Episode Report Card Keckler: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Nobs And Nonsense
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.13.2001
Quantum and Riaan descend. Wait, there's something so familiar about this. Is it the chick? Nah. Is it the romantically Renaissance yet surprisingly comfortable bouclé clothing from J.Jill? Nope. Is it perhaps the CAVE?!? Gah. I'm so sick of this. Get a holodeck so we can see some diversity in locations, already. I'm tired of having to turn to mind-altering substances in order to keep myself entertained during this show. Quantum and Riaan find the reactor, which is thoughtfully stickered with one of those circular, black and yellow, nuclear-esque insignias. Quantum takes some readings of the reactor thing, but is distracted by robotic movement through a window and in another cave. It's looks like one of those mechanical arms you find in an arcade where you have to try and grab the pink stuffed thing before your quarter runs out. Quantum walks over to the window and looks down on the Galactic Senate scene from The Phantom Menace. Pretty cool that they managed to get back to the reliquary on P'Jem. I mean, think about it -- what are the odds of that happening? I guess they're pretty good, if you've got the dull wits of Braga and Berman working overtime behind the scenes. Who do they think they're trying to fool? Don't they know how anally detail-oriented and unforgiving their audience is?
Enterprise in orbit. "They're mining some sort of veridium isotope," Quantum comms back to T'Pol on the bridge. "Veridium is used primarily to manufacture explosives," T'Pol tells him. Quantum says he's not surprised by that information, and T'Pol asks whether he's found any signs of tetracyanate. "Their drill bits are saturated with it," Quantum comms back from Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe. "We've got to shut this all down. The reactor seems to be powering the entire operation, but I can't use my phase pistol -- I'd risk up blowing up half the city." "Cap'n, let me come down and take a crack at it," Trip shouts. Why is he shouting? Quantum tells him they don't have that much time, and says their best bet is the transporter on the ship. He says he'll try to do something to corrupt the dampening field. T'Pol ten-fours.
Back down by the highly toxic reactor, Quantum looks at a screen with gibberish writing. "I don't suppose you read Mallurian," Quantum comments. Riaan says, "Can't you just use your device?" Heh. Quantum tells her it doesn't work that way. Heh. Heh. Riaan asks what they're looking for. "There's an energy field surrounding the shop," Quantum tells her. "It's keeping my ship from seeing what's in here. One of these controls should turn it off." Riaan spies something, "Here," she says, looking at a monitor, "This is Tengala Street; here's the shop. This outline could have something to do with the energy field." Quantum furrows his brow and goes to push a button -- somewhat indiscriminately, I might add. "Wait!" Riaan says, stopping him. "What are you doing?" "If the blue line represents the dampening field, this blue button should control it," Quantum says. Now, I don't know too much about technology in the twenty-second century, but that's about as logical as how Sydney was told to disable that coffin bomb. Don't you think if the baddies didn't want people being able to figure things out from simply from color coding, they'd do the opposite? So, blue would actually equal yellow. But then, if they depend on people knowing they should do the opposite, then they'd do the predictable instead because they'd assume people wouldn't think they'd be that predictable, right? Right? Ow. Less thinking; more Post Road. "What about the yellow dots?" Riaan asks. "What about them?" Quantum says. "How do we know they don't represent the field? Maybe it's the yellow button," Riaan asks. "The blue one's lit," Quantum says. "That's what worries me," Riaan says. "'Worries you'?" Mathra shouts out, suddenly, "What should 'worry' you is that you've never seen so much as a CD player and now you're acting all know-it-all about subterranean computerized nuclear devices!" Wow, and all this time I thought he was asleep. It's always the quiet ones. "We could debate this all day: blue or yellow?" Quantum asks. Well, if you ask me, both, because those are Michigan's colors. Ahem! Carry on, my friends. "Blue," Riaan says rolling her eyes a bit to tell us that she really doesn't have the courage of Quantum's convictions. This means, of course, that she's going to be right, and Quantum's going to be wrong. Quantum punches the blue button; an alarm goes off, and all the doors shut. I think yellow was the right answer. Quantum does, too, because he pokes at it several times, while Riaan gives him the female "I went along with you, rather than argue, but I told you so" look. Things look sticky.