$$$ Spoilers Prolly $$"The writing was somewhat wooden. Bakula's acting was great and his writing was above par with everybody else. I fear we may end up getting many many shows focusing on a single person to the exclusion of others again.
Blalock was good, definetely emotional, but I liked where Archer would catch her in the act. All the Vulcans seemed perpetually pissed off at humans. Not the kind of relationship that you think humans would tolerate for a hundred years. They were most likely just pissed off for that particular event, but we should've gotten some better scenes regarding the status quo relationship of human/Vulcans.
Other characters were excellent and would be outstanding if the writing was better. Billingsly did a fantastic job, but his makeup still irks me as being too human. They've done extensive regular character make up before (Worf, Data, Neelix, etc.) that would go a long way for him.
Overall, there was nothing special about the plot. No great premise was set up really. Klingon first contact didn't turn out as horribly as we were lead to believe. We only get the vaguest of notions about the EFG. And at least I got the impression that they weren't interested in Archer/Akiraprize at all. "We don't want to involve the humans. Not yet anyway." The sentence and its tone make it abundantly clear that they are after somebody else. And story wise, where is the fun in that?"
That's what I noticed with regards to plot, writing, and acting anyway.
--------------------
If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.