First! Again!

Well, I guess they had to regress eventually, but at least we didn't get served up with anything like "Exile" or "Precious Cargo" (shudder). While not quite up to the quality of its predecessors, I thought this was a decent episode.

Three things I liked about this episode:
3) Porthos! Yay, Porthos!
2) Continuity! Yay, Continuity! Well, in this case, I'm rather glad that the creators took what could have been a throwaway line from (I think) "Vanishing Point" and had T'Pol spout it back to Phlox here... but if it is from that ep then it was only in Hoshi's head to begin with... hmmmm...
1) The creators did a pretty good job lacing the episode with hints that T'Pol was a hallucination as well. There's the line about Hoshi (assuming that it was said at a point outside of Hoshi's own hallucinations). T'Pol also didn't eat during the galley scene, and she never actually manipulated any controls in Engineering. Good job avoiding the nits.

Three things I didn't like:
3) Someone needs to check the map. In "Stratagem," they find that Azati Prime is three weeks away. Last week, they were mucking about at the anomaly, and now T'Pol says that they encountered said anomaly "several weeks ago." Several weeks? Shouldn't they be at Azati Prime by now?
2) I don't quite buy that Phlox spent the whole time thinking T'Pol was rattling around with him on the ship. I know he was hallucinating, but how could the hallucinations affect his memory? Wouldn't he remember putting T'Pol under? Wouldn't he go by her quarters on rounds?
1) So getting the ship to warp is good an all, but... shouldn't someone have entered a course first?

Other notes:

I'm really hoping that they get around to explaining that this dropping in of anomalies isn't random, because... well, I'm guessing it ain't.

The shots of T'Pol and Phlox looking up at the warp core, both the looking-up, and looking-down ones, were well done and added a nice, imposing level to things.

After reviving Trip (or is he still in the dream at that point?), he says that Trip has been unconscious for four days without food. Well, he would be understandably groggy, but what about water? Shouldn't the crew be severely dehydrated?

Okay, that's all I can muster at this point. Might have more later, if I think of it. Grade: B. Next week: Well, I can't wait to hear this explained.

Well, I can't say much that Sparrow hasn't already pointed out.

The whole idea of T'Pol being a hallucination was VERY OBVIOUS to me as soon as she appeared.

If she hadn't been a hallucination, Archer would have trusted his ship to HER and not to Phlox.

The acting was pretty good, though. Billingsley and Blalock have a very nice chemistry. Blalock did especially well as she was starting to lose it.

My favorite part was where they were arguing over who was going to work on the warp drive. The whole camera angle from above made it very entertaining.

Also nice was the continuity with Dr. Lucas from "Dear Doctor".

OVERALL OPINION OF THE WEEK:
Sadly, that was not enough for me. I found the episode fairly boring overall. It was mildly entertaining at some parts but I was less than impressed.

Maybe next week.

Speaking of next week... Mutiny?? Interesting.

TUE

Sparrow47 wrote:
After reviving Trip (or is he still in the dream at that point?), he says that Trip has been unconscious for four days without food. Well, he would be understandably groggy, but what about water? Shouldn't the crew be severely dehydrated?
I would think so. Though I would think, that since all of the quarters have a head, I bet either Phlox had a cup of water waiting for them when he woke them up, or they immediately ran to grab a drink from their bathroom. So, when it came to Trip feeling groggy and four days shy of not eating, he probably had already satisfied his thirst in his quarters when he woke up.


The Undesirable Element wrote: If she hadn't been a hallucination, Archer would have trusted his ship to HER and not to Phlox.

I think we're not suppose to think about that, and that maybe the area of space was effecting Phlox in many ways then. I think that the fact Phlox never questioned T'Pol on why she was up, could be a hint that Phlox was already being affected right there. So we're to think it was later in the episode that Phlox thought he was being affected. You know, when Phlox first noticed T'Pol, I would have thought he would then ask her something like, "Uh, Sub-commander, you wouldn't have happened to be in the part of the ship when I was...uh......oh never mind."

You know, while watching a taped version of the episode again, I noticed something. Phlox and how he thinks. I seem to see a running theme with this. Things that have occured to him recently, or what he talks about himself, seem to come out within his halucinations. He talks about how crowded Denobulian cities are to T'Pol, and how he seems to almost crave companionship to the other crewmember who is not human. Maybe that is why he picked T'Pol out of his mind to be his visual companion during this situation. I think he feels lonely among humans, and he feels a kinship to T'Pol, who is his fellow non-human peer. I have noticed during their dinner scene, how lively, well to T'Pol, she was with Phlox. Could it be Phlox's mind acting out here.
Also, I think I know why Phlox never questioned why T'POl was up and around, he sub-consciously wanted her around to keep him from being lonely. I think having this episode mirroring The Voyager's episode, was probably done on purpose. I think Phlox is playing the anti-Seven, where Seven, thoughly rude with others most of the time, suffers in the loneliness, while Phlox, ever so gracious, finds himself feeling overwhelmed being with humans all of this time. I think this episode dove deeper into Phlox, and dug up something not so friendly within his inner thoughts.

Also a little after thought, during the scene in Hoshi's quarters. I think the fact Hoshi probably looked like the chick in "The Exorcist" was probably coming from the mind of Phlox who just saw the movie last week. I also like to think he saw "Psyco" as well, cause I am still wondering why Hoshi was in the shower.

Yeah, the crew would have all been severely dehydrated, lying in their own waste, and have bedsores and some nerve damage after being immobilized for that length of time. And Archer should have had more beard after four days.

I thought that Phlox seeing an alien on the hull was a shout-out to Shatner in his Twilight Zone episode.

About the only thing that I enjoyed from this ep was the insight into Denobulans. The whole T'Pol thing seemed waaaaay too telegraphed to me. I was actually hoping that Phlox was hallucinating that they were still in the anomaly - that he was keeping the crew asleep too long.

Finally, some numbers that I extracted from the episode: the anomaly would take 2 weeks to go around, but "less than 1 hour" to cross at warp 4. Impulse requires 4 days. The corrected position puts the ship "almost 1/4 ly" from the boundary of the anomaly and will require "10 weeks" to escape. So full impulse is near lightspeed and warp 4 is about 96c? At the start, the anomaly must be about 300 times wider than it is thick, at least at one point. And it must change shape pretty quickly, since they travelled into it for 4 days and were suddenly 10 _weeks_ from the edge.

And at this point in the episode, I just thought "Way to go, Marco Polo!"

I think we have to ignore everything Phlox uttered about time and distances. He was out of his spiny head. I need to watch again, but didn't he also give a shout-out to Bones McCoy. Something like "I'm a physician, not an engineer"?

---Critique:
---Feh. Not too bad, but it was fine back when I saw the first time…when it was called One(VOY).
---There’s not much to say here. The attempt to depict Denobulan overcrowding as a cultural more that lends itself to fear of isolation was fairly reasonable, but then again, it really isn’t necessary to shoehorn alien idiosyncrasies into a plot to justify this, since there are plenty of people here on Earth who don’t live in overcrowded cities who would feel the same way Phlox did if they were the only conscious person on a ship filled with comatose people, and again, there wasn’t much new to add to this story that wasn’t present in One, though I must admit the episode did a better job of scaring the viewer in a couple of spots, specifically with the shadow from the window in the second scene of Act 2, and the tension created when Phlox almost killed Porthos in the opening scene of Act 3. Hoshi’s zombi makeup in Act 3 was good too.
---In addition, the one significant twist at the end of the episode, namely that T’Pol was a hallucination throughout the episode, seemed pointless, since it appeared to have been mostly an arbitrary development meant simply to says “Gotcha!” to the viewers, rather than to serve as any revelation for Phlox, since from his point of view, T’Pol was no different than the Xindi Insectoid or the zombified Hoshi. It was also not terribly surprising, since I was wondering why T’Pol showed up speaking with more human mannerisms, allowed Phlox to walk around with a phase pistol when she knew he was acting erratically, even letting him keep it after he nearly kills Porthos, and I wasn’t terribly convinced by the explanation that she was in the same delusional boat as he was, since the notion of her not being put into a coma with the rest of the crew was suspiciously dropped into our laps in the middle of Act 1, rather than established up front.
---I’m glad that Phlox mentioned that Dr. Lucas had to return to Earth because he was needed following the Xindi attack.

We reach, Herbert. Yes he did do the "I'm a physician..." line.

---Notes:
---We learn Phlox has had at least five grandmothers, the fifth of which cooked a certain dish for each of his weddings, as he tells T’Pol in the opening scene of Act 2, and that T’Pol has never been to Denobula.

---Terms:
Scruffers A dog that traveled 3,000 miles to its home, according to a book Phlox reads in the opening scene of Act 1.
Pycan space moth Animal that Phlox says opening shot of Act 1 her once heard drifted half a light year trying to return to its homeworld.
transdimensional disturbance Spatial phenomenon causing an area of space to be reconfigured, and which can be traversed in four days at impulse, or one hour at Warp 4, as stated in the Situation Room in the second scene of Act 1.
neocortex Area of the human brain that Phlox tells the crew in the third scene of Act 1 is disrupted by the reconfigured space, requiring them to be put in comas.
The Court Jester 1956 comedy film directed by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, set in Medieval England starring Danny Kaye, which Phlox watches in Act 1.
The Exorcist 1973 horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the novel by William Peter Blatty, which was allegedly inspired by an actual exorcism, which Phlox mentions in Act 1 Trip talked him into watching the previous week.
Draxxan cloud viper Animal that Phlox compares to T’Pol when he accuses her of sneaking around the ship in the closing scene of Act 1.
Kaybin District Area of Denobula known for nightclubs, as Phlox mentions in his letter to Dr. Lucas in the second scene of Act 2.
spatial-compression index Measurement which, when in exess of 5.62% makes it inadvisable for output to be within 300 and 312 millicochranes, as is mentioned in the Engineering manual Phlox reads when needing to start the warp engines in Act 4.
Class-C gravimetric field distortion Spatial phenomenon, proximity of 2 parsecs to which makes it inadvisable for output to be within 300 and 312 millicochranes, as is mentioned in the Engineering manual Phlox reads when needing to start the warp engines in Act 4.

.. --.._.----_._ _--_ _ _--.._----_._.--._--_.----._.--.--._--_..----_--....--..--…
_..--_ _ _--_.--_----_--.--._..--._..----_--....--.----…_--..--.--._ _--.--._.--…
In the beginning of Act 1, Phlox, in his letter to Dr. Lucas, apologizes for not responding to his letter sooner, but explains that the Enterprise crew has been busy. Is the Enterprise able to send subspace messages while in the Expanse? Has it been doing so since The Expanse? I’d find it odd if they were, since we haven’t seen Archer speaking with Admiral Forrest, or any other indication of communication with Earth, or even deployment of more subspace amplifiers.
And you thought George Steinbrenner was tough
When showing Phlox how to maintain Engineering in Act 1, Trip tells him that he normally wouldn’t even let him in there without four years of Starfleet training under his belt. Hoshi said she had three years of Starfleet training in Fight or Flight. Do engineers require more training then communications offiers, or is Trip just very particular in his requirements for those who work for him?
..--.._.----_._ _--_ _ _--.._----_._.--._--_.----....--.--._--._.----_--....--..--…----
_ _--.-...--...--._--_ _.--.----_._.--_ _ _--..._--.--._.----
_._ _--_ _ _--.._--._.----.--._--._.--...
In the closing scene of Act 1, Phlox, in Engineering, after just seeing someone in shadow run out of Engineering from the second level, pushes the button on the comm panel to contact T’Pol to rebuke her for doing this, and T’Pol responds that she’s on the bridge. But wouldn’t he already know that? When you use the comm panels, don’t you have to direct your transmission to the area of the ship you want to speak to? Or can everyone on the ship hear everyone else’s exchanges over these panels?
Little known secret: Archer talks in his sleep, T’Pol snores like a volcano, and Hoshi’s a farter
Shouldn’t the crew be doubling and tripling and quadrupling up so that Phlox doesn’t have to go to 40-80 rooms to check on them all? Instead, Archer, Hoshi and T’Pol are in their quarters by themselves. It’s not like these guys aren’t used to roughing it, given the events of The Catwalk, or that they really need much privacy.
To boldly find a nice place out in the country where no one has before
Phlox tells the imaginary T’Pol in the opening scene of Act 2 that the cities on Denobula are crowded by choice rather than by necessity. Phlox told Archer in Act 2 of The Catwalk that Denobula only has one continent, and has a population of 12 billion. So no one prefers to live in rural areas? Are all the cities on this continent major metropolitan areas like New York or London? Are there no smaller ones in between? Given that Denobula presumably has, like every other alien planet in Trek, Earth-level gravity, as evidenced by how he apparently has no problem functioning on a vessel with it, just how big is this one continent, and the planet? Or was this his delusion talking?
I’ve heard of Engineering for Dummies, but this is ridiculous
In Act 4, the camera is looking down at Phlox as he looks up, realizing that he’ll have to activate the warp engines. The shot then cuts to him looking at a viewer, which different graphics windows that appear on it. The last one to appear is one of a blue area running from corner to corner against a black background, with some grid lines and labels on it. There is no text on it other than this, yet Phlox reads off it, “Output must be confined to within three hundred and three hundred twelve millicochranes to prevent fusion of the dilithium matrix.” You can see that this text isn’t on that graphic, and Phlox is looking directly at it, not at any other portion of the screen. Then, after he reads this, we hear a couple of beeps indicating more material has appeared on the screen, and Phlox continues, “…unless the spatial-compression index is greater than 5.62%, or the ship is within two parsecs of a Class-C gravimetric field distortion.” I would question why a computer in the 2150’s takes so long to load all the information into a window. Then, after Phlox becomes exasperated with the arcane nature of the material, he steps back and as T’Pol tries to reassure him, we see the entire graphic, and there is no text at all on the screen. What was he reading from?
But how do you measure units of technobabble?
Do the warp engines use anti-protons? My understanding is that the anti-matter pods used anti-deuterium, and that the nacelles are filled with plasma. But when Phlox is reading the Engineering manual in Act 4, he mentions that output should usually be within 300 and 312 millicochranes. Millicochranes were used as a unit of subspace distortion in Remember Me(TNG) and The Outcast(TNG), and as units of anti-protons in Twilight.
This gives me a great idea for a new children’s book: The Tortoise and the Hair and the Pscyho Denobulan
In the third scene of Act 1, when discussing how to get through the disturbance, T’Pol says they could get through it in an hour at Warp 4. In the final scene of Act 3, T’Pol says they’re still a quarter of a light year away from the edge of the reconfigured space, and Phlox says at their current rate of speed, it’ll take them 10 weeks to reach it. Phlox then says they’re at full impulse in the opening scene of Act 4. Full impulse is a quarter the speed of light, which means it would take four years to travel one light year. To travel one quarter of a light year, therefore, would take one year. Not ten weeks. Then, after starting the warp engines, they go to to Warp 1.1 and then 1.2, 1.8, 1.9, and then Warp 2, and travel that one quarter of a light year in what appears to be a short amount of time, given the relief Phlox feels once they reach Warp 2. Broken Bow established that at Warp 4.5, the Enterprise can travel a light year in 4.53 days, so traveling a quarter of it would take over a day, and obviously much longer at Warp 2, and it certainly seemed that Phlox was hoping it would be much less than that.
I know the Doctor is going crazy in this episode, but the numbers?
Also, when Phlox does manage to get the ship into warp, he looks at the graphic on the Main Engineering console, and the camera cuts to it to show the increase in the Warp factor, which displays the number to the hundredths place (the second place to the right of the leftmost decimal point). It seemed that it was taking a long time, given how fast the hundredths were increasing, to go from Warp 1.9 to Warp 2, so I slowed it down. Turns out the numbers in the hundredths place follow absolutely no logical pattern whatsoever! When Phlox indicates they gotten to Warp 1.8, the camera cuts to that graphic, which says “1.8.0.” Then that rightmost digit goes to 5, 0, 3, 8, 0, 2, 8, 0, 5, 0, 3, 8, 0, 2, 8, 0, 5, 8, 3 (it then goes to Warp 1.9) ,8, 0, etc., continuing on this pattern until the shot cuts back to Phlox, who says it reached Warp 2.

And I’m very disturbed by it
In the shot of Act 1 that begins the flashback to two days prior, the ship is at impulse, but the disturbance is not in front of the ship

Antinits for Luigi-
Warp digits:
The third number does follow the sequence that Luigi describes, but note also that there are _two_ decimal points separating the three digits. So it's likely that the third digit doesn't represent the hundredths place but rather some other thing, like accelleration. We're just not privvy to the conventions of the display format.

Phlox reading:
The scene as I saw it starts with Phlox reading from a monitor - but we can't see the monitor because of the camera angle. Phlox recites the 'gravimetric field' babble and gets exasperated. The camera pulls back and he looks down and to his left. There are a few computer beeps and then we see a shot from a new angle revealing the monitor image, which indeed has graphics but no obvious text. However, during his look-down-and-away move, Phlox could have been closing the text window.

Luigi's disturbance:
In the act 1 shot, Enterprise could be travelling at impulse _parallel_ to the anomaly, heading toward the thinnest spot - so the anomaly would be 'below' the ship.

Sparrow47: Someone needs to check the map. In "Stratagem," they find that Azati Prime is three weeks away. Last week, they were mucking about at the anomaly, and now T'Pol says that they encountered said anomaly "several weeks ago." Several weeks? Shouldn't they be at Azati Prime by now?
Luigi Novi: I wonder if that line was intended to be a reference to last week’s anomaly. She doesn’t specify anything about that anomaly that must make it the one from that episode, and they’ve run into a bajillion anomalies every since entering the Expanse. Most importantly, Archer refers to this anomaly as a “transdimensional disturbance,” when no such name was given to the one in Harbinger. The one in Harbinger was a gravimetric disturbance.

Sparrow47 Wouldn't he remember putting T'Pol under? Wouldn't he go by her quarters on rounds?
Luigi Novi: Good one, Sparrow. I alluded to that in my Critique, but didn’t think to put that in my nits.

Sparrow47 So getting the ship to warp is good an all, but... shouldn't someone have entered a course first?
Luigi Novi: I just assumed they used the same course laid in at impulse. Maybe they needed to extend it once they realized that the disturbance had expanded, but he could’ve done that as he was fiddling with the warp reactor.

Sparrow47 After reviving Trip (or is he still in the dream at that point?), he says that Trip has been unconscious for four days without food. Well, he would be understandably groggy, but what about water? Shouldn't the crew be severely dehydrated?
Luigi Novi: Can’t he inject them with water, just as he does with nutritional supplements?

SlinkyJ: I am still wondering why Hoshi was in the shower.
Luigi Novi: Who cares? Let’s see more of it. ;)

brossa: Yeah, the crew would have all been severely dehydrated, lying in their own waste, and have bedsores and some nerve damage after being immobilized for that length of time.
Luigi Novi: You suffer nerve damage from being immobile for just four days?? Are you sure about this?

brossa: The third number does follow the sequence that Luigi describes, but note also that there are _two_ decimal points separating the three digits. So it's likely that the third digit doesn't represent the hundredths place but rather some other thing, like accelleration. We're just not privvy to the conventions of the display format.
Luigi Novi: Yes, I did notice that, and thought of mentioning it as a nit, but I figured that maybe it’s some futuristic way of writing decimals. However, I don’t see how the fact that there is another decimal makes it “likely” that it doesn’t represent the hundredths. If it were un related measurement not related to the Warp factor number, why attach it to that number, rather than displaying it separately? And it would still be a nit if it represented acceleration, because the ships is supposedly accelerating from Warp 1.1 to Warp 2, so why would the number representing acceleration be moving so erratically?

brossa: The scene as I saw it starts with Phlox reading from a monitor - but we can't see the monitor because of the camera angle.
Luigi Novi: It didn’t start off at that angle. It started off showing the viewer, and the graphic that appeared, which I described. He was looking directly at that area of the screen by the time the camera panned to that second angle.

brossa: Phlox recites the 'gravimetric field' babble and gets exasperated. The camera pulls back and he looks down and to his left. There are a few computer beeps and then we see a shot from a new angle revealing the monitor image, which indeed has graphics but no obvious text. However, during his look-down-and-away move, Phlox could have been closing the text window.
Luigi Novi: Except that A. The controls wouldn’t be down to his left, but on the viewer, and B. He keeps his hands down at his sides, so he couldn’t have pushed any buttons. As for the beeps, yes, there are beeps in the shot you describe, but they aren’t caused by the push of any buttons because they continue throughout this portion of the scene, including the shot of Phlox turned away from the viewer to talk to T’Pol, and even when the hallucination of Trip shows up. Obviously, the computers in Engineering are making those sounds on their own without any relation to instructions being input through the controls.

brossa: In the act 1 shot, Enterprise could be travelling at impulse _parallel_ to the anomaly, heading toward the thinnest spot - so the anomaly would be 'below' the ship.
Luigi Novi: ???? T’Pol was first telling Archer that the anomaly had just appeared before them in the Situation Room scene directly after this shot, and that it was “directly on [their] route to Azati Prime.” Since Archer was first being told about it, they couldn’t have already decided to search for the thinnest spot. Even if they were, and the anomaly is below them, and space is clear up ahead of them, why not simply keep flying on that course? Why descend into the anomaly at all?

btw: how do you do the colored text? Makes references easier!

luigi: dehydration and other medical stuff
Maintenance fluid requirements for a 70 kg adult are about 75cc/hr or 1800 cc/day. Usually in hospital patients this is given as a continuous infusion, but I suppose that Phlox could be toting around 2 liter bottles of fluid and giving everyone an injection a day. But I doubt it. I still consider it a nit.
Yes, I'm sure about nerve damage and pressure sores. Pressure sores develop because pressure on tiny capillaries exceeds arterial pressure. In an immobilized patient, this damage can occur in as little as two hours. Similarly, nerve tissue in exposed areas (eg the 'funny bone') is sensitive to pressure and accumulates damage. Patients in the OR can wake up with numb hands or feet after just a few hours of surgery due to pressure on nerves (normally temporary, but again, the damage is cumulative).

Phlox reading scene:
Hmm. In my TiVo version, Phlox and T'Pol are on the bridge when they discover the navigational 'error'. They're standing in front of a easily seen monitor. Then there's a commercial. When we cut back, they are in engineering and Phlox is reading from a different monitor that can't be seen. True, we don't see him push buttons but I still think that he could have minimized a text window before we see the new monitor screen in the next cut.

'Parallel' to the anomaly:
I guess that I misspoke - should have said 'tangential' to the anomaly. At any rate, it seems likely that they would detect the anomaly and drop out of warp to further investigate before entering it. Meanwhile, they alter course to travel across the face of the anomaly while Phlox formulates his plan. Until Archer makes a decision, they don't want to enter the anomaly or set a new warp course for the detour. So they sort of idle on impulse drive, tangential to the surface of the anomaly, in just such a way that the anomaly is 'behind' the camera. Or maybe the anomaly is only visible to the eye once you're inside it ;). I agree that given its size, the anomaly should probably be visible in the shot unless they're moving away from it at some angle.

The pesky third digit:
I just used acceleration as a hypothetical example. But I kind of like the idea that the third digit represents some derivative of velocity (acceleration, jerk, etc). That way the engineer knows how fast the ship is going _and_ how quickly their velocity is changing. A constant acceleration would yield a steady number, but I don't see why the acceleration can't be kind of jerky.
Of course, it could mean something else altogether - like those codes in the Dewey Decimal System where a Z means "literary criticism". So a 0 means 'engine self-testing', 1-7 mean 'problem of type x detected', 8 means 'problem corrected', and the dreaded 9 means 'yer screwed'. Actually, this sort of fanwank exercise could get pretty entertaining.

Click on the link on the left hand side of your screen labelled "Formatting".

But in general, it's \color{text}.

e.g.:
\red{this is red} generates this is red
\blue{this is blue} generates this is blue
\green{this is green} generates this is green

And if you use spoilers, a lot of people use white, so it doesn't show.

e.g.

\white{spoiler text here}. You ususually label it "Highlight to read" Example:

Spoiler below (highlight to read):
This isn't really a spoiler, it's just an example of spoiler type text. -- MADE YOU LOOK!

thanks!

Scott, how you type and post formatting tags so that they show up in posts without the site simply reading them as instructions to format?

Brossa: Yes, I'm sure about nerve damage and pressure sores. Pressure sores develop because pressure on tiny capillaries exceeds arterial pressure. In an immobilized patient, this damage can occur in as little as two hours.
Luigi Novi: So how do hospital staff combat this in comatose patients? Do they exercise the patients’ limbs? Or do the limbs get sufficient mobility when patient is handling during bathing?

(Thanks for the info, btw, as it is very interesting.)

Brossa: Hmm. In my TiVo version, Phlox and T'Pol are on the bridge when they discover the navigational 'error'. They're standing in front of a easily seen monitor. Then there's a commercial. When we cut back, they are in engineering and Phlox is reading from a different monitor that can't be seen.
Luigi Novi: It only can’t be seen after the camera pans to an angle. Before that, we can see the graphics coming up, and afterward that angled shot as well.

Brossa: True, we don't see him push buttons but I still think that he could have minimized a text window before we see the new monitor screen in the next cut.
Luigi Novi: How could he, when his arms don’t move?

Brossa: I guess that I misspoke - should have said 'tangential' to the anomaly. At any rate, it seems likely that they would detect the anomaly and drop out of warp to further investigate before entering it. Meanwhile, they alter course to travel across the face of the anomaly while Phlox formulates his plan. …So they sort of idle on impulse drive, tangential to the surface of the anomaly, in just such a way that the anomaly is 'behind' the camera.
Luigi Novi: I believe crews usually come to a full stop and hold position when discussing plans, rather than continuing on at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Personally, I find the idea that the disturbance was there, but just off-screen, or that it is invisible to anyone outside of it to be a bit of a contrivance, particularly given the creators’ M.O. to use visual effects to depict spatial phenomena.

Brossa: I just used acceleration as a hypothetical example. But I kind of like the idea that the third digit represents some derivative of velocity (acceleration, jerk,…
Luigi Novi: No reason to get personal.

Ways to know your science officer is... or Can I get a second opinion...
1. T'pol says that she was in charge in monitoring the engines, yet Trip said earlier that he needs to check something every 2 hrs.
2. Halucinating is good yet it causes disruptions in the neocortex.
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AntiNits for Luigi
What does it say on a red octagon sign that indicates motorist to slow down and cease forward motion? The diagrams on the display that had no text could trigger the memory of what he was supposed to do and how to do it. Like how T'pol gives a suggestion on how to stablize the warp field even though she is all in his mind.
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The shot of phlox running away from the insectoid and then seeing the shadow on the wall and running the other way was kind of funny in a what-if-they-did sort of way; If I hadn't seen the actual insectoid prior, I would have thought that it was going to be a 10 cm bug casting the shadow
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Phlox's medical staff should be next, just who is his medical staff? Has it ever been explained that there is a staff?
What color outfits was T'pol wearing throughout this episode? It's nice to know that at least she will change her clothing over a 4 day period, I can only imagine what Trip's socks must smell like?
Did the crew go to sleep with their shoes on?
So did Porthos ever eat leaches?
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Also, this episode looks like it was done to save money and acting time. Everyones in bed, no special effects with the exception of something that could be copied from another episode and tweaked a little. Maybe they need the money for some massive special effects and acting jobs for future episodes.

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Medical Log 4747
Captain Archer gave me such a speech that I most likely won't wake him if this scenario occurs again... So what if I almost vaporized his dog! It's not like he does anything for the ship...

Luigi Novi: No reason to get personal
brossa: heh. I refer of course to the change of acceleration with time, or 'jerk', aka impulse, shock, surge, or kick.

Luigi Novi: So how do hospital staff combat this in comatose patients?
brossa: Immobile patients are normally on a schedule in which a nurse turns them from side to side at least every two hours so that pressure over any one point is minimized. There are also any number of fancy padding systems to keep bony prominences safe. OR tables have special gel pads to even out pressure. Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy can be done on a comatose person to reduce joint contractures and stiffness.

Luigi Novi: It only can't be seen after the camera pans to an angle
brossa: Interesting. My version does not show this pan - it just starts with Phlox reading aloud. Are television affiliates allowed to trim shows like this? I guess that they must be. I wonder if they squeezed an extra station ID in there.

Luigi Novi: I believe crews usually come to a full stop...
brossa: maybe they had to move away at impulse in order to keep from being engulfed in the expanding anomaly...But yeah, they should have shown the anomaly, if only so we could nitpick its relative size or something.

A double backslash \\ shows up as a single \. Again, it's on the Formatting link to your left.

Torque, Son of Keplar: Ways to know your science officer is... or Can I get a second opinion...
Luigi Novi: And my plan for world domination proceeds apace…

Torque, Son of Keplar: What does it say on a red octagon sign that indicates motorist to slow down and cease forward motion? The diagrams on the display that had no text could trigger the memory of what he was supposed to do and how to do it.
Luigi Novi: Sorry, Torque, but I’m not buying it.

First of all, “stop” is not a diagram. It’s a word.

Second, why would a manual be written in symbols? Manuals are supposed to explain things in detail to you. Signage that utilizes diagrams or symbols may work on street signs or public bathroom doors, but not in engineering manuals.

“Stop” is a simple, basic command. “Output must be confined to within three hundred and three hundred twelve millicochranes to prevent fusion of the dilithium matrix…unless the spatial-compression index is greater than 5.62%, or the ship is within two parsecs of a Class-C gravimetric field distortion” is WAY too detailed and technical to not only be represented by mere symbols, but for Phlox to immediately understand them. Engineering manuals may include symbols and diagrams, but will not explain arcane things like the above quote solely with them.

Torque, Son of Keplar: Phlox's medical staff should be next, just who is his medical staff? Has it ever been explained that there is a staff?
Luigi Novi: He doesn’t seem to have a regular staff, particularly given episodes that like A Night in Sickbay that show him performing delicate surgery with no help other than Archer, but episodes like Minefield seem to indicate that there are crewmen who pull “Med Tech” duty during emergencies.

Brossa: My version does not show this pan - it just starts with Phlox reading aloud. Are television affiliates allowed to trim shows like this? I guess that they must be. I wonder if they squeezed an extra station ID in there.
Luigi Novi: I smell a conspiracy…

Just an observation on anti-protons:

As I understand atomic theory, protons are positively charged atoms. The opposite of a proton is the negatively charged electron. Therefore, the anti-proton refered to in Trek as far back as The Doomsday Machine (TOS) would be energy or an energy stream derived from electrons. This would also seem to explain deuterium (positively charged water-based "slush") mixing with anti-deuterium (negative charged "slush") to create the energies that power the warp drive in TNG. (This explanation from the TNG Tech Manual). Anti-matter would seem to be the energy derived from electrons. Therefore, anti-protons=anti-matter. My apologies if I was explaining something everyone already knew, I just thought there was confusion about the terms.

On the show overall: Good effort, but so-so. It was filled with great character bits (Phlox and Porthos, Danny Kaye, etc.) I thought Phlox was going to say there were mynocks chewing on the power cables when he saw the unknown thing flapping against the window! (Maybe he saw that movie too!) And in response to Phlox's "I'm a doctor, not an engineer!" I say, in a time of crisis "Now you're an engineer!" (Scotty, Mirror, Mirror (TOS))

Sadly, the "surprise" ending was not a surprise to me. I noticed that T'Pol didn't eat the soup, hold the phase pistol, activate the controls, etc. And her excuses for not doing so were flimsy. Also, much of her dialogue seemed to repeat facts that we knew Phlox knew. This reinforced the fact that she was a product of his mind.

I'm not sure that the Random Last Digit is necessarily a nit, even if it is hundredths of a warp factor.

Warp is already a sticky non-conventional mess. For one thing it's clearly non-conservative because when the engines cut out, you slow down. Also, energy going to the engines is always depicted as pulses of light going along tubes.

So, warp needs continuous power input, and gets power input as pulses.

It's entirely possible that warp speed was sporadic, with a general upward trend. Especially in the hands of a novice who just read the manual.

Captain Dunsel - you're right that antiprotons are antimatter and have a negative charge, but they are not electrons. Protons and antiprotons have much more mass than electrons and antielectrons (aka positrons because they have a positive charge).

An atom of deuterium consists of one electron 'orbiting' a nucleus of one proton and one neutron. It has no net charge. Antideuterium has a positron orbiting a neutron and an antiproton. It also has no net charge. When a positron meets an electron or a proton meets an antiproton they annihilate each other and release a large amount of energy.

Mynocks! LOL.

I wanted Hoshi to say 'Your mother's in here, Phlox. Would you like to leave a message?' during her shower scene!

Thank you for the correction, brossa. However, I was under the impression that protons and electrons were polar opposites because there needs to be a balance at the atomic level in order to have a stable element (ie, one proton and one electron for an atom of hydrogen, two each for helium, and so on up the periodic table.) If I'm mistaken, well..."How fallable of me..." (Trelane) Perhaps my confusion centered around "proton" and "positron". BTW, I seem to remember some method being mentioned in TNG (or in the TNG Manual) of generating antimatter by negatively charging positive deuterium. Anybody confirm this?

Stray thoughts: Scenes we should've seen:

Mayweather: That Xindi ship is headed for that small moon...
Reed: I can get him before he reaches there.
T'Pol: (looking into scanner) That's no moon.
Archer: What are you talking about?
T'Pol: It's the Xindi superweapon.
Trip: I have a very bad feelin' 'bout this...and it gives me a great idea for movie night...

Stray thoughts II: (more on topic of this post)

Porthos: Leeches! I thought he said cheeses!

Sorry, Dunsel, but electrons "orbit" the nucleus. The Nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons.

An antiproton contains the same mass as a proton, but negative charge. It used to be called a negatron, but that term fell into disuse. An anti-electron is a positron. It has the same mass as an electron, but positive charge. The neutron is its own antiparticle.

Incidentally, in Real Life™, they have managed to create something called "positronium", which is an electron and a positron mutually orbiting each other.

brossa is correct. Deuterium (aka H²) is a proton and a neutron, with one electron. Tritium is a proton and two neutrons. Helium in its most common form has two neutrons, two protons, and two electrons. Helium-3 (He³) is two protons and one neutron. In stable atoms, the number of electrons is equal to the number or protons, hence the neutral charge. In ionized atoms, this is not the case, hence the electric charge.

Thanks, ScottN. I knew about the neutrons but omitted them for the sake of clarity. Same for the orbiting electrons. My point was that since the number of protons equalled the number of electrons I mistakenly believed them to be oppositely charged. (I wasn't even going to bring up ions, but hey-- thanks again!)

BTW--what is this "Real Life" you speak of? A new religion? Seriously, I have read about real antimatter generation inside a supercollider based in Texas. Unfortunately, scientists can only generate antimatter that lasts in existence for only nanoseconds at best (I'm heavily paraphrasing here, it's been years since I read the article.) so nobody plan on any quick trips to Alpha Centauri (that includes you too Stephen Hawking and Zefram Cochrane!)

Scene we'd like to see: The Enterprise script rehersal:

All the main characters stand around the mission table at the rear of the bridge. Mayweather enters from the turbolift. He carries a pile of scripts and distributes them to the others.

Mayweather: Hey, the new scripts are here!
Archer: Thank you Travis.
Tucker: Who's writin' this one? Rick and Brannon?
Mayweather: (rolls eyes) Of course.
Tucker: Let's see then...T'Pol and I will get to make out, Phlox'll eat somethin' weird, Cap will go sit in his room all episode, and George and Nichelle--I mean Travis and Hoshi will push buttons.
Archer: Trip, you're awfully cynical. Travis and Hoshi have dialogue on Page One---see here? (ahem)(reading) "Take us out of warp, Ensign."
Mayweather: (reading, with disdain) "Aye, sir."
Archer: (reading) "Hoshi, open a channel."
Hoshi: (reading, with disdain) "Aye, sir."
Archer: (to Trip) See?
Tucker: Yeah, that's a real quantum leap from other shows--
Archer smacks Tucker on the back of the head with the script.
Archer: I've told you not to take that name in vain!
Dean Stockwell walks through the wall, smacking a handheld device on its side.
Dean: Did someone call me?
Archer: NO!
Dean: Touchy. False Alarm, Gouchi!
A wall of light appears behind Stockwell. He exits, and the light vanishes.
Archer: Where were we?
Phlox: I believe we were going to rehearse the script. It's quite good. Thanks to my Denobulan speed reading abilities I was able to peruse it while you were engaging in pointless banter. I must say, this could be our finest episode ever.
T'Pol: And it was written by Berman and Braga?
Phlox: That's what the cover says.
T'Pol: Illogical. I submit that this is a false script. Perhaps a decoy sent by the Xindi.
Archer: That would be just like them...they'll stop at nothing to destroy us.
Reed: (flipping through the script) They thought they were clever, but they couldn't duplicate our creator's writing style. No cliches, no sex, no rip-offs...
Archer: Trip, have these scripts placed in the transporter and beamed into space...set for wide dispersal. No one will ever see this Xindi trash on my watch!
Tucker: Aye, sir!
Travis/Hoshi: That's my line!

Slinkyj: Also a little after thought, during the scene in Hoshi's quarters. I think the fact Hoshi probably looked like the chick in "The Exorcist" was probably coming from the mind of Phlox who just saw the movie last week. I also like to think he saw "Psyco" as well, cause I am still wondering why Hoshi was in the shower.

That reinforces my suspicion that this was an homage to many classic horror movies -- surprised I didn't catch the Exorcist reference.

I was a little put out that Phlox, like every other character in bad horror flicks, has to call out "Hello?" to a shadowy figure. If at this point he was hallucinating T'Pol, shouldn't he have called out her name? He doesn't do it until after it's been established that she's "there".

Most importantly, Archer refers to this anomaly as a “transdimensional disturbance,” when no such name was given to the one in Harbinger. The one in Harbinger was a gravimetric disturbance. - Luigi

True. But the alien in Harbinger claims to have come from a "transdimensional realm." Perhaps Enterprise initially catalogued it as a gravimetric disturbance because that was the limit of their knowledge of it -- what the sensors could detect -- but after the incident with the alien, they re-analyzed their data and redefined the phenomenon.

I saw a nit when Phlox sedated Archer: when Archer laid (had lain?) down, he held his arms on his chest. But from every overhead view, his arms were at his sides.

Good one, margie.

AntiNit

He places his arms down to his sides at the last second. its very brief and blinking might cause you to miss it.

...at least in my version. (wink wink)

Torque, Son of Keplar is correct. I just reviewed the tape and Archer moves his arms down at the last second before he goes to dreamland.

brossa: The third number does follow the sequence that Luigi describes, but note also that there are _two_ decimal points separating the three digits. So it's likely that the third digit doesn't represent the hundredths place but rather some other thing, like accelleration. We're just not privvy to the conventions of the display format.
Luigi Novi: Yes, I did notice that, and thought of mentioning it as a nit, but I figured that maybe it’s some futuristic way of writing decimals. However, I don’t see how the fact that there is another decimal makes it “likely” that it doesn’t represent the hundredths. If it were un related measurement not related to the Warp factor number, why attach it to that number, rather than displaying it separately? And it would still be a nit if it represented acceleration, because the ships is supposedly accelerating from Warp 1.1 to Warp 2, so why would the number representing acceleration be moving so erratically?

That third digit might be caused by another one of those weird spatial anomalies of the Expanse.
The anomalies of the Expanse could be used to explain a lot of other things in this and other episodes.

Yep, he puts his hands down at the last second. I totally missed it, even when I reviewed the scene the first time after reading margie's nit. Too bad. I had a cool heading for that nit:

At least this was less awkward than it was in rehearsal, when he kept putting his arms on T’Pol’s chest

2) I don't quite buy that Phlox spent the whole time thinking T'Pol was rattling around with him on the ship. I know he was hallucinating, but how could the hallucinations affect his memory? Wouldn't he remember putting T'Pol under? Wouldn't he go by her quarters on rounds?

Whatever was causing Phlox to hallucinate may very well have played games with his memory. Whose to say it couldn't cause both hallucinations and effect one's memory or perception of events? He may not have remembered that he put T'Pol under. Maybe he did go to her quarters initially, but as his condition deteriorated, he forgot that T'Pol was comatose and ceased checking up on her.

Or he did go to her quarters and check on her, but did it on 'autopilot' without registering it. Sort of like the daily commute: you get to your destination, but your brain doesn't bother to record the details: 'Ho hum, checking crewperson 63 out of 80. No problems. Moving on..." Like a mental blind spot.
I find it fascinating how simultaneously fragile and resilient our perception of 'reality' actually is. Our brains constantly work to knit a variety of stimuli into a coherent 'story' that makes sense, and if some of the parts don't fit they are often ignored or altered to make a better match. A personal example - I once got a migraine aura while driving on the interstate. I was tootling along happily at 70 mph when I realized that I had lost all my peripheral vision. In fact, my eyesight had really coned down to basically tunnel vision - but there was no sensation of vision loss, if that makes sense. My brain took a small visual patch and sort of smeared it out so I thought (at least for a while) that my vision was normal. I have no idea how long this had been going on before I noticed it - could have been a hundred miles. So I have no problem believing that Phlox's mind could sort of smooth over any memories that would conflict with the presence of T'Pol.

Naked Phlox: a little eye candy for the ladies.

Mayweather gets his usual allotment of lines.

OK, Phlox wants to go to warp, so he pulls up the engineering manual and starts reading about OPERATING LIMITATIONS! Isn’t that what sensors are for? Ask the computer how to start the engine, fool!

Luigi—What are “viea tirs” (...- .. . .- - . .- ...)? (Whoever they are, they already know I “can read this” if they saw the “Vanishing Point” show board.)

Sparrow47: Shouldn't the crew be severely dehydrated?
brossa: Yeah, the crew would have all been severely dehydrated, lying in their own waste, and have bedsores and some nerve damage after being immobilized for that length of time.
:: Am I the ONLY one who noticed all the catheters, IVs, etc., coming out of the crew’s pants?

brossa: . . . some derivative of velocity (acceleration, jerk, etc).
:: The “etc.,” for starters, being zing, snap, and boom. (Don’t know what the higher-than-fifth time derivatives of velocity are called, if anything.)

Or he did go to her quarters and check on her, but did it on 'autopilot' without registering it. Sort of like the daily commute: you get to your destination, but your brain doesn't bother to record the details: 'Ho hum, checking crewperson 63 out of 80. No problems. Moving on..." Like a mental blind spot.

I like that idea, tha Phlox could have been in some kind of automatistic state when he cheked up on T'Pol. There's enough margin for error for your theory to be valid.

There's enough margin for error for your theory to be valid. - J O'D

That's the spirit!! OPTIMISM!!!

TJ FLeming: Luigi—What are “viea tirs” (...- .. . .- - . .- ...)? (Whoever they are, they already know I “can read this” if they saw the “Vanishing Point” show board.)
Luigi Novi: First of all, the word you quoted isn’t what I wrote. This is what I wrote:
…_--..--._--._ _--.--._.--…--
v----i---e----w--e---r---s

You must have read the “w” (._ _) as an “a” (._) and a “t” (_).

Second, what you typed doesn’t spell “viea tirs,” either. It spells “vieweas.” You left out the dot at the end of the “r,” turning it into an “a,” and read the single dot before that as an “i” instead of as an “e.”
…_--..--._--._ _--.--._--…--
v----i---e----w--e---a--s

Lastly, although I used a Morse Code nit heading for Sleeping Dogs, I didn’t for Vanishing Point. Who used Morse Code on that board?

I suddenly have a feeling of remorse.

Aha.
Luigi--I went to full screen, and there was no longer a line break between your "a" and "t" (hence, "w"). There is one hard-to-see space between my "a" and "t" (thus resembling a "w") because the message board wouldn't accept two spaces. My bad (memory fart) reading the "e" as an "i."

Nobody used Morse code in Vanishing Point, but six posts by five pickers discuss it. (Keyword Search "Morse").

And now I have to go back and look at Sleeping Dogs again. Sometimes I wish I'd never discovered this bloody site.

YOU??? What about all that formatting hell you just put me through, you little sonava...


()

How does the artificial gravity work? If it could be turned way down in the cabins, wouldn't that help prevent bedsores? Or would that be too risky inside the anomaly?

Ahhhhh... EXCELLENT point. Yes, it would minimize or eliminate bedsores. Of course, if you admit that the gravity is adjustable, you have to justify not using gravity manipulation to disable invaders or keep inert things from shifting around. Or why you need 'magnetic boots' to walk on the hull if you have gravity plate technology.

Well, we know that the artificial gravity can fail on individual decks apparently without affecting the rest of the ship. (Ref: Season one's "Unexpected" The gravity fails on, I believe, C Deck, and when Archer pages the bridge, gravity seems fine up there. Unless Reed's seat has a seatbelt...

Sorry, just watched the teaser of "Unexpected," that should be "E" Deck. Seeing as Reed specified the deck, I assume each deck's "gravity plating" is independent from the plating on other decks.

Perhaps the beds on Enterprise are the ones that all those radio talk show hosts advertise.

Sleeping on air...

Also, since Phlox is a doctor, perhaps he could apply some type of cream to take care of any sores.

Of course that may be hard seeing how much effort it would be to remove everyones clothing, lather them with cream, redress them, and put them back on their beds.

I assume each deck's "gravity plating" is independent from the plating on other decks. -Dan

What about the Sweet Spot?

Torque, Son of Keplar: What about the Sweet Spot?

Dan Gunther: Ooh, good question, I'd momentarily forgotten about that... Anyone have any ideas about that? Perhaps the sweet spot is related to the system that allocates gravity to the entire ship, and the gravity plating is responsible for "emitting" the gravity... I dunno, that's just an outright guess on my part... I'm assuming the creators haven't put a whole lot of thought into the process of artificial gravity on the Enterprise.

TJ Fleming: Am I the ONLY one who noticed all the catheters, IVs, etc., coming out of the crew’s pants?

No, I saw them too.

Torque, Son of Keplar: Also, since Phlox is a doctor, perhaps he could apply some type of cream to take care of any sores.

Of course that may be hard seeing how much effort it would be to remove everyones clothing, lather them with cream, redress them, and put them back on their beds.

Perhaps it would have been easier if everyone had been naked and covered with blankets for the duration, instead.

TJ Fleming: Am I the ONLY one who noticed all the catheters, IVs, etc., coming out of the crew’s pants?

Dragon: No, I saw them too.
Luigi Novi: Huh? What catheters? I reviewed the episode, and carefully scrutinized all eight scenes showing the crew in their comas, and in none of them were there tubes coming out of their pants. Or were you guys joking?

Always!

Yet again, Roxanne Dawson directs a spooky episode well.

Basically a retelling of 'One' but a superior one IMO. I must admit that I was caught completely offguard by the revelation that T'Pol was imaginary, even though I knew she'd been acting very strangely throughout the episode. John Billingsley acquitted himself well and he seemed to enjoy playing 'Austin Powers/Calendar Girls' in sickbay...

As many have pointed out, One all over again. But this one had a dog. And a zombie. And, like One, I enjoyed it. If One had never existed, I might have loved it. Billingsley does a wonderful job in this episode and I wonder how much of the episode was hallucination and how much wasn't. At one point, I thought that the scene in Engineering at the end was all in Phlox's head, but I guess not. I liked that this episode does give us some insights into Phlox's thoughts, especially through his letters to Dr. Lucas(?). I wonder if he meant after the Xindi mission or after Enterprise's mission of exploration when he mentioned returning to Denobula. I guess he meant the latter since he didn't return to Denobula Triaxa at the beginning of Season 4. Still, interesting episode if not at all unique.

Geez, how many episodes this season have we started at one point before flashing back to see how we got to that point in the episode. Someone oughta keep a tote board.

So, at Warp 4 it'll take less than an hour to get through this thing. At full impulse, it'll take over four days. Doesn't that seem a little slow for warp 4, esp. considering 4.5 is 80-90c?

I love Porthos. He's one brave little pooch too. He gets shot at and barely hesitates before walking up, his tail still wagging.

I find it kind of odd that Phlox's hallucination would suggest he get some sleep. Doesn't Phlox only sleep 5 days a year or something?

Luigi Novi: In the beginning of Act 1, Phlox, in his letter to Dr. Lucas, apologizes for not responding to his letter sooner, but explains that the Enterprise crew has been busy. Is the Enterprise able to send subspace messages while in the Expanse? Has it been doing so since The Expanse? I’d find it odd if they were, since we haven’t seen Archer speaking with Admiral Forrest, or any other indication of communication with Earth, or even deployment of more subspace amplifiers.
Twilight showed that they could contact Earth.

Luigi Novi: In the closing scene of Act 1, Phlox, in Engineering, after just seeing someone in shadow run out of Engineering from the second level, pushes the button on the comm panel to contact T’Pol to rebuke her for doing this, and T’Pol responds that she’s on the bridge. But wouldn’t he already know that? When you use the comm panels, don’t you have to direct your transmission to the area of the ship you want to speak to? Or can everyone on the ship hear everyone else’s exchanges over these panels?
He does say "Phlox to T'Pol". I would imagine that the computer has some way to locate her (like with a communicator) and use comm speaker nearest to her location to send Phlox's message. Otherwise a person would always have to know exactly where a person was before they contacted them, they wouldn't just be able to say "Archer to Phlox" and so forth.

Luigi Novi: Phlox tells the imaginary T’Pol in the opening scene of Act 2 that the cities on Denobula are crowded by choice rather than by necessity. Phlox told Archer in Act 2 of The Catwalk that Denobula only has one continent, and has a population of 12 billion. So no one prefers to live in rural areas? Are all the cities on this continent major metropolitan areas like New York or London? Are there no smaller ones in between? Given that Denobula presumably has, like every other alien planet in Trek, Earth-level gravity, as evidenced by how he apparently has no problem functioning on a vessel with it, just how big is this one continent, and the planet? Or was this his delusion talking?
It could be a Pangaea-like situation. Besides, he didn't say that "no one" lives in rural areas. He just said that the cities are crowded. I'm sure some Denobulans don't mind living in quieter areas, but most probably prefer cities more.

Luigi Novi: T’Pol has never been to Denobula.
Didn't we just hear this from the hallucinated T'Pol? It's possible that she's been there and Phlox just doesn't know about it.

SlinkyJ: I am still wondering why Hoshi was in the shower.
Luigi Novi: Who cares? Let’s see more of it. ;)
I'd prefer it if she weren't so decayed though.

RIPOFF ALERT

This episode is a blantant ripoff of "One" (VOY)

As pointed out by your buddy Luigi back on February 19, 2004!

So . . . One could argue that you are ripping off his post about the ripoff!

As pointed out by many of us.

From the reviews that I read, it seemed that ALOT of Enterprise episodes were a ripoff of episodes of the other Star Trek series.

I apologize. I failed to see Luigi's post from 2004.

We'll let it go this time.