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
Earth. Florida. Reed and Trip gape as they stand amidst the destruction. "I'm so sorry," Reed breathes. Trip points out where his sister's house would have been, and where the old movie theatre used to stand. "When we were kids, if I didn't take my sister with me she'd scream like a banshee," Trip recalls. Reed asks if he's certain his sister was there when the laser struck. "Someone wulda hurd from her if she wuzzint," Trip says. Sounds like there's an awful lot of disconnect in Trip's family. Wouldn't there be at least one Tucker who would know for sure and beyond all reasonable doubt? None of this "someone wulda hurd" crap.
Josh Hartnett lives two blocks away from my little sister's apartment in Minneapolis.
In what could very possibly be the coolest shot of the entire season, an unfinished NX-class starship hangs in a Giant Hairclip Garage. Quantum logs that he has finally been given the go-ahead by Starfleet to commit suicide in the Delphic Expanse. Quantum and Forrest survey the NX-02 in a pod, and we learn that the second warp five ship will be spaceworthy in fourteen months, that most of Quantum's Qrew is going along for the suicide mission, and that Quantum has requested a complement of extra officers from General Casey. "I was surprised you asked for them. You think you'll be comfortable with the military on board?" Forrest asks. See, he said "the military" there, which means that, currently, Starfleet has no formal connection to "the military." Quantum says that he gots no problems with non-Starfleet personnel: "The General tells me these are the best that he has. I'm going to need all the muscle I can get when we cross into the Expanse." Forrest asks leading questions, but Quantum doesn't know where exactly in the Expanse they have to go, or how long it will take the Xindi to build the Death Star. However, Quantum doesn't think Shower Guy would have warned them if they didn't have a ghost of a chance of stopping them. Unless Admiral "Shower Guy" Forrest was planning on attacking Earth in Quantum's absence.
Sick Bay. Phlox phiddles with stuff, and T'Pol walks in to ask if he is confident with his decision. Phlox pretends not to know what she is talking about. "To remain on Enterprise. Crewman Fuller just told me a shuttle's on its way with two hundred snow beetles," T'Pol says. Phlox muses that they could be for his replacement, but T'Pol counters with, "There isn't a doctor in Starfleet that would have the slightest idea of what to do with them." Phlox finally relents and asks what T'Pol's decision is. "His hair! It's flipped! It's Carol Brady!" byobkenobi calls out. Unfortunately, she's right. T'Pol says she has no decision to make, as she's been ordered by the High Command not to enter the Delphic Expanse and it's not her place to disobey them. Why not? You've done it before. Phlox pooh-poohs that, saying, "Nonsense, you've done it before." See? Married two weeks and we already read each other's thoughts. Phlox philosophizes over how differently they, the two aliens on the ship, approach their decision. Phlox's loyalties unquestionably lie with Quantum and the fact that his services will very much be needed on this mission, but he does note that T'Pol's loyalties are split. T'Pol takes all this in as a crewman enters with the snowbeetle delivery. It just struck me how much of a holistic doctor Phlox really is -- the snot of this plant for that cough, the excretion of that creature for this skin lesion. Interesting. T'Pol thanks Phlox and leaves him to chitter at his bugs.