Zero Hour

Enterprise fights the reptilians and sphere builders for the fate of Earth.

The is an entertaining final episode fuelled more by testosterone than brains. I enjoyed most of it as series long arcs do need exciting finishes, but for me it never reaches the height of some of the previous episodes in series 3 such as Twilight, The Forgotten or The Council.

All the action sequences are fine examples of space battles, armed ground combat and hand to hand fighting. These are filled with the types of imagery seen in any number of action adventures. I thought at one point, all we are missing is someone running in slow motion as something behind them blows up and bingo, then we had it!

I won't be too negative there were some cool moments, such as when someone gets blown up in a cool way with the perpetrator doing the kind of face and body language that Bruce Willis, Sly Stallone or Arnie would do whilst dispatching them. Also, Malcolm Reed has some much needed strong moments from the writers.

It all ends in a rather hilariously funny few seconds which I'm not sure was intentional or not. Is it the writers way of abruptly saying "Okay, we're done with all Xindi/Expanse/Sphere/serialised nonsense, let's get back to some old fashioned Trek silliness, bet you didn't see that coming"?

For a whole season to be based round one storyline was a massive risk, but the way the action and the storyline ramped up, had me glued to the screen. I love Kirk, Spock, Bones, but Archer and Tripp are not far behind, just brilliant stuff, and Archer is one mean dude, when he want's to be. Fantastic stuff, and how can I not mention T'Pol showing her human side was superb, she don't need to show her assets, she is a superb actress in this role. And now we have the Nazi's, you can't beat a good Nazi story can you. But season 3 for me, up there with anything TOS lot did.

Let me just get this out of the way... How the devil did the aquatics build their ships???

That said, I really loved this season and the storyline. The resolution was good and the lead up to it reminded me very much of the current (Sept 2025) US political arena.

Archer's character development was well crafted, he became as edgy and ruthless as he needed to be, when needed. Given the events predate the federation, you can easily see the time traveller was right, and Archer's influence on the Federation are important.

I wish I'd watched the series when it was on originally.

The important thing to know about this episode that it pulls out all the stops and EVERYONE and EVERYTHING comes together at once to win the day for the human race and the nascent Federation...and in the end, it all boils down to Hoshi!!! NO!!!! Considering what a whiny thing she's been, then it looks like we are all screwed, right?! Well, maybe not.

The episode begins with the super-weapon coming towards Earth--with Archer in Degra's lightly armed ship in pursuit. At the same time, Enterprise is on a mission to destroy a sphere--and hopefully destroy the network of spheres.

In this show, there are lots of surprises--including a visit from my favorite character from the series. This one will keep your pulse pounding and is THE show to see from the series. A definite must- see and a thrilling finale to the Xindi war.

This episode had everything. We were privy to all the factors involved, all set up well. There were two worthy adversaries. All forces were employed to face the possibility of destruction. Those Reptilians showed their disregard for life, but they trusted the wrong entities. Archer shows his utter heroism in the face of major consequences and other members of the crew were equally instrumental in all that transpired. We really get to see the humanity (and I used that term in the broadest sense) that was struck with all participants. I will hold my breath for the final season because what I saw in the last two minutes seems like a kind of warmed over Twilight Zone setup. Other than that, the third season made up for some rather up and down stories in the past.