Enterprise review: "Rogue Planet".
(Episode 18)

Gold Star Bonus!

On occasion the Producers behind Enterprise gets something right. I'm going to upset some people with this one as a lot of fans consider this episode to be a dud, but while the episode may not have done anything right, they didn't really do much of it wrong. "Rogue Planet" seems to have been a fluke caught in the middle. I had a hard time finding logistical, character or plot problems beyond there being life on a planet with no sunlight. I guess it wasn't really good or bad, it was just boring.

Am I the only one who thought actually filming the episode with clear night vision cameras and actually having the actors stumble through the dark sets might have been worth the attempt for some scenes? Even when they were no where near the campfire, we could tell each character part from eachother.

And how can you possibly see in the dark with just one eye?

This episode actually didn't need a rogue planet. A rogue planet is something special that you'll only ever find just once. This episode could have been done with just a regular planet, with the rogue planet idea being saved for one of those "lost civilations" or "crashed ship" stories.

A planet that eventually fell away from its solar system intact would still have destroyed much life on it, and making the bulk of the rest dying. This opened doors for stories that this episode just didn't even think of.

Okay. I'm sorry. I said it above, and I'll say it again. It's hard for me to actually find problems with this one. Sure, the neon outlines of the goggles may have scared away the animals, but visually it looked cool and brightened up the dark episode with some color. It was a sacrifice that I would have done myself actually.

All these creatures living on a cold dark planet that should be 90% lifeless didn't exactly cause the crew to question how this was even possible. While it IS practical to believe some type of creatures somewhere could have survived, but as many different kinds as we've seen just doesn't make sense.

I bet the crew of the Fortunate Son had infrared goggles. I bet the Vulcans have infrared goggles. I bet the Terra Novans had infrared goggles.

I also need more ammo.

And once again we encounter closed minded villians who either ignore common sense or are on the edge of doing so.

These guys writing off the changlings as wild animals with just instinct instead of intelligence is SOOO Voyager-esque. The best villians were always the villians who have intelligence and can carry a story on their own. Voyager's Seska always twirled her mustache, while these guys, while being more normal, still ignored the intelligence of the changlings.

Okay. You have a changling that can read minds and take any shape. And they want Archer to come up with a way to get his crew to protect them. So what do you do?

I don't know. But whatever you do, don't ever, ever take the shape of an Enterprise crewmember and return to the ship with Archer in an attempt to convince him and the crew to help your people. because that would be really cool and we don't want that.

One of the greatest unexpected scenes of Deep Space 9 was when Sisko was on Earth during some Starfleet turmoil. Chief O'Brien sits down next to Sisko on the bench. It only takes a moment to realize that O'Brien was still three days away at Warp. The Dominion Changling then proceeds to have a calm talk with Sisko about how all the turmoil on Earth was being caused by just three changlings. The scene of Tucker and Archer in his room was crying out for Tucker to reveal he was the changling on the planet.

Archer helped the village in "Civilization", but then caused mass genocide in "Dear Doctor", then helps the changlings in this episode. Is this guy a yo-yo or what?

Why didn't the telepathic changling know Archer caused mass genocide? Is she sure she wants this man to help her people?