Re: Archer - I don't know whether it's that I adjusted to Scott Blakula's acting (I'd never watched Quantum Leap, so I wasn't familiar with him before), but he doesn't come across as so wooden and hollow as he appeared to me in the first few episodes. I blame the writing for Archer more than the acting, because it's so inconsistent in where Archer's moral lines are - I mean, five episodes after The Cogenitor, he frees a slave and tells her that humans believe that no one can own another sentient being. In one episode, withholding medical aid in the service of evolution is okay, but he never stops bitching about how the Vulcans didn't help humanity enough and held them back from exploring deep space sooner. And so forth. And as only villains and stuffy Vulcan ambassadors get to critisize him beyond mild reproaches, it's protagonist-centred morality at its worst.

Now, in all fairness, there are consistent things about both writing and acting for Archer, too, and not just his love for his dog. (Not kidding; he really adores that beagle.) The going from hostility and distrust to respect and friendship for T'Pol is (for the most part) convincing both in script and acting, and he does get a few sense of wonder scenes about space exploration in the first two seasons what underline this really is his dream. But Scott B. can't unite all those contraditions to a compelling whole, and while Avery Brooks and the DS9 writers sold me on Sisko going from idealistic Captain to sacrificing some of those principles for the greater good Captain, the Enterprise writers & Blakula could not. That they don't always seem to recognize what kind of ethical problem they're really writing about is imo key to this.