Episode Report Card Keckler: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Quantum Leap of Faith of the Heart
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 26 | Aired on 05.21.2002
Quantum and Trip look at specs for the quantum beacon while Quantum elucidates what he needs. There's so much technobabble going on in this episode that nuts and bolts started falling out of my TV twenty minutes ago. By the end of the show, there's going to be nothing left but a smoking pile of ridiculousness. Finally Trip says, "With all due respect sir, this is a level of quantum engineering beyond anything I ever learned [that's because you were too busy passing notes to that cute girl down front to pay adequate attention in Q.E. 101]. How the hell do you know this?" Because he's Captain QUANTUM! Dum-DAH! Quantum explains that Previously Declared Dead Daniels spent two hours imparting all this quantum technobabble to him. Trip's flummoxed by everything and says, "He's on Innerprise?" Quantum assures him that he'll explain it all when Trip gets older, and tells him he's got more technobabbling to get to.
Quantum technobabbles with T'Pol and Hoshi about the disk. He tells them that the disk is not human technology, so he needs Hoshi to set up an interface to retrieve the Suliban information contained therein. "And Daniels claims this is Suliban technology?" T'Pol queries. Quantum tells her he has no reason to doubt him, as everything else he told Quantum has checked out. I think Daniels is going to turn out to be bad, a member of one of those "other factions" he mentioned to Quantum -- not human at all, but definitely a player in the temporal cold war. T'Pol reminds him that the Vulcan ship they were on an intercept course with will have detected their course alteration. Quantum asks Hoshi if the ship has tried to hail them. "I wouldn't know sir, our comm is on the fritz," Hoshi answers. Quantum smiles slightly and steps into the turbo-lift.
Reed and Quantum walk through the corridors; Reed asks, "Why did Daniels leave it in his quarters?" "I don't recall him having much time to pack before he left," Quantum shoots back. Yeah, but seeing that he's not really dead, why didn't he just time travel back to get it? Does anyone else think a bottle of aspirin washed down with a pitcher of margaritas is a good accompaniment to this episode? I love how Reed has to accompany Quantum to Daniels's Lo-Jacked cabin -- it's like he's got THE ring of keys, or something. Reed mentions that the thing they're going to get could contain information that would be invaluable to Starfleet, but Quantum cuts him off, saying, "I gave Daniels my word, Malcolm, we download the schematics for the Suliban Stealth Cruiser and nothing else." "Pity," comments Reed. I don't know -- if Quantum had half a brain cell, he'd look at other things to make sure Daniels really is who he says he is. And if he's squeamish about knowing too much about the future, he could get what he needs, tell T'Pol the relevant information, and then have T'Pol administer that "forget" mind-meld on him the way Spock did to Kirk in "Requiem For Methuselah." Reed wants to know how Quantum's so sure the Suliban won't come after them after they put their secret information to good use. "Just like those old Bible movies, Malcolm: 'It wasn't written,'" Quantum tells him. I have so many levels of problems with that. First of all, didn't Daniels say that "history didn't record" that the Pirogie planet was broiled? So, the whole fact that "it wasn't written" doesn't really seem to be much of a safeguard. Furthermore, what Bible movies is he talking about? In all the ones I've seen -- and by "all," I mean The Ten Commandments -- they always say "it was so written," not "it was so not written." Malcolm pushes a button on the Lo-Jack (Quantum couldn't have done that himself?) and removes it so that they can snoop around a dead man's cabin. They find the Discman and activate the Pink Floyd Laser Light Show. Reed is entranced and comments, "Wait a minute, you see that? They've got schematics on half a dozen different Klingon ships." Quantum reminds him, "The stealth cruiser, Lieutenant, and nothing else." Quantum speeds up the data processing, and Reed spies the ship. He points at it, which makes the "file" open so that they can read and download all the data.