Common complaints to first season episodes are that they are boring, that they copy ideas/aliens from earlier “Star Trek” productions (and they represent the Vulcans very badly), and that they present the future as a sexist, heterosexual male patriarchy. “Enterprise” may look glitzy, but it seems sadly lacking in the creative ideas department. (Hire some science fiction writers, people!)
That same episode fails the second criteria as well: when humans meet aliens, and when they plant “one small step” on an alien world, they show absolutely no sense of wonder or awe – they are a Universe away from explorers Armstrong and Aldrin.
Another first season episode, “Silent Enemy” fails the third criteria of credibility: while the ship is under attack from aliens who appear to have escaped from an episode of “X-Files”, one crewman’s preoccupation is attempting to find out whether another crewman’s favourite food is pineapple.
A recent first-season episode of this series, “Dear Doctor”, however, seems to fail all three criteria – and gives us an episode that is both scientifically and morally incorrect.
The first few minutes detail the alien Doctor Phlox’s efforts to exclaim – repeatedly! – that humans are full of compassion for each other and for “lesser species”. The rest of the episode then demonstrates the reverse.
The real story starts about nine minutes into the episode. A humanoid race is dying of a plague, and the Enterprise is willing to offer help. The good doctor is given the responsibility of saving fifty million sentient beings, and of preventing the extinction of their whole race.
During this medical emergency, Enterprise crew members become entangled in a couple of moral complications: whether or not to give the aliens warp drive technology so that they can seek their own cure; and whether those same aliens are exploiting or befriending another humanoid race on their own planet.
The ending of the episode provides a twist that is designed to make viewers ponder the invention of the Prime Directive – a ruling to not interfere in the natural development of a people or a planet. This ending breaks every one of the abovementioned criteria for good science fiction:
Poor Science: the doctor speaks of evolution as a scientific fact, and then proceeds to demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of the process of evolution. He presents evolution from a creationist viewpoint: that it is somehow guided and directed and it will always turn out for the best. The doctor considers the extinction of a whole race as inevitable – even desirable – from an evolutionary viewpoint, and he actively wishes to withhold the cure which he has developed. He ignores the point (put to him by Captain Archer) that evolution is actually an ongoing, interactive, random process, and that doctors contribute to the evolutionary process every time they save a life or prescribe a pill.
Indeed, planetary evolution in this episode could have quite consistently allowed for the doctor to save the aliens, and for the planet’s two species to intermarry over subsequent generations – thereby eliminating any concerns over exploitation of “primitive” races or any threat of genetic “deformity” in the future.
Poor Humanity: Captain Archer argues with the doctor about his Hippocratic Oath, demanding that the doctor provides the cure to save fifty million people. In the very next scene, the captain inexplicably changes his mind and agrees to allow genocide by withholding both the medical cure and warp drive technology. This is the same morality which allowed the western world to look away when massacres were taking place in East Timor (1999) or Rwanda (1994).
Worse, the doctor's terminology throughout the whole episode (he speaks of "lesser species" and "primitives") is a worry. Indeed, the whole episode revolves around his summary judgement regarding the unworthiness of a race for continued survival, and he proclaims how proud he is of the captain for allowing the race to face extinction. Viewers may wonder whether Phlox is a closet member of the Nazi Party or Ku Klux Klan.
Such careless production values may also explain why, nearly forty years into the franchise, "Star Trek" is yet to include a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersex or "queer" continuing character. Perhaps we belong to these "lesser species"?
Lacking in Believability: Doctor Phlox and the folk of the “Enterprise” are presumably professional and the best in their field. They are in the middle of a medical disaster which has the potential for planetary genocide. Why then, is Dr. Phlox so preoccupied with a pending romance in his private life? Isn’t he professional enough to tell his partner that she will have to wait for 48 hours while he saves a world? Or, if his own professional ethics should fail in this area, aren’t Captain Archer and the command crew professional enough to demand this of their doctor?
Furthermore, Captain Archer alludes to the Prime Directive, which is not yet written. He decides that until such any such set of rules is in place, he will not “play God” – but then he does exactly that – plays God – by genociding a whole race. We would suggest that Archer’s humanitarian attitude for most of the episode should have led to his proclamation that until the Prime Directive was written, he would always err on the side of compassion.
Such an alternative ending would have made Archer a humanitarian instead of an agent of ethnic cleansing, and would have stopped us from thinking of Dr Phlox as an intergalactic Dr. Mengele.
Internal Discontinuity: Prime Directive or Prime Cop Out?
The Prime Directive itself has been questionably interpreted since the days of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". This episode of "Enterprise" continues this practice.
The original "Star Trek" series was created in the 1960s - during the days of the civil rights era - hence its focus on racial and sexual equality for all heterosexual men and women. The inclusion in the crew of alien Mr. Spock, Asian Lt Sulu, Russian Mr. Chekov and African Lt. Uhura, supported the American civil rights movement and gently condemned the Cold War.
Gay and lesbian crew members, however, were left out of the series - but "Star Trek" fan fiction in the 1970s filled this void, following the original series' message of universal equality. So-called 'slash' fiction identified Kirk and Spock as friends, brothers and lovers. It was the runaway success of such fan fiction which arguably saved the franchise - a commercial lesson which Paramount has now ignored for thirty years.
The episode, "Dear Doctor", however, calls for characters to practise ethnic cleansing in the name of this same Prime Directive. Viewers should ask themselves whether they would wish to belong to such a Federation.
"Dear Doctor" may have been an attempt to make viewers question those very same implications from the Prime Directive - and if so, the episode failed. The heroes of this episode clearly and unambiguously made a decision to directly cause the deaths of millions of people. Is this a television series we wish to support?
One is forced to conclude that if a real-life doctor ever discovers the cure for AIDS, they should seek guidance from someone with more wisdom and compassion than those who claim to speak for the hopes of humanity in this episode.
"Enterprise" - bad science, bad fiction. For healthy, entertaining, thought-provoking science fiction, try watching "Farscape" - or go read a book.