Episode Report Card Keckler: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Private Little Hunt
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 18 | Aired on 03.19.2002
Mess Hall. And there our anti-hero waits and watches, still shouldering the ever-present burden of the cosmos as he wishes upon a star. I don't know about you, but I'm getting damn tired of this stance he contrives to trot out in every episode. Trip joins him, grabbing a glass of milk. "Do you know any poetry?" Quantum asks him. "You mean besides, 'There Was a Young Lady from Ipswich'?" Trip asks. They can't even get the stupid jokes right -- Nantucket's funnier than Ipswich. Quantum tries to prove his intellectual worth by telling Trip that his mother used to recite a Yeats poem to him at bedtime. "It had a funny name, 'The Song of the Wandering Angus.' I didn't learn till I was older that it was by Yeats," Quantum says. "No, wait, that's funny, because this is 'The Show of the Wandering Dingus,'" Mathra chokes, collapsing on the futon with a foaming Post Road. Quantum subjects us to a few halting lines a la "I went to the hazelwood because a fire was in my head" before explaining to Trip that the woman in the poem is exactly what his Blue Banshee seems to be. Mathra is starting to show signs of hysteria: "Now, if it was actually 'I went to Hazeldon,' then it would be Kirk!" I'm not going to go into the deeper dissection of the poem that Quantum flounders over, because if the writers were making some weak attempt at paralleling the meaning of the poem with a greater theme in this episode, they really shouldn't have bothered, because it did not come across at all. And if that's not the case, I really don't know what the purpose of this Poetry 101 was, except that maybe a vain stab at raising Quantum to Picard's literary level. Trip is skeptical of Quantum's equating of his Blue Banshee to the chick in the poem. "When I listened to the poem, I must've created an image of that woman in my mind," Quantum insists. Trip wants to know why this Wraith would have wasted her time scouring Quantum's little grey cells for an image he'd all but forgotten. Quantum doesn't really have an answer for that. "Maybe that poem's been on your mind more than you realize," Trip states in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to make Quantum look deep. Phlox beeps in and says he "may have found something." On his way out to sick bay, Quantum delivers this stunner: "She may just be something I envisioned a long time ago, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone shoot her." Trip gets milk.
The Eska hunters hunt again. They argue with each other about whether or not they're pursuing a Wraith or a Drayjin. The Wraith, disguised as a Drayjin, morphs into a tree. Becoming dirt seems like a better idea to me. The hunters stand right next to the tree, but can't tell it's a Wraith. They're frustrated by the fact that they have cornered the Wraith but can't detect its fear. "It may not be afraid now, but it's about to be," Holtz-Damrus says, and the hunters let loose with a volley of fire. "That's for my father, who's going to early-bird dinners in Boca Raton and turning up the heat every five minutes!" Mathra crows. Suddenly, the tree morphs into a slug-like creature and knocks one of the hunters down before sliming off. "Something's wrong. We should have seen it," one of the Eska says. "Maybe our scanners aren't working," another Eska suggests. "All of them?" Holtz-Damrus asks. More Wraith-like squawks abound. "We need to leave," an Eska says. Look, it's impossible to tell who's who with those red visors of theirs, unless it's Holtz gravelling in his Vengeance Is Mine voice. Holtz-Damrus says, "Let's get back to camp." And so they do. Into the waiting arms of the Enterprise crew.