Episode Report Card Keckler: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Future Nonsense
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.18.2003
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The intrepid crew of the intrepid Enterprise fall across an intrepid old vessel with a moldering -- but nonetheless intrepid -- body inside. After several scans and jumping to conclusions, it turns out they have no idea who the festering frame really is. And even though the cadaver doesn't have a passport, several alien species are hot to get their hands on his cold body. While the crew puzzles this, Trip and Reed relive the best seconds of their lives and Quantum drops hints as broad as a bean that he wants to breed emotionless Vulclings with T'Pol. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Nothing happened in this episode. We started out with nothing, they threw in some nods to TOS and TNG, and we ended up with nothing. Try as I might, I could not find the tiniest speck of a plot. Plus? This is the sixteenth episode this season, and since I am neither a thaumaturge nor a dunce, I am BORED.
Speaking of speck, did you know that "speck" is a cooking fat used in the Veneto region of Italy? Well, it is. In fact, speck is smoked bacon, and can be a base for a special risotto and peas dish called "risi e bisi." I love that name. In fact, I love it so much I now use it as my meditation thingy -- "Die Bermaga Die" wasn't calming me down for some reason. The only drawback is now I can't keep Giovanni Ribisi's face from invading my "om" time.
Ship sees floating pod; ship annexes floating pod to perform invasive surgery on it in launch bay. When Malcolm Powder examines the Magical Mystery Pod, he can't tell the bow from the stern. I'm sure that's not the first time he's had that problem. Malcolm Powder goes over to a Wall o' Weapons (just like Principal Tiger Woods!) and gets a phaser out so they can crack that soft-boiled egg with the perfectly coddled center of noxious gas. Inside, Quantum finds a Six Feet Under celebrity corpse from Season One. T'Pol scans him to be human, even though I would argue that he looks Sulibanish.
Sick Bay. Phlox clearly just came from a poetry reading in SoHo, because otherwise? I can't explain his black Kevlar turtleneck or the mood lighting in a usually lite-brite Sick Bay. Phlox confirms that Corpus Chris T. is a human male, and twits Quantum for not being among the first humans to be out so far. "Whoever he is, he's rewritten our history books," Quantum comments peevishly. Wait, I didn't know Bermaga had a guest appearance on tonight's show! Quantum wonders if it could be Zephram Cochrane because, like Corpus Chris T., he was also in a one-man vessel when he Amelia Earhart-ed himself. Sadly, because Quantum wonders it in the FIRST TEN MINUTES of the show, we know it's not going to be true at the end, so all nocturnal emissions of "Metamorphosis" can now cease. "You know, I wonder if this is going to be a theme in this show -- every time they come across an unidentified human, Quantum's going to be all 'Are you my mother? Are you Zephram Cochrane?'" Mathra gripes.
Launch Bay. Reed and Trip dust the Magical Mystery Pod for Lord Technobabble's fingerprints. They solicit some pointless information from May-Running-To-Stand-Still, and the big conundrum squatting on their tiny brains is how the Magical Mystery Pod could make it out that far without engines.