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It's a new, but old, ship. It's a new, but old, crew. It's a new, but old, letterbox format. A redneck called "Moore" (dissect that if you like, all you wonderful Trekkists out there in the dark), toting a new-phangled gun, shoots a weird alien called a Klingot--"Klingon!"--ahem, Klingon and lands Captain Quantum his first mission, much to the Vulcans' collective dismay. And what of our repeatedly Maxim-exposed Vulcan science officer? Well, she spends a good part of her time showing emotion as abundantly as she does her dinners. But not to worry, there's a good amount of skin exposed in this episode to make up for the overt sexuality. Who knew that UPN had a deal with Cinemax? Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Shhh. It's the first scene, and I'm feeling a moment of reverence come over me. I've never watched an actual pilot of a Star Trek show in real time. Shots of little plastic men (which look very much like my Luke Skywalker X-Wing Pilot action figures) and a paintbrush touching up the detail on a NASA space shuttle. "Where. No. Man. Has. Gone. Before," a kid's voice stilts out. "Dr. Cochrane would be proud of you," his dad says while polishing something. "I know the whole speech by heart -- when's it going to be ready to fly?" the kid asks. "Well, let the paint dry first," Dad says. "No, I mean your ship," the kid says. Okay, you know what? I'm not going to hold you in suspense any longer -- the kid is supposed to be young Jonathan Archer, soon to be Captain "Quantum Leap" Archer of Enterprise. Ta-daa! "It's not even built yet," Pop Archer tells him, "you know that." "Well, how big will it be?" Child Archer asks. "Pretty big," Pop Archer of Tedious and Awkward Dialogue says. "Bigger than Ambassador Pointy's ship?" Child Archer asks nastily. "His name is Soval and he's been very helpful and I told you not to call him that, Jonathan," Pop Archer says, exhibiting less emotion in his voice than T'Pol manages the whole episode. "Well, Billy Cook said we'd be flying at warp five by now if the Vulcans hadn't kept things from us," Child Archer drones expositionally. "Well, they had their reasons. God knows what they are," Pop Archer says, shaking his head.
"Leap" ahead thirty years to Broken Bow, Oklahoma, and a cornfield. Something large and starship-like has cut a swath through the field and now sits smoldering. A Klingon runs panting through the rows of corn as several bald aliens with mottled skin no Trek fan has seen before chase him. Insert Children of the Corn joke here. The bald aliens fire, and the Klingon dodges. Alarmed by the sound of phaser shots, the farmer comes out of his house. He looks out onto his field and sees black smoke and phaser fire flashing through his crop and runs back in the house to teach those meddlin' kids a lesson they'll never forget. The Klingon comes to a clearing and runs into a silo. Aw, man -- didn't he see Witness? Never go into a silo or a grain elevator! The farmer comes out of his house with a rifle and slaps the base, and we hear a high-pitched whine that indicates this ain't no gun you load with bullets. The bald aliens run out of the cornfield and slam into the silo door. Maybe they'll just give up and go home now? Nope, no such luck for our cranial-ridged friend. One of the aliens squats down and slides his hands under the door, and this is the really cool part. His hands sort of go all gel-like and then reverse themselves. So he has his palms on the floor of the silo but SQUIDGE and the backs of his hands become his palms, which slap onto the back of the silo door. SQUIDGE again and his whole body flattens out -- his head sort of caves in as well -- to allow him to ooze his body under the door. The only thing I can liken it to is the cop in Terminator 2. Awesomely creepy special effects. Logically, once the one alien squidges under the door, he opens the door for his friend. Maybe they don't like to do a lot of squidging in one day -- I can see how it could tire one out. Or cost too much money. The Klingon bursts out of the top of the silo and hits the ground running. He gets a few yards away, then turns and fires a plasma blast at the silo, which explodes. Popcorn, anyone? The Klingon, knocked to the ground by the blast, now hauls himself to his feet, only to be faced by an angry corn farmer who points his gun at the cranial-ridged stranger and orders him to drop his weapon. "Ah meen it!" the farmer says. "Worf! Worf! Worf!" the Klingon says. Honestly. I rewound it several times, and that's totally what it sounds like he said. It wasn't any Klingonese I'm familiar with. Not that I am familiar or anything -- I mean, I just know "Kerplop" and that's it. Really. The farmer says, "Ah don't understeend a word yer sayin' but Ah gar-ron-tee you, Ah know how to use this!" while raising his gun again. The Klingon says some more threatening-sounding words (who're we kidding? All Klingonese is threatening sounding) and advances toward the farmer, who fires a shot, blowing the Klingon back into the cornfield. As the Klingon lies there insensible, the farmer looks puzzled.
The opening credits are incredible. Images of old maps, a sketch of "H.M.S. Enterprize" from Admiral Nelson's time, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Enterprise space shuttle (named for the one in TOS), Amelia Earhart, Chuck Yeager, NASA astronauts, shuttle and rocket launches, the first footprint on the moon, Mars, a space station, a streamlined shuttle of the future, and the shot from First Contact where The Phoenix deploys its nacelles. Finally, a shot of the new/old Enterprise as it jumps into warp. Warp 4.5, that is.
The less said about the theme song, the better. I'll just let everyone fight it out on the forums. But for the record, I hated it and will continue to hate it until they change it. It's sappy beyond belief and completely fails to complement the feelings of pride and wonder the images of space progress bring out. That song by "The Calling Band" they used in the preview shorts was much more evocative of the show than this thing they're using. While it may have been sufficient before the events of September 11, personally, I now need something more stirring than a limp pancake of an anthem. Bring out the brass. Bring out the percussion. Bring out the Sousa.
We're in space. How do we know? We see a thin shard of light just beginning to creep over a planet (Earth, we can assume). A space pod zips around the underside of the docked Enterprise piloted by the one, the only -- Caaaptaain Quantuuuuum! He looks through the pod's glass ceiling, checking out the underbelly of the ship. The guy in the seat says, "The ventral plating team says they'll be done in about three days." Cpt. Quantum tells him to "be sure they match the color to the nacelle housings." "You planning to sit on the hull and pose for some postcards?" his fellow podling -- who we now see is Charlie "Trip" Tucker III -- cracks. "Maybe," Cpt. Quantum says, looking up with a smile and treating us to his profile. Man! He's got a chin even Dawsorian might be jealous of. How did I manage to miss something that big in my years of watching Quantum Leap? Cpt. Quantum sighs over the beauty of his spaceship. "And fast," Trip reminds him, "Warp 4.5 Thursday." "Neptune and back in six minutes," Cpt. Quantum tells those of us who don't have any concept of warp. Cpt. Quantum instructs Trip to proceed with the rest of the inspection, and they find some lateral sensor array ports that "buckled during the last test." Cpt. Quantum tells Trip to reinforce them. Trip makes notes to that effect and neglects his piloting of the pod, which bumps up against the big X in the "NX-01" painted on the hull. "Great, you scratched the paint," Cpt. Quantum tells him, grinning. A message comes through telling them that Admiral Forrest (acknowledged shout-out to DeForest Kelley) requests Cpt. Quantum's presence in Starfleet Medical ASAP. Cpt. Quantum and Trip exchange rueful looks.
Nighttime shot of a future San Francisco skyline. Three Starfleet officials in dark blue uniforms with gold piping walk into an observation room, followed by three Vulcans in their typical quilted-blanket robe attire. "Who was chasing him?" Starfleet Official One asks. "We don't know. They were incinerated in the methane explosion and the farmer's description was vague at best," the thick-lipped and somewhat familiar-looking Vulcan answers. Standing behind a plate glass wall, the Vulcan and the Starfleet officials look into an examination room, which shows a Klingon strapped to an examination table with blue lights and tubes going in and out of the sides. Four white-smocked medical technicians hover around, adjusting equipment and readings. "How did they get here -- what kind of ship?" Starfleet Official Two asks. "They were using some kind of stealth technology," the other Vulcan official answers. "We're still analyzing our sensor logs." At this point, as everyone else looks in at the recumbent Klingon, T'Pol's pixie head is staring straight into the camera just in case we didn't notice her balloon lips tripping into the room with the other two officials earlier. Starfleet Official Three tells the Vulcans he'd like to see their sensor logs. "The Klingons made it very clear they want us to expedite this," Thick-Lipped Vulcan Official One -- whom I recognize as Gary Graham from Alien Nation -- says pompously. I didn't think I'd ever be using the word "pompous" to describe any Vulcan except the Laughing Vulcan from STV, but if the pointy ears fit… "It happened on our soil," Starfleet Official Three states. "That's irrelevant," Vulcan Official Two says. "Ambassador," Starfleet Official One says, fixing Vulcan Ambassador Gary Graham in his gaze, "with all due respect, we have a right to know what's going on here." "You will be apprised of all pertinent information," Vulcan Ambassador Gary Graham tells him. "And just who gets to decide what's 'pertinent information'?" Starfleet Official Three says, getting irritated, just as Cpt. Quantum saunters up. He's informally clad in his civvies in order to convey how unconventional a Starfleet Officer he is.
"Jon," SO1 says, clasping Cpt. Quantum's hand, "I think you know everyone." The Vulcans give him a dubious once-over. "Not everyone," Cpt. Quantum says, sweeping past the Vulcan coven and looking in at the Klingon patient. "It's a Klingot," SO2 says, putting as much xenophobia as he possibly can into the mispronunciation of the species. "A Kling-on," VO2 corrects him in superior tones. Cpt. Quantum asks where the Kling-on came from. "Oklahoma," SO3 tells him. So he's a Sooner? Cpt. Quantum looks surprised. "A corn farmer named Moore shot him with a plasma rifle," SO1 explains. I wonder if it's a coincidence that a former ST writer who reportedly had a falling out with the current Powers That Be has the same last name as a plasma-rifle-toting corn farmer with an itchy trigger finger and redneck overtones. "Says it was self-defense," SO1 further explains. VO2 sniffs that it's "fortunate" that he and Ambassador Soval (okay, now we've got a name for Gary Graham, Vulcan Ambassador, and it's the same guy Child Archer referred to as "Ambassador Pointy") have maintained close contact with "Kronos" since the incident occurred. The dude who swallowed all his kids in Greek mythology? Notice how much of Star Trek draws from Greco-Roman myth? Romulus, Remus, Vulcan, and Kronos? "Kronos?" Cpt. Quantum asks. "It's the Kling-ons' homeworld," Xenophobic SO2 says derisively. SO1 steps forward and explains, "This gentleman's some sort of a courier." Excuse me while Post Road Pumpkin Ale sizzles out of my nose at the idea of a Klingon being called a "gentleman." I think they would find no honor in being thus described. "Evidently he was carrying crucial information back to his people." I have to say I'm really liking these new/old Starfleet uniforms. Dark blue, rank strips on the shoulder-chest area rather than pips on a Mao collar, and white shirt with a dark Windsor-knot tie. Smart. Classy. "When he was nearly killed," Ambassador Soval interjects, "by your farmer." I just love how much derision he manages to put into the two syllables of "farmer." SO1 tells Cpt. Quantum that Ambassador Soval thinks they should put off Enterprise's launch until the Klingon mess is mopped up. Cpt. Quantum smiles humorlessly and drawls, "Well, isn't that a surprise. You'd think they would've come up with something a little more imaginative this time." Ambassador Soval points out that Cpt. Quantum can be as sarcastic as he likes, but Earth doesn't really want to make themselves an enemy of the Klingon Empire. Yeah, take a page from Kirk's log -- oh, wait, he can't. VO2 tells Cpt. Quantum that if the Vulcans hadn't finessed the Klingons into allowing them to bring Klaang the Klingon's corpse back to Kronos, "Earth would be most likely facing a squadron of warbirds by the end of the week." "'Corpse'?" Cpt. Quantum repeats incredulously. "Is he dead?"
Without waiting for an answer, Cpt. Quantum throws open the examination room door -- did anyone else wonder if he needed to take protective measures before going in? A smock, a mask, anything to protect a potentially vulnerable Klingon from contamination by a human? -- and strides inside. "Excuse me," Cpt. Quantum demands of a medical technician (recognizable as Dr. Phlox), passing a guard with a plasma gun. "Is this man dead?" I like how the writers subtly clue us into the open-mindedness of Cpt. Quantum and SO1 by having them call the Klingon "gentleman" and "man." "His autonomic system was disrupted by the blast but his redundant neural functions are still -- " Dr. Phlox babbles. "Is he going to die?" Cpt. Quantum interrupts. "Not necessarily," Dr. Phlox says cheerfully. Dude, Phlox is a total composite of the Emergency Medical Hologram and Neelix from Voyager, but better. I like him already. ["Plus, he's named after a pretty flower. Aw." -- Sars] Cpt. Quantum strides (because honestly, can he be said to walk any other way?) out and delivers an uninformed PSA to the Vulcans about euthanising Klaang. "Now where is the logic in that?" Cpt. Politically Correct Quantum demands. Ambassador Soval attempts to edge around T'Pol's (now visibly) enormous dinners and explain that the Klingon culture "finds honor in death. If they saw him like this, he'd be disgraced." Vo2 offers further explanation to the culturally ignorant human captain that the Klingons are a race of warriors: "They dream of dying in battle. If you understood the complexities of interstellar diplomacy --" But Cpt. Quantum's not interested in those complexities as he interrupts VO2 to stick his hands in his pockets, widen his stance, and demand, "So that's your diplomatic solution -- to do what they tell you? Pull the plug?" VO2 tells Cpt. Quantum, "Your metaphor is crude," and then elevates his eyebrows ever-so-slightly, "but accurate." Cpt. Quantum gets all defensive and says that while humans may be "crude," they aren't murderers either, and turns to his senior Starfleet Officers to ask them, "You're not going to let them do this, are ya?" The senior Starfleet Officials look uncomfortable as Ambassador Soval says that the Klingons want Klaang's corpse back immediately. "Admiral?" Cpt. Quantum demands. SO1, now Admiral, tells him they might have to "defer to their judgment." Cpt. Quantum raises his voice and says they've been deferring to them for over one hundred years. "Jon," Admiral says warningly. "How much longer?" Cpt. Quantum insists.
T'Pol and her dinners speak up: "Until you've proven you're ready." "Ready to what?" Cpt. Quantum asks, turning to her and her dinners. "Ready to look beyond your provincial attitudes and your volatile nature," T'Pol says, in a voice full of acrimony. Man, just sixteen words and she's already proven to be, like, the worst Vulcan ever. Get Kirstie Alley or Kim Cattrall back on the set. "You have no idea how much I'm restraining myself from knockin' you on yer ass!" Cpt. Quantum tells her. Captain Quantum's Law #120: using a coarser term for gluteus maximus shows aliens how powerful you are. T'Pol just raises her eyebrows at him and allows a tiny smile to reach from her lips to her eyes. Spock never did that. Well, not unless he was hit by spores, or devolving. Cpt. Quantum turns his back on her and proposes to Admiral that he and his crew be the ones to take Klaang back to his people, alive. Ambassador Soval tells the Starfleet Officials that this isn't the time for them to be "imposing [their] ethical beliefs." Admiral can't seem to make up his mind, so he turns to SO2 and says, "Dan?" SO Dan tells Cpt. Quantum that he only has a skeleton crew, with no medical officer and a communications officer gallivanting off in Brazil. (I added the "gallivanting" part.) "Three days, that's all I need," Cpt. Quantum pleads. Ambassador Soval huffs, "Admiral?" Admiral walks over to him and says that they've been waiting nearly one hundred years, and "this seems as good a time as any to get started." Ambassador Soval raises his voice and tells him they're making a largish mistake. "When your logic fails do you raise your voice?" Cpt. Quantum twits at him. "You've been on Earth too long." Seriously -- get a hold of yourself, you Vulcan. The Ambassador storms out. T'Pol rolls her eyes and follows. Storming out? Rolling their eyes? What kind of "unemotional" Vulcans are these? Once the Vulcans take their emotions out of the room, the Admiral tells Cpt. Quantum that he knew he wouldn't like the Vulcans' plan. "Don't screw this up," Admiral tells him with a smile, and leaves. Cpt. Quantum watches Dr. Phlox hover over Klaang for a bit, then taps on the glass and beckons to him.
Back above Earth's atmosphere, the Enterprise is docked in a strange contraption that looks very much like one of my hairclips. A space pod zooms up to the hairclip. Inside the ship, various blue-jumpsuited crewmembers are loading and carrying equipment. The interior is very shadowy, spare, and grey. Very much akin to the submarine interior the set designers studied. Travis Mayweather and Malcolm Reed (the Brit with the chiseled cheeks) walk up to a hollowed-out octagonal chamber lined with bars of lights. "I heard this platform's been approved for bio-transport," Mayweather tells Reed. Reed fixes him with a British fish-eye: "I presume you mean fruits and vegetables," he says. "I mean armory officers and helmsmen," Mayweather tells him (note: Reed is the armory officer, and Mayweather is the helmsman), and walks over to investigate the transporter platform. Reed pauses and says, partially to himself, "I don't think I'm quite ready to have my molecules compressed into a data stream." Mayweather tells him, "They claim it's safe." "Do they indeed? Well, I certainly hope the Captain doesn't plan on making us use it." Mayweather tells him not to worry, because from what he's told, "he wouldn't even put his dog through this thing." Reed and Mayweather watch a box of equipment materialize in a "data stream" of silver sparkles and dots. Reed pops the case open and sighs with annoyance, "This is ridiculous, I ask for plasma coils and they send me a case of valve sealant." I hate it when that happens. "There's no way I can have these weapons online in three days," Reed tells Mayweather. "Well, we're just taking a sick man back to his homeworld, why do we need weapons?" Mayweather asks. Oh, you poor deluded human. Reed asks him if he's read the profile on the Klingons: "Evidently they sharpen their teeth before they go into battle," Reed says. Mayweather laughs nervously, expecting Reed to tell him he's kidding, but Reed just looks at him, and Mayweather's smile fades.
The two crewmen weave in and out of other crewmembers hanging down from corridor ceilings, passing orders back and forth, causing circuits to shower sparks. "No doubt Mr. Tucker will reassure me my equipment will be here tomorrow: 'Keep yer shurt on, Lewtenent,'" Reed says in an exaggerated Southern accent. Mayweather asks him if he notices whether the artificial gravity feels "a bit heavy." Reed seems to think it feels okay, saying, "Earth sea level," by way of verification. Mayweather clasps his hands behind his back and says, "My father always kept it at point eight g," locking the Exposition Tractor Beam on his space travel background: "Thought it put a little spring in his step." Reed helps him redirect the Exposition Tractor Beam by saying, "After being raised on cargo ships, it must've felt like you had lead in your boots when you got to Earth."
They enter the Engineering Chamber, made up of steel tubes, catwalks, and ladders around a large pink-glowing warp core. A Southern accent says, "Beautiful! Lock it off right there," Ah, this must be Chief Engineer Charlie "Trip" Tucker III. I don't know how comfortable I'd feel if my Chief Engineer had somehow earned himself the nickname "Trip." Trip runs across a catwalk and down suspension steps to the front of the glowing warp core. He pats a capped technician on the shoulder and surveys the readings on the core. Whipping out a handkerchief, Trip polishes the edge of the warp core. "You missed a spot," Reed teases him from below. Trip turns around with a smile to greet his fellow accented crewmember. "Commander Tucker, Ensign Travis Mayweather, he just arrived," Reed says in introducing them. "Our 'Space Boomer,'" Trip says, reaching down to shake Mayweather's hand. Mayweather asks how fast Trip "has gotten her." "Warp four," Trip drawls, looking fondly at his core, "we'll be going to four-five soon's we clear Jupiter -- think you can handle it?" Mayweather grins, "Four point five?" and laughs incredulously. I just love how naively excited they are about going five-point-five slower than Picard's crew. "Pardon me," Reed interjects, raining on their parade, "but if I don't realign the deflector, the first grain of space dust we come across will blow a hole in this ship the size of your fist." "Keep yer shirt on, Lewtenent, yer equipment will be here in the mornin'," Trip tells him. Mayweather and Reed exchange amused looks.
Somewhere in the mountains of Brazil, Ensign Hoshi Sato puts her students through their alien linguistics paces. "It's Klingon language camp, just like in Trekkies!" Mathra shrieks. Except it's not, because they don't know about the Klingon language yet. Cpt. Quantum beckons his Communications Officer away from her students. He's big into beckoning, isn't he? First Phlox, now Sato. It's good to be the Captain. Sato argues that she still has three weeks left with her students and can't just up and leave with only two weeks before exams. "There's gotta be someone else who can cover for you," Cpt. Quantum tells her. "If there was someone else who could do what I do, you wouldn't be so eager to have me on your starship," Hoshi tells him pertly. I guess an ego is a prereq in Starfleet? Aw, but who am I trying to kid? I like her sass already. Cpt. Quantum tells her he could order her back. "I'm on leave from Starfleet, remember?" Hoshi tells him. "You would have to forcibly recall me, which would require a reprimand, which would disqualify me from serving on an active vessel." So there! Cpt. Quantum tells her he needs someone with her ear. "Well, if that's all you need," Hoshi says, unclipping her auditory canal from her cranium and handing it to him, "then take it." Okay, not really, but admit it, it's not that farfetched in the world of Star Trek. Hoshi tells him he can have her ear in three weeks when she's done with her students. Cpt. Quantum holds up a speaker smaller than the palm of his hand. The mini-speaker emits some words in Klingon. "Wh-what's that?" Hoshi asks, starting to salivate. Cpt. Quantum tells her it's a sample of the Klingon language from the Vulcan linguistic database. "I thought you said the Vulcans were opposed to this," Hoshi says, her ears still fixed on the little speaker. "They are, but we agreed to make a few compromises," Cpt. Quantum tells her. Hoshi asks what he knows of the Klingons. "Not much," Cpt. Quantum says. "An empire of warriors with 80 poly-guttural dialects constructed on adaptive syntax." "Turn it up," Hoshi insists. Cpt. Quantum hands over the little speaker: "Think of it, you'd be the first human to talk to these people. Do you really want someone else to do it?" Hoshi fixes him with a look and smiles. Captain Quantum's Law #118: When in doubt, resort to flattery and bribery.
Back at the hairclipped Enterprise. "Since when do we need Vulcan science officers?" Trip asks Cpt. Quantum. "Since we needed their star charts to get to Kronos," Cpt. Quantum tells him. "So we get a few maps and they get to put a spy on our ship?" Trip asks. "Admiral Forrest says we should think of her more as a chaperone," Cpt. Quantum says, unconsciously adopting Trip's drawl. "I thought the whole point of this was to get away from the Vulcans," Trip argues. Cpt. Quantum tells him it's four days to get to Kronos and four days to get home, and then she'll be off their ship and out of their hair. "In the meantime, we're to extend her every courtesy," he finishes, pouring himself something to drink from a stylized thermos -- I think I saw one of those at Starbucks. Geddit? Starbucks, as in Battlestar Galactica? Or maybe it's just me. Trip cracks that he'd feel more comfortable with "Porthos on the bridge," looking over at a corner of the Captain's cramped cabin. A little beagle looks up quizzically at the sound of his name. Awww! Wouldn't it just be the cutest if he's got a tiny space suit to take walks around the outer hull in? Admit it, it would be the cutest. You know, if they took dogs in space back then, how come Janeway left her dogs behind in Voyager? I mean, I can see why she left her fiancé behind -- they just get in the way of holographic romances -- but her dogs? I sure hope it's not foreshadowing something dire in Porthos' future. An electronic doorbell beeps out. "Here we go," Cpt. Quantum tells Trip, who clenches his jaw with anticipated sexual repression. "Come in," the Captain calls out.
The doors slide open and in slinks T'Pol, clad in Vulcan's choicest catsuit of the season -- sleek and sexy with curve-hugging lines (not that this twig has any curves to hug, save the two on her chest), sure to whip your weaker human crewmates into a quivering emotional mess of salivation and…well, let's just leave it at "salivation," okay? T'Pol surveys the cabin and hands over an electronic pad: "This confirms that I was transferred to your command at 0800 hours. Reporting for duty." Cpt. Quantum nods and looks over the orders. T'Pol sniffs, wrinkling up her pert little nose, and catches sight of Porthos. She swings her gaze back to Cpt. Quantum, who asks, "Is there a problem?" "No, Sir," T'Pol tells him in a tone so full of attitude you could feed it to an amoeba and turn it into a catwalk-sashaying supermodel. Cpt. Quantum looks over at Porthos and says, "Oh, I forgot, Vulcan females have a heightened sense of smell," for the benefit of both Trip and all the Star Trek fans who managed to be Star Trek acolytes for thirty-plus years, yet avoid ever absorbing this piece of Vulcan lore. "I hope Porthos isn't too offensive to you," Cpt. Quantum says, sitting back down at his desk. T'Pol pointedly tells him she's been trained to deal with offensive situations. "I took a shower this afternoon," Trip drawls. "How 'bout you, Cap'n?" Cpt. Quantum takes this opportunity to introduce his Chief Engineer. Trip stands up and sticks out his hand: "Trip, I'm called 'Trip.'" T'Pol just looks at him and says, "I'll try to remember that," while keeping her hands firmly clasped behind her back (guess she skipped diplomacy class at the Vulcan Academy in favor of learning how best to stick out her dinners). T'Pol turns back to Cpt. Quantum, who gives her a little lecture against spying on him and the crew. "I don't want every word I say being picked apart the day by the Vulcan High Command." Paranoid much? T'Pol tells him she's not there to spy, but to "assist" them. "Your superiors don't think we can flush a toilet without one of you to assist us," Cpt. Quantum says, once again raising the question of how Starfleet officers go to the bathroom in outer space. Vacuum attachments, still? Maybe Glark's transporter idea? Or perhaps they just hang their tushes out a spacelock and let go. Talk about polluting outer space -- they'd have to fly through all that. And now we're getting into a weird area. Back to the Vulcan, who's not even Vulcan enough to keep emotion out of her voice as she bites out to Cpt. Quantum that she didn't ask to be assigned to this mission: "And you can be certain, Captain, that when this mission's over I'll be as pleased to leave this ship as you will be to have me go." Gee, I wonder how quickly that sentiment will change. T'Pol gasps in surprise as Porthos paws at her leg and whines. And Gene Roddenberry pauses just long enough in his grave-spinning to wind up and start again at the idea of a Vulcan gasping. "If there's nothing else?" T'Pol says, obviously making great efforts not to smile at the cute widdle puppy-wuppy. Cpt. Quantum tells her that's all. T'Pol nods, slumps her bony shoulders, and allows her jutting-out chin to pull her out of the Captain's cabin. Cpt. Quantum and Trip exchange looks.
On a loading dock of a space station with a clear view of Enterprise parked in its hairclip, Admiral Forrest gives a pretty little speech about Zefram Cochrane meeting the Vulcans ninety years ago when he made his first warp flight (hungover, with Geordi LaForge at his side, he might as well add), and how now they're really ready to explore space. The humans clap while the Vulcans suck on a few lemons and look at them. Cpt. Quantum goes on to pay homage to Henry Archer (Cpt. Quantum's father), who developed the warp five engine. "And it's only fitting that Henry's son, Jonathan Archer, will command the first starship powered by that engine," Admiral Forrest says, looking up at Cpt. Quantum, who is frowning with intense concentration so as not to cry. More applause. Admiral Forrest nods at Cpt. Quantum, who nods back and leaves with his crew. Admiral Forrest continues his speech, saying, "Rather than quoting Dr. Cochrane, I think we should listen to his own words from the dedication ceremony for the warp five complex thirty-two years ago." A video screen opens on the observation window behind the Admiral, and Zefram Cochrane delivers his famous, and now grammatically correct, speech: "On this site a powerful engine will be built; an engine that will someday help us to travel a hundred times faster than we can today. Imagine it: thousands of inhabited planets at our fingertips and we'll be able to explore those strange new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations. This engine will let us go boldly where no man has gone before." The speech is interspersed with shots of the Enterprise crew taking their positions on the bridge, Cpt. Quantum standing authoritatively with his feet planted shoulder-width apart (like the captains of the first wooden sailing ships of yore), and the Sepia Tones of Cpt. Quantum's Childhood as Child Archer stares transfixed at a mini-warp engine, remotely controlled by Pop Archer and buzzing around before him. Then, in A Moment Of Supreme Meaning, Pop Archer plucks the warp core from the air and hands it over to his son, who inserts it into his now-dry model ship piloted by Luke Skywalker X-Wing Fighters. Cpt. Archer smiles and says, "Take her out, Mr. Mayweather. Straight and steady." With a few picturesque sparks, Enterprise cuts loose from her cable moorings and majestically slides out of her hairclip slip as spacesuited astronauts posted on the slip look on. No matter how they construct these ships, they all manage to remind me of sea creatures. Voyager looked like a manta ray with the glowing deflector dish for a mouth; Enterprise NX-01 reminds me slightly of a horseshoe crab. Cpt. Quantum asks Trip, "How're we doing, Trip?" "Ready when you are," is his answer. "Prepare for warp," Cpt. Quantum tells Mayweather. "Course laid in, sir," Mayweather answers with an excited smile. "Request permission to get underway." The rest of their crew reaches for their Dramamine as T'Pol tells Cpt. Quantum, "The coordinates are off by point two degrees." "Thank you," Cpt. Quantum says, in a tone that seems to suggest he's really not appreciative of that information. "Let's go," he smiles. Just like in the previews! We get a nice look at the razor-thin ship before it jumps to warp and zings out of sight, with the telltale burst of light in the distance when full warp is reached.
In a galaxy far, far away, a topiary-like construction made up of many tiny orb-cubes floats in a greenish atmosphere. Inside this topiary thing, there's a chamber with a cylindrical source of light beaming down into the center (oddly capturing what I always imagined sonic showers looked like). Within the light source stands a shadowed figure, as one of those mottled bald, green, aliens that blew up in the Oklahoma silo walks into the room. Now, here's where it gets trippy. As the mottled green alien walks up the steps to the shadow in the shower, a slo-mo light trail is left behind with every movement the alien makes. Sometimes it would seem that the slo-mo light trail actually anticipated the alien's movements and starts in that direction before the more solid, corporal form of the alien does; then again, it could have been the drugs I was taking. The shadow in the shower asks in echoing tones, "Where's Klaang?" -- in this chamber, sound seems to do what light and motion do. Leave a trail. "The humans have him," the mottled alien answers. "Did you lose anyone else?" Shower Shadow asks. "Two of my soldiers were killed. One of them was my friend -- can you prevent it?" Mottled Alien asks. "Our agreement doesn't provide for correcting mistakes. Recover the evidence," Shower Shadow says. If you look really hard through the rain of light, the Shower Shadow looks to have a humanoid neck. I'm betting it's a Romulan, just like in TNG when they kept Tasha Yar hidden in the shadow
s for a few episodes. Plus, who else hates the Klingons that much? We know there's going to be a war between the Romulans and Earth in Cpt. Quantum's time. Mottled Alien says he will be sure to recover the evidence as instructed: "When will we speak again?" "Don't be concerned with 'when'," Shower Shadow says, becoming even more shadow-like as he disappears. Well, if that doesn't have Time Travel written all over it, I don't know what does.
Okay, there's just something about that Sprint PCS commercial where the babysitter pulls an Amelia Bedelia and "flours" the kids that cracks me up. I think it's the little girl laughing at the Sprint PCS guy through her tongue and teeth that really gets me.
In the painfully bright sick bay, Cpt. Quantum examines a glass tube filled with pink squiggly things. "Love what you've done with the place," he tells Dr. Phlox. "Those are immunocytic gel worms -- try not to shake them," Dr. Phlox requests. Cpt. Quantum asks what the good doctor thought of Earth. "Intriguing," Dr. Phlox tells him, taking trays of equipment to the stainless steel counters and cupboards. "I especially liked the Chinese food -- have you ever tried it?" Cpt. Quantum tells him he lived in San Francisco his whole life. "Ah," Dr. Phlox says. "Anatomically, you humans are somewhat simplistic, but what you lack biologically you make up with your charming optimism, not to mention your egg drop soup!" Hee. Cpt. Quantum lifts a round metal cage with holes out of a supply case. "Be very careful with that," Dr. Phlox instructs him. Cpt. Quantum takes a closer look at the cage; it starts to convulse and chitter with something alive. "What's in there?" he asks, quickly handing it over to Dr. Phlox. "An Altarian marsupial," Dr. Phlox tells him, and then speaks to the Altarian marsupial in some alien and metallic-sounding language. Now, I don't speak Altarian, but I swear it sounds like the Doctor says, "He's an android." I know it doesn't make any sense, but that's totally what it sounded like. I rewound it. Cpt. Quantum takes a closer look at the cage. "Their droppings contain the greatest concentration of regenerative enzymes found anywhere," Dr. Phlox says exuberantly. "Their droppings?" Cpt. Quantum says, wrinkling his not-very-pert nose. "If you're going to try to embrace new worlds, you must try to embrace new ideas. That's why the Vulcans initiated the Inter-Species Medical Exchange. There's a lot to be learned!" Dr. Phlox practically sings out. Cpt. Quantum apologizes for taking him away from his program, but Earth doctors have no clue what a Klingon is. "No apologies," Dr. Phlox cries out. "What better time to study human beings than when they're under pressure? It's a rare opportunity and your Klingon friend -- a-ha, I've never had a chance to study a living one!" Cpt. Quantum looks up from the strapped-down and unconscious Klingon and tells him that they'll reach Kronos in eighty hours. "Any chance he'll be conscious by then?" he asks, examining the Klingon's ridged, bare feet. Pew. "There's a chance he'll be conscious in ten minutes," Dr. Phlox tells him, and Cpt. Quantum looks up. "Just not a very good one." "Eighty hours, doctor," Cpt. Quantum repeats. "If he doesn't walk off this ship on his own, he doesn't stand much of a chance." Cpt. Quantum starts to walk out of sick bay. "I'll do the best I can. Optimism, Captain!" Dr. Phlox burbles at the Captain, who turns around and looks at the smiling doctor. Then Phlox's smile deepens -- with the help of computer graphics, no doubt -- into a perfect V. It was really weird-looking. In fact, I think Phlox's smile made viewers across the country jump in their seats. Cpt. Quantum looks taken aback, then smiles to himself and walks out.
Trip emerges from a Jeffries tube and looks up at Mayweather, who's sitting lotus position on the ceiling. It's the newest thing: inverted space yoga. "You're upside down, Ensign," Trip says to him. "Yessir," Mayweather answers back. Trip asks if he'd care to explain his reason. "When I was a kid, we called it the Sweet Spot. Every ship's got one," Mayweather says. Trip looks around: "'Sweet spot'?" Mayweather explains, "It's usually halfway between the grav generator and the bow plate. Grab a hold of the hatch," he instructs his senior officer, who places his hands in front of him. "No, no, no, on either side," Mayweather says. Trip does so. "Now push off," Mayweather tells him. Trip gives him a skeptical look. "Push off!" Mayweather says encouragingly. Trip pushes off. "Wow," he crows, "Whooa!" and slams his back into the ceiling. Better tell T'Pol to keep away; otherwise that silicone's going to be kissing the tiles. "It takes practice," Mayweather tells him calmly, looking for all the world like a Yoda-esque guru on a mountaintop. Trip pulls himself around so he's sitting on the ceiling too. Mayweather asks him if he's ever slept in zero gravity. "Slept?" Trip asks. "It's just like being back in the womb," Mayweather tells him. Yes, because we all have such perfect memories of what that's like. Trip looks around uneasily and says to Mayweather, "The Captain tells me you've been to Trillius Prime." Mayweather nods, "It took fourth, fifth, and sixth grades to get there. I've also been to Draylax and both the Teneebian moons." They kinda look like aliens as they talk upside down like that -- it's a cool effect. "I've only been to one inhabited planet besides Earth," Trip sighs. "And nothin' there but dust-dwellin' ticks." Mayweather smiles at his naiveté. "Is it true the women on Draylax have --" Mayweather nods, "Three, yeah, it's true." Three…what? Eyes? Feet? Tongues? Seriously. I want to know. "You know that firsthand?" Trip asks, not wanting a planet of three-toed women to be an interplanetary rumor. "Firsthand, secondhand, thirdhand," Mayweather says. Oh, please -- how is that attractive? "I guess growing up a 'boomer' has its advantages," Trip says, and they share a chuckle. Yeah, like knowing where to find the (zero) G-Spot. On a female ship. Delightful.
In the mess hall, which is similar to Ten Forward's mess in TNG, Trip is beckoned to a table by a fellow crewman. "Sorry," Trip says, brushing him off like a bit of space dandruff, "dinner with the boss tonight." In a private room, Cpt. Quantum and T'Pol are standing in front of a window. "Grand Canyon?" Cpt. Quantum asks. "No," T'Pol responds. "Big Sur Aquarium?" Cpt. Quantum suggests, reaching for a breadstick. "Sightseeing was not one of my assignments," T'Pol informs him. "All work and no play," Cpt. Quantum crunches through his breadstick. T'Pol just looks at him. Cpt. Quantum tries to explain, "Everybody should get out for a little fun now and then." T'Pol tells him they got all needed recreation at their compound. The door twings. "Come in," Cpt. Quantum calls, and Trip walks in. "You shoulda started without me," Trip comments. "Sit down," Cpt. Quantum tells him, gesturing at the candlelit table. They all sit. "T'Pol tells me she's been living at the Vulcan compound in Sausalito," Cpt. Quantum tells Trip. "No kiddin'?" Trip says. "I lived a few blocks from there when I first joined Starfleet. Great parties at the Vulcan Compound," he says snidely to the Captain, who laughs at the expense of T'Pol's race. T'Pol ignores them and attempts to cut through her breadstick with her knife. The breadstick shatters off the plate. The Captain suggests she pick it up in her fingers. "Vulcans don't touch food with their hands," T'Pol informs him. Cpt. Quantum nods. "Can't wait to see you tackle the spareribs," Trip says. T'Pol looks at the Captain, alarmed. "Don't worry," Cpt. Quantum says, "we know you're a vegetarian," as a waiter brings in several plates of food. T'Pol gets a salad and the men -- grrr -- well, they get steak and potatoes. Where's the Tang? "Looks delicious," Trip says, "tell Chef I said thanks." T'Pol delivers a vegetarian-ist speech about humans thinking they're enlightened while they still eat animal meat. "Granmaw taught me never judge a species by their eating habits," Trip says, shoveling a forkful of meat into his mouth. T'Pol gives him a baleful look with her overstuffed pout. Vegetarian, my third eye -- that's not vegetable fat in those lips. "Enlightened might be too strong a word, but if you'd been on Earth fifty years ago, I think you'd be impressed by what we've gotten done," Cpt. Quantum tells her. "You have yet to embrace either patience or logic, you remain impulsive carnivores," T'Pol tells them, giving their food a poisonous look. "Yeah?" Trip says, antagonized, "How about war, disease, hunger? Pretty much wiped them out in less than two generations. I wouldn't call that small potatoes." "It remains to be seen whether humanity will revert to its baser instincts," T'Pol says. "Well, we used to have cannibals on earth, who knows how far we'll revert. Good thing this isn't a long mission," Trip mumbles through his dinner. Guess "Granmaw" didn't teach him not to talk with his mouth full. Cpt. Quantum tells T'Pol, "Human instinct is pretty strong -- you can't expect us to change overnight." "With proper discipline," T'Pol says, sawing at another breadstick and neatly cutting it in two, "anything's possible." She holds up the piece. What. Ever.
On the bridge, Mayweather reports on their progress as they reach warp 4.3. Reed looks up from his station: "Not much of a change," he says. "I don't know," Hoshi says, "Does anybody else feel that?" "Feel what?" Cpt. Quantum asks. "Those vibrations," Hoshi says. "Like little tremors?" T'Pol tells her she's imagining things. Hoshi throws her a look. Cpt. Quantum tells Mayweather to increase to warp 4.4. The ship shakes visibly. "There! What do you call that?" Hoshi asks. "The deflector's sequencing -- it's perfectly normal," Reed tells her. T'Pol snidely suggests that Hoshi might feel more comfortable lying down in her bunk. Hoshi snaps back in Vulcan, but it's not subtitled, so we have no clue what she said. Although someone on the forums thought she might be alluding to Pon Farr. Lord, I hope not. We already know they're going to play their Vulcan Chick In Sexual Heat card, because they just can't resist, but I really hope they wait a good long while. T'Pol looks complacently at Hoshi and says snappishly, "I was instructed to speak English on this mission and I'd appreciate if you'd respect that." Cpt. Quantum attempts to smooth things over by saying, "It's easy to get a little jumpy when you're traveling at thirty million kilometers a second -- it should be old hat in a week's time." Light years, kilometers, what's the difference, right? The ship's intercom beeps. Cpt. Quantum pushes a button on a communicator panel. Dr. Phlox singsongs that the Klingon is waking up.
Cpt. Quantum and Hoshi hustle to sick bay. The irate but still-strapped-down Klingon squirms and shouts. "What's wrong?" Cpt. Quantum asks Hoshi, who's fiddling with something in her hand. "The translator," she says nervously, "it's not locking onto his dialect -- the syntax won't align." Klaang shouts; Hoshi backs away. "Tell him we're taking him home," Cpt. Quantum instructs her. Hoshi says a few words in forceful Klingon, and Klaang answers back. "O-oh, he wants to know who we are," Hoshi tells Cpt. Quantum in a shaky voice. Cpt. Quantum gives her an encouraging look. Hoshi turns back to Klaang and says a few more words in Klingon, and also says "Enterprise." Klaang, through Hoshi, asks for his ship back. Cpt. Quantum tells her to tell him it's destroyed. Hoshi does so, and Klaang's eyes roll to the back of his head as he shouts. "I'm not sure," Hoshi says tremulously, "but I think he said something about eating the afterlife." Cpt. Quantum looks annoyed and says, "Try the translator again." Hoshi tries it, and tells him she'll have to feed what they have "through the phonetic processor." Dr. Phlox, quiet all this time, walks over to his patient and beams a little blue light at the top of his head. "He says his wife has grown ugly?" Hoshi says, and catches Cpt. Quantum's glare. "I'm SORRY, Captain!" she shouts, "I am doing the best I can!" You go, Hoshi. Dr. Phlox interjects and tells them that his "pre-frontal cortex is hyperstimulated -- I doubt he has any idea what he's saying." Klaang shouts again. "I think the doctor's right, Captain, unless 'stinky boots' has anything to do with all this?" Hoshi says. The ship shakes, and Hoshi lets out a yelp: "That's the warp reactor again, r-right?" Cpt. Quantum goes to a com panel and presses a button, demanding "Bridge, report." T'Pol responds, "We've dropped out of warp, sir. Main power is --" There's static, and the lights in sick bay go out, along with the power in the rest of the ship.
Through the darkness, Reed says ominously, "I think I just saw something off the starboard bow." "What?" T'Pol demands. "I don't know," Reed says. "It might have just been the sensors going down." A view above the ship shows all the lights extinguishing. Inside, we are treated to infrared vision as the Mottled Aliens making their way through the ship's innards. One, interestingly enough, is walking upright, while the other two are crawling along the ceiling and wall of the corridor. It's a deliciously creepy if nonsensical effect. Back in sick bay, Klaang continues to shout through the dark as Cpt. Quantum, Dr. Phlox, and some random officer switch on flashlights. Do you think they still call them "flashlights" in the 22nd century? Klaang shouts on. "Do you wanna tell him to shut up?" Cpt. Quantum tells Hoshi. "SHUT UP!" she screams at him. Poor confused Klaang pauses a moment, then continues on his tirade. "We may have to sedate him," Cpt. Quantum tells the doctor, and then says he's going to the bridge. Hoshi's flashlight flashes over a Mottled Alien, whose image seems to disappear into the bulkhead. "Captain," she gasps out. Oh, great -- now no one's going to believe her because she's already been acting jumpy. "What?" Cpt. Quantum asks, swinging away from the door. "There's someone here," Hoshi says between clenched teeth. Cpt. Quantum shines his flashlight over the bulkheads and looks up a ladder. There's a rustle, and everyone turns around. The tension builds even more with more untraceable sounds. Cpt. Quantum shines his beam on the ceiling and catches sight of a Mottled Alien scuttling above them. "Crewman!" the Captain shouts out. The crewman fires without success. "Suliban," Klaang says, straining at his braces. A figure drops from the ceiling behind the crewman, who whips around as another figure rushes at him, knocking the gun from his grip. There's a tussle until Cpt. Quantum picks up the dropped gun and fires at the Mottled Alien. The body lands to Hoshi, who cries out. Klaang continues to struggle at his straps, and from his vantage point we see a Suliban dropping from the ceiling on top of him. Then there's silence. I don't mind telling you that I let out a bit of a shriek when the Suliban fell. It was really disturbing. "You all right?" Cpt. Quantum asks the crewman, helping him up, completely unaware what Klaang's silence means. The lights flash on and show the empty bed.
Back on the bridge, Cpt. Quantum rips his crew a new one. "We've got state-of-the-art sensors, why the hell didn't we detect them?" Mayweather tells his captain that Reed thought he saw something before the power went out. "The starboard sensor logs recorded a spatial disturbance," Reed tells Quantum. "Looks more like a glitch," Trip says, looking over Reed's shoulder. "Those weren't 'glitches' in sick bay," Hoshi tells them. Captain tells Mayweather he wants a full analysis of the disturbance. Mayweather takes off. , the Captain asks Reed how their weapons are. "I still have to tune the targeting scanners," Reed tells him. "What are you waiting for?" Cpt. Quantum asks him. Reed takes off. Quantum ignores T'Pol's "Captain!" and turns to Hoshi, saying that it sounded like Klaang knew what attacked him: "Try to translate what he said." Hoshi takes off. "Captain," T'Pol says, moving her dinners into view and thus attracting Cpt. Quantum's attention. "There's no way you could have anticipated this. I'm sure Ambassador Soval will understand," T'Pol says. "You're the Science Officer, why don't you help Trip with that analysis?" Cpt. Quantum suggests. T'Pol tells him, "The astrometric computer in San Francisco will be far more effective." Cpt. Quantum instructs her to make do with what they have, because they aren't going back to Earth just yet. "You've lost the Klingon," T'Pol points out. "Your mission is over." Cpt. Quantum turns to her and tells her he didn't "lose the Klingon, he was taken," and he intends to find the Klingon and whoever took him. T'Pol almost snorts her contempt: "How do you plan to do that? Space. Is. Very. Big. Captain. A shadow on your sensors won't help you find them -- this is a foolish mission." Cpt. Quantum orders her to "come with [him]." In his cabin -- note the lack of a "ready room" -- Cpt. Quantum tells T'Pol off: "I'm not interested in your opinion of this mission, so take your Vulcan cynicism and bury it along with your repressed emotions." Yeah, in your butt. T'Pol tells him that his reaction to the situation is "a perfect example of why your species should remain in its own star system." Cpt. Quantum tells her he's been listening to the Vulcans tell his species what to do his whole life, and he's sick of it. "I watched my father work his ass off while your scientists held back just enough information to keep him from succeeding." I wonder if the Vulcans have their own idea of the Prime Directive? Cpt. Quantum, not particularly caring about my musings, continues, "He deserved to see that launch. You may have lifespans of two hundred years, we don't." T'Pol ignores this and says, "You are going to be contacting Starfleet and advising them of our situation." Cpt. Quantum tells her he has no such plans, and neither should she. "Now get the hell out there and make yourself useful!" the Captain orders. T'Pol glares at him and stalks out of the cabin. It's cool that they now have to press a button to open the doors, rather than having a sensor detect their presence. I also like the fact that they step over a threshold -- keeps up the submarine-like atmosphere.
In sick bay, Dr. Phlox, clad in black smock and gloves, confirms that the dead Mottled Alien is a Suliban. "But unless I am mistaken, he is no ordinary Suliban." "Meaning?" Cpt. Quantum asks. "His DNA is Suliban but his anatomy has been altered. Look at this lung," Dr. Phlox says, wetly prying open the Suliban's chest with several forceps and pincers. We get a look at some black cherry Jello. "Five bronchial lobes, you see," Dr. Phlox points out, gleefully. "They should only have three. And look at the alveoli clusters -- they've been modified to process different kinds of atmosphere." Cpt. Quantum looks a bit queasy. "Are you saying he's some kind of a mutant?" he asks. Dr. Phlox tells him that the Suliban's altered anatomy isn't by mistake. "This man was the recipient of some very sophisticated genetic engineering. Watch this," Dr. Phlox tells him, and shines a red light on the Suliban's skin. The doctor turns off the light, and the red light seeps gradually into the skin. "Subcutaneous pigment sacs!" Dr. Phlox announces, and then shines a blue light on the clothing, which does the same slow absorption process. "A bio-mimetic garment. And the eyes are my favorite," the merry medical man says, pulling open a yellow eye to show multiple black dots. "Compound retinas. He most likely saw things even your sensors couldn't detect." Well, you can color me impressed by the inventiveness of the make-up crew. "It's not in their genome," Cpt. Quantum states. Dr. Phlox answers in the negative, telling him the Suliban aren't any more special than humans. "It is very impressive work, though," Dr. Phlox says, surveying the Suliban cadaver. "Never seen anything quite like it!" Cpt. Quantum looks more green than impressed.
Trip and T'Pol analyze logs in Engineering. "It's just background noise," T'Pol tells Trip. "Your sensors aren't capable of isolating plasma decay." "How can you be so damn sure what our sensors can do?" Trip demands. "Vulcan children play with toys that are more sophisticated," T'Pol snots. Yeah, like the wooden blocks Spock shows that Romulan kid in TNG's "Unification"? "You know, some people would say that you Vulcans do nothing but patronize us," Trip says, stalking along a catwalk. Uh, would you be one of those "people," Trip? "But if they were here now," Trip continues, "if they could see how far you're bending over backwards to help me, they'd eat their words." T'Pol saunters her catsuited body around Trip and steps onto a lift. "Your captain's mission was to return the Klingon to his people. He no longer has the Klingon," T'Pol points out as the lift descends. Trip asks T'Pol if "it ever occurred to [her] that [Cpt. Quantum] knows what he's doing?" and without waiting for an answer, he goes on to say that he knows Starfleet hasn't been around that long, but don't they still owe the Captain their support since he's in charge of the mission. "Then again, loyalty's an emotion, innit?" Trip asks T'Pol. Uh, actually, I hate to break it to you, Flyboy, but loyalty's a concept, not an emotion.
Just then, Cpt. Quantum himself enters the scene and asks if they've had any luck. "Not really," Trip drawls. T'Pol sticks her pointy chin forward and tells Cpt. Quantum that her analysis "indicates a stealth vessel with a tricyclic [Like Ortho-Tricyclin? Why not take the only pill guaranteed to clear up your complexion?] plasma drive." Trip tells Cpt. Quantum, "If we could figure out the decay rate of their plasma, we'll be able to find their warp trail." T'Pol tells Cpt. Quantum that their sensors weren't constructed to quantify plasma decay. Well, can't they just "modify" something? They were always doing that on the other shows. "It's impossible to keep the ship from exploding, Captain." "See if you can modify something, Lieutenant." "Oh, yeah, I'll modify the whatchamajimmy with a thingawhatsit array -- okay, we're in the clear!" Anyway, Hoshi enters Engineering cautiously and asks, "Are you sure it's safe to stand so close to that?" gesturing at the warp engine. Cpt. Quantum asks her if she has anything from Klaang's ravings. That would be a negative, Captain. Hoshi tells him that she translated everything, but none of it made sense. Cpt. Quantum asks about the Suliban mention, but Hoshi wasn't able to find out anything about that either. Cpt. Quantum asks T'Pol if she's heard of the Suliban. "They're a somewhat primitive species from Sector three-six-four-one, but they've never posed a threat," T'Pol says. "Well, they have now," Cpt. Quantum tells her. He asks Hoshi if Klaang said anything about Earth, but Hoshi tells him that there's no word for "Earth" in the Klingon database. She hands over her report: "It's all there. There's only four words I couldn't translate -- probably just proper nouns." Cpt. Quantum looks at the report and reads out, "Jelik, Sarin, Rigel, Tholia -- anything sound familiar?" he asks T'Pol. Well, I'm taking a big leap (a quantum leap, if you will -- what? I'm not supposed to make as many of those jokes as I want? Well, sit back, because I've got a huge sack of them right to my chair. It's going to be a long seven years, my friends), but judging from Mathra's anguished scream, Rigel is actually the name of the brightest freaking star in Orion. Something anyone who grew up as a Sepia-Toned Astro Dreamer should know without having to ask a Vulcan of superior intellect. T'Pol muses over the names until Cpt. Quantum prompts her. "Rigel is a planetary system, approximately fifteen light years from our present position," T'Pol tells him reluctantly. "Why the hesitation?" Cpt. Quantum demands. Maybe because she thought you might actually know that, Cpt. Buttmunch. No wonder the Vulcans have such a low opinion of Starfleet intelligence. T'Pol tells him that they found information on Klaang's ship logs proving that he stopped at Rigel Ten right before his Oklahoma cornfield crash landing. Cpt. Quantum asks, "Why do I get the feeling you weren't going to share that little piece of information?" T'Pol tells him he's on a need-to-know basis, so Cpt. Quantum threatens her with the brig if he finds her withholding information again. Cpt. Quantum tells Mayweather to look in the Vulcan starcharts, find Rigel, and plot a course for Rigel 10. Enterprise warps off. I'd like to tell T'Pol to "warp off" until she can come back with a credible Vulcan personality. ["And a sports bra." -- Sars]
Elsewhere, Klaang is being questioned by the Suliban. And though they've tied him up and have tubes running into his face, the Suliban don't seem to be torturing him. They ask him questions in Klingon (it's subtitled) and tell him he's not going to be harmed if he gives them what they want. Klaang insists he doesn't have what they want and doesn't know what they are after. They ask him if he met with Sarin, a female Suliban, and Klaang says he did. They ask him what she told him, but Klaang tells them that Sarin didn't tell him anything. The main questioner gets frustrated and asks one of his minions if he's sure Klaang is telling the truth. The minion tells him Klaang must be telling the truth, because the "drugs are working." After a few more questions, the head Suliban says resentfully, "Keep him alive while I'm gone," and storms out.
Enterprise comes out of warp and orbits a planet. Cpt. Quantum, sporting a snazzy quilted metallic jacket, tells his crew that "as soon as [they've] tied down [they'll] be descending into the trade complex -- it has thirty-six levels." T'Pol hands out little objects and tells the Away Team that their translators have been programmed for Rigellian, but that there will be quite a few other species they'll run into who will be "impatient with newcomers." Wait, let's check out this Away Team -- nope, not an unknown among them, so I guess no one's going to die down on Rigel 10. "None of them has seen a human before," T'Pol continues, strutting before them in her version of the Metallic Wrap Jacket Of The Away Mission. "You have a tendency to be gregarious, I suggest you try to. Restrain. That. Tendency," T'Pol grinds out, putting her emphasis or lack of emphasis on all the wrong words. "You forgot to warn us about drinking the water," Trip says, momentarily channeling DeForest Kelley. Ah, Bones, how we miss you and your ways. T'Pol, like a Vulcan, takes him literally and tells the Away Team that Dr. Phlox thinks they should be safe consuming the food and water. "But," she says portentiously, "he does caution against intimate contact." Trip and Mayweather do a Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink dance in their Quilted Metallic Jackets Of The Away Mission. Cpt. Quantum takes over from here and tells his crew that it seems Klaang might have been a courier, so "whoever gave it to him might know why he was taken. It was just a few days ago -- a seven-foot Klingon doesn't go unnoticed." Especially when he was Zeus in the WWF. The Away Team shuttles off in their pod through the snow to Rigel 10's trade complex.
You know you're in a grim area when you have to walk around The Heavy Link Chains Of Ill Portent hanging down from the ceiling. The Trash-Can Fires Of Dodginess also help add to that menacing atmosphere. Trip gazes about him as a bug with clacking wings lands on his shoulder. He momentarily forgets T'Pol's warning not to draw attention to himself as he jumps around, smacking at his Quilted Metallic Jacket Of The Away Mission. T'Pol chastises him with A Look and allows her chin to lead them onward. This is where UPN lives down to its reputation and I lose both video and sound for about fourteen seconds. thing I see is Trip leaning in to look at something; T'Pol grabs his shoulder, saying, "None of that concerns us." Shades of the cantina on Mos Eisley. Techno music plays, and two latex-covered aliens in pink and blue (definitely female, by human standards at least) gyrate for a transfixed (and mostly male) crowd around some glowing flowers. The same kind of bug that attacked Trip flutters by one of these sinewy aliens, but her ten-foot-long tongue shoots out and snags it. Down below, Reed doesn't know whether to feel repulsed or turned on. I'd say that places him firmly in the "ambiguous" category, wouldn't you? Mayweather seems more in touch with his emotions as he gazes transfixed at the insect-slurping chicks. Some alien, standing between Reed and Mayweather and gauging their reactions, asks them if they'd like to meet the sexual insectivores. "Is this where you saw Klaang?" Mayweather asks, remembering his mission. "I'll show you where," the Alien Pimp says, "but first you should enjoy yourselves. Which one do you prefer?" turning to Reed. "We should get going," Mayweather urges. "Are those real butterflies or are they holograms?" Reed asks. Because that's what he should be paying attention to in the face of overt latex sex -- the butterflies. "Sir," Mayweather urges him. "Oh, yes, absolutely. Right," Reed says. Well, with tongues like that, they'll never have to worry about working during a recession. Car washes, drain snaking, oil drilling -- the possibilities are endless.
Elsewhere, Trip sits to an alien whose wicker basket starts to convulse and make noise. The alien places a hand on the lid to prevent it from coming off, so Trip decides it's time to stretch his legs. He notices a boy and his mother in the corner. The boy has what looks like an oxygen mask over his face, which his mother periodically removes from his face, leaving her son in asthmatic throes. Trip watches T'Pol talk to some natives. The boy starts gasping desperately again, and Trip starts to make his way over, still keeping one eye on T'Pol, who leaves her informant. "Hey!" Trip shouts at the mother, until she puts the mask back on her son's face again. T'Pol flips open her communicator and tells Cpt. Quantum that they've found no data on Klaang. "But they've told me about an enclave on level nineteen where Klingons have been known to go -- something about 'live food.'" Cool -- just like in the Mall of America. Cpt. Quantum asks where exactly on level nineteen, and T'Pol tells him, "The easternmost subsection by the geothermal shafts." Cpt. Quantum says he'll meet her there, and Trip is again distracted by the mother and the gasping kid. "What are you doing? Leave the kid alone!" he shouts. T'Pol pulls at his arm and says, "Don't get involved." "Don't you see what she's doing? He's going to suffocate!" Trip yells. "They're Lorillians. Before the age of four they can only breathe methyl oxide. The mother is simply weaning her son," T'Pol explains calmly. "You could've fooled me," Trip says, giving the Lorillian mother the stink-eye. Uh, I think they just did, Trip, honey. "Humans can't refrain from drawing conclusions. You should learn to objectify other cultures so you know when to interfere and when not to." Yes, well, you've been objectified nicely. Trip, pissed off, walks in the opposite direction from T'Pol and passes by a cloaked Suliban. So much for being on the lookout.
Somewhere near the geothermal shafts on level nineteen, Hoshi Sato asks her Captain, "Isn't an enclave supposed to have people?" "'Enclave' can mean a lot of things," Cpt. Quantum tells her, furrowing his brow and looking around. "T'Pol said something about 'live food' -- I don't see any restaurants," Hoshi says. There's some Klingon muttering ahead and Cpt. Quantum calls out, "Hello? Excuse me!" Okay, they just had First Contact with the Klingons, and Cpt. Quantum's yelling out to them in English? Luckily, Hoshi yells out a translation, but to no avail. "They looked Klingon to me," Hoshi says. Cpt. Quantum looks around furtively and flips open his communicator: "Archer to T'Pol." Static. "Archer to T'Pol," he says again while Hoshi looks worried. "Maybe we should get back to where there's more people," she suggests. "There are plenty of people right here," Cpt. Quantum says ominously. You know, that's exactly the type of person you don't want to be with on an Away Mission. Someone who speaks obliquely about the situation, and when he's not being oblique, he's being enigmatic. It's really unhelpful and downright annoying. "Stay behind me," Cpt. Quantum says, pulling out a phaser gun and priming it.
Suddenly, three robed Sulibans attack the duo and grab Hoshi, who struggles and squeals. There's a bit of a tussle, and the two Starfleet officers are hauled through the geothermic mist. Hoshi is thrust into a force-field-protected cavern with T'Pol and Trip. I thought Vulcans were supposed to possess super-strength -- how did they drag T'Pol down there? The Sulibans keep Cpt. Quantum on their side of the force-field and then drag him off down a corridor. They leave him in some mysterious area, and a feminine voice says, "You're looking for Klaang. Why?" Cpt. Quantum spins around and asks, "Who the hell are you?" A bald, robed woman comes out of the shadows and says, "My name is Sarin. Tell me about the people who took Klaang off your ship." The Captain tells her he was hoping she could help him out, since they looked a lot like his captors who brought him to her. Well, that's pretty species-ist -- all Sulibans look alike? "Where were they taking him?" Sarin asks. "Why don't you look like your friends?" Cpt. Quantum asks. "Would you prefer that I did?" Sarin asks, continuing the tiresome game of cat and mouse. Cpt. Quantum tells her he'd prefer it if she turned Klaang over to him. "So you can take him where?" Sarin asks, circling him like a shark. "Home," Cpt. Quantum tells her. "We were just taking him home. You better be careful, I'm a lot bigger than you." Somehow I don't think that's going to work with her. Sarin tells him she'd advise against him harming her, and strokes his face. "What are you doin'?" Cpt. Quantum asks, nonplussed. "Why were you taking Klaang home?" Sarin asks, continuing to stroke his face. "You know, under different circumstances I might be flattered by this, but --" and his sentence is cut off by Sarin's tongue in his mouth. She backs away and mottle-morphs into a Suliban. "That's never happened before," Cpt. Quantum says nervously. Oh, all right: heh. There, you happy?
Sarin the Suliban lowers her hood and says, "I've been given the ability to measure trust and it requires close contact." Yeah, right -- that's how I tricked Mathra into kissing me. I wanted to measure his "trust." "You're Suliban," Cpt Quantum says, stating the rather obvious. Sarin tells him she was a member of the "Cabal," but she isn't any longer, because her people have lost their perspective (and their skin tone, evidently) in their quest to evolve quickly. Cpt. Quantum asks her what's , since she now knows he's telling her the truth. "Klaang was carrying a message to his people," Sarin tells him. Cpt. Quantum asks how she knows that. "Because I gave it to him," she says. Sarin explains that some of the Sulibans have been posing as Klingons and attacking other Klingons to make it look like there's in-fighting among the race. Apparently, Klaang was carrying proof of this Suliban interference to his people on Kronos. "Without that proof, the Empire could be thrown into chaos," Sarin tells him. Cpt. Quantum asks why the Suliban are involved at all. She tells him the Cabal is taking orders "from the distant future" because they are fighting "a temporal cold war." How convenient is that for visitors from any and all of the series? Cpt. Quantum is flummoxed by all this "temporal" and "distant future" talk. Sarin tells him she can help him find Klaang, but she and her cohorts need a starship. "You'll have to take us with you," she finishes, just as a phaser is fired near them. They run. There's a lot of crossfire, and it's confusing as to who's doing what, but Sarin kills a Suliban and then runs over and releases T'Pol, Hoshi, and Trip. The five of them run in the direction of the shuttlepod, but Sarin takes a few hits. Cpt. Quantum rushes to her side, and her last words are "Find Klaang." Not that this is very helpful, since she was the one taking them to Klaang in the first place.
The four crewmembers shoot up in some ultra-quick elevator contraption and find themselves outside on a docking bay. Hoshi shouts, "Where's the pod?" into the wind. T'Pol directs one way and Trip directs the other. Cpt. Quantum decides they should follow T'Pol and tries to get through to Reed and Mayweather on his communicator. The transmissions break up, and neither can hear where the other is. More firing from the Suliban, as T'Pol spies the pod through the driving snow and makes her way over to it. Reed peers out a window and comments that he's never seen lightning during a snowstorm before. Mayweather fiddles with a few laptops and says there's too much interference from the storm for him to "isolate human bio-signs." Reed suggests he scan for Vulcan bio-signs. There's a knocking at the window, and Mayweather cries out, "I found her!" Another ship -- which doesn't seem to belong to anyone, because the Suliban and T'Pol are confused by it -- flies overhead, and its jet-wash knocks T'Pol away from the pod, her phaser gun out of reach. Cpt. Quantum orders Trip to "get Hoshi to the ship!" because she's a woman and can't get herself to the ship, I guess. Trip and Hoshi get to the pod under cover of their Captain's phaser fire. Cpt. Quantum reaches T'Pol, who's coughing in the fake snow. "Go!" he orders, firing with two guns. T'Pol resists, saying, "The Enterprise needs her captain -- give me the weapons!" "I said, go!" Cpt. Quantum shouts, and T'Pol goes. Firing alternately with both guns, Cpt. Quantum runs backwards to the pod and gets shot in the thigh just as he reaches the pod's open hatch-door. Reed and Trip come out firing and drag him inside. Mayweather reports that their thruster on the starboard side is down. "Ignore it," T'Pol orders. "Take us up!" The pod takes off, leaving two Suliban in its wake. They watch it go, disappointed. "We need instructions," one says, sighing. This makes me laugh for some reason.
T'Pol tells the Enterprise that they'll be docking in four minutes and will need Dr. Phlox to meet them in DeCon. "Is someone wounded?" the Enterprise relay asks. "The Captain," T'Pol informs him, adding, "I'm taking command of the Enterprise." Trip, Hoshi, and Reed all do a double-take while the Captain passes out into the Sepia Tones of Cpt. Quantum's Childhood. Child and Pop Archer stand on a sepia beach in front of a sepia sea. Child Archer struggles to remotely control his little ship. "I can't do it," he whines. "Yes, you can," Pop Archer tells him, "Take her up, straight and steady." The tiny ship rises, falters, and falls into the sand. "Damn!" Child Archer says, and runs to examine his toy. Wait, this kid is how old? Ten? My parents still don't like it if I say "damn," and I'm, like, old. Pop Archer kneels to his son. "You can't be afraid of the wind, learn to trust it," he says. One of the cats uses this new anvil as a scratching post. Child Archer looks up and sees a strangely menacing-looking T'Pol looming over him. Cpt. Archer drifts in and out of consciousness in the pod.
I'm telling you, that Sprint PCS flouring-the-kids commercial kills me every time.
Aboard the Enterprise, it's the scene we've all been waiting for. Or dreading, depending on your sensibilities. A skivvied up Trip and T'Pol stand in a DeCon antechamber, looking at the cheerful face of Dr. Phlox through a window. "It shouldn't take more than a few moments," Dr. Phlox beams at them. Trip asks if it's really necessary, and Phlox tells him that everyone else tested negative, but the two of them tested positive for protocystian spore exposure. Nasty sounding, isn't it? Dr. Phlox tells them, "I've loaded the appropriate DeCon gel into compartment B." "Tell Mr. Mayweather to prepare to leave orbit," T'Pol tells the grinning doctor. "How's the Captain?" Trip asks. "I'm treating his wound," Phlox answers. "Will he be all right?" Trip asks. "Eventually!" Phlox sings out before sliding a shutter closed, leaving them in relative darkness together.
Trip and T'Pol take their cans of "gel" into the DeCon chamber, and The Blue Light Of Lust And Skin fires up (I guess that's some people's idea of a Blue Light Special). The camera does an extreme close-up of T'Pol and Trip silently rubbing "gel" on themselves. I wonder if the "gel" is chocolate flavored. "Correct me if I'm wrong," Trip says, "but aren't yew kind of an observer on this mission? [On this mission, in this DeCon chamber, what's the difference?] I don't remember anyone telling me yew were a member of Starfleet." "My Vulcan rank supercedes yours," T'Pol says, smearing gel on her abs, which she thrusts conveniently into the light. "Apples and oranges," Trip splutters, "this is an Earth vessel, yer in no position to take command." While moving onto her thigh area -- just one will suffice, apparently -- T'Pol tells him that Vulcan High Command will speak to Starfleet and ensure that they support her authority. "Yew must reeeelly be proud of yerself," Trip says, as T'Pol turns her back to him and raises her tank top ineffectually enough that Trip rubs her neck, an area easily reached by her own hands. "Yew can put an end to this mission while Cap'n is still unconscious in sick bay and yew won't even have to look him in the eye," Trip says, rubbing her lower back and going half an inch below her waistband. Again, a place she could have reached herself! "Your precious cargo was stolen, three Suliban or more were killed, and Captain Archer has been seriously wounded," T'Pol says. Yes, but why dwell on the negative when we have all this slippery gel between us. Of course, if she can't reach her lower back or the back of her neck, then she must not be able to reach her own ears, so Trip rubs gel on those as well. "It seems to me," T'Pol says, turning around to face him, "that this mission has put an end to itself. Turn around." Trip turns, and T'Pol rubs gel on his shoulders and legs (I know I am never able to shave my own legs, owing to their hard-to-reach location) while Trip opines that maybe they screwed up, but the individuals who wounded Cpt. Archer are probably connected to the group who abducted Klaang. As T'Pol moves up his legs to his butt, the UPS guy knocks on my door to deliver a large package. T'Pol tells Trip she "fails to see [his] point," and pulls on his ears. Trip tells her that it's important to Cpt. Quantum to see this mission to the end. "His daddy was the same way," Trip says, staring T'Pol down, who replies, "You obviously share your Captain's belief that my people were responsible for impeding Henry Archer's accomplishments." Trip says Henry Archer just wanted to see his engine fly, "they never even gave him the chance to fail. And here you are thirty years later proving just how consistent you Vulcans can be." I guess the rubdown is over, because Trip turns the lights on, killing the blue mood, and storms out. T'Pol pauses a moment to give the viewing audience a good view of her pulled-up, tucked-under tank top and her nips, which direct her out of the DeCon chamber like beacons.
The Captain, tricked out in tight, snazzy, electric blue underoos (his hero's The Tick), groggily comes to in sick bay. He casts an eye over his leg wound and sees a huge black and slimy mound. Before he can freak out too much, Dr. Phlox comes out and pulls the star-shaped sucker thing off with an appetizing SLUURRP! Cpt. Quantum winces as Dr. Phlox chimes, "Very nice, very nice! Your myofibers are fusing beautifully." Cpt. Quantum starts to ask how long he's been out. "Less than six hours -- I thought it best to keep you sedated while the osmotic eel cauterized your wound," Dr. Phlox tells him. "Thanks," Cpt. Quantum says as Phlox drops the osmotic eel back into its bowl. T'Pol and Trip (fully clothed, thankfully) walk into sick bay, and Trip asks Quantum how he's feeling. Cpt. Quantum tells him it depends on what's been going on since he had an eel French kissing his thigh for six hours. T'Pol steps in and says, "As your highest ranking officer, I assumed command while you were incapacitated." Cpt. Quantum looks annoyed and asks Trip, "Are we underway?" Trip nods. "You didn't waste much time, did you?" Cpt. Quantum asks T'Pol, as Trip asks the doctor if the Captain is fit for duty. "Yes, as long as he returns for more eel therapy tomorrow," Phlox says. Cpt. Quantum limps off the table and asks how far they are from Earth. "Earth, sir?" Trip says, confused. "We're currently tracking the Suliban vessel that left Rigel shortly after you were injured," T'Pol tells him. Are they trying to pretend the ship that flew over them when they all were trying to get into their own pod, whose jet-wash blew T'Pol across the landing pad, was the same Suliban vessel? Because that left Rigel before Cpt. Quantum was phasered. Cpt. Quantum looks with surprise at Trip, who nods his verification. "You got their plasma decay rate?" Cpt. Quantum asks. "With Mr. Tucker's assistance, I modified your sensors. [Do I know how to call them or what? Modifications, every time.] We now have the resolution to detect their warp trail," T'Pol tells him. Cpt. Quantum asks her what happened to "this is a foolish mission." "This is a foolish mission," T'Pol says. "The Suliban are clearly a hostile race with technology far superior to yours, but as Acting Captain I was obligated to anticipate your wishes." Cpt. Quantum tells her that she could've done "whatever the hell [she] wanted to do." T'Pol ignores this statement and tells him she needs to return to the bridge. Cpt. Quantum dismisses her and turns to Trip, who tells him that modifying the sensors was all T'Pol's idea. Cpt. Quantum just doesn't know what to make of this insulting and supercilious, but surprisingly loyal and buxom, Vulcan.
Cpt. Quantum limps around his cabin in his Tick Underoos and makes an entry in the Enterprise "Starlog." Interesting that he doesn't call it his "Captain's Log." Also interesting that he still voice-records through the computer, which does not to have a voice of its own to answer back, just beeps. Wonder how Majel Barrett feels about that. Every few sentences, Cpt. Quantum dreamily tells the computer to "pause" so he can muse over T'Pol's recent actions and wonder aloud if it's because he saved her life on Rigel Ten. He turns to Porthos and says, "Have you ever known a Vulcan to return a favor?" Porthos just stares at him, his eyes begging the Captain to put some clothes on so the other space dogs won't make fun of him. Cpt. Quantum misreads the pup's look and says, "Naw, neither have I," and continues with his log. He tells his log that he's unsure whether he trusts T'Pol enough to ask her about the temporal cold war Sarin mentioned. The ship comes out of warp and Cpt. Quantum calls up to the bridge to see what's going on, and T'Pol tells him that if he's feeling better he should report to the bridge.
On the viewscreen, we see that the ship is in orbit around a yellowish-orangish planet. "It's a gas giant," T'Pol tells Cpt. Quantum as he enters. "Is it called 'Marlon Brando'?" Mathra giggles from the couch. He's all wound up -- I think it's time for me to put him to bed. T'Pol identifies the planet as "a class seven" and tells the captain that the Suliban vessel they were tracking dropped out of warp and went through the planet's outer radiation belt. "We've lost them," Cpt. Quantum states. "Yeees," T'Pol breathes. Cpt. Quantum orders the ship be moved in closer and asks Reed if he's picking up anything. Reed answers in the negative; the radiation erased the warp trail. "I'm only picking up fragments," he says. "You finished helping us?" Cpt. Quantum demands of T'Pol, who's just standing there. She begins to make some "modifications," which turn up as excellent viewscreen graphics of the Suliban's warp trail fragments, and asks Reed to "run a spectral analysis" of the fragments. Reed comes back with, "There's too much distortion -- the decay rates don't even match." T'Pol looks intrigued (but doesn't say "fascinating") and orders Reed, "Calculate the trajectory of each fragment." For some reason, Reed asks Cpt. Quantum for verification on that order. "You heard her," Cpt. Quantum says and requests of another crewmember, "Recalibrate the sensor array, narrow band, short- to mid-range." T'Pol follows up with more techno-babble orders. Reed complies. Suddenly, the warp fragments on the viewscreen converge into multiple trails. "Your instincts were right, those fragments weren't from one Suliban ship," Cpt. Quantum says stiltedly. Apparently the leg wound is making it difficult for him to deliver his lines. T'Pol nods and says that the fragments were from fourteen, "all within the last six hours -- I believe we have found what we're looking for." Cpt. Quantum asks Reed how the targeting sensors are. "Aligned and ready, sir," Reed reports. Cpt. Quantum pauses dramatically and tells him, "Bring the weapons online and polarize the hull plating. Lay in a sixty-degree vector -- we're going in!"
The Suliban is talking to the Shower Shadow again, who asks him if Sarin "gave [the humans] anything." The Suliban says he doesn't know. "What do you know?" Shower Shadow asks. "They followed us here," the Suliban answers. "Looking for Klaang or for you?" Shower Shadow asks. "I don't know, but I will destroy them before they locate the Helix," the Suliban assures him. "We didn't plan on involving the humans or the Vulcans -- not yet. Sarin's message cannot reach Kronos," Shower Shadow says. "If the humans have it, you must stop them." The Suliban nods, and a light trail follows his movements.
Enterprise enters an orange-ish atmosphere, and Hoshi reports, "Sensor resolution's falling off at about twelve kilometers." Mayweather says everything on his end is okay. T'Pol tells them, "Our situation should improve -- we're about to break through the cyclohexane layer." Sure enough, the orange atmosphere trades itself in for a green one. The ship begins to rattle around. "I wouldn't exactly call this an improvement," Cpt. Quantum comments from his Porsche Captain's chair. T'Pol looks through her viewfinder (we all knew this already, but it's exactly like Spock's viewer on TOS -- so very cool), and reports that they are in liquid phosphorus. "I wouldn't have expected that beneath a layer of cyclohexane," T'Pol comments. Guess you don't know everything, Miss Smarty T'Pants. Hoshi grabs the arms of her chair and says, "You might think about recommending seat belts when we get home." Cpt. Quantum tells her, "It's just a little bad weather." This episode of Enterprise was brought to you by Dramamine. Beam some aboard your mission. They clear the liquid phosphorus field, and Hoshi reports that their sensors are working again. "Level off, go to long range scans," Cpt. Quantum commands. T'Pol reports two vessels bearing down on them at "one-one-nine, mark seven." Cpt. Quantum leaps from his chair and orders those coordinates up on the viewscreen. Sure enough, two small crafts are zipping toward them. "Impulse and warp engines," Reed reports, referring to the pods. "What kinds of weapons?" Cpt. Quantum asks. They're too far away for Reed to tell. Mayweather tells the captain he's picking another object up at three-four-two, mark 12, and "it's a lot bigger." Hoshi adjusts the screen so they can now see the Helix-Topiary thing, which from this distance looks like an apple core. Cpt. Quantum orders them to use all sensors and pick up whatever information they can. Reed and T'Pol get busy. No, not like that -- on their scanning! A closer look allows them to see many little pods going to and from the Topiary Apple Core Helix. Hoshi reports she's picking up 30,000 bio-signs, but cannot isolate a Klingon if there is one.
Suddenly, the ship is rocked by a hit. "That was a particle weapon, sir," Reed reports. Over the intercom, Tucker reports damage in Engineering and asks what's going on. "Just a little trouble with the bad guys," his Captain ineffectually reports back. T'Pol suggests they return to the phosphorus layer, and the captain gives the order. A pod chases and fires at Enterprise, but gives up once they disappear in the phosphorus. Some really awesome special effects here. I'm really impressed by the shots of the ship that show its various angles and how thin it is. T'Pol reports that her analysis of the Topiary Apple Core shows it to be an "aggregate structure comprised of hundreds of vessels [which are] held in place by an interlocking system of magnetic seals." Hoshi reports her success in isolating a non-Suliban bio-sign, but she can't be sure it's definitely Klingon. Reed suggests using the transporter, but Cpt. Quantum says, "We've risked too much to bring him back inside out. Would the grappler work in a liquid atmosphere?" Reed lights up. "I believe so!" he says. Cpt Quantum tells him to bring it online and asks Mayweather to take them down again. Enterprise shimmies out of the phosphorus layer and begins firing at the pods, but doesn't hit any; the pods return fire. Aboard the ship, Reed reports that their ventral plating is sustaining heavy damage. "Hold your position," Cpt. Quantum orders. "Lead ship's closing, seven thousand meters," Reed says. Tension builds with the music. "Six thousand," Reed reports. "We should ascend," T'Pol says, her dinners heaving. Cpt. Quantum says to hold their position as a direct hit at the bridge erupts in an explosion of sparks behind him. "One thousand meters," Reed says. Several more direct hits cause the actors to fall off their chairs. Reed reports that the forward plating is "offline." More tension and music. View of the top of the ship. "Now, Mr. Reed," Cpt. Quantum orders. The grappler is deployed, shoots out, and snags a pod all Batman-like. As it recoils back to the ship, a hatch on the pod opens, and a Suliban ejects into the atmosphere with what looks like a suitcase. Enterprise ascends once again into the phosphorus layer. Reed smiles at Cpt. Quantum, reporting, "The ship's in the launch bay."
In the launch bay, Mayweather quizzes Trip and Quantum on Suliban pod operation. Trip's not getting a lot right, and it's making me nervous since he's going to be the one flying it. How does Mayweather know all this anyway -- because he's a "boomer"? Does that automatically mean that you know all alien ships, or do they just all conform to one mode of operation? Really, I want to know. Trip takes his time finding the auxiliary throttle, and Mayweather turns to Cpt. Quantum impatiently. "With all due respect to Commander Tucker, I'm pretty sure I can fly this thing, Sir." Cpt. Quantum tells him he's sure he can, but he needs Mayweather aboard the Enterprise. Is he the only one who knows how to fly that as well? More hits, shakes, and rumbling on the ship. T'Pol walks in and reports that the pods are coming nearer to the ship with their sensor charges. "If we stay here much longer, they are going to locate us," she tells them. Cpt. Quantum tells Mayweather to speed up his tutorial. Trip says he's got it: "How complicated can it be? Up, down, forward, reverse -- I can figure it out." Yeah, it's just like dusting crops back home on Tatooine, right, Luke? Amid more sensor-charge fire, Cpt. Quantum gives some final orders to T'Pol, including having Mayweather plot a course to Kronos. T'Pol informs him, "There's a Vulcan ship less than two days away, it would be illogical to attempt this alone." Cpt. Quantum whines that he thought she understood why they had to do this alone. "You'll have other opportunities to demonstrate your independence," T'Pol tells him. "Never put off today --" Cpt. Quantum starts to say, when T'Pol interrupts, telling him they could both get killed. "Am I sensing concern? Last time I checked that was considered an emotion," Cpt. Quantum says.
Could they stop with that now? Please? They've used that line, like, eight times in just this one episode, which means they cannot use it again for the seven years. And I'm sorry, but if I haven't already made my opinion completely clear, I think Blalock sucks as a Vulcan. She shouldn't be allowing any trace of emotion to seep through at all -- otherwise she will completely undermine any future impact when she drops her Vulcan reserve in later episodes. She needs to study up on her Data, Spock, and Seven of Nine (Yes, I did say Seven of Nine. Dinners aside, I thought she was an excellent actress), all of whom kept their "humanness" or emotions in check so well that their fans swooned in later episodes when they actually cracked a bit. If she gives in, even a little bit, right at the start, no one's going to be interested later on. Okay, rant over. For now.
T'Pol tells Cpt. Quantum that she'll get spanked by the Vulcan High Command if anything happens to him or Tucker. Reed and his cheekbones arrive with the gadgets for the mission. He pops open one of the trunks: "This should reverse the polarity of any maglock within a hundred meters. Once you set the sequence, you'll have five seconds." So it's just a big magnet? Reed opens to the other Mafia metal suitcase and shows Quantum two weapons cushioned in black foam. They look like silver water guns. "Ah, our new weapons," Cpt. Quantum says. Wait, "new"? Why didn't they take them down to Rigel 10? Did they just arrive by transporter mail or something? "They're called phase pistols," Reed explains, handing one over to Quantum. "They have two settings: 'stun' and 'kill.' It would be best not to confuse them." Heh. I like Reed. Only Brits can deliver such deadpan humor. Another crash rocks the ship. "Time to go," Cpt. Quantum says, packing up the gadgets. "The ship is yours," he tells T'Pol. The pod drops out of the bottom of the ship, with a nervous-looking Trip Tucker gripping the controls. Some alarm goes off. "What's that?" Cpt. Quantum asks. "Travis said not to worry about that panel," Trip says mock-confidently.
The crew aboard Enterprise report more damage. Reed suggests changing their position so the Sulibans "have to start from scratch." "If we change our position, the Captain will have no way of finding us," T'Pol says. Mayweather shakes his head at this news. I don't know why; she's totally right about that. In the stolen pod, Trip reports, "I think we're there." Cpt. Quantum tells Trip to "bring the docking interface online." Why doesn't he do it? Trip's clinging to the steering thing (it's not exactly a wheel, is it?) for dear life, and Cpt. Quantum's just there sitting on his hands. Cpt. Picard never found it beneath him to calibrate doohickeys or stabilize whatchamacallits when he was riding shuttlecraft shotgun. Trip hesitantly pokes at the control panel while Cpt. Quantum looks annoyed. "Coaxial ports?" he says. Trip pokes again: "Open." "Let's go," Cpt. Quantum says. If this race is so superior, wouldn't they have ways of sensing what kinds of life signs were in the pod? I mean, if Enterprise with their "inferior" technology can scan for Suliban signs in the Apple Core Helix, you'd think the Suliban would have ways of knowing that the humans from the ship they're firing at are in one of their own pods. Cpt. Quantum gives some navigational directions, and the Apple Core Helix comes into view through this clever window at their feet. "There you are," Trip breathes. Cpt. Quantum tells him to drop below the upper support radius and start a counterclockwise sweep. Now that we're closer to the structure, all the little pods connected to it look like a bunch of Dow's Scrubbing Bubbles hanging together. I think it's slicker than the Borg cube. I want it to be made into a toy. Cpt. Quantum directs Trip down. Trip bumps the pod on the Apple Core Helix, and Cpt. Quantum gives him A Look. Trip shrugs sheepishly. I see -- it's just like in the beginning when Trip scratches the paint on Enterprise. They dock in a hexagon port and pop the hatch open. Cpt. Quantum pulls out the pistols, and they start to make their way through the honeycomb passages. Something moves off to their right and Cpt. Quantum fires instantly, knocking the Suliban to the ground. "Stun seems to work," Cpt. Quantum says.
Aboard the ship, Hoshi presses a precursor to Uhura's listening device to her ear and shouts, "Grab onto something!" Outside the ship, several charges shoot up through the atmosphere around the ship and do quite a bit of damage. Alarms go off; Reed is knocked out of his seat, and he yells, "This is ridiculous, if we don't move, Cpt. Archer won't have anything to look for when he gets back!" T'Pol turns to Hoshi and says, "We're going to need that ear of yours," before going to the Captain's chair and giving orders to change their position.
Cpt. Quantum and Trip manage to find Klaang pretty easily and start to release him from his bonds. "This is going to be easier than I thought," Trip comments. Yeah, knock on tritanium! As soon as he's released, Klaang throws Trip across the room. Cpt. Quantum points his plasma pistol at him and says, "I really don't want to have to carry you out of here." I'd like to see you try, Quantum Man. He's only seven feet tall and a fake wrestler. Trip takes Klaang's arm and leads him down the corridors behind Cpt. Quantum. Apparently, captivity hasn't taught Klaang anything about being discreet, because he starts shouting. Cpt. Quantum tells him to shut up, which, surprise surprise, doesn't work. They get fired at and duck for cover. Klaang continues to shout. "You tell 'em, big guy," Trip says. I was wondering how long it would take to get a "big guy" out of Trip. Cpt. Quantum tells Trip to give him the "box." A Suliban creeps around the corner, but he's nabbed by Klaang "Zeus" the Klingon and dispatched the WWF way. "Thanks," Trip gasps, impressed. More phaser fire, and Cpt. Quantum orders Trip and Klingon to the pod, saying, "I'm right behind you!" He sticks the depolarizing thingy to a wall, turns the dial, and jumps back. There's an explosion (of course) and a shower of sparks. Lights flicker, and the sound of power shutting down tells us he's succeeded. Until the floor beneath his feet begins to separate. Cpt. Quantum looks around in surprise to see all the pods falling away from the structure. Okay, what exactly did he think was going to happen when he reversed the polarity? He knew all those pods were held together by a magnetic force -- that's what the structure is made up of -- did he think his pod would somehow stick to the structure until he got on board? Whatever. From the outside of the structure, all the pods begin to float aimlessly away. Kind of like bubbles in a fizzy drink.
In the pod, Trip bounces around with Klaang and gets Cpt. Quantum on his communicator. "Where are you?" he asks. "Still in the central core," Cpt. Quantum tells him. "Get Klaang aboard Enterprise." "What about you, Sir?" Trip asks. "Get him to the ship, you can come back for me," Cpt. Quantum tells him. Trip tells him it's going to be difficult to "isolate [his] bio-signs," and directs him to stay as far away from the Suliban as possible. Trip jets off amidst bouncing pods, which smash into each other and break apart. Aboard the pod, Trip fights a yelling Klaang for the armrest. "Ah don't particularly lak the way you smell either!" Trip shouts back. His Southern accent has been fading in and out at odd times throughout the episode. He mutters to himself that he doesn't understand where Enterprise is.
On Enterprise, Reed reports that the sensor charges are "getting closer again." T'Pol instructs Mayweather to move another five kilometers. "At this rate, the Captain will never find us," Mayweather crabs. Okay, they bitch about it when they don't move because T'Pol says the Captain won't be able to find them, and then they bitch when they do move. Hoshi, listening device pressed into her ear, tells T'Pol she thinks she heard something. "Amplify," T'Pol directs. Static and buzzing fills the bridge, and everyone but Hoshi looks confused. "It's Commander Tucker," Hoshi says. "All I hear is noise," Reed tells her. "It's just a narrow notch in the mid-range," Hoshi of the Supersonic Auditory Canal says. Hoshi reports that Trip is about to ignite his thruster exhaust. T'Pol powers up her Spock Viewer and gives Mayweather some coordinates, then turns to Hoshi and says something in Vulcan. "You're welcome," Hoshi smiles. Mayweather tells them he's located the pod and it's right in front of them, so T'Pol tells him to "initiate docking procedures." Hoshi reports she's only picking up two bio-signs, "one Klingon, one human." T'Pol looks concerned.
Meanwhile, Cpt. Quantum makes the most of his time in the Apple Core Helix and scouts around for Sulibans. Didn't Trip tell him to stay away from them? His tricorder (if they're called that in this series) scanner gives off odd signals when he directs it down a certain corridor so, of course, he goes down that corridor. He finds himself in the Trippy Shower Room with the Motion Light Trails. He notices the trails and waves his pistol back and forth, watching the trails. Bet he doesn't remember dropping acid back on the Enterprise. He tries to fire his pistol, but it makes an odd noise, so he reaches into his pocket and slaps something to the bottom of the pistol. Are these the kinds of weapons they have to reload?
On the Enterprise, Trip sticks his face in T'Pol's and says, "Turn the ship around now!" What, no "thank you for saving my butt, T'Pol"? Where's that famous Southern gentility? T'Pol tells him that their mission is to return Klaang to Kronos, and any other attempt at a rescue would put the mission in jeopardy. Trip tells her that Cpt. Quantum "specifically told [him] to [go] back for [him]." T'Pol says it's her duty to interpret the Captain's orders, and she doesn't think he'd want the rest of the crew put in danger just to rescue him. Trip says the Captain's orders were for him to return. "Captain Archer may very well have told you to return for him because he knows how stubborn you can be!" Hoshi, Mayweather, and Reed all exchange looks. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Trip asks, putting his hands on his hips. T'Pol tells him he might have risked Klaang's life "in a foolish attempt to swing back and rescue the Captain." Trip shouts that he can't believe he's hearing this. "The situation must be analyzed logically," T'Pol tells him calmly. "I don't remember the Captain analyzing anything when he went back for you on that roof!" Trip says, once more sticking his face in hers. "That is a specious analogy!" T'Pol says, standing up. Huh? How?
In the Trippy Shower Room, Cpt. Quantum spins around as the door slides open. Nothing seems to walk in, because the Suliban is doing that chameleon trick. "You're wasting your time," a Suliban voice says. Closed captioning finally decides to tell me his name is "Salik." Salik continues, "Klaang knows nothing." Cpt. Quantum whips around -- as much as he can be said to "whip around" in this delayed action chamber -- in the direction of the voice, his pistol at the ready. "It would be unwise to discharge that weapon in this room," Salik tells him silkily. "What is this room? What goes on here?" Cpt. Quantum demands. "You're very curious, Jon. May I call you 'Jon'?" Salik asks. "Am I supposed to be impressed that you know my name?" Cpt. Quantum demands, all Swaggerin' Tough Guy. A figure briefly appears behind Cpt. Quantum, then disappears, without him noticing. Salik tells him he's "learned a great deal about [him], even more than [he knows]." Cpt. Quantum tells him to show himself.
Back in space, Reed reports that the hull plating's been "repolarized." Just in time for winter. T'Pol orders the impulse engines to "stand by" and asks Trip's status in Engineering. Trip gives her some techno-babble back, but the important thing seems to be that the "annular confinement" is off by two microns. T'Pol says, "That should suffice." "Easy for you to say," Trip mutters. Are they friends again? Did we miss a scene? "If the Suliban have re-established their defenses we'll have no other option," T'Pol tells him.
Salik continues to taunt Cpt. Quantum in the Trippy Shower Room, and tells him to leave the room, "Now." The doors re-open. Salik keeps appearing and fading, so Cpt. Quantum is in no hurry to leave. "This chameleon thing's pretty fancy," he comments, "was it payment for pitting the Klingons against each other, or a trophy from your temporal cold war?" Salik comes at him from a side of the chamber like a running back and sacks him, knocking the captain's weapon from his hand. See, when you spout off about how much you know, you're doomed. Salik was going to let Quantum go because he didn't think he knew anything, but I don't think that's the case anymore. Salik materializes, picks up the phase pistol, and says, "I was going to let you go." "Really?" Cpt. Quantum says. "Then you obviously don't know as much about me as you thought you did." "On the contrary," Salik murmurs, "I could have told you the day you were going to die, but I suppose that's about to change." Salik fires, and it's like a bullet going through Jell-O. The phaser beam creeps out and hits Cpt. Quantum in the chest. He looks down and realizes he's not hit yet, because, like all the movements in this room, there's a ghost of a movement preceding the actual. He wrenches himself out of the way as the real phaser fire hits the doors behind him. Then there's a repercussion from the fire, manifesting itself in a spatial distortion and enveloping the whole chamber in its backlash wave. Say that ten times fast. Salik gasps, and the wave distortion hits him, knocking him across the room. Wasn't he the one who told Quantum it would be "unwise" for him to fire in that room? Dumbass. Cpt. Quantum ducks behind something and calls out, "What's the matter? No genetic tricks to keep you from getting knocked on your butt?" "What you call tricks, we call progress," Salik hisses. "Are you aware that your genome is almost identical to that of an ape? The Suliban don't share your patience with natural selection." Salik finds the pistol and waves it around. "So to speed things up a little, you struck a deal with the devil?" Cpt. Quantum asks, throwing something at the door. Salik fires at the clatter, creating another wave distortion (these genetically-enhanced Suliban must have lost something in the learning-curve upgrade), which Cpt. Quantum manages to jump through and to the other side of the door. Salik follows him. As the lights go out, we see Cpt. Quantum sweep Salik's leg out, knocking him to the ground. He copied that move right out of The Karate Kid. They tussle.
Outside, Enterprise wings in for the rescue, firing at pods. How did they resolve that between T'Pol and Trip? It was such an obvious fight, but now they expect us to just think, "Oh, they must've come to an understanding," without showing us how or why? I think the writers are underestimating their viewers. T'Pol asks if they can dock. "These aren't ideal conditions," Mayweather says. T'Pol tells Trip they're "going to Plan B." How sick is it that I make a connection to STV:TFF, where Kirk's "Plan B" meant "no plan"?
Still more tussling between Salik and Cpt. Quantum. Salik's hand is just beyond the gun and he's got Cpt. Quantum in a headlock (must've picked up a thing or two from Klaang). Salik chuckles evilly and his hand squidges, twists, and flips inside out to get within reach of the pistol. Cpt. Quantum breaks away and starts to run. "NOW!" T'Pol shouts from the Enterprise, as Salik fires. Cpt. Quantum dematerializes while running and arrives in the Enterprise transporter room still running. Trip reports that they got all of him. Cpt. Quantum whips around, looking at the transporter pad. "Sorry, Cap'n, we had no other choice," Trip tells him. Cpt. Quantum gasps and clutches at his chest, feeling to make sure he's all there. It's a pretty priceless scene. Enterprise warps off.
On Kronos, T'Pol, Cpt. Quantum, and Hoshi deliver Klaang to his High Command Council. Hoshi translates what Klaang says to his High Council. "Something about disgracing the Empire," she tells them, "he says he's ready to die." A Klingon with white hair, who seems to be in charge because of the white hair, approaches Klaang and whips out a dagger. Hoshi winces. White Haired Klingon grabs Klaang's hand and slashes his palm. Another Klingon collects the blood in a glass tube and takes it to a computer to be analyzed. I could go on and on about the color of Klingon blood being closer to the color of raspberry Bubble Yum than the human-like blood they poured out, but I'm too tired. The computer locates a message encoded into Klaang's cells (they look like DNA strands to me). All the Klingons start to growl in appreciation, and Klaang nods. Guess he's not disgraced after all -- in fact, I don't think he realized that he actually was carrying the message from Sarin in his blood. That's why he thought he failed and wanted to be killed. Isn't it tradition for the disgraced Klingon's palm to be slashed before he's killed or exiled? I thought Worf went through something like that. White Haired Klingon walks over to Cpt. Quantum and holds his dagger near the captain's throat, muttering in Klingon before walking away. "I'll take that as a thank you," Cpt. Quantum says. Hoshi tells him she doesn't think they have a word for "thank you" in their language. "Then what did he say?" Cpt. Quantum asks. "You don't want to know," Hoshi says.
Back on Enterprise, Cpt. Quantum cuddles with Porthos. Aww. T'Pol and Trip enter his quarters, and he tells them that he just got off the horn with Starfleet. Apparently, Admiral Forrest "enjoyed telling the Vulcan High Command about the Suliban [they] ran into. It isn't every day he gets to be the one dispensing information." Cpt. Quantum continues, "I wanted you both to hear Starfleet's orders before I inform the crew." "'Orders'?" Trip parrots. Cpt. Quantum tells T'Pol that the Vulcans will be picking her up in a transport. T'Pol says she thought she was being ferried back to Earth by Enterprise. You can tell Cpt. Quantum is really enjoying this moment, as he tells her, "It would be a little out of our way. Admiral Forrest sees no reason why we shouldn't keep going." "Son of a bitch," Trip breathes. Cpt. Quantum smiles even more broadly and says, "I have a feeling Dr. Phlox won't mind sticking around for a while -- he's developing a fondness for the human endocrine system." So, like, hormones and stuff? Is that why he shut Trip and T'Pol up together, so he could analyze Trip's hormones? Trip scuttles off to get double shifts started on repairs, and Cpt. Quantum tells him to patch up the outer hull as well. "Let's hope that's the last time someone takes a shot at us," Cpt. Quantum says, and it's taken me watching this episode four times to realize who he's imitating when he delivers his lines: John Wayne. It's slow and deliberate and drawly. It's not a good thing, either. T'Pol starts to follow Trip out, but Cpt. Quantum calls her back. Cpt. Quantum delivers a little speech about needing to get over his preconceptions, prejudices, and grudge-holding against Vulcans if he's going to succeed with other species. "This mission would have failed without you," Cpt. Quantum tells her. "I won't dispute that," T'Pol says with the barest of smiles (again, shouldn't even be the "barest" of anything there). "I was thinking," Cpt. Quantum tells her, looking at his watch and realizing it's nearly time to leap again if Ziggy's on schedule, "a Vulcan Science Officer could come in handy, but if I asked you to stay it might look like I wasn't ready to do this on my own." "Perhaps you should add 'pride' to your list," T'Pol tells him. And perhaps you should add a bra to yours. "Perhaps I should," Cpt. Quantum avers. T'Pol tells him it might be best if she contacted Vulcan High Command and put in the request on her own. "With your permission," she adds. Cpt. Quantum raises his chin proudly: "Permission granted."
They both rejoin the bridge crew. "I hope nobody's in a big hurry to get home," Cpt. Quantum says, and everyone turns toward him. "Starfleet seems to think we're ready to begin our mission." Everyone smiles, except Reed, who realizes he left the kettle on in his flat. Cpt. Quantum tells them about an inhabited planet "a few light years from here." Reed finds it and reports that it has a "nitrogen-sulfide atmosphere." "Probably not humanoids," Hoshi comments. "That's what we're here to find out," Cpt. Quantum says John Wayne-ily. "Prepare to break orbit and lay in a course." Mayweather reports an ion storm in their trajectory. "Should I go around it?" he asks. "We can't be afraid of the wind, Ensign," Cpt. Quantum says as Mathra staggers in with grocery bags full of fresh anvils. "Take us to warp four." The show ends with another glimpse into the Sepia Tones of Cpt. Quantum's Childhood, where Child Archer successfully guides his remote-controlled ship through the air with his father.
week on Enterprise -- there's a potentially hostile vessel which isn't responding to their hails, T'Pol bites out that maybe they don't want visitors, and Hoshi shrieks at something. I guess no one told her that, in space, no one can hear you scream…