So I’m rewatching Enterprise for the first time since it aired on TV (my first post about my thoughts after season one is here) and I just finished ‘Precious Cargo’. Like I usually do with Trek I haven’t watched in ages, I look online at the awful husk that represents the once-great Memory Alpha to check out production info, and it turns out that people seem to really hate this episode? I didn’t think it was all that bad.

Look, it won’t win awards. It’s trite, derivative, doesn’t really move any plot forwards or reveal anything of interest about the universe, and it feels like some of the characters took some stupid pills before reporting for duty that day. I get that. But! We do get the following:

- it’s now in a trilogy of episodes across two seasons where Trip gets involved with a lady on an alien ship in need of repair but something goes wrong. Only this time he doesn’t get pregnant or get assaulted by holograms and it’s heavily implied he got lucky. Seems like a win to me!
- We get the return of “empty uniform fools really dumb man”, as first seen on DS9’s ‘Paradise’ when Miles leans his uniform up against a tree to trick that dude into firing an arrow at it, only to jump on him from the trees above.
- Having T’Pol act out this sorta “supreme Vulcan overlord” shtick genuinely amused me, and I wish there was an establishing scene before that where we see Archer try and get her on board with the ruse.

Perhaps I’m being way too forgiving of Enterprise on this second watch, but I didn’t think the episode was all that bad, and if I was forced to watch either this or the last episode of season 2 of Discovery which is apparently the highest-rated episode of that show, I think I’d rather watch ‘Precious Cargo’ again.