Episode Report Card Keckler: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Phlox's Runaway Imagination
By Keckler | Season 3 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.17.2004
Engineering. The music gets good and creepy as Phlox enters. He looks around at nothing. He calls out, "Hello? It's Dr. Phlox." Porthos yips and runs under a sh'pod. What's a sh'pod doing in Engineering? Oh, nothing. They're not in Engineering, they're in a sh'bay. Okay, I'm all caught up now. Dr. Phlox looks up to see steam hissing out of something, making chains rattle. Why are rattling chains so scary? Sometimes they are heavy and betoken Ill Portent, sometimes Marley lugs them around, but other times they are just shivery. I don't know why; maybe it's the fear of being strangled by them. The fact that they are welded to the ceiling doesn't seem to lessen that fear. Phlox is satisfied that that's what all the noise was about -- although I still don't see how he could hear some measly chains rattling all the way in other parts of the ship, but maybe he's got super-hearing because he's Denobulan -- and kneels by the sh'pod to say to Porthos, "Well now, don't you feel foolish?" He fondles Porthos's ears. Awww. Whenever I see a beagle in our park, I poke at Dr. Mathra and hiss, "Porthos!"
There's another big bang, and Phlox jumps up to see T'Pol coming from behind another sh'pod. What she did to make that big noise, I'll never know. Banged her dinners into the sh'pod's hull, maybe. Phlox sighs, clutches at his chest, and reprimands her for not responding when he called out. T'Pol apologizes and says she was running a diagnostic. T'Pol wonders what Phlox is doing in the sh'pod, since it's supposed to be movie night. Phlox gestures at the steam-chain duet and says he could hear it all the way in the Mess Hall. T'Pol says she'll make a note of it in her repair logs. "Bangs, squeaks, rattling chains...is this a starship or a haunted house?" Phlox asks, annoyed, as he turns off the steam thing. T'Pol wonders if he's okay, and Phlox admits to having a slight headache since they invaded the Bay of Pink: "Perhaps Vulcans and Earth canines are better able to adapt to it than Denobulans." Hm, headache? Not a good sign. Phlox then says he's barely seen her over the last two days. "Barely"? Either this was a way to throw us off from the fact that she's his Imaginary Vulcan, or he'd made her up since the very beginning to ease his loneliness. I wonder that he picked T'Pol as his Imaginary Friend. I think the writers picked her because it could be argued that, as she isn't human, she doesn't have to be put to sleep, and therefore the viewers wouldn't suspect that she was a figment of Phlox's imagination. However, what's Phlox's motivation for settling on her? If he wants company, she's not exactly the most companionable member of the crew -- especially not for his gregarious self. Anyway, T'Pol says she's had her duties to attend to, and the rest of the time she's been reading in her quarters. When T'Pol refuses his requests to hang with him that night, Phlox asks her to "share a meal" with him later. She agrees, and leaves.