Day 293: Enterprise, Two Days and Two Nights

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S1EP24, “Two Days and Two Nights”

 Summary: The Enterprise finally makes it to Risa, though only a small handful of the crew are going to get to go down and visit it for forty-eight hours. Most of the senior staff wind up being part of the lucky few, and they all have different plans. Hoshi wants to learn the Risan language without the aid of a translator, Mayweather’s going to go rock climbing, Malcolm and Tucker are planning on picking up women, and Archer’s just going to rent a villa and relax. Even Phlox plans to take this time to do some hibernating, something required by Denobulans. But as so very often happens, especially on TV, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Standalone Thoughts: On the one hand, I hate the central conceit of this episode. On the other, if you took out the conceit, the episode would probably be incredibly boring, and it’s got enough dull patches as it is. It still manages to avoid dipping into truly “bad” territory, but it’s definitely not Enterprise’s strongest outing.

So about that conceit. Since I assume that this is supposed to be a comedy episode, the premise of the episode seems to be “everybody goes down to Risa to relax and ends up having a horrible time”. I’m pretty sure that’s a comedy staple, but it’s not a trope I particularly enjoy, so the episode’s already got one mark against it in my books. It does manage to avoid making everybody completely miserable (and thus doing the same to the audience/me), but that’s only because it’s actually fairly conflict-averse. Mayweather’s problems mostly happen offscreen, so we don’t actively see him suffering, Malcolm and Tucker’s issue is introduced and then, again, resolved offscreen, and Archer manages to get through most of the episode before things go wrong for him. That being said, his material contains those aforementioned dull patches and probably takes up the bulk of the episode (or is it just that it feels like that?), so I don’t necessarily count that as a good thing in this case.

And what about Hoshi? Well, that leads into a slightly different issue I have. Hoshi is the only one who doesn’t have something go wrong, which bugs me for two reasons. One, it feels like if you’re going to do this “awful vacation” trope, you might as well go all in. And two, it kind of highlights that Hoshi is dangerously close to being a Mary Sue.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “Isn’t there someone else on this show who could fit that bill? Someone you keep gushing about who does things like, say, invent the forcefield in five hours when Starfleet couldn’t do it in five years?” And you’re right. The thing is, and I’m pretty sure this is more than just my bias speaking, Malcolm doesn’t get the same sort of praise that Hoshi does. He invents the forcefield…and nobody tells him how impressive he is for doing it, or even compliments him on a job well done. On the other hand, we’re constantly given information that’s supposed to put Hoshi in a good light. She was second in her class at the Academy when it came to languages. Archer had to visit her personally to convince her to join the mission because he didn’t think anybody else would do. T’Pol holds her to a higher standard than everyone else because she thinks Hoshi is capable of great things. And in this episode, we find out she’s only been on Risa for a day and not only can she speak the language fairly well, but she barely has an accent. She gets all these accolades from the show, but what we actually see of her is a woman who’s good at her job, to be sure, but who really doesn’t have the temperament to be in space. “Tell don’t show” has never been more glaring than it is here, and it really starts to get under my skin after a while.

Getting back to the episode proper, even Malcolm can’t fully escape my ire. I know he’s supposed to be on vacation, but it feels like some sort of switch was flipped in his brain, because his personality got a lot more risqué before he even landed on Risa. We’ve definitely gotten hints that he’s got a naughty streak, but what we see here doesn’t fully gel with what we’ve seen in the previous twenty-three episodes. Would he really be capable of letting his walls down that much in that short a time span? Or am I underestimating the power of the male libido?

Even with these issues, the episode’s still more bland than anything. Other than an aside with Phlox which is at least humorous because John Billingsley goes for it with gusto, I’m mostly just left kind of shaking my head, neither wholly amused, bored, or irritated. I appreciate the effort they made to inject a serious note into the episode, but it came too little too late and probably shouldn’t have even been in the episode in the first place. In short, it’s not as bad as I remember it being…but it’s still not all that great.

How it Relates to the Whole: I don’t believe there’s any followup to this episode, but there are some callbacks to “Shuttlepod One”, “Acquisition”, and “Detained” (plus we get more detail on something that was mentioned back in “Dear Doctor”) so it’s definitely got a few connections. Still, if you wanted to skip this episode, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t.

Other: *This episode has not one, but two instances of the Cinemasins “Roll Credits” moment. I suppose it was inevitable given the setup, but that doesn’t make it any less eyebrow raising.

*I do wonder how another guest’s dog wound up on Archer’s balcony. I’m guessing it didn’t come in through his room, or he would have noticed. Are we supposed to assume, since it’s an alien dog, that it can climb walls?

*When asked if T’Pol’s ever been in an alien hospital, T’Pol replies “Yes, in San Francisco”, which I thought was actually a clever line that reminds Mayweather, and perhaps the audience, to keep things in perspective. It’s one of the bright spots in the episode, alongside Phlox’s antics.

*While having a conversation, Hoshi describes some fruit she’s eating as the equivalents of strawberries and kiwi fruit. The thing is, they blatantly are strawberries and kiwi fruit. Again, is it really that difficult to paint them different colors to at least try to make them look alien?

*I can’t help but find it slightly amusing that this episode was directed by Michael Dorn, aka Worf, given that Worf was involved in a mediocre Risa episode of his own. One wonders if that was his inspiration while filming this episode, and if so, why he thought that was a good idea.

Badass Malcolm Moment: Malcolm’s a bit out of his element (and as previously discussed, perhaps out of character) this episode, but I’ll give him this; he’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut during a dangerous situation, unlike Tucker, who starts trying to make quips. How did Tucker get promoted before Malcolm again?

(Actually, I think I might know the answer to that, but it’ll have to wait for the appropriate time.)

After The Fact Update: According to Memory Alpha, the crew was dealing with a limited end of season budget, so some things didn’t turn out as satisfactorily as they’d have liked. Apparently they were also trying to go for an intrigue plot with Archer, but it wound up being the “most tweaked” of the plots. As intimated above, it shows. This is also the last time we wind up seeing Crewman Cutler, because actress Kellie Waymire died of a heart condition sometime after this episode. Given that they seemed to be setting up a relationship between her and Phlox, this is a particularly sad case of wondering “What might have been”.