A Night in Sickbay (Enterprise episode)

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Star Trek: Enterprise episode
"A Night in Sickbay"
Captain Archer has an uncomfortable night tending to Porthos A Night in Sickbay
Episode no.	30
Prod. code	205
Airdate	October 16, 2002
Writer(s)	Rick Berman Brannon Braga
Director	David Straiton
Guest star(s)	Vaughn Armstrong
Year	2152
Stardate	unknown
Episode chronology
Previous	"Dead Stop"
Next	"Marauders"

"A Night in Sickbay" is the title of the 30^th episode (production #205) of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise which originally aired on October 16, 2002 in the United States.

1 Plot summary
2 Analysis
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A light-weight, dramedy episode, "A Night in Sickbay" saw Captain Jonathan Archer dealing with a race of grouchy, officious aliens who are insulted when his dog, Porthos relieves himself on a sacred tree. A secondary subplot sees Archer and Dr. Phlox tending to Porthos after the dog contracts a potentially deadly virus on the planet, and Archer is so consumed with worry he ends up spending the night in sick bay to look after his sick pet. A tertiary subplot has Archer dealing with unbidden (and naughty) sexual dreams about his first officer, T'Pol. Through it all Archer struggles to reach an emotional understanding with Phlox and T'Pol, as the two aliens have little grasp of just how important pets are to humans and Phlox keeps offering Archer unwanted advice about dealing with his new feelings for T'Pol. T'Pol also keeps urging Archer to apologize to the aliens for Porthos' behavior, but Archer refuses to do so because he blames them for Porthos becoming sick.

{Spoiler warning}

In the end, Porthos survives, Archer puts his feelings for T'Pol aside, with T'Pol none the wiser that he'd been so smitten with her, and Archer apologizes to the aliens.

[edit] Analysis

This relatively low-key episode, intended to be a mix of comedy and drama that would showcase the normally stalwart Captain Archer's more vulnerable side as he frets over his ailing pet and suffers unwanted sexual fantasies about one of his crewmembers (T'Pol, his first officer), received mixed reaction; while some fans enjoyed the unusual episode, others held it up as a prime example of the problems they saw in the series, including using sex for ratings instead of using a mature plot. ^[1]. It was nominated for a Hugo Award, received the highest number of viewers in season 2 (6.2 million according to TrekToday^[2]) and was cited by cast members as one of their favorite episodes.