ENT Rewatch Starlog, 18 March, 2024: Episode 3.16 “Doctor’s Orders”
Phlox and Porthos walk through an apparently empty NX-01, stopping to visit Captain Archer who lies asleep with a device on his forehead.
Flash back to a few days before and there is an area of spatial anomaly brought on by the spheres between them and Azati Prime. It would add a lot of time to go around, and if they go through damage the human minds. Phlox suggests that he would not be affected. He’ll put all the human crew into a mental stasis while Enterprise crosses the area of space.
At first, Phlox is having a fine time, getting caught up on writing to friends, playing with Porthos, occasionally feeding his pets in the nude. But while watching a film, he hears something moving.
Tracking it through the ship he ends up in the shuttlebay, and indeed finds T’Pol—also not sedated—who doesn’t know what he’s hearing. The incidents get worse, and Phlox sees Xindi insectoids on board. T’Pol finds nothing, and suspects Phlox is having some sort of breakdown, possibly based on loneliness considering how social Denobulans are. He insists on checking the ship with a phase pistol, and upon almost blasting Porthos, begins to realize that maybe she is correct. He scans and finds that in fact there is a non-lethal, but potentially hallucinogenic effect in his brain.
He prepares to put himself under and leave T’Pol in charge since they will be through the region of space in six hours, but she begins to panic, also suffering from the anomaly. Worse, the area has expanded faster than anticipated, and though Tucker said they shouldn’t, the ship will have to warp to escape. Phlox and T’Pol bumble through with her seemingly useless.
They do escape however, and once free, Phlox’s mind is restored. He wakes up Archer, and before going on to the crew escorts T’Pol to her quarters. There he finds the Vulcan sedated; the T’Pol he has been talking to has also been a hallucination.
A fun episode that makes you feel like it’s falling into the helpless T’Pol trope, but is saved in the reveal that she couldn’t help because she isn’t real. It does turn out to be a nice exploration of Phlox’s character and a good way to do a bottle show while still getting the overall arc to move along. I do wonder though is Phlox hallucinates almost shooting Porthos; the Beagle forgives him pretty quickly.
Nice callbacks as well to the earlier episode “Dear Doctor” with Phlox’s friend Dr. Lucas getting a letter. We’ll of course get to meet the good doctor in Season 4 during the Augments story arc.
Also a fun line when Phlox suspects he’s hearing things because the week prior, Trip showed him “The Exorcist.”
Next Voyage: Archer has to determine whether all his eggs go in one basket after Enterprise finds a Xindi Insectoid “Hatchery.”
(Images taken from the main website for @trekcore; I am happy to remove the images if asked.)
