Synopsis: Captain Archer and several crewmembers travel to Risa for shore leave.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of James Hillman’s acorn theory. The idea that just as an acorn has everything inside it that it will need to become a tree, we each have an inner daimon that has all the information we need to become who we were meant to be, if we listen to it.
In “Two Days and Two Nights” Enterprise arrives at Risa and the crew draws lots to see who will go down for shore leave first. As it turns out, the first group to travel are Captain Jonathan Archer and Porthos his dog, Commander Charles (Trip) Tucker, Lt. Malcolm Reed, Ensign Travis Mayweather, and Ensign Hoshi Sato. Once on the planet Archer and Porthos retire to their hotel, Tucker and Reed go clubbing and looking for women, Mayweather goes hiking, and Sato goes to a restaurant to try to learn more languages. Archer ends up being seduced by a Tandaran disguised as a beautiful female who tries to press him on information about Sulibans. Tucker and Reed are attacked by other aliens appearing as beautiful women. Mayweather injures himself hiking and returns to Enterprise for treatment. Meanwhile, Sato learns the Risan language. She also encounters an attractive alien that wants to teach her his language. He ends up teaching it to her as pillow talk. Eventually they all return to Enterprise, but Sato seems to have had the most enjoyable vacation.
In this episode, when Sato tells the others in the shuttlepod taking them to Risa that she is going to spend the time learning more languages, she is really communicating with them that she is going to follow the lead of her inner daimon. She got to the Enterprise, somewhat unwillingly, by listening to her inner daimon, and now she is doing the work that she was meant to do and that she excels at. She doesn’t need a vacation from her inner daimon, but instead, enjoys what its guidance has led her to, perhaps here, just in a more relaxed and pleasant manner.
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