"A Night In Sickbay" is the thirty-first episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise, the fifth episode of season two. It first aired on October 16, 2002, on UPN within the United States. The episode was written by executive producers Brannon Braga and Rick Berman, and directed by David Straiton.
Set in the 22nd century, the series follows the adventures of the first deep space Starfleet starship Enterprise, registration NX-01. In this episode, after visiting the planet Kreetassa, Captain Archer's (Scott Bakula) dog Porthos falls ill with an unknown pathogen. Archer stays overnight in sickbay to look after his dog with Doctor Phlox (John Billingsley), knowing that afterwards he must take part in an elaborate apology display to the Kreetassans.
The episode featured Vaughn Armstrong, who reprised his role of the Kreetassan Captain from the episode "Vox Sola". Several scenes also proved challenging for the main dog actor who portrayed Porthos, who was named Breezy. She was required to lie still for long periods, jump into Bakula's arms on command, and also act on her own while her trainer was not on set. Berman compared the relationship between Archer and Phlox to The Odd Couple, saying that the episode was "a lot of fun". Bakula also explained in an interview with the website TrekWeb that the episode featured Archer's dog Porthos as a background character, and that it was also about Archer spending a night in sickbay with Phlox. He said that this meant that the viewer will "find out a lot of stuff about [Phlox] that we may not have wanted to know; like what he does when he's in his off hours... he has things to cut and trim!" Billingsley said later that he enjoyed working with Bakula on this episode, and called "A Night in Sickbay" one of his favourites.
The episode was directed by David Straiton, who had previously directed "Desert Crossing". The shoot took six and a half days, which concluded on August 8, 2002. Armstrong is better known for his recurring role in Enterprise as Admiral Maxwell Forrest, but had previously played the Kreetassan captain in the first season episode "Vox Sola". In order to appear as the captain, some three and a half hours of make-up time was required, with the actor needed to arrive to have his make-up applied at 5:30am for his one day of shooting. Other make-up effects during this instalment of Enterprise included a pair of prosthetic feet for Dr. Phlox, although other effects for the character were added in post-production. A second dog called Windy provided backup to Breezy.
Reception
"A Night in Sickbay" was first aired in the United States on the UPN on October 16, 2002. It received Nielsen ratings of a 3.9/6 percentage share among all adults, including 6% of all adults watching television at the time of the broadcast. Although overnight figures had shown a slight decrease from the previous episode, the final numbers showed that the ratings were the highest seen so far during season two, and the third week of increased ratings for Enterprise in succession. This meant that 6.26 million viewers watched the episode, an increase of 860,000 viewers from the previous week's episode, making it the highest viewed episode since season one's "Sleeping Dogs". Alexander Chase at USA Today said the numbers "confirm a ratings turnaround for the newest Trek series". The episode placed Enterprise fourth in a list of the most highly rated science fiction or fantasy genre shows on television for that week, behind Alias, Smallville and John Doe.
Herc of Ain't It Cool News rated the episode three out of five, and praised the story about how Porthos was named and the elements of sexual tension between Archer and T'Pol. He thought the Odd Couple type relationship between Archer and Phlox did not work all the time, that there were too many misfires in the comedic elements, and the episode was repeating things that had already "Been seen done." Michelle Erica Green of TrekNation, said she enjoyed the episode on the whole and enjoyed the characterisation. She criticised the non-moving Beagle prop as it made her son think the dog was dead, which was then followed by "what looks like a drowned dog in formaldehyde". Jamahl Epsicokhan of Jammer's Reviews called it "easily the dumbest concept for an episode of Star Trek since Voyager holodeck was hijacked by the residents of Fair Haven", and gave it a score of one out of four. He felt that the episode made a mockery out of the characters, and that some of the situations they were placed in were just ridiculous. In his 2022 rewatch, Keith DeCandido of Tor.com gave it zero out of ten.
IGN called it "The hands-down worst show of the season".
TechRepublic included the episode on its list of the five worst episodes of Enterprise.
Star Trek: The Complete Manual published by SciFiNow listed it as the third worst episode of the series.
<!-- In 2017, -->Screen Rant ranked "A Night in Sickbay" the 14th worst Star Trek episode, highlighting what they felt were poor character development choices and a weak plot that revolved around a sick dog (Porthos) that peed on a tree.
WhatCulture ranked this episode the 17th worst episode of Star Trek.
<!-- In 2021, -->The Digital Fix felt this was a "bad episode", but noted it for experimenting with format. Den of Geek defended the episode, saying it was flawed, but nowhere near as bad as "Spock's Brain" or "Threshold".
In 2016, SyFy included this episode in a group of Star Trek episodes they felt were commonly disliked, but "deserved a second chance".
Awards
The episode was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (short form) at the 2003 awards alongside "Carbon Creek" and episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. The award went to the Buffy episode "Conversations with Dead People".
Home media
The first home media release of "A Night in Sickbay" was part of the season two DVD box set, released in the United States on August 7, 2005. The release featured deleted scenes from the episode as well as a special feature on the episode entitled "Inside A Night in Sickbay". A release on Blu-ray Disc for season two occurred on August 20, 2013.