Star Trek: Discovery teases Enterprise fans with the prospect of a first-ever visit to Dr. Phlox’s homeworld, but disappointingly goes elsewhere.
WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery, season 5, episode 6, “Whistlespeak”.
Summary
- Despite raising hopes, Star Trek: Discovery skips a chance to explore Dr. Phlox’s mysterious home planet, Denobula.
- The decision to avoid Denobula may have been due to budget constraints and logistical reasons rather than lack of interest.
- Denobula’s lore was expanded by Discovery, shedding light on the planet’s history and relationship with the Federation.
Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 6, “Whistlespeak” missed a perfect opportunity to finally visit the home world of Star Trek: Enterprise‘s Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley). Written by Kenneth Lin and Brandon Schultz, and directed by Chris Byrne, Discovery season 5, episode 6, finds Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) following in the footsteps of Denobulan scientist Hitoroshi Kreel. The vial of distilled water discovered aboard the ISS Enterprise in Discovery season 5, episode 5, pointed to Dr. Kreel’s work building weather towers that were able to generate rain.
This information led Burnham, Tilly, Zora (Annabelle Wallis), and Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) to settle on Halem’no as the next location in Star Trek: Discovery‘s treasure hunt. However, there’s a brief moment where Tilly mentions visiting Denobula, something which would have piqued the interest of Star Trek: Enterprise fans. Denobula was the home planet of the Enterprise NX-01’s chief medical officer, Dr. Phlox, but the planet was never depicted on screen. Sadly, Discovery season 5, episode 6 decides to give Denobula a wide berth, meaning that Dr. Phlox’s home world remains a mystery.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Not Going To Phlox’s Homeworld Denobula Is Disappointing
Although the Denobula of 3191 will have changed drastically in the 1000 years between Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Discovery, there’s still a pang of disappointment that Burnham and the crew don’t visit Dr. Phlox’s home planet. Not much is known about the homeworld of Dr. Phlox’s species, meaning that Discovery could have had a fresh slate to realize how Denobula looked on screen. It may be that the Discovery production team decided that, as an Enterprise location, it wasn’t their place to introduce Denobula.
Although Star Trek: Discovery didn’t visit Denobula, they did add to the planet’s lore by revealing it was wracked by massive storms until the Denobulans built weather towers to control them.
More realistically, Star Trek: Discovery probably didn’t visit Denobula because a highly developed warp-capable planet in the 32nd century is much more expensive to achieve than a pre-warp planet like Halem’no. The shot of the High Summit, towering above the lush greens of the forest looked very similar to the VFX shots of the planet Lyrek in Discovery season 5, episode 2, “Under the Twin Moons”. It’s likely, therefore, that Halem’no afforded the production a chance to cut costs with a real-world forest location and some tweaks to existing VFX.
Star Trek: Enterprise Has Only Mentioned Dr. Phlox’s Home Planet
The reason that Star Trek: Discovery not visiting Denobula is so disappointing is because it was only ever mentioned in Star Trek: Enterprise, never depicted on screen. Across four seasons of Enterprise various pieces of information were revealed about Denobula and its population. Located in the Denobula Triaxa system, Denobula was rocked by seismic activity and storms, until its scientists sought to improve things. In 2152, Denobula had a population of around 12 billion inhabitants, causing the cities to be crowded. However, this was how the Denobulans liked it, as they preferred large social gatherings.
On Denobula, the males generally had three wives, who would also have three husbands, creating large extended families in Denobulan society.
Star Trek:Enterprise also revealed that the Denobulans treated genetic conditions with genetic engineering, something outlawed by the Federation. Despite this potential controversy, the Denobulans were early members of the United Federation of Planets, joining the early Coalition of Planets toward the end of Enterprise season 4. Star Trek: Discovery‘s Denobulan scientist proves that this relationship between the Denobulans and the Federation continued into the 24th century and beyond.
