I wanted to like this episode. It is the first episode to offer a leading role to Linda Park as Hoshi Sato and includes some clever ideas.
Unfortunately, the episode presents Sato as being governed by fear, overly emotional and subject to panic. All because of her hesitation over the transporter device.
Now, fear of the transporter is a common trope which appears in just about every one of the Star Trek series, starting with Dr. McCoy's legendary aversion to having his molecules scrambled by the infernal machine in TOS. And early episodes of Enterprise did a nice job of establishing the general suspicion with which the transporter is viewed, starting in the first episode when Mayweather and Reid discuss, with some trepidation, the fact that the device had recently been approved for use with "bio-matter".
And, at first, despite Sato's character flaws that are exposed, this episode promises to do good things with the trope. Berman and Braga, the writers, construct a suspenseful plot in which Sato, her body slowly disassembling after going through the transporter, discovers that aliens, unseen by the rest of the crew, are assembling explosive devices at key places in the ship.
Okay, Sato's disintegration does not proceed along a logical path and there is little attempt to explain how this molecular decomposition transforms itself into movement into another plane of existence, but it's still not bad.
But then, apparently fresh out of ideas, B&B simply arrive at the 40-minute mark and have Sato's transport completed. She materializes safe and sound on the ship and the whole thing turns out to be a product of her over-active imagination.
In other words, it was just a dream. We don't have to explain anything, we don't have to resolve anything, she simply wakes up.
Yuck. But, hey, at least Braga and Berman managed to write into the script that Sato spends most of the episode in a sports bra and shorts. Wouldn't want to ruin a completely unsatisfying plot by failing to sexualize the female lead!
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