The Enterprise stumbles across a planet that has exited its orbit. Going down to check it out, the landing party meets a group of hunters who are tracking a dangerous prey and Archer meets a beautiful woman who he somehow recognizes.
Considering this has a pretty good guest cast, all past guests or stars on Trek or other genre shows, this is a pretty hopeless episode. The evils of hunting aren't really the most exciting topic for the series to lecture on, and this story is basically an amalgam of several past stories. It badly needs some kind of twist, such as the shapeshifters on the planet turning out to be the Founders from Deep Space Nine or something. Instead it's all very obvious that Archer has met one of the creatures being hunted, and the end solution to keep her species protected is something of a short-term solution.
It's a puzzle why it takes the full 45 minutes for all this to happen; I can only assume it comes from a lot of wandering about in the dark with very little going on for a fair chunk of the episode. Archer meets the woman and stands about looking at her and trying to work out who she is. Malcolm decides to do a spot of hunting. The relative merits of hunting and killing creatures are discussed and everyone decides that it's a bad thing, especially if the species hunted is sentient. We've had this before in TNG and DS9 and it's not really very interesting this time around. There's no real need for three hunters; one would do, and in the end it seems Archer has left them at the mercy of the locals wildlife, who may or may not be violently inclined. Although it is funny that the captain has fallen in love with a slug, that's about all the episode has to offer.
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