Enterprise Flashback: The Breach

On paper, Phlox was one of Enterprise's goofier characters. Yet the series often found a way to put him at the heart of a real moral dilemma. It did so again with "The Breach."

When the new government of the planet Xantoras orders all off-worlders expelled, the Enterprise has a limited time to locate three Denobulan scientists and evacuate them. But they're deep inside an underground cave system, so Mayweather, Reed, and Trip must go caving themselves to locate them. Meanwhile, Enterprise comes to the aid of a transport ship, bringing an Antaran to Phlox's Sickbay. The Antarans have a dark history with Denobulans, and so this one refuses life-saving treatment from a sworn enemy.

Star Trek has been shooting scenes in fake caves since the very beginning -- and usually, not very convincingly. Here, the show takes on a task of next-level difficulty to present extended climbing sequences complete with rock slides and other dangers. And it's asking too much, really. CG of the time isn't up to what it's being asked to show here: the shots of a giant rock fall, and of a Denobulan "Spider-manning" up a cliff wall, look super goofy. The props and costumes are ridiculous; there's no reason you'd go caving not with a headlamp, but rather a lamp on a big stick above your shoulder. (And the "sample containers" are clearly just Tupperware from the local store.)

However, under the direction of Robert Duncan McNeill, the cave sequences actually come off far more credibly than you'd expect. He's smart enough to get lots of footage -- and the right kind of footage -- to be able to do a lot in the editing suite. Particularly effective is the moment where Travis breaks his leg; the right editing (and a horrible sound effect) really sell the moment.

But the real meat of the episode is the parable on racism, using the Denobulans and Antarans. The Next Generation did a memorable version of this type of story, in which Worf refuses to donate blood to help a Romulan. Still, this episode stands well apart from that one, thanks to the intriguing way it uses Phlox.

Things are interesting early on, when we learn that the Denobulan version of the Hippocratic oath is to foremost respect the will of the patient. But then we go deeper when we learn that among Phlox's many children, one has embraced all the racist propaganda about Antarans -- despite Phlox's own efforts to model better behavior. The two haven't even spoken in a decade. So this situation has very personal stakes for Phlox, who essentially needs to save this patient because he cannot save his own son. And the writing is smart enough not to articulate this so directly.

The writing is even smarter to not tie everything up in an easy bow by the end of the episode. The Antaran allows himself to be treated, and has evolved by the end of the episode. But it's not by leaps and bounds. He's willing to be on the same ship as Denobulans... and that's a realistic win, a gradual relaxing of generational racist dogma. The final letter we hear Phlox record for his son is the perfect way to end the story, reaching out to try again to get through to his wayward son.

And as a bonus... this entire episode is facilitated by events that feel very topical watching the episode today: it's all because a new, virulently xenophobic government has decided to expel foreigners from its borders. Sit with that a minute.

Other observations:

• The teaser for this episode is pretty bad, a real slide whistle of a scene about Phlox feeding his tribble, so he can in turn feed it to some other critter. Not only does it condition the audience to expect a lighter, comedic episode rather than the one we get, it depicts Phlox as being quite cavalier about life and death, in a way that actively undermines the story to come.

• We've established before that Mayweather has rock climbing experience, and it's nice to see the show remember that and make use of it here. And yet... how the hell did he gain rock climbing experience growing up on a cargo freighter making delivery runs between distant stars?

• Even I know rappelling down a cliff is a lot faster and easier than climbing up. So the idea that they're going to split their three-day time limit exactly in half before turning around to come back? It seems completely bonkers. (No wonder they return late.)

The Phlox story here is really quite good. And Robert Duncan McNeill clearly demonstrates that he knew how to go about directing this episode's demanding caving sequences. But with the extremely limited time and budget he was working with, there's only so much he could accomplish -- and those limitations did take me out of the episode at times. Overall, I give "The Breach" a B+.