Episode Report Card Keckler: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Home Is Where the Snark Is
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 20 | Aired on 04.15.2003
Enterprise. Dinners and a Movie. This was probably my favorite scene of this episode. T'Pol sits for a bit, waiting for the camera to reach her, and then starts fiddling with her e-pad. Quantum looks around to see if anyone notices before leaning over and whispering a demand to know what she's doing. I was seriously hoping she had the complete text of Frankenstein downloaded and was about to start criticizing the movie for being so far off-base. Alas, she was only finishing some work leftover from that morning. "I thought you were going to give this a chance," Quantum whisper-whines. T'Pol concedes with a head roll and puts her e-pad down. Before Dr. Frankenstein removes the bandages from the monster's face, thus allowing Quantum to mine some inspiration for future furrows, Phlox starts to babble about Dr. Frankenstein's technique being very similar to some other alien surgical technique. "Really," Trip says flatly. Heh. Phlox continues on, prompting T'Pol to almost perfect the "half-turn." Finally, T'Pol turns all the way around and says, "We can stop the film if it's disturbing your conversation." Phlox looks abashed and puts some popcorn in his mouth. Quantum does a furrowed double-take at T'Pol, but when she notices, he just silently offers her some popcorn. T'Pol grapples at a few kernels -- her fingernails even make a noise against the glass bowl -- and jerkily puts them in her mouth as Quantum watches, still furrowed. The whole body language between Quantum and T'Pol was really funny here. She was embarrassed to be caught saying anything to Phlox that remotely implied she wanted to hear the movie, and then tried to cover it up by eating popcorn defensively in a blank refusal to meet Quantum's eyes. No, there's no sexual chemistry between T'Pol and any of the male actors on this show, but perhaps it's because the lack of it that I got a big kick out of the whole "date" scenario. I think it would have been amusing to have a minor flash of Trip looking slightly put-out when it dawned on him that he wasn't the one to entice T'Pol to the movie. For Trip, it would more be an ego boost if it transpired that his powers of convincing were better than Quantum's than it would ever be a question of grubby romance. Furthermore, it would just make it even funnier later on in the Captain's Mess when Trip is so clearly irritated by T'Pol's analysis of the film that he would figuratively throw his hands up at the whole shebang.
Horizon. Helmsman Possibly Charlie alerts Capt. Bro-Weather to the fact that someone is messing around with the impulse relays. Capt. Bro-Weather leaves the Bridge to Helmsman Possibly Charlie But Now Definitely Tattle-Pants and storms out. Finding May-Lompoc fiddling with stuff he was expressly told to leave alone, Capt. Bro-Weather blows a gasket. In an emotional scene, he accuses May-Lompoc of turning his back on the family a long time ago and being too busy to come clustering around the sickroom when their father was gasping his last. Well, we all knew it was going to come down to this, since it was stinkingly obvious that May-Lompoc's hair shirt hasn't been washed since the scene with Quantum in the G-Spot. "Hostile aliens aren't our problems, it's Starfleet and people like you. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find new crewmen? No one wants to run freight anymore -- they all want to be explorers, cruising around on state-of-the-art ships with their personal chefs," Capt. Bro-Weather bites out. Damn! "You want to stand around feelin' sorry for yourself -- go ahead. I've got better things to do," May-Lompoc bites back. Like what, exactly? Seems that your brother has taken every possible duty away from you except sitting on your hands and sucking wind. Capt. Bro-Weather grabs his arm, orders him to take his modifications off-line, and threatens to confine him to quarters if he doesn't comply. May-Lompoc insists that he was just trying to help: "In case you haven't noticed, you could use a little help right now." Capt. Bro-Weather tells him he doesn't want his help, so May-Lompoc tells him to remove the modifications his own damn self. He snaps his arm away and leaves. Capt. Bro-Weather looks at the con, looks at the door, and then looks at the con again. He looks very lost and confused. Man, the dude is a good actor!