infection of a number of diseases at the hands of Soong. These included colored contact lenses, prosthetics to make his veins appear to pulse and gel was added to his eyes to make them bloodshot. There were several guest actors in "Cold Station 12". The character, Dr. Jeremy Lucas, had been previously mentioned in the episodes "Dear Doctor" and "Doctor's Orders" as a friend of Phlox. But "Cold Station 12" marked the first occasion that the character appeared on screen, played by Richard Riehle. The actor had previously appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Inner Light" as well as the Star Trek: Voyager episodes "Fair Haven" and the follow-up episode "Spirit Folk". Guest stars Spiner, Alec Newman and Abby Brammell resumed their roles from the previous episode in the trilogy, "Borderland". Reception "Cold Station 12" was first broadcast on November 5, 2004, on UPN. According to Nielsen ratings, it was watched by 2.1 percent of the population of the United States and by four percent of those watching television at the time. This put it in fifth place for the 8pm timeslot, behind Totally Outrageous Behavior and World's Craziest Videos on Fox. It had an average of 3.4 million viewers. Brent Spiner was credited for the ratings boost, the best of season so far. Bill Gordon, writing for the website Sci-Fi Pulse, said that it was a "nearly flawless episode", with his one critique in his analysis of the plot being targeted at Captain Archer telling Soong that they were sending over the self-destruct code for the station. He said that there was an "epic" quality to "Cold Station 12" that made him compare it to the Star Trek film franchise, saying that it had "stellar FX shots, to first class character and story development, to a quality of writing that has been sadly lacking in the Star Trek universe of late." IGN gave the episode 2 out of 5, and saying it "lacks some of the flair of its predecessor and seems to take some storytelling shortcuts to get where it's going, making it feel more like the usual Enterprise episode rather than something special" but hopes that the next episode will be able to deliver on the promise of the arc's ambitious premise. Michelle Erica Green of TrekNation praised the episode, saying it was an improvement on "Borderland" and that Spiner was even better.