Episode Report Card Keckler: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Like sands through my beer glass
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 24 | Aired on 05.07.2002
Tatooweenie dunes. Quantum struggles under Trip's nearly dead weight and points out a shack in the distance. They press on until they finally reach it and collapse inside. Quantum eases Trip down and looks around at their new digs, which could probably do with a smidgen of Vern Yip's touch, until he spies a water barrel and ladle. He examines it, and Trip pants out, "I hope you're not planning to hog that all for yerself." Quantum sniffs the water and makes a face. He staggers back to Trip and tells him, "The water's off the menu." Shouldn't they have water purification tablets as a part of the survival gear in the sh'pod? "Now this is my idea of a good time," Trip sighs. Oh, that Trip and his kooky sense of humor -- what a card!
So for exactly thirty seconds, my lovely local UPN station goes black, and when we rejoin the program, Trip is saying, "Whaja do? Rub two sticks together?" It's possible that all that happened is that some commercial wasn't cued up properly, rather than me actually missing the show, because the call sign of the station and name of the show are both at the bottom of the screen. Anyway, there's a fire, and Trip's not sure how it happened. Quantum, ladling previously-contaminated water into their boda bags, tells Trip he "found a new use for the stun setting." Not exactly the Eagle Scouts, but it'll do. Soon they'll learn they can use rocks for heat the same way -- especially when they find themselves marooned for the night on a sub-zero planet after some Red Shirt screws up the transporters with the pesky Plot Contrivance he brings back to the ship, clinging to his shirt. Quantum brings the bag of water over to Trip, saying he's boiled away anything that can hurt them. I hope he let the water cool down first. Trip refuses the water, saying he's not thirsty. "Let's not get into that argument again," Quantum says, pushing the bag in his face. Trip drinks a little and spits it out. "Worse than blood soup," he pants. Quantum forces the water on him again, but Trip tells him he needs to sleep. Quantum tells him he's got a fever, his heart's racing, he's got all the symptoms of heatstroke, and if he goes to sleep, he may not wake up again. Trip says, "That sounds nice." Boy, have I had days like that. Quantum tells him, "When we get back to Enterprise, you can sleep all you want, but right now you gotta stay with me and drink this water. If I had a needle I'd give it to you intravenously, but I don't." He makes Trip sit up and drink the water. Trip drinks, makes faces, and coughs. Quantum resituates himself and notices Trip's closed eyes, so he pokes him and makes him stay awake. "The warp reactor, break it down for me," Quantum says. "I wanna rock right now, I'm Rob Base and I came to get down. I'm not internationally known, but I'm known throughout the microphone!" Mathra starts beat-boxing in Hunca Munca's face, who looks at him warily with one eye before going back to sleep on a sheaf of quaternion ring calculations. Trip doesn't get what's going on, so Quantum tells him to name the eight major components. "You gotta be kiddin' me," Trip slurs. "Name them, that's an order!" Quantum says. That's his answer to everything, isn't it? "Well, there's the drumsticks, thighs, wings -- you got anything to eat around here?" Trip asks. Quantum tells him he doesn't, but promises that once they get back to Enterprise, he'll have Chef (DRINK!) make him a dinner he'll never forget. "What wouldja like? Anything," Quantum says. "Not snake meat!" Trip pleads. "No, Chef [DRINK!] doesn't do snake meat very well," Quantum concedes, and encourages Trip to tell him what he wants. "Prime rib. Mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy -- the kind he makes Wednesday nights," Trip says. Quantum nudges Trip in the arm to wake him up and asks what kind of vegetables he wants. "Broccoli!" Trip splutters. "Doesn't he mean Barclay?" Mathra wants to know. "Dessert?" Quantum asks. "Pee-con pie," Trip says. Of course.
An Enterprise sh'pod zips down, shining a spotlight over the darkened dunes. In the cockpit, Osama Bin Dribblin' tells Reed to "take another pass over the Eastern Basin," but T'Pol says their sensors would have detected them. "No, there's magnetic deposits below that basin, they could be masking their bio-signs," Osama Bin Dribblin' tells her. Reed gripes about increasing their altitude to speed up their search, but Osama Bin Dribblin' tells him they'd be detected that way.