Episode Report Card Keckler: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Starship Mine
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.01.2002
Bridge. T'Pol reports that there are volcanoes on the surface that might be interesting, and Quantum blows hard in a speechifying directorial to his crew about getting a shuttle prepped and going down to check things out. Thankfully, he's interrupted by an explosion that has everyone kissing metal. From outer space, we can see a large, smoldering bite taken out of the side of the saucer section. Nice effects. I don't know who this John Shiban is, but I get the feeling he's a really good writer. Don't you?I want the whiney, whingey, Western theme song Firefly has -- can we swap, Shack?
Bridge. Chaos, smoke, wounded. T'Pol checks out an unconscious Hoshi and calls for medics, as Reed sketches out a structural damage report. He can't confirm whether there's a body count or not, though. Quantum orders him to find out what happened and dashes over to check on Hoshi, who's still down for the count. "Malcolm!" Quantum demands. "I'd give you an answer if I could, sir!" Malcolm says, almost tearfully, "The sensor logs aren't showing anything. All systems were functioning normally." Quantum calls Engineering, hoping for answers, but Trip doesn't know what's going on either. He does know that none of his people are seriously hurt, though. Back on the Bridge, Quantum asks Reed for casualty reports. "Seventeen so far, including Hoshi. No fatalities," Reed reports. "So, what? This is the ship where nobody ever dies!? Did they break a bottle of Chateau Font de Youth on it when they launched it?" Mathra shouts. Without a stretcher, medics drag Hoshi off the Bridge in a very unprofessional way. Good thing they know she doesn't have a spinal injury. Oh, wait, they don't!
Sickbay. Phlox checks people and gives orders. "What's happening? Are we under attack?" a nameless ensign mutters. Shut up, River. "Do you want to take your shoes off now?" Mathra squawks, also loving Shack these days. More wounded flood sickbay.
Bridge. May-yourdaysbemerryandbright tells Quantum that something just "struck" them, "Starboard side, upper-aft quadrant." Quantum wants a visual. The view screen reveals a flickering sphere. "Some kind of cloaked ship?" May-allyourchristmasesbewhite hazards. Quantum tells him to play again and says that the object is too small to be a ship. Unless it's for Weeble Wobbles. Seriously, who's to say that all space beasties have to be an average height of five-foot-ten? I think it looks like one of those see-though plastic balls for a hamster. Maybe Strega's chinchilla is more advanced than we think. As Quantum furrows at it, Reed determines that it's an armed mine, and something similar to it is likely to have blown the hole in their hull. "Can you tell if it's active?" Quantum asks. "No reason to believe it's not," Reed tells him. T'Pol technobabbles that the mine is in a really inconvenient place. Quantum furrows the Furrow of Not Really Knowing What the Hell He's Talking About as he tries to come up with a game plan. Reed contradicts him and tells him the only way to deal with the TNT Hamster Ball is for someone to go out there and manually diffuse it. "And it should be me -- I have the ordinance training," Reed comments. As far as I can make out through the depths of the Furrow of He's More a Man Than I Will Ever Be, Quantum appears to nod at him. Reed leaves. "I've never heard of a minefield with just two mines," Quantum tells T'Pol. "Are the quantum beacons still mounted on the grappler arm?" he asks May-what's-my-line and orders them to be put into position with the viewscreen modified to match. With much noise that you normally don't hear in space so this must mean it's really loud, the QUANTUM beacons are lowered. We see the underside of a planet, and T'Pol comments, "They were designed to penetrate Suliban cloaking devices." Quantum's brow gives her a look that clearly says, "AND?" T'Pol catches on and says, "I'll try shifting the phase variance." You know, I really, really think Bakula needs to learn to relax those over-aerobicized brows of his and indoctrinate other facial muscles into his acting technique, but I actually think that exchange between him and Blalock was not that bad. With each passing episode, Blalock is definitely catching the Spock more and more.