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
Quantum logs that they've been travelling for seven weeks and have finally reached the edge of the Delphic Expanse. Quantum poses on the Bridge with one leg cocked and bent on a step above. "He looks like a pointer!" byobkenobi shouts, and I shudder at the word "pointer" and that particular fabric-straining-at-the-crotch stance of Quantum's. Quantum and T'Pol sciencebabble about how long and deep and far the Delphic Expanse is and goes. They go in.
It's cloudy. It's purple. And it's pretty. Byobkenobi and I consult with one another on how unscary that makes the Delphic Expanse. All is quiet on the Delphic front, with nothing showing up on sensors. Hoshi comments that they've been in the Expanse for more than six hours. Quantum begs patience. Trip boards the Bridge and announces that they launched a communication buoy and have a test signal through to Starfleet. T'Pol's con beeps. Trip assumes it's the buoy, but it's actually three Klingon ships. Enterprise is fired on. This is where the filming on the Bridge of Enterprise gets really weird. It's like the film got speeded up or the frames per second got screwed up. It's also very digitized-looking, and I can't really figure out why. I almost want to guess that they used a different kind of camera and a different kind of film from the rest of the episode. "I thought you said the Klingons wouldn't go into the Expanse!" Trip shouts at Quantum. "We aren't in the Expanse yet!" Quantum tells him. You're not? Then where the hell are you -- the Expanse's foyer? The Klingons fire a few more shots before hailing them. Duras tells Quantum to surrender. "Go to hell!" Quantum slurs a bit. He's not still drunk after seven weeks, is he? Duras makes some more noises, but Quantum tires of him and hangs up mid-threat. T'Pol reports that they are nearing the real Expanse now. Quantum guesses that's why Duras ordered them to come about -- he's afraid to follow them into the Expanse. Quantum orders full speed ahead. On the Klingon ship, Duras is told that the other Klingon ships are going to turn back. "Cowards!" Duras hisses. "We'll do it ourselves." "We're too close to the Expanse!" the Klingon pilot says. Duras throws him out of his seat and takes over the helm.
In the Pretty Purple Haze, the other two Klingon ships bug out. Duras's ship follows Enterprise. They fire at each other. T'Pol reports that the Expanse is five minutes away. More firing on Enterprise, and Quantum observes that Reed's torpedoes aren't that effective against Duras's ship anymore. "Duras has transferred his aft shields forward -- our weapons can't penetrate them," Reed tells him. Engineering takes a severe hit, and a random qrewman flips over the catwalk and down to the ground along with some rocks. Could that be their first casualty? Trip reports a loss of three anti-matter injectors, which puts them near to the realm of deep doo-doo. Quantum asks, "If he's transferred his shielding forward, what's protecting his stern?" "Does it matter? He's chasin' us!" Trip says. "What's protecting his stern?" Quantum demands again. "Minimal shielding," T'Pol reports. Is he going to pull a Wrath of Khan move? "You think you can pull off an L-4 at this speed?" Quantum asks When You Were Mayweather, who thinks he can try. Quantum tells him to climb for the densest cloud formation he can find, and comms all hands to put their seatbelts on. May Soft and Weather joysticks them straight up into the clouds and loop-dee-loops so that they come right behind Duras's ship. When they first starting heading up to the clouds, I totally thought they were going to pull some sort of Top Gun giving-the-bird-to-the-MIG type of move. Duras is busy looking ahead of him for Enterprise through the thick clouds. Quantum orders Reed to fire. Reed smirks and fires. The Klingon ship breaks apart, and the head flies toward the camera. Now, it looks as though the Bridge portion of the head of the ship does explode, even if the whole head doesn't completely disintegrate in this shot. Enterprise flies through the wreckage they created. I always thought that was such an unnecessary, show-offy move. It's like excessive celebration after a touchdown -- there should be a penalty for it.