Episode Report Card Keckler: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Unfrozen Caveman Captain
By Keckler | Season 3 | Episode 3 | Aired on 09.23.2003
On the planet, the Away Team finds the deserted landing craft. T'Pol scans and says it's been there for two weeks. "Right about the time the Xindi were here," Hoshi reminds us. Quantum confirms that it's definitely a Xindi craft: "I recognize it from the database." He puts a lot of hatred into the word "database." Maybe -- since we can't see his face -- that's his verbal equivalent of furrowing. T'Pol goes to examine their databanks, and Hoshi finds the charred remains of Alien Brulée. I'll bet she wishes she had the foresight to bring a spoon. T'Pol says it isn't one of the three species of Xindi they have in their own databanks. Hoshi thinks it could be one of the other two. "What about him?" Reed asks, shining his light on another ramekin of Alien Brulée. T'Pol says the readings are the same as the first ramekin. Reed breathes hard and loosens his collar, saying that he never much cared for the tropics. Well, not since he got depantsed the last time he visited the tropics. Quantum orders them to keep looking. For some reason, T'Pol pulls up a Vapor Velveteen sleeve and sees her skin getting all mottled. She touches her face and feels bumps burping out around her eyes. "Lieutenant?" she calls to Reed, who lifts a head suddenly in need of a haircut and snarl-hisses at her. Quantum hears the snarlissing as he gets out of the abandoned craft, and suddenly his eyes Hulk out. But instead of that pale, pale green with the dark pupil, they're pale, pale blue. Quantum stumbles away and makes a big show of transforming. A really bad CGI takes us inside his rib cage and shows us an eighth-grade health class filmstrip of his heart beating and some dark red stuff spreading out from it. Like his heart has sprung a leak or something. Quantum collapses to his knees and shudders just as T'Pol comes upon him.
T'Pol calls up to Enterprise. May-You-Snooze-You-Lose answers. He's in the captain's seat! Shouldn't Trip have dibs on those squatting rights? Oh, I know what happened -- May-You-Snooze-You-Lose staged a crew coup and locked Trip in the decon chamber after telling him he thought he saw a piece of three-day-old pecan pie in there! Go May-You-Snooze-You-Lose! T'Pol tries to tell the new acting captain that they are being transformed by something, but Quantum interrupts her with his freak speak. "Subcommander?" May-You-Snooze-You-Lose asks. But T'Pol's got her own worries, as a fully transformed Quantum scampers around and continues to freak-speak. T'Pol fends him off with her phaser and fires a stun at his chest. From the trees, another Starfleet uniform jumps on T'Pol (Reed's been waiting for this ever since Shuttlepod One, and now he knows he can totally pass his forward behavior off as being under the influence of alien transformation) and rolls her to the ground. However, since it looks like T'Pol is being strangled by a pre-op Cher, it's apparently Hoshi who is coming on to her and not Malcolm "Bumtrinket" Reed. Quantum recovers from the stun blast and staggers to a crouch again, so T'Pol lets Hoshi go and runs off. Reed humpbacks into the scene, and he and Hoshi run after T'Pol. Quantum bares a purple tongue before following. T'Pol falls. Of course. For some reason, T'Pol then also falls asleep. Witness the side effects of Neural Node Nudging.
The three members of an aging sixties rock band make a rude kind of litter and carry T'Pol away. They carefully set T'Pol down and freak-speak around her as she wakes up. T'Pol tries to address Quantum as "Captain," but Hoshi chitters at her. T'Pol realizes she's tied up, and orders them to let her go. Quantum starts to untie her, but the jealous Hoshi snarls about it. Quantum freak-speaks at her, and two bullfrog balloons on his jaw inflate menacingly. Hoshi backs away and sulks from a distance. Quantum unties T'Pol and grabs her head to examine her neck. He sniffs, then growls, then chitters. I hope they get a Universal Translator working soon, because my sake haze is starting to wear off, and my patience along with it. T'Pol wastes airtime trying to communicate with Quantum and then asks for her UT. There's more filler-chattering from Hoshi, who doesn't want to give it up, before Quantum convinces her to do just that. T'Pol calibrates the UT and begs them to talk. The three Hill People sniff and chitter but aren't that inclined to speechify.