'Dead Stop' Review Roundup

See Also: 'Dead Stop' Episode Guide

Critics have weighed in with their thoughts on the episode 'Dead Stop', with the verdicts ranging from "a winner" to an "utter lack of suspense."

A roundup of seven reviews recently posted online can be found below:

• "With its classical Star Trek themes, 'Dead Stop' is an Enterprise episode that achieves the series goal of being strongly suggestive of an Original Series episode," wrote O. Deus at TrekWeb. "'Dead Stop' nails the sense of isolation and dislocation produced by space travel, the responsibilities of command and the strangeness of what might be out there. It's one of the few Enterprise episodes where the crew of the Enterprise could be easily interchanged with the original Enterprise crew." Read more at this page.

• Over at Subspace Relay, Samuel T. Cogley was somewhat less impressed with the episode. "The biggest disappointment in 'Dead Stop' was the utter lack of any suspense. The first half (more, actually) of the episode featured the crew meandering aimlessly through the station. There was no rational reason to suspect that anything was amiss. Even when Travis 'died,' his death was realistically explained as being unrelated to the station." The full review can be found here.

• TrekPulse's Litsa Guevara said 'Dead Stop' had several good moments:

  There were some very strong scenes: Archer was commanding and forceful in his chastising of Trip and Malcolm. I was ready to laugh, thinking they wouldn’t take it seriously, but they truly did show regret at doing something potentially very dangerous. And it was surprising to see Archer take two of his officers to task for what they did. He was more concerned about their safety, but whatever the reason for his anger at them, I’m glad we saw it. I especially liked how he threw Malcolm's 'lax discipline' speech from the previous episode back in his face.

  In the complete analysis, the episode was given a scored of 4.5 out of 5.

• C.J. Carter at ScoopMe! found she liked the development of Archer's character. "Certainly the most satisfying of all was Captain Archer. Yes, I said Captain. Jonathan Archer is growing up. For the first time, he has behaved as the commander of a starship for an entire episode. He was serious, decisive, compassionate, and intuitive. In many ways, he was Kirk-like, but with less scenery-chewing." Read more at this page.

• "What 'Dead Stop' lacks in depth it makes up for in dazzle," wrote 'Captain Mac' at Trek5.com. "This episode could not have been made just a few years ago without blowing an entire year's VFX budget. Thank you 'Enterprise's' computer animation teams!" In the complete analysis, the episode scored 3 out of 5.

• Over at Voyager's Delights and StarfleetCom.net, Gisele La Roche praised Roxann Dawson's (B'Elanna Torres) direction.

  Roxann Dawson does a super job directing this suspenseful episode as well as doing the station's computer voice. Everything is timed just right and the pace is perfect.

  Overall she called the episode a "winner" and awarded it an A grade. Read the full reviews here or at this page.

• Richard Whettestone wrote at First TV Drama that Mayweather's death scene lacked suspense. "The first crewmember ever to die (excluding Daniels), and the writers expect us to believe it's a main character? This is why the cast needs to be expanded well beyond "seven guys", and also why they needed to have a main character whose entire purpose was to die a year and a half into the series just to throw off viewers and raise the threat level. Besides, if Mayweather was really dead, we would have heard about it on the internet four months ago. These Paramount guys can't quite keep a secret you know." Read more here.

Several new reviews of the previous week's 'Minefield' have also been posted online:

• Tim Lynch at Psi Phi described 'Minefield' as a "welcome return to form" after his disappointment in the previous week's 'Carbon Creek.' Lynch thought the episode played well enough not to seem like a retread of 'Shuttlepod One.'

  It's here that many people will probably claim that Enterprise is ripping off its own "Shuttlepod One", since the only times Reed seems to have "real" conversations that reveal himself come when he's convinced death is near. That trait is certainly real enough, but I think it's more of a character trait specific to Reed than it is a writing crutch. If it were solely a writing crutch, Reed and Archer would have wound up the same fast friends that Reed and Trip have become--and it looks to me as though that's not the case.

  The episode was awarded a score of 9 out of 10 in the full review.

• Over at TrekPulse.com, Litsa Guevara thought the episode was a promising debut from co-executive producer John Shiban. "He has a very good understanding of the characters already, concentrating as he did on Reed and Archer. Their conversations were very informative, as was Reed’s body language when having breakfast with the captain. [...] I liked Archer quite a lot in this episode. He was the real hero, staying by his injured crewman, refusing to give up, not getting angry with Malcolm when he did something stupid like letting his air out. Archer’s got potential and we are beginning to see it more and more."In the complete analysis, 'Minefield' scored 3.5 out of 5.

• Subspace Relay's Samuel T. Cogley called 'Minefield' "a total bomb."

  The drama was building nicely until just after Reed's leg got punctured. At that point, the tension was drained from the story as quickly as the urine from Reed’s bladder. Archer's mandated story-time may have helped to 'calm his nerves,' but it also helped to sedate me to the point of utter boredom. There was no sense of danger. How many times have we seen a diffuse-the-bomb scene on television? And was there any doubt that Archer and Reed would survive?

  Read more from Cogley here.

Further information on both these episodes can be found in the Trek Nation episode guide.

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