Episode Report Card Keckler: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Best. Episode. Ever.
By Keckler | Season 4 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.21.2005
Sickbay. Evil Leaper interrupts Phlevil's dissection of yet another creature to tell him to modify Decon to keep the Tholian alive. Phlevil is on it, commenting that Tholians have complicated life support needs. He increases the Decon temperature to four hundred eighty Kelvin (that's a little over four hundred degrees Fahrenheit) and the yet-unseen captured Tholian screeches and chitters in response. "If you're angry now, just wait," Phlevil smiles us evilly into commercial.
Has anyone seen Shatner's new Priceline ads? Do you think we're going to see Bakula admiring his feet in a pair of open-toed red pumps in thirty-odd years?
Evil Leaper strides down the corridor to Decon with T'Pevil trailing after him. "How is he?" he demands of Phlevil. "'How is it' would be more accurate -- Tholians possess both male and female characteristics," Phlevil tells him, adding that the Tholian's biosigns appear stable. "Will it understand me?" Evil Leaper asks She-Ho. She nods. Evil Leaper whips back around to the Decon window and peers into the yellow-hot steamy room. He doesn't see anything. He moves closer to the window. The chromy Tholian pops up, horror-movie-like. Made me jump. Evil Leaper too. Nice one. It looks pretty much like the Tholian seen in "The Tholian Web," but less static-y. Evil Leaper interrogates the Tholian about the Terran ship they captured. Theo the Tholian waves his segmented arms around and refuses to answer until Phlevil drops the Decon temperature a hundred degrees. The color of the Decon chamber shivers into grey. Theo squeals. "Its exoskeleton is beginning to fracture!" Phlevil reports gleefully. Theo decides to comply. Evil Leaper makes sure that Theo sees him wave his fingers at Phlevil to increase the temperature again. Theo tells them where to find the stolen ship and then starts emitting a high-pitched whine. T'Pevil says it's a short-range transmission. "A distress signal," Reedvil adds. "Do you think it has a comm device in there?" "Its crystalline structure may act as a natural transmitter," T'Pevil suggests. Reedvil wants to beam Theo into space. Evil Leaper wants Theo kept alive until they can verify his information, and orders Phlevil to stop Theo's whining.
Engineering. T'Pevil and Evil Trinneevil work together. Well, T'Pevil works; Evil Trinneevil glowers through his half a face. We learn that Evil Trinneevil's patty-melted face is a result of all the Delta rays he's been smacked around with. Just like Pike. In fact, the makeup is a bona fide shout-out to Sean Kenney's in "The Menagerie." T'Pevil ignores this exposition, presumably because she's heard it before. In fact, Evil Trinneevil probably starts every conversation bitching about his Delta facial. Evil Trinneevil goes on about all the years of his life he's lost standing in front of the warp core and how he'll probably be dead by the end of the week. "You should talk to Captain Evil Leaper about a promotion," T'Pevil deadpans. Evil Trinneevil suggests she do it, since she's now his first officer. T'Pevil wonders why she would do that. Evil Trinneevil sidles up close behind her and says, "I did you a favor once." T'Pevil stops what she's doing and reminds him that they were never to discuss that. "And I haven't," Evil Trinneevil smarms. "I'd hardly call it a favor," T'Pevil goes on. "You enjoyed yourself." "Yeah, several times as I recall," Evil Trinneevil goes on, looking down at her dinners. "So how many years is it until your pon farr comes around agin?" T'Pevil sneers at him just as some noise distracts them both. Evil Trinneevil looks for the source and a big blue bolt of something travels down a cable and into his face, knocking him on his ass. I guess that's another year of his life. Maybe even five.
Phlevil scans Evil Trinneevil as Evil Leaper orders him to repair the cloak right away. "There's a dozen EPS feeds on this deck and the only one that overloads is the one connected to the cloaking device," Reedvil undertones to Evil Leaper, looking pointedly at Evil Trinneevil. Evil Trinneevil snaps that other systems are down as well, including grav plating on certain decks and internal sensors. Evil Leaper tells him that the cloaking device is his priority. He turns to Reedvil and orders him to find the sabotaging party. "My people kin investigate this," Evil Trinneevil announces, "I don't need his kind crawling around pulling relays." "Get the cloak online!" Evil Leaper orders the unmelted part of Evil Trinneevil's face. Reedvil grins evilly at Evil Trinneevil, who can only manage half a glare in return.