Episode Report Card Keckler: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mucus of Borg
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 22 | Aired on 04.30.2002
Cargo Bay -- or "Hold," depending on your rank, apparently -- where Trip and Quantum groan and gasp from their snot cocoons. Trip wants to know why the Globlin doesn't finish them off. "Take it easy," Quantum counsels, "I'm sure T'Pol and Malcolm are doing everything they can to get us out of here." Quantum asks if either them can see Crewman Kelly. Rostov confirms that she still appears to be breathing. Trip cranes around and tells Quantum, "Zabel's still unconscious." Rostov has something preying on his mind, and Quantum urges him to unburden himself. "I imagine in a situation like this they'd cancel the movie," Rostov says. No, actually, they're still watching it, and every time you enter a room, they're going to snigger behind their hands at you because you missed it. "I imagine so," Quantum smiles. Rostov says, "I really wanted to see it." And this is where we see that the Globlin first starts to affect their brains because Rostov cops an 'Allo, 'Allo French accent and says, "Yves Montand, driving exploseeves through the montons." Quantum says that he'll order them to reschedule it for the following week. After this trip down memory lane with amniotic fluid, he has to wait a whole week to see it? Sad. Through the ooze, we see Reed enter cautiously with two other Random Security Guys. At Reed's nod, they all fire their EM emitters at the Globlin, which shrieks. In the Situation Room, Phlox looks at some readings and reports that it's working. However, in the cargo hold, Trip, Rostov, and Quantum start to scream in pain. Reed comms the bridge that something's wrong. T'Pol looks at Phlox, who looks at some more readings and then orders Reed (twice) to shut off the emitters. Reed and the security detail stop emitting and Quantum, Rostov, and Trip stop writhing and wailing. In the situation room, T'Pol asks Phlox what happened; Phlox reports that the humans' nervous systems are now fused with the Globlin's. "They're sharing autonomic functions, neural impulses, if we continue firing we could end up killing our own people," Phlox says. T'Pol orders Reed to withdraw his security detail. Over a warm table of electronic data and graphics, Phlox explains that the rate of symbiosis is increasing, and very soon the humans will become one with the Globlin and Phlox will be unable to separate them. T'Pol turns to Hoshi: "You wanted a chance to communicate? I suggest you begin." Hoshi looks nervous. Maybe she needs to practice her Zen Vulcan Downward Dog pose before she gets started.
Sick Bay. T'Pol, in a weirdly whisky-ish voice, asks Phlox how much time the cocooned crew has; Phlox reports they have only a few hours as their metabolic rates are dropping dangerously. Reed delivers the quintessential line of all dramas when he says, "There must be some way to cut them out of there." Why "must" there always be "some way"? Sometimes you just gotta shrug it off and deal with the fact that, every once in awhile, bad things happen to good people. Like famine, earthquakes, or the return of the peasant look and spiral perms. ["Spiral perms are back? Crap. Well, thanks for the warning, anyway." -- Sars] Phlox says, "I'm not sure if you appreciate how alien this creature is -- it's not attacking our crewmen, it's trying to integrate them into itself." "Resistance is futile. You will be assliminated," Mathra drones, jerking his arms around and bumping into things. "Get it? A-SLIME-inated instead of assimilated?" Yeah, we get it, honey; now go lie down before you hurt yourself. Reed whines that the end result is the same, and Phlox says, "At some point there won't be six life forms in that cargo bay, there will be only one." "There can be only one!" Mathra MacLeod hisses, creeping around the doorframe to poke at an invisible Immortal with our broom. God, I hate thesis-writing time.