Dr. Phlox is on Earth as part of something called the Vulcan Interspecies Medical Exchange Program. I'm something of an anthropologist on my own home world as well as a doctor, so I relish the opportunity to work with Earthlings ? an interesting and somewhat primitive culture, in my world view. The incidents that occur in this episode are such that I am enlisted to serve on what is supposed to be a relatively short flight to the Klingon home planet and back, on the maiden voyage of the Enterprise.

What is your character's role on the ship?

Again, because I think on my own home planet there probably isn't quite as rigid a distinction drawn between disciplines, I'm as much of an anthropologist as I am a doctor and an ethnologist. I have a great belief in what would be termed "primitive medicine.? I use oils and unguents and extracts, lotions and potions, and the feces of animals, and anything I can get my hands on has some kind of medicinal purpose in my world view. So yes, it's an unorthodox medical practice.

What appeals to you about this show?

What appeals to me about the show is the idea that this precedes all the other Star Treks and consequently it takes place in an era when no rules existed governing our relationships with other species. We don't know how we're supposed to establish first contact, there's no Prime Directive, the technology is in many instances flawed or doesn't exist. And I think one of the things that I always thought, as much as I like Star Trek, was sort of missing from the late shows, was that everybody had their jobs down! Everybody knew exactly where to lay their hands on the right piece of equipment at the right time. I hope this show gets back to some of the messiness of the original series, and has some of the excitement that I think is really implicit in a show in which people are making up the rules, making mistakes. I think so much of what is exciting about the indomitable spirit that this show is supposed to represent is that when you screw up and you get up and have to dust yourself off and try again, that's what makes it exciting for us. That's where we're able to connect on a human level. I think this show wants to be more in that territory than some of the other Star Treks.