Episode Report Card Keckler: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Search for Phlox
By Keckler | Season 4 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.24.2005
A Klingon ship flies around a very Earth-like planet. Three Klingakhans, complete with smooth foreheads enter a room. The chick among them tells the waiting Klingon, "The humans will not stop us!" The Klingon growls that he's their superior and they must salute. Dude, I just realized that this is Welkom Wagon from last week and that he is played by Philip Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air! I love him! Klingakhanette responds with a half-hearted chest-clap. "Now, report!" the Fresh Klingon of Bel-Air orders. "Enterprise was destroyed -- Starfleet will think it's her engines," Klingakhanette reports. Because they assume Starfleet is too stupid to recover the black box from the ship that will show evidence of the Klingon subroutine? "One of you is missing," the Fresh Klingon of Bel-Air growls. "Your son was slow -- the humans killed him," Klingakhanette sneers. You know, given that they didn't hang around to see that the Klingakhan was actually dead, nor did they see the ship actually blow up, I'd say this Klingakhanette is assuming an awful lot. Why is it that none of these supposedly superior-intellected ever show an ounce of real intelligence? "Did he die with honor?" the Fresh Klingon of Bel-Air asks. "He let humans kill him," Klingakhanette sneers again. Fresh Klingon of Bel-Air turns away. Klingakhanette flips her curiously blondish hair over her shoulder and walks out. I've never seen a blond Klingon -- do you think they're trying to imply that the Khannabee DNA makes sure they have more fun? I do.
Quiznos that isn't. The Fresh Klingon of Bel-Air comes in and tells Phlox and Antaak that they have only one hour to do their thing. The Fresh Klingon of Bel-Air goes off and comms one of his superiors that Phlox is close to perfecting the Khannabee genome. The Superior Klingon (they really aren't being obvious about their names, and it's getting really hard to tell them apart. Is that racist?) tells him his department has run out of funding and is being shut down. Isn't that just like a research facility? The Fresh Klingon of Bel-Air warns Superior Klingon that if the High Council sterilizes their colony, all their research will be lost. Superior Klingon says that the Exterminators will reach them in three days and if they are successful by then, the colony will be spared.
Enterprise. Trip reports that it will take a few hours before everything's running normally again. "Can Kelby handle it?" Quantum wonders. Trip heaves mightily, "I kin pull a little double-duty to help him out." Trip will check with Cpt. Happy Pants to make sure she can handle things herself until his return. Quantum nods silently. Trip pauses. Quantum looks up: "Something else?" Trip takes a deep breath: "What the hell is going on with Malcolm?" "Nothing I can get into right now," Quantum says repressively. "Fair enough," Trip all-too-readily accepts, and says he's gotta get back to Columbia. "I'll walk with you," T'Pol offers, quickly. They leave. Quantum watches them go. People on the boards seem to be wondering if Quantum suspects anything is going on between Trip and T'Pol. See, all this time, I assumed he knew. They've never acted as though their relationship was wrong -- that it was something to hide. Reed spoke so openly about the two of them that I assumed their affair was common knowledge on the ship. Plus, when Trip was possessed by the Organians and he "died," Quantum knew without T'Pol having to even say anything that she wanted to be notified if Trip ever woke up. Why would he have known that if he didn't know about them?