Episode Report Card Keckler: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Best. Episode. Ever.
By Keckler | Season 4 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.21.2005
They engage the cloak with awesome effects. Enterprise starts to shimmer and then becomes colorless and transparent (much like Wonder Woman's airplane) before disappearing completely.
Bridge. They reach the coordinates and magnify one of the moons orbiting the ringed planet. We get a close-up shot of a TOS-era ship in a hangar with tiny ships moving around it. Evil Leaper furrows smugly at Forrest. We get a closer look and see that it is the U.S.S. Defiant. When I saw all the previews, I didn't look very closely at the ship and just assumed they were bringing back Enterprise from TOS. And Dr. Mathra and I bitched about how that could possibly happen even in a Mirror Universe. But then we watched the episode and realized that the number was NCC-1764 and all hell broke loose in our little apartment. Again. After ascertaining that it was definitely Defiant, Dr. Mathra leaped around the living room screaming about all the perfect connections to "The Tholian Web." In fact, I couldn't get him to calm down or even sit still until I promised to rewatch "The Tholian Web" immediately after this episode ended. Given how many times UPN's promos have ruined what could have been amazing surprises, I'm so glad I didn't analyze the ones this past week.
Situation Room. T'Pevil reports that the ship has thirteen alien biosigns with one of them being reptilian. Well, that one's gotta be Gorn. I mean, after last week's mention, which was probably just serving as a reminder, there's no way it isn't. T'Pevil can find no sign of the human crew. "It's likely the crew was executed," Reedvil salivates. Feeling better after our torture, are we? "Look at the size of those coils!" Evil Trinneevil marvels, also salivating, "I'll bet that ship can do warp seven!" Forrest orders Evil Leaper to head up an assault team. He wants them to download info from the ship and then destroy it. Evil Leaper doesn't want to destroy it. He wants to keep it. They argue a bit, but Forrest wins and dismisses them. Forrest turns to T'Pevil and tells her to tag along to make sure Evil Leaper doesn't make it back alive.
Defiant. In the copper EV suits, the assault team examines stuff and realizes that the Tholians have already begun to gut the ship. A redshirt lies facedown on the floor. Evil Leaper turns him over to reveal a phaser blast in his chest. You can also see the embroidered TOS patch, but it's sort of weird-looking. It's like it's turned on its side. Evil Leaper picks up the TOS phaser next to the body and examines it. Reedvil pants, "If you like, sir, I could hold that for you." Heh. Somehow I like Reedvil's gun obsession when he's being excessively drooly about it. Evil Leaper just stares back at him before sliding the gun into his own belt.