Enterprise discovers a Vulcan ship lost nine months earlier, but when they mount a rescue mission they learn that something has made the crew go insane and start attacking anyone venturing on board. Then T’Pol starts behaving oddly…

Well, I guess this is going to be a pretty quick review, as it can be summed up like this: Resident Evil meets Event Horizon. Now, we know Trek can do horror pretty well when it has a mind to – witness Star Trek: First Contact, for instance – and this is a good example. The direction is good, the lighting is subdued and the set is packed with broken machinery and sparking wires. It really does look good like a ship in a state of decay. There’s even one of the expendable marines in the landing party so viewers can sit back and watch him die. Except he doesn’t, which makes for a nice change, and he gets a bit of personality put into him as well.

The problem is that where Star Trek was ahead of the game, now it’s content merely to follow, ripping off movies instead of coming up with ideas of its own. All this really is is a zombie story from the minute the first crazy Vulcan turns up. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that as it’s done well, but 45 minutes of wandering a ship with some zombies after you, accompanied by a delusional and loopy T’Pol doesn’t really do it for me in the high stakes action bracket. It’s symptomatic of the most serious problem with using Vulcans in the show as well: they aren’t very interesting unless you force them to lose their emotional controls. So here once again we have T’Pol getting all hot and sweaty and being a bit of a nasty old cow simply because it makes her easier to write for than when she’s her normal, logical, dull self. How come Spock got out of it okay on a weekly basis, yet every Vulcan in a Trek show since has been incredibly tedious?

**

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