We watched the new Enterprise episode
“Proving Ground” the other night, and I have to say it was quite enjoyable, entertaining, and definitely not boring. Our old friend Shran showed up (you know, the guy that used to be Weyoun) and got to do a little roleplaying on the bridge of his own ship.

Shran obviously enjoyed pretending to be a goofy space prospector representing a fake mining company, and delivered the best line in the episode when he was sent packing by the Xindi ships: “The Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one.” Heh. It seems the Enterprise has finally discovered a strange new lifeform: humor.

It’s always fun watching the way the Andorian antennae reflect mood and emotion – there was plenty of anger and inner conflict, judging from all the stalkwaggling going on.

And there was stuff blowin’ up and intrigue and inter-species close encounters of the slightly frisky kind (oh, that Malcom – he’s wired pretty tight, but help him with a weapons problem and even blue skin and antennae start looking good to him).

There was also a pretty good link back to a previous episode (again, one that didn’t suck). And a decent, if clandestine, “farewell present” after the Andorians’ attempt at betrayal (source of the stalkwaggling inner conflict, no doubt) was foiled by Archer’s Damn Fine Plan.

There was no appearance by Porthos, so no drinks for anybody except Archer and Shran, who shared a bottle of Andorian ale… or was it really Romulan ale?

I’m so confused. But it was a good episode nonetheless.