See Also: 'The Catwalk' Episode Guide

'The Catwalk,' Enterprise's last episode for 2002, has been given a mainly positive reception by online critics.

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

• "'Catwalk's' real strength rests in the crew interacting together in difficult moments," wrote O. Deus at TrekWeb. "T'Pol fraternizing with the crew during movie night by pointing out plot elements, Reed's digestive problems and Trip realizing he hasn't thought of what the crew would use for a latrine. Enterprise has begun with the premise of a ship that's more like a submarine than a 24th century starship and given us a ship that for all intents and purposes is just a slightly lower tech version of a 24th century starship; episodes like 'Catwalk' do a good job of actually tackling the premise of what a crew in a low tech experimental boat unprepared for deep space might actually end up living like." Read the full review here.

• 'Keckler' at Television Without Pity awarded the episode an A minus grade. "All in all, not bad," she wrote. "Thankfully, the writing team of Sussman and Strong were on board for this ride. If they kept them chained to their desks, feeding them only occasionally for every episode they ink, the franchise would be swimming in gold-pressed latinum. Now, if they could only turn their attention to the insipid dialogue." The full 13-page recap begins at this page.

• Over at monkee's place, monkee thought 'The Catwalk' was a "good, solid episode." She especially liked how Captain Archer came across in the episode:

  He walked around reassuring his crew – he bonded more with his First Officer – he was sensibly wary of the three alien's confession. And he came up with an outstanding ruse to foil the bad guys, thinking outside the box. Not bad for a week's work! Aided by some fine flying by Mayweather, he was able to convince the alien intruders that a) the rest of his crew was dead and he was dying, and b) he would destroy Enterprise by flying it into a neutronic eddy. Part of me was a little sorry that the whole thing was an act, because I'd like to see Archer faced with that worst case scenario, but the series is young, yet. I'm sure we'll see it for real eventually. Archer was terrific this week. A Captain worthy of Trek.

  In the full review, the episode was given a score of 9 out of 10.

• Trek5's Matt D. gave 'The Catwalk' a score of 3 out of 5. "'Catwalk' is not going to move the 'Enterprise' phenomenon forward," he said. "Let's face it, few episodes this year are moving 'Enterprise' forward. But it does have a few memorable moments — like Archer gazing on the beauty of the storm that will soon savage them. Plus, we get to see Chef's legs!" Read the complete analysis here.

• "Distilled water" was how CJ Carter at ScoopMe! described the episode. "Not good. Not bad. Just a whole lot of liquid nothing." Here's an excerpt from the article:

  While I'm loathe to tell the writers how to do their job, and I appreciated that more coverage was given to the crew than to the intruders (a pleasant change of formula, that), I do wish that they'd take more risks. This sort of story has been done quite a lot on Trek, and admittedly there aren't too many more ways to tell it, but there has to be a reason for the story to be told.

  The full review is available at this page.

• Litsa Guevara at TrekPulse was more positive, praising writers Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong for a "very well written and thought out" episode. "There was action, suspense, the aliens weren’t cardboard cutouts; they were, in fact, from both sides of good and evil," she wrote. "This was also Star Trek in Roddenberry’s formula: the ship was in danger, which therefore made the crew’s danger even more profound. The storm was the initial danger, but new dangers presented themselves when the alien militia boarded the ship-the very real dangers of the warp engines coming back online, which would roast the crew alive, and the danger of the aliens taking the ship back to their home world as scrap, with the crew still in there." The episode was given a score of 4.25 out of 5 in the complete analysis.

• In the TrekToday visitor poll, 'The Catwalk' scored an average rating of 7.8.

Further information can be found in the Trek Nation episode guide.

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