Enterprise 1x14 "Sleeping Dogs"

rating: ***

the story: The crew rescues the crew of a Klingon ship.

what it's all about: To this point, Enterprise had cautiously spent most of its time with unknown aliens, even at times so unknown they're never even identified.  The one major instance of deviating from this strategy, "The Andorian Incident," might be said to have basically reintroduced aliens who had all but fit that type anyway.  "Sleeping Dogs" features Klingons.  It's their second appearance in a regular episode, after having been a featured element of the pilot ("Broken Bow"), although in "Unexpected" they were more of a bonus element.  Aside from Vulcans, there are no other aliens more identified with the Star Trek franchise than Klingons.  Having them appear three times this soon, and for all three appearances to be completely different, is a welcome development for a prequel series, especially one that wisely sought to use them early as a sign of early Starfleet development.  The Klingon problem, as it were, is as defining element as the Klingons themselves.  They were the earliest and most enduring threat to peace and stability. 

Yet in all three appearances, including this one, war is not really the topic.  All three times Archer is able to talk himself out of things spiraling out of control.  In the second season, he runs out of luck, but all this material leading up to that feels like the first steps of Enterprise serialization, other than the Temporal Cold War; it's the most obvious material that is repeatedly referenced, a continuing piece of the narrative.

And yeah, it's pretty interesting how they manage to do this story three times.  By this point, it now made sense why all those previous crises where the crew felt threatened never involved the Klingons.  This was the beginning of a relationship, a multifaceted one throughout franchise lore.  And the Vulcans did tell Starfleet about Klingons.  All of this is to say, the crew had been tested, and so "Sleeping Dogs" is its first big calculated risk, and in some ways the start of the next leg of the journey.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Klingons!
• series - The third Enterprise appearance!
• character - Archer finds these encounters incredibly personal, but that comes later.
• essential - At the moment he's feeling pretty damn cocky, because so far he keeps making all the right decisions.

notable guest-stars:
Vaughn Armstrong