ENT - "Strange New World"

In this episode, we see the NX-01's legendary first away mission to a "strange new world." As is nearly always the case in Star Trek, the planet is far more dangerous than it originally seems. Does the crew encounter bizarre and malevolent alien life forms? No. They hallucinate and imagine that they are being attacked by aliens.
(You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes)

In all honesty, this does provide for some interesting storytelling, as the crew begins to become increasingly paranoid towards T'Pol. There's some interesting internal drama here, both with T'Pol and the rest of the crew, notably Trip. We also get some clever use of the Vulcan language, something previously rarely heard in Trek.

The Vulcan language is just the tip of the geek-service iceberg, as we also get to see a transporter malfunction!

I always wondered what would happen to someone if they were integrated with a tree. Apparently the damage is only skin-deep. (pun completely intended) Once again, the makeup department proved themselves to be the best in their field. Unfortunately, the CG effects weren't up to that same standard.

It's a valid point to say that the "rock people" were a mere hallucination, and therefore their visual effect did not need to look amazing. However, the effect was more than a little cheesy-looking in the end, and was actually a slight tip-off to the audience that the creatures were not real. If that was intended, then it was a bad idea. Why not keep the audience in the dark as to whether or not the crew is actually paranoid?

Once again, Enterprise proves to be the master of non-essential blather, as we get plenty of scenes that ultimately don't matter. Travis's technobabble ghost story was pretty funny, though, as it practically made fun of the ridiculousness of Trek's everyday dialogue. If it was an intended joke, then I applaud the writers. If it was unintentional, then I am deeply ashamed to be watching this show.

Overall, this episode is interesting, but ultimately not that great. If it had been a half-hour shorter, it might have been truly remarkable. Unfortunately, the first half of the episode is a complete waste of screen time. I personally love to see the normal day-to-day (and admittedly boring) operations of the crew, but I also know that I'll probably never watch this episode again.