Episode Report Card Keckler: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I Left My Communicator In San Francisco
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.12.2002
Sh'bay. May-wombat and Trip fiddle around with the hatched-open cell pod; they don't appear to be getting very far with the cloaking mechanism. It might actually help if they shut the pod's door. I mean, it seems perfectly sound that the cell pod has some sort of safety trigger that didn't allow it to cloak until the door was securely fastened and cross-checked. Sort of like how you can't roll down electric windows in a car if the door is open. Trip tells May-wallplug to run the power sequence again. "This would be a lot easier if there were a button marked 'cloak,'" May-Waldorf-Salad grapes -- uh, gripes. Yeah, and it would be a lot easier if your name was just "extra"! "Celery, apples, walnuts, grapes -- in a mayonnaise sauce! Not out of a bottle!" Mathra Fawlty screeches, late in catching my reference. Trip thinks he's on the right technobabble track, and does something that gets him Zapped! and flung away from the pod. Did he turn into Scott Baio?! Alas, no -- Trip says he just got the wind knocked out of him. That'll happen when you go sticking your wire into alien wall sockets. Trip and May-waiver look around at some equipment that looks like it's desperately trying to cloak itself so it can sneak off the set and call its agent to get the hell off this stupid show. "Maybe a little more than that," May-wahoo says, staring down at Trip's lap. Okay, so he was staring at his arm, but don't tell me that thought didn't cross your mind. Trip looks around and sees that his lower arm is cloaked. It's the one-armed man Tim Daly's been looking for! No wonder he couldn't track him in all those filmed-on-location cities -- he was in space!
Sickbay. Phlox scans Trip and asks if he has any pain. "Tingles a little," Trip admits. "Can you move your fingers?" Phlox asks. Presumably, Trip does so, because he asks, "How's that?" "You tell me," Phlox deadpans. Trip thinks they feel okay, and asks what his scanner tells him. "Very little, I'm afraid," Phlox informs him. "Quantum [heh] physics is barely my specialty, but I'd guess that you received an intense dose of whatever particle radiation that ship uses to conceal itself." "Are ye sayin' I'm perminintly cloaked?" Trip whines. Yes, and if you go back and do exactly the same thing, maybe you won't miss the rest of your body the next time. Phlox thinks his "appendage" will reappear eventually. "Eventually?" Trip blusters. Phlox tells him to check back in an hour or so. "Doesn't he have a slug for that?" Mathra wonders from his plate of Steak Morvandeau. Trip asks, "Whut am I s'posed to do in th'meentime? I kin't work lak this!" Why not? Presumably, he can still feel with and move The Invisible Hand, which means he can use it. I know this isn't the first time I've alluded to the deep inner workings of my heart, but I really have misgivings about Trip's admission to the Think Tank of the Human Race. Phlox has a remedy for Trip's crippled brain, and gives him a grey glove. "I'd also recommend a fresh uniform," Phlox smiles. Trip grudgingly thanks him, takes the glove so it hangs in mid-air, and leaves. Without the glove, he reminds me a lot of Black and Decker. Maybe that's because he didn't have an arm either; man, he was hot.