Episode 30: Dead Stop

In the DVD commentary, Mike Sussman explains that he and Phyllis Strong were handed an interesting challenge: create a dramatic episode that deals with the damage to Enterprise caused in the previous episode, "Mine Field", in an innovative way.

The result is "Dead Stop", half drama, half horror, with an homage to the episode "Shore Leave" from TOS thrown in.

Tucker explains to Archer that Enterprise's damage is so severe that it will take months for Tucker's team to effect repairs. Even then, he needs to find a significant quantity of "duterium alloy" before he can start. The option of heading back to Star Fleet's repair facilities is out, however, since the ship's hull damage has limited her speed to just over Warp 2, putting Star Fleet help more than a decade away. (Nobody suggests contacting Star Fleet and asking them to send a Vulcan ship out at Warp 7 to meet them with a team of engineers and repair crew, a trip that would take a week at most, but...)

Archer decides, since Enterprise has always been willing to help others, perhaps they should seek help themselves. So Sato sends out a distress call. A Tellarite ship radios from afar, sending them a set of coordinates. Desperate for help, Enterprise limps to the coordinates and finds a strange, automated repair station floating in space.

An invasive scan follows and suddenly the station begins to reconfigure itself to suit both Enterprise and its crew. The station offers to repair all of the Star Fleet ship's damage in jusr over two days for a fairly cheap price (200 liters of warp plasma) and to play host to Enterprise's crew in a spartan but impressive lounge. The only real tension comes, at first, when Tucker and Reed take it upon themselves to attempt to break into the station's main computer area, potentially putting the repairs at risk. The station responds calmly, however, merely transporting the two back onto Enterprise's bridge.

Archer finally responds like a true commander and tears a strip off the two juvenile officers before confining them to quarters.

Meanwhile, the station's technology and repair work continue to impress and, when the station even heals Reed's leg injury suffered in the previous episode, everything seems too good to be true.

Of course,in a "Shore Leave" like turn, we find out that it really is too good to be true.

Mayweather is found dead in one of the cargo bays that was under repair, having suffered a significant electrical shock. Archer, in typical fashion, responds with anger and takes his rant to the station's main computer. Dr. Phlox calmly begins a routine autopsy as T'Pol begins to search for the cargo ship carrying Mayweather's family. Sato comes down to Sick Bay to say goodbye to her good friend (who knew they were friends? who knew that Mayweather was a practical joker?) and witnesses Phlox's big discovery: the body on the table is a fake, a replica created specifically to fool the Star Fleet crew.

So the question arises: where is Mayweather now and who has taken him? Archer goes back to Reed and Tucker and asks them if they could break into the station again. This leads to an assault on the station, with Reed leading T'Pol and Archer back toward the computer centre while Tucker stalls for time as he delivers the payment for the completed work.

Reed purposely trips the station's automated defensive transporter so that T'Pol and Archer can plan a way past it and, when they finally get to the central core, they find a series of bodies hanging in various states of decay, each linked into the computer core. It would seem that every ship that has visited the station in the past has "paid" by unknowingly contributing a member of its crew to become part of the computer's system.

With the station's automated voice bleating about intruders (but, for some reason, not transporting them back to Enterprise or changing the atmospheric conditions in the computer core to kill them), Archer and T'Pol rescue Mayweather and get him back to the ship. Tucker, meanwhile, has left the plasma drums in the station and also returned to Enterprise, which is now under attack by the station, which is shutting down all of her systems.

Archer gives Reed the signal and Reed sets off the explosives they have hidden inside the plasma drums, tearing the station to pieces and permitting Enterprise to escape. The last shot finds the station beginning to repair itself.

Not as strong an episode as the two that preceded it, "Dead Stop" does have its positive attributes.