Still enjoyable, but the fun of the alternate universe did rather wear thin for me in this episode. Commander Archer was so erratic and, overall, such a dumb-ass, that his eventual fate was hardly surprising - happy to kill his superiors when they hesitate to give him everything he wants, yet not killing his subordinates even after they've proven their treachery and, in Ho Shi's case, already directly tried to kill him! Clearly Archer never read Machiavelli, which seems a bit odd! I couldn't see how someone so foolish could ever have reached the grade he was at in the first place. Much of the enjoyment came from the supporting cast - Trip was excellent as always, Flox was good. T'Pol the sex kitten Vulcan, was, well, I guess as usual Blalock did the best she could with the material she had. Malcolm was fun too. The real star though was Ho Shi, who has been woefully underused throughout Enterprise's run. Her attempt to stab Archer in the previous ep was dumb - and Archer even dumber for letting it go - but she was played with great evil relish, great stuff.
One point - I noticed from Flox's description of Federation literature's difference from that of the Terran Empire that the timeline divergence apparently occurred well before First Contact with the Vulcans - "Only Shakespeare is the same". Unlike in the STTNG novel "Dark Mirror" though, it wasn't conclusively shown that the Federation universe is definitively our "real" future, with the Terran Empire safely locked away in a divergent track. Keeping it ambiguous, whether intentionally or not, is something I very much approve.
One point - I noticed from Flox's description of Federation literature's difference from that of the Terran Empire that the timeline divergence apparently occurred well before First Contact with the Vulcans - "Only Shakespeare is the same". Unlike in the STTNG novel "Dark Mirror" though, it wasn't conclusively shown that the Federation universe is definitively our "real" future, with the Terran Empire safely locked away in a divergent track. Keeping it ambiguous, whether intentionally or not, is something I very much approve.
