While this episode is generally pretty average, one HUGE improvement occurs--you see Captain Archer angry...very, very, very angry. You also see him more than willing to potentially kill a prisoner-- something that wouldn't fit in with the normally super-sweet nature of the show. Considering that in the previous episode they did not just disable a Klingon ship but destroyed it, this all bodes well for season three.
The ship is in some expanse of space that sucks. It has all sorts of weird anomalies and apparently folks traveling there behave pretty nasty. The crew learns that when they are attacked by space pirates and these jerk-faces steal many of the ship's supplies. At first, Archer tries being nice to the one raider they captured but when he realizes that they MUST be successful in their mission in order to save the Earth, he abandons their wienie-ways and he resorts to a bit of good old fashioned torture. Quite exciting and a marked departure from the norm.