Episode Report Card Keckler: A- | 83 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT The Naked Then
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 9 | Aired on 2002.11.20
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The crew gets his by a raging case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,, except T'Pol. Quantum alternates between writer's block and verbal diarrhea, Trip takes the Captain's chair apart, nut by nut, and Hoshi plays Ironic Chef in the galley with the secret ingredient being supplied by the OCD-iosis. In Sickbay, Phlox fixates on May-brain-and-brain-what-is-brain's headache while May- brain-and-brain-what-is-brain freaks about getting thrown off the show -- uh, ship -- if he doesn't return to duty. After Reed organizes all his lipsticks, pencils, and glosses alphabetically by primary shade cross-referenced by flavor, brand, and season, he spends the rest of the show developing a new alarm system and acting like Tom Ridge. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
I liked it. I laughed a lot, I rewound particular scenes for reasons other than recapping, and I thought Bakula starting showing some of his old Quantum Leap acting stripes again. Granted, this illness hitting the crew has been done to death, but it still made for an enjoyable episode. At least they didn't have Reed devolving into a red-bottomed monkey.
Scenes from the ship show that all officers are facedown. T'Pol records in her Science Officer's log that she, like Elton John, is the only one still standing. Ensign Coma-weather is strapped to a chair in Sickbay with a blue medical apparatus haloing his head. And you know, even with that? He's still not very interesting. On the floor, Phlox lies with a scalpel near his head. Quantum is facedown on his desk with a bit of drool trickling out. T'Pol notes that in addition to the crew being down, they're also headed for a black hole. And? Even though she sent out a distress signal, the nearest Vulcan ship is nine days away. In other words, she's having A Horrible Terrible No Good Very Bad Day. She should just be glad she's not being forced to wear blue and red sneakers and take a bath.
I want to hurt the song, as the song hurt me, and I want to go on hurting the song. I want to leave the song stranded on a dead planet. Buried aliiiive. Buried aliiiive!
Her voice punctuated with un-Vulcan-like emotional crackles, T'Pol continues logging the fact that she has no hope of curing the crew of their excessive laziness without Phlox's help, so she's documenting their situation for posterity. Mathra stands up and pantomimes a little Wayne's World "Doodle-lee-doo! Doodle-lee-doo!" as we all set our clocks to Flashback Time.
Bridge. The trouble all started with a measly Class IV Black Hole that Quantum's hot to take a dekko at. This Black Hole's extra special because it's part of a trinary star system! I know, I know -- when I heard that, I was so excited I nearly pulled a Malcolm and wet myself. "Don't get too excited -- the writers screwed up the science again. It's ternary, NOT TRINARY!" Mathra spits at the TV set. And we're done with the staining kind of red wine. T'Pol and Quantum set up the fact that in order to safely reach the Black Hole, they have to drop to impulse, which means their little side trip will take them two days. T'Pol goes to make the necessary arrangements, and Quantum asks if Trip can take a look at his chair. "Sir?" Trip doesn't get what he's driving at. "You may have noticed that I don't sit in it very much," Quantum tells him. "Is there a problem?" Trip wonders. "It's uncomfortable," Quantum confides in hushed tones. I just figured he had hemorrhoids. "When I lean back, I feel like I'm about to slide out of it. I have to sort of perch on the edge," Quantum admits. Holy cow -- is that a shout-out to all the times I've commented on T'Pol "perching" on that thing? "I always assumed it wuz the best seat in the howse," Trip states. I'm really restraining myself from making a toilet joke. Quantum asks if he will take a look at it, but Trip whines that he was going to purge some technobabbles. I'm going to purge something, and it's not going to be the impulse manifolds. "The chair first, if you don't mind," Quantum says, punctuating his words by stabbing his finger in the direction of the object in question. Trip pauses before saying, "Aye aye, sir." Quantum "hms" his response and smiles amiably as Trip leaves. It could be my excessive inebriation, but Quantum didn't stink up the Bridge in that scene. He actually resembled a human man instead of a redwood!