ENT: Two Days and Two Nights

[CharlesPhipps]

I would have enjoyed a holiday resort where everyone just has a fun vacation and use it as a chance for interacting with other species as well as cultures.

OR

I would note that Risa being a tourist planet implies a pretty thriving galactic culture or that somehow it became such.

[Admiral X]

I, for one, wouldn't have minded a fan service episode - would have been the perfect excuse to get T'Pol into a bikini.

[Durandal_1707]

I don't see many legitimate reasons for setting an episode there, though. I see the two major possibilities as-

1) Following hapless would-be Lotharios, which has been a staple of sitcoms for over fifty years.
2) Someone getting caught up in a romantic, adventurous intrigue, the route taken in Captain's Holiday.

There are ways to build a story around a holiday spot, but you have to really commit to it instead of treating it as a chance for wacky hijinks or fanservice. A few quick ideas:

3. Its presence as a holiday destination makes it a logical location for espionage. There's lots of traffic in and out, from all corners of the galaxy, making it easy to both mask movements transfer information, people or things - especially if there's an unwritten rule among the great powers leaving it as neutral ground.

4. You can have a bottle episode where a main character is granted leave after suffering a debilitating injury or traumatic event in a previous episode. Risa is meant to be recuperating, but is too scarred to enjoy the experience, and keeps seeing plots and threats.

5. Explore a seedy underbelly hiding beneath the glamour - less Blue Hawaii, and more Casino. There's already a (completely unintentional) vibe that the planet is basically a respectable brothel; let there be illicit drugs and hustlers.

6. Put a (suspected) retired war criminal on the planet. Risa has an interest in maintaining the privacy of its clients, and would resist attempts to investigate... but they also have an interest in not being a haven for criminals. There is a political problem in both finding out if someone is a criminal, and if so, quietly getting him out. Having a Federation ship dock there for shore leave makes a good cover for a discreet investigative team, with or without the Risan government's support/knowledge.

7. The evil villains of the moment use Risa as a testing ground for their new planet-busting weapon. Kaboom. Oh darn, looks like we won't be able to make any more Risa episodes in the future. Pity, that.

[Fianna]

Idea: The government of Risa has been warned that humans have a lot of hangups about sex, so everyone in the areas tourists normally go has been instructed not to come onto the humans for fear of giving the Federation offense. Our human crew members, meanwhile, frustrated that they can't get laid of frickin' Risa, go off the grid into the seedier, tourist-unfriendly portions of Risa, looking to get some, and end up getting more than they bargained for.

[Asvarduil]

Though, I do have to say that the U.S.S. Ben Sisko's Muthaf@#$ing Pimp Hand is iconic in its own right.

Thank you! I think you're cool too!

Sempai noticed me!!! <3

[Karha of Honor]

Idea: The government of Risa has been warned that humans have a lot of hangups about sex, so everyone in the areas tourists normally go has been instructed not to come onto the humans for fear of giving the Federation offense. Our human crew members, meanwhile, frustrated that they can't get laid of frickin' Risa, go off the grid into the seedier, tourist-unfriendly portions of Risa, looking to get some, and end up getting more than they bargained for.

end up getting more than they bargained for.

[Shuboy07]

Having been watching and enjoying NCIS New Orleans for the last four years, I have to say I find Scott Bakula's acting so cringeworthy when going back to Enterprise. And he's faking a New Orleans accent on NCIS! How is it his Dwayne Pride, a quirky federal agent who hits a lot of cop show stereotypes, come across as a better character than Jonathan Archer?

On a funny note, I find it amusing that Michael Dorn directed the episode given what happened with Worf that last time on Risa.

[Independent George]

I'm thinking about how Bujold handled the respectably seedy 'pleasure' planet in the Vorkosigan Saga. She makes it a fairly significant plot point in multiple books, but we never actually got to visit because it would likely be boring and distract from the actual plots she was writing. Mostly, we got to hear from people headed there or coming back, and how people reacted to them about it.

Heh. Poor Ivan.

[Beastro]

Having been watching and enjoying NCIS New Orleans for the last four years, I have to say I find Scott Bakula's acting so cringeworthy when going back to Enterprise. And he's faking a New Orleans accent on NCIS! How is it his Dwayne Pride, a quirky federal agent who hits a lot of cop show stereotypes, come across as a better character than Jonathan Archer?

On a funny note, I find it amusing that Michael Dorn directed the episode given what happened with Worf that last time on Risa.

I have family that watch that show. I can't if only for his performance. All I see is Archer with a funny accent, especially how he still does his stilted speech thing.

I could say he's just a terrible actor, but he isn't. Really, I don't think Bakula has it cut out to act as someone in a position of leadership and is better suited to the sweet and endearingly innocent, "golly gee" type character he played on Quantum Leap.

I think it provides a counterpoint to the usual negative associations around typecasting - Some people just can't be more than a character actor and it's better they stay in that role every time than stumble around doing roles they don't have it in them to pull off.

I find the idea that there needs to be a sex planet rather ridiculous. It's not like sex is that difficult to get, presumably, in the 23rd century (or ours for that matter). The attitude to sex in these shows is more confusing than anything else as you wouldn't think we'd need a wink wink nudge nudge.

It follows the same, old maritime archetypes I've talked about in other ways. Just as sailors go around the world visiting different ports and falling in love with the tropical ones, especially those with the cute, skimpily dressed native girls, Risa as a monolithic planet centered around that fills in in a Sci-Fi setting.

Why doesn't the Enterprise have any other medical staff? I can accept only one doctor, it is a small ship so a single doc is understandable. There ought to be a couple of nurses and a handful of orderlies too, even if they are other crew members who are crosstrained as orderlies or nurses for when sickbay needs extra staffing levels, they don't even have an ex prisoner with a semester of biomed on hand. How sad is that!?

It's maybe a small ship, but it is also the only ship in the fleet capable of interstellar exploration on any reasonable time scale. I think Starfleet can afford to splurge on this one.

You're right.

It needs a dentist, too.

STD is less incompetent, I'll give you that. But I can laugh at Enterprise's inept flailing. STD is yet another show about how everything is horrible and everyone is dead. There are too many. I never wanted one, frankly. I have never watched Game of Thrones, and never will, because I loathe grimdark. And now goddamn everything, even Star Trek of all things, is ugly, bloody, miserable action schlock, and my resentment and disdain just kind of bubbles out uncontrollably.

I got tired of it halfway through new BSGs first season.

Given the fact that we now have an actual terrorist movement centered around sex being apparently too difficult to get, and that it's apparently grown large enough to be able to successfully take over the government of the most powerful nation on Earth, this doesn't seem to be true.

You are just adorable.

[CharlesPhipps]

The problem is the writing and as a writer, it strikes me the captains in Enterprise are very often inconsistently written with a "throw it in" mentality. It's why Janeway is always jumping from one extreme to the other. They don't know WHO the character is so the character is anybody they want them to be.

Ditto Archer.

About his only real consistent quality is he's a racist daddy's boy.