Star Trek: Enterprise (TV Series) Stigma (2003) User Reviews

Decent episode but do not watch if you dislike the revisionist Vulcans of Enterprise

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 14 September 2020]

Enterprise visits the Interspecies Medical Exchange Conference and Dr Phlox attempts to gain information relating to Pa'nar syndrome.

This continues the story of T'Pol and the mind-meld rape incident from the first season episode 'Fusion'. The writers have added a new theme which portrays mind-melding Vulcans as a minority group who experience discrimination within Vulcan society. The plot device it uses revolves around the fact that mind-melds can cause Pa'nar syndrome. All of this appears to be an unsubtle analogy to AIDS and prejudice suffered by the homosexual community.

The main theme is handled pretty well in how it tackles the subject, with T'Pol more concerned about the prejudicing of a minority group than her own career and reputation. Although the plot does slightly ignore the fact that in 'Fusion' she initially went willingly into a mind-meld. The highlight is Archer fighting fighting for her and also respecting her right to privacy about the circumstance of the incident.

There is also a very good sub-plot involving a Human/Denubulan culture clash between Trip Ticker and Dr Phlox's wife that provides much needed relief from all the serious stuff.

For me the biggest downside is portrayal of the Vulcans. Enterprise is persisting with its own interpretation of the species as narrowed minded, bigoted and behaving far more emotionally than they should be. The whole mind-melders as a minority group issue feels like a retcon of what we already know about Vulcan culture.

All performances are strong in this one, so I have to say I did enjoy it overall.

A Little Heavy-handed, but Not Bad

[Samuel-Shovel · 7/10 · 18 November 2017]

"Stigma" reveals to us that the mind-meld that T'Pol was involved in back in Season 1 gave her some kind of transmittal disease that is currently incurable. Doc Phlox decides to ask some Vulcans about it at a healthcare conference he's attending and this ends up putting T'Pol in hot water. This disease is stigmatized since only those who mind-meld can contract it. Will T'Pol be forced to go back to Vulcan.

Pretty early on it's clear that this episode is an analogy of AIDS and the stigma surrounding it and the homosexual community. While it is a bit heavy-handed and can get a tad preachy at a few moments throughout it, I still think this is one of Season 2's better episodes. The subplot with Feezal and Trip has good comedy that actually works and the main plot of the episode is engaging, T'Pol being one of the bright spots of ST:E thus far. We'll see how this disease affects her character moving forward.

Conclusion: An episode with a clear message that gets its point across to the audience, worth a watch.

The Vulcans Deserve to Be Outed

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 19 March 2017]

Those that are complaining that this episode is preachy need only look at the time frame. The established fact is that the Vulcans stood in the way of Earth being granted recognition for its accomplishments. One can have emotions in hand but feel threatened by disruption to their ancient culture. The complaint that they are villainous implies that their feelings are indeed emotional and arbitrary. They simply find the Earthlings lesser beings, barely capable of taking care of themselves. There is prejudice and there is certainty of one's essential superiority. I believe the latter is at work here. I find it refreshing that these creatures have their foibles. I'm interested in seeing how T'Pol fares in the future.

Vulcan Intolerance, Human Morality

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 14 January 2008]

While in the Interspecies Medical Exchanges Conference, Dr. Phlox tries to learn the state-of-art treatment for the lethal and stigmatized disease Pa'nar Syndrome with the Vulcan physicians. He lies to the doctors and does not tell them that T'Pol has been infected when she was forced in the mind meld one year ago. The bigotry Vulcans do not give any information while T'Pol does not accept to reveal that she was assaulted because she does not accept the stigma and prejudice against the minorities in her planet. When the doctors discover that T'Pol is infected, they request her return to Vulcan to meet the High Command. Meanwhile, one of the wives of Dr. Phlox comes to the Enterprise to instruct Trip about the installation of a complex neutron microscope, and she flirts with him, trying to seduce the uncomfortable Trip.

In "Stigma", the Vulcans show their prejudice against minorities and that in spite of being technologically advanced, they have a very narrow mind. Trip shows his character, respecting Dr. Phlox in accordance with the best principles of human morality and respect. And T'Pol gives an example of strong personality, walking the way she talks. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Estigma" ("Stigma")

SOMEONE WENT TOO FAR...

[zitacarno · 9/10 · 27 October 2018]

I don't usually watch "Enterprise", but I happened to catch the series one night, and they showed an episode called "Fusion", which dealt with a splinter group of Vulcans known as "V'tosh ka'tur" (Vulcans without logic"). These are the ones who, while they don't reject the teachings of Surak outright, disagree as to how these teachings should be interpreted. They believe in embracing emotions rather than suppressing them, in trying to find a balance between logic and emotion (sounds very human, doesn't it?)---and one of them, a character named Tolaris who apparently had an ulterior motive, persuaded the very logical and dispassionate T'Pol to join him in a mind-meld. But he went too far, and when she resisted and pushed him away he lost his cool, I mean really flew off the handle, and he assaulted her with the result that she ended up in sickbay, in bad shape. She finally recovered, but as a consequence she developed Pa'nar syndrome. It took T'Pau---a familiar figure in Star Trek's "Amok Time" and an expert melder---to remedy the situation and get T'Pol back to normal. Now, it seems that in "Stigma" she did not want to talk about her ordeal. I can understand how she must have felt at being thus violated, and how relieved she had been when those V'tosh ka'tur finally left the Enterprise---no doubt she never wanted to see the likes of them again.

Further evidence that the Vulcans are not so wonderful and enlightened after all.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 27 March 2015]

A big theme of "Star Trek: Enterprise" is the friction between the Earth and Vulcan. While the Vulcans in other series (which were actually set AFTER this show chronologically) showed the Vulcans and super-stuffy yet noble, here they are far, far less noble. In fact, at times they are totally sanctimonious jerk-faces! Here in "Stigma" they are REAL jerk-faces.

The show begins with Dr. Phlox going to a medical conference and the crew going to visit this same planet. However, two interesting plots occur. First, Phlox is reunited with one of his wives--and the wife is VERY friendly towards Trip and seems to want to initiate a booty call with him. Second, T'Pol is apparently struggling from an illness (which was alluded to in an earlier show). But, the VERY prejudiced Vulcans hate anyone with the disease and the prevailing attitude is that the folks deserve the illness and their deaths is NOT such a bad thing (an obvious parallel to AIDS). Can Phlox and Archer somehow get these jerk-faces to somehow provide them with information as to how to cure the illness AND still manage to salvage T'Pol's career?

This is a good episode. I liked the humorous plot about Mrs. Phlox (or whatever her name was) and the one about the Vulcan illness was pretty good--though very obvious. I do think the AIDS message was delivered with little finesse....sort of like a sledgehammer when a bit more finesse would have made the parallel not so incredibly obvious at first. I am NOT saying they should have changed the parallel or message...it's just that it wasn't handled as well as it could have. Still, it's well worth seeing.

volcans showing their colors

[lathamv · 8/10 · 9 June 2019]

I really enjoyed this episode. not only does it show tpal using her logic to defend others but it shows the volcan society in general as the fallible beings humans thought they were without any real defense from the volcans.

after seeing prior star trek series, it never occured to me that the volcans ever thought the mind meld was a bad thing. voyager, showed mind melds on a regular basis. we intitially learned of them on TOS. the most respected volcan on TNG used the ability to strengthen his mind. Its something inherantly volcan but in ENT it has been used as a form of mind expansion, rape, and the basis of extreme prejudice. it took another 100+ yrs for the mind meld to be accepted practice for volcans. this series does a good job at showing not only how humans grew from volcan contact but how volcans learmed tolerance from humans... something they never expected to do.

Clumsy at times, but still enjoyable

[sascha-17 · 7/10 · 27 May 2012]

So this is it: Star Trek's gay-episode. While I'm not a huge Trek-nerd, I've come to appreciate the franchise (minus most of the TNG-films) over the past few years. I'm also aware that they always wanted to do a "gay" episode but "never got around to it" until Enterprise. That in itself is fine by me, since making comments on current issues in a sci-fi-setting is one thing Trek has been known to do since TOS.

However: Making a statement about gay people/AIDS in 2003 is hardly what I'd call "being topical". It would've been a lot more appropriate or even daring in the 80s or 90s. Still: I didn't mind the subject matter.

What I did mind were some minor points with the plot.

Phlox setting the plot in motion almost makes him look stupid. Using the age-old "a *friend* of mine (who is totally not me) has this problem" request is bad enough. But he also doesn't address the fact that he's asking for data on a Vulcan disease while he has a Vulcan science officer on his ship. He should've just told the doctors beforehand "I have discussed this with T'Pol but her medical expertise is extremely limited ... that's why I'm asking you guys for help.". Also: His decision to not inform Archer before making his request is also kinda odd. Yes, there's doctor/patient confidentiality, but he should know by now that he can trust Archer *and* that this guy has a right to know about T'Pol's condition. Seems odd to me that he didn't try harder to convince T'Pol that Archer knowing would be in her best interest.

Anyhow: The whole analogy of "Stigma" couldn't be more obvious if the writers had called the disease "T'aids". Still: They make some valid points. The tone of the episode can be rather preachy at times, but when you're dealing with the discrimination of minorities and stigmatized diseases, it's kinda hard to not get preachy. Plus: The B-story of Phlox' horny wife trying to access Trip's matter-injector works pretty well as counter-balance.

Now, since a lot of people seem to hate ENT's Vulcans, and this is a very Vulcan-centric episode, here are my thoughts on them: I don't mind the Vulcans being different from the ones in earlier ST-series. I think it's actually pretty cool that the creators of ENT decided to make the Vulcans intolerant and somewhat hypocritical pricks. After all: This is 100 years prior to Spock et all, so why *shouldn't* those earlier Vulcans be different? It gives them a pretty cool arc, albeit a retrofitted one. It would've been a lot more boring to have them behave exactly like Spock and it would've made the Vulcans less versatile as characters. In fact: The characters themselves would've been a lot more boring. How interesting can you make people who'll always do what's logical, don't lie and never seem to have any egotistical motivations?

Vulcan behavior in this episode is a lot more varied than what we're used to seeing from the older shows: You have the intolerant doctors, the one doctor who secretly isn't so intolerant (and whose behavior foreshadows what the Vulcans of TOS will be like) and, of course T'Pol. Her decision to do what she thinks is right, even if it means losing her job, not only makes for the drama in the story, but advances the character and gains her respect from both the audience and her colleagues. I also enjoyed watching Archer standing up for T'Pol - probably marking his final acceptance of her as both his first officer and a person. Also good: Trip's uneasiness and Phlox' "tolerance" regarding Mrs. Phlox' not-so-subtle advances provided some much needed levity.

Overall, Stigma is a pretty solid effort in my book.

7/10

overly preachy

[kenwiggins · 2/10 · 28 August 2011]

This episode is an after school special concerning AIDS and gayness.

There's nothing wrong with Star Trek dealing with issues we are dealing with now; many Star Trek shows do. It's not good when the message overpowers the script. If you are a comedian with a message... make it funny, if you are a song writer... make quality songs (or at least sing in key)and if you are a Star Trek writer don't forget to have a good plot with the message.

At the end when Sub-Commander T'Pol was restating the message once again, she started to turn her head; I expected her to look in the camera and say "and kids; don't do drugs".

Go ahead... tell the message but tell it better than a bad version of the Afternoon after school special.

Sloppy

[SteelBlue82 · 29 August 2020]

First, I will list the scummy things that happened to T'Pol. Tolaris forceably continued a mind meld when T'Pol asked him to stop. Tolaris gave T'Pol a disease because he did not administer the mind meld properly. It is not clear whether Tolaris knew about the existence of the disease or not.

Here is the scummy thing T'Pol does. She lies about being coerced into a mind meld absolving herself from any responsibility and making the already bad Tolaris look worse. She agreed to the mind meld. The whole reason the vulcans let T'Pol remain with Enterprise is because they thought she was forced into it. T'Pol doesn't want to hurt the perception of the minority vulcans, but she does just that by lying about being forced into the mind meld by one of the members.

If the goal was to make T'Pol look deceitful and illogical then the writers achieved their goal. One of two things has to be true.

(1) T'Pol is deceitful and most of the audience don't see it that way. (2) Berman/Braga retconned the mind meld assault to get the desired plot result.

The Denobulan wife visit side story was hilarious. I always love the Phlox stuff.