Episode Report Card Omar G: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Requiem For A Transporter Beam
By Omar G | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.09.2001
Okay, bear with me here: I have Dish Network, and at the exact moment the last scene ended, it somehow recorded an audio feed VH-1's Tribute to Mid-'80s Crap Hair Rock Power Ballads. It's funny because even though this is a bad, Def Leppard wannabe-sounding band I hear, I'm still getting the video feed from the Enterprise opening credits. What's up with that? So I can't tell you what the theme song sounds like. Diane Warren wrote it, though, so it must be really good.
Oh, and by the way: There's a commercial for the PlayStation2 game "Onimusha" and they say it's a "must-play game." First of all, it wasn't a must-play game when it came out, like six months ago. And age hasn't improved it any. Sorry. Thus ends this Ultra Geek Moment.
Shot of the outside of the ship, and then we're inside, in some dank, dark area with stairs. Don't we have light in the future? T'Pol is fiddling with some instrument, and down below on the stairs, Ensign Scrunchieface is trying to engage her in conversation by saying that she tried some yum-yum Vulcan plomeek broth that morning and that Vulcan food is "interesting." Don't try to suck up to T'Pol. It's an affront to her all-encompassing lips. T'Pol ignores the soup chatter and tells Scrunchieface to sterilize some sample containers. I keep expecting Scrunchieface to say something cute and British, just like that adorable Bridget Jones. Scrunchieface sucks up further by thanking T'Pol for choosing her for the mission. T'Pol and her high beams will have none of that. She says Ensign Scrunchieface was chosen because Scrunchieface's specialty is entomology and the planet has a lot of bugs. I wonder if they still have Far Side desk calendars in the distant future. Scrunchieface looks dejected. She swings her big scrunchie head to the side, and a wormhole almost opens up. Ensign Junk Food is there to comfort her. He tells her she'd have better luck making friends with a housefly. They still have houseflies in the future? This Star Trek universe just gets more and more disappointing with each new revelation.
Shuttle craft away! Inside the small shuttle vessel, Trip, Mayweather, and Quantum are checking out the planet. Quantum and Mayweather are wearing baseball caps. Whose idea was that? What kind of alien life forms are you hoping to impress with that? A team of extraterrestrial shortstops? Trip says, "Wow." Scrunchieface throws in a line about how it was worth every light year. I think I need a beer. The shuttle curves and lands on a patch of grass and woods that look like a suburban development. The hatch opens, and Porthos jumps out. Oh yeah. Trees. Cpt. Quantum, in his Old Navy-looking fleece blues, smiles at his pride and joy. Porthos immediately finds a big tree trunk. "Where no dog has gone before," Trip says sardonically, and it's the single funniest line from here on out. Consider that a warning. Cpt. Quantum remarks on how he'd forgotten what fresh air smelled like. T'Pol starts spouting off atmospheric elements with her Palm Pilot before Quantum tells her to "Put that thing away!" He fails to mention that it's a line he usually hears on shore leave. A lot. Quantum tells T'Pol that they're there to enjoy themselves. T'Pol looks like she wants to hit somebody as Quantum asks if the skies are ever this blue on Vulcan. "Occasionally," T'Pol says. The Cpt. asks if she's at all impressed to be standing on a brand spanking new planet. She says it's not much different than the other thirty-six Minshara-Class planets she's visited. Oh, and she backpacked across Europe as a teenager, so that makes her cooler than the rest of the crew. Out of nowhere, Trip whips out what looks like a cheap digital camera and tells everybody to pose. Glad to see photography has not advanced one bit in almost two hundred years. At least take a hologram or something. Quantum starts to put his arm around T'Pol and then stops himself. He tells her to smile. She does not. Trip snaps (The picture. He snaps for real later), and Quantum says to send a copy of the photo to Vulcan high command. T'Pol is so far from amused that it takes the light from amused one million years to reach her. T'Pol gets her dig in by telling the crew to rendezvous back at 1700 hours unless the Captain wants to take more pictures. He whistles for his dog and shakes his head. No pictures is fine. That Bakula. Man, that boy can act.
Montage of Back To Nature shots. Scrunchieface is examining a pond where fish are swimming. She sees her face in the water and realizes her scrunch is four degrees off. The rest of the crew walks around and looks up at the two moons. Porthos ambles by, too. Ensign Fast Food has forsaken his greasy ways and picks a pretty yellow flower. He inhales of it. A scene of nature goodness looks like a lame outtake from What Dreams May Come.