Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x03 - "Temporal Edict"

Quite right. I think that Lower Decks is a wonderful reminder that these characters are not gods among mortals, and are quite fallible and capable of error. Hence why TOS Kirk and Kelvin Kirk and more contemporary Trek appeals to me.

 

Good catch! Those few scenes, IIRC, were extremely blink-and-you-miss-it short, which is likely why I missed them.

 

Took part in a plot to kill a Romulan Senator and poisoned a colony world. Janeway busted the whole fucking timeline to save one person. Archer stole and murdered on his way to the Xindi homeworld.

 

Science vs. Medical

 

And left a sapient race to die out in the name of "evolution."

 

Not sure if I hang that on Archer or not, honestly. Phlox was giving him some pretty bad advice.

 

Lt. Reginald Barclay: "Hold my Synthohol..."

 

Fair point, but still a terrible decision. How about terrible misconduct with T'Pol and taking his dog to a negotiation?

 

Plenty of bad leaders out there, but there are plenty of poor workers who do the minimum to get by. Every group of humanity has bad apples.

 

I don't remember the misconduct, poor choice to take his dog until he had an understanding of the culture he was dealing with. For all he knew, they could've seen Porthos as anything from a delicacy to a god.

 

Constant sexually inappropriate comments? Maybe misconduct is the wrong word, but given that he knows this species is easily offended taking his dog is the worst kind of diplomatic decision for a trained diplomat that Archer supposedly is.

 

I love ENT and like Archer but the "Dear Doctor" incident with the cure was not his shining moment by a longshot. However I can appreciate what the creators were trying to do by giving us a foreshadowing of the Prime Directive being enacted in the coming years and even though the episode makes Archer look like a pretty terrible dick(Phlox being little better and in many ways worse) it at least went out of its way to give us a Prime Directive story before the Prime Directive even existed.

Archer came to the wrong decision but at least a crew in this era actually wrestled and terribly with the prospect of intervening in the evolution of a sentient species, rightly or wrongly. It should have happened at least once in the prequel series but it's a shame it made Archer look like a complete douche on such a planetary level.

 

It has been a while since I've seen the show, but I really don't remember those.

 

Those would all be bad examples to their respective crews who will eventually take over. Far more damaging than Freeman pushing her crew for a bit because she got in the doldrums.

 

Ok, I used hyperbole and it wasn't constant (damn my sarcasm) but there was what wonderful "sexual tension" thread and Archer was doing the "breast" he can under the circumstances.

And people call lower decks silly...

I mean, Sisko pretty much badgered his crew in to firing on the Maquis planets, Kirk was a complete dick to Decker, and Janeway formally reprimanded Harry for something she herself did earlier in their voyage.

 

I like such episodes (Tuvix is another one, or Latent Image) because they don't have a simple good-or-bad way out.

Didn't he also ask for a lips of things (instead of list)? XD

 

Yeah, "Dear Doctor(ENT)" gives us something we rarely got to see in post-TNG Trek. The Prime Directive not only being debated but vociferously argued with the potential lives of billions at stake. It made Archer look bad but at least it made the audience think and debate the episode.

 

"Dear Doctor" did have a simple good way out. Save the Valakians. What happens to the Menk in a decade when a thriving civilization just ups and dies?

 

It's a workplace comedy. Boss who "overworks" the staff only to having it blow up in their face is a staple of the genre. In a drama you get Chain of Command and Edward Jellico. (not the blow up part, I guess)