See Also: 'The Shipment' Episode Guide

3.7 million viewers tuned in to watch Captain Archer's struggle with the Xindi in "The Shipment".

This Wednesday's Star Trek: Enterprise episode scored a 2.5 national rating / 4 share, Mediaweek reported. This means approximately 2.5 percent of American households with television sets were tuned into Enterprise, while the episode was viewed by 4 percent of households watching television at the time.

Ratings showed a rebound from the previous first-run episode of Enterprise, "Exile", which was the least-watched outing of the season with 3.46 million viewers (story). However, "The Shipment" turned out to be the second least-watched instalment this season, with the first five episodes from "The Xindi" through to "Impulse" attracting 4 million viewers or more.

In the coveted adults 18-49 demographic, "The Shipment" achieved a 1.6 rating / 4 share, an improvement on "Exile's" 1.5/4. But Enterprise was signficantly behind the WB's Smallville in this demographic, with the Superman series notching up a 2.9/8.

Media analyst Marc Berman, who awarded Enterprise a C grade for its ratings performance, suggested warping the show to another night in order to improve its chances this season. "If UPN really wants to keep Star Trekalive on the network, they are going to have to move it away from the WB's Smallville," he said. "Given they have no audience on Friday and there is no other science fiction programming on the night, that could be an option."

But Enterprise fared better than its lead-out show, Jake 2.0, which was awarded an F grade. The action adventure series was only watched by 2.4 million viewers, far behind its nearest competitor, the WB's Angel, which attracted 4.72 million.

Next week's "Twilight" will be the first Enterprise episode to air during November sweeps. This key ratings period determines advertising rates for the coming months, and networks usually pull out all the stops to make sure they have their best episodes on offer.

The original ratings report can be found here at Mediaweek.

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