A Night in Sickbay

I confess, I really like this goofy episode. I read over all of the reviews here, and, in many ways, the reviewers managed to point out aspects of this odd little episode that fly in the face of what Trek is all about -- duty, responsibility, open-mindedness to alien civilizations, etc.

Obviously, why Archer chooses to bring his dog to the planet is a head scratcher. He explains that even Porthos deserves a little fresh air sometimes, but, given the importance of the visit -- to acquire some much needed hardware for the ship -- it is ill-conceive to risk offending the natives of this planet who we know to be a sensitive lot based on the last time the crew of Enterprise met them.

Nevertheless, I think the other reviewers are being a little bit slavish in their commitment to "Trek-canonical continuity", or whatever you want to call it, and would be well disposed to suspend their religious-like devotion to the tenets of Starfleet, and enjoy the goofiness of this very good-natured episode.

From the suggestion that Archer subconsciously lusts after SubCommander T'Pol -- and his amusing Freudian slips in support thereof -- to the sappy-but-compelling story of a grown man's genuine affection for his quadraped, and, well, the "heart" of this episode defeats the logic of it, handily.

If you are willing to enjoy it as an intergalactic drawing room comedy, and not an "affront" to all that is sacred Trek-wise**, it's an amusing and, at times, touching episode.

** As much as I love Trek in all its incarnations, I certainly do not share the absurd conviction of those humourless drones who seem to view the show as sacred text, and Gene Roddenberry as their saint. If every episode involved a serious inquiry into the manifold issues of intergalactic travel, the prime directive, and the philosophical implications of exploring the galaxy...well, then the various series would be crushed under their own self-important weight, and the concepts themselves would implode, pulling the entire series into a dull, lifeless black hole of preachy sanctimony. The series needs -- nay, demands episodes like this one, if for no other reason than to remind the viewers that, particularly in the early years of warp-speed space exploration, mistakes and folly were as much a part of the growth process as revelation and enlightenment.

In short to the naysayers: lighten up. It's just a television show.

This episode sucks.

Over the past few years I have watched all episodes of "Next Generation" and "Voyager" and am now watching "Enterprise".

I am thoroughly enjoying this series. Until this episode. I stared at the screen in horror at the destruction of character and entertainment. It is more like an attempt at slapstick.

It does not build the characters but throws them out on a limb - and leaves the audience gasping. It does little to build the series.

Why this was ever allowed to go to air amazes me. Was it the writing? Was it the directing? Was it the producer? We'll probably never know.

But one bad apple isn't bad I suppose. I say that hoping it is only one.

Porthos becomes gravely ill and Archer accompanies him during a night in sickbay.

I found two things I liked in this episode. Firstly, I admire the willingness to try something different that let the writers depart from the usual Trek formulas. Secondly, I appreciated the parts that deal with Porthos' treatment. That unfortunately is where it ends for me with this one.

We open with one of those scenes in the decontamination chamber where physically fit actors and actresses are almost naked under a mood light and asked to wash each other whilst chatting.

Things then get worse as Archer spends the remainder of the episode either ranting about the Kreetassans or indulging Dr Phlox in his psychological analysis of his captain and sub-commander's repressed sexual desires. It is all broken up by a series of physical "comedy" sketches where Phlox clips his toenails, scrapes fluid off his tongue and with Archer's help attempts to catch his escaped bat.

In the same vein as Malcolm Reed, Harry Kim and others, the writers succeed in humiliating a main character, in this case the central one. It carries on from one scene to the next and gives us nothing but badly written dialogue unsuited to Scott Bakula's personality.

We have a pointless dream sequence that translates things that Phlox said in an earlier scene into visual imagery. For me this is just repetition and serves no purpose. I think it would have been better to have cut the previous dialogue and just show this instead. In fact cut all the dialogue about Archer and T'Pol and do it all visually in little moments throughout the series rather than make an issue out of it in the one episode.

The scene with Archer cutting the log would have been good if the episode had been approached differently. Here he has to take one for the team and humiliate himself to obtain the required tech from the Kreetassans. If the writers had given him a level of dignity to begin with it would be funny to see him lose it, but unfortunately by this time he is already like the clown who is about to have the final cream pie shoved in his face.

This was a fun episode for me. It never tries to take itself too seriously.

I got a kick out of how Archer showed love and concern for his dog Porthos.

It was also fun to watch the tension between Archer and TPaul.

I've enjoyed his juvenile attitude towards the race he offended twice now.

If you're looking for some huge story arc or space battles or something that has to do with an anomaly this is not an episode for you.

... and not a captain. This is a completely out of character and complete nonsense story that you should just skip.

One of the weaker entries of Enterprise for sure.