Enterprise Review: “Cease Fire”

Jeffery Combs returns as Shran in this week’s new episode. Check it out!

Enterprise LogoCease
Fire

 

Cast & Crew

Director: David Straiton
Written By: Chris Black

Starring
Scott Bakula as Captain
Jonathan Archer
Connor Trinneer as Chief
Engineer Charles Tucker III
Jolene Blalock as Sub-commander
T’Pol
Dominic Keating as Lt.
Malcolm Reed
Anthony Montgomery
as Ensign Travis Mayweather
Linda Park as Ensign Hoshi
Sato
John Billingsley
as Dr. Phlox

Guest Cast
Jeffrey Combs as Shran
Suzie Plakson as Tarah
Gary Graham as Soval
John Balma as Muroc
Vaughn Armstrong as Admiral Forrest
Zane Cassidy as Andorian Soldier
Christopher Shea as Telev

Airdate Information

Originally Aired: February 12, 2003
Season: Two
Episode: Fifteen
Production: 041

Cease FireWhat
Happened

A military conflict erupts between the Vulcans and Andorians over a small terraformed
planet that both sides make claim to. In the midst of the skirmish, the Vulcans
announce they wish to discuss terms for a cease-fire, but Imperial Guard officer
Shran believes the only one he can trust to mediate such a negotiation is Jonathan
Archer, so the captain and his ship are called into the fray.

Review

Even though the ending was a little predictable, the episode was fairly enjoyable.
I particularly liked the way the slow dialogue pieces were kept moving with
interspersed action.

The magnitude of Vulcan hypocrisy is starting to diminish here, after being
severly inflated last week. I’m glad we have some continuity in the storylines,
and I’ll never say no to a Jeffery Combs guest spot, so, thus far, we have two
pretty good episodes in a row. Maybe there’s hope. Just maybe…

High Point

I had a great laugh with the flame retardent underwear line. Only an engineer
could come up with something like that.

Low Point

The end of the episode seemed rushed, but I think that was a time constraint
problem, not really something we can dump on the writer.

The Scores

Originality: Sure it’s nothing new to have Starfleet intervene in a dispute,
but it is new territory for Enterprise. 3 out 6.

Effects: As always, nice clean effects. Those new Andorian ships look pretty
cool. 5 out of 6.

Story: A good outing with some good plot points and dialogue. 4 out of 6.

Acting: Combs rules! Everyone else is sharp as well. 5 out of 6.

Emotional Response: Some good humor and strong emotions coming from both sides
of the negotiating table. 4 out of 6.

Production: Hey, maybe it’s hard to make convincing debris. At least it’s not
a cave. 3 out of 6.

Overall: Let’s here it for continuing storylines and interesting characters.
4 out of 6.

Total: 28 out of 42

Episode Media

From StarTrek.com

Next Time on Enterprise (Feb. 19, 2003)

Next Time on EnterpriseFuture
Tense

Far beyond where any Earth vessel has ventured before, the Enterprise crew
is shocked to find a small craft adrift in space that contains what appears
to be a human corpse. Trip Tucker and Malcolm Reed discover the craft holds
some strange secrets, and the mystery deepens when the Suliban arrive making
claim to the salvage. On top of that, Captain Archer is confronted by the Tholians,
who also aggressively try to procure the enigmatic vessel.

TheAngrymob

9 replies on “Enterprise Review: “Cease Fire””

  1. Shran the man
    The whole story line about the Vulcans and the Andorians fighting over this stupid wannabe planet was interesting. It casts the Vulcans in a different light. They appear bossy and arrogant all the time, but this time they seemed a bit petty.

    The Andorians are a people that I like. They’re so hot tempered… like mobsters. Trip rocks… as usual, and I thought the vulcan actors did a good job at being arrogant.

  2. Effects
    I was surprised that your low point wasn’t the shuttle crash landing effect. Also, that wing tore off in the last few feet but there wasn’t anything there to tear the wing off. I thought the production of showing the wing damage on the shuttle was nice, though.

    • Re: Effects
      Well it seems that the Enterprise must have more than the two shuttles we thought they have, I thought they lost one a few weeks ago, and they just 86’ed the other one. They must have a good service bay there for their shuttles.

      • Re: Effects
        Thought the same thing about leaving the shuttle.
        Also, wouldn’t there be security implications that result from leaving your advanced technology lying around. Is this a pre-prime directive quirk?

        • Re: Effects

          My guess is they went back, repaired and retreived the shuttle. There’s no indication of how much time passed between the initial crash and the end of the negotiations.

  3. A Better Episode
    All and All, this was a much improved episode. I keep trying to remind myself that in 200 years, the Vulcans could change/improve that much. For a while I found it hard to believe that they’d go from being almost arrogant with logic to the way they were portrayed as just ‘stoic’ in the other series.

    Looking forward to future episodes so far. This ‘temporal cold war’ seems kinda hokey at first, hopefully they’ll develop it better than the past episodes.

  4. What??
    I can’t believe this got a lower review than “Stinka”. Last week’s was so obtuse and unoriginal it was patheitc. This was a much more enjoyable, more interesting, and much more interesting. But again, I didn’t like ST4… :)

  5. Raise the Flag!
    After watching this episode I must admit I was much more impressed. With respect to the reviewer I found this episode much better than many I have seen of late. This story was much better crafted. The situation between the Vulcans and Andorians was highly plausible and mixed nicely with their backgrounds. Captain Archer impressed me as a man genuinly seeking something of a solution between the two parties without overconfidence or, for lack of a better word, aggression he showed in the previous episode.

    Though some may say the antagonist predictable, I must say I was not altogether certain until the Captain got the upper hand. It would have been more entertaining to find an undisclosed enemy responsible. This would have provided more of a twist.

    On the cast:

    Each character was well played. I found it humorous that the female andorian seemed a towering amazon when put next to her male counterparts. That was probably a racial characteristic I didn’t know about.

    As to the actress who played that part I think that she has had other parts in Treks past; playing the female half Klingon who had a child by Warf. She seemed familiar. Anyone know for certain?

  6. These Vulcan’s are an emotional lot, aren’t they?
    I know it’s a bit late, and that it’s likely that no one will read this, but we get Enterprise a bit later in England than you lucky Yanks :)

    While watching this episode, I imagined myself having a conversation with Soval. I think I would be constantly reminding him that, as a Vulcan, he shouldn’t be bogged down in the emotions he so clearly radiates at every opportunity. Arrogance, anger…. Actually, that’s about it; only negative emotions for this Vulcan. In fact, most Vulcans we’ve seen on the show exhibit these kind of emotions in abundance, except for Dr Yaris from the last episode, who showed a combination of guilt, remorse, and other similar feelings.

    I would be quite willing to suspend disbelief in this case and imagine that, in the space of 200 years, Vulcans got a lot better at supressing their emotions. Having said that, it’s extremely hard to, when Soval says things like “You have been contaminated by human emotion” and “arrogance is an emotion, T’Pol”. She really should have replied with “Look who’s talking, you emotional FREAK!”.

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