Star Trek Ent - Season 1 - Episode 25
Star Trek Ent - 1x25 - Two Days and Two Nights
Originally Aired: 2002-5-12
Synopsis:
Shore leave takes some interesting twists when the Enterprise crew finally arrives at Risa, the famous pleasure planet. [DVD]
Problems
- In TOS: Amok Time, the Vulcan Pon Farr was regarded as something no non Vulcan may ever know of. But everyone on Enterprise seems to know about it. It's been mentioned in several episodes. They even joke about it in this one. It can be forgiven in TNG, DS9, and Voyager episodes because the events of TOS: Amok Time would be fairly well known by then, thanks to Kirk. So, if the Pon Farr is common knowledge in Enterprise, why is it the secret no one may ever know of in TOS?
Factoids
- Dr. Phlox usually hibernates six days per year, but two is enough.
- Hoshi learned 38 languages before she left Earth. She knows about 40 now.
- Earth is 90 light years from Risa. This is the farthest any human has ever traveled, according to Archer.
Remarkable Scenes
- Tucker: "Malcolm and I plan to uh... broaden our cultural horizons." Hoshi: "Is that all you two think about?"
- Keyla: "You should always listen to your science officer." Archer: "She'd be the first to agree with you."
- Hoshi speaking in Risian.
- Keyla: "I wouldn't be surprised if they're naming schools after you back on your world." Archer: "Archer Elementary. Has a nice ring to it!"
- Tucker: "I saved the captain's life." Alien women: "I thought you were the captain." Tucker, pointing to Reed: "We rotate. He's captain next week."
- Travis: "Have you ever been to an alien hospital?" T'Pol: "Yes. In San Francisco."
- Cutler waking up Phlox.
- A disoriented Phlox trying perhaps not so successfully to treat Mayweather.
- Archer discovering that Keyla was actually a Tandaran spy. (The race from Ent: Detained)
- Phlox very quickly falling back asleep after having treated Travis.
- The awkward conversation at the end.
My Review
So the crew of the Enterprise finally gets a chance to experience Risa. Aside from featuring very nice continuity, the episode is filled with irony. Trip and Reed go looking for women and find themselves mugged. Archer goes looking for a woman and finds himself interrogated and drugged. And Hoshi, the only person not looking for a companion, (she even expressed disgust at the entire idea...) ends up finding one and having a great time. It's also kind of funny how Mayweather should suddenly need expert medical attention from Phlox right as Phlox decides he needs to hibernate. In fact, Phlox' very brief scenes in this episode were probably the best parts. In the end, there's a scene with Archer, Trip, Reed, and Hoshi all in a shuttlepod together having an awkward conversation about the "good time" they had. Archer, Trip, and Reed are covering for their naivety, while Hoshi is covering for her arrogance. None of them spent the time as they expected to. ;)
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
If the "Worst of Trek" award were mine to give out, this would be a candidate. Just when I'm starting to warm up to Enterprise, there's just so much to hate on here:
--We finally get to see Risa and it looks like a bad Miami Vice outtake?
--Did anybody not see Tripp and Malcolm's mugging coming from the moment those two chicks started talking to them?
--You know, I just don't buy this learning a language in a day or two thing. Even if someone has a natural talent for languages and an intuitive grasp of syntax and whatnot, there's still the matter of vocabulary. There's no way to intuitively know what arbitrary sounds correspond with meanings, object names, etc. That said, I still generally like how Enterprise handles the UT problem.
--I generally like Phlox as a character (he's sort of like a less annoying Neelix) but the humor here was forced.
--The melodramatic music in this episode is terrible, most notably in Archer's scenes with the blonde Tandaran woman. Maybe he gets better as the series moves along, but I still think one of the biggest weaknesses of Enterprise is Scott Bakula's Archer. I think the character is written pretty broadly and acted woodenly.
--Okay, so I get that one of the unwritten rules of the Trek universe (actually explained nicely in the TNG episode that deals with genetic "seeding") is that life evolves in remarkably similar ways on different planets, hence humanoids, plants, insects, etc. tend to evolve in parallel ways. But the Tandaran woman has a dog, an actual dog? The fact that they cast it as a Chinese hairless to make it seem more alien makes it worse. And it's embarrassingly bad when Hoshi says "we don't have anything exactly like this, but it tastes like....kiwi" when she's eating a f*cking kiwi."
The only thing that saves this from a zero for me is nod to continuity with the Tandaran spy and the fact that we finally get to see Risa after so many episodes of buildup.