My Review- 'Dear Doctor'

WARNING! 'DEAR DOCTOR' IF I READ THE FOLLOWING I MAY START TO SUFFER FROM SPOILERS-ITIS.

ENT is in a position no other Trek show has been in before- it is set before the Prime Directive was formed. According to one TOS episode the Prime Directive wont exist until after 2168. This puts in the extra-ordinary position of giving us episodes like this one which show why the Directive was formed. Oh, ENT's done done a fair share of directive based dabbling already, both in 'Terra Nova' and 'Civilisation' but this is the first ep to go for it head on. There has not been an episode since TNG's 'Who Watches the Watchers' (which I was very pleased to catch a re-run of on Saturday) that has made me shout "The Prime Directive is a good thing." Often Starfleet Captains seem to ignore it, Kirk and Janeway did a lot, despite the latter's major protection of it on some occasions. This is the only thing I dislike about Janeway, her constant contradictions over the Prime Directive. The Directive has been broken so many times now that certain members of the fanbase and people involved in the creation of Trek have begun calling it 'the Prime Suggestion'. 'Who watches the Watchers' first aired more than 10 years ago at a time when I was aged 5 so it was good to see this issue brought up.

STORYLINE  

Whether you like it or not Phlox is the 'discoverer of humanity' person on ENT. Like Data, Odo and Seven of Nine before him, and to a lesser extent Worf, Spock and the Doctor, Phlox is finding out what it means to be human. It is not surprising therefore that parts of the episode reminded me of Data eps. The voice over done by Phlox is very 'Data's Day' and was excellently done, if done badly narration can tell you too much and talk down to you. For examples watch the original cut of 'Blade Runner' and TNG's 'suspicions' which had Beverley doing a voice over. I found it very annoying at one particular point when Beverley told us her patient, Jo Bril's, condition on the voice over, and then Picard walked in, asked how Jo Bril was and Beverley told him THE EXACT SAME THING. But Im getting off-track. Here the voice-over is done well and reaps the benefits, when voice-overs are done well we get to see the characters in a new light, not how we see them, but how the character doing the narration sees them and we get inside Phlox's head and get a new understanding of Phlox. Very well done for that. The second Data ep this reminded me of is 'In Theory' where Data experimented with dating. Phlox came of better in this episode romantically then Data did because Data seemed very naive and innocent about it, Data went and asked the entire senior staff about dating (yielding what I think are some of the funniest lines in Trek history) and followed all of it. Phlox on the other hand is a fully mature adult with a full range of emotions and his own culture. Here his only worry is whether or not his culture and Crewman Cutler's (who it was nice to see brought back after 'Strange New World') would mesh and it was excellently done.

Of course the thrust of the episode is the moral debate over the Menk and the Valakians. Im with Phlox on this- I find it amazing that two humanoid species on the same planet hadn't driven one or the other to absolute extinction, and this is both addressed and thought about in a good way. Phlox's scene with Archer is the mess hall is excellent, early signs in 'Broken Bow' and 'Fight or Flight' showed that Phlox may turn out to be this perpetually happy person, which after a time would probably get a little annoying. Of course in 'Strange New World' we had a fantastic scene with Billingsley where Phlox is both quiet, sober and generally disturbed and it is that Phlox we see in the mess hall and throughout the episode. Had this debate been done with the other crews it probably would of gone something like this:

TOS: Spock wants to leave them, McCoy wants to stay and help, Kirk has to mediate between the two but would probably go with McCoy in the end.

TNG: Picard would invoke the Prime Directive and want to get the hell outta there, Bev, being the Prime Directive ignoring woman she is would want to stay behind and help them. She often took the Hippocratic Oath to extremes.

DS9: Hard to say, with DS9 it's hard to compare as there was little of this type of moral debate.

VOY: This would most likely mirror TNG, although with Janeway's back and forth approach to the directive it's hard to say.

ENT is different. Here there is no Prime Directive, and Archer so wants to help that as Phlox puts it "He is blinded by his compassion" and he has to look at the larger issues. There is no directive but Phlox does not believe we can interfere in natural evolution, very true. As Phlox himself says I am very pleased an alien force didn't come and give the Neanderthals a boost. It's an excellent debate, and one Trek's not had in years, nay a decade. Id really like to see more of this.

THE SHIP  

Nothing to put here, nothing, nowt, zip, zero, nuttin'.

THE CHARACTERS  

John Billingsley acts with his usual excellence (I think he's turning into the Leonard Nimoy, or Patrick Stewart or Colm Meaney of ENT) and the chemistry between him and Kellie Waymire (who plays Crewman Cutler) is really genuine giving a far better performance romantically on screen than most Trek romance eps. Phlox is typically excellent.

Sato was used well this week too. She was Phlox's confidant and friend (a position we've seen her in before, I also liked the fact they gave advise in Denobulan- nice touch) she indirectly discovers the Menk, works translation with both the Menk and Valakians, and generally both Linda Park and Sato were up to the job.

Nice to see Cutler back again after 'Strange New World'. With rumours she'll appear in the penultimate episode of the season I cant help wondering if she's going to become a recurring character. So far ENT already has a few (Silik, 'Future Guy', it looks like Shran and Tholos from 'The Andorian Incident' will return in a couple of weeks) and Im left wondering if ENT will eventually evolve a DS9 style army of recurring stars (who had Garak, Damar, Dukat, Weyoun, the Female Founder the list is endless)

STAR TREK NOTES.  

The Ferengi get a name check, resulting in a quick cringe as 1,000 DS9 'wacky Ferengi' episodes flashed before my eyes.

If you want something to complain about try the science, it is very hard to believe a non-adaptive genetic trait could sweep so ruggedly through a population. Although for me, truly bad science was never a reason to dislike an episode. Of course, evolutionary biologists might complain but I ain't one of those and it's my review :p .

Excellent scene with Porthos near the start. Jeeze, Porthos and his cheese. Hey that rhymes.

Rating (out of 10): Oh go on then. 10/10. First 10 of the series. Let us hope it is not the last.