Warp Five 269: Now with Denobulan Nudity

ChrisWelcome, Boomers, to another episode of Warp Five, our dedicated Star Trek Enterprise podcast. I'm Christopher Jones, and with me, as he always is, is my esteemed co-host, Matthew Rushing. And Matthew, why am I seeing T'Pol standing next to you there?

MatthewOh, you can see her too?

ChrisYeah.

MatthewOh, man. I'm glad I'm not the only one then. Just moral support.

ChrisOh.

MatthewYeah, moral support.

ChrisYeah. I noticed that she kind of moves the same way you move.

MatthewReally? Huh. That's weird.

ChrisYeah. Yeah. Something seems a little off about her.

MatthewWell, we're really in sync these days. Yeah, we've been spending too much time together.

ChrisOh, it's that neuro pressure again, right?

MatthewSo that's really what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

ChrisYeah, okay.

MatthewYup.

ChrisAlright, everyone, we're going to continue our 20th anniversary rewatch of Enterprise today with episode 16 of season 3, "Doctor's Orders." And here's a quick rundown …

As the Enterprise makes its way to Azati Prime, it must pass through a region of space where a massive trans-dimensional disturbance will likely cause fatal brain damage to any conscious human. Doctor Phlox proposes to place the entire human crew in neuro-sedation for the four days it will take to cross the area at full impulse and volunteers to watch over his comatose crewmates with only Porthos—and what appears to be T'Pol—for company. As the anomaly begins to expand faster than expected and Phlox's grip on reality starts to slip, he must navigate an empty ship and overcome hallucinations before the crew suffers permanent neurological damage.

ChrisSo, Matthew, I'm not sure if I have anything to say today because I think I messed up. I prepared for us to discuss Voyager's episode called "One" and talk about Seven of Nine making her way through that nebula.

MatthewOh, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

ChrisDid I mess up?

MatthewNo, you didn't. The writers of Enterprise did because they, well, you see, they needed a filler episode. And so they basically just copied and pasted everything that we had done in that episode and just switched out Seven of Nine with Phlox and added some, you know, Denobulan nudity. And yes, so that, you know, that's that's that's really what happened in this episode. So, no, you you didn't miss anything. It was not you.

Look, let's be honest, Chris, there's not a lot to say about this episode, because if you have seen it originally, there isn't anything about this episode that really makes it worth the rewatch. And I think that is the thing that's kind of frustrating about it. You know, there are lots of episodes where, you know, gosh, I'd watch "Move Along Home" before I'd watch this again. I'd still watch this over "Profit and Lace," but that's not saying much,

ChrisThat's kind of … Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's not saying much. You're right.

MatthewBut, you know, I guess, I don't know. Not that we're just going to talk for like three minutes and we're going to be done, but I do think that that's a great question, because as we're rewatching this and we're thinking about the episodes, is there really anything in this episode that kind of is worth it if you are doing a rewatch? Or could you just really just skip this episode and go to the next and not feel like you're missing anything?

ChrisYeah. Well, you'd be missing John Billingsley's butt as he runs through the ship.

MatthewRight. That's true. That's not really a draw for me, personally, but I see, you know, it could be for somebody.

ChrisYeah, I mean, that was not part of "One." That's one difference between the two episodes. But yeah, I mean, that's the real question, right? It's not unusual for Star Trek to revisit concepts. We can find pairings from across 60 years of Star Trek where one episode feels very much like one that came before it from a different series. But this one is so on the nose to the point of like even the amount of time that it's going to take to traverse this region of space is four days. It's so much a copy of what was done on Voyager with "One" that, if you're going to do that, you really need to have a reason to do it and bring something really substantial to the table.

MatthewYeah.

ChrisAnd that's where I'm not sure that that really happens in this episode for me, because, you know, we talked last episode in "Harbinger" about clearing the deck in terms of relationships and character issues and things as we head into the final stretch of the story. And it made sense what they did in "Harbinger," with T'Pol in particular, and even with Reed and, of course, Trip and so forth. Here, we're focusing exclusively on Phlox. This is actually the first, and I think only, episode of Enterprise that has no guests at all. You know, it's just, it's just John Billingsley and T'Pol for the most part. Some CGI insectoids and things like that.

ChrisBut I don't know that delving into Phlox in this way at this point in the season was even necessary at all. It feels a bit more like, you'll remember, and he had some success even here, Scott Bakula was really pushing the studio to cut the number of episodes down, because traditionally, in the modern Star Trek series, the ones from TNG through to this point, you had 26 episodes per season. And they do that for the first couple of seasons. This one has 24. The last season has 22.

MatthewYeah. Yup.

ChrisThis feels like a case where, for both episode count and budget, they needed an episode. And so they did a full on bottle show where they just use the sets they have and you just have minimal characters in there.

MatthewYeah.

ChrisAnd you have a story that, like if this were a Next Generation story—and actually I want to compare something there—if this were a Next Generation story, this type of thing would be fine.

MatthewMm-hmm.

ChrisAnd it was fine on Voyager because with Seven of Nine, Seven was trying to learn to be a human after being a drone for so long.

MatthewRight. Exactly.

ChrisAnd so she was grappling with a responsibility that could be difficult for her. Whereas Phlox, I think, is fully capable of dealing with this himself. So they have to throw in this element of Denobulans and needing to be, you know, have community and be around people. And so kind of put that twist on it. And I just don't know that that's something that was really necessary for the character.

MatthewYeah.

ChrisI want to come back to a TNG thing in a minute, but go ahead and tell me what you think about that.

MatthewYeah, no, I think you're right in that. This is one of those places where we do learn some things about Denobulans and just their interactions, just really more about who they are.

ChrisMm-hmm.

MatthewWe kind of flesh that out a little bit. But that's all there is to this episode. And I think that's the thing that is really difficult about it. In it, you know, I think you made a great point and Scott Bakula was making a great point then. Guys, we don't need this many episodes.

And this is an episode—if you ever wanted to point to an episode and say absolute filler no need for this to exist, you could have saved all this money not even doing this episode and you could have poured it into something else—this is it, this is the type of episode, right? It just wasn't necessary.

And I would say too, specifically coming off "Harbinger," where we're dealing with some really important stuff, we can tell the season is beginning to ramp up and then you hit this episode and it is like you just slow way down for no good reason. I mean, at this point, you should be hitting the accelerator and I think this episode just does a disservice to the the season itself because this is not what you want at this point. You want to get to Azati Prime. So I think it's just really frustrating in that sense, and it's just not really an an episode that, you know, as I was watch rewatching and I'm like I kind of forgot how absolutely boring this episode is if you know the hook—and the hook isn't even hard to figure out.

ChrisWell, even if you don't know the hook, you're watching it the first time, if you've watched enough Star Trek or enough TV or movies, you can pretty much figure out that T'Pol's not really there. Right?

MatthewExactly. I mean, they're not subtle about it. And that's the other thing is that this episode isn't even written with the subtlety needed to make this conceit work. The other thing is that, in the end, nothing about this episode is doing what it needs to do to make it work.

ChrisYeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

MatthewThis is just a place where it's like, guys, it's okay to have 23 episodes.

ChrisYeah. Well, you can't have an odd number. So, but yeah, you know, I'm not, I'm not sure that they were ever really that concerned and about tricking us into thinking that somehow T'Pol was actually there helping him. I think it's more about psychologically what's going on with Phlox, but, you know, it would be more rewarding to watch it if you were led along longer about it.

MatthewMm-hmm.

ChrisYou said hit the accelerator. I was just picturing, you know, in Insurrection when Riker needs to fly the Enterprise and the little joystick pops up. I'm picturing like underneath Travis's console here, there's like an actual like a metal gas pedal pops up out of the floor when he needs to hit the accelerator.

MatthewYes! Oh yeah yeah yeah there you go 100% that's exactly what happened we just didn't actually see it.

ChrisAnd now thinking about Voyager, I bet Tom Paris probably actually made one of those for himself, right?

MatthewHa ha ha ha!

ChrisI said I wanted to mention a TNG thing. And it's just that when I think about this type of story where you've got a character who's alone, I always think of "Remember Me" with Beverly. And it's one of my favorite Next Generation episodes where she just increasingly, bit by bit, becomes the only person on the ship. And it's a different premise and all, but I just, you know, that kind of episode, it was so interesting and it has so much lasting power to it, enduring power to it, compared with this type of premise where you stick somebody by themselves like this.

MatthewYeah, agreed. Yep.

ChrisT'Pol's showing up all the time, though. Of all the people on the crew who Phlox could be hallucinating, why do you think it's T'Pol?

MatthewI mean, I think it's because, you know, she's the only other alien on board.

ChrisYeah.

MatthewAnd so, again, there, I do think that they're trying to make you think, oh, did I just miss something or, you know, is this really T'Pol? And I do think that, at the beginning, they are trying to do that. And so her being the one makes sense. Any other crew member, it wouldn't work.

ChrisMm-hmm.

MatthewAnd so I think in that sense, her as the choice is great. I think really it's the execution of the script across the board that just doesn't work.

ChrisYeah.

MatthewAnd it's a little bit frustrating. This almost, this really does feel as though they just ran out of time and they had to put on screen whatever they had. That's kind of what this episode feels like, which is incredibly sad to think that that might be the case because I can't … like, I want to think that there's more to it than that.

ChrisMm-hmm.

MatthewAnd what's weird is this episode is also directed by Roxanne Dawson. She had directed other Enterprise episodes at this point. And I think, just across the board, this is a lackluster episode that is incredibly forgettable. It's not bad in the sense of like there are bad episodes where you're just like you want to scrub your brain after having watched them kind of thing.

ChrisYeah, yeah.

MatthewThat's not this.

ChrisNo.

MatthewI think this is just bland, right? This is like, um, you know how they have frosted Mini-Wheats but then they have regular Mini-Wheats that aren't frosted? This is like unfrosted Mini-Wheats, and it's so bland you, it's dry even when you put milk on it. That's what this episode feels like.

ChrisOkay, yeah.

MatthewLook, this is not an episode where we're going to have a lot to talk about. So is there anything else that kind of sticks with you at all in this, this episode? Was there anything else in this rewatch where you're like, oh, that was kind of interesting, or oh, I didn't see that the first time? Was there anything like that for you?

ChrisWell, I mean there's the naked Phlox. That was kind of unexpected.

MatthewSounds like a weird band name.

ChrisDidn't see that the first time. There was no naked Seven of Nine running around in "One" on Voyager. Beverly didn't strip down in "Remember Me." So that was something I hadn't seen before.

And apparently, and this is interesting, too, apparently that was John Billingsley's idea to do that in the first place.

MatthewSee, that's not surprising. You know, having seen enough interviews with him, I'm like, that's, you know, that's not shocking.

ChrisIt actually is not surprising, is it? Yeah, that's actually not shocking.

And you mentioned that Roxanne Dawson directed the episode. And it reminds me that "Extinction" was directed by LeVar Burton. So sometimes you have great directors who end up with subpar episodes because the material that they're being given is not really supporting their directorial skills.

MatthewThere's a game, Chris, that we used to play as as kids. It was called Pay Day. It was a board game and it's a calendar month on the board.

ChrisOh, I remember that game.

MatthewYou go around the board through the game and collect bills and paydays and all this stuff. Basically, the game was teaching kids what it's like to be an adult.

One of the bills was from a middle-aged health club. And on the bill, it said $200 or something like that. And we did the best we could with what we had to work with. That feels like this episode. And yet, I don't even know if they did the best they could with what they had to work with. It was like, and this is not to be mean. I'm not degrading Billingsley or Jolene Blalock or anyone. But it's like everybody phoned this episode in, you know?

ChrisYeah. Well, okay. Well, hold on, though. I mean, you say they phoned it in. I think, you know, I was joking at the very beginning of the show that T'Pol was moving like you. And the reason I brought that up was actually that it seems Jolene Blalock mimics John Billingsley's movements as Phlox when she is the hallucinated T'Pol, which I think, creatively, is a really clever thing for her to do as an actress to show—not that we needed help—but to show that it's not really T'Pol.

MatthewYeah, I also feel like she was having just a lot of fun in this episode not having to be her emotionally controlled self, so you know there is that aspect to the episode as well.

ChrisYeah. Yeah. So I'll just go into my final thoughts then, which is just going back to the question of why is it T'Pol who he's hallucinating? So, you know, what you described is from a writing standpoint, it makes total sense why they would choose T'Pol because she's the only one they can choose, right? If the humans have to be unconscious while they're going through this trans-dimensional area of space, this disturbance, then obviously it can't be any of them or you would immediately wonder what's going on.

MatthewRight, yeah.

ChrisYou can have the idea that, well, you know, Vulcans are immune to this area, but you can't really play that card without any justification about why they would be immune.

MatthewYeah.

ChrisAnd, but if you're going to have somebody, then it has to be her, right? My question was more about why would Phlox hallucinate her? Because he, from an in-universe perspective, he could hallucinate anybody. I suppose that as a doctor, he knows it can't be any of the humans.

MatthewRight. Right.

ChrisBut I think the bigger reason is the one that you said, which is that she's the other alien on the ship, because they have this relationship over the course of the series that they're the two outsiders, you know. They eat together, they talk to each other, sort of outside of everything else that's going on. So yeah, I think that made sense.

MatthewMm-hmm. Yeah, Mm-hmm, and she's the rational one on the ship and so, I mean, if if she's there, it's almost like I think his subconscious is trying to create the rationality needed while he's losing it. And of course, you know she's not really there. And so she's not really that much help, even though she does know a lot of the things that need to be done …

ChrisBut she can't do them. Yeah, yeah.

Matthew… but she just can't do them herself, exactly. So there's that aspect to it as well. I think that that's why she's chosen as the character.

ChrisYeah. Alright. Well, I'm going to give this episode two missing pairs of underwear.

MatthewMm, nice.

ChrisHow about you?

MatthewI think there's only one rating for this episode, and it's a pair of cheeks.

ChrisA pair of cheeks? So is that a two or a one, because they go together.

MatthewYeah, yeah, that's for the listeners to decide, Chris. I'd love for people to hit me up in the Babel Conference. Of course, they can find me all over social media and, yeah, let me know what you think that means.

ChrisAlright. So, yeah, let us know, everyone. As Matthew mentioned, maybe the best place to do that is in the Babel Conference on Facebook. It's our listeners group. It's there to continue the conversations beyond the podcasts. So if you're joining for the first time, please do answer the questions and agree to the rules of the forum so that I can let you in. You'll find a post there on the timeline for this episode, and you can share your thoughts with Matthew and me and fellow listeners right there.

You can also send us email. Go to our website: trek.fm/contact. Use the form you find there, choose to send to a show, and choose Warp Five, and that will come to us.

And you can find us in social media. Our username everywhere is trekfm. And if your podcast app of choice allows you to leave a rating and a review, we would love to get that from you as well.

Now, Matthew, when you're not navigating your own trans-dimensional disturbances with a hallucinated sidekick, where can people find you?

MatthewAll over social media, as I was mentioning earlier, mattrushing02 is the name to look for. Of course here on the network in The 602 Club talking about all the franchises outside of Star Trek we love, then over on The Nerd Party network I have a couple of shows. One is completed called Owl Post about every single chapter of the Harry Potter series, and then you can find me on Aggressive Negotiations with John Mills as we're talking about Star Wars each and every week.

And Chris when you're not hallucinating Vulcans standing next to you, where can people find you?

ChrisThat happens to me a lot. And, uh, and people look at me weird when I do it. But when I'm not doing that, you can find me elsewhere on the network, of course doing all those shows with you. You can catch Larry Nemecek and me on The Ready Room. You can also find me in the back catalog across many, many shows from the past 15 years if you'd like to hear my thoughts on a wide range of Star Trek topics.

And you can find me on social media. My username everywhere is cbryanjones, the letter C and Bryan with a Y. Bluesky is where I'm most active, but you can find me everywhere, so I'd love to hear from you there.

And if you'd like to help us keep this rewatch and everything else that we're doing on the network going, we could definitely use your help. To find out how to support the network, how to get involved, please visit patreon.com/trekfm. We would not be here without your help, so thank you to everyone who is supporting us now.

Well, Matthew, I hope you're not creeped out by like unhatched insect eggs and things like that, because we're probably going to run into some next time when we talk about "Hatchery."

MatthewWell, Chris, I guess that means I need to bring a big can of Raid. So let's go!