Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Reed Cries When He Spies
By Keckler | Season 4 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.17.2005
Pretty City. My Pretty City. As Hoshi and Phlox leave some red lacquered restaurant, Phlox comments that he didn't expect there would be a wait. I hope they're not supposed to be in Chinatown because if so, the future has gentrified it to depressing degrees, complete with importing incongruous Beacon Hill street lamps. "You didn't think Madame Chang's was going to be your little secret forever, did you?" Hoshi teases from the depths of her extremely slick hair and her very tight black leather jacket and pants. Either her ensemble is trying to make up for the last leather atrocity a token Asian member of Starfleet dragged into San Francisco or Hoshi's now moonlighting as a lady of the night. Ho-shi says that since she's a gossip, it's her fault there were so many Starfleet people at the restaurant. She then asks about Phlox's meeting at the IME. "They asked if I was interested in becoming Director of Xenobiology," Phlox tells her. "That's greaaat," Hoshi enthuses. Phlox says he's definitely considering it. So, is everyone looking for new jobs now? Trip's on Columbia, Phlox is entertaining offers from the IME, Hoshi's a prostitute…Quantum's going to be the only one left on the ship and he's going to fly off into the sun, a man alone. But then he'll get so depressed, he'll climb into a giant sunglasses case and announce to the empty sh'bay, "Of all captains, I was the mo-o-o-st assholish." But then he won't be able to shoot himself into space because there's no one there to eject him, so he'll have to get out of the sunglasses case and figure out what button to push but he won't be able to because he's one of those bosses who gets everyone else to do stuff for him and when it comes right down to it he can't even send a fax by himself. As Phlox goes on that he's become rather fond of his shipmates, we see dark figures lurking in the bushes. Just as Hoshi tells Phlox she's got a vested interest in keeping him on the ship, the dark figures jump out of the bushes and try to get Phlox to come with them. They look like they might be wearing masks because their faces don't move when they talk. Hoshi whips out her new judo-chop character development and tries to kick more ass than T'Pol ever has. She's not all that successful and manages to get face-planted into the bricked streets of San Francisco that don't exist in Chinatown. Phlox gets shot and carried off. Before Hoshi passes out, she blearily hears the abductors say something alienish.
A group has gathered to investigate, and Quantum comes rushing to the now-conscious Hoshi's side. Hoshi doesn't remember what the abductors said, but she knows it wasn't English. An officious Starfleet security officer named Commander Collins is on the case. Aside from Hoshi and Phlox's DNA, all they've found are ionization traces, but Collins pooh-poohs Reed's suggestion that a transporter might be involved. Collins tries to suggest that because Phlox was involved in an "altercation" the last time he was on Earth, this kidnapping might be related to alien hate crimes. Reed scoffs. Collins excuses herself pissily. Quantum orders Reed to investigate the transporter possibility. I'm really taken with how nice and long and smooth Hoshi's hair is. "Good hair is one of the signs that you're a spy," Gytha tells me.