by Miss Sunbeam

Like it's all about the Phlox-ster! Man, the doc

takes over this ep like the groundcover he's

named after! Just one little tiny glimpse of OMT

at the beginning while the rest of the time is

filled with boring Significant Moral Plotting!

Say it ain't so!!!

Okay, see, there's this race of aliens who all

look rather like the actor Bruce Davison and

they're zooming through space looking for a cure

to this disease they've got. Well, they board

the Enterprise and Jon and them go down to visit

the Bruce-Davison-lookalikes' hospital and start

to feel all sorry and pitying and so on, and Jon

wants to develop a cure for them.

Dr. Phlox does some research, and it looks like

the secret to the cure might lie in a nearby

humanoid species (who are NOT the Bruce-Davisons)

who are called the Mink. The Mink are the overly

*rural* inhabits of Planet-Bruce-Davison, who are

so primitive their language isn't even

translated, so worthless they can't support

themselves. The Bruce-Davisons have to provide

them with, you know, all their moonshine and

Skoal snuff and King Pig brand lard and so forth.

To which the Mink say "Teek teek" (apparently

their hillbilly way of saying "thank you.")

After our gang go back to the Enterprise to mull

over all this plot, Jon decides to put on his

tightest pants (which is saying something for

Bakula) and lounge provocatively around the

lunchroom. (I just know he's waiting for Trip to

get some, um, pecan pie.) However, instead of

Trip, Dr. Phlox waltzes in, and he and Jon begin

to argy-bargy about saving the Bruce-Davisons.

Turns out the Bruce-Davisons are all dying and,

evolutionarily speaking, it's the Minks' turn to

thrive.

Jon's appalled! "We must save the

Bruce-Davison-lookalike race!"

"Au contraire," says Phlox-y, "we cannot stand in

the way of evolution."

"But . . . but!" says Jon.

"Captain Archer, if someone had stepped in and

saved the Neanderthal instead of letting them

become extinct, your momma would have looked like

Leonid Breshnev!"

And the next thing we know Jon's telling the

Bruce-Davisons "tough shoeboxes" while Phlox

hands out placebos and the Bruce-Davisons are

saying "teek teek you so very much" and Phlox

says "teek teek you buddy" and they shuttle on

outa there.

The only Trip scene is when Doc Phlox goes to the

movies with Ensign Cutler and they're showing

some Ingrid-Bergman-Gary-Cooper Paramount classic

and Phlox looks over in the dark at Trip and Trip

is sobbing his wee hot heart out! (NO doubt

mentally substituting Jon's face for Gary's and

his own for Ingrid's.)

So, let's see, I give this one 20 points for the

truly cute Trip scene, 20 point for Jon's hot

trousers, 20 points just because it's Enterprise,

and, ah, 12 points for an amusing Hoshi/Phlox

linguistics scene. That's 72 - yep, that's about

right, C- for a nearly Trip-less ep. Boo!

Ingrid Bergman gets more screen time in this

episode than Connor!