Unexpected

** (2 stars out of 5)

On a Xyrillian ship, resequenced photons create holographic illusions. Grass grows on the floor, food grows on the walls, and babies grow in the menfolk! It's a topsy-turvy, candy-dandy gumdrop world! And before you ask, yes, Red Dwarf did "Pregnant Man" first and better. It goes without saying that it was also funnier.

But the teaser is great. There's a whole star there just for Archer's awkward moment when the gravity goes out in his shower. So while we're on the subject of making a potentially deadly, dangerous, serious accident silly, embarrassing, and inconsequential, what if Trip got knocked up?

Engineer Ah'len, a Xyrillian from Thera, asks some perfunctory questions about Trip's beard and immediately makes telepathic finger contact in a box of granules. Bingo, bango, bongo, Tucker grows wrist nipples and a blastocyst in his pericardium. Couldn't he keep his fingers in his pants where they belong?

"You may be putting those nipples to work before you know it," Phlox chirps. Well, why should T'Pol be the only one? Speaking of: does T'Pol's mood seem more disgusted, contemptuous, or jealous? And are we SURE she's a Vulcan?

Klingons attack because... uh... because they're Klingons, that's why! SHUT UP! Captain Vorok's ship is top of the line- it even has the tractor beam and working torpedoes that Archer's ship doesn't. Perhaps the outclassed humans can take comfort in the fact that this exact ship design will still be in use by the Klingons for at least the next two centuries. Innovation, thy name is... well, not Klingons. In fact, when the opportunity arises to seize cloaking technology from the Xyrillians, Vorok nabs HOLODECK technology instead. Are we SURE he's a KLINGON?

All's well that ends well when it turns out that the lizards who can't fix their own engines, or even make water, can transfer fetuses from father to father with the greatest of ease.

"Unexpected" is a quirky idea awkwardly presented, and the funniest scene they created was deleted. In which T'Pol (innocently?) recommends a nauseated Trip might like to suck a Rigellian sausage. Well, I liked it anyway. In case it ever comes up (and it won't- no one ever saw the Xyrillians again) UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES HOLD HANDS WITH THEM IN A CAT'S LITTERBOX. If it ever comes up.