Episode Report Card Keckler: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Flight Of The Simulator
By Keckler | Season 3 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.03.2004
Bridge. A random Red Stripe puts out fires with an extinguisher. The viewscreen shows a big red eye. Guess he was also up drinking all night in a vain effort to quell the Dweezil and Lisa hate. Another random Red Stripe gets patched up by one of his brethren. Man, they are going all out with this little Children's Theatre production, aren't they? For some reason, even though Quantum ordered Reed to take Degra to the Brig, they both appear on the Bridge. The red eye is magnified and Reed -- leaving guard of Degra -- goes to his con to announce that there's a clot of Xindi vessels in the area, as well as a lot of kemosabe. Quantum stiffens up, and orders all weapons armed, and a course laid in for the kemosabe. He turns back to Degra and orders, "Get 'im outta here!" Degra freaks out and yells through his Where the Wild Things Are hair, "You'll never get close to the weapon! Our defense perimeter will destroy you!" And you, buddy boy, and you. Quantum pauses and turns around mildly. Degra pants. Quantum nods at T'Pol, who taps some buttons. Reed Alert stops. "Show him!" Quantum commands Hoshi. The hung-over eye disappears from the viewscreen, and the debris field from the test site appears. Oooh, snea-kay! Damn, I SO did not predict that! Degra trembles. Quantum orders the Uh-Ohs to take him to Sickbay. Quantum sighs and bites a lip. He turns to May-did-you-ever-Nolan-Chen-my-hero and says, "I think you overdid the turbulence just a little bit, Ensign." May-did-you-ever-Nolan-Chen-my-hero smiles and says, "I'll try to do better next time, sir." Aw, he got a line AND a close-up -- Anthony Montgomery is popping open the good stuff tonight. I toast you, buddy.
Okay, this is the deal. We've -- wait, I'm taking in a lot of territory there -- I've been so lulled into thinking that Quantum always does really stupid things that either result in a ship take-over or a very invasive laying-on of hands, so when he does something smart that looks dumb (like letting the Mr. Men out of the Brig when the ship was pitching and wooing and keeping everything in a general state of confusion) in two successive episodes, I'm completely flummoxed by it. Maybe Quantum's been playing dumb all these years! No, he's not that smart. Or, is he?
Enterprise cruises the debris field. Whatever happened to the Xindi ships that were six hours away?
Back on the Mr. Men ship, Quantum surveys the scene, as the Mr. Men are put back into their stations and have their appendages carefully flung about in a haphazard fashion. T'Pol modifies stuff to make it look like a plasma conduit ruptured on the ship and knocked them all out. Phlox is there to hypospray all the Mr. Men with harmless trace amounts of plasma. Excellent detail work. T'Pol points out that nothing can explain away how their computer core was wiped clean. "As long as they don't know we were here, we can leave them with a mystery," Quantum says. He obviously didn't watch "Clues" with the cell culture growing, Worf's broken arm, and Data dealing threes all over the place. I mean, Picard even says, "Humans love a mystery, and what we need to do is eliminate the clues!" We can only hope the Xindi hate all kinds of mysteries. "Also, if the Xindi have a C.S.I. team, they'll pick up human everywhere," Dr. Mathra adds. Reed comms to say that the Xindi ship is getting closer. They prepare to ditch the Mr. Men ship.