Hatchery

[Silverbullet]

Did Phlox fail in his capacity as the chief medical officer on enterprise by not relieving Archer of his command when it was obvious that Archer was not able to command as he was intent on the Hatchery and the surviving eggs.

Phlox should have relieved Archer for the goood of Enterprise the mutiny could have been avoided that way.


Phlox would have had a problem as T'Pol was not an officer but a civilian on board and Trip was the second highest Ranking officer on board Enterprise He as the next in the chain of command. This disregards the fact that T'Pol was supposedly the first Officer (illegaly)

SB

[Cogito]

Yes, he did.

Everyone on board and everyone back at Starfleet HQ should have been alarmed to find that the second, third and fourth in command plus the CMO agreed that Archer was unfit for command, and they still failed to do anything effective about it within regulations. Despite the fact that there was apparently a regulation covering this specific situation which would have enabled them to remove him. It seems to me this should have been a wakeup call that there was something severely wrong with Enterprise's command structure.

What was wrong, or course, was that the command structure was being depicted by people who had no idea how a command structure actually worked.

Realism broke down imo when Trip and Phlox backed down in the shuttle bay, instead of insisting that Archer undergo an evaluation. An evaluation which surely would have confirmed that Archer had been suborned. Is it conceivable that the MACO with Archer, who was quite correctly following his CO's orders, would have fired on them when they acted within Starfleet regulations? I don't believe so. By abandoning that legal route and staging their little mutiny, they put the whole ship and crew at risk. The MACOs were entirely correct to stand with Archer since the mutineers were acting illegally. The mutiny could easily have failed and blown the whole mission. How was that ever logical?

[Silverbullet]

Phlox as CMO should have stood his ground and relieved ARcher until the evaluation has been completed. If the evaluaton revealed that archer was competent then he would be reinstated. If the evaluation confirmed that Archer was not capable of command then he would be relieved until he rcovered. that was the duty of PHlox which he failed to do.

The MUtiny while illegal became the only route that the Enterprise could be restored to Starfleet personell who were competento to run it and it forced Archer to undergo the evaluation. Phlox found what was wrong with Archer and corrrected it. so the mutiny was successful.

SB

[Alelou]

We saw Phlox and Trip try to relieve Archer, but he threatened to put them out of commission too. As long as the MACOs kept obeying Archer, I don't see what Phlox sticking to his guns would have done other than get him confined to sickbay and Trip confined to his quarters, thus losing their opportunity to try again.

You certainly are back and stirring the pot, SB! It's nice to see some lively activity from non-spammers around here.

[Cogito]

We saw Phlox and Trip try to relieve Archer, but he threatened to put them out of commission too. As long as the MACOs kept obeying Archer, I don't see what Phlox sticking to his guns would have done other than get him confined to sickbay and Trip confined to his quarters, thus losing their opportunity to try again.

The MACOs were right to obey Archer's orders as long as they were legal. But there was a regulation which gave Phlox the authority and duty to relieve Archer of command if he was unfit. To invoke that, he had to order Archer to have a medical evaluation. Phlox's order to do that would have been completely legal and proper and I don't see that Archer had any legal grounds to refuse. By failing to give Archer that order, Phlox gave up the legal route and left the command staff resorting to a mutiny. Which meant that the MACOs were duty bound to oppose them. If he had taken the legal route, the MACOs would have been duty bound to support them. Phlox's actions neatly gave us an excuse for the mutiny but made no logical sense.

[Alelou]

Well, yeah, maybe, in real life on a real ship with real regulations and trained crew and all that. But the way they wrote and played that, the MACOs weren't going to pay attention to this regulation they'd probably never heard of. They would have shut them both up and then maybe gone and hit the database to see what he was talking about, and by then it would have been too late.

Anyway, can you imagine how BORING a trajectory that episode would have had if Archer just said okay, Phlox pulled him off duty, it was all figured out, and there was no need for a mutiny? Mutinies are dramatic. In this episode the stakes were high! The conflict was intense! JB got to wear a real uniform! The reason for it all was kind of cool scifi! I say thumbs up to Hatchery.

[Rigil Kent]

You forgot "T'Pol got to use the nerve pinch!"

"Hatchery" is one of my guilty favorites. Yeah, its got holes, but since this is Trek, we should be accustomed to plot holes.

[Cogito]

I read an amusing bit of fanfic once which was set in a reality where Archer managed to take himself out of the picture and T'Pol was captain. As far as I remember, the away team had environmental protection suits on per T'Pol's orders so the spray had no effect; the whole episode was reduced to a byline and they went on to have some other adventure. I'm convinced that you don't have to have the crew act like idiots in order for them to have interesting adventures.

[putaro]

I'm convinced that you don't have to have the crew act like idiots in order for them to have interesting adventures.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!

[WarpGirl]

Okay confession time there are 2 episodes where I actually like Archer... Hatchery is one of them. The truth is it's a guilty pleasure of mine as well, I get a lot of Steven Culp, T'Pol got to use the VNP, and for me I just laugh really hard at it.

That said Cogito is absolutely 1,000,000,000% correct. And it's the reason why I'm not a raving fan of the series as a whole.

[Rigil Kent]

I'm convinced that you don't have to have the crew act like idiots in order for them to have interesting adventures.

Sadly, you can probably count the number of shows (regardless of genre) that obeys this rule on one hand. Which is probably why I've, for the most part, written off television entirely these days. Anymore, I use my big screen for X-Box time, to watch contact sports, old episodes of "Top Gear" and the occasional show that I feel doesn't suck (right now, that's exactly one: "Justified.")

And now I know the reason we never see a "TV" in the Trek-verse...

[WarpGirl]

I'm glad I'm not that far gone yet. If I was with my cerebral palsy I'd be even more bored than usual.

[Weeble]

You all miss the important part of "Hatchery".
When Archer threatens T'Pol and Trip with confinement, her reaction has always led me to believe that there was perhaps more going on between TnT than the writers chose to be obvious about.

True shippers should notice these things, or perhaps i am merely delusional....

[Rigil Kent]

You all miss the important part of "Hatchery".

Hey, I always get a chuckle at the final sickbay scene and how T'Pol gives Trip a glance and he automatically falls into step behind her when they leave. Or how Trip kinda-sorta raises an eyebrow when he's talking to Archer at the end.

[lfvoy]

Realism broke down imo when Trip and Phlox backed down in the shuttle bay, instead of insisting that Archer undergo an evaluation. An evaluation which surely would have confirmed that Archer had been suborned. Is it conceivable that the MACO with Archer, who was quite correctly following his CO's orders, would have fired on them when they acted within Starfleet regulations? I don't believe so.

I'm curious as to why you feel this way, Cogito. In my mind, the reason the episode is somewhat related to believable is because I think the MACO would have fired had Phlox and Trip attempted to press the issue. In other words, I saw the back-down as a strategic retreat (and they certainly didn't give up, after all).

Regulations are only as effective as their enforcement mechanisms.