Phlox and Archer's actions in Dear Doctor

[The Overlord]

This may have been discussed before, but what you do think of Phlox and Archer's actions in Dear Doctor? I think Archer and Phlox come off as not very heroic, in fact they seem somewhat villainous in this episode.

Phlox and Archer do nothing, while a race of people dies from a plague, they could cure it, but choose not to because of reasoning based on eugenics. This seems like the behavior more suitable for a villain then a hero. It would be like a movie where some bureaucrat and a scientist in the West developed a cure for a plague affecting an African country, but decide not to give it to this country and justify this through eugenics. Then the movie expects us to sympathize with this bureaucrat and scientist.

 

[sonak]

This has been discussed MANY times, and yes they basically let a species die because of racist pseudoscientific reasons.

Trek writes don't understand evolution.

Another example of the monstrousness of the PD as well even though this was technically before the PD.


A true Star Trek low.


I've never re-watched this episode and don't plan to either.

 

[Mach5]

A true Star Trek low.

True. And the worst thing is, I've heard many fans praise it for "dealing with outstanding moral dilemmas in best Trek tradition" and stuff...

Atrocious.

 

[Phily B]

one of the many episodes of enterprise that sealed the deal on the show being dead in the water. isn't that around the time the ratings started dropping like a rock?

 

[Skywalker]

No, that was after "A Night in Sickbay."

 

[Mach5]

No, that was after "A Night in Sickbay."

Yeah, ANiS caused a frakking freefall.

And the saddest thing is that the ratings were actually steadily rising up until that point.

 

[The Overlord]

This has been discussed MANY times, and yes they basically let a species die because of racist pseudoscientific reasons.

Trek writes don't understand evolution.

Another example of the monstrousness of the PD as well even though this was technically before the PD.


A true Star Trek low.


I've never re-watched this episode and don't plan to either.

I suppose we should happy there wasn't a scene where Phlox and Archer spend a video of themselves mixing the cure with champaign and then drinking it, to the Valakians.

I do think this topic is serious enough to merit a lot of discussion. Phlox and Archer come off as rather callous and psychopathic in this episode. The logic they use to justify not giving the cure to the Valakians seems similar to the ideas you would find in Nazi Germany: "One race is holding another race back and that race needs to be destroyed for the other race to thrive." This may be one of the most villainous things a Star Fleet captain has done and he was supposed to be the hero.

What were they thinking with this script?

 

[Mach5]

"One race is holding another race back and that race needs to be destroyed for the other race to thrive."

Stand by for mandatory "Archer didn't kill anyone, he just refused to interfere with teh natural selexsh0n!"

It's kinda disappointing to see how many people don't realise that refusing to aid a man in mortal peril is the same as killing him yourself. The choice that Phlox and Archer made was not only severely unethical, it was also appallingly immoral.

 

[The Overlord]

"One race is holding another race back and that race needs to be destroyed for the other race to thrive."

Stand by for mandatory "Archer didn't kill anyone, he just refused to interfere with teh natural selexsh0n!"

It's kinda disappointing to see how many people don't realise that refusing to aid a man in mortal peril is the same as killing him yourself. The choice that Phlox and Archer made was not only severely unethical, it was also appallingly immoral.

I don't think Archer and Phlox are guilty of committing genocide, they didn't create the disease so they aren't actively responsible for it. They did nothing and as Edmund Burke said "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

Archer and Phlox are comparable to the politicians in the West who made excuses to do nothing while the genocide in Rwanda was occurring. However Phlox and Archer are worse, because them giving the cure to Valakians would have taken a lot less effort then stopping the genocide in Rwanda and then they have the gall to think their inaction makes them morally superior to others. Its a screwed up script when the "heroes" allow a great tragedy to occur and then justify their inaction with the same eugenics pseudo science the Nazis used to justify their actions. Phlox and Archer may not have actively committed genocide, but they did is immoral.

 

[Skywalker]

Simply deciding not to help the Valakians to give the Menk a chance to evolve was bad enough, but what makes it even worse is that Phlox had the cure and he refused to give it to them. That's a serious breach of medical ethics, and I don't think any real doctor would ever do what he did.

 

[sonak]

Simply deciding not to help the Valakians to give the Menk a chance to evolve was bad enough, but what makes it even worse is that Phlox had the cure and he refused to give it to them. That's a serious breach of medical ethics, and I don't think any real doctor would ever do what he did.

yeah, this was what put it over the top in its horror. It's one thing if Phlox had refused to start looking for a cure, but he actually FOUND THE CURE and didn't give it to a dying race!


Phlox was like a guy with a big jug full of water standing there, staring at someone dying of thirst and just shaking his head.


If Phlox had these views on race and eugenics he shouldn't have gone into being a doctor in the first place.

 

[Lucky]

It was a good episode up until the end. I didn't agree with the decisions they made, and it made me dislike both characters for a while. This is even worse than Janeway's decision in Tuvix.

 

[The Badger]

Another example of the monstrousness of the PD as well even though this was technically before the PD.

We even get a line to that effect from Archer near the end. "Someday, there may be a directive to get us to act like douchebags. Until that day comes, we must resolve to act like douchebags on our own."

OK, I paraphrase.

Someone once wrote that from the time of TNG onwards, a lot of Star Trek writers hated the restrictions of the Prime Directive, and quite deliberately set out to portray it in the worst possible light. Whether this was based on inside knowledge or was pure speculation I don't know, but it certainly explains a lot.

 

[Broccoli]

I kinda liked the episode, and that the ending was played with the characters making this decision and not liking it. And I liked the idea Enterprise presented (though didn't do enough of, imo) that the heroes were not super squeaky clean, made mistakes, and poor decisions as they were trying to learn what it means to be space-faring.

 

[Skywalker]

Choosing to let millions of people die on the off chance that some other people might develop intelligence in a few thousand years has nothing to do with what it means to travel through space. That excuse is especially poor, since the idea came from a man who was very familiar with space travel and interacting with other species.

 

[sonak]

I kinda liked the episode, and that the ending was played with the characters making this decision and not liking it. And I liked the idea Enterprise presented (though didn't do enough of, imo) that the heroes were not super squeaky clean, made mistakes, and poor decisions as they were trying to learn what it means to be space-faring.

I don't understand that point of view at all. This wasn't an actual dilemma that might have shown something interesting about the characters, this was just horrible writing from someone who obviously understands NOTHING about evolution or ethics.

there's no dilemma here. Phlox's reasoning is utter garbage, that's it.

 

[sonak]

Another example of the monstrousness of the PD as well even though this was technically before the PD.

We even get a line to that effect from Archer near the end. "Someday, there may be a directive to get us to act like douchebags. Until that day comes, we must resolve to act like douchebags on our own."

OK, I paraphrase.

Someone once wrote that from the time of TNG onwards, a lot of Star Trek writers hated the restrictions of the Prime Directive, and quite deliberately set out to portray it in the worst possible light. Whether this was based on inside knowledge or was pure speculation I don't know, but it certainly explains a lot.

I've never heard that before, but it makes a lot of sense and explains a lot about the PD episodes from TNG onwards.

 

[The Overlord]

I kinda liked the episode, and that the ending was played with the characters making this decision and not liking it. And I liked the idea Enterprise presented (though didn't do enough of, imo) that the heroes were not super squeaky clean, made mistakes, and poor decisions as they were trying to learn what it means to be space-faring.

I don't understand that point of view at all. This wasn't an actual dilemma that might have shown something interesting about the characters, this was just horrible writing from someone who obviously understands NOTHING about evolution or ethics.

there's no dilemma here. Phlox's reasoning is utter garbage, that's it.

Yeah there is no real dilemma here. Some moral choices are hard and some moral choices are easy and this was an extremely easy moral choice. It makes you loose faith in characters when are wrong on such simple moral choices. You wonder if Phlox and Archer's sense of right and wrong is messed up. Giving them the cure would have prevented billions of people from dying. I don't see how this assumed "evolutionary leap" for the Menk can justify Valakian children dying the streets because of this disease.

This episode would have to be changed to work as a moral dilemma if both the Menk and the Valakians had the disease and for some reason beyond their control, they can only cure one or the other. That is a hard choice and making that could have made for a heart wrenching episode, with Phlox and Archer being racked by guilt that couldn't save everyone. That would be a way better episode then Phlox using Nazi like eugenics pseudo science to justify not giving the Valakians the cure.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Another example of the monstrousness of the PD as well even though this was technically before the PD.

We even get a line to that effect from Archer near the end. "Someday, there may be a directive to get us to act like douchebags. Until that day comes, we must resolve to act like douchebags on our own."

OK, I paraphrase.

Someone once wrote that from the time of TNG onwards, a lot of Star Trek writers hated the restrictions of the Prime Directive, and quite deliberately set out to portray it in the worst possible light. Whether this was based on inside knowledge or was pure speculation I don't know, but it certainly explains a lot.

I've never heard that before, but it makes a lot of sense and explains a lot about the PD episodes from TNG onwards.

Meh I always liked the TOS PD more becuase it seemed then that the major rule was don't interfere with pre-warp cultures unless you have a good reason, such as they will all die, or kill you, or kill somebody unless you do something.

 

[Broccoli]

Choosing to let millions of people die on the off chance that some other people might develop intelligence in a few thousand years has nothing to do with what it means to travel through space. That excuse is especially poor, since the idea came from a man who was very familiar with space travel and interacting with other species.

I guess I meant "space-faring" in terms of "Star Trek space-faring" (where the ships encounter aliens and problems on a weekly basis). In the other series, this stuff is old hat. They would encounter a problem like this and would resolve the issue where everyone wins out. "Dear Doctor" didn't and had the characters make a controversial and potentially wrong decision. At least, that is what I took away from the episode.