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
Tavern on the Breem. Quantum and Reed pretend not to be conspicuously alien, so they shifty-eye themselves over to a secluded booth that Reed is positive was "the table." Aw, it's "their" booth. Reed immediately crawls under the table. Uh, I really don't think it's wise to kink out your first five minutes on an alien planet. Reed comes up with nothing and flips open his scanner. The barman comes over, welcomes them back, and asks for their order all friendly-like. Quantum says they need a few minutes, so the barman downshifts into small talk. "Where's your friend -- the young woman?" he asks. Quantum tells him he has a good memory, and Barman says she's not easy to forget. Finally, Barman tells them he just got some special Alien Visitor Ale in, and Quantum tells him to get them a couple. Barman leaves. Reed scans some more and determines that his communicator is in another room. Here's the catch -- it's a room he was never in! Duh duh DUH!
Barman goes over to a group of uniformed men and seems to give them an eye signal. Quantum saddle-sores it over to the room Reed was never in, while Reed watches his, uh, saddle before following him. Barman and uniformed men watch their every move. Behind a bead curtain, Reed does some more scanning and determines that there are two people on the other side of the door along with his missing communicator. Quantum thinks they should wait for them to come out, and starts to head back to his drink. But before he can get drunk, like me, the soldiered men jump to their feet in that highly effective confrontational method of shoving their chairs and standing up all in the same motion. Bet Quantum wishes he could Leap right about now. Quantum proves he's watched far too many old westerns as he uses a small cocktail table as a battering ram in an attempt to force their way out. You know, if you can lift it in one hand, do you really think it's going to be that effective against a bunch of thickly-muscled soldiers with blood-lust in their eyes and a song in their hearts? A bit of tussle, which Quantum and Reed get the worst of, before the two humans are hauled off for questioning. Two additional uniformed men -- who seem to be more senior then the rest, seeing as they were the ones who got to hang back in the special room -- hold up Reed's communicator and asks what kind of fancy heater it is. Quantum, choosing this moment to think that something directively prime is a good thing, plays dumb, and gets him and Reed roughed up for his trouble. This show has more hitting in it than any of the other Treks. I mean, there was very little in the way of fisticuffs with TNG, and in TOS, there didn't to be so many punches thrown because it took only one to knock anyone out. The soldiers -- who remind me of SS soldiers for absolutely no apparent reason -- confiscate their other fancy Speak and Spells and water guns and speculate that they are Alliance spies. Wait, does that mean Malcolm is on Malcolm's side or not?