Episode Report Card Keckler: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Naked Then
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.19.2002
Quantum's Quarters. Quantum is slumped over his desk with the drool trickling out -- just like we saw in the opening scenes. T'Pol pulls him up and shouts that he's needed on the Bridge. "I told you not to disturb me," Quantum mutters. T'Pol hoists his arm over her shoulder and drags him away from his desk, telling him his crew is dying and explaining the reasons why. T'Pol pulls Quantum into his bathroom and props him up in his shower. It looks like he has a white comb hanging on the shower wall. He combs his hair in the shower? Maybe it's for his Chia Chest. She turns the water on from the outside (?) of the stall. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?" T'Pol yells through the glass. Quantum gasps at her to turn off the water. "Do you understand?" T'Pol demands, putting her right hand on the glass. Oh, weird flashback to Wrath of Khan and the whole "Ship...out of danger?" scene. *sniff* Excuse me, I need a moment. Quantum seems to indicate he's comprehending what she's saying, "Yes...radiation." He gasps that she should tell Phlox, but she tells him that Phlox is affected as well. I note that she conveniently leaves out the fact that she also pinched him out of commission. T'Pol tells him that she's not affected, so he tells her to turn the ship around. She grabs a towel, turns off the water, and says it's going to take more than bringing the ship about to get them out of danger. In grabbing the towel, she also seems to have grabbed a thermos of coffee that he apparently keeps in his bathroom. "I've charted a course that will have us out of the radiation in less than seventeen minutes," T'Pol says, forcing him to drink the coffee. "Lousy coffee," he gasps. Why? Why, in every television show when someone drinks coffee, do they have to make that same joke? Who invented that joke anyway? Because I really don't understand how it could have been funny. Ever! T'Pol tells Quantum she needs someone to help steer the ship. "Travis?" Quantum asks. "He's been sedated," T'Pol informs him. Can one really tell the difference? Quantum tells her he's too drunk to drive. "We have no other choice," T'Pol tells him. I think they need those inflatable auto-pilots from Airplane!
Orange-flavored asteroid field. So, like Kirk in the Shiny, Happy Spores episode, Quantum is able to shake off his malaise to save the day. Sort of. Quantum squints, groans, sweats, strains, acts constipated, and steers. T'Pol gives him course directionals. He screws most of them up. They almost hit the Rock of Gibraltar, but don't, because Reed's new security system brought the weapons online when they were hit with debris, so they are able to TOR-pee-do the Prudential symbol out of their path. Hey -- Reed did something other than need to have his panties changed! lis must be so proud. Finally, they make it past the orange-flavored asteroid field and sail into regular-flavored black space. They've spent barely two seconds in radiation-free space when Trip picks himself off the floor and squints, "Did we git some nice pic-shurs of the Black Hole?" Totally sounds like me -- drugged by Dramamine -- when my parents got back into the mini-van after visiting some plaque on a rock. Quantum and T'Pol exchange looks, and Trip squints harder. That's gotta be one hell of a hangover.