Episode Report Card Keckler: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Worm Turns
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.02.2001
The Tarantula moves closer to the fairly defenseless Enterprise, and the away team rushes onto the bridge. "Report!" Quantum says. Mayweather says, "We're dead in the water, sir." T'Pol tells him the ship's stopped firing for the nonce, but they're closing in on Enterprise's position. "Malcolm?" Cpt. Quantum prompts. "Both for'ard tubes loaded and ready, sir," Reed says. The camera tightens on Quantum for The Important Decision Close-Up as he says, "Fire." The torpedo is launched, and it hits, but it seems to have hit a shield as the space around it shudders and the torpedo explodes, hurting nothing. "Stand by port tube," Quantum says. "Ready," Reed reports. "Fire!" Quantum commands. The second torpedo is launched, but fired upon by the Tarantula before it can reach its destination. Cpt. Quantum looks accusingly at Reed, who shoots back a look that says, "Don't look at me, they have far superior weapon capabilities than we have, and besides, they're bigger and scarier-looking, plus you didn't flush the toilet the last time you used it." Quantum asks about the warp status from Trip, who tells him it's been "depolarized" and they aren't going anywhere in the near future. Suddenly there's a buzzing sound, and a white beam runs over all the bridge crew. Mayweather, who I've decided speaks for the audience, asks, "What was that?" "A sub-molecular bio-scan, Ensign," Phlox tells him, looking at his tricorder. "You've been probed. We've all been probed. They've no doubt discovered that your lymphatic system contains some useful compounds." The bridge crew looks uncomfortable that their privacy has been violated. BZZZ! Wha --? Oh, it's my beeper. "I-R-O-N-Y." Irony. Hmm, that's funny; I don't even own a beeper.
The Tarantula moves closer still. Quantum paces and orders Reed to get thee to an armory. "Start distributing hand weapons and post a security team at levels --" A beeping interrupts his instructions, and Mayweather reports another ship warping into view on an intercept course. Quantum orders it up on-screen. It's similar to the dead ship. "They're hailing us," Hoshi says and puts the alien on screen. Quantum laughs in relief. "Captain?" T'Pol prompts him. Quantum tells her he's the same species from the dead ship. "They must've picked up your distress call," he says to Hoshi. The alien speaks alien, and Cpt. Quantum tells Hoshi to set him straight on who killed whom. Hoshi predictably panics and says she tried, but she doubts the alien gets it. "What do you mean?" Quantum asks her. "This isn't exactly Spanish we're dealing with; I'd be lucky if I were getting half the vocabulary right," she says shakily. The Tarantula has heaved itself above Enterprise and aims a beam down, encasing the ship in its power. As their power starts to fail, Reed reports that they've been locked onto with "some sort of stabilizing beam." Cpt. Quantum tells Mayweather to "use the impulse engines" to "get [them] the hell outta there." Yeah, that'll work. They laugh in the face of impulse engines. Sure enough, Mayweather reports that all their propulsion systems have been corrupted by the Tarantula's beam. Meanwhile, the on-screen alien from the third ship is yelling away. Hoshi reports that he got their message: "It seems he got the part about killing the cargo crew but he believes we did it! At least, I think he does." T'Pol tells her to communicate the fact that they sent the distress call: "Why would we kill his people and then do that?" More jibba-jabba from the alien. "I think I understood this one, he says the distress call came from his ship, not ours." Cpt. Quantum says, "We needed their frequencies; going there was the only way to find them." Hoshi communicates this. Plus, is the alien ignoring the huge and menacing ship hovering above, clearly holding Enterprise in its thrall? Hoshi reports something about DNA scans and the alien wanting to know why they were there two years ago. "Two years ago?!" Quantum repeats incredulously. "He probably means two days, sir, the phonetic processor is still having trouble locking on." Alien does some more alien speak, and Hoshi reports that she doesn't think he's going to help them.