star trek a night in sickbay

A Night in Sickbay (episode)

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Archer spends a night in sickbay after Porthos falls ill with a deadly virus following a visit to an alien planet.

• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Scenes 24 – 25
• 3.2 Scenes 39 – 49
• 4.1 Cast and characters
• 4.2 Sets and props
• 4.3 Visual effects
• 4.4 Costumes
• 4.5 Continuity
• 4.6 Reception
• 4.7 Video and DVD releases
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Guest star
• 5.3 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.4 Stunt double
• 5.5 References
• 5.6 External links

Summary [ ]

Captain Jonathan Archer , Ensign Hoshi Sato , T'Pol , and Porthos are in the decontamination chamber after a not-so-successful visit to the Kreetassans ' home planet . Captain Archer is very frustrated because for the past five days Enterprise spent in orbit , they have been doing nothing but apologizing to and humiliating themselves in front of the aliens because months ago they ate lunch in front of them on their own ship. T'Pol points out that the Kreetassans manufacture plasma injectors and that Enterprise needs one. But Archer has a hard time containing his frustration because once again, after all the waiting and " groveling " as he calls it, they have been asked to leave, empty-handed, because they somehow offended the Kreetassans again. How, they do not know, again. Archer does not want to hear it anymore, saying that he is exhausted and pretty much had it with these people.

After their decontamination cycle is over Doctor Phlox lets them know that they can leave except for Porthos: apparently he picked up a pathogen on the surface and the decon-agent has not been effective. With a heavy heart, Captain Archer leaves Porthos behind in the decon chamber.

Act One [ ]

In main engineering , Commander Trip Tucker explains to the captain the importance of getting those plasma injectors, no matter how uncomfortable the situation is. Archer complains that these people are impossible, but Tucker insists on getting the injectors from them because their components are metallurgically sound and dependable. He tells Archer to take the "high road" as the trained diplomat that he is. Reluctantly, Archer agrees, saying that he will have T'Pol find out what they did wrong this time so they can apologize for it again accordingly.

Meanwhile, Porthos has been relocated to sickbay because the pathogen is affecting him in unexpected ways. Dr. Phlox explains that his immune system is collapsing and that even though he was successful in isolating the pathogen and breaking down its protein sequence, he still cannot explain it, as it should not be affecting Porthos like this. Dr. Phlox is, therefore, running more tests to see what is happening. Archer is worried that this might be a life-threatening situation, but Dr. Phlox says that it is still too early to tell. Archer wonders why the Kreetassans did not notice that there is a pathogen in their atmosphere that Porthos' immune system cannot handle, given that Enterprise had submitted the genomes of the away team to them to check against the environment of their planet. Dr. Phlox says that they should have noticed any incompatibilities, assuming they actually took the time to check. This angers Archer who points out that if the carelessness of the Kreetassans has hurt Porthos or ends up killing him, they will find out what being offended is all about.

After he leaves sickbay, he speaks with T'Pol and learns that the Kreetassans are offended because Porthos urinated on one of their sacred trees , which they consider cultural treasures. But Archer has no sympathy for them, exclaiming that maybe if they had bothered to read the genetic profile that was sent to them, they would have told them that the dog should have stayed on the ship, in which case he would not have had an opportunity to pee on one of their precious trees. T'Pol explains that she apologized on behalf of Archer, but Archer doesn't like that at all, saying that they are the ones who should be sorry and apologizing, not him. He says that if anything happens to Porthos, he will be the one watering their Alvera trees .

Later, Archer – unable to sleep and worried about Porthos – asks Phlox whether he could spend the night in sickbay in order to cheer up Porthos. Dr. Phlox says that Porthos is in no condition to know the difference either way, but Archer insists on being there nonetheless. He begins chatting with the doctor and asks him whether there are any dogs on his homeworld of Denobula . Phlox explains that the Denobulan lemur , which is highly sought after, is similar to a dog, with a tail, fur, and mostly one head . He also reassures the captain that he need not worry because he is qualified enough, holding six degrees in interspecies veterinary medicine, in addition to half a dozen other degrees in various other fields such as hematology and botanical pharmacology . Moreover, he has been able to eliminate the pathogen and now wants to see whether the treatment that he has devised will stabilize Porthos' autoimmune system. He tells him to go get some rest, but Archer is still concerned and unsure how to feel. What's more, continuously throughout the night he is disturbed by the doctor's various odd activities in sickbay, such as feeding the animals , chasing them when they escape their cage, clipping his toenails, and engaging in other strange grooming behavior. Realizing that he won't get much sleep like that, Archer decides to go and work out.

Act Two [ ]

In the gym, he runs into T'Pol who tells him that he should not have brought his dog on a diplomatic mission, especially after they had offended the Kreetassans previously. She goes on to say that once again he was ignoring the consequences of his actions, because apparently he places more importance on the quality of the air his pet breathes than on the quality of the plasma running his ship. She is questioning his priorities. Archer takes issue with this and while they are arguing, Hoshi Sato tells them that the Kreetassans have finally submitted their reconciliation demands and that the captain is not going to believe it. Archer glances somewhat dismissively at their undoubtedly ridiculous demands, and returns back to sickbay to get some sleep before the doctor's results are back.

At around 01:32 am, he is awoken by the alarm in sickbay. Porthos has gone into anaphylactic shock because his body is rejecting the treatment. Dr. Phlox is able to temporarily stabilize him until he devises a different one. Archer is frustrated once again, complaining to Phlox that the Kreetassans won't give them the plasma injectors until he makes a fool out of himself by going through a series of ritual apologies. He also expresses his frustration with T'Pol who accused him of caring more about the dog than his ship. Doctor Phlox wonders why T'Pol's opinion concerns him so much and not Commander Tucker's, for instance, who is a friend he has known for years. But Archer sort of ignores his question and goes on and on about the Kreetassans and their unreasonable demands and audacity to expect an apology in the first place. However, Phlox does not give in, asking if Archer ever considered that his anger might encompass more than just Porthos and the Kreetassans. He even goes so far as to ask him how long it has been since he was intimate with a woman. This really catches Archer's attention, as he is becoming increasingly frustrated with Phlox and his prying. He ends the conversation and tries to get more sleep.

Meanwhile, Sato answers another hail by the Kreetassans, requesting a response but despite the mid-night time on the ship. The Kreetassan also suggests that synchronizing the ship's time to the planet would have been common courtesy. Sato politely says she'll inform the captain.

Soon, he is awoken again to Phlox trying to catch his escaped bat . It's a much busier sickbay than he thought.

Act Three [ ]

Archer's dream that helps him understand he's sexually attracted to T'Pol

Archer helps Phlox catch his bat for a bit and, during, Phlox continues the conversation, asking him if he thought anymore about why T'Pol's opinion is so important to him. He points out sexual tension, stating that for the past few months he has noted increasing friction between him and T'Pol. He goes on to say that if a person believes that their own sexual attraction toward another is inappropriate, they will often exhibit unexpected behavior, such as inordinate anger towards comparisons made between their ship and their Beagle . But Archer insists that there exists no sexual attraction between them, and that he and T'Pol have been getting along just fine. Just then, Sato walks in to inform the captain of the Kreetassans' wait and suggestion, after having easily grabbing the bat out of the air.

At 02:49 am Archer wakes up again after having had strange dreams involving Porthos dying as well as kissing T'Pol in decon chamber. Phlox informs him that the second treatment for Porthos isn't doing well either. Archer looks at Porthos, who is lying unconscious, and tells Phlox about how he got him from among a litter of four male puppies – "The Four Musketeers" – and has had him since he was six weeks old. He asks if Phlox had any pets when he was a kid, but Phlox says that his people don't keep any pets. The Denobulan lemur he was talking about earlier is highly sought after because its kidneys are considered a delicacy. Somewhat appalled and shocked, Archer doesn't know what to say. When T'Pol later arrives with food, he keeps stumbling over his words (accidentally saying "breast" and "lips" while conversing with T'Pol) and is nervous.

Doctor Phlox's finds his treatment is effective but only partially: Porthos' immune system is stabilizing, but his pituitary gland was severely damaged and is almost completely disintegrated. Dr. Phlox wants to transplant the pituitary gland of a Calrissian chameleon into Porthos. In order to do that, however, he needs to submerge him to minimize the shock to his pulmonary system . Once the surgery is complete Dr. Phlox will not have any problem resuscitating him. Phlox also tells Archer that after receiving the transplanted chameleon gland, Porthos may be harder to find, blending into the background when frightened, but this turns out to be an attempt at humor. Archer is apprehensive about letting the doctor perform a procedure he has never done before, especially given his peoples' attitude and insensitivity towards pets. But Phlox states that this is the only alternative available to them. Phlox pauses, understands his point of view and leaves the decision to him.

Act Four [ ]

Seeing that there is no choice, Archer agrees to go on with the procedure suggested by Phlox. While operating on Porthos at nearly four am, Archer finally opens up regarding his anger towards T'Pol, which, as he admits, could have a component of sexual tension to it. He wonders what he should do about it. Dr. Phlox suggests to do nothing but simply be aware of it. Archer asks him whether his expertise on sexual tension comes solely from professional training or first hand experience. Phlox explains that he has three wives, who each have two other husbands besides himself – a total of 720 relationships, 42 of which have romantic possibilities. He says that there are 31 people in his extended family and that he has five children: two daughters and three sons. Archer apologizes to him for having accused him of being insensitive before and Dr. Phlox accepts.

Kreetassan capital

The night is over and Archer eventually decides to swallow his pride and proceed with the apology, which is long and ritualistic as expected. In the end, everything turns out all right; the Kreetassans are visibly pleased, his apology is accepted, and they finally give them their injector, as well as two spares.

Archer apologizes to T'Pol about his recent behavior, saying he wants to minimize the friction between them. They discuss their mutual sexual attraction in the vaguest ways, T'Pol saying it's hypothetical . Archer knows a relationship would be inappropriate.

He then goes to pick up Porthos, who is recovering nicely from his operation and can finally go home.

Memorable quotes [ ]

" T'Pol thinks we insulted them again ." " How? You didn't eat cabbage before you left… " " I was a perfect gentleman! "

" Well, you're a trained diplomat. Take the high road. There's gotta be some way you can kiss and make up. "

" I'm told I've offended these people twice. Once for eating in front of them. The second time, I don't even know what for. But if their carelessness has hurt Porthos or God forbid ends up killing him, they're going to find out what being offended is all about! "

" You hear that, boy? Hmm? We're all pulling for you. "

" There are some things more important than plasma injectors. " " Are you referring to your pride? "

" I'll tell you one thing, sub-commander: if anything happens to Porthos, I'll be the one watering their Alvera trees! "

" Captain, please. You needn't be concerned. I hold six degrees in interspecies veterinary medicine. " " I thought you were just, you know, a people doctor? " " As a matter of fact, I've also earned degrees in dentistry, hematology, botanical pharmacology,… " " I'm impressed. "

" This isn't so bad. I was sure there would be something in here about standing on one foot with my eyes shut reciting 'The Night Before Christmas'. "

" Do we have a chainsaw on board? "

" I really thought you were beginning to understand Human emotions. " " Not when they apply to primitive quadrupeds who haven't evolved the ability to speak, or to use a toilet. "

" Sorry, I'm a little on edge. I haven't slept very much, but I'm doing the breast I… the best , I can. " " Hmmm… "

" Send me your lips… lisp … LIST ! "

" Why haven't you adjusted your time to our capital city? " " I'm sorry, we didn't know it was a requirement. " " It isn't a requirement, it is simply a courtesy. Something your species has yet to understand! "

" What's the tank for? " " I'll need to super-hydrate the canine in order to minimize the shock to his pulmonary system. " " You're going to drown my dog? "

" If Porthos pulls through, will he need special diets or treatments, having a chameleon's pituitary gland? " " You may have trouble finding him. He'll have the ability to blend into his background when frightened. " " You're kidding? " " Yes I am. Ha ha. "

" Whatever friction there's been between us, I'd like to try to minimize it. " " Friction is to be expected when people work in close quarters for extended periods of time. " " I guess that's always been true... especially when these people are of the opposite sex. " " Then it's good you're my superior officer. That we're not in a position to allow ourselves to be attracted to one another. Hypothetically. If we were, the friction that you speak of could be much more problematic. "

" Does your knowledge on sexual tension come from from professional training or first hand experience? " " Well, I do have three wives. " " And they each have... " " Two husbands, besides myself. " " Sounds very complicated. " " Very, why else be polygamous? " " So, these three wives... " " ... each have three husbands, a total of 720 relationships, 42 of which have romantic possibilities. "

Deleted scenes [ ]

Scenes 24 – 25 [ ].

Archer wakes up in sickbay and calls Commander Tucker – sleeping in his quarters – to come see him. Tucker crawls out of bed and, upon entering sickbay, remarks that the captain looks terrible, asking what happened. Archer says he's fine and that it's Porthos who's not doing so well. Tucker says he's sorry to hear it, asking if there is something that he can do. Archer asks Tucker how long it has been since he's been intimate with a woman. Tucker is baffled by the question. Dr. Phlox makes a noise to remind them that he is there.

Archer apologizes for waking Tucker, and asks about the faulty injector: What kind of stress will put on the other four if they take it off-line and try to repair it? Tucker says that it is a matter of time; the longer that they have to rely on four injectors, the greater the stress, the problem being that he has no idea how long the repair would take. If the stress gets too high, they'll end up with only three injectors, at which point Enterprise would be lucky to reach warp speed . Archer tells Tucker to get some sleep.

Before leaving, Tucker tells Archer a childhood anecdote: " I had a grade school teacher who was certain I stole a pencil off her desk. I think it was a pencil. She wasn't going to let me go on the field trip to Pensacola unless I apologized. My mother told me I should tell her I was sorry, but I said 'I didn't steal the damn pencil.' You know what she told me? 'It's okay to apologize when you shouldn't have to, just as long as you don't mean it.' "

Scenes 39 – 49 [ ]

Archer enters the bridge at 4:26 am, remarking to T'Pol that he thought her shift didn't begin until 9:00 am. She replies that she took the liberty of temporarily synchronizing their clocks to the Kreetassans' capital city . Archer asks Ensign Sato to join him in his ready room.

Inside the ready room, Archer ask Sato to sit down, and asks if she's read "the list", referring to the Kreetassans' reconciliation demands. Sato says yes, that she and T'Pol "broke it down". Archer interrupts Sato, stating that he requires her assistance on pronouncing a phrase near the end of the document.

Background information [ ]

Cast and characters [ ].

• Actor Vaughn Armstrong having previously played a Kreetassan captain in " Vox Sola ", this episode features him making a return appearance as a member of the species. Vaughn later played Maximilian Forrest , his twelfth and final character, in the fourth season episode " In a Mirror, Darkly ".

Director David Straiton supervising production on this episode

Sets and props [ ]

• A couple of shots in this episode each used a prosthetic Porthos figure; one is shown suspended in the super-hydration tank and another is depicted resting inside the quarantine chamber. These prosthetic dogs were designed and constructed by Joel Harlow . [1]
• The origami Pyrithian moon hawk used by Phlox was created by Production Accountant Suzi Shimizu . ( ENT Season 2 DVD , Ronald B. Moore )

Visual effects [ ]

• In the first scene after the opening credits, a view of Kreetassa from space shows an exact reverse of the Great Lakes of North America.

Costumes [ ]

• During the apology ceremony, Archer wears what appears to be the bottom half only of a standard uniform jumpsuit. This indicates that either the jumpsuits are in fact two-piece garments with hidden closures or a previously (and subsequently) unseen uniform variant, or that a uniform was properly modified in order to conform to the Kreetassans' demands.

Continuity [ ]

• In Captain Archer's dream, the "Dog Cemetery" contains two headstones for dogs, one for " Duffy " ( 2132 – 2145 ) and another for " Goldie ". Since Archer says he "grew up with dogs", it is probable these were his previous pet dogs.

Reception [ ]

• In a 2004 interview, John Billingsley nominated this episode as one of his favorites. " I loved working with Scott [Bakula]. That was the most time we'd had to work together, and that was fun […] I know people were a little in two minds of that episode. I rather liked that episode. " [2]
• This episode was discussed in the ENT Season 2 DVD special "Inside A Night in Sickbay", with interviews by Scott Bakula , John Billingsley , Rick Berman , and Ronald B. Moore . Bakula described the work in the new surgical scrubs as a challenge.
• This episode was nominated for a Hugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form".
• The scene with Hoshi Sato , Jonathan Archer , T'Pol , and Porthos was used in a Virgin 1 advertisement to show how more sexualized the show had become by first showing T'Pol and Archer clothed then cutting to them practically naked. The advert then said the show had become a bit more risqué, showing T'Pol putting lotion on Sato while she rubbed it on Archer, who in turn was shown to rub it on Porthos.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• As part of the ENT Season 2 DVD collection
• As part of the ENT Season 2 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer
• John Billingsley as Phlox
• Jolene Blalock as T'Pol
• Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed
• Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather
• Linda Park as Hoshi Sato
• Connor Trinneer as Charles "Trip" Tucker III

Guest star [ ]

• Vaughn Armstrong as Kreetassan Captain

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Adam Anello as Enterprise ops crewman
• Breezy as Porthos
• Evan English as Tanner
• Aldric Horton as Enterprise ops crewman
• Marlene Mogavero as Enterprise ops crewman
• Mark Watson as Enterprise ops crewman

Stunt double [ ]

• Vince Deadrick, Jr. as stunt double for John Billingsley

References [ ]

ability ; act of contrition ; accusation ; air duct ; alvera tree ; anaphylactic shock ; Aramis ; Archer's ex-girlfriend ; Archer's ex-girlfriend's mother ; artist ; Athos ; autosuture ; beagle ; biochemist ; blue ; botanical pharmacology ; buzz-saw ; cabbage ; Calrissian chameleon ; cc ; chainsaw ; chordata ; comparison ; couplet ; D'Artagnan ; decompression chamber ; decon agent ; Denobulan ; Denobulan language ; Denobulan lemur ; dentistry ; diet ; DNA ; dog ; Duffy ; expression ; extended family ; filter bracket ; funeral ; girlfriend ; glass ; Goldie ; grade school ; groveling ; guinea pig ; heart ; heaven ; hematology ; Interspecies Veterinary Medicine ; kidney ; Kreetassa ; Kreetassan ; Kreetassan capital city ; Kreetassan capital city visiting ship ; Kreetassan Chancellery ; Kreetassan ship ; litter ; lizard ; logic ; mammalian ; metallurgy ; nest ; Night Before Christmas, The ; onion ; opinion ; opposite sex ; part ; paw ; pencil ; people doctor ; petting ; Phlox's children ; Phlox's spouses ; Pillarian slip ; pituitary gland ; plasma injector ; Porthos ; Porthos' mother ; potter ; pronunciation guide ; prophecy ; pulmonary system ; Pyrithian bat ; Pyrithian moon hawk ; quadruped ; quarantine chamber ; rejection ; ritual sectioning ; sex (aka " opposite sex "); stomach ; sub-mammalian database ; subservient ; surgeon ; synaptic inductor ; tank ; teacher ; temperature ; tetrasol ; theft ; toilet ; treadmill ; trunk ; Tucker's mother ; urination ; yellow

External links [ ]

• "A Night in Sickbay" at StarTrek.com
• " A Night in Sickbay " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " A Night in Sickbay " at Wikipedia

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Awards & Nominations

Star Trek: Enterprise – A Night in Sickbay (Review)

Next year, Star Trek is fifty years old. We have some special stuff planned for that, but – in the meantime – we’re reviewing all of Star Trek: Enterprise this year as something of a prequel to that anniversary. This April, we’re doing the second season. Check back daily for the latest review.

A Night in Sickbay may be the most divisive episode of Star Trek: Enterprise ever broadcast.

On the one had, it seems like fans hated the episode with an incredibly passion. The Agony Booth described A Night in Sickbay as “the worst episode of one of the most cringe-worthy shows of the last ten years.” The episode is frequently included in those very popular “worst episodes ever!” polls that the internet loves so much . The only episode that seems more certain to provoke fan vitriol is These Are the Voyages… , the series finalé which has little to say about the actual series.

“I am THIS sorry…”

However, the hatred for A Night in Sickbay is not universal. It was one of two Enterprise episodes to make the shortlist for the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in the “short form” category. More than that,  A Night in Sickbay actually polled ahead of the other nominated episode of Enterprise , Carbon Creek . Even in commercial terms, A Night in Sickbay was a success, earning the highest ratings (and share) of the show’s second season .

It seems that A Night in Sickbay exists in a rather strange grey area. It enjoys the support and appreciation of members of the cast and even those outside  Star Trek fandom, while it provokes nothing but hatred from hardcore fans. This immediately makes A Night in Sickbay a fascinating watch; any show that can provoke such a polarising response must have some interesting aspects.

A Night in Sickbay was the fourth episode of the season produced, but the fifth broadcast. On the production slate, it was positioned between Minefield and Dead Stop . Those two episodes involved a lot of production work, a lot of new sets and a lot of expense. The second season of Enterprise had been quite lavish up until this point. After all, Shockwave, Part II featured Archer wandering in a massive wasteland, and Carbon Creek had seen the crew going on location to film with a large guest cast.

As such, a bit of cost-saving was in order. After all, Enterprise was beginning to feel the pressure of the new management regime at UPN. In the past, the Star Trek shows had been trusted to get their work done on budget and on time with a minimal of interference. Ever since UPN had changed ownership, the show found itself dealing with a much more involved and engaged network. A Night in Sickbay arrives early in the season, but it is a clear attempt to construct a time- and budget-saving bottle show.

“… And your little dog, too!”

Scott Bakula confirms as much on Inside A Night in Sickbay . The actor talks about the challenges posed by these sorts of episodes:

We call it a ship show, you can call it an elevator show… you reach a point in any television season where the studio says, “We need to save money! You’re spending too much money!” And the writers say, “We’ll give you a ship show.”

It is perhaps a little worrying that this is happening four episodes into the second season, but it does explain a lot.

Standard operating procedure…

The first season of Enterprise had faced a similar problem. Running over-budget and trying to construct an episode that would be cheap and quick to film, showrunners Rick Berman and Brannon Braga had developed Shuttlepod One . The episode took two members of the main cast, locked them in a confined space together, and then had them talk to each for forty-five minutes. The result was perhaps the first truly classic episode of Enterprise .

It feels like A Night in Sickbay is a conscious attempt to replicate the success of Shuttlepod One . Certainly, it succeeded as a bottle show – it wrapped in half the production time of a regular episode . A Night in Sickbay learned a lot from that late first season episode. Instead of trapping Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating in a shuttle, it locks Scott Bakula and John Billingsley in the sickbay set. It allows the two performers to play off one another with a minimum amount of distraction.

Batsh!t crazy…

As such, it is no wonder that the cast love the episode so much. John Billingsley has explained what a pleasure it was to work so closely with Scott Bakula :

“I loved working with Scott,” John says, “that was the most time we’d had to work together, and that was fun. Scott’s such a warm and gracious man. I know people were a little in two minds of that episode. I rather liked that episode.”

One can see the appeal that the script would have for an actor. After all, like Shuttlepod One before it, there is a sense that A Night in Sickbay might easily have been adapted for the stage and taken on tour.

Takes a lickin’…

Even Jolene Blalock has added her voice to the chorus praising the show, seeming quite proud of the work that she did on the episode :

“I loved A Night In Sickbay. That was a terrific episode,” she exclaims. “That got pretty steamy [between T’Pol and Archer] and there was a lot of laughter on the set between all of us, between the actors and the crew. But we got through it. I know that A Night In Sickbay was one of our most watched episodes, which was great.”

Scott Bakula himself talked the episode up a great deal in the lead-up to the start of the second season, describing it as a “huge” episode.

This makes Porthos a sad beagle…

On paper, A Night in Sickbay seemed to have everything that Enterprise could want. It took a step away from stock Star Trek plots to let the characters breath a little bit. It gave space to two of the stronger actors in the central cast. It was cheap and quick to shoot, while still being massively experimental. It gave UPN a lot of salacious material to include in the episode promos, but as part of an episode that wasn’t quite as cynical as Bounty or Bound .

However, A Night in Sickbay did not receive the same ecstatic response as Shuttlepod One had. Almost as soon as it aired, it seemed that  A Night in Sickbay had provoked the wraith of fandom. Pretty soon, A Night in Sickbay was being ranked as the worst episode of Enterprise – nay! the worst episode of Star Trek ! – ever produced. Many of those critical voiced pointed to A Night in Sickbay as an example of everything wrong with Enterprise .

And now, the heavy petting can begin!

Most obviously, there was the painfully awkward decontamination sequences, which remain perhaps the most memorable iconic part of Enterprise – at least according to Virgin 1’s recent advertising campaign, which set some of the sequence to Barry White . As Robert Greenberger observed in The Complete Unauthorised History :

The show was still figuring out its voice, but fans were being critical, especially of the smarmy scenes between Trip and T’Pol set in the decontamination chamber, where a gel had to be applied to the naked body. Despite the soft lights, steam, and close-ups, the hoped for eroticism fell flat, especially in a Night in Sickbay.

Greenberger is entirely correct here. The decontamination sequences are a disaster. Since they first appeared in Broken Bow , they cast a pretty significant shadow over the rest of Enterprise . Although the show would eventually accept it as a failed experiment – allowing crew members to move through it fully clothed – the show is still at the stage where it thinks all this is sexy.

He was a man, take him for all in all…

Which is, perhaps, the biggest problem with A Night in Sickbay . With the possible exception of the original Star Trek , the franchise has never really figured out how to make “sexy” work. Even then, it’s not as if the classic Star Trek didn’t have a wealth of uncomfortable issues are gender and sexual politics. William Ware Theiss’ costume designs might be the most provocative and iconic designs in the franchise, but they could still seem gratuitous and excessive. (Gene Roddenberry shortening miniskirts did not help.)

Star Trek: The Next Generation spent five-and-a-half years oogling Marina Sirtis’ cleavage while it figured out what to do with her character. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fared a little better, but still eventually settled on the idea that have the female members of the ensemble make out with one another in the mirror universe. Star Trek: Voyager abandoned all sense of subtlety when it hired Jeri Ryan and had her spend four years in a cat suit so tight it made her feel faint .

Taking the matter in hand…

So it seems reasonable to suggest that Star Trek was a franchise that had a great deal of trouble when it came to doing “sexy.” Whenever the modern iterations of the franchise had attempted to do “sexy” – from Justice to Let He Who Is Without Sin to The Emperor’s New Cloak – they failed horribly. The problem with Enterprise was that the show had doubled down on the idea of doing a modern sexually-charged Star Trek . The result was pretty people pawing each other in creepy blue lighting.

To be fair to the critics, A Night in Sickbay has a lot of this stuff. However, it certainly is not the worst offender. It doesn’t feel quite as gratuitous as the sequences in Broken Bow or Bounty . Indeed, there’s a sense that A Night in Sickbay is perhaps acknowledging how awkward and unsexy these sequences are. It feels almost as though A Night in Sickbay is engaging in wry self-parody of the series’ attempts to sexualise what is essentially hand sanitisation for the entire body.

Phlox really gets the dog’s body work…

After all, it opens with a decontamination sequence featuring the two female leads and a male member of the main cast… only to have the male member of the main cast more preoccupied about his possibly sick dog than the two sexy ladies in their underwear. This is an episode that emphasises how sterile and unsexy these sequences are. It seems to be the entire point of the sequence. (That said, there is a sense that the show is trying to have its cake and eat it. Bounty would air during the second season’s May sweeps.)

Still, A Night in Sickbay is trying to deal with human sexuality in a way that none of the other Star Trek shows have managed. After all, it is one of the few episodes of  Star Trek that tries to talk about “sex” without talking about “love.” It appears that “try” is the operative word here, of course – the show fumbles and hesitates, the execution leaving a lot to be desired. There are points where A Night in Sickbay seems juvenile or sophomoric, when it seems to be trying for “adult.”

Pulling back the curtain…

Then again, talking about “love” is easy, because that’s a vocabulary that is discussed a lot more frequently. Talking about “sex” is a lot more difficult because that’s something that pop culture has not always been able to do explicitly. This is not an excuse, of course, but it does a lot to explain why A Night in Sickbay feels so stilted and uncomfortable. As a franchise, Star Trek dates back to the time when married couples could be seen sleeping in separate beds on television.

While Kirk could talk in veiled ways about relations between men and women, it was often coached in generic terms – innuendo or metaphor. There were obvious sexual elements to characters like Nona from A Private Little War , but those elements were never explicitly talked about – and the subtext was often quite alarmingly reactionary. The Star Trek franchise has never really updated its vocabulary when it comes to these matters.

A net victory?

In first season episode of The Next Generation – like Justice – it often felt like the show was attempting to channel a decidedly sixties sexuality that was out of place in the late eighties. While Deep Space Nine fared a little better, episodes like Profit and Lace illustrated that franchise was still somewhat behind the curve on issues of sexuality. On Voyager , the potentially romantic chemistry between Janeway and Chakotay during the first three seasons was presented as pure love and devotion rather than anything sexual.

So it makes a great deal of sense that Enterprise would have a bit of a disadvantage talking about sex. The show had never really moved that far beyond the attitudes of mid-to-late sixties popular culture. Airing in the early years of the twenty-first century,  Star Trek was very much behind the times in this regard. In many respects, A Night in Sickbay feels like trying to listen to grandparent talk about sex.

He’s a lumberjack he’s okay…

That said, there’s nothing wrong with the idea of talking about sexuality on Star Trek . As John Billingsley argues in A Night in Sickbay , it seems like a lot of the fan backlash to the episode was a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of candidly talking about sex in Star Trek :

What I liked about it was that it dealt with the sexual… it kinda in a very gentle way said, “All these people on the ship must be pretty horny? How do they deal with that?” Now, they put that into the Captain, and I think some of the fans got a little upset about that because the Captain is supposed to be strong and rock-ribbed and isn’t going to be easily swayed by these feelings of sexual tension.

The execution may leave a lot to be desired, but A Night in Sickbay is at least trying to say something new and interesting in the larger context of Star Trek .

“They call this ‘pulling a Kirk’…”

It is an episode about how sexual repression is fundamentally and undeniably unhealthy – a very interesting subject for a Star Trek episode, given how much of the franchise has been built around teasing and titillation without any substantial engagement with core issues of sexuality. A Night in Sickbay is itself packed full of wry and knowing imagery. The episode ends with a shirtless and sweaty Archer using a chainsaw to cut through a giant log. In a deleted scene, Archer recalls stealing a pencil from a female teacher’s desk.

Sometimes a cigar is jest a cigar, but A Night in Sickbay is quite candid in its imagery. Ending a show dealing with sexual repression on that image is delightfully provocative. As with Porthos’ in the deacon chamber in the teaser, there is a sense that A Night in Sickbay is having a lot of fun with its core ideas. This is not subtle, but there’s a charm in being so up-front about the subject matter. This is the kind of thing that Star Trek has never really done before, and there’s something refreshingly odd about the entire set-up.

In case you don’t get it, this episode is entirely about Archer dealing with his wood…

There are very serious problems with A Night in Sickbay , of course.The fan criticisms are largely correct. The episode does take a number of unfortunate aspects of Enterprise , and use them as the springboard. Most obviously, A Night in Sickbay reduces the character T’Pol to a two-dimensional male fantasy. She does not seem to exist outside of being the object of Archer’s repressed sexual urges and the focal point of his sexual fantasies.

Shuttlepod One had the same issue, reducing T’Pol to a sexualised object to assure audiences that Reed was a red-blooded heterosexual man who likes her “bum.” A Night in Sickbay might have been able to get away with this objectification of T’Pol… if it were the exception, rather than the rule. T’Pol spent most of Enterprise ‘s run as a stock male sex fantasy – the catsuit wearing Vulcan who was frequently naked, and frequently massaging or rubbing things.

It’s sad… so sad… it’s a sad, sad situation… and it’s getting more and more absurd…

The first two seasons of the show struggled to find a clear voice or identity for the character outside of that rather sexist set-up. (Things only got worse during the third season, when the show did seem to settle on a direction and arc for the character.) In this context, A Night in Sickbay becomes just one more example of an unfortunate trend in how the show treated T’Pol as a character. Still, at least A Night in Sickbay does not pretend to be centred on T’Pol as a character, unlike Bounty .

Similarly, A Night in Sickbay emphasises just how clumsy and unprepared Archer is for the role of commanding mankind’s first mission into space. Here, he rather clumsily brings Porthos down to an alien planet populated by a species he knows to be easily offended. After all, this isn’t Archer’s first encounter with the Kreetassans. He knows from Vox Sola that they are easily offended. Given there are places on Earth where you can’t walk a dog without a lead or a muzzle, how did he think this would be a good idea?

Dogged determination to cure Porthos…

“Well, maybe if they’d bothered to read the genetic profile we sent they’d have told us to leave the dog on the ship,” Archer insists, “and then he wouldn’t have had an opportunity to pee on one of their precious trees.” However, this is ignoring his own responsibility in the matter. While he did warn the Kreetassans that he would be taking Porthos, it seems to have been a reckless decision.

It could be argued that Archer had no idea that the Kreetassans believed those trees to be sacred, so he had no reason to worry about Porthos. However, given the Kreetassans were offended by the act of eating in public, it is probably best not to make any assumptions and to tread lightly. Even discounting the trees, there are countless other risk factors. What if Porthos had bitten an alien diplomat? Or even just growled at one? That would be a more reasonable diplomatic incident, and well within the realms of possibility.

“What? I bring my dog everywhere!”

To be entirely, this portrayal is at least consistent – even if it is infuriating. Jonathan Archer was trained primarily as a test pilot, in much the same way that Kathryn Janeway was trained primarily as a scientist. Given that First Flight will reveal that Archer was not the first choice for the job, it makes a certain amount of sense that Archer would not be as suited to diplomatic negotiations as Picard or Sisko. Something like this seems reasonably in-character for Archer.

That said, there are several problems with this. Trip refers to Archer as “a trained diplomat” , which seems to negate any possible defence of the episode based on Archer’s lack of diplomatic qualifications. More than that, Archer has been leading this mission for a year now. The first season is populated with Archer making mistakes that his more experienced successors would easily avoid. The problem isn’t that Archer is making mistakes; it is that he is repeating mistakes. Archer makes mistakes, but he never learns them.

Sleepin’ on it…

(The second season has been getting gradually better at continuity, tying together episodes like Minefield and Dead Stop . However, A Night in Sickbay seems to represent a step backwards. Not only does it return to the “Archer makes the same mistakes” plot beats from the first season, but it also seems to forget that the Enterprise just went through a pretty elaborate overhaul. Having a generic plot-enabling systems failure so soon after Dead Stop feels like the writers have stopped paying attention.)

A Night in Sickbay might have worked a lot better had it come earlier in the show’s run. Certainly, the final image of Archer humbling himself in front of the Kreetassans is somewhat undercut by the audience’s knowledge that this wasn’t the first (and likely won’t be the last) time that Archer has made an intergalactic faux pas like this. The lessons in A Night in Sickbay feel like lessons that Archer should have learned over a year earlier.

Gone to the birds…

There’s also the fact that A Night in Sickbay is fixated on a possible sexual attraction between Archer and T’Pol. There is something particularly unwholesome about the idea of Archer sexual fantasies about T’Pol, as Mike Sussman and Phyllis Stong concede on the commentary to Shadows of P’Jem :

I think this was back when we were still… when our marching orders were to play a flirtatious relationship between Archer and T’Pol. It wasn’t exactly clear where the characters were going to go. Did we want to go in that direction with them? More of a Beverly and Picard  type of situation? With the added wrinkly that you had a Vulcan on one side of it. I though that they had a great relationship, an angry chemistry. But there’s something potentially distasteful about a commander and a subordinate. I mean, it was fun to write all this stuff – and fun for them to shoot it, I hope – but I think on all the shows you kind of need your leader to be the quiet… not the quiet, but the loner. You can be friends with the crew, but anything more than that is a little… And a strong enough sense of propriety.

Archer is the ship’s commanding officer; T’Pol is his second-in-command and a representative of a foreign government. There is a reason that The Next Generation never really challenged Picard’s decision to keep an emotional distance from Crusher, much like Voyager respected and justified Janeway’s decision to keep an emotional distance from Chakotay.

I wish it would rain down…

Still, there are elements of A Night in Sickbay that do come close to working. Centring an episode around John Billingsley and another member of the ensemble is always a good idea. Billingsley has already demonstrated that he is one of the breakout members of the show’s cast, and so spending time with him is a solid way of passing a bottle episode. Notably, the third season comes to the same conclusion with Doctor’s Orders .

The comedy aspects of A Night in Sickbay are perhaps a little forced, but Billingsley sells a lot of the broad comedy around Phlox as a character. It’s very difficult to pull off that sort of slapstick humour in the midst of an episode that is also trying to be character-driven and introspective at the same time. Billingsley also does a great job with the dramatic material, explaining the nuance and complexity of Denobulan family relationships.

A captain and his dog…

The idea of a plot about Phlox trying to save Porthos feels like something of a shout-out to Andre Bormanis’ original pitch for the character. According to the commentary for Silent Enemy , Bormanis proposed a darkly humorous twist on the good doctor:

I wanted to do something on the show where we revealed that on Denobula – on his home planet – Phlox was actually a veterinarian; he was not allowed to work on sentient life forms. I couldn’t convince Rick and Brannon to go for it. I thought that would have been pretty funny.

A Night in Sickbay seems to make a sly nod towards that idea, having Phlox assure Archer that he has “six degrees in Interspecies Veterinary Medicine.”

Mass appeal…

When Archer remarks he thought Phlox was just “a people doctor” , Phlox adds, “As a matter of fact I’ve also earned degrees in dentistry, hematology, botanical pharmacology.” Notably, Phlox makes no mention of a professional medical qualification that suggests he should be working on humanoid patients. It seems like perhaps Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were having a bit of fun with Bormanis’ idea.

A Night in Sickbay is a mess. It does repeat many of the problems that plague Enterprise at this point in its run. At the same time, however, it is a very ambitious and novel piece of Star Trek . It is trying to do something new. Given the problems with the rest of the second season, it is hard to condemn the episode for failing while trying something bold and intriguing. It is not a highlight of the show’s run, but it also aired in a season that produced Precious Cargo and Bounty .

Fur and loathing…

It’s not the worst episode of Star Trek ever produced. It’s not the worst episode of Enterprise ever produced. It’s not even the worst episode that this season of Star Trek produced. It is awkward, it is clumsy, it is repeating (and even amplifying) some of the core problems of the show to this point. However, it is also ambitious and bold. It lacks the skill necessary to pull off any of its central ideas, but there are worse sins.

You might be interested in our other reviews of the second season of Star Trek: Enterprise :

• Shockwave, Part II
• Carbon Creek
• A Night in Sickbay
• The Seventh
• The Communicator
• Singularity
• Vanishing Point
• Precious Cargo
• The Catwalk
• Future Tense
• The Crossing
• Regeneration
• First Flight
• The Expanse

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Filed under: Enterprise | Tagged: Archer , Brannon Braga , Dog , enterprise , John Billingsley , kretassans , metaphors , Phlox , repression , Rick Berman , scott abkula , sexual harrassment , sexuality , star trek: enterprise , t'pol |

15 Responses

I have to admit, although I love TOS, TNG, and Voyager, I never got into DS9 and never gave Enterprise a try…

DS9 is phenomenal. From the fourth season onwards, it is amazing. But the final eight (or so) episodes of the second season are really good in their own right. I’d recommend it wholeheartedly. It’s my favourite Star Trek.

Enterprise really finds its legs in its third and fourth seasons.

Should I start with DS9 or Enterprise?

I would start with DS9, particularly as an X-Files fan.

It has a lot of interesting thematic intersections. Both are essentially shows about evaluating America’s place in the cynical nineties, with DS9 being described as the first truly multicultural Star Trek. Not to mention themes of paranoia and mistrust of authority.

The first season is a little bland, but it’s quite short (twenty episodes) and the final two episodes are phenomenal. Duet is one of my top ten episodes of Star Trek ever. And probably reasonably high on that list. The second season is of variable quality with some great highs (Necessary Evil and The Wire are classics), and the third season is experimental (again, with great highs Improbable Cause is a phenomenal piece of television).

Thanks for the advice! I’ll finish my run of Buffy and Voyager, then will head on to DS9 and give it another try 😛

Hope you enjoy. If you want a list of highlights, let me know!

(Also: speaking of Buffy, watch out for Jane Epsenson’s short stint on the DS9 writing staff. I think she wrote one episode, becoming one of the first two television writers to work on both Star Trek and Doctor Who with John Shiban.)

I have you on my list, I’ll keep you posted for sure! And thanks–I had no idea (about Jane Epsenson). I do dream of joining a television writing team for a couple of years on a Buffy like show. Maybe some day 🙂

We can dream.

If you make it, remember me!

This gets at an important point. What ENT lost in Trekkies it gained in casual viewers. The phrase which often comes up in discussion with it is “down to earth”. For all the talk of Hoshi, Reed et al. being the cream of the crop, they’re just people.

Personally I found it banal, but there’s a place for banality.

That’s why the cast and writers are unapologetic about ANIS, and more power to them. Without a doubt, ENT would have survived if the it hadn’t been ‘boxed’ and was allowed to retool itself in a substantial way: less continuity, less formula, perhaps a shuffling of crew assignments. ANIS is an okay script, it’s just not suited for this Captain.

I don’t know. I think Bakula would have done well as the lead of a more relaxed and contemporary Star Trek.

But he’s really not suited to the big operatic Star Trek moments. He doesn’t do speeches or moral conflict as well as Shatner, Stewart or Brooks. (Or even, if we’re being honest, Mulgrew.)

No, it didn’t. Voyager did. Enterprise managed to lose both. Note that despite brief boost in viewers, the ratings plummeted after this episode aired. In fact, AFAIK when the show was cancelled, it was only Trekkies who were still watching.

Tell me, what captain would this be suited for? Aside from maybe Abram’s Kirk (but not even Justin Lin’s Kirk) nocaptain could have this episode around them and remain in character or remotely sympathetic.

*sigh* At the end of the previous episode — Dead Stop — I asked if we could keep THAT version of Archer. Evidently not. In “A Night in Sickbay,” we get an Archer who seems not to truly grasp that aliens are NOT HUMAN until Phlox whaps him upside the head with it.

I do really like what Phlox does here, and how he seems capable of guiding Archer to an important realization (and I don’t mean the one about his sexual tension). John Billingsley is wonderful, and Scott Bakula does a nice job with the ridiculous crap they give the poor guy to play.

But long before T’Pol mentioned it, I was screaming at Archer that he was an idiot for taking his DOG on a delicate diplomatic mission. And not just any mission, a mission to a people who had already shown themselves uncomfortable with the more animalistic aspects of mammalian life, as shown by their objecting to witnessing the act of eating. Taking his dog on a mission to such people was a truly boneheaded maneuver. Archer continues to act as if he’s on a personal sightseeing tour of the galaxy, and he just happens to have a Starfleet ship and crew along for the ride.

I understand that this is supposed to be humans’ first foray into space. But can’t they give us “humans are beginners” without making Archer a complete idiot? Are the writers not smart enough to think up more subtle mistakes, or do they not trust the audience to understand it if they do?

The thing is, “Other people are not you, and THAT’S OKAY” is a message the world still needs, and it’s one that Star Trek is well-suited to deliver. I’d love to see an intelligent, thoughtful story arc where Archer comes to realize more and more that aliens have different ways — ways that are just as well suited to them as Archer’s own ways are to him. I’d love to see Archer realize that it’s not the development of the warp drive that marks humankind’s readiness to join galactic society; it’s the acceptance of the differences among peoples.

The aliens in this particular episode could have been a great lesson for Archer, because he could have realized that when the Kreetassans fail to understand that humans have a different culture and don’t understand Kreetassan ways, he’s been doing the same thing, with other aliens.

The heavy-handed sexual overtones in this episode don’t bother me anywhere near as much as portraying a Starfleet captain as a freaking idiot. I’d love to see T’Pol get some actual character development, but Blalock isn’t a very strong actress, and it’s possible that she couldn’t carry much character development, even if they gave it to her. If they hired the poor lady solely for her breasts and lips, I guess it makes a certain sort of sense that those are the aspects of her that they most emphasize. I wish they’d hired a really good actress, instead. Leonard Nimoy was not considered any kind of heartthrob when HE was hired, and he managed to make Spock sexy without even trying. I find myself wondering what an actress of his caliber might have been able to do with T’Pol, even if she were as non-traditional looking as Mr. Nimoy was.

I guess I keep leaving “Archer is an IDIOT” rants in your comments. I hope that doesn’t annoy you. I’d really rather be leaving, “This was a GREAT episode” comments, but there have only been a few of those so far. 🙂 But god, I miss Kirk’s professionalism. It seems really weird that Hoshi and Travis feel more professional than the captain does.

No worries at all! Archer is an idiot. He’s probably the franchise’s least effective captain. Janeway is radically inconsistent from episode to episode, but at least she tends to be good at whatever the writers have chosen for her to be this week.

And, I’d argue, it’s pretty easy to be more professional than Archer when the writing staff seems to forget that you exist most of the time.

Honestly, I don’t get what this has to do with Kreetasans being aliens. Diplomat’s pet peeing on something sacred isn’t weird alien culture offense, it’s regular offense.

I can see what the writers were trying to do with this episode, and while it is not a good one, it also doesn’t deserve its internet reputation either. I can think of a dozen TNG and Voyager episodes that are worse off the top of my head, as well as some Enterprise episodes.

That said, I really got annoyed at how childish Archer acts in this episode. It’s not just a character that lacks experience or is more suited to testing prototype ships. (Why would Starfleet pick a test pilot to command their first major deep space mission??) It’s that Archer lacks basic human skills in this episode. He is unable to negotiate fair normal social situations and acts like an offended shopping mall customer rather than a high ranking military officer.

Speaking of sexuality, there are at least one or two scenes in this episode where Hoshi is subtly attractive in a very human way that makes the whole focus on T’Pol seem incredibly forced and sad.

I like that we got some character development here, but it was done in a pretty sloppy way. Ah well.

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Star Trek: Enterprise (TV Series)

A night in sickbay (2002).

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A Night in Sickbay

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"A Night in Sickbay" was the 30th episode of Enterprise , the fifth episode of the show's second season , first aired 16 October 2002 . The episode was written by Rick Berman MA & Brannon Braga and directed by David Straiton MA .

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A Night in Sickbay

Archer is fuming after the Kreetassans refuse to part with parts for Enterprise because of a diplomatic gaffe involving his dog, Porthos, who then falls ill with a mysterious disorder. But Dr. Phlox thinks there's more to Archer's rants than meets the ear.

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Scott Bakula

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A Night in Sickbay

Friday 14 October 2022

Star Trek: Enterprise

Series 2, Episode 5

Stardate: Unknown (2152)

First broadcast on Wednesday 16 October 2002

Our mission this week — to boldly rehabilitate an unjustly maligned episode of Star Trek: Enterprise . After more than a season of being aggrieved and obnoxious, Jonathan Archer is suddenly confronted by the need to apologise to people, sometimes with his shirt off. Meanwhile, Porthos is a very good boy, even when he’s just a fluffy puppet.

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A Night In Sickbay

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A Night in Sickbay

Captain Archer of the Enterprise is sent to an uncharted planet to investigate a mysterious energy signature. Little does he know that the planet is inhabited by a species of intelligent, sentient, and invisible creatures known as the Trellitines. After some investigation, it becomes clear that the Trellitines are in danger of being hunted to extinction by a group of ruthless alien hunters.

When Archer attempts to intervene, he is badly injured and his faithful pet beagle, Porthos, is killed in the crossfire. Enraged, Archer orders his crew to return to the Enterprise, but the mysterious energy signature prevents their escape. Stranded on the planet, Archer must find a way to save the Trellitines and bring his crew home.

To make matters worse, Porthos’ body begins to show signs of infection from the alien environment, and soon the entire crew is in danger from the contagion. With no other options, Archer decides to take Porthos’ body to the Enterprise’s sickbay in the hopes that the medical staff can treat the infection and save the crew.

Upon arrival, the crew discovers a sickbay that is completely empty save for a mysterious figure laying in a bed in the corner. The figure is revealed to be a Trellitine who has been infected with the same contagion that killed Porthos. Archer realizes that the Trellitines are not only in danger of extinction, but of being wiped out completely by their own disease.

With no other options, Archer decides to take the Trellitine back to the planet in an effort to save the species. He and his crew must face all manner of dangers and challenges in order to get the Trellitine back to its home planet. During their voyage, Archer also discovers the truth behind the mysterious energy signature, and it soon becomes clear that the Trellitines are not the only ones at risk of extinction.

Meanwhile, the medical staff on the Enterprise works tirelessly to cure the Trellitine infection and save the crew in the process. Back on the planet, Archer and the crew must face down the alien hunters, and ultimately discover a way to save the Trellitines from extinction and return the crew safely to the Enterprise.

A Night in Sickbay is an exciting episode of Star Trek: Enterprise that delves into the mysteries of the Trellitines, while exploring themes of loyalty, courage, and self-sacrifice. This episode is a thrilling adventure that will keep viewers engrossed from beginning to end.

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• Broken Aesop : The moral of the story, essentially, is that sometimes you need to apologize for things even when you don't believe that you did anything wrong, and even when you may have suffered more than the person you're being asked to apologize to. The problem is, while Archer obviously doesn't think he was wrong... he is. Objectively. Bringing an animal whose behavior he couldn't really control along for negotiations with a species who is well-known to be easily offended and put a special emphasis on tradition wasn't a good idea, thus, he loses any sympathy from the audience. Rather than them rooting for Archer before finally accepting the Hard Truth Aesop at the end, they find themselves siding with the Kreetassans and asking for Archer to just apologize for offending them.
• Fetish Retardant : The episode might try hard to play up the Fanservice and general sex appeal elements, but the fact that quite a few of these scenes involves Porthos in them (like Archer rubbing decontamination gel on Porthos during the decontamination scene, or Archer's nightmare about Porthos' funeral suddenly turning into a steamy wet dream about making out with T'Pol) makes them so jarring that it practically means the attempts are effectively dead on arrival.
• So Bad, It's Good : Zig-zagged. Most will agree that among even the dumbest episodes in the franchise, this one can't be defended because its very existence was declared a genuine mistake, written during a time when the showrunner himself was feverishly sick and unable to remember why he even wrote this story, when he should have slept off his sickness. Others find it hilarious that such an episode even managed to exist at all and watch it to comprehend just how delirious the writer was at the time and get an idea of the stresses in the writing businesses.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic : Archer calls out T'Pol (and to a lesser extent, Phlox) for not caring about Porthos because her species doesn't keep pets. Leaving aside the fact that this is a continuity error because it's been established previously that Vulcans do keep pets, most actual dog owners would probably agree without any hesitation that Archer spends the entire episode being an inconsiderate ass towards both the Kreetassans and his own crew, that Porthos' illness doesn't do anything to justify his behavior, and that T'Pol is entirely right to call him out over his Skewed Priorities .

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Published Apr 24, 2024

Stuck in a Loop: The Best of Star Trek's Time-Jumping Episodes

From The Next Generation to Discovery, going around and around is sometimes very revealing.

StarTrek.com

In the Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 episode, " Face the Strange ," Captain Burnham and Commander Rayner find themselves both stuck in a loop, but also, jumping all around the timeline of the titular starship. From the point before the U.S.S. Discovery was launched, to pivotal moments in Season 4, Season 3, Season 2 and even very early in Season 1, Rayner notes at one point that, "We’ve gone back in time to when you went forward to the future. That’s a little confusing."

Throughout all of Star Trek 's history, time travel has been just as propulsive to the narratives as space travel. But, within the various time travel stories of Trek , there is a special kind of time-skipping episode — the time loop story. Discovery has recently shaken-up this formula with "Face the Strange," but many elements of this episode pay homage to a proud Star Trek tradition. Here’s the history of the best time loop, and time-jumping episodes across the entire Final Frontier.

" Cause and Effect ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5, Episode 18)

"Cause and Effect"

Perhaps one of the greatest science fiction episodes of all time, The Next Generation set the gold-standard for how to do time loop episodes.

When the Enterprise collides with another starship in the first scene, this episode poses one question right off the bat: What happens after you blow up the ship — and everyone on it — before the credits roll? The answer is mostly connected to whether or not we can even remember when we're stuck in a loop. Without actually spoiling this classic episode, let's just say thank the stars for Dr. Crusher and Data.

The brilliance of "Cause and Effect" cannot be overstated, but the 21st Century legacy of this episode is utterly appropriate. When Geordi reveals how the time loop works, Riker says, "You mean we could have come into this room, sat at this table and had this conversation a dozen times already?" This scene has become a popular meme format across various social media platforms, satirizing the time loop of some aspects of the internet experience.

" Parallels ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7, Episode 11)

"Parallels"

Arguably, when Worf starts slipping between realities in "Parallels," the story is more focused on other dimensions, rather than a true time loop. But, each time he pops into a new reality, Worf does tend to reply to his own personal log, which is what began the episode.

Obviously, in each new timeline, Worf's personal log is different, and because he checks it so often in the episode, this gives "Parallels" the feeling of a time loop story, even though Worf is technically moving both forward in time, and also, side-to-side.

On top of all of this, "Parallels" feels time-loopy because so many ideas and plot points from previous seasons of The Next Generation are revisited here. From references to " The Best of Both Worlds ," to the return of Wesley Crusher, "Parallels" brings all the good things of TNG back around again for another look, from a different point of view.

" All Good Things... ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7, Episode 25)

"All Good Things..."

Speaking of the best of The Next Generation , the immortal series finale is, from a certain point of view, one big time loop. As Jean-Luc Picard shifts between past, present, and future, the biggest mystery of "All Good Things…" is what caused the anomaly in the Devron system? Eventually, we learn that the ending and the beginning of this story are inextricably connected, a paradox that creates a kind of loop that must be broken.

Twenty-nine years later, in the Star Trek: Picard episode, " Imposters ," Captain Liam Shaw references this moment, and notes that Picard and Riker have a "real chicken and egg thing going on." It doesn’t get any more time-loopy than that!

" Visionary ," Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Season 3, Episode 17)

"Visionary"

When O'Brien starts seeing another version of himself appearing randomly throughout the station, Dr. Bashir briefly floats the idea that he's just having really boring hallucinations. But, as the episode goes on, it becomes clear that O'Brien is actually seeing brief moments in the future, and then, catching up to those moments in the present.

"Visionary" messes with what we expect from a time loop episode, because in all instances of future occurrences, there are literally two O'Briens present, and, when the past O'Brien catches up to the future moment, the duplication effect happens again, creating a kind of visual loop for the audience. The funny thing is, in several instances, the future doesn't play out exactly the way past O'Brien saw the first time, making this one of the wobblier time loops in all of Star Trek .

" Relativity ," Star Trek: Voyager (Season 5, Episode 24)

"Relativity"

In a move very similar to Discovery 's "Face the Strange," this unforgettable episode of Voyager briefly takes us back to a point before the series even begins, showing us Janeway's first moments on Voyager before the ship left the Utopia Planitia Shipyards on Mars. (In "Face the Strange," Burnham and Rayner see Discovery in a drydock on Earth well before the events of Season 1.)

But, Voyager 's jaunt into its own prehistory is just the beginning of a very specific type of time jumping episode. Here, Seven of Nine isn't exactly repeating a loop, but, making several attempts at different times, to prevent a bomb from destroying Voyager . As Tuvok aptly puts it when encountering one version of Seven from the future, "Like many time paradoxes, it's improbable, but not necessarily illogical." Because this episode features multiple versions of Seven, and leaps to various eras of Voyager , it pairs very nicely with Burnham and Rayner's similar jumps in "Face the Strange." Especially the moment where Seven meets herself.

" Shattered ," Star Trek: Voyager (Season 7, Episode 11)

"Shattered"

Does Voyager have the best timey-wimey episodes in all of the Trek franchise? It's hard to say, but if there's another Trek episode that feels like an older sibling of Discovery 's "Face the Strange," it's almost certainly "Shattered," a fan-favorite episode from Voyager 's final season. Here, the captain and the first officer — Janeway and Chakotay — find themselves on a version of the ship that has been split into different time periods.

"Shattered" is one of Star Trek 's greatest retrospective episodes, touching on moments across all of Voyager 's story, and teaming past versions of characters with ones closer to the present. It's a touching story, and, structurally, it's wonderfully homaged in Discovery .

" Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad ," Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1, Episode 7)

"Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad"

One of Discovery 's stand-out moments from Season 1 fully set the stage for "Face the Strange" in Season 5. In "Magic to Make The Sanest Man Go Mad," Harry Mudd sets the ship on a true time loop, in which only Stamets can truly remember what is going on. Like in "Face the Strange," Stamets has a perception that exists outside of time, thanks to taking on the Tardigrade DNA in "Choose Your Pain."

This detail comes in handy in "Face the Strange," where Burnham and Stamets again have to re-team to get Discovery out of a time loop caused by nefarious enemies using time travel technology as a weapon. In Season 1, Burnham and Stamets barely knew each other, much like Burnham and Rayner's relationship in Season 5. But, if there's one thing a time loop or time-jumping episode can do, it’s make people who are just colleagues into best friends for life.

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Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.