Sleeping Dogs: Enterprise Retrospective

I find that Enterprise is at its best when it's tying into the greater Star Trek universe. I mean, obviously every episode has connections thanks to having a Vulcan on the bridge, but I'm talking about the rest of the story, the plotlines that hint at the future that is to come. Sleeping Dogs is the third episode to involve Klingons (after Broken Bow and Unexpected), but the first to truly feature them and give us our first hints at what their culture is like.

Here's the plot synopsis from Wikipedia:

After Enterprise drops out of warp near a gas giant, the crew detects an unexpected power signature and bio-signs in its lower atmosphere. Sub-Commander T'Pol, Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Sato take a shuttle to investigate and discover a Klingon vessel, Somraw, close to being crushed by the planet's atmosphere. On board, T'Pol finds three dying Klingons on the bridge, and further scans detect residual elements of a carbon dioxide-based neurotoxin. Bu'kaH, a surviving Klingon crewmember, escapes in the away team's shuttlepod. Enterprise traps it, but not before she broadcasts a distress signal. They then attempt to descend to rescue the away-team, but the pressure is too high.

Meanwhile, Sato finds the captain's log, which states that the ship was damaged in a skirmish with the Xarantine, and that the Klingon captain ordered his ship into the gas giant's atmosphere to effect repairs. Sato also locates the port fusion-injector on a schematic, and the away team make their way to Engineering to attempt repairs. On board Enterprise, Captain Archer talks to Bu'kaH in Sickbay. Doctor Phlox learns that the toxin was bonded to a molecule in Xarantine ale, which Bu'kaH confirms was part of their spoils. He convinces her to help them, citing the dishonourable deaths of her crew-mates.

On the Somraw, Reed uses shock-waves from photon torpedoes in an attempt to raise the ship and lower the hull-pressure. This allows Archer and Bu'kaH, in a reinforced shuttlepod, to reach them. Archer tells Bu'kaH that his team risked their lives for her ship, and that they are not leaving until it is safe. Archer arrives back on Enterprise just as the recovered Somraw hails. The now-revived captain orders Archer to surrender as punishment for violating his ship. Archer faces him down, noting that his ship is damaged and freshly out of torpedoes. Powerless to argue, the Klingon snarls and ends the transmission.

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It's important to note that these Klingons look like TNG-era Klingons, not TOS-era Klingons. This was a question that people had been debating since the first Star Trek movie back in 1979, which was the first appearance of the ridged forehead version. Speculation got even more intense when DS9 did the TOS crossover episode with the Tribbles, in which Worf states that the Klingons don't discuss how older Klingons look the way they did. It took the Enterprise series to finally answer that question, but it won't be answered until Season Four.

In the meantime, we meet the Klingons of the 22nd century, and they are a very ornery bunch. Crude, hot-tempered, and always ready for a fight, they make quite an impression in the Enterprise era. And this episode is the first real chance to see how these earlier Klingons are compared to what they would eventually become in Worf's time.

So, how is the episode? Quite good, actually. The initial mystery of just what happened to the ship is good, and the problem of getting them out of the planet's atmosphere before it crushes is worthy of this 'primitive' Starfleet era. The technobabble of later eras still exists in the 22nd century, but it's much less random and feels more believable. And lacking the technological prowess of even Kirk's time, Archer's crew is forced to work within the limits of not only their technology, but that of the Klingon scout ship as well. And while the Klingons are great at weapons, the rest of their tech is actually a bit lower-level than that of the Enterprise.

Archer's moment of realization when he finally accepts that he can't be so human around Klingons is worth mentioning. He tried to persuade Bu'kaH to help in his usual style, which of course a Klingon would perceive as nothing but contemptible weakness. It's when he finally starts to speak her language (figuratively; Hoshi is on the Klingon ship and unable to translate) that he gets through to her and she agrees to help prevent the dishonorable deaths of the entire Klingon crew. It's an important moment for Archer, learning that aliens really don't think the way humans do.

I'm going to rate this episode a 7 out of 10. Better would come, particularly in the Klingon part of the Star Trek protoverse, but this is an excellent beginning. Next time, however, we get back to the nascent building blocks of the eventual Federation. I can't wait.