A big theme of "Star Trek: Enterprise" is the friction between the Earth and Vulcan. While the Vulcans in other series (which were actually set AFTER this show chronologically) showed the Vulcans and super-stuffy yet noble, here they are far, far less noble. In fact, at times they are totally sanctimonious jerk-faces! Here in "Stigma" they are REAL jerk-faces.
The show begins with Dr. Phlox going to a medical conference and the crew going to visit this same planet. However, two interesting plots occur. First, Phlox is reunited with one of his wives--and the wife is VERY friendly towards Trip and seems to want to initiate a booty call with him. Second, T'Pol is apparently struggling from an illness (which was alluded to in an earlier show). But, the VERY prejudiced Vulcans hate anyone with the disease and the prevailing attitude is that the folks deserve the illness and their deaths is NOT such a bad thing (an obvious parallel to AIDS). Can Phlox and Archer somehow get these jerk-faces to somehow provide them with information as to how to cure the illness AND still manage to salvage T'Pol's career?
This is a good episode. I liked the humorous plot about Mrs. Phlox (or whatever her name was) and the one about the Vulcan illness was pretty good--though very obvious. I do think the AIDS message was delivered with little finesse....sort of like a sledgehammer when a bit more finesse would have made the parallel not so incredibly obvious at first. I am NOT saying they should have changed the parallel or message...it's just that it wasn't handled as well as it could have. Still, it's well worth seeing.