Having just rewatched the pilot episodes for all the series (Star Treks The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise) to date, as of the premiere of Star Trek Enterprise in 2001, this one is second only to the pilot for Star Trek: Voyager.
However, a 1 star deduction was made due to the explicit and unnecessary sexuality displayed in the episode, which I deemed cheap and unnecessary to any of the points that the writers were attempting to make in the plot. Also, the story was convoluted in spots, and it seemed unnecessary to visit a location halfway through the episode to have a gunfight when properly tracking the antagonists would have sufficed.
That said, it was a serviceable episode, it lacked the inherent casual racism or open sexual harassment that plagued the pilot and early episodes for many of the predecessor series' (notably The Original Series' The Cage, and Voyager's The Caretaker Part 2), and as such it's still a decent episode upon my viewing in 2022.
Oh, two more points. One, the incidental / action music is virtually IDENTICAL to that used on the last THREE Star Trek series, which was very distracting (and lazy). And, this airing later in the same month as the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks was a wonderful respite at the time, and I still hold fond memories of this episode (though I find the Suluban / Taliban connection very jarring, especially since that was 100% intentional when they were creating this series, with no fore-knowledge of the real-life attacks).
However, a 1 star deduction was made due to the explicit and unnecessary sexuality displayed in the episode, which I deemed cheap and unnecessary to any of the points that the writers were attempting to make in the plot. Also, the story was convoluted in spots, and it seemed unnecessary to visit a location halfway through the episode to have a gunfight when properly tracking the antagonists would have sufficed.
That said, it was a serviceable episode, it lacked the inherent casual racism or open sexual harassment that plagued the pilot and early episodes for many of the predecessor series' (notably The Original Series' The Cage, and Voyager's The Caretaker Part 2), and as such it's still a decent episode upon my viewing in 2022.
Oh, two more points. One, the incidental / action music is virtually IDENTICAL to that used on the last THREE Star Trek series, which was very distracting (and lazy). And, this airing later in the same month as the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks was a wonderful respite at the time, and I still hold fond memories of this episode (though I find the Suluban / Taliban connection very jarring, especially since that was 100% intentional when they were creating this series, with no fore-knowledge of the real-life attacks).