Episode Report Card Keckler: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Flight Of The Simulator
By Keckler | Season 3 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.03.2004
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Quantum kidnaps Degra (aka Mr. Man), and, with the aid of some highly suspect medical finaglings of Phlox's, manages to get him to forget his most recent memories. Installed in a neat little shuttle simulator that the whole crew (Even Hoshi! Even May-boy!) got to build with balsa wood and spray paint, Quantum tries to make Degra tell him all the Xindi weapon's secrets by pretending they have a prison history together, which naturally made them close. Very close. Eventually, Degra catches on and clams up tighter than the Drudge Report's shot of Janet's titple. After the flight of the simulator got its wings clipped, Quantum trumps up another simulated situation by way of lots of pyrotechnics in engineering and facial tics by Trip, tricking Degra into confirming the planetary location of the Weapon of Morass Destruction. After filming, Trip's simulator was shipped off to the Las Vegas Hilton as another way to make me nauseous. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Man. I can't believe how good these episodes are this season! Okay, okay, this show still might not exactly be the Best Thing currently on television, but considering where they came from, they are getting damn good.
Degra -- the Xindi Formerly Known As "Mr. Man" -- wakes up on the floor of a vessel as it rocks from side to side. He looks out a window, sees stars, and demands "Who are you?" of the man in the cockpit. Quantum -- with a mass of hair that desperately needs the Infusium he believes in -- turns around from the pilot's seat only to say, "They're targeting our engines!" While Degra con-fusses about how he got there and what the granny-knotted man wants with him, we can see through a window that a ship fires at them. Quantum tells Degra to get the weapons online. When Degra dithers like a St. Mary Mead sleuth, Quantum throws him out of the way and does it himself. Degra looks out another window sees, more ships, and says, "Insectoids!" Quantum raises the shields and says they won't last for long. Degra wants him to open a channel to the ships, because they are his people, and he'll order them to hold their fire. "It's been a long time since any Xindi took orders from you!" Quantum tells him. Stuff blows in the ship. Quantum runs around, intent on venting plasma. Finally, Degra involves himself and helps vent the plasma. The other ships stop firing. "The plasma got into their intake manifolds; their engines are overheating," says Quantum. I giggled when he said "overheating" because he accompanies the word with a weird face that made me think of someone tearing the meat off sauce-sticky spareribs. Mmmm, spareribs. The level of detail on this ship is incredible -- all the alien screens and gadgetry with the graphics are really cool. Degra demands to know who Quantum is and why he abducted him. "You really don't remember," Quantum states. "I was afraid this would happen." Oh, he's totally Gaslighting him. Next, we're going to see Quantum rubbing his hands, chortling that jewels have a life of their own, and Degra's going to clutch his bosoms, screeching, "If I were not mad, I could have HELPED you. Whatever you had done, I could have PITIED and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm REJOICING in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!" And then Joseph Cotton will save the day in one of his few non-creepy roles, and Angela Lansbury will play a singing slut. Again. Damn, no one makes movies like that anymore.