Viewed in 2022, the second part of Shockwave was every bit as good as the first although I have to admit to having caught up with both episodes later as I was not a great follower of the series at the time it was first released. The excellent quality of the writing continues to overcome any doubts I might have had about such a complicated time travel story. Besides, the future vistas of the destroyed city are just so "gorram" cool I find that my "suspension of disbelief" holds out fine.
Paper books that couldn't possibly have withstood hundreds of years exposed to the elements? A viewing portal that can look back in time made out of scavenged scrap copper? All this destruction because of the removal of one man (Archer)? Mysterious beings from somewhere in our future and Daniel's past screwing with the timeline? It takes a whole lot of visual impact and a pair of highly professional actors to distract from so many outrageous concepts and not everyone is going to buy in but, for me at least, the risks pay off.
Back on the Enterprise, everyone does their bit to outwith their captors . Trip hot-wires the cabin doorbells, Hoshi climbs through the pipework, Malcolm sticks his hand through a wall and T'Pol repeats over and over again that the "Vulcan Science Academy has declared that there is no such thing as time travel. Archer appears in the corner of T'Pol's cabin like a hologram and suddenly returns to the Enterprise with the time-line all neatly reset. Phew!
The crew then head off to meet up with a group of senior Vulcans who have been intent on curtailing the Enterprise's mission of exploration. Unfortunately, the final scene where Captain Archer stands up to the Vulcans with a speech about how wonderful human beings are (I paraphrase) doesn't go down so well in the 2020's. We get it: the USA was awash with post 9/11 patriotism and American exceptionalism when this series was being made but those values may be rather less universally espoused today.
Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.