A Night in Sickbay is the 30th episode (production #205) of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise.
"A Night in Sickbay" is the title of a controversial episode of the UPN series, Star Trek: Enterprise which originally aired on October 16, 2002 in the United States.
A light-weight, comedic episode, "A Night in Sickbay" saw Captain Jonathan Archer dealing with a race of grouchy, officious aliens who are insulted when his dog, Porthos relieves himself on a sacred tree. A secondary subplot sees Archer and Dr. Phlox tending to Porthos after the dog contracts a potentially deadly virus on the planet. A tertiary subplot has Archer dealing with unbidden (and naughty) sexual fantasies about his first officer, T'Pol.
This episode, intended to be a throwaway, humorous outing for the Enterprise crew, and no more offensive than any number of previous comedy episodes from other Trek series, became a flashpoint for criticism over the series: examples of many things that fans felt were ongoing problems with the series (sophmoric use of sexuality on screen for ratings, poor dialogue, inconsistent scripting and characterization, cliche plot events, etc) all appeared in this episode, and at high levels. Many Trek fans reportedly abandoned the series after this episode, and it often ranks in straw polls among the worst Trek episodes ever. Nonetheless, it was still nominated for a Hugo Award, and continues to be cited by cast members as one of their favorite episodes.