Finding a comet, Archer decides to do some in-depth study. However, a Vulcan ship nearby seems to be keen to keep an eye on the crew and the captain wants to find out why.

As is becoming traditional on Enterprise, there's not a whole lot of story involved here. However, it's not a major concern as the characters are starting to come through better now and this story is very much centred around filling them out more and developing the role of the Vulcans in the series. While Mayweather and Reed do some drilling on the surface of the comet, Archer invites the Vulcan captain over for lunch and T'Pol tries to make a difficult decision about her future.

While nothing of immense significance happens in any of the plots really, the comet one provides some humour (Mayweather and Reed's building of a snowman on the comet is a great idea and something you know none of the other crews would have tried) and the traditional 'shuttle in trouble' plotline that sees them falling into a crevasse. This part, however, does rather worryingly demonstrate how ill-equipped the Enterprise is to handle emergencies, not even being fitted with a tractor beam which would be kind of handy.

The Vulcan captain plot doesn't really go far, but does provide some strong moments for Archer as he gives the man what for and tells him in no uncertain terms to butt out and tell the Vulcans that his crew don't need their hands held every step of the way.

Finally there's the T'Pol story where Trip discovers that the science officer is scheduled to be married soon and should leave the Enterprise to fulfil her commitment. A more unlikely pairing you can't really imagine, but it's their differences that make for some good drama here with Trip teaching T'Pol a couple of human concepts that make her think twice about which way she should jump in this situation. It's good to see something a little different and especially to see T'Pol taking advice from a human, bringing her close to integration into the crew and losing some of her superiority complex. Admittedly the end shot of some of Tucker's pecan pie in her quarters is overdoing it a little, but that aside it's good to see this kind of character building in action.

Not the best episode in the world, but it has its moments.

***

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