I gave it a six, the speed of the virus brought the score down, but if they proved that the laws of Biochemistry are all screwed up like those of physics, then I would have been more generous. Instead they just make mention of the idea and then it is forgotten.
Ok, Tripp is having trouble sleeping and T'Pol is helping with some kind of pressure therapy thing. We get it, and we don't need to have useless scenes showing it in every ep.
Having said that the show is finally going in the direction I had hoped it would from the start. The Expanse story arc gets them into new territory and gets rid of the reliance B&B had on Gene. This idea might be the first good one B&B have pulled out of their collective a$$es yet. Here's hoping they don't end it with one of their usual (and tradmarked) brain farts.
Yes, the viral transformation was rather quick -- however, we should keep in mind that this was an engineered virus. Doubtless it was designed to affect the victims quickly, overcoming any desire to transform themselves back (assuming they had the means to do so). Also, it wasn't *really* complete for several days -- Phlox said as much (advising them at what point there wouldn't be enough of the original genome left for the cure to work).
One thing I was glad of was that they didn't use the ol' "transporter cure".
A weak point was the fact that the other aliens had been trying to cure the disease for 60 years, and were unable to do so -- and Phlox did it in a few days. However, it's possible they don't know as much about viral medicine as Phlox does. Technology doesn't *have* to advance equally in all areas, and it's possible they're bad at medicine, relatively speaking.
A nice touch at the end -- saving the last sample of the virus. What Archer plans to do with it remains unclear, but his belief that destroying it was genocide was a novel touch.
The story loses some points for a lack of originality; fundamentally, it was still "crew gets sick, Doc does research, crew is cured", and we've seen that plot before. Additional interaction between transformed Archer and subconscious Archer might have mitigated this somewhat, if deftly written.
Well, that could be written down to the fact that none of the other races that tried to cure it didn't have someone who actually was able to fight it off to work from.
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