! OK, now this is personal. Oh, wait, it is supposed to be personal for T’Pol because isn’t whatshisname, you know, that guy who works in engineering, on the drone and in danger?


T’Pol detects two human biosigns! She doesn’t say so, but one assumes the two are whatshisname and his buddy.


T’Pol hears whatshisname’s voice! No, she can’t get a transporter lock! (OK, I had to use my strongest shipper glasses, but I managed to extract a possible T/T moment from this ep!)


Enterprise is trying to disable the drone and get OMT and OMR back. Archer tells our beleaguered duo to get close to the hull and then get the hell out of Dodge!


They escape and are adrift in space! The drone goes to warp, and all the Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite ships follow, leaving Trip and Malcolm to realize that things aren’t looking too good for their survival right at that moment.


“Anyone need a lift?” Archer enquires. Enterprise comes through and our duo is beamed aboard! Yay!


Trip tells Malcolm that Malcolm will be put on report for disobeying a direct order.


Malcolm is freaked and angry.


“You are so easy,” Trip teases. Malcolm realizes Trip has been pulling his leg. Trip can’t stop laughing and Malcolm smiles. But, oh dear, what revenge will Malcolm seek? Trip had better be careful. He may have started something.


Alliances are formed!


A lovely sight.


Behind the virual mask, we find….

A whole mess of folks have made comments

that was fast....hope u have more tpol pics to post....

Great episode! Nice pics and fast as always.

Those Trip pics at the end...shouldn't he be in a decon chamber or somewhere in sick bay? You know what I'm saying?

Any, best non-shippy ep ever! Next episode (The Aenar) is going to be even better because Trip and T'Pol appear to be having more airtime in this ep...can't wait!!

yes there are some nice reaction ones of tpol when she knows there are human bio signs and at other points when they try and get the guys back

Lol, Trip scared Read (spell?). XD The next one looks to be a Trip/T'Pol episode. Fear the T/T shippyness! XD Sorry, too much iced tea for me.

Warp Speed posting as always!!! can't wait for the detailed verson with quotes!!!

nice caps!

and a great ep, but no t/t ;)

Anyone else notice how T'Pol referred to Ensign Mayweather as Travis? Is this supposed to be a sublte clue as to the "bond"? Previously everyone was his or her rank & last name, excluding Trip. Great pics, though.

y2kelly: They're right next to decon, you can see the wall on some shots. Decon is close to the launchbay.

Kayette: It's Reed. :-)

CLF: I suppose T'Pol has realized she was the only one doing that all the time, she continues to integrate!

Super, as always!

dammit!!!! i missed this ep. waiting in keen anticipation for the witty comments

Trying hard. English so challenging. I find it crazy how a no nobody even listens when it looks like an intense radiation. Examine every new treatment ending radiation poisoning! Really. In some even T'Pol hopes, I suspect, an unrealistic test until movie night. ha ha! : )

next week looks like it's gonna be awesome. I love the andorians so i'm glad to keep seeing them in the show. also i think shows that's aren't specifically tnt oriented still have pretty heavy undertones (such as t'pol's reactions whenever her lover is dying or trapped on an alien ship). previews looked promising, how trip is all "GET IT OFF HER" when she starts to freak out. i'm tired and incoherent lol. thanks for the pics

Thanks for the great pictures. Hope there will be more. Love your comments!

Well the Romulans know english because they have been on vulcan intergrated into Vulcan society for a long time.
They are probably the ones who encouraged all the secret spying on everyone.. the treaty breaking spy station under Pjemm and breaking starfleet codes that was being done by the Vulcans.

Oh big difference to a vulcan about first name and a nick name..

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as noted above it could be a sign of the bond growing between trip and tpol,
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God you folks make the BEST captions. I'll always on the floor laughing by the halfway point.

"...strongest shipper glasses" haha. Thank you, these are wonderful.

... an albino Andorian!?

Graet episode, great polt, graeyt trip and Malacolm, holding out for more T/Tp but I couldn't help but notice she didn't change her outfit all episode.

Kudos on the commments, but I believe in the ep. Trip said "Malcolm" ::laughs:: "you are such an easy target. Anyway, I laughed really hard at that scene.

does JB look any better now that the whole "virus" thing on set is over? she has been looking pretty dead these past couple eps. i saw some older pics of her and she seriously looks anorexic. JB, always remember the bone is for the dog, the meat is for the man

we now have an established canon T/T moment for this episode. Trip basically admits to T'Pol in the Aenar, that she was on his mind while he was about to die. He doesn't say it in so many words, but you know it's what he means to say. ;)

more of tpol please

I loved this episode and these pics are fabulous. The captions went great with them.

Could you by any chance get some pics of the fight between Archer and Shran. That looked interesting in the show. If you can, thanks, and send them to my e-mail account. tnediserp_mad32@hotmail.com

Thanx.

Signed,
Madam President

This episode has just been shown for the first time in the UK.

Ok, great Trip Episode, but "one man can summon the future"? Puh-lease! What happened to "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" a-la Spock in the radiation chamber at the end of Wrath of Kahn?

And why is T'Pol looking so scrawny these days?

im so happy that an alliance is formed. also do you think you could get a picture of archer and shran fighting please. (thankyou).