Episode Report Card Keckler: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Nobs And Nonsense
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.13.2001
Hoshi hooks up her supersonic ear and eavesdrops on the planet. Does it bug anyone else to think that exactly the same thing could be happening to us right now? All our movements, our conversations, our flossing habits are being watched and discussed by sentient beings far away? I wonder what they think of Iron Chef: USA. Basically, the point of this scene is to show Hoshi getting her ya-yas from the myriad dialects, accents, and diphthongs she's picking up from the planet, and that Quantum is happily indulgent where her quasi-lingual brilliance is concerned. I wish they wouldn't make her character so flat, because I have a very difficult time believing T'Pol is the only one on Enterprise intelligent enough to think infiltrating a techno-less civilization is an idea of the non-hunky-dory variety. Hoshi plays back some garbled conversations. It very much sounds like they took some German, Russian, and a dollop of Japanese and threw it in the blender to make an Alien Lingua Smoothie. Quantum tells Hoshi that they can narrow down which translation matrix she needs to concentrate on once they figure out their port of call. "I did find one word you might want to remember: Akkali. It's the name of their species," Hoshi says. See, when I first saw this I could've sworn everyone was calling the planet's species "Ecoli." Guess what? Yup, they're the Ecoli from now on.
In his quarters, Quantum discusses landing site suggestions with T'Pol. "A farm?" he asks. "It's remote and sparsely populated," T'Pol explains. "If you're exposed, there's a reduced risk of cultural contamination." "This explains why aliens are always landing in cornfields," Quantum cracks. To which events is he referring to exactly? The Klingon and Suliban crash-landing in that Oklahoma farmer's field? Because as far as we can tell, that would be the only Star Trek case of aliens crash-landing on Earth. He's been watching too much MST3K. "So," Quantum says, leading T'Pol from his cabin, "who do we send first?"
Sickbay. Dr. Phlox has been playing Kevin Aucoin with Hoshi and transformed her into Eva Marie Saint. Well, at least he adds some tiny ridges to her forehead so that she fits in with all the other extraordinarily human-ish aliens. "It itches," Hoshi complains, reaching up with one hand to scratch. Phlox stops her. I think Linda Park must be using Salon Selectives. Her hair is wavy, full of cloudy body, and just downright gorgeous. Even if it's a bit reminiscent of Deanna Troi, the Non-Corkscrew Years, it really does suit Hoshi's face. I guess it's just not practical for her to wear it like that every day on a starship, what with all the fans and knobs it could get caught on. Phlox tells Hoshi that the itching will subside. Barely moving any of her facial features, Hoshi asks Quantum, "Are you sure I'm the right person for this?" Quantum gets the Plotline Exposition Beam, fuses it with a Foreshadowing Array, and conducts, "If the translator goes down, you'll be able to handle yourself better than any of us." Phlox wants to fiddle more with Hoshi's face, but Quantum stops his stippling brush by saying that they don't want it to be too perfect. T'Pol asks the Captain to report to the bridge, so that she can give him important information, which will result in many more of them being subjected to Phlox and his Max Factor set-up.