Episode Report Card Keckler: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Grease Fire
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.11.2003
I still think the song should be bottled and buried in Korea for a couple hundred years, but I can't stop the waterworks from springing when I look at Shepard.
From a laptop, Admiral Forrest tells Quantum that Soval considers his presence "crucial" in resolving the crisis. While Quantum fidgets verbally and physically (he's clearly chafing in his Underoos because he can't trot over to his Weight Of The World Window to furrow this situation out, while encouraging Forrest to do some more begging for his participation), Forrest explains that for the last century, the Vulcans and Andorians have been involved in a land war over a planet. At least they've never gone up against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Quantum whines a bit about being the chosen one (he must be all out of African animal speeches and doesn't know how he can be effective without them) until Forrest points out how important this could be in bettering human-Vulcan relations. "We'll get there as fast as we can," Quantum finally agrees. I really don't know what he's making such a fuss about -- he's always jumped at the chance to interfere in matters that don't concern him before, and now he's actually being asked to interlope. Not to be confused with antelope. Or gazelle. He should be in Nosy Parker's heaven.
Captain's Table. Trip's glass of iced tea shakes and prompts him to comment how uncomfortable he is with pushing the engines so hard. T'Pol points out that the injectors are rated for an even higher percentage than what they're currently running at. "And my underwear is flame-retardant -- that dunnit meen I'm gonna lihte myself on fy-ar to prove it," is Trip's rejoinder. Shout. Out. Flame-retardant underwear? Tick Underoos? Holding a lit match on a tick to get it to stop sucking your blood and pull out its Lyme-disease-ridden head out of your skin? Yep, they totally read my recaps. Quantum and T'Pol exchange looks, and Quantum thinks they'll not be "flying her apart," so Trip can just simmer down. The captain turns to T'Pol to show off his research skills, and lists the info he has come up with on the disputed planet: "Class-D, not much bigger than Earth's moon, claimed by the Vulcans in 2097?" Trip reminds us that "Class-D" means the planet is uninhabitable, and wonders why the Vulcans would touch it with a two-thousand-light-year poking device. T'Pol explains that the Andorians got to the planet first, terra-formed it, bought the planet an atmosphere at the atmosphere store, and established a settlement. Quantum thinks the old Finders Keepers Losers Weepers Accord would have been enough to satisfy the Vulcans, but T'Pol informs him, "Its sole value is its strategic location near Vulcan space." Quantum asks if they were setting up the kind of fort you don't build with sofa cushions and blankets in order to take unsuspecting family cats as POWs. "It was the only logical conclusion," T'Pol agrees. Trip wants to know if they had any hard evidence to go on. "How much evidence would you need if the Klingons decided to set up a colony on Pluto?" T'Pol wonders. "That's not the same thang," Trip argues. No, it's really not. One of my biggest peeves with this show is that they've categorically failed to establish any real sort of tension between Klingons and humans, so T'Pol's question doesn't make sense. If she replaced "Klingon" with "Suliban," maybe she could've made a more convincing argument. Stupid writers.
T'Pol goes on to say that H'ns Bl'x came back with the report that the Andorians refused all inspections, so the Vulcans "annexed" the planet to protect them against weapons of mass destruction. If you would like any more information on the on the anvil in Iraq, please call 1-888-Red-Phone. Ask for George. Ever living in the habitat for humanitarians, Quantum wonders what happened to the colonists. Without looking up from her veggies, T'Pol says, "They were removed." "By force," Trip clarifies, in a tone of Look Look The Vulcans Are Proving Once Again How Inferior And Mean They Are. T'Pol looks Trip directly into his close-set eyes and tells him that the High Command was left little choice but to proceed with that course of action, adding, "A surveillance satellite was put into orbit to monitor the agreement -- the planet's been deserted for nearly a century." "Until now," Quantum, Qing of Obvious Statement Land, points out.