The Enterprise crew realise they are severely lacking in firepower when they suffer an unprovoked attack.
This episode has a strong story and some decent character development as we find out if Enterprise can stand on her own two feet or if she has to run home and ask for help during the perils of space exploration.
During this we see the development of the ship's phaser cannons, otherwise known as the phasers we've seen in other Trek series. In doing so, crew members such as Reed and Tucker make valuable contributions.
There is a subplot intended to explore Reed's character more than the show has done up to this point. It's not bad, but does get a little bit tiresome after a few scenes and in the end we learn fairly insignificant aspects of his character. Contrastingly we do learn a bit about his risk taking nature in the main plot. I'm not sure if this is deliberate or not, but it does seem quite tongue-in-cheek for characters to be dedicating so much time to finding this one thing out about him. I suppose it's meant to pique our interest in the character rather than have one big information dump.
Archer is fairly measured, exercising caution at first and eventually making a stand to fight off a pretty menacing villain. Although his speech about human beings not giving up made me role my eyes a bit. So far Tucker is the closest thing to an inspirational leader within the crew as nobody else has really stood out.
I enjoyed, but (so far) the crew of Enterprise are not quite compelling enough for it to be the classic episode it could have been if I was more invested in what was happening to them.