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. Trip and May-wallaby keep fiddling, to no avail. I think they should stop messing around with things they don't understand -- what if they manage to accidentally cloak Enterprise, or T'Pol's dinners? Trip snaps back his rubber glove and peeks. "Any change?" May-wuzzzzzup asks. Trip shakes his head ruefully: "Still missing in action." "Having a cloaked hand could have its advantages. Be useful in a poker match," May-whiz-not suggests. How, exactly? He can't steal cards without people seeing the cards float around in the air, he can't read other people's cards, and he can't hide cards up his sleeve any better than he normally would. Do you even know what poker is, May-whelp? Trip sarcasms something about becoming a "world-class magician." Now that I could see, but he'd have to change his name. "The Incomparable Trip" doesn't exactly say "master of illusion" to me. "It might be helpful on movie night -- if you bring a date," May-wisenheimer cracks. I was so caught up in Anthony Montgomery's interesting tone of disbelief that Trip could even get a date that I didn't really realize what he was saying. Pig! Trip gives him a look of disbelief. "In case you wanted to steal some popcorn," May-who-me explains. Is that what the kids are calling it these days -- "stealing some popcorn"? I should remember that. Trip nods like, "Yeah, right, that's what you meant, Ensign Horny-weather," and tells him to try the technobabble again. The cell pod sort of wavers in and out of sight, and Trip tells Horny-weather to shut it down and do some more power rerouting. T'Pol enters the sh'bay to tell them that no matter what the cell pod status, they have to sweep in and save the captain and Great Lip from certain death. "We'll git it workin' on our way down if we have to -- look, invisible or not, this cell ship could take more of a beatin' than our shuttlepod," Trip thinks aloud. T'Pol tells them to prepare for launch.
Cellblock Furrow. Reed and Quantum don't do much but hang around their cell all day. "An upset stomach? Do you really think he'd fall for that?" Quantum asks Reed. "Well, it may be an old trick where we come from but maybe they haven't heard of it here," Reed argues. I think Quantum should fake constipation; he's had more practice. Quantum nixes the idea, saying they'd never get to the shuttle looking they way they look. Not with Reed's bunions, they won't. "'Genetic enhancements,'" Quantum states. "Very creative, Malcolm." Reed thanks him and intimates that he hasn't done much Second City. "You made us sound like Suliban," Quantum says. Is that actually a note of reproach in his voice? Get over it, buddy. Morbid Malcolm wonders what Enterprise will do "after." Quantum says, "If I know T'Pol, she won't want to leave any contamination behind. It may take some time, but she'll find a way to get everything back, including our...remains." Malcolm thinks "it's ironic" that they're giving their lives to protect a people who want to kill them. "It's a big planet, Malcolm, I'm sure they're not all like that," Captain Find The Silver Furrow consoles him. Morbid Malcolm whimpers that he's not afraid. Yes, yes, and how many times have we heard this from you, Martyr Pee-Pee Pants? "Shuttlepod One" and "Minefield" spring immediately to mind.
Quantum wonders what would happen if they told the truth, but Martyr Peed doesn't think their story would be believed. "If we show them to the shuttlepod, bring the General up to Enterprise, give them the grand tour, top it off with dinner in the Captain's Mess," Quantum dreams. And then get T'Pol to strip for them. "We'd probably all have a good laugh over how they almost sent us to the gallows," Quantum continues from his fantasyland where people aren't terrified of being taken up to a mother ship by creatures from another planet who have lied to them since the first moment they laid eyes on them. Quantum bitches that he's listened to lots of "lectures on cultural contamination," but T'Pol never mentioned that they should give their lives to prevent it. "If we did tell them who we are, it may do them a world of good. Look what the Vulcans did for Earth!" Malcolm Peed points out. "These people haven't even split the atom yet," Quantum re-points out. So they are trying to make this WWII-esque with The Manhattan Project allusion there, the Winston Churchill reference in the beginning, and the Nazi-ish threads. Oh, and this scene is lasting FOREVER! I wish they'd just execute them already. Quantum goes on to say that the Vulcans waited until humans were ready and had warp drive. The Oboe Of Self-Sacrifice plays as Quantum assures Malcolm that they're doing the "right thing" and claps him on the shoulder, saying he's sorry Malcolm didn't get a chance to write his Starfleet report. Anything to get out of paperwork. Morbid Malcolm turns a surprisingly optimistic cheek as he says, "It could still happen, sir. I'm expecting a rescue party to come barging through that door -- any moment." Don't you watch television, Peed? Rescue parties don't come until the very last possible second. Quantum stands tall, stalwart, and true. Is it over yet?