Episode Report Card Keckler: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I Left My Communicator In San Francisco
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.12.2002
Cell pod. T'Pol reports their progress, and Trip and May-driver have problems getting the cloaking device to work.
Jailers come to take Malcolm and Quantum to their deaths. Can I join them?
Cell pod. More technical difficulties that are too boring to go into, but they are supposed to result in An Atmosphere Of Excited Anticipation, as we wonder how they will ever pull this rescue attempt off. T'Pol reports some military vessels on an intercept course. Oh. No. I wonder if the cloaking device will work Just In Time.
Gallows. Trap doors are tested. Prisoners are marched in. Nooses are at the ready.
Cell pod is under attack by Luke Skywalker's X-Wing Fighters. Cell pod cloaks. Whew. That. Was. A. Close. One.
Gallows. As Quantum makes a final, fruitless plea for Malcolm's life, I see that my patience has already strangled itself in one of the nooses. Reed and Quantum get fitted for a neck-snap, and Quantum just cannot take his eyes off Malcolm. Malcolm, however, can't bear to see the love-pain in his Captain's eyes, and stares straight ahead. There's the humming of an invisible craft landing invisibly, and dust flies around. A hand and phase pistol appear from nowhere and fire at the Executioner. Trip and T'Pol roll out and start a fight with their phase pistols against the Butthead Nazis' regular old bullet guns. In between shots, Trip cuts the nooses away from Quantum and Reed's necks. This is some of the best shooting I've ever seen on Trek -- they're actually consistently hitting people. "Yer ride's here," Trip tells them, gesturing to the cloaked hatch, opened to show May-peek-a-boo peering out. Reed reminds Quantum of their confiscated dangerous-to-pre-atom-splitting-cultures toys. Covered by E-Crew fire, Quantum runs back for those trinkets as well as their X-rays, and scrambles back to the place of public execution from whence he came. More firing. They all jump aboard the invisible cell pod, and the door closes. General Butthead Nazi, managing to be the only one of the Butthead Nazis not stunned (or killed, I guess) by phaser fire, stands there catching flies as we get the vantage from the cell pod taking off. In the cell pod, May-while tells him their sh'pod is right where they left it. Quantum checks his pockets for all the Advanced Technology, and freaks out a bit. "Sir, looking for this?" Malcolm smirks, retrieving a scanner from the floor. Oh, that Malcolm -- he makes me laugh so hard I pee in my pants!
Quantum's Ready Room. Cappy Quantum's really making up for lost furrowing in this scene as he schlumps over to his Weight Of The World Window. T'Pol enters to say that if they take a left, they can go cavort on a blue giant cluster where there are no people. "Sounds like nice change of pace. Have Travis set a course," Quantum orders, anxious to get back to pondering exactly how much of the galaxy he carries on his padded shoulders. T'Pol -- because the writers are trying to build an erector set of sexual attraction between these two, so they have her dialing up his emotion modem -- wants to know if there's something else Quantum wants to get off his chest and put onto hers. "Youtookarisk...coming down in that cell ship. Its cloaking device could have failed," Quantum tells her. It did fail. "A calculated risk," T'Pol tells him, "like the one I'm taking giving you my heart, right now!" She might not have said the last part, but I was distracted by the loud noise my head makes when I bang it against the radiator. Quantum says, "I'm glad you took it." Well, duh, of course you're "glad" -- otherwise you'd be dead. Quantum says that the important thing was getting all their techie toys back from the Buttheaded Nazis. "We could have done a lot of damage to those people if we'd left any of it behind," Quantum continues. Um, buddy? I know you're trying to show T'Pol how much you've grown since last season's massive amounts of civilization contamination, but you're really only showing how incredibly stupid you are. They've seen your redundant renal organ and red blood. They played with the techie toys. The damage is done. Unlike Bermaga, they aren't going to have convenient amnesia just because you left the planet. T'Pol agrees with me and says they already damaged the Buttheaded Nazis. "We've changed their perception of the Alliance," Quantum states. Among everything else about their perceptions you've changed, yes. "They now believe their enemy is capable of creating genetically enhanced soldiers," T'Pol finishes his thought. It's just a Private Little Eugenics War now, isn't it? "Not to mention particle weapons," T'Pol continues. If they haven't even split the atom, do you really think they're going to know what a particle weapon is when they see it? Quantum continues the list of Ah, Shits! and says that the cloaked Suliban pod is yet another thing the Buttheaded Nazis will think their enemies have. "You don't have to leave technology behind to contaminate a culture," T'Pol almost whispers. Why is she whispering -- is she afraid of hurting his feelings? Quantum hands T'Pol's e-pad back, and she starts to leave, but stops dramatically in the doorway: "You were willing to sacrifice your life to protect them -- I would not have expected that," she tells him. Quantum furrows The Furrow Of Okay THAT Must Mean She Wants To Have Sex Now Right? He puzzles it out with the Window.
Sickbay. Phlox announces that Trip is "making excellent progress," as he holds his fully visible hand. "Yeah? What about this?" Trip demands, indicating something we can't see. Phlox tuts that it's nothing. "It may be nuthin' to you!" Trip snaps. Phlox tells him to "give it time." Trip thanks him and goes to leave; he pauses as he pushes the button to open the door and looks at the dime-sized hole in his hand, through which you can see the bulkhead. Hey -- Trinneer's got nice hands. Long, tapering fingers, delicately boned -- ugh, what am I saying?! Excuse me while I go wash my head out with Drano. Trip frowns at the flickering hole and looks back at Phlox before leaving, shaking his head. Trip's expressions are so much better than Quantum's one.