Too bad, after a pretty strong first 35 minutes, the episode tries to wrap itself up in the final seven minutes.
Written by David A. Goodman, "Judgment" joins a long line of Star Trek episodes that are as much courtroom drama as science fiction. And it shows nice respect for Trek lore by recreating, in lesser detail and less grand scale, the Klingon courtroom first introduced in The Undiscovered Country and reintroducing us to Klingon families (Duras, in particular) and actors (including, with a particularly strong performance as Advocate Kolos who defends Archer and bemoans the deterioration of the Klingon society into a warrior world, J.G. Hertzler) with whom Star Trek fans would have been very familiar.
The episode even borrows lines from the earlier TOS film when the Klingon judge delivers his verdict.
Unfortunately, Goodman spends so much time on his wonderful trial scenes that he has none remaining to permit Enterprise to rescue Archer in a believable way.
Instead, we are supposed to accept the hasty explanation that T'Pol has friends in the Klingon administration who manage to get Enterprise free passage to Rura Penthe, the penal colony that is located deep in the Klingon Frontier. In accepting this, we are also required to forget that, in Kirk's time, Star Fleet did not know where Rura Penthe was located and Spock and his crew had to locate it using extreme long-range sensors and the veridium patch Spock had placed on Kirk's uniform before he was taken prisoner.
Still, despite these reservations, Goodman has produced a strong and entertaining episode that shows respect for Star Trek lore, gives us an interesting relationship that develops between Archer and Kolos, and provides us with further information about the development of Klingon culture.
One last question (that I forgot when I wrote this entry originally): How does Archer end up in the custody of the Klingons in the first place? I don't think that's ever established.
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