Episode Report Card Keckler: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Starfleet and Coffee, Maple Syrup and Damn
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 26 | Aired on 05.20.2003
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.A Suicide Laserer from outer space performs a little Lasik surgery on Florida and kills millions of people, so Quantum and Qrew are recalled to Earth where Trip learns his little sister was among the casualties. However, the journey back to Earth is fraught with roadside distractions in the form of a little farm stand of fresh Klingon revenge and a Suliban abduction rest stop with a great view of the future. After some predictable whining and badgering of Admiral "I'm Too Evil for My Uniform" Forrest, Quantum is allowed back on the road to seek and destroy those that would seek and destroy them. Ambassador Soval orders T'Pol back to Vulcan, but she decides to resign her commission and stay with her human bosom buddies. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Since certain unofficial Trek sites seem to be so smug when my recaps don't always jibe perfectly with votes accumulated on the site (they're obviously unaware of the concept of vote spamming), I will direct them to an incredible piece that Pamie wrote, but also pull the most pertinent part:
"Those of you who love your television shows, you should demand the same quality. Don't just love it because it's there. Don't embrace it because it's on and being on and existing is better than being cancelled and gone. When they don't live up to your expectations, when someone could sit down and watch one episode and get the wrong idea (that it's a piece of poorly-written shit), then you should snark it. You should be just as passionate about getting used for your love as you are passionate when the show gets everything right. You love puppies, right? You love your puppy so much you'd get hit by a car for it. But what happens when your puppy pisses on your bed? You shout 'NO!' right in its face, and maybe even kick it outside for a little while.That's what we do at Television Without Pity. We housetrain your television."
See, I'm not ranting for my health here. I want to like this show. I want it to thrill me. I want it to be a sizzling feast of savory entertainment. But it's just not, and I won't be satisfied with the lumpy vanilla pudding that has been delivered to my table episode after episode, no matter how many times I plead for a Tarte Tatin with crème anglaise. Just as eleven years of training has taught me to know good writing, a lifetime of sitting in front of one has schooled me in good television -- and this ain't it. Be that as it may, this finale kept me awake, relatively entertained, and hopeful for next season even if I still came away with an antipathy for the sanctimonious and ever-insensitive Captain Quantum. Please make him be evil, because otherwise I despair for this character!
From parts unknown, some pod -- it looks like a cross between Max in Flight of the Navigator and that metallic whiffle ball Luke bats around -- opens up its cyclopsian eye and aims a death ray right at Earth. For no particular reason -- but one that I'm convinced must have something to do with the 2000 election recount -- the laser starts in the middle of Florida and neatly slices down through the center of America's wang. Hee -- Alex Richmond is rude, crude, and pretty damn hysterical. We get a close-up of the laser's path and watch it continue through Cuba and across the ocean. Too bad the laser didn't jog slightly east; it could have finally made Hispaniola separate but equal. In fact, if it were so inclined to jump over to Korea, the DMZ would be a thing of the past. Of course, being that this is three hundred years into the future, it could already be "of the past." Moving right along in search of good times and good news. Its laser beam emptied, the pod pops off some metal braces and zooms away -- not back from whence it came, but following the curvature of the Earth.
I find your lack of faith of the heart disturbing.