Official Description: "Archer and his crew encounter hostile, paranoid aliens when they visit a Vulcan Monastery. The Enterprise crew pays a friendly visit to an ancient Vulcan spiritual sanctuary, despite T’Pol’s concerns that her human colleagues will be an awkward and disruptive presence there. Upon landing, they discover that the monastery has been forcibly taken over by the Andorians, a paranoid and highly excitable race of aliens with a long history of conflict with the Vulcans. Archer soon discovers that the Enterprise crew has gotten in the middle of an interstellar Pandora’s Box and now must find a way out.

Guests

Jeffrey Combs as Shran
Bruce French as Vulcan Elder
Steven Dennis as Tholos
Jeff Ricketts as Keval
Richard Tanner as Vulcan
Jamie McShane as Tactical Crewman

  Review    By Capt. Mac

Out of the blue, the Andorians return.

"The Andorian Incident" had a lot going for it: set design, makeup, direction, acting and special effects. And most importantly, story! Television usually presents clear-cut good vs evil plots. This allows us all to feel satisfied that all's well in the universe by the time the credits roll at the end. That's refreshingly not the case with "TAI."

Fred Dekker's teleplay (from a story by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and Dekker) establishes by their swift brutality that the Andorians are guys with a grudge. The sublime Vulcans — who behave less and less like the Vulcans we know and, uh, love — are the recipients of the Andorians wrath, so it's assumed that they must be the good guys.

But those gyrating antennae of theirs must be indeed be finely tuned. We find out that the Vulcans were — gasp — lying and were hiding a secret installation all along.

Doing what Star Trek does best, combining social comment with science fiction, makes this episode a winner. Capt. Mac gives this Halloween treat a Warp 5.

Warp Rating: Warp 5

Observations and Questions

• Wow! Andorianeze is just like English!
• More cafeteria wisdom by Dr. Phlox
• Paramount must have gotten a good deal on flashlights. Now used in six episodes so far.
• The Andorians home planet is Andoria, not Andor as many of us had assumed.
• Will we ever find out why they are blue and have antennae?