When Enterprise comes upon a massive anomaly, directly on the route to the Xindi weapon, they cannot afford the lengthy detour to fly around. Instead, a plan is hatched to put the crew in stasis, protecting them from the effects of the anomaly. Phlox, less susceptible, will tend to both the sleeping crew and the ship. But is he up to the challenge?
Many Star Trek series have lifted story ideas from earlier installments of the franchise. When you start with a new cast of characters, then remix enough of the details, you can end up with an episode that feels different even when the inspiration is clear. But to me, this is not an example of that. "Doctor's Orders" feels quite directly inspired by Voyager's "One," which put Seven of Nine in the same position. And instead of making different choices to suit the characters of Enterprise, this episode almost methodically makes all the same choices of that previous script.
First, Enterprise doesn't take the bold risk of actually depicting Phlox on his own -- which would have immediately differentiated this episode from Voyager, where Seven of Nine had the Doctor. Phlox has T'Pol as a partner and sounding board. And while T'Pol's erratic behavior is likely to make you deduce way before the reveal that she's (uh, SPOILER) actually a figment of Phlox's imagination, enough of the episode functions as a "two-person play" that it's hard for this story to step out from the shadow of the Voyager version.
That reveal itself is also stolen from the Voyager take on the concept. Seven of Nine eventually imagined a villain -- threatening the ship and her personally -- who wasn't actually there, making Phlox's imagined T'Pol even less of a surprise to savvy Trekkers. And Enterprise doesn't get much mileage out of that twist here. Jolene Blalock gets to cut loose, portraying an increasingly unmoored and emotional version of T'Pol, but we never really scratch beneath the surface of what she represents in Phlox's psyche, or even have Phlox reckon with just how far he'd slipped once he realizes he imagined her.
I think fundamentally, the issue here is that Seven of Nine is just a far more interesting character to put in this situation than Phlox; her history in the Borg collective makes her especially susceptible to the pressures of being alone. Sure, Phlox has always been portrayed as a gregarious extrovert... but isolating him is hardly the same. And I think without that clear direction for the story, the writers don't quite know what they want to do. They try a few suspense-thriller moments of strange noises in the ship... but then Phlox never finds anything and the tension never really builds. They try comedy, with Phlox walking around naked (Austin Powers style) and then being able to a watch a movie without his incessant talking ruining anyone else's experience... but this isn't a naturally funny situation, and so the comedy runs out quickly.
But Enterprise does have one major thing on its side: John Billingsley. In a show that consistently has shown little interest in developing characters outside of Archer, T'Pol, and Trip, Billingsley has consistently delivered performances as Phlox that make you take notice. If you're going to do this story on Enterprise and put one actor front-and-center, Billingsley is the only choice. Even as the episode as a whole doesn't always work for me, his choices in each moment really make each scene shine. (And Jolene Blalock has certainly grown as an actor since season one. Before we reach truly "wild T'Pol" at the end of the story, she gives several more subtle moments that I think would have been beyond her during season one.)
Other observations:
- This feels like the weak version of the "XX hours earlier" trope, manufacturing tension by showing us an empty ship before flashing back to show us how they got there. (The story doesn't move fast enough to build interest if it showed events chronologically.)
- I'm not sure who the foot fetishist is among the Star Trek writers of the time, but first they gave us a closeup of Neelix's gross feet, and here they do the same for Phlox.
- Possibly adding to the whole "Voyager did this first" of it all is the fact that Roxann Dawson (who played B'Elanna on that show) directs this episode.
So here's my twist ending: I'm going to give "Doctor's Orders" a B. Yes, it's an uninspired retread, but still... it isn't tedious to watch. I guess this is how much esteem I have for John Billingsley, that I'm basically willing to watch the same episode twice to see what he does with it. Though I feel like if this episode had been about anyone else, it might have been a low point for the season.
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