The scene in question ostensibly exists because Trip and T’Pol need to use the Decontamination Chamber (aka Decon), which prevents anything dangerous slipping past the ships sensors. This involved the crew needing to rub gel on each other’s skin to make it work. The scene tries to set up some character conflict between Trip and T’Pol but you’d be forgiven for not taking any of that in. What with long lingering shots of T’Pol’s belly, Trip rubbing her ears, and some fairly prominent nipple outlines.
This wasn’t the first time Star Trek had tried to be sexy. The Original Series didn’t feature all those mini skirts for nothing, after all. Who can forget the leeringly uncomfortable workout Troi and Crusher did in front of a mirror in The Next Generation? But this Enterprise scene was different. It was beyond blatant. This was going for steamy, something UPN clearly liked since it made it into an early promo for Enterprise.
The scene was met with heavy controversy. One fan at the time wrote an email to Star Trek: The Magazine, printed in their January 2002 edition which said, “the writers seem to have sacrificed credibility for sex. Whatever happened to the renowned Vulcan abhorrence to touching anyone?”
This scene not only was offensive to good taste, it was an offense to continuity!
Enterprise continued to utilize the Decon chamber throughout the first two seasons, including in the infamous season 2 episode, “A Night in Sickbay.” It begins with another “sexy” sequence of the crew members rubbing gel all over each other… along with Archer’s (Scott Bakula) dog, Porthos. If there was any hope of the Decon chamber being legit sexy, this made it go out the window. There is nothing sexy about rubbing a dog with gel.
In the 2005 DVD commentary on “Broken Bow” with show creators and episode writers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, the two try to justify the “sexiness” of the Decon chamber. Braga explains that they wanted Enterprise to, “feel a little saucier. A little sexier,” than previous Star Trek shows. He also acknowledges that the scene, “has gotta be the most controversial scene in the entire pilot, if not the series.”
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