This was a good story that centered mostly around the dramatic technical challenges of saving the day. Time was running out and as zero hour approached, it seemed that there was less time to solve all that needed to be solved. Despite being up against the clock, the crew performed most admirably under this enormous pressure. Trip really acted like a true engineer this time. He was presented with a real technical challenge and not enough time to solve it. He quite literally had to pull off a miracle! Of course, having your skin crack under pressure doesn't help matters either, but he and the rest of the crew pulled through. Archer's assault team performed well, too. There was a tender moment where he had to help pull Hoshi mentally back together. There was also a moment where Daniels tries to convince Archer how important it was that he must survive. The rest of Archer's scenes also centered around a race against time and the technical challenges that were ahead. The climax of the battle between the reptilian command and Archer was good, too. Archer getting "bloodied-up" made the scene seem a bit more realistic. Hand-to-hand, Archer clearly didn't have a chance. However, placing an explosive on the commanders back was very primate-sneaky like, although that tactic was a bit like one from the movie 'Battlefield Earth'. The constant scene switching from Archer to Enterprise  was reminiscent of the dual plot lines from 'First Contact'. This same method was done to Zero hour that made it for a worthwhile episode to watch.

Although it was quite classic for someone like Shran to come into the final battle scene and help save the day, it was entertaining to watch him. One can be rest assured that his actions will put a thorn in the Vulcans as to why they didn't come help save earth. One might also wonder why there weren't more Starfleet ships guarding earth? In the final second season episode 'The Expanse', there were Starfleet ships that just jumped all over the Klingon vessel as Archer was coming back to earth. I guess cuts in the budget prevented adding additional special affects.

Overall, the story did seem a bit compacted. There was more than enough material to justify a good two hour finale episode. That would have perhaps made some sense to the overall story line instead of rushing from one scene to the next. I suspect that Daniels had a play at sending Archer and Enterprise to the past in order to be "safe" for awhile. In 'Shockwave', we saw the consequences of sending someone to the future to be "safe". Whether or not the series would have been canceled, the ending seemed flexible to adjust for renewal or not (just cut out the scenes you don't need for a canceled series or add those you do need for renewal). Of course, I'm not going to try and make any sense of the ending. We all shall just have to wait and see how this plays out next season. Given all this time travel stuff, one might have to wonder which earth timeline Archer and gang really saved? Oh well, something else to get a head-ache while pondering over that topic. In any case, Season three has finally put real Star Trek stuff back into Enterprise. Feels good, too!

1) Mayweather and Hoshi actually do something useful!

2) The reptilians eating live mice was reminiscent from the V mini series.

3) T'Pol is 66. Is that in earth or Vulcan years? Strange, I thought she didn't look a day over 50.

4) The exploding spheres looked like rapidly decaying oranges.

5) Looks like it took them about 10 months to complete the mission (Apr. 24, 2153 to February 14, 2154).

6) I'm surprised the sphere wasn't labeled 47. After all, is it not part of Trek tradition to have 7 in any numbering scheme?

7) So what kind of alien was that in a Nazi uniform? He (or she?) did kind of looked like a Reman. And what did "AS" stand for on the supposedly American planes over San Francisco??

8) Phlox gets to be on the bridge and give tactical advice!