degrees in star trek

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A degree (alternatively called a diploma because of its associated document) is a college or university diploma awarded in recognition of its recipient having satisfactorily completed either a prescribed course of study or having completed a scholarly endeavor deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree.

• 1.1 Undergraduate
• 1.2 Graduate
• 1.3 Professional
• 2 External link

Degrees granted [ ]

There are three major types of degrees granted: undergraduate, graduate and professional.

Undergraduate [ ]

The most common undergraduate degrees are the bachelor's degree and the licentiate. They are obtained after a first program and usually last three or four standard years.

In certain systems, the distinction between honors and regular degrees was made, depending on whether it afforded preparation for graduate study in the same field as the undergraduate degree or not.

Graduate [ ]

A graduate degree (or advanced degree) is a research-oriented degree earned from a graduate school . They commonly exist in two tiers:

• Master's degree , which normally lasted for one to two years
• Doctorate , which had an indeterminate duration but normally lasts between 3 and 7 years

Professional [ ]

A professional degree is a second-entry degree earned in order to prepare its holder for a particular profession, i.e. medicine , law or pharmacy .

• Doctor of Audiology
• Doctor of Medicine
• Doctor of Pharmacy
• Doctor of Sexology
• Juris Doctor

Entry into professional programs varied from race to race. ( Star Trek: The Stoneship Files : " Educational Armageddon ")

External link [ ]

• Degree article at Memory Alpha , the canon Star Trek wiki.
• Academic degree article at Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia.
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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E19TheNthDegree

Recap / Star Trek: The Next Generation S4E19 "The Nth Degree"

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Original air date: April 1, 1991

Lieutenant Barclay has taken up acting in his spare time. Even though he's pretty awful, Counselor Troi applauds him for his progress, as last time we saw him he would never have had the nerve to perform in front of an audience. But that isn't to say that he’s entirely moved beyond feeling awkward around other people; in particular, he doesn't appreciate his own successes as much as Troi and La Forge do. After everyone else leaves, he sits alone on the stage.

Anyway, the Enterprise 's next mission is to investigate the Argus Array, a large unmanned radio telescope at the edge of Federation space, which inexplicably went silent two months ago. They discover a mysterious probe, which they conclude is the most likely culprit, and send out La Forge and Barclay in a shuttlecraft to get a closer look. Barclay thanks La Forge for choosing him for the assignment, and La Forge tells him that he's one of the ship’s top engineers, and it’s about time he got in on some of the interesting stuff. Just then, the probe emits a flash of light that knocks Barclay unconscious and disables the shuttle. The two are transported to Sickbay, where Dr. Crusher checks them out. She tells Barclay that he seems to be fine, but she’ll have to wait for some test results to know for sure. Rather abruptly, Barclay starts to make radical suggestions about how she could run the tests faster.

The probe begins approaching the Enterprise and building up some sort of energy field. They back away from it, but it matches their velocity, and their phasers do nothing to it. They can't fire photon torpedoes because the probe is too close. Barclay, acting on his own, somehow boosts shield capacity by 300% and tells Picard he can now fire photon torpedoes, which do the trick. With the probe out of the way, the crew can focus on repairing the array, which La Forge estimates will take two to three weeks. Barclay interrupts and says that he can do it in just two days by creating a new computer program to install into the array. Troi remarks to him that his confidence seems greatly improved and he agrees, though he can't explain what sparked it. It's enough for him to smoothly ask Troi on a date in the arboretum, and though she turns him down, citing professional ethics, she seems rather tempted. Even his acting has gotten better; Crusher is moved to tears by his performance in a rehearsal.

The next morning, though, it seems as if he's fallen back into his old habits—he misses a scheduled meeting, and La Forge tracks him to the holodeck. But instead of working his frustrations out against caricatures of his crewmates, he's kicking around some quantum physics theories with Albert Einstein . La Forge remarks that the ideas they were discussing were out of his league and should have been out of Barclay’s league as well. He's sure there’s something fishy going on, though Barclay is offended by the implication that being mediocre and awkward is his natural state. Nevertheless, Dr. Crusher confirms that his brain has dramatically changed since his encounter with the probe—enough to make him the smartest human being to ever exist.

The Argus Array's reactors go critical as they attempt to repair it, and Barclay finds the computers to be too slow, so he goes to the holodeck to build one of his own. With seconds remaining before a catastrophic overload that will destroy the Array (and probably the Enterprise with it), the reactors shut down, and when the bridge crew inquires how it happened, the computer responds in Barclay's voice. He has literally connected his brain to the ship’s computer systems. Picard orders him to break the connection immediately, but he and the computer are now inextricably linked. Any attempt to pull him out would kill him.

To make matters worse, Barclay soon decides to stop listening to Picard's orders and takes control of the Enterprise himself. He develops a way to move the ship at greater than warp speed and prepares to jump. Troi goes to the holodeck to reason with him, but he doesn't listen. He also blocks Geordi’s attempt to set up a computer bypass through Engineering. Running out of options, Picard orders Worf to disconnect Barclay by force, but Barclay’s set up a force field to protect himself. The ship jumps through Barclay's whatever-it-is, coming out 30,000 light-years away from where they started. When they get there, the computer is suddenly under their control again, and a giant floating head appears on the bridge. Barclay shows up, disconnected from the computer, to explain that the probe was built by an alien race called the Cytherians, who are interested in exploring the galaxy. Instead of leaving their home, though, the Cytherians send out probes loaded with the technical knowledge needed for other races to reach them so the two groups can learn from each other. Their probe was supposed to reprogram the computer of any ship it encountered, but it failed with both the Argus Array and the shuttle; it did, however, successfully reprogram Barclay's brain.

The Enterprise spends ten days conversing with the Cytherians before being returned to Federation space. Barclay is safely disconnected from the computer, and he's more or less back to normal again . Troi and Geordi comfort him over his loss of confidence and super-intelligence. They tell him that this experience might help him grow, and either way he's still an important part of the crew. Troi even agrees to go on that walk in the arboretum with him. As they leave Ten Forward, Barclay stops to suggest a move to a woman playing chess, announcing checkmate in nine moves.

Tropes in this episode include:

• Bait-and-Switch : When Barclay doesn't show up to a meeting, Geordi tracks him to the holodeck, thinking he's fallen back on his addiction as seen in " Hollow Pursuits ." Instead, he finds Barclay debating advanced quantum physics with Albert Einstein.
• Brain/Computer Interface : Barclay creates one in order to shut down the Argus Array, since typing commands and reading screens proves too slow. Unfortunately, his mind expands into the Enterprise computer systems such that disconnecting him would kill him.
• Brain Uploading : Barclay starts out simply trying to create a Brain/Computer Interface , but he ultimately puts so much of his mind into the computer that it effectively becomes his brain.
• A Day in the Limelight : For Barclay.
• "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome : Barclay goes from his usual stuttering self to a confident mega-genius and back again.
• Huge Holographic Head : How the Cytherians present themselves to the Enterprise crew.
• Gratuitous German : Einstein exclaims "Gruß Gott!" while working with Barclay. This is actually a salutation in Southern Germany, mostly Bavaria, and Austria. He should have said "Mein Gott!"
• Improbably High I.Q. : Barclay estimates his I.Q. under the probe's influence is in the 1200 to 1450 range. Just a little under what Q said his was in " Deja Q ."
• Insufferable Genius : Barclay's self-confidence shoots through the roof when he becomes super-intelligent. He becomes prone to inserting himself in conversations and going over Geordi's head when he feels it necessary.
• Negative Space Wedgie : Computer!Barclay figures out how to generate one from the Enterprise's Bussard Collectors, sending the ship over 30,000 light years away to the center of the galaxy.
• Not Himself : The normally withdrawn Barclay is suddenly more open and proactive after being exposed to the probe.
• Nothing Personal : Barclay says this to Worf and his security mooks, when they come to the holodeck to disconnect him by force. Barclay: I want you to know, Lieutenant Worf, that I understand your duty in this matter. And that I in no way will take your actions personally.
• Not Quite Back to Normal : As demonstrated by his chess insight at the end, Barclay seems to retain some small trace of his temporary intellect.
• "Not So Different" Remark : Barclay explains that the Cytherians are on the same mission as Starfleet: exploring the galaxy. The difference is, they use their probes to bring other races to their homeworld, rather than fly out into space themselves.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business : Geordi takes Barclay to see Dr. Crusher after finding him discussing grand unification theories with Albert Einstein on the holodeck, as those theories should have been well out of his league.
• Properly Paranoid : The crew make sure to disconnect the audio and visual pickups when discussing what to do about Barclay.
• Naturally, the computer-linked hyper-intelligent Barclay has to respond to Picard's order to disconnect with " I'm sorry. I'm afraid I can't do that, sir. "
• Barclay performs two scenes from Cyrano de Bergerac as the title character. Like Cyrano, Barclay is talented but lacks confidence.
• Smart People Play Chess : In the episode's last scene, Barclay reveals that some residue of his superintelligence might have remained by making a genius move in chess, even though he didn't previously play.
• Smug Super : Though he still seems fairly friendly, the way Barclay refers to the the rest of the crew as "scared children" when talking to Troi comes off as pretty arrogant. Troi: Are we children to you, now? Barclay: I can see so much more than you are capable of.
• Status Quo Is God : Barclay makes several impressive modifications to the Enterprise's systems, including 300% stronger shields and the ability to jump halfway across the galaxy in minutes. Naturally, all of these improvements are gone by the next episode.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien : The Cytherians are an incredibly advanced race who help Barclay develop technology that can seemingly do the impossible. Appropriately, the member of their species that we see looks like a white-bearded wizard.
• Stylistic Suck : Barclay's first stage performance is stilted, awkward, and riddled with flubs. Even Data grimaces.
• Technobabble : Barclay's enhanced intelligence comes with heaping helpings of this. Barclay: It just occurred to me that I could set up a frequency harmonic between the deflector and the shield grid... using the warp field generator as a power flow anti-attenuator and that of course naturally created an amplification of the inherent energy output. Riker: Uh-huh, I see that.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom : The Cytherian probe was just doing its job of communicating with alien computers, not realizing that its signal was harmful to Federation technology.
• Wham Shot : Barclay sitting calmly in a chair on the holodeck with lasers shooting into his head, speaking through the computer without moving his mouth.
• You Are Too Late : Said word for word by Barclay when Geordi tries to bypass his link to the ship's computer.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S4E18 "Identity Crisis"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S4E20 "Qpid"

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The Nth Degree

An alien probe threatens the Enterprise when it emits an energy surge that turns an innocuous crew member into a superhuman.

Dwight Schultz

Kay E. Kuter

David Coburn

Saxon Trainor

Cast appearances.

Patrick Stewart

Jonathan Frakes

LeVar Burton

Michael Dorn

Gates McFadden

Marina Sirtis

Early life and career [ ]

Phlox was born sometime in the late 21st century on Denobula , in the Denobula Triaxa system . As a child, he was informed about the "evil Antarans " by his grandmother . Phlox promised himself he'd give his children an objective view of the Antarans. ( ENT : " The Breach ")

Not long after Phlox became a physician circa 2115 , there was an explosion in a cargo ship orbiting Denobula Triaxa. Phlox was part of the first medical team to arrive at the scene, where they discovered seventeen bodies on the bridge alone. That was the first time Phlox had seen that many dead people in one place before. ( ENT : " Fight or Flight ", " Damage ") Phlox was once nearly overwhelmed with fifty patients in a refugee camp while serving on Matalas . ( ENT : " Dear Doctor ") Phlox also once served as a medic in the Denobulan Infantry . While in the infantry, he learned that battlefields are unpredictable places, even under a flag of truce. ( ENT : " Cease Fire ") During his first forty years of service as a doctor, he twice had to perform actions that he considered unethical . ( ENT : " Damage ")

Doctor Phlox serving at Starfleet Medical on Earth in 2151

Sometime prior to 2149 , Doctor Phlox joined the Interspecies Medical Exchange . That year, he attended an IME conference on Tiburon , where he briefly met a member of the Mazarite delegation. Years later, he found out that it was actually Dr. Antaak , a Klingon expert in mutagenic research, who was impressed by his work on viral propagation. ( ENT : " Affliction ") By 2151 , Phlox was working as a doctor at Starfleet Medical in San Francisco . ( ENT : " Broken Bow ")

During his six months stationed at Starfleet Medical, he developed a fondness for Chinese food , especially egg drop soup , and was a regular customer at Madame Chang's . ( ENT : " Broken Bow ", " Affliction ") Phlox also spent time in Tibet and visited at least one of its monasteries like his future captain , Jonathan Archer . ( ENT : " The Andorian Incident ", " Cold Front ")

Over the course of his career, Phlox obtained a dozen scientific degrees, including six in Interspecies Veterinary Medicine , and others in dentistry , hematology , botanical pharmacology , and psychiatry . None of Phlox's qualifications were related to warp theory or quantum physics , though. ( ENT : " A Night in Sickbay ", " Doctor's Orders ", " The Communicator ") Geneticist Arik Soong once confessed that Phlox's reputation in the sciences rivaled that of his own. ( ENT : " Borderland ")

Phlox even once observed a surgical procedure in which a Bynar surgeon removed a Bynar child's parietal lobe and replaced it with a synaptic processor . He later described the operation to Malcolm Reed as having been "very impressive". ( ENT : " Regeneration ")

Aboard Enterprise [ ]

Phlox smiles a Denobulan smile

After displaying considerable expertise at sustaining the life of Klaang the Klingon courier, Phlox was brought on board Enterprise for the maiden voyage in April 2151. Having lived on Earth for "many years", he concluded that while Humans were anatomically simplistic, they made up for their biological deficiencies with their charming optimism – and with their Chinese cuisine . During the mission Phlox determined that a captured Suliban had been genetically altered. ( ENT : " Broken Bow ")

Phlox used very unorthodox medical practices due to the relatively primitive medical technology of the early 2150s . He frequently used animals in various ways to assist in his patients' healing ; his sickbay on Enterprise was quite a menagerie . Animals in it included an Altarian marsupial , immunocytic gel worm , Edosian slug , osmotic eel , Regulan bloodworms , tribbles , a Lyssarian Desert Larvae , a Calrissian chameleon , and a Pyrithian bat . ( ENT : " Broken Bow ", " Two Days and Two Nights ", " Similitude ", " Chosen Realm ") Phlox commonly used radiation in his treatments, especially omicron radiation , and on occasion had to think like an engineer . ( ENT : " Cogenitor ", " Regeneration ", " Bounty ", " The Shipment ", " Observer Effect ")

Early in the mission, the crew of Enterprise found a stranded ship with its entire crew complement dead. Phlox determined that the bodies had been drained of vital fluids. But the away team had to evacuate when a vessel approached. Dr. Phlox performed an autopsy on one of the dead bodies, and learned that it been drained for triglobulin , a fluid that could be used to create medicines. ( ENT : " Fight or Flight ")

His medical abilities were soon tested when the crew of Enterprise discovered an unexplored planet, and an away team from the starship became dangerously paranoid. Phlox was able to determine that pollen from the planet's indigenous plant life was affecting the team. Not only were they delusional, but the pollen was toxic . Phlox was able to produce an antidote and save the crew members. ( ENT : " Strange New World ")

Phlox later determined that Chief Engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker had become pregnant after an intimate encounter with a Xyrillian female. Dr. Phlox determined the growth in Tucker's body was an embryo forming in his ribs . Phlox also determined that the embryo was not Tucker's child, but that he was simply serving as a host. Phlox refused to perform any procedure to remove the embryo without learning more about the Xyrillian gestation process. ( ENT : " Unexpected ")

His medical expertise again proved useful when Enterprise encountered a lost Earth colony named Terra Nova . An asteroid impact had poisoned the planet's atmosphere since late 2078 . Mistakenly believing that Earth had attacked the planet, the Novans were forced to seek refuge underground. Phlox later discovered that their water supply was poisoned by radiation . He gained the confidence of the Novans when he cured Nadet , an older Novan, from lung cancer . This helped to build trust between the Novans and the crew of Enterprise . ( ENT : " Terra Nova ")

Eventually, Phlox also became a counselor on the starship, who helped the other crew members with their problems. In June 2151, Sub-Commander T'Pol confided in him that she had been arranged to be married. The marriage was causing some concern for T'Pol, since she would have to leave Starfleet immediately and remain away for at least one ( Vulcan ) year. ( ENT : " Breaking the Ice ")

Later that year, the Enterprise answered a distress call from a cargo ship. The acting captain claimed that the call was a mistake and asked the Enterprise to leave. Dr. Phlox insisted on treating the injured captain. Phlox determined that Captain Keene required two or three days of treatment. ( ENT : " Fortunate Son ")

Phlox provided a clue to Malcolm Reed 's favorite food for his surprise birthday party. He told Hoshi Sato , who was in charge of the arrangements, that Reed had been taking regular injections to counter an allergy to bromelain , a plant enzyme found in pineapple . Sato decided that the cake would be a pineapple one. ( ENT : " Silent Enemy ")

Phlox with Crewman Cutler in September 2151

In September 2151, Enterprise visited Valakis , a pre-warp civilization with two distinct humanoid races – the Valakians and the Menk . He became involved with a crewmember by the name of Cutler at this time. Phlox attempted to find a cure for a disease that was afflicting the Valakians, but not the Menk. Phlox learned that the Valakians were not suffering from a curable disease, but a genetic mutation that would eventually result in their extinction.

Despite the discovery of a cure, Phlox and Archer disagreed on whether to help the Valakians, as the doctor objected to interfering in their evolution and advised that nature should be allowed to take its course. Archer finally agreed and they transported to the planet's surface with medicine to ease the Valakians' symptoms. However, the officers refused to provide the Valakians with warp drive, which they wanted in order to seek other races that could help them. ( ENT : " Dear Doctor ")

The next month, Enterprise detected a Klingon Raptor -class , adrift in the atmosphere of a gas giant . Phlox determined that a Klingon rescued from the ship had been poisoned by a neural toxin. In fact, the entire crew of the Klingon ship was being poisoned. Phlox found a cure for the toxin and cured the Klingon crew. ( ENT : " Sleeping Dogs ")

Phlox performs cosmetic surgery on Reed

While investigating a rogue planet, Archer met a group of hunters called the Eska . They explained that they were hunting wraiths . After one of the hunters was injured by a wraith, Dr. Phlox tended to the injuries. A cell sample from the wraith found in the wound of the hunter helped Phlox to determine that the wraiths were sentient beings who were shapeshifters. The hunters used scanners to track the beings by their chemical signatures. Archer asked Dr. Phlox to come up with a way to mask the wraiths' chemical signatures, shielding them from the hunters' scans. Phlox was able to do so, and the hunters left the planet. ( ENT : " Rogue Planet ")

Phlox cosmetically transformed Reed into a Suliban so he could infiltrate a prison to rescue Archer and Mayweather. ( ENT : " Detained ")

In 2152 , during the second year of Enterprise 's voyage, Archer and several other crew members were attacked by an organism that entwined them in its tentacles. Dr. Phlox analyzed a piece of the organism and determined that the tendril appeared to be capable of surviving independently, that it possessed a sophisticated nervous system, and was a sentient being. Phlox tried to free them by using EM radiation , but the organism was integrating the crewmembers' nervous systems into its own and they could end up killing the crew. The crew members were finally released when Sato managed to communicate with the organism and it was returned to its home planet. ( ENT : " Vox Sola ")

Crewman Cutler and T'Pol have to interrupt Phlox's hibernation in his quarters

Phlox also saved Ensign Travis Mayweather 's life after the helmsman was injured in a rock-climbing incident. The Denobulan had to be woken during his annual six-day hibernation sleep, and acted somewhat irrationally as a result. ( ENT : " Two Days and Two Nights ")

After being damaged by a Romulan minefield in April 2152, Enterprise stopped at an automated repair station . Ensign Mayweather was apparently killed on the space station and his inanimate body was returned to the starship. However, Phlox determined that the body was actually a duplicate of the helmsman due to the fact that various microorganisms in his bloodstream – part of a vaccine Phlox had recently given the crew – were all dead; if Mayweather had died under the circumstances that had apparently killed him, the organisms should have been fine. In reality, the station was using Mayweather's brain as a computer processor. ( ENT : " Dead Stop ")

Phlox saved Porthos , Archer's dog , by performing an underwater operation and replacing the animal's pituitary gland with one from a Calrissian chameleon . The dog had become sick when it accompanied Archer on a visit to the Kreetassan 's homeworld, where Archer managed to offend the Kreetassans while negotiating for a much-needed plasma injector. ( ENT : " A Night in Sickbay ")

During a visit to a small mining colony , Archer negotiated an agreement to obtain deuterium in exchange for medical supplies and assistance in repairing the colony's extraction pumps . Phlox gave the medical supplies to E'Lis , a doctor in the colony. He offered her an osmotic eel , which was used to cauterize wounds. She joked that she wouldn't know what to feed it. ( ENT : " Marauders ")

While working on a Suliban cloaked craft, particle radiation caused Tucker's arm to become invisible. They were going to use the ship in the rescue attempt of Archer and Reed who were going to be executed on a pre-warp planet. Phlox informed Tucker that it would eventually materialize on its own. Tucker told Phlox he couldn't work this way. Phlox gave him a glove to put on. ( ENT : " The Communicator ")

After an encounter with a black hole whose radiation had affected the crew by causing obsessive behavior, Phlox wanted to perform major surgery on Mayweather to cure him of a simple headache. Phlox seemed to be more sensitive to the effect than the Human crew. T'Pol stormed into the sickbay to save Mayweather but Phlox threatened her with a surgical knife, only to be neutralized by T'Pol with a Vulcan nerve pinch on the last minute saving Mayweather's life. The effects dissipated after the starship passed the black hole. ( ENT : " Singularity ")

When the Enterprise crew discovered a futuristic vessel with a dead humanoid in it, Phlox discovered that the corpse had genetic material belonging to several other species, including Vulcans . He believed that the individual seemed to be the result of several generations of interspecies breeding. Phlox also visited Archer in a Klingon prison to examine him. He pretended that Archer might have a contagious disease so that the guard would leave them alone. He then informed Archer that a rescue attempt was planned. ( ENT : " Future Tense ", " Judgment ")

Phlox was attacked by an alien using Sato's body as he attempted to find a cure for the alien possession. The aliens had attempted to enter his body, but they could not survive in his body due to his biological make up. Phlox was able to release carbon dioxide into Enterprise 's living quarters, rendering the affected crewmembers unconscious, and forcing the aliens to leave the crew's bodies as they weren't able to survive. He helped Tucker determine that the cogenitor of the Vissians was an intelligent being and had the same mental capabilities as the Vissians. While going through decontamination with T'Pol to rid themselves of a virus , T'Pol became very amorous toward Phlox as the virus had activated her mating cycle ahead of schedule and was causing her to undergo pon farr . Phlox tried to find a treatment, but T'Pol knocked Phlox out and escaped. Phlox found a cure for her, before the virus killed her. T'Pol was embarrassed, but Phlox promised not to mention what happened to anyone. ( ENT : " The Crossing ", " Cogenitor ", " Bounty ")

Phlox undergoes his painful cure

It was shortly after these events that Enterprise was sent after a group of cybernetic beings that had recently attacked a research team in the Arctic. (Although unknown, these were some of the Borg who had attempted to prevent Earth's First Contact .) During this attack, Phlox was infected with Borg nanoprobes , but his immune system managed to keep them under control until he was able to destroy the nanobots by subjecting himself to a potentially lethal radiation dose. During this time, he was briefly linked to the Borg hive mind. He described this as being connected with the rest of the aliens, as if he was part of a collective consciousness. Phlox also said that they were trying to send some sort of message. The message was coordinates, telling their homeworld how to find Earth. ( ENT : " Regeneration ")

Phlox learned that T'Pol had been afflicted with Pa'nar Syndrome , a deadly brain disorder, after she had been forced to participate in a mind meld against her will. Phlox attended a medical conference on Dekendi III with a group of Vulcan doctors, but his efforts to obtain information concerning the disease were rebuffed. The Vulcans viewed the condition, and those who were affected by it, as outcasts. Phlox could not tell them that T'Pol had the disease, as the Vulcan High Command would demand that she return to her homeworld for punishment if they found out. T'Pol was left alone when one of the doctors confessed that he also performed mind melds.

During this incident, one of Phlox's wives, Feezal , visited him on Enterprise . She made advances towards Commander Tucker. Although the engineer informed Phlox of Feezal's implied sexual gestures, the doctor advised Tucker not to ignore the romantic overtures. ( ENT : " Stigma ")

During an evacuation mission, Phlox attempted to treat an Antaran named Hudak . The Antarans and Denobulans had been enemies for centuries, and Hudak consequently refused treatment. When Archer ordered Phlox to treat the Antaran, the Denobulan doctor replied by acknowledging his own responsibility to respect the wishes of his patients and still refused to treat Hudak. After several discussions with the patient (which were initially very difficult), Phlox was able to convince him that he was neither bigoted nor hated Antarans. The Antaran subsequently consented to treatment. ( ENT : " The Breach ")

In April 2153, an unidentified alien probe attacked Earth before self-destructing . Captain Archer was shocked to learn that the probe had been built by an alien race called the Xindi that was building an extremely powerful weapon designed to annihilate Earth. Starfleet permitted Archer to command Enterprise on a mission to find, and destroy, the weapon in the perilous Delphic Expanse .

T'Pol and Phlox wonder how best they can respond to the attack on Humanity

Although the crew were asked to choose whether to participate in the mission or to leave the ship, Phlox found the decision, to stay, easy to make. He based his choice on his strong loyalty to Archer and his realization that his medical skills would be needed more than ever. ( ENT : " The Expanse ")

Shortly after the starship entered the Delphic Expanse , Phlox became concerned about Commander Tucker, who had been experiencing trouble sleeping due to stress from his sister 's death during the first Xindi attack. The doctor asked T'Pol to administer Vulcan neuro-pressure to Tucker, and she eventually complied.

First contact with the Xindi was made on a trellium mining planet , where a Xindi-Primate named Kessick worked. Members of Enterprise 's crew attempted to help the Xindi escape, but Kessick was killed in the attempt. Before he died, he told Phlox the coordinates for the Xindi homeworld . However, the crew unfortunately found that the planet had been destroyed in the 2030s . ( ENT : " The Xindi ")

As the mission continued, the crew of Enterprise discovered a planet where all life had become extinct. An away team sent from Enterprise began to develop alien characteristics, due to a virus created by the planet's inhabitants in a last attempt to repopulate their homeworld. Although Phlox found a cure, he preserved the virus to save with the remains of the species. ( ENT : " Extinction ")

He later tried to examine a Xindi weapon that was organic. The weapon was a booby-trap and almost caused an explosion. He was able to determine that using delta radiation would render the weapon harmless. ( ENT : " The Shipment ")

Phlox treated Bethany , a Human inhabiting a planet similar to the Old West of Earth . The original Humans were abducted by a race called the Skagarans . They revolted and overthrew the Skagarans, making them second-class citizens without rights. She was wounded in a gun fight and beamed aboard Enterprise , where Phlox took the bullet out of her and also discovered that she was part Skagaran. ( ENT : " North Star ")

In a test of his medical ethics, Phlox created a clone of Tucker in order to save the original Human, who had been injured in an accident. The clone, named Sim , could live for only fifteen days, but its organs could be used to heal Tucker. Sim discovered an enzyme that could possibly allow him to survive longer than fifteen days. Phlox examined the enzyme and verified the possibility, but the treatment was dismissed as it would take too long to confirm whether it had worked, leaving them with no opportunity to save Trip if the procedure failed. Because Phlox refused to kill another sentient being, it seemed likely that Tucker would die. Eventually, Sim gave up his life so Tucker could live and help to complete the Xindi mission, his last words being to assure Phlox that Phlox had been a good "father" to him in his brief "childhood". ( ENT : " Similitude ")

Unlike most Denobulans, Phlox did not usually hallucinate to relieve stress. During the search for the Xindi weapon , he admitted to having frequently envied those who were able to do so, as he had a habit of keeping "too much bottled up inside". ( ENT : " Exile ")

Phlox helped Archer neutralize the Triannons who had hijacked the Enterprise . After he distracted his guard by releasing his bat and claiming it was poisonous, he formulated an airborne agent that neutralized the Triannons' organic explosives, allowing Archer and the MACOs to retake the ship. ( ENT : " Chosen Realm ")

Degra , the Xindi who designed the weapon that would destroy Earth, was captured by the Enterprise . In order to trick him into revealing the location of the weapon, Phlox found out that it was possible to erase the Xindi's most recent memories. After Degra revealed the location, Archer had Phlox wipe Degra's memory again, so he would not remember giving the location of the weapon or being on the Enterprise . ( ENT : " Stratagem ")

Enterprise encountered a spatial distortion. They discovered a small craft in the anomaly piloted by an alien who was unconscious. Phlox examined the alien and determined that the alien was suffering from rapid cellular degeneration. The alien was a member of the sphere builders who were behind the plot to have the Xindi destroy Earth. The alien asked Phlox if he was going to die and Phlox told him he was doing everything he could to help him. Later the alien attacked Phlox and knocked him out in an unsuccessful escape attempt.

Phlox also informed T'Pol that Amanda Cole was having headaches due to Tucker's improper use of Vulcan neural pressure techniques. He asked T'pol to talk to Tucker about it, and if she could see Cole and help her with her headaches. It was clear that T'Pol was not pleased and was jealous. ( ENT : " Harbinger ")

In January 2154 , Phlox determined that Archer was infected with a Xindi-Insectoid toxin that endangered the mission. ( ENT : " Hatchery ")

Phlox enjoys a bowl of popcorn on a solitary " movie night " while piloting Enterprise alone for four days in 2153

The following month, Phlox was left to run Enterprise by himself due to a trans-dimensional disturbance that could be fatal to the crew. His Denobulan physiology made him immune to the effects of the disturbance. He placed each crewmember in a comatose state and watched over the ship. However, the solitude of the situation caused him to experience hallucinations. T'Pol joined him because Vulcans were immune to the disturbance's effects as well. Phlox believed he saw a Xindi-Insectoid on the ship and kept hearing strange noises. He also discovered that Enterprise wouldn't clear the disturbance before the crew awoke. Phlox, with T'Pol's help, took the ship to warp and saved the crew. As he awoke the crew, Phlox discovered that T'Pol had been in stasis the whole time and that she was one of his hallucinations. ( ENT : " Doctor's Orders ")

Phlox later discovered that T'Pol had become addicted to trellium-D , which had damaged her neural pathways and made her less able to repress her emotions. ( ENT : " The Forgotten ")

The starship's mission in the Delphic Expanse came to a successful conclusion when the Xindi weapon was destroyed and the spheres eliminated. As Enterprise attempted to destroy the spheres, Phlox told the MACOs to compensate their weapon frequencies for trans-dimensional firing. This helped them to hold off the Sphere-Builders until the spheres could be destroyed.

The vessel returned to Earth shortly thereafter. ( ENT : " Zero Hour ", " Storm Front, Part II ")

Phlox blowing up his face

Phlox was present at a ceremony held in Bay Stadium to celebrate Enterprise 's return to Earth. He collected some equipment from Enterprise , before visiting a bar on Earth with other members of the starship's crew. When a xenophobic Human assaulted him there, Phlox expanded his face in an instinctive defensive posture. ( ENT : " Home ")

Phlox returned to Enterprise before it resumed its normal missions, taking a Dr. Arik Soong on board. Soong had created a group of Human Augments , some of whom had attacked and commandeered a Klingon Bird-of-Prey , and was brought on board Enterprise to help capture them. Phlox met Soong on the starship and criticized his attempt to redesign the Human species using genetics without responsibly learning from the Eugenics Wars . Soong later escaped with the Augments. ( ENT : " Borderland ")

When a young man named Udar was found by an away team from Enterprise and brought on board the ship, Phlox examined him. The doctor told Captain Archer that Udar was in good condition except from being dehydrated and suffering from malnutrition. Archer believed he was an Augment but Phlox corrected the captain that Udar was an anomaly whose DNA was similar but not identical to the Augments and had been born without their enhanced abilities.

Phlox later told Archer that Udar was ready to be released from sickbay. The captain gravely informed Phlox that his old friend, Doctor Jeremy Lucas , was at Cold Station 12 , an outpost that the Augments were planning to capture as it contained the embryos of many unborn Augments. The Denobulan doctor was shocked to learn the news but appreciated Archer telling him. According to Phlox, Doctor Lucas had revealed he was being transferred in his last communique but had not revealed his next assignment.

Having spent a few months at Cold Station 12 himself, Phlox was familiar with the security protocols and technology there. He urged Captain Archer to include him in the away team to retake the station and Archer soon accepted.

When Enterprise arrived at the outpost, Soong and the Augments had taken the staff hostage. In order to steal the embryos, they required access codes from Dr. Lucas. He refused to give them the codes, even though they killed one of his associates. After capturing the away team from Enterprise , Malik , the leader of the Augments, threatened to kill Phlox unless Lucas complied which he ultimately did. ( ENT : " Cold Station 12 ")

Later that year, Admiral Forrest was killed in the bombing of the United Earth Embassy on Vulcan . The Vulcan High Command blamed a religious faction for the terrorist act. Phlox was able to prove that DNA on the bomb was a forgery and that a member of the High Command had planted the explosive in order to exterminate the religious faction. ( ENT : " The Forge ")

Phlox with a computer display of an apparently incurable disease

After returning from an away mission, Commander Tucker and Ensign Sato became ill. Phlox announced that they had an incurable silicon -based virus . With no known cure in the Denobulan medical database , he administered them with medicine to make them sleep and to ease their pain. When they suddenly awoke and aliens announced they had possessed the officers' bodies to experience Human feelings, Phlox was shocked. Before he could warn Archer, however, his memory was erased. The aliens were actually harmless and after experiencing Human sensation, they cured the infected crew members. ( ENT : " Observer Effect ")

Phlox's medical expertise came into play during the incident with the Romulan drone ship. After Shran 's ship was destroyed by the drone ship, Phlox treated the survivors. He was unable to save Talas , Shran's second in command and his love interest, who had been shot by a Tellarite . Phlox helped construct a telepresence unit to interfere with the Romulans' navigation of the drone ship. He believed that it would be dangerous since the wearer might suffer neurolytic shock and brain damage. He monitored T'Pol who wore the interface. He treated her after she went into shock.

When Jhamel , an Aenar , tried to contact her brother Gareb , who was being used by the Romulans to pilot the drone vessel though a neural interface, she too suffered a seizure. Against Phlox's advice, Jhamel tried again and was able to contact her brother and stop the attack against Enterprise . ( ENT : " Babel One ", " United ", " The Aenar ")

Klingons bringing Phlox to Qu'Vat Colony

In November 2154, Phlox was approached by the Interspecies Medical Exchange and asked if he was interested in becoming their Director of Xenobiology . Shortly before he was captured by Rigelians working for the Klingon Empire , Ensign Sato revealed that Phlox often frequented a restaurant called " Madame Chang's ". Following his kidnapping, the Denobulan was taken to Qu'Vat Colony , where, with the assistance of Doctor Antaak , Phlox was forced to help the Klingons develop a vaccine for a mutagenic virus . Phlox realized the Klingons were trying to create Augments. Antaak said the Klingon Augments looked Human, but their neural pathways began to degrade and they died in agony. One Augment had the Levodian flu, and his Augment genes modified the virus and it became airborne, resulting in the current plague.

After examining Phlox's research, Antaak believed the doctor had discovered a cure for the plague. Phlox and Antaak could cure the virus in its early stage. It would still change the Klingon's appearance and leave them with somewhat aggressive personalities – an effect that would remain for about a century or so – but not add any augment powers, such as enhanced strength and speed. Phlox was able to cure the plague, saving the Klingon race, but ending their experiments in augmentation. ( ENT : " Affliction ", " Divergence ")

When Orion women boarded the Enterprise as part of a trade deal with the Orions, strange things started to happen on the ship. The men became aggressive and delusional, while the women suffered from headaches and listlessness. Phlox determined the women had exposed the ship to a very potent pheromone in an attempt to disturb the ship so that it can be captured by the Orions. T'Pol was not affected by the women and was able to direct the ship and defeat the Orions. ( ENT : " Bound ")

During the conference concerning the formation of a coalition of planets, a woman burst in and collapsed to the ground. Before she died, she pressed a vial containing Human hair into T'Pol's hand. Phlox examined the hair and stated that the DNA was part Human and part Vulcan. The DNA was Tucker's and T'Pol's. A baby had been cloned by a terrorist organization known as Terra Prime who was dedicated to driving all aliens off Earth. Although the organization's plot to destroy the coalition of planets was stopped, Tucker's and T'Pol's daughter, who they had named Elizabeth , was dying. Phlox determined that their DNA were not compatible. After the child died, Phlox discovered that there was a flaw in the cloning. He told Tucker that there was no medical reason why a Human and a Vulcan could not have a healthy child. ( ENT : " Demons ", " Terra Prime ")

Later career [ ]

A holographic representation of Doctor Phlox in 2161

Phlox continued to serve aboard Enterprise , when the ship traveled back to Earth to be decommissioned prior to the signing of the Federation Charter . On the way there, Enterprise was diverted for one last mission to rescue Talla , daughter of the Andorian Shran, a former member of the Andorian Imperial Guard who was once an ally of Archer. Although the mission was a success, the ship was later boarded by the alien kidnappers and Commander Tucker was critically injured while trying to save Captain Archer's life. Phlox did everything he could do to save Tucker, but he ultimately died.

Shortly thereafter, Phlox attended the founding ceremony of what would become the United Federation of Planets , along with his wives. He was amazed at the number of alien dignitaries attending the ceremony and believed it was only a matter of time before the fledgling alliance expanded. ( ENT : " These Are the Voyages... ")

Phlox's template became a part of an historic holodeck program depicting the final voyage of the NX-01 Enterprise , which was available for use aboard Federation starships in the 24th century . Commander William T. Riker accessed this program aboard the USS Enterprise -D in 2370 to help him with a moral dilemma. Riker interacted with the Phlox character to acquire information on the personality of Commander Tucker, whose defiance of orders and eventual sacrifice helped Riker solve his own dilemma. ( ENT : " These Are the Voyages... ")

Phlox with his wife Feezal

Phlox had three wives, each with three husbands, including Phlox, resulting in a total of 720 relationships, 42 of which had romantic possibilities. There were 31 children in his extended family, and he had five children of his own: three sons and two daughters. His poor singing of Denobulan lullabies made them cry. All his children left years before his assignment to Enterprise . His daughters were a surgeon and a biochemist. His oldest son was an artist, specifically a potter , and lived in the same town as his mother. He hadn't spoken to his two younger sons (one of whom was named Mettus ) in several years, as they never saw eye-to-eye with Phlox. Mettus held archaic, anti-Antaran beliefs even though Phlox tried to instill in him the ideal to embrace other cultures. ( ENT : " Storm Front ", " A Night in Sickbay ", " The Breach ")

Relationships [ ]

Jonathan archer [ ].

Phlox became one of Archer's most trusted advisers and on many occasions his counselor. He also frequently played devil's advocate for Archer. There were a few issues that they came into conflict over, but this only strengthened their friendship.

Early in the mission the Enterprise answered a distress call from a from a planet called Valakis whose population had two species, the Valakians, and the Menk. The Valakians were being killed due to an unknown epidemic. Phlox discovered that the illness was genetic. Archer wanted to know if a cure was possible. Phlox stated that he had a cure, but that it might not be ethical to administer it, because such a cure would interfere with nature. The Menk were on the verge of evolving to become the dominant species on the planet, which wouldn't happen as long as the Valakians were around. Archer believed that they had a moral obligation to provide a cure. Phlox argued the opposite and in the end convinced Archer that they had no right to play God. Phlox gained a new respect for Archer. ( ENT : " Dear Doctor ")

Later that year Phlox advised Archer on how to deal with a Klingon named Bu'kaH in order to persuade her to help with a rescue attempt. ( ENT : " Sleeping Dogs ")

Phlox endeared himself to Archer when he saved Archer's dog Porthos . This occurred during another diplomatic incident with the Kreetassans. Archer was angry and refused to try and settle the dispute even if it meant the Enterprise would not receive supplies it needed. Spending the night in sickbay, Phlox was able to get Archer to open up about a variety of issues including his attraction to T'Pol. Phlox cleverly discussed his extended family and cultural differences, pointing out that each species has different customs that must be respected, giving Archer a greater understanding of other cultures and persuaded him that he must apologize to the Kreetassans. ( ENT : " A Night in Sickbay ")

Phlox also accepted advice from Archer when an Antaran refused to be treated by Phlox. The Denobulans and Antaran were mortal enemies. Archer ordered Phlox to do so, but the doctor would not treat the Antaran without his consent. Archer convinced Phlox to set aside his preconceptions and attempt to persuade the Antaran to accept treatment. Phlox's attempts were successful and the Antaran gave his consent. ( ENT : " The Breach ")

Phlox and Archer continued their friendship for the rest of Enterprise 's mission, depending on each other for not only friendship, but counseling.

Hoshi Sato [ ]

Though Dr. Phlox was one of two aliens aboard Enterprise , he was able to socialize with the Enterprise crew, striking up friendships with many of the crew.

Phlox was also key in helping Hoshi Sato realize that she belonged on Enterprise . On a mission involving the Axanar , Phlox began to build a relationship with Sato. He also helped Sato to survive the mission when she panicked after aliens attacked Enterprise . He pointed out that she had to adapt to her new surroundings. ( ENT : " Fight or Flight ")

She and Phlox continued to confide in each other. They shared meals together, and he taught her Denobulan. They also discussed private issues. She tried to find out whether he had a lover back home and he would ask her advice about a crewmember named Cutler, who was sending him romantic signals. ( ENT : " Dear Doctor ")

When Phlox was infected with nanoprobes in 2153 , Sato offered to keep him company in sickbay, as he had done the same for her " more times than I can count ". Phlox politely refused, making sure that Sato would be safe if the nanoprobes took over him completely. ( ENT : " Regeneration ")

During a visit to the planet Valakis, Phlox had his first intimate encounter with a member of the starship's crew. Crewman Cutler , a female biologist assigned to Enterprise , became romantically interested in him. She helped him in his efforts to cure a disease that was afflicting the Valakians. Phlox was teaching her to be a part-time medic. Phlox asked her about her attraction to him. He said that he already had three current wives back home, which was perfectly normal for his culture. Taken aback, Cutler admitted her interest in him, but she didn't want to be wife number four, only a friend. Phlox and Cutler ultimately decided to simply continue their platonic friendship. ( ENT : " Dear Doctor ")

Dr. Lucas [ ]

Phlox had another Human friend in regular correspondent Dr. Lucas, a colleague from the Interspecies Medical Exchange. Lucas was the first Human serving on Phlox's homeworld of Denobula. Lucas helped Phlox settle in when he came to Earth, and Phlox tried to help Lucas become accustomed to the Denobulan culture. He confided in Lucas about his relationships with the crew. This friendship came into play during the Augment Crisis. Malik, an Augment, attacked Cold Station 12 where Lucas was stationed after his duty on Denobula. The Enterprise tried to intervene and crewmembers were captured by the Augments. When they realized Lucas' connection to Phlox, they threatened to kill the Enterprise doctor with a deadly pathogen if Lucas didn't give up the access code so they could take the augment embryos. Fearing for his friend's life, Lucas disclosed the information. ( ENT : " Dear Doctor ", " Cold Station 12 ")

Alternate realities and timelines [ ]

Phlox in an alternate 2165

In an alternate timeline wherein Archer was infected by interspatial parasites from a spatial anomaly and consequently developed anterograde amnesia , Phlox was unable to remove the organisms, because they existed in a spatial domain outside the one inhabited by Phlox, Archer, and the others. After the Xindi destroyed Earth and most of mankind, Phlox did not accompany Enterprise to the Ceti Alpha system . Rather, he returned home to Denobula , where he spent a decade consulting with his planet's best neurosurgeons and quantum physicists on the best way to remove the parasites from Archer's brain. Having been told this could only be done with a subspace implosion which would kill Archer as well, Phlox set to work on creating a non-lethal way to treat the captain. When such a way was developed in 2165 , he returned to Ceti Alpha V with this cure.

Phlox thereafter treated Archer aboard Enterprise , as only a warp engine could produce the power necessary to destroy the parasites. After an initial treatment, Phlox and T'Pol made an astonishing discovery: the parasites eradicated so far had disappeared from Archer's brain in all scans from the day he was infected. If he could be fully cured, history could be changed, and Humanity and Earth could possibly be saved.

However, Phlox had been tailed to Ceti Alpha V by Yerdrin Lek , who gave the location of the Human colony to the Xindi. Knowing a fleet was on the way to finish off the Human race once and for all, Captain Tucker, needing all available power for weapons, ordered the treatment halted. After Xindi warships destroyed the bridge, Phlox and T'Pol brought Archer to Engineering, hoping to finish what they started. They arrived only to find that the chamber used in the treatment had been damaged beyond repair. However, Archer, now aware that curing him would mean he was never infected in the first place, recalled that a subspace implosion could destroy the parasites, and the three set out to alter the warp core to cause one. Phlox and T'Pol remained to assist Archer in triggering the overload even when Archer gave them the chance to depart, reasoning that the Xindi would not be interested in them when Xindi's sole vendetta was with the Human race. Along with T'Pol, Phlox was killed once the Xindi boarded Enterprise , but Archer, with his dying breath, was able to cause the implosion, destroying the parasites and restoring the timeline. ( ENT : " Twilight ")

In a different timeline where Enterprise was stranded in 2037 , Phlox had nine children with Corporal Amanda Cole . Many of the ship's crew were descendants of Phlox. Phlox also discovered a way to combine the Vulcan and Human genomes, allowing Tucker and T'Pol to mate and produce Lorian . In this timeline, Phlox had died by 2154. ( ENT : " E² ")

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

• " Broken Bow "
• " Fight or Flight "
• " Strange New World "
• " Unexpected "
• " Terra Nova "
• " The Andorian Incident "
• " Breaking the Ice "
• " Civilization "
• " Fortunate Son "
• " Cold Front "
• " Silent Enemy "
• " Dear Doctor "
• " Sleeping Dogs "
• " Shadows of P'Jem "
• " Shuttlepod One "
• " Rogue Planet "
• " Acquisition "
• " Detained "
• " Vox Sola "
• " Fallen Hero "
• " Two Days and Two Nights "
• " Shockwave "
• " Shockwave, Part II "
• " Minefield "
• " Dead Stop "
• " A Night in Sickbay "
• " Marauders "
• " The Seventh "
• " The Communicator "
• " Singularity "
• " Vanishing Point "
• " The Catwalk "
• " Cease Fire "
• " Future Tense "
• " Canamar "
• " The Crossing "
• " Judgment "
• " Horizon "
• " The Breach "
• " Cogenitor "
• " Regeneration "
• " The Expanse "
• " The Xindi "
• " Anomaly (ENT) "
• " Extinction "
• " Impulse "
• " The Shipment "
• " Twilight "
• " North Star "
• " Similitude "
• " Chosen Realm "
• " Stratagem "
• " Harbinger "
• " Doctor's Orders "
• " Hatchery "
• " Azati Prime "
• " The Forgotten "
• " The Council "
• " Countdown "
• " Zero Hour "
• " Storm Front "
• " Storm Front, Part II "
• " Borderland "
• " Cold Station 12 "
• " The Augments "
• " The Forge "
• " Kir'Shara "
• " Daedalus "
• " Observer Effect "
• " Babel One "
• " The Aenar "
• " Affliction "
• " Divergence "
• " Terra Prime "
• " These Are the Voyages... "

Background information [ ]

John Billingsley goes before the cameras as Phlox

Phlox was portrayed by John Billingsley .

In the series bible for Star Trek: Enterprise , Phlox was described thus; " Full name is 'Phloxx-tunnai-oortann' but he goes by 'Phlox' for our benefit. Our most exotic character, the Doctor is an eccentric alien with an oblique sense of humor that no one quite understands. Because he speaks with an accent, and isn't familiar with Earth cultures, there are many humorous misunderstandings. Phlox thinks that Humanity is fascinating – the complex sexual mores (his species reproduces asexually), social customs... oh my, what wonderful creatures! To say the Doctor has made himself 'at home' on the Enterprise is putting it mildly. He's filled Sickbay with all sorts of bizarre medical instruments, alien plants and spores, and stasis chambers filled with small, living creatures. He practices a brand of 'intergalactic medicine' the likes of which we've never seen. This makes the most routine visit to Sickbay an unexpected adventure. "

In a character breakdown sheet that Paramount sent to talent agents while initially seeking an actor to play Phlox, the character was described thus; " Exotic alien. Medical officer. Appears to be in his 40s, but we're not certain of his real age. Phlox speaks with a slight alien accent and has an eccentric sense of humor that no one quite understands. He thinks that Humanity is fascinating. The Doctor has filled Sickbay with all sorts of bizarre medical instruments, alien plants and spores, and stasis chambers with small, living creatures. He practices a brand of 'Intergalactic medicine' the likes of which we've never seen. This makes the most routine visit to Sickbay an unexpected adventure. " [2]

In the script of ENT : " Broken Bow " (both the second draft and the revised final draft of the teleplay), Phlox was described as "an exotic-looking alien physician [...] [with a] slight, distinctive accent." [3]

Among those who auditioned for the role of Phlox was John Billingsley. " Honestly, what I totally dug about this guy when I went in to read for him, " Billingsley reminisced, " was that he's a happy-go-lucky fella. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 2, Issue 7 , p. 28) Brannon Braga noted about Billingsley, " [He] just blew us away in the reading. " (" Broken Bow " audio commentary , ENT Season 1 DVD / Blu-ray )

The role of Phlox was conceived and cast before his species and homeworld were named. " We had one conversation in which we spoke in very general terms about the philosophical attitude of this guy, and we were totally simpatico, " remembered John Billingsley. Unaware of what the character's future held, Billingsley, from then on, formulated some early thoughts of his own about Phlox and how he was regarded on his home planet. For instance, the actor thought of Phlox as "more party animal" than the others of his kind. Due to Phlox's cheerfulness, Billingsley regarded Phlox as the one character from his acting career which he based most on himself, the actor simultaneously recognizing this as somewhat odd. Though Billingsley didn't consider himself challenged by the creation of an entirely new alien, he did think it was challenging to try to determine why Phlox was the way he was, despite meanwhile loving that task. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 2, Issue 7 , p. 28)

John Billingsley has his Phlox makeup tweaked

John Billingsley found some of his regular preparation for playing Phlox was grueling, due to the makeup required for the part. This was because its application meant he usually had to arrive two-and-a-half hours earlier than the production crew and, to have it removed, he needed to depart an hour after everyone else had already left. ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 152 , p. 26)

Hair stylist Michael Moore found that Phlox's hairstyle essentially fell together naturally, without investing much consideration or effort in it. " It just kind of happened, " Moore laughed. " We had the front made, and we weren't sure what we wanted to do with it. We knew we wanted to use [John Billingsley's] own hair for the back. I put some curl in it and went with it. Rick [Berman] came down and looked at it and said, 'Good!' " In regards to how he changed the hairstyle in the series' third season , Moore concluded, " I made it more like a guy with longer hair, and he just combs it back. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 152 , p. 31)

Early in the series run of Star Trek: Enterprise , Brannon Braga considered Phlox a challenge to depict. " I don't want our doctor to just become an amalgam of medical ethic stories, " Braga admitted, shortly after ENT Season 1 began. " He's a really weird alien, a kind of Dian Fossey aboard the ship; he's among the primates. He's hopefully going to study Humans and get out and about a little more. But the biggest danger with him, which we have avoided so far, is making him like Neelix . The impulse is to make him really cutesy and kind of wacky, and we don't want to do that. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 2, Issue 9 , p. 22)

Following ENT's second season , the show's writing staff planned to use Phlox "as much as possible," in Brannon Braga's words. ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 145 , p. 30)

Reception [ ]

There has been some criticism from Star Trek fans that Phlox seems too similar to Star Trek: Voyager character Neelix. Mark Jones and Lance Parkin , writers of the review reference book Beyond the Final Frontier (p. 364), even went as far as to comment that Phlox was "condemned by fans at first as being a second Neelix."

Phlox turned out to be an extremely popular character. " A lot of that comes from the way John Billingsley plays him, " Brannon Braga noted. Braga believed that, for instance, Billingsley was such a good actor as to ensure Phlox was definitely considered a new character. " Any fears people had initially that he might be like Voyager 's Neelix are long gone, " Braga stated, following ENT Season 2. " We've really hit a home run with Phlox, in large part due to John. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 145 , pp. 29-30)

In Beyond the Final Frontier , Mark Jones and Lance Parkin additionally expressed their own opinion of Phlox, remarking, " John Billingsley, like Robert Picardo and Brent Spiner before him, has taken what might have been a gimmicky character, Dr. Phlox, and made him very rounded and appealing. " Jones and Parkin also conveyed pleasure at seeing Phlox be represented as having "hidden depths and secrets (but thankfully not sinister ones)." ( Beyond the Final Frontier , pp. 357 & 364)

External links [ ]

• Phlox at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Phlox (Star Trek) at Wikipedia
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)

• More to Explore
• Series & Movies

Episode Preview: The Nth Degree

Why Enterprise's Dr. Phlox Is The Greatest Star Trek Character

(Welcome to Yesterday's Enterprises , a series where we explore every corner of the vast "Star Trek" universe. In this edition: a tribute to Dr. Phlox, one of the all-time-great "Trek" characters.)

For any neophytes that may be reading, the uniforms on "Star Trek" are colored to coordinate with their department. On the original series, those who are on the command track wear gold uniforms. Those in engineering or security wear red, and those involved with medicine or the sciences wear blue. For reasons that have never been adequately, canonically explained, gold and red switched functions at the start of " Star Trek: The Next Generation ." The colored uniforms not only offer a very basic visual variety to the show — how dull if every single character wore the same clothes — but also lent a vital sense of structure to "Star Trek." A Federation starship was, audiences could immediately intuit, a massively complicated place that required multiple experts in various disciplines in order to function properly. 

As such, each character would be infused with different concerns. A security officer would, for instance, be more concerned with keeping the ship safe than, say, a diplomatic command officer who would be more willing to take risks as a show of good faith. Multiple points of view, then, were baked into the very premise of the show, codifying Trek as its own kind of astral agora, a meeting place where various solutions to complex problems would be entertained. 

Always existing somewhat apart from the other departments on "Star Trek" were the Starfleet medical officers. Each "Star Trek" series to date (" Star Trek: Prodigy " notwithstanding) has featured a clear-headed, professional CMO whose job it is to look after the physical well-being of the crew. They were often present on away missions — Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) especially — but their concerns were often more immediate than the captain's mission. They only had to protect people from injury. The CMO's ethic was always more direct.

And that brings us to Dr. Phlox, one of the greatest "Star Trek" characters of all time. 

Of all the doctors on "Star Trek," Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley) from " Star Trek: Enterprise " was perhaps the best. A Denobulan — a species unseen until the premiere of "Enterprise" — Dr. Phlox was perhaps one of the happiest, most intelligent, most upbeat characters in all of "Star Trek" lore. Phlox served as the CMO aboard the original Enterprise, the very first long-range Starfleet vessel devoted to exploration and diplomacy. "Enterprise" took place about a century prior to the events of the original "Star Trek" and saw a starship crew operate in a world that had yet to invent common "Star Trek" technologies like shields, tractor beams, transporters (that were safe for living things) ... and the Prime Directive. It was very much a frontiersmanship-forward show, and there was going to be no Federation safety net for the characters to fall back on. 

The tone of "Enterprise" was very eager, but also nervous. Captain Archer ( Scott Bakula ), and the audience, could figure out "Star Trek" as it went along. Offering an emotional anchor to the proceedings was Dr. Phlox. He was on the ship as part of an inter-species exchange program, and he was eager and excited to serve. Phlox was no starry-eyed idealist, though — that was Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." Instead, Phlox was an experienced professional who had long ago come to the understanding that the straightest path to growth was through travel, exposure to other cultures, and learning to better himself. In brief, Phlox already represented Starfleet ideals before they were canonically codified. He was the gentle teacher, the doting professor, the patient parent, and the enthused tourist of "Enterprise."

But also something of a goofball.

Just excited to be here

In the episode "A Night in Sickbay" (October 16, 2002), Captain Archer had to stay up through the wee hours concerned that his beloved Beagle Porthos was mysteriously sick. In his night sojourn, he spent a lot of time with Dr. Phlox and learned a lot about the way his CMO approached medicine. The captain found that Dr. Phlox had found curatives everywhere, including in the organs and excretions of the many exotic, alien animals he kept in sickbay. Also, thanks to his species' hibernation cycle — he sleeps for about a week at a time, then stays awake for months — Phlox was able to stay up with Archer, happy to psychoanalyze his fretting captain. Phlox possesses multiple degrees in medicine and psychiatry. 

Even as he was performing surgery on a dog or asking about Archer's mother, Phlox radiated a strange, infectious jollity. Phlox perhaps reflected the excitement most Trekkies themselves would have, should they suddenly be transported into the imaginary world of "Star Trek." 

Additionally, "Star Trek" doesn't necessarily have the best track record when it comes to progressive notions of sex and sexuality. Many early episodes of the 1966 series were staggeringly sexist, and Gene Roddenberry's notions of "free love for Gene" were too often part of the shows he created. In that tradition, " Enterprise " was typically a pretty lascivious show. It featured multiple scenes of crewmates having to strip to their underwear and slather each other with medicinal salve every time they returned from an away mission. The salve scenes were clearly part of a (pathetic) effort to boost ratings with oily skin.

Phlox's sexuality

Phlox, standing counter to the show's own occasional bouts of adolescent lasciviousness, lived in a blissful polycule arrangement with multiple wives and husbands. When one of his wives visits the Enterprise, she flirts heavily with Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer), the ship's engineer. At first, Tucker is taken aback, but is made uncomfortable when Dr. Phlox explains that his marriage is quite open. He has three wives and his wife has two additional husbands including him. Each one of her husbands also has three wives, and so on. When Tucker points out that it sounds complicated, Phlox smiles and says "Very." While the makers of "Enterprise" are nervously tittering about stripping the cast naked, Phlox is busy being happily polyamorous. 

That's not to say that Phlox is not a character with complexity and principles. According to the way he practices medicine, the will of the patient takes precedence over his ability to heal. When asked to violate a patient's wishes, Phlox refuses. Captain Archer points out that he must first do no harm, to which the Denobulan comes back with "Hippocrates was a human." He aids people according to their wishes, and is concerned with the people in front of him. He is moral and insular and capable. 

And, of course, all credit to Billinglsey for infusing Dr. Phlox with all of his most appealing qualities. Billingsley is an astonishingly good actor who played well with whoever he shared the screen with, immediately forming chemistry and a rapport. He gave the character his sense of awe, but also his maturity. 

And what else does "Star Trek" pivot on than awe and maturity?

• Cast & crew

Six Degrees of Star Trek Week

• Podcast Episode

THIS WEEK ON THE 4:30 MOVIE, it's "SIX DEGREES OF STAR TREK WEEK" as we curate an all-new fantasy theme week of films starring iconic Star Trek actors in other non-Trek roles. Join us as we ... Read all THIS WEEK ON THE 4:30 MOVIE, it's "SIX DEGREES OF STAR TREK WEEK" as we curate an all-new fantasy theme week of films starring iconic Star Trek actors in other non-Trek roles. Join us as we boldly go where few actors have gone before. It was only logical. THIS WEEK ON THE 4:30 MOVIE, it's "SIX DEGREES OF STAR TREK WEEK" as we curate an all-new fantasy theme week of films starring iconic Star Trek actors in other non-Trek roles. Join us as we boldly go where few actors have gone before. It was only logical.

• Mark A. Altman
• Daren Dochterman
• Steven Melching

• Self - Host

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Connections Edited into Inglorious Treksperts: The 4:30 Movie: Six Degrees of Trek (2024)

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• April 28, 2023 (United States)
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• Runtime 1 hour 21 minutes

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The Best Sci-Fi TV Shows and Movies Inspired by Star Trek

From classic space adventures to parodies to stories about loving Star Trek, these are the best TV series and movies inspired by the Final Frontier.

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Star Trek is one of best and most well-known science fiction franchises of all time, so it’s no surprise that it’s had a huge influence on the rest of the genre. From other space-faring adventures to distant worlds to straight up parodies of the Enterprise and its crew, there are plenty of shows and movies that owe a bit to Gene Roddenberry ‘s creation.

This is not a list of every single show or film that has been inspired by Star Trek because that list would cover a pretty good proportion of sci-fi on screen since 1966. But if you want to watch something Star Trek -adjacent, we’ve picked out 10 of our favorite shows and movies that were, to a greater or lesser degree, inspired by Star Trek .

Back in 1998, BBC 2 ran a Red Dwarf Night featuring interviews with celebrity fans, one of whom was Patrick Stewart. Stewart talked about how he was channel hopping (remember that, fellow oldies?) one night around 1993 or 1994 and came across something that, to his own “horror and outrage”, appeared to be a “rip-off” of Star Trek: The Next Generation . He was reaching for the phone to call his lawyer, “when something happened that made me laugh – and it was something that certainly would not have happened on The Next Generation .” Stewart realized the show was a comedy, not a cheap rip-off, started laughing, and became a fan.

Red Dwarf actually started around the same time as Next Gen , both being developed from 1986, though Red Dwarf was delayed in getting to air until 1988 due to an electricians’ strike. Following the misadventures of the last human being alive as he embarks on a 3 million year journey to get back to Earth, the series combines elements of a few different space-set shows and films, including Silent Running and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , but there is clearly a hefty dose of Star Trek: The Original Series in there. As time went on, more and more Next Generation crept in as well, especially with the addition of android crewmember Kryten as a full time cast member in Series 3.

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Stargate SG-1

Stargate SG-1 was spun off from the 1994 Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich film Stargate , and the basic premise comes directly from that film: a US Air Force team go through a mysterious gate found in Egypt to another planet – or, in the case of the TV show, lots of other planets. When the show was adapted for television, although it did not feature many spaceships until later seasons, it did start to draw on the well-established tropes of Planet of the Week style space opera that Star Trek helped to popularize. The tortured military hero gained a wise-cracking style to suit star Richard Dean Anderson that aligned him more with “always a joke at the end of the episode” Kirk, the typical 1990s-nerdy Egyptologist slowly became more of a respected expert who sneezed less often, and more importantly the team gained a woman who was not sold to the Egyptology nerd in marriage (yes that is really the plot of the movie and yes, she calls him out on it) and a stoic alien.

The addition of Teal’c is where we can really see the influence of Star Trek creeping in because Teal’c is basically the love child of Spock and Worf, in the best way. He is extremely calm and composed – he has very deep emotions, but he keeps them under the surface and meditates frequently. He is also quite fond of a raised eyebrow. The “scientist” position on the team was already taken by Carter, so Teal’c fulfills the “warrior” role. Standing out as a warrior in a military setting is quite the task, but like Worf, Teal’c’s “honorable warrior” approach and fondess for his own culture’s weapons marks him out as a warrior among warriors.

Futurama follows Philip J Fry, who accidentally falls into a cryogenic freezer on New Year’s Day in 2000 and wakes up on December 31, 2999 (and leaves his dog behind, in quite possibly the most traumatic episode of television ever made). Fry finds work with his distant nephew (an elderly man) at a delivery company called Planet Express. Being a science fiction comedy set in a future full of spaceships, there are of course references to Star Trek scattered throughout, and the short-skirted, egotistical, womanizing recurring character Captain Zapp Brannigan clearly has more than a bit of Kirk in him.

Futurama also incorporated Star Trek into its stories more directly on occasion. The show’s very first guest star was Leonard Nimoy as his own cryogenically preserved head, welcoming Fry to the Head Museum (a regular feature on the series). And later there was a whole episode dedicated to Star Trek itself, “Where No Fan Has Gone Before.” In this episode, Fry discovers that Star Trek inspired a whole religion, which led to the Star Trek Wars, which led to the show and everything associated with it being banned. But a powerful alien being has watched the whole show, and has given the preserved heads of most of the original actors new bodies so they can participate in an eternal Star Trek convention. It’s a loving, joyous send-up of the show and features all but one of the then-surviving original cast members plus, inevitably, Jonathan Frakes, because every spin-off of Star Trek in any form must feature Jonathan Frakes in some role. This is the Rule.

Battlestar Galactica (reboot)

Battlestar Galactica 2003/4 – 2009 is a reimagining of the original 1979 series Battlestar Galactica , so needless to say its main point of reference is that show (though the original has some connections with Star Trek as well, as we covered here ). But it was also developed, executive produced, and had many episodes written by Ronald D. Moore, who first earned his stripes as a writer on The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , and briefly on Voyager before his working relationship with his writing partner Brannon Braga broke down and he left.

While in many ways Battlestar Galactica was deliberately the anti- Star Trek – featuring a somewhat grimmer world view and an even higher body count – it also had many similarities, inevitably, since they are both set on space ships and led by a ship’s Captain or Commander. But Moore also emphasized some of the most interesting themes of 1990s Star Trek in his noughties version of BSG . Having left Voyager after only a couple of episodes, he obviously felt he had more to say about a spaceship on a long journey to get to Earth. And he had done a lot of work on Deep Space Nine , at the time the grittiest Star Trek series (possibly overtaken by Discovery or Picard since then– argue that out in the comments!). DS9 ’s penchant for morally gray characters and storylines and for stories based around a mysterious alien religion is clearly reflected in the themes emphasized by Moore’s reimagining of Battlestar Galactica .

Firefly/Serenity

Firefly (and its follow-up movie Serenity ) is another show that, on the surface, seems to be deliberately doing something different to Star Trek . Set in the future and following the crew of a spaceship, it has a Western-inspired vibe. The ship has a courtesan and a mercenary on board, and the use of Chinese phrases scattered among the English seems to be a reaction against the perceived tendency of Star Trek and other series to make the future look very American (somewhat unfairly, and Uhura’s native language is very specifically established as Swahili in “The Changeling,” although she is admonished and told to speak English which is especially odd as they all have Universal Translators… but we digress).

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But actually, Firefly is very directly inspired by Star Trek , which was famously conceived by Gene Roddenberry as a “wagon train to the stars.” Its even more famous tag line describes space as “the final frontier,” clearly positioning the show as basically a Western in space. Firefly takes that basic idea but goes in a different direction with it. Instead of focusing on the exploration aspect of the movement of immigrants to America ever further west in the 19th century, Firefly picks up on other elements of Westerns and Western tropes – particularly the lawlessness in a frontier environment with minimal law enforcement. It is the yin to Star Trek ’s yang.

WALL-E ’s most obvious and immediate inspirations are the films Silent Running and 2001: A Space Odyssey , but if you look closely, there is a good bit of Star Trek in there as well. It is, of course, largely set on a spaceship and one of the main characters is the ship’s captain – so far, so superficial.

But there are deeper connections to Star Trek here. One of the things that is notable about WALL-E is just how good and well-intentioned all the future human characters are. The present-day human character played by Fred Willard, and by implication all the other present-day humans, are somewhat terrible, but all of the future humans we meet are good people who are open to new experiences when they are exposed to them. Their sedentary, passive lifestyles are simply what they have been taught and brought up with. The simplest and briefest exposure to the world around them, even just by being accidentally toppled out of their mobile chairs, sets them off on a journey of discovery, and the ship’s captain is thrilled and excited to learn more about Earth and about his own ship’s true mission. That attitude is pure Star Trek – a passion for discovery and exploration, even when it is one that ultimately leads back to Earth again.

The Orville

There was a point, around 2017-2019, when The Orville was famous for being more like Star Trek than Star Trek . This is not meant – by us anyway – as a criticism of Star Trek: Discovery , which is a great show. But in its first two seasons, Discovery deliberately leaned away from some of the Star Trek series that had come before, following a disgraced former mutineer instead of a Captain or Commander, featuring a morally dubious Captain who actually turned out to be “evil,” focusing on war and trauma, and using arc-based instead of episodic storytelling. It was pretty similar to Deep Space Nine in many ways, but for fans of the more upbeat, Planet of the Week, episodic storytelling of the Original Series , The Next Generation , or Voyager , it was a bit of a shock ( Star Trek: Enterprise , like Discovery , re-tooled itself somewhat halfway through).

The Orville , on the other hand, basically is Star Trek in the 1990s mold of Next Gen or Voyager . Seven episodes of the show were actually written by Brannon Braga with his new writing partner, former scientific consultant on Star Trek , André Bormanis. And yes, writers are of course capable of writing different things, but although The Orville started out as a Star Trek spoof, pretty much the only difference between the two by season 3 is that people on the Orville sometimes eat pot brownies.

The show also stars Deep Space Nine ’s Penny Johnson Jerald in a regular role as the ship’s doctor, and has guest-starred Next Gen ’s Marina Sirtis, Voyager’ s Robert Picardo and Tim Russ, and Enterprise ’s John Billingsley, and the show’s directors include Star Trek ’s Brannon Braga, Robert Duncan McNeill and, of course, Jonathan Frakes. So it must be Star Trek .

Avenue 5 is a sadly short-lived science fiction comedy that blends elements of Voyager , Red Dwarf , and WALL-E . It takes from Red Dwarf and Voyager the basic plot that a spaceship has ended up a long way from home, and an essential crew member has been killed and must somehow be replaced. It then adds a well-meaning Captain who was only ever intended to be a figurehead, and not to actually run the ship, from WALL-E . Hilarity – and some surprisingly shocking deaths – ensue.

Although the somewhat less than inspirational characters skew closer to Red Dwarf , Battlestar Galactica , or Firefly , Avenue 5 shows its Star Trek side pretty clearly in the hiring of Voyager ’s Ethan Phillips (Neelix) as former astronaut Spike Martin. It also features an entire plot line built around the ability to split the ship into two, a clear reference to one of the Enterprise -D’s most famous (and least used) features.

Avengers: Endgame

This one is probably the biggest surprise on this list. Granted, it does feature spaceships and space travel, but as a big budget superhero film, it does not obviously have much in common with space opera.

What connects the second-highest grossing film of all time with Star Trek is the importance of the ensemble and the relationship between a group and its leader. Kevin Feige has mentioned a couple of times (both times speaking to Entertainment Weekly ) that he loves The Next Generation and that he had its final episode “All Good Things” in mind when developing Avengers: Endgame . “All Good Things” (written by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore) has some time-hopping going on that is not dissimilar to Endgame , but Feige talked specifically about the very last scene, when Picard finally sits down to play poker with his senior officers. That relationship between the Captain and his crew and them all coming together, just like the shawarma-based post-credits in the first Avengers film, is what Feige really wanted to take from Star Trek and incorporate into the MCU.

The film also takes its title from the final episode of Voyager and directly lifts its closing images featuring the autographs of the actors playing the six main characters from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , the final film focusing on the original Star Trek crew played by their original actors, symbolizing its similar position as a grand ending to the earliest phase of a franchise.

Galaxy Quest

We’re finishing with a film and a show that are not just “inspired by” Star Trek – to all intents and purposes, they are Star Trek , or very nearly. The premise for 1999’s Galaxy Quest is that aliens have been watching a Star Trek -like show and mistaken it for “historical documents,” so when they find themselves facing an enemy they can’t defeat, they crash a convention to ask the “crew” of the NSEA Protector for help. With a cast led by Tim Allen (a perfect Shatner-a-like), Sigourney Weaver (of course), and Alan Rickman (whose sad passing is the reason a proposed TV show never got off the ground), the resulting story is hilarious, heart-warming, and heart-breaking in equal amounts.

Galaxy Quest is perfect. It just is. If you are a Star Trek fan and you haven’t seen it, why not? Go and watch it immediately! You will never be able to watch an episode of Star Trek without quoting a line from Galaxy Quest ever again (especially not the Original Series episode “Arena”). Hear yourself constantly saying, “I’m the guy that dies to show the situation is serious!” “Quick, let’s get out of here before one of those things kills Guy!” “Does the rolling help?” “I see you managed to get your shirt off,” “Whoever wrote this episode should die!” and of course, “That’s not right!” And I know I just spoiled several of the funniest lines, but go and watch it anyway, I promise it’s worth it.

Juliette Harrisson | @ClassicalJG

Juliette Harrisson is a writer and historian, and a lifelong Trekkie whose childhood heroes were JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. She runs a YouTube channel called…

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Star Trek: Prodigy Cast Guide & All Returning Voyager Characters In Seasons 1 & 2

The doctor's new regeneration shows how much the toymaker messed with doctor who's timeline, true beauty’s k-drama replacement confirmed 4 years later by new time travel show.

• Netflix will stream Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 before Paramount+'s Starfleet Academy starts shooting.
• Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 focuses on Dal and crew aboard USS Voyager-A, setting the stage for their journey to becoming Starfleet officers, drawing comparisons with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
• Starfleet Academy series faces tough competition from Prodigy, but both shows highlight the franchise's forward-thinking strategy for the next generation of fans.

Netflix is set to beat Paramount+ to the punch by streaming Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 before a single minute of Paramount's next Star Trek show is filmed. Prodigy season 2 has had a rocky road to screens, first being canceled by Paramount, before finding a new home on Netflix thanks, in part, to a passionate fan campaign. Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 will pick up the story of Dal R'El (Brett Gray) and his crew as they gain hands-on experience of what it takes to be Starfleet officers, courtesy of the mentorship of Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and the Doctor (Robert Picardo).

Although they're set 800 years apart, the upcoming YA Star Trek: Discovery spinoff, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, bears similarities to Netlfix's animated series. While the target audience of Star Trek: Prodigy is certainly younger than that of Starfleet Academy , both shows are Star Trek coming-of-age stories . These similarities make the timing of Starfleet Academy 's announcement and Prodigy 's suspicious, but it's likely just an unfortunate coincidence. Another unfortunate coincidence is that Netflix drops Prodigy season 2 in July , months before Paramount+'s upcoming YA Star Trek show is scheduled to start shooting, meaning that Starfleet Academy could pale in comparison.

Star Trek: Prodigy's cast of young alien heroes and Star Trek: Voyager's legacy characters led by Admiral Janeway return in season 2.

Netflix’s Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 Will Beat Paramount Plus’ Starfleet Academy To The Punch

Despite how rigidly compartmentalized Alex Kurtzman has made it, the Star Trek franchise has dueling Starfleet Academy shows. Star Trek: Prodigy will largely be set aboard the USS Voyager-A, as Dal and his fellow Warrant Officers join Janeway's mission to save Captain Chakotay (Robert Beltran) . While the end of Prodigy season 1 confirmed that Dal and his crew aren't officially Starfleet Academy cadets, season 2's theme of coming-of-age and learning what it takes to become an officer is the whole premise of the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery spinoff. Prodigy also has the benefit of being a Star Trek: Voyager sequel, meaning that it has a firmly established fictional universe in the form of the 24th century.

As well as Kate Mulgrew, Robert Picardo, and Robert Beltran, it's been teased that other classic Star Trek characters may cameo in Star Trek: Prodigy season 2.

Compared to the Star Trek: Prodigy characters rescuing a Starfleet legend from an alternate future, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 's story of fresh recruits finding their way into higher education sounds incredibly dry. Hopefully, it won't be as Earthbound as suggested by the construction of Starfleet Academy 's primary San Francisco location on a soundstage in Toronto. However, it could be difficult for the show to escape unfavorable comparisons with a thematically similar yet more vibrant animated series. Not least because, like Prodigy 's Admiral Janeway, Starfleet Academy also has a charismatic female mentor, in the form of Holly Hunter's unnamed Academy Chancellor .

Why Star Trek Is Now So Focused On Starfleet Academy

Constantly trading on the 1990s glory days of the franchise, or revisiting the legendary adventures of the Star Trek: The Original Series crew will only go so far.

Star Trek 's dueling Starfleet Academy shows are emblematic of a forward-thinking strategy for the wider franchise. As the Star Trek franchise approaches its 60th anniversary, it makes sense to start building the next generation of Starfleet legends, be that in Star Trek: Prodigy or Star Trek: Starfleet Academy . Constantly trading on the 1990s glory days of the franchise, or revisiting the legendary adventures of the Star Trek: The Original Series crew will only go so far. While Star Trek is something that multiple generations enjoy together, kids and young adults often desire a corner of the franchise that's just for them.

Star Trek: Prodigy season 1 was such a joy because, as well as telling a great Star Trek story, it was a hugely enjoyable and accessible primer for the history of Starfleet and the Federation. Kids that fall in love with the adventures of Hologram Janeway and the crew of the USS Protostar could then ask their parents to show them the adventures of the real-life Janeway and the USS Voyager. Hopefully, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will have a similar effect on its YA audience, building the next generation of fans and securing the longevity of the franchise for generations to come.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season 1 is scheduled to start production in Fall 2024.

Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 premieres on Netflix on July 1st.

Star Trek: Prodigy

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Star Trek: Prodigy is the first TV series in the Star Trek franchise marketed toward children, and one of the few animated series in the franchise. The story follows a group of young aliens who find a stolen Starfleet ship and use it to escape from the Tars Lamora prison colony where they are all held captive. Working together with the help of a holographic Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), the new crew of the USS Protostar must find their way back to the Alpha Quadrant to warn the Federation of the deadly threat that is pursuing them.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

After being closed for over a hundred years, Starfleet Academy is reopening its doors to those who wish to pursue a career as Starfleet Officers. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will follow a new group of cadets as they come of age, and build friendships, rivalries, and romantic relationships while being threatened by a new adversary that could destroy the Academy and the Federation itself.