ENT - "Fight or Flight"

"Fight or Flight" introduces a number of "firsts" for Enterprise: their first contact with a new race (the Axanar, a species first mentioned in TOS but never seen until now), their first test of the Enterprise's weapons systems, and the first Hoshi-centric story.  Unfortunately, none of these are done well.

The sci-fi/horror element of this episode is done in classic style, but with no impact.  The audience cannot share in Hoshi's horror at the murdered Axanar because the scene is shot in the most bland way possible.  We see her scream in terror before we actually see the bodies, thus eliminating any surprise we might have had.

This episode exemplifies one of Enterprise's biggest flaws: its tendency to focus on unimportant minutiae.  One of the primary plot points is the testing of the new spatial torpedoes, but in the end those scenes only add up to technobabble.  I love technobabble as much as anyone else (I know what happens when you fire an inverse tachyon beam at a temporal anomaly), but there's no reason to have a scene that's not actually interesting beyond the science geek factor.  There are ways to integrate technobabble, character development, and plot progression.  Unfortunately, this episode doesn't do that.  It's tolerable and even somewhat interesting for me (I love finding out about the ship's inner workings), but I can imagine that other (less geeky) people would get bored to tears.

"Fight or Flight" begins and end with Hoshi's pet slug.  While this makes perfect thematic sense, as the slug's away-from-home position is meant to mirror Hoshi's situation (an analogy the viewer is practically beaten over the head with), it isn't done in a very dramatic way.  Hoshi's internal conflict is something that could have been resolved in a much better fashion than devoting an entire episode to it; we don't need to spend an hour on a story that could have been told alongside a much more interesting tale.  It's no doubt that the Axanar ship and the unnamed attacking vessel were meant to be that "interesting" tale, providing the action and tension.  Unfortunately, the action is perhaps the worst part of the episode.

The enemy ship is extremely well-designed, and acts as a great threat for the Enterprise to deal with.  However, the action is only marginally exciting.  While it's entirely unfair to judge Enterprise in comparison to the 2009 Trek film that would come eight years later, the new film does illustrate the fact that space battles in Trek can be exciting.  It's true that the two are entirely different productions, but it's also true that the battle in "Fight or Flight" doesn't "feel" like action; it feels like a run-of-the-mill everyday type of occurence; perhaps more of an annoyance to the Enterprise's crew than anything else.  Greater music or directing would have fixed this problem, but unfortunately the viewer is left without an essential sense of tension.
It's almost a certain fact that the creative minds behind Enterprise wanted this battle to be more about Hoshi's internal conflict and personal development rather than a "real" battle, but that aspect of the episode doesn't satisfy, either.

Fortunately, the visual effects, sets, makeup, and props are all at the peak of TV Trek quality, making the episode more than tolerable.

This is not a "bad" episode; it's just boring.