This was more or less a mediocre follow-up to Archer's escape from Rura Penthe in 'Judgement'. The Klingons have evidently placed a high price on Archer's head. After all, escape from Rura Penthe was supposed to be unheard of!   The Klingons would do almost anything to get Archer back. However, there really wasn't much focus, if any, on Klingons in this episode. It was more of Skalaar's attempt to get back his original freighter ship which had been impounded by the Klingons. Seeing as Skalaar was a Tellarite, I thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to explore and develop Tellarite characteristics a bit more. Tellarites are suppose to be argumentative (a big sport on their planet). Aside from Skalaar's first few lines, he was anything but a Tellarite. Skalaar's character focus was more on an obsession at getting back the freighter and at being at odds with his brother over that issue. Almost any lame-alien of the week could have sufficed for that roll. Given what is already know of Tellarite characteristics, using a Tellarite did not add anything to the Skalaar character or the story. I thought it was a waste for a classic Star Trek alien character to play such a lame roll.

On the a better note, the acting by Jordan Lund as Skalaar was quite good. Regardless of which alien he could have played, I thought that he really brought out some real feelings and emotions for Skalaar. A very fine job!. Being human, I'm sure Archer wanted to help, but his first concern was escape.

The T'Pol in heat plot was just stupid. Aside from "sexing-up" the series, it added nothing to the character or the series. Maybe some viewers out there might have a wet dream or two. It is very well known, since TOS days through Voyager, that Pon farr is a Vulcan male only thing. It was also learned from Voyager in "Blood Fever", that a Vulcan male undergoing Pon farr must first initiate a telepathic link with a Vulcan female before she, too, "feels" the need to mate. This whole microbe-induced-mating-urge plot for T'Pol just seemed all whishy-washy.  The "acting" could have been done by any hot stripper/actress and the writing was like that of a male teenager undergoing puberty.   Though, it was good and funny to see how embarrassed Phlox was over the entire incident.