Episode Report Card Strega: F | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Strifeboat
By Strega | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.12.2002
After another commercial break, Trip and Malcolm are...still cold. Y'know, I knew there was something bugging me about this. Remember the nitrogen? From the coolant tanks? "Coolant" implies that there's something on board that generates heat, doesn't it? This bugged me enough that I had to go and confirm that on modern shuttles, there is coolant to keep the cabin from overheating. Between the electronics and the people, there's a lot of heat being generated and the whole lot of nothing out there surrounding the ship serves to insulate it, not cool it. So this whole freezing problem is as artificial and nonsensical as...okay, everything else we've seen in the episode. I don't know why I bother; this is like shooting fish in a barrel with an ICBM. And speaking of icy BMs (was that too obvious?) Malcolm and Trip are still shivering away. Malcolm says that he's redirected them for the rendezvous point, but since they're moving "slower than a snail," they have to hope that the Enterprise hurries up. Did I miss the part where they got navigation back online? Apparently. Trip says that he can "purge the CO2 filters" to buy them a little more time. Malcolm brings up my question about whether the Enterprise will hurry up to find out why the shuttle pod didn't respond to the hail. Trip thinks it would take something "more dramatic" to get the ship there in time. When Malcolm asks, Trip confirms that by now the ship should be able to spot them on their sensors. Malcolm asks if firing their weapons would register, but Trip says that "it would all still look like a single blip." Suddenly, Malcolm remembers something that Spock did in a similar situation and...wait, that happens later. So Spock was ripping off Malcolm, now? Man, and that pointy-eared Vulcan acted like he thought it up himself. Anyway, Malcolm suggests that Trip rigs the impulse drive to self-destruct. Yes, I like that plan! Oh, and they'll jettison the engine first so that the explosion doesn't kill them. Rats. The point is that the explosion might be big enough to attract the attention of the Enterprise. Trip whines, "We'd be adrift, dead in space." Trip? Hi. You know how this episode seems to keep creeping forward despite the fact that there's been no force acting on it since the teaser? That's due to something we call inertia. If you're moving, and you jettison the engine, you're going to keep moving until something acts to stop you. "Dead in space" implies that you're not moving at all. I could excuse the fingernail thing since you probably didn't major in biology, but physics is kind of important when you're an engineer. My head hurts so very much. Malcolm wheedles Trip, who finally grouses, "I think I have some micro-detonators in here somewhere." Sure, because why wouldn't you take explosives along with you on a routine mission?
The shuttle tools along; then we see the engines shut down and drop off of the shuttle. The engine goes boom. Malcolm asks Trip how it feels to be slower than a snail. You guys shouldn't throw around the word "slow" so much; you're begging me to interpret that a different way. Trip says, "I saw a great cartoon once," and then describes a not-at-all-great cartoon about two snails riding a turtle. Great story, Trip.