If
you ever liked Star Trek, and you're not watching Enterprise,
you're making a big mistake. Not only a great Trek
series, Enterprise provides some of the best television
produced today.
And this
week was no exception. A Night in Sickbay was billed
as Captain Archer dealing with the sexual tension between
him and first officer hottie T'Pol. But there was far more
going on than just Vulcan lust.
Nothing
more than a footnote from an episode in the first season inspired
the backdrop for this episode. Vox Sola dealt with
an alien who drained the crew's life away with a giant symbiotic
web in the shuttle bay. The Enterprise was infested with the
web by an alien species named Kreetassans, who had very strict
cultural rules. The Captain's actions at the dinner table
offended the Kreetassan diplomats. Well, specifically the
action of eating. In their culture eating is an intimate activity,
equal to mating. On Kreetassia, McDonald's is kind of like
a whorehouse. Which kind of brings a whole new meaning to
"I'd like to supersize that.".
It took
about 4 sentences to sum up their culture, and that's about
as much attention as they got in Vox Sola. All the
Kreetassans were was an obstacle to be conquered so the crew
could retrieve the cure for the Vox Sola. Just for fun, the
aliens returned this week to add stress to Captain Archer's
night.
At just
this moment in the show, 50,000 fanboys lost consciousness.
Most of
the action, and stress, took place in sickbay (because its
not called A Night in T'Pol's McDonald's PlayLand-
much to the dismay of many 15 year old boys). While visiting
the Kreetassan home world, Captain Archer's pet beagle contracted
a pathogen. Feeling lonely in his pet-free quarters, Archer
bunks with his comatose pup. But as anyone who has ever tried
to spend the night in a hospital knows, sleeping is not possible.
Though Archer didn't have one of those fashionable backdoor
gowns, he was trying to sleep in an alien hospital, which
is part infirmary, part zoo and all freak show.
But with
all the additional plot lines, the one that we care about
the most is the sexual tension. (Stories about dogs dying
went out with Old Yeller.) No doubt Archer has some
sort of attraction to T'Pol. Every episode we get a glimpse
of her Vulcan abs (which are not pointed). It's kind of like
Kirk, who always seemed to lose his shirt in a fight. But
T'Pol is hotter for sure. For sure.
The surprising
thing is that at the end of the episode T'Pol leaves the audience,
and Captain Archer's eyebrows, raised, thinking, "Wait
- does she have a thing for Archer?"
Really,
this isn't surprising. We all want them to hook up. No, that's
not true - all the men want to hook up with T'Pol individually,
but if that can't happen it seems logical that it should fall
to Archer.
But wait
- what about the sexual tension felt between her and Trip?
We've seen them rub each other down in sickbay. Hmmmm.
The truth
is: It doesn't matter. Anything to talk about sex and T'Pol.
But they're doing it well. Just like the amazing special effects
of the original Star Wars. All of the huge ships and
space chase scenes were needed to tell the story; there were
no CGI amphibian people in the film JUST BECAUSE. And the
sexual tension - while having special effects - is used to
tell a pretty entertaining story.
Next week
we already get a rerun. For some reason they're re-broadcasting
the season premiere. But the night before Halloween we go
back to fighting the Klingons. Last year on Halloween we met
the Andorians. Now many fans are torn. Should we be Andorians
or Klingons? Which one would T'Pol be more likely to rub down
in sickbay?
