Day 336: Enterprise, Doctor's Orders

Show: Star Trek; Enterprise

Episode Particulars: S3EP16, “Doctor’s Orders”

 Summary: The Enterprise has run into a snag on its way to Azati Prime. A new cluster of anomalies is forming, and the effects of going through it would be deadly to humans. Because it would take too long to go around the area, Phlox suggests putting all the humans into comas to protect their brains during the four days it will take to travel through the phenomenon, leaving him to look after them (as it looks like his brain won’t be affected like theirs will). Archer agrees to this, and soon Phlox has the run of the ship, with just Porthos, his animals, and T’Pol for company. And if you think this sounds like a prime time for something to not go according to plan…you’re absolutely right.

Standalone Thoughts: This episode’s a bit hit and miss for me. First off, it’s obvious from the teaser that the episode is going for a horror movie vibe (it’s even somewhat acknowledged by the episode itself), and as someone who doesn’t much like horror movies/tropes, that dampens my enjoyment of proceedings. Though to be fair, the episode isn’t actually scary, just using a lot of the classic elements, including a small jumpscare. Even so, it’s not my favorite kind of episode, and I can’t help but knock points off of it accordingly.

The other, larger issue is that it doesn’t take very long to figure out the direction the story is going, so some viewers (including me) may run into the issue of feeling impatient while they wait for the plot to catch up to what they’ve already figured out. That being said, it’s unfair to judge the episode on that unless the writers made it completely, blindingly obvious what they were up to, so if you just roll with the punches and instead focus on the little details scattered throughout, there’s still entertainment to be had. I can’t go into specifics because of spoilers, but I will say that the writers and actors did a great job of executing things so that you might miss it the first time around, but are easy to see when you know what you’re looking for. Is there a word for when something is subtle but completely obvious at the same time?

This is one of the two episodes I was thinking of when I said there were breaks in the Xindi arc, and despite the horror trappings, I do think it’s tone is light, or at least different, enough to give us a moment to breathe before we launch into a stretch where quite a lot happens. In that sense, I appreciate it being here. As an actual episode…let’s just put it somewhere in the middle and leave it at that.

How it Relates to the Whole: There are no direct followups to this episode (though the episode itself contains a few callbacks to prior incidents), though the early part of the episode made sure to establish that the ship is still on the way to Azati Prime, so we know the crew is still on track towards stopping the Xindi. I think that’s the best we’re going to get this time around.

Other: *After I’ve complained about using intertitles instead of flashbacks throughout Season Three, I should acknowledge when it’s done right. Since we open with most of the crew asleep, we obviously need an explanation on how we got to that point. Instead of doing the intertitle thing, Phlox dictates a letter to his colleague—the same colleague he was writing to in “Dear Doctor”—to explain the situation. He even adds that he’s using this alone time to catch up on his correspondence. Continuity nods and a plausible way to get the information out there…good work, writers.

*As you can see by my header, there’s a scene where Phlox goes to Sickbay and feeds his animals while completely naked. Sure, it’s amusing, but why does it happen? Some line in his letter about how he’s taking advantage of the situation to air out his skin or that sometimes he’s so focused on his duties that smaller things (like clothes) slip his mind might have actually made the situation funnier. As it stands, it’s amusing in the moment but falls apart if you think about it for too long.

Badass Malcolm Moment: We have another offscreen entry in this category, when we find out Malcolm taught Phlox how to increase power to the shields/hull plating “just in case”. Depending on how you look at it, this means that Malcolm helped save the ship despite being unconscious. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, to be sure, but it amuses me to think about anyway.