Ah, here we go...the first really controversial episode of Enterprise, the one that introduces the concept of the Prime Directive. Here's the synopsis, per Wikipedia:
Doctor Phlox receives a letter from his Interspecies Medical Exchange counterpart, Doctor Jeremy Lucas, who is serving a term on Denobula. He begins to compose a letter back, describing his experiences with the crew, and the ways in which humans are different. Meanwhile, on the Bridge, the crew are discussing a pre-warp vessel they have encountered. The alien they speak with, a Valakian, begs them to assist with a medical emergency their species is facing. Sub-Commander T'Pol reveals that the Vulcans are unaware of the species, but she agrees with Captain Jonathan Archer to help them. Phlox continues his letter, describing the challenges of treating the disease – with over fifty million lives at stake.
Enterprise arrives at the Valakian homeworld, where they are met by Esaak, the Valakian director of a clinic, and Larr, a Menk orderly. T'Pol, Phlox, Archer, and Ensign Hoshi Sato make a tour of the medical facility. Sato discovers that there is a second lesser-evolved yet unaffected race, the Menk, who live alongside the Valakians. Phlox makes the startling discovery that the Valakians are slowly dying out, not from an easily curable medical condition, but because of a genetic disease which is experiencing an accelerated rate of mutation. He also believes that the answer to a cure may lie in the Menk.
Archer, meanwhile, is debating whether to provide the Valakians with Warp drive, ultimately deciding against it. Upon further investigation, Phlox learns that the Valakians suffer from the illness because their gene pool has reached a "dead end" and that the Menk are undergoing an "awakening process." He also finds that the Valakians have been stifling and underestimating the Menk. He has found a cure, but does not believe it would be ethical to administer. Archer considers how a "Prime Directive" would be helpful, and provides the Valakians with medicine that will diminish the symptoms for a decade, anticipating the Menks' natural evolution and new levels of understanding between them.
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Okay...this one is tough. The debate about this episode boils down to this: Did the Enterprise crew, particularly Dr. Phlox, do the right thing in basically leaving the Valakians to die off and be replaced by the Menk? For some, the answer is yes; for me, I would say no. Saying that the Valakians are going to die off anyway because of evolution doesn't preclude the necessity of helping them in the here and now. More to the point, there is no 'Prime Directive' at this point in the Star Trek universe; Archer even laments that there isn't one, meaning he has to make the decision on his own.
And he made the wrong one.
It's fine to theorize about future genetic evolution and such, but in the here and now of the Valakians, millions of them are dying, and Phlox found a cure. And Archer, who in the second episode, Fight or Flight, tells T'Pol that humans have developed of code of behavior, and that code included helping people in need. Suddenly, he's looking for a way out of following that code and condemning an entire species to a slow, painful, genetic death and asserting that it's not humanity's problem. I have a really hard time accepting that, and I know I'm not the only one; this episode was panned and brutally reviewed by several online reviewers when it came out.
I'm not giving this one a numeric ranking; as a stand-alone story, it is pretty good for the most part, right up until the end. And yes, the seeds of the Prime Directive are sown here, but the important thing to remember about the PD is that sometimes it needs to be broken. And if it had existed in this time frame, this was one of those times.
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