'Twilight' Earns Near-Unanimous Praise

See Also: 'Twilight' Episode Guide

Reviews for last Wednesday night's Enterprise episode, "Twilight", were even more favorable than last week's praise for "The Shipment, focusing on the passionate drama, the remarkable visuals of Earth's desctruction and Jolene Blalock's acting.

• Monkee, who fretted that she might be turning into an Archer/T'Pol 'shipper and said the "huge, epic story" unfolded like a novel, wrote,

  Was it an ultimately pointless episode because it never really happened? Maybe. Was it entirely implausible? Of course. Would the Vulcan Science Directorate approve of this story? They would not. Do I care? I DO NOT. You know why? Because it rocked, that's why!

  "monkee's 'Twilight' Gush Fest," as she called her review, drew parallels between "Twilight" and the many previous Treks from which it borrowed. The full item with 10/10 rating for the episode is at her site.

• Television Without Pity's Keckler predicted that the episode would "get your Heart of Khan pumping with righteous Trekkie excitement" and said "the current Treks In Charge [have] come up with something amazing that is completely, unabashedly, and unreservedly worthy of high praise." "After kissing an anomaly," Keckler writes, "Quantum gets some brain pimples that flip him into an alternate timeline in which Earth explodes, Trip is captain, there are only six thousand humans left, and Quantum can't remember when he last peed." To read the highly positive recap and see the rare A+ rating, visit TWoP.

• Giving "Twilight" an overall 9.5/10 score, TrekWeb's O. Deus noted that "time travel episodes allow for a reset button that let shows do what they normally wouldn't dare" and said that "Twilight" offered a "vision of Xindi dedicated to wiping out every trace of humanity, to the last man, woman and child [that] is shocking and harrowing." Mike Sussman's script, he added,

  summons up a post-history of humanity that combines the former's eloquent vision of the mortality of one man juxtaposed with the mortality of the human species as a whole, with the latter's personal history of a ship and crew driven to the brink of destruction in stages of battering pursuit to annihilation.

  He also praised the acting, though he felt that Blalock's T'Pol showed excess visible emotion for a Vulcan. The full review is here.

• Section 31's Mike Dunham said he wrote "Wow" repeatedly in his review notes, comparing "Twilight" to such great alternative-timeline episodes as "City on the Edge of Forever" (TOS), "Yesterday’s Enterprise" (TNG), "The Visitor" (DS9), "Year of Hell" (VOY), "All Good Things" (TNG) and "Endgame" (VOY) as did several other reviewers. He found the opening shot of Earth's destruction to be extremely powerful and said that the acting "was top-notch, especially from Scott Bakula and Blalock." He also liked the contrast between the peace-minded Xindi we saw last week and the bloodthirsty murderers among them in "Twilight." The grade-A review is at Section 31.

• The Great Link's Michael Marek enjoyed the alternative timeline, the references to older Treks and the way Archer coped with his disability. "He represents people with various conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to various debilitating psychological conditions...in spite of his disability, Archer’s personal actions do change the world, so maybe that is a message in itself about persevering." Marek suspected the episode would work best for people who already liked the characters, since emotional engagement depends upon seeing them in unusual circumstances. He had particular praise for Blalock's performance as T'Pol. To read more on why TGL gave the episode a four out of five rating, read the review here.

• "'Twilight' leaves the viewer thrilled but ultimately feeling empty…and it kills me to say that, because I really loved the episode," wrote Chris at Xenoclone's 'Enterprise' Power Rankings:

  For those that were hoping four episodes of T'Pol and Trip massaging each other negated the budding Archer/T'Pol relationship from the show's second season: wrong. 'Twilight' demonstrates just how fiercely loyal T'Pol is to Archer. The fact that she would dedicate her life to care-taking a mentally decrepit Archer speaks volumes.

  The "temporal characterization" unfortunately negated all this development, though Chris found it interesting to watch Trip become dark, the Vulcans refuse to help humans and Sato and Mayweather remain "useless" in the future. The full review is here.

• Admiral Regnum of Holodeck 3 gave "Twilight" an A+. Though he quibbled over Mayweather's pointless death and Sato's lack of development, he found Archer and T'Pol's characterizations dramatic despite the reset button and thought the episode was superb visually. You can see the full review at Holodeck 3.

• Julia Houston of About.com said she'd "rank 'Twilight' up there among Enterprise's best, such as 'Congenitor' and 'Unexpected.'" Though bothered by "the series' continued immaturity regarding intimacy", Houston found this fate for humanity much more chilling than the destroyed Earth of Daniels' future and enjoyed the twists on previous Trek alternate-future episodes. One other quibble, she noted: "Could we all please remember that T'Pol is physically stronger than Archer? She's a damn Vulcan!" But overall the full review is very positive, and may be found here.

• At Lower Decks, T'Bonz gave the episode an A-, saying that the use of the reset button caused a slight deduction. Otherwise "Twilight" was described as "one of the best so far", with praise for the storytelling, Blalock's performance and references to earlier series, such as Ceti Alpha V. The full review may be found at Lower Decks.

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