Episode Report Card Keckler: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Boredomland
By Keckler | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.28.2004
Quantum orders Dain'ta to tell him how he can get all nine of his recently absconded crewmembers back. They set a course for a slave processing center, and Dain'ta admits that he knows how to get into these processing centers as a legitimate trader. He has a relationship with the Orions, and tells Quantum he can get him inside but he can't get his people out.
More icka-bicka-backer-soda-cracker internal politics between the fugly Khannabees that don't amount to much and are completely boring to boot. The creepiest thing about the Khannabees is that they refer to Dain'ta as their father, which sort of presumes that they would regard each other as siblings, yet they are all sleeping together. I guess they reason that no one else would want to bed down with people whose foreheads look like they get a daily wax and buff. Dawsonella seems to be bed-hopping back and forth from Mullet to Head Khannabee, who, according to Demian, is played by an ex-Calvin Klein model. Like, yuck -- the dude has actual dents in the sides of his forehead and a brow that threatens to usurp Quantum's in order to ascend the throne of Furrowdom. And I'm not even getting into the butt-chin and surgically abbreviated nose.
Slave Processing Center. A big, giant, green man who could not look more like Shrek if he was drawn on a piece of paper and voiced by Mike Meyers slaps a diode on T'Pol's neck. She screams in pain. Shrek picks the near-fainting Vulcan up by her forearms, shakes her, makes with the threats, and tells her that she's now the property of the Orion Syndicate. And that she should eat all her frozen green beans and carrot nuggets. T'Pol is dragged through corridors of cages before she's finally thrown into one and locked in. T'Pol notes a sweating Red Stripe cowering in the corner and -- my word, what is up with the fugtastic casting tonight? This guy looks like his parentage might carry porcine possibilities -- tries to comfort him. I don't know what they're so worried about; at T'Pol's current size, she could just walk right through those bars without even taking the trouble to turn sideways.
Using Dain'ta's old clearance code, Enterprise is cleared to enter the Slave Processing Center.
Phlox injects Dain'ta with a microchip transponder that will only allow a range of ten kilometers. "You wander off more'n that and we brang you ri'back here," Trip threatens as Dain'ta steps onto the transporter pad. Have they upgraded the transporter pad? There's a new psychedelic orange and purple pattern on the walls. Dain'ta realizes Trip doesn't like him and says, "You probably blame me for what happened to your Vulcan 'friend.'" Trip glares, and Quantum tells Dain'ta to stow it. "Your crew could use a sense of humor, Captain," Dain'ta comments. Amen, brother. Quantum orders Trip to work on the engines, which I guess are down, but I wasn't really paying attention.
SPC. Pig whines, and T'Pol offers to teach him Vulcan Mind Tricks to minimize his stress. Shrek comes to get T'Pol for the auction block. Pig tries to protest, but gets zapped for bothering. On the auction block, Shrek easily lifts T'Pol up by grabbing her by her nonexistent waist. He then shows her to the bidders and shakes her like a CRACKedy Ann doll. T'Pol makes me snort by looking bored and annoyed. I'm right with you, honey. The bidding -- in alienese, of course -- is calculated on a big long electronic display behind them. Aliens tap on Blackberries and Shrek notes to T'Pol that she's doing well. Finally, it looks as though a Tellarite wins the veloured Vulcan. Shrek is ecstatic as he hoists T'Pol up -- this time managing to place his enormous thumbs on her dinners -- and chortles that not even his last wife sold for that much. T'Pol looks bored as her big head flops around on her toothpick of a neck. Easy, Lenny.