Enterprise: Sleeping Dogs

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Sleeping
Dogs

 

Cast & Crew

Director: Les Landau
Teleplay By: Fred Dekker

Starring
Scott Bakula as Captain
Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Chief
Engineer Charles Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as Sub-commander
T’Pol
Dominic Keating as Lt.
Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery
as Ensign Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Ensign Hoshi
Sato
John Billingsley
as Dr. Phlox

Guest Cast
Michelle C. Bonilla as Bu’Kah
Vaughn Armstrong as Klingon Captain

Airdate Information

Originally Aired: January 30, 2002
Season: One
Episode: Fifteen (Aired out of sequence. Episode 14 follows)

Sleeping DogsWhat
Happened

Enterprise discovers a ship with a decaying orbit in a gas giant. Eager
to help, Archer sends a shuttle down with T’Pol, Reed, and Hoshi (and she volunteered!).
Shortly after arriving, the away team is jumped and gets their shuttle stolen
by a Klingon engineer named Bu’Kah. She doesn’t get far with Enterprise
in orbit. The away team finds the vast majority of Klingons on the ship dead
or dying from some neurotoxin.

Meanwhile the away team is having a difficult time translating and repairing
the Raptor class Klingon vessel. As the ship drifts downward, the atmospheric
pressure become increasingly heavier and threatens to crush the ship. Onboard
Enterprise Archer has no luck persuading his Klingon captive even though
Dr. Phlox has cured her of the toxin.

The atmospheric pressure has now increased so much that a shuttle can no longer
rescue them. Sending the Enterprise herself down, Archer attempts a rescue,
unfortunately even the Enterprise can’t take the pressure. Archer makes
one more plea with Bu’Kah, this time appealing to her Klingon nature and the
species near-fanatical devotion to honor. Rigging a shuttle with reinforcement
beams Archer and Bu’Kah head out, looking for the Klingon vessel.

Having dropped so far into the atmosphere, Reed has rigged the photon torpedoes
to detonate close to the ship, pushing it into a higher orbit. Using the blasts
to triangulate the Raptor’s position, Archer finds and docks with the vessel.
Using the Bu’Kah’s know-how and the repairs Reed’s already affected, they pull
the ship out of gas giant and cure the remaining crew members.

After returning to the Enterprise, Archer receives a hail from the Klingon
Captain. He orders Enterprise to surrender or be destroyed for violating
his ship. Archer tells his opponent to leave with what little honor he has left
of he’ll destroy the Raptor, reminding the Captain that his ship is badly damaged
and has no torpedoes left. The Klingons leave without further incident.

Review

It does feel good to be clean, no? Especially after some of the sewage we’ve
waded through this season. We’re finally giving the crew a change to really
get to know another alien race. Archer has to subvert his instincts at every
turn in order to deal with the Klingons.

I’m starting to like Hoshi despite my earlier feelings. I guess the producers
realized how irritating a character she’d be if she cowered at every new discovery.
She’s eager to prove herself in a tough situation and she handles the stress
of the situation.

One nice thing about the show is that, while some old-school races have changed,
Klingons will be Klingons. Got to love that.

High Point

While I got a big laugh out of a Starfleet captain saying "Remind me to
stop trying to help people," Hoshi and T’Pol’s reaction to Klingon "aroma"
was priceless.

Low Point

The first interrogation scene seemed to drag on a bit too long, though it was
capped off by a funny line.

The Scores

Originality: I can’t think of a similar Trek episode, so hats off the the writers
for giving us something fresh. 4

Effects: Great work. Shots of the Klingon ship, gas giant atmosphere, and the
grappler snag were all done beautifully. The CG targs weren’t too bad either.
5

Story: Good exposition and detail. Kept me interested right to the end. 4

Acting: The trio on the away team was in top form. I wasn’t incredibly impressed
with the guest cast. Not bad, but not much more than the basic stuff. 4

Emotional Response: The spots of humor (three big points by my reckoning) were
fun. There was suitable tension generated by the away team on the Raptor. 4

Production: Top marks for the Klingon interiors. Follows the architecture established
from before, with a harsher, less technical look for the prequel series. 6

Overall: Great episode. Character development and an enjoyable story. 5

Total: 32 out of 42

Stills

From StarTrek.com

Fight or FlightNext
Time

Shadows of P’Jem
(Feb. 6, 2001)

Archer and the crew are disappointed to discover that T’Pol has been ordered
by the Vulcan High Command to leave the Enterprise – and equally frustrated
at her seeming indifference to leaving their ranks. T’Pol’s last mission as
a Starfleet officer, however, proves eventful when she and Archer are kidnapped
by a militant faction on an alien planet and find themselves once again at the
mercy of the volatile Andorians.

8 replies on “Enterprise: Sleeping Dogs”

  1. Short N Sweet
    I just could NOT get past the stupidity of the “decaying orbit” bit. If you are in an ORBIT and you are visibly IN THE ATMOSPHERE then you are SLOWING DOWN RAPIDLY IN A BALL OF IONIZED GAS GENERATING SONIC BOOMS AS YOU GO. If you are NOT in orbit and you are just SINKING BALLISTICALLY into a thick atmosphere, then it’s like parachuting and you’re gonna literally drop like a rock.

    Other than that, pretty cool. The Klingons and their ship were props but who cares, they’re always fun; Hoshi was better, T’Pol was OK, and Reed was…Reed. Will they ever give that guy a decent role? Oh, wait, he’s in line with the helmsman guy for that….

  2. will they ever learn to leave the klingons alone?
    I don’t know how the Klingons EVER got from the Bin Laden type to the guys on TNG (never mind STVI). Maybe Archer will just run the next time he sees a bird of prey.

    Maybe the Klingon commander was pissed off about someone leaving the GATH out to spoil?

    • Re: will they ever learn to leave the klingons alone?

      Maybe Archer will just run
      the next time he sees a bird of prey.

      I doubt that. In fact, I’d love to see the series
      end with Archer screwing up with the Klingons yet
      again, finally starting the war that we saw on the
      original series. I don’t know how the original
      chronology was set up for the timing, but I doubt Rick
      Berman and Brannon Braga care too much about that
      anyway.

  3. A point or two…
    … I loved the last shots of the Klingon captain. Very evil looking and stuff. Then the outraged “ARRG” as he slammed the com channel closed… classic and sooo funny.

    Archer is starting to get a bit cynical. That is excellent. Bakula is doing a nice job.

    Like others, I’m wondering what screw-up will lead to the Klingon war. From the looks of things it could be something very minor that the Klingons completely misinterpret. In fact, we may have already seen it and just don’t know it. Bu’Kah’s message saying that her ship was attacked by the Enterprise may have been enough.

    Or hell, maybe other races get put on the offical Klingon list of races to war against as soon as they are encountered. Wouldn’t that be consistant? Who says there is a particular reason? We are here and gaining some influence in our tiny region of space, isn’t that reason enough in the Klingon mindset to go to war?

    Reading the Klingon displays was way too easy. And how come Hoshi was able to get the Klingon captain’s logs to play back in English? Shouldn’t she have had to record the whole thing with her UT and then play it back in English? I seem to recall that word order is different in Klingon (something like Object Verb Subject), so how does the UT know what to say at the beginning of an English sentence if it hasn’t heard the end of the Klingon sentence? I would be much happier if the UT worked in a choppy way and one could still hear the Klingon going in the background.

    • Re: A point or two…
      A little known technical feature of the UT is it’s ability to project a holographic mini-display of lips over an alien video transmission. This (lip) syncs the audio translation with a computer generated set of moving lips, a technique pioneered in the early 21st century of the Star Trek universe by a film called Final Fantasy….

      • Re: A point or two…
        Hmmm. Seriously, now that I think about it, this is a patentable idea. Except that by posting the on Burea42, it’s legally now in the public domain. Well, there’s my million $$$ blown for the day…

  4. good show
    The Klingon engineer was too clean all around.

    It was nice to see interesting stuff rather than “look cap’n it’s a pretty star! wooooo!”. I personnally think that Enterprise needs to have a little more fighting. I think being the newbie in space and meeting a volatile species should create the setup for some extra fighting and strife.

    With aliens with attitudes like Ferengi, Klingons, and Andorians running around in space, how could anyone avoid a fight or eight? I don’t buy the “if they got to warp tech, they must be cool” theory. The Klingons alone kill that one.

    • Re: good show
      With aliens with attitudes like Ferengi, Klingons, and Andorians running around in space, how could anyone avoid a fight or eight? I don’t buy the “if they got to warp tech, they must be cool” theory. The Klingons alone kill that one.


      Nah, the Kingons must have STOLEN their warp technology from the Ferengi.

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