Episode Report Card Keckler: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Starfleet and Coffee, Maple Syrup and Damn
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 26 | Aired on 05.20.2003
Suliban pods encroach. They can't manage to hail the Suliban, and very soon we see a few Suliban running around the Bridge toward Quantum. One is even on the ceiling, but with his head aimed down and his wrists reversed as he scuttles across. I do love that effect -- it creeps me out deliciously. The lights go out. When they come on again, Quantum is gone.
Because he's pacing on the Suliban ship. I know they must have transported him over, but it's odd that when the lights were out on the Bridge, we wouldn't have seen the light effects of the transport. Silik and two other Suliban pay Quantum a visit. Silik says that someone needs to speak to the Great Captain. Quantum accuses Silik of being party to the millions killed on Earth. Silik affects not to know what he's talking about, and repeats that there is someone he needs to speak with who has information he might find useful. "Information about what?" Quantum demands. "Something to do with your species -- it's in great danger," Silik tells him. Silik kind of looks like he's got a goiter in this scene. I guess it could be a new genetic enhancement. Or bad makeup. Silik takes Quantum into the previously Trippy Shower Room, and we see a silhouetted Shower Guy standing motionless in his Turkish showerhouse. He remains completely motionless throughout his dialogue with Quantum -- an effect that makes him look like a cardboard cut-out. If I were Quantum, I wouldn't trust anything that doesn't move when it speaks, because it usually means they're kicking back with Dunkin' Donuts and coffee while the boardroom is stuck staring at his wedding photo. Shower Guy lets Quantum know that his planet was attacked by a probe sent by the Xindi. A race, Shower Guys says, that learned their world would be destroyed by humans in four hundred years. Quantum wonders how the Xindi know their future. Maybe they're a race of seers? "They were told by people of the future -- people who can communicate through time," Shower Guy says. Oh. Quantum wants to know, "Are those the ones the Suliban are working for?" "The Suliban work for me," Shower Guy corrects him. Quantum accuses Shower Guy of being the one to try to start a Klingon civil war, "the one who's manipulated my mission from day one!" "The people who have contacted the Xindi belong to another faction," Shower Guy says calmly. Hmm -- could it be Dan, Dan the Michelin Man?
Shower Guy goes on to say that the Suicide Laserer was only a test, and the Xindi are building a far more powerful weapon that will be used to destroy Earth. Yeah, a "that's no moon, that's a space station" kind of weapon. "Annihilate us before we can annihilate them," Quantum muses, and wonders why Shower Guy is being so one with the freedom of information act. "The Xindi were not supposed to learn of their future. If they deploy this weapon it will contaminate the timeline," Shower Guy says. Isn't the timeline already contaminated even without the deployment of the Death Star? I mean, they've already done some damage to Earth, and I would think that the knowledge of their future is itself temporal contamination. Shower Guy says that Quantum must not let it happen. "Why should I believe you?" Quantum demands. "You have no choice but to believe me," Shower Guy says. Yes, he does -- it's called not believing him. WTF? Please don't tell me Quantum is going to be so naïve as to actually think that's a good enough response after all the Suliban have done to them already.