The Xindi

*** (3 stars out of 5)

A Board of Shadowy Figures, each weirder than the last, is gunning for Enterprise. There's the obligatory guys with forehead appliances, the Sloths, the Shrieking Eels, the Geonosians from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and the Jem'Hadar dressed in Reman cast-offs. All of them are named the Xindi. This will not be at all confusing.

Though our plucky human band of wannabe killers have made no progress finding the bad guys in a month and a half, they have had time to not get cozy with their new MACOs: a crack squadron of Starship Troopers trained to make Malcolm Reed and his security team look like big, whiny, redundant, baby wussies.

Speaking of the Redshirts in Grey, civilian life appeals to T'Pol's burgeoning sense of the sartorial. As we'll see, she has a different coloured catsuit for every day of the week! They should come in handy as she works tirelessly to seduce Trip Tucker out of his depression. Nothing says "Sorry your sister exploded" like naked massages!

Stomping on the first guy who will admit to being Xindi, Archer and his people wade through sewage, sickness, space madness and sniping. The sickly monster who runs the Trellium-D Slave Mine should have opened a SALVE mine. I just think he looks like he could use some salve.

"The Xindi", for good or ill, has a rocking new guitar line in the theme song, and very rightly restored the Star Trek name to the titles, but the series continued to hemorrhage viewers. They gave the formula a hard shake by ramping up the sex and violence. And this being American television, mainly the violence. "Topless" T'Pol notwithstanding. Not eating cheeseburgers, either.