Episode Report Card Keckler: B+ | 89 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT Bad Moon Risan
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 25 | Aired on 2002.05.15
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Wacky hijinks ensue when Quantum, Hoshi, Mayweather, Trip, and Reed take shore leave on the seductive planet of Risa. Trip and Reed play out scenes from Another Night at the Roxbury, while Hoshi gets language lessons. And I do mean those kind of language lessons as well as the real ones. Quantum dons a tight shirt and uses Porthos to get a date. Back on the ship, Phlox goes into deep hibernation, but has to be roused when May-waterfall spazes out, injures himself, and is evac'd back to the ship. T'Pol has a little trouble with rigor mortis of the jaw in the beginning, but gets over it so she and and Ensign Scrunchie Face can stand around making clucking noises around the disoriented Phlox and the anaphylactic shocked May-wounded. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Quantum sits like a bump on a log and talks about how they've finally reached Risa and that "with any luck" this will be his last entry for two days. He doesn't keep a diary going when he's on vacation? That's when I write some of my juiciest stuff. Then again, we're talking about Lord Boring here. Porthos barks excitedly as Quantum and T'Pol haul brass down the corridor, and Quantum feels the need to give T'Pol all sorts of unnecessary last-minute-control-freakish instructions, because he's convinced the ship cannot function without him. T'Pol does a lot of lock-jawing in this scene and insists that things will be okay. Quantum puts on his souvenir martyr t-shirt reading, "I bore a cross and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt," and whines, "This doesn't feel right." "My thong is supposed to fit that way," T'Pol tells him. Well, it's possible she doesn't, but I really don't want to listen to Quantum whinging that he shouldn't be going down to "some pleasure planet" when half the crew has to stay aboard. T'Pol reminds him that they all drew Expositional Lots, and he had as much chance as everyone else. Quantum argues, "All the same, the crew should come first." "Captain, you need a vacation," T'Pol says, sternly. She just wants to be able to perch on his chair and imitate his John Wayne swagger on the bridge for two days straight. I hear she sold tickets for the show to all the malcontents who had to stay aboard. The turbolift arrives. T'Pol and Porthos get on and stare Quantum down. Porthos whimpers a bit, and Quantum relents and decides to go to Risa for the good of his dog. Ugh -- I cannot get over how much he gets up my nose when he tries to act all self-sacrificing! I want the finest Post Road Pumpkin Ale available to humanity. I want it here and I want it now!
Shuttle Bay. Uniformed and civvied crew members mill around, babbling excitedly. Hoshi, her hair down, her shoulders bared in a red sundress, tells Quantum she's glad he "decided to take some time off." Quantum assures her he "wouldn't miss it," under T'Pol's raised eyebrow. Rostov asks his captain if he wants "to take the helm," but Quantum snorts that he's on vacation, and thrusts his water polo bag at him. T'Pol calls after them to "enjoy [them]selves," and Trip tells her he'll bring back a souvenir for her. I think her souvenir should be him burning that gawd-awful shirt on the planet and bringing back the ashes in a jar.
I wonder if acupuncture would take the pain of this song away.
Sh'pod. Quantum asks the crew in his shuttle -- which just happens to be May-Wonder-What-The-Hell-Kind-Of-Regurgitated-Structure-Shirt-That-Is, Trip, Reed, and Hoshi -- what big plans they have. Mayweather bores us all by saying he's going rock-climbing at a place where the rock face changes while you climb it. Sounds perfectly safe to me, with no chance of jagged, bloody lacerations or major head trauma. Quantum turns to Reed, who's clad in a slickery red shirt that reminds me of tent material; Reed tells him, "Well, supposedly, Risa's very cosmopolitan. There are species visiting from all over." He manages to deliver that simple sentence in such a way that I was forcing to go take a shower and use my industrial-strength Clinique sloughing stuff to get it off me. Trip joins in the leer-fest: "Malcolm and I plan to, uh, broaden our cultural horizons." Hoshi asks if that's all they ever think about. "Well, how we choose to relax is our own business," Trip says, and he and Reed go off into gales of sniggers. Having already told Mayweather to "watch [him]self," Big Daddy Quantum tells Sister Woman Reed and Bubba Trip to "watch [them]selves, too." Without prompting, Hoshi brown-noses that she plans on using her time constructively to learn new languages, because she's slacking off on the ship by letting the UT have all the fun. To Rostov asking, "Isn't that what it's for?" Hoshi says, "Not this time. I left my translator on Enterprise." Trip reminds her that she only has two days, "If you want to waste your time talkin' to people." Reed sniggers again. Look, we get that you'd rather hump than talk, Jerky Boys, so just cheese it now, okay? I really think T'Pol should have done a birth control cross-check before they left Enterprise. Hoshi rolls her eyes in amusement, and Mayweather asks Quantum what he's doing. Quantum takes off his martyr t-shirt to reveal his "Holier Than Thou" tattoo and tells them that he's "never been much for vacations," but he's got a villa on the ocean and he and Porthos are going to relax. I think if Porthos were any more relaxed he'd be dead. I mean, cooped up in a cabin day in, day out, all he does is relax. I think a good owner would know that Porthos is going to want to go exploring. Specifically, alien-tree-and-fire-hydrant exploring.