In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close. The crew of the starship Nosey Parker finds a very quiet spaceship. Deciding they aren't alien monks who have taken a vow of silence, they storm the bridge to find the aliens just hanging around. Quantum hunkers down to study another page from the John Wayne school of standing, swaggering, and speaking, while Trip bores the whiskers off my cats and Mayweather takes another step toward Harry-Kim-ism. Reed contents himself with blowing things up while Hoshi screams at every shadow -- who said this show was sexist? Oh, and if T'Pol had been the Good Samaritan? Yeah, she would have passed by on the other side. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
First and foremost, I want to say Happy First Wedding Anniversary to Mathra. After a year of marital bliss, I'm as happy to be a part of the Lucy family as you are to be a part of the Keckler family. May we always have chocolate, wine, memories, and the unyielding agreement that Michigan must now and always kick the poo out of Penn State. I love you. ["Awwww. Congratulations, you two crazy kids." -- Sars]
Props also to my very busy forums -- y'all keep me hopping and laughing and I promise this will not be as long as the last one.
Close-up of Hoshi's face, suspiciously close to a reddish-brown slug. She clicks her tongue at it. "I didn't realize you spoke slug," Phlox comments in the background. "Wish I did," Hoshi says in a depressed voice, "she doesn't look any better, does she?" "'She'?" Phlox asks, putting his face to Hoshi's in front of the black-lit slug terrarium. "We haven't been able to determine its gender, if it has one." Hoshi comments that she should have left "her" where she found "her." Phlox pooh-poohs this and tells her they all are on a "mission of exploration," finishing, "There's something to be learned from every life form." Hoshi insists that her pet slug wasn't meant to be on a spaceship. "I promise to do my best to keep it alive," Phlox reassures Hoshi, bowing his head before waddling off to check on other experiments. Hoshi taps on the terrarium. That can't be good for it. I know you're not supposed to do it to fish -- it gives them night sweats or something. "He's going to make you all better," Hoshi baby-talks. Bending over a different darkened cage, Phlox comments that he was actually thinking of his Pyrithian bat: "He won't eat anything once it's dead." Did he say "Pyrithian" or "Klingon"? Hoshi gives him a sidelong glance. Trip saunters in and tells Phlox they've "routed more power to sick bay," and to let them know if it's sufficient. He hands over a Power Palm Pilot, which Phlox examines. "How's Sluggo?" Trip asks. That's an excellent question -- how is William Shatner doing lately? Hoshi tells him that Phlox thinks the argon lamp might help, "but she's barely moved all day." Excuse me, but I thought that was the definition of slug behavior. Trip sticks his face to Hoshi's, scrutinizing the traumatized slug, and says, "We've been out here for two weeks, and the only first contact we've made is with a dyin' wurm."
It's been a long road
Getting from there to here
It's been a long time
But my time is finally near.
And I will see my dream come alive at last
I will touch the sky and they're not going to hold me down no more no they're not going to change my mind
'Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
No one's going to bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith
I've got faith
Faith of the heart.
I'm bitter that I had that song bouncing in and out of my head all week. Very bitter. Bitter dregs, in fact. ["And now I'm bitter as well, because as a result of editing that portion of the recap, I've got Rick Springfield's 'Affair of the Heart' stuck in my head. Damn you, Keckler." --Sars]
Cpt. Quantum is in his quarters, sitting at his desk. He jumps at a slight noise and looks intently at the floor. T'Pol comes in and starts to talk about sector scans. Cpt. Quantum shushes her. "Do you hear that?" he asks. "Hear what?" T'Pol inquires. Cpt. Quantum crawls on the floor. "A squeak. Something's squeaking. I think it's coming from under the deck plating. But every time I get close to it, it stops. If I can't isolate it I'm going to have to tear the whole flooring up." "I admit the deed!" Mathra Allan Poe shrieks, his eyes taking on a maniacal gleam, as he jumps off the futon and skulks about the room, "Tear up the planks! Here! Here -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!" Er, yes. ["But seriously -- what's with the household-pest subplots this week?" -- Sars] T'Pol tells him that would be "unfortunate," and that it doesn't look like they're going to be encountering any inhabited planets soon. She hands over her report to the captain, who asks if Vulcan star charts would be of any help. "We have limited data on the course Starfleet assigned to you," T'Pol tells him. Cpt. Quantum goes on and on about the existence of thousands of star-systems, why can't they find life, nothing going on, blah blah blah bored-in-spacecakes. T'Pol tells him the Vulcans don't seek out information based on what "piques their interest." "Vulcans always need a logical and pragmatic reason," Cpt. Quantum states, needlessly directing the Exposition Beam her way. "My people don't share your enthusiasm for exploration," T'Pol tells him. There's a squeak, and Cpt. Quantum's attention is diverted back to the floor. "Space is vast, Captain," T'Pol continues, "I'm sure you're aware that only one out of forty-three thousand planets supports intelligent life." Cpt. Quantum tells her he took exobiology, so he's aware of the stats. "But we're traveling at warp five," Cpt. Quantum says, reconfiguring the Exposition Beam. "There's got to be someone out here!"
Hoshi walks in and sees the Captain on the floor with his science officer standing behind him. "I'm sorry," she says, imagining all sorts of kinky space scenarios. T'Pol looks at the Captain's butt and tells him she'll "leave [him] to [his] 'exploring.'" Cpt. Quantum heaves himself to his feet and comments that he heard of the space worm's -- no, not T'Pol's lip -- declining health. Hoshi tells him the good doctor is doing all he can. "Sir, my quarters are on E-deck, starboard section five," she says, broaching a new topic. "Yes?" Cpt. Quantum prompts her. "The stars are going the wrong way, sir," Hoshi tells him, channeling Monica Gellar. That leaves Cpt. Quantum stumped. Hoshi explains that she had a portside cabin on both her training flights, and now that she's starboard, she's not sleeping too well. "Have the doctor give you a hypo-spray for that, Ensign, we can't be playing musical cabins!" Mathra calls out from the kitchen in his best Picard accent. Hoshi tells Cpt. Quantum that she and Ensign Porter have discussed the matter, and he's agreed to swap with her. "With your permission," she finishes. "You got it," Cpt. Quantum says. "Can't have my Com Officer," he pauses and looks at the floor of his cabin, "falling asleep on the bridge." Hoshi thanks him but continues standing in front of him. Cpt. Quantum asks her if there's anything else she wants to say. "No, sir," she says and leaves, shooting him a look from the corner of her eye. Cpt. Quantum sits back and puzzles over whether she suspects that he's wearing The Tick Underoos.
In the weapons bay, Mayweather and Reed calibrate some things. "Ready?" Reed asks. "Fore and aft target scanners are aligned," Mayweather tells him. "Activating simulation J-6," Reed says. They walk up to a screen and start to play Pong. Actually, these graphics are much better than that -- showing the target grids, diagram of the type of torpedo they're detonating, et cetera. "Target acquired," Reed says. "Simulated launch," Mayweather reports. Tweaks and squeals emit from Pong. "Five seconds to impact," Reed says, "three, two, one." There's a diddle noise, and Mayweather shakes his head. "We're only off by three meters," he tells Reed. Reed huffs a bit. "Three meters could mean the difference between hitting a weapons port and a warp core," he gripes, "instead of disabling a ship we could end up destroying it. And ourselves in the proe-cess." Reed says, getting all passionate and British. He whines some more that they should've taken care of all this before they left Earth. "Have they detected any inhabited planets or vessels?" Reed asks. Mayweather tells him they've sighted nothing yet and says, "I hope you don't expect everyone we run into out here to be hostile. In twenty-three years I don't think my parents ran into trouble more than half a dozen times." Just in case any of us stumbled into a time-space-memory distortion and forgot that Mayweather grew up bopping around space on a cargo ship. Reed tells Mayweather he was never out "quite this far." "You think that makes a difference?" Mayweather asks. Reed's just worried that if they run into aliens who want to suck their blood or mate with them, they're not prepared with effective weapons or adequate prophylactics. "Seems like everybody else aboard is itching for a first contact," Mayweather comments. Either that or it's the slug rash Hoshi's been passing around.
Cpt. Quantum slides down the handles of some suspension stairs and leaps into their midst. Must be the Underoos. Quantum asks how things are plugging along, and Reed gives him the dirt on their weaponry. "They're off by point-oh-two percent. It's unacceptable!" Cpt. Quantum suggests that their simulations are what's off and proposes a little target practice. Reed nearly swoons with excitement. "Come on, Travis," Cpt. Quantum says to Mayweather, "we've got to find Reed something to blow up." What the heck are they going to use -- a convenient asteroid belt that happens to be in the neighborhood? Oh. Guess so. Torpedoes zoom by large floating rocks, miss their targets, and blow up. Reed and Mayweather try to compensate, adjust, rotate, and so on, but it's clear nothing's working. There's a procedural shot of a torpedo actually being loaded into a berth and launched -- it's awesome. This one actually glances off a rock and stutters in its course, which causes it to swing around and head back in the opposite direction. The tension builds as the bridge crew watches the torpedo come right for them. "Mr. Reed!" Cpt. Quantum prompts warningly. Reed fiddles with something, and the torpedo finally self-destructs. Hoshi is visibly relieved. Reed tells the Captain that he might be able to compensate by modifying the infrared scanners; Cpt. Quantum asks how long that will take. "The better part of a day," Reed tells him. Now, just what is the "better part of a day" -- is it from morning to noon? Late afternoon onwards -- what? I want to know. Oh, right, the show. Cpt. Quantum gives instructions to continue on their course, and tells Reed as he objects that they can't "sit on [their] butt[s]" for another day while he futzes with things. He tells Reed to play around with his stuff and they'll run another test when they can.
Trip joins Phlox at dinner and asks after Sluggo, who's not faring much better. "Try the potatoes," Phlox says, holding one up between his thumb and forefinger, "they're delicious." Trip curls his lip and bites into the proffered vegetable like an apple. It crunches. "Resequenced protein," he comments. What does that mean? Do they have replicators for their food? If they do, we certainly haven't been introduced to them. "Yeees, the flavor's remarkable," Phlox grins, "on my homeworld, people would never think of speaking during the meal. Considered it a waste of time. It's taken me awhile, but I've grown quite attached to it." Trip chews some crabby apples and says that wasting time is all they've been doing lately. "Startin' to git a little antsy," he says. "'Antsy'?" Phlox questions. "Restless," Trip explains. "We've been on the move for two weeks and haven't seen a damn thing." This crew is the biggest bunch of complainers I have seen yet on a Star Trek. They should still be mopping up their tears of gratitude that any of them even got out of being docked in that hairclip. Phlox overflows with good nature as he says that every moment has been "an adventure" for him. "Humans are so unpredictable," he babbles. "Have you seen the quantities of food Crewman Namod consumes?" Apparently, Trip has missed this curiosity. "Have you smelled Ensign Socorro after she exercises?" Phlox asks, putting a wealth of meaning into that question. Trip doesn't know what to say. "She gives off a fragrance not unlike the adrenal gland of a Nausicaan! Hee!" There's a species we know doesn't get extinct before it has time to nearly kill young Jean-Luc Picard. Trip looks a bit put off by his food even though he can't possibly know what a Nausicaan adrenal gland smells like. Might carry the aroma of roast beef and Béarnaise sauce. "Crewman Bennet and Hayden over there," Phlox continues, gesturing at two bored-looking individuals, "do you see them? -- if I'm not mistaken are preparing to mate! Do you think they might let me watch?" Trip swallows a smile and tells Phlox he's glad he's entertaining himself. Phlox muses contentedly over an apple slice.
On the bridge, T'Pol looks in her scanner and signals the Captain. "How big is it?" Trip asks as he, T'Pol, and Cpt. Quantum bend over a panel. "Approximately ninety-two meters in length," T'Pol answers. Cpt. Quantum comments that it's not going very fast. "It's not moving at all," T'Pol says. There's a screech, and I look up to see Mathra swinging from his ankles above me. "A totally meaningless thing to say in space, where there's no Earth to give a fixed reference frame, Subcommander T'Physically Impossible!" That's it, I'm taking back those damn gravity boots. Cpt. Quantum asks where the nearest star system is. T'Pol tells him it's three light years away, and Trip suggests that they're conducting a deep space experiment. "Maybe we should go have a look," Trip grins. T'Pol starts to say, "If you insist on allowing your curiosity dictate your actions --" "We insist," Cpt. Quantum interrupts. Yeah, take that, T'Poopy-Pants. By the way, for all you with dirty minds, they are talking about a ship.
Enterprise comes out of warp, and her bridge crew is busy collecting information on this Magical Mystery Ship that's coming to take them away. Trip can't find anything out about the ship's propulsion system, "but it may be offline." Reed gives similar information about their weapons: "If they have any, they're not charged up." Hoshi's not picking up any communication signals either. Cpt. Quantum orders her to process a message through their translation matrix. "My name is Jonathan Archer," he says, widening his stance to Captain Wide Groin Diameter. "I'm Captain of the starship Enterprise. We're on a mission of peaceful exploration." Okay, who out there thought he was going to say, "We're on a mission from God?" Just me? All righty then. Cpt. Quantum looks around at his crew as he delivers his message. "Earth!" Trip says in a stage whisper. "Oh, we come from the planet Earth. We're sending you a pulsar grid that should help you locate our star system." There's no response, and Cpt. Quantum asks Hoshi if she "rotated the frequencies." She tries again. "No response, sir," she reports. Trip asks if he can get a close-up of the "venting ports around that hatch." Cpt. Quantum gives the go-ahead, and they discover that they aren't looking at venting ports, but scorched hull breaches. T'Phat Lips reports, "The residue indicates oxidization and thermal shock effects. It could be the result of a high-yield particle impact." "You mean weapons," Cpt. Quantum says portentously. "Possibly," T'Pol says. Cpt. Quantum asks for bio-sign indications. "Scanning their ship's interior might be seen as an invasion of their privacy," T'Pol says. Guess respect for privacy no longer exists in Kirk and Picard's time -- they scanned for bio-signs like it was going out of style. Cpt. Quantum asks Hoshi if she's getting anything yet. That's a negative. Trip comments, "If there is anybody home, you can bet they know we're out here!" Reed asks why they don't respond in that case. T'Pol elaborates on Trip's metaphor by saying, "Not everyone chooses to answer the door when they hear a knock," and suggests they go back to their original course. They find another hatch, which measures at point-nine meters. Cpt. Quantum instructs T'Pol to scan for bio-signs. T'Pol reports finding some "life forms" aboard. "Humanoid?" Cpt. Quantum asks. "Their cellular activity is below the threshold of your sensors," T'Pol tells him. "Maybe they're in trouble -- sick or something," Mayweather suggests. "Maybe they're not interested in visitors," T'Petulant says. You know, she was actually doing okay until she had to chew out that line. Of course, it doesn't help that we heard her say it over and over again in previews, which makes the actual line sound trite and ineffective. Cpt. Quantum glares at his science officer and asks Reed to prepare a shuttlecraft, while ignoring T'Pessimist's comment that they still haven't tried "a number of protocols." Hoshi tries to support T'Pol by saying that she could attempt other bandwidth frequencies. "Suit up, Ensign," is all Cpt. Quantum has to say. Hoshi quails visibly. "The ship is yours," Cpt. Quantum says to T'Pol, and leaves the bridge.
Cpt. Quantum walks down a corridor with Trip "All-Day Sucker" Tucker and tells him he's not part of the away mission. "What makes you think you can open the hatch, or turn the lights on for that matter?" Trip whimpers. Cpt. Quantum shoots him down by saying they've got beacons. Trip tries again by saying that he knows how to operate turbolifts on multi-deckers. Interesting point: this Enterprise is not multi-decked. We haven't seen evidence of turbolifts -- just stairs. Cpt. Quantum gives him a skeptical look, so Trip plays his last desperate card: "I've got a better reason why you need an engineer. 'Cause your engineer signed on to this mission of exploration so he could do a little exploring. He didn't sign on so he could sit in Engineering while you three get to break into that ship!" Why don't you stamp your feet, cross your arms, and say it's not fair too? Because I bet that'll work. Cpt. Quantum tells him they're not "breaking in" to the ship: "We're just going in to see if everything's okay." Trip rightly points out that Cpt. Quantum's "chomping at the bit" to get on that vessel, and asks why he should be any different. Cpt. Quantum assures him they'll have plenty more opportunities to explore, but right now "the ship's a little young to be without her Chief Engineer." Finally, Trip nods his reluctant acceptance. I actually approve of this scene. Too many times on TOS or TNG, totally superfluous personnel went on away missions with little reason for doing so.
In his quarters, Cpt. Quantum has a little log time. On the bed, Porthos keeps up with his master's pacing, which I thought was cute and totally realistic dog behavior. You can't go all Brady Bunch and introduce the dog in the first episode, only to never show it again. ["Unless Porthos gets hit by a car." -- Sars] Like his other entries, this one is about Cpt. Quantum's feelings for T'Pol. "I didn't think I'd have a Vulcan on board who continually sucked the air out of the room," he says. He muses that T'Pol is probably correct in predicting that the residents of the Magical Mystery Ship don't want the Enterprise crew to board them, but they could be in need of help. "Computer, pause," he sits on the bed to a wriggling Porthos and says, "You know that you and cheddar don't get along!" But he gives it to him anyway. If dogs and dairy are anything like cats and dairy, he's going to find a rather oogy mess in his cabin when he gets back. Cpt. Quantum goes back to his log and does the Jig of Justification about why they need to board the Magical Mystery Ship. Hoshi pays a visit to the Captain in order to establish that she will take on the role of Hysterical Female for this episode. She really doesn't want to go on the away mission, and tries to convince Cpt. Quantum to let her stay behind. Claustrophobic because of the spacesuits, fear of finding dead hanging things, lack of adequate dosages of Paxil in outer-space -- it's all to no avail. Or should I say an-vail, as the paralleled irony of Trip begging to go and Hoshi begging to stay becomes too much for my stomach to take without a swig of beer from my brand-new MBTV Drinking Game Stein? Hoshi finally gives up and tells Cpt. Quantum she'll meet him in the launch bay. "Hold on, I'll come with you," he tells her. Porthos yips and whimpers. "That's the last time, Porthos," Cpt. Quantum tells his adorable dog, and lobs him a piece of cheese. Diarrhea City, second star to the right and straight on till morning.
In the locker room, Reed grabs some oversized portable weapons. "Going to war, Lieutenant?" Cpt. Quantum pointedly asks. "Can't be too careful, Captain," Reed says, locking and loading. Cpt. Quantum tells him he's watched "too many science-fiction movies." Is that supposed to be self-referentially amusing? Because it's not. "We just need the three phase pistols; put the rifles back," Cpt. Quantum tells him before turning to Hoshi: "What've you been rated for?" "I've been cleared for EM sidearms and Class Three pulse rifles," Hoshi tells him, pulling on her bronze spacesuit. Reed hands Cpt. Quantum a phase pistol, and Hoshi regards it nervously. "I've never seen one of those," she says. Cpt. Quantum says Reed will "check [her] out on it first chance he gets," and tells her it "handles pretty much like an EM-33." He demonstrates the loading procedure, which is awesome, and slaps it on her magnetized belt. Hoshi asks if it's really necessary to carry weapons. "Just a precaution," Cpt. Quantum tells her. You know, as much as she's playing Hysterical Female, you'd think she'd be happy for the extra protection.
The shuttlecraft flips over and docks on the Magical Mystery Ship upside-down. Inside the shuttle, Reed examines the hatch and comments that it's just their luck not to have a hatch release. "Shouldn't be a problem, though; I can place microcharges here and here," Weapon-Happy Reed says, indicating the areas. "Hold on, Malcolm," Cpt. Quantum says, doing some hatch-fiddling, and POOF! It opens without the slightest need for blasting. "Sorry," he says to the crestfallen Reed. Hoshi radios back to the Enterprise that they've gained access and are proceeding to enter. The large miner lights on either side of their helmets illuminate their way in the dark corridors of the ship. "Well, at least we know they're bipeds," Hoshi comments as they climb down the ladder. "What gives you that idea?" Reed asks. "The ladders," she tells him. Cpt. Quantum smiles affectionately at his away team and takes readings. "Come on," he says, noting that the atmosphere is comprised of nitrogen and methane with a temp of negative twenty. Hoshi locates a power source, and Reed points out something on the ground. Cpt. Quantum scans it. "Molecules look like amino acids," he reports. "Blood?" Hoshi trembles. They all shine their headlights around at the walls, green stuff dripping down. Vulcan blood? They enter another chamber with some sort of pulsing noise going on. Cpt. Quantum walks over to the source of the noise. It's a container fixed on the wall, with green liquid sloshing through it and tubes running up to the ceiling. "Some sort of hydraulics," Reed comments. Let me guess -- he wants to blow this up, too. "Whatever it is, it hasn't been here very long," Cpt. Quantum comments. Hoshi looks up and, since we all saw the previews, we know what's coming. A piercing shriek. Alien bodies hang from the ceiling in green cocoon-like body bags, the tubes joining them together and running back to the hydraulic pump. Hoshi backs out of the room. "Hoshi, where do you think you're going?" Cpt. Quantum shouts. "I don't think you need a translator!" she quails. Cpt. Quantum tells her to stay with them, and Reed reports that the alien bodies are being "flushed out with some kind of fluid." Hoshi continues to wheeze and whimper audibly. "Are they all --" Cpt. Quantum starts to ask. "All dead, sir, I'm afraid so," Reed reports. Just a question: How would they have picked up bio-signs from the Enterprise if they were all dead?
Back aboard the ship, the away team stands in the DeCon chamber. "They're clean!" Phlox announces, disappointed, and closes his window. T'Pol joins them in the locker room and asks how many bodies they found. Reed hazards they found fifteen, and Cpt. Quantum tells her the bodies were being drained of something. "Whoever did it went to a lot of trouble. My guess is they're coming back," Cpt. Quantum says. T'Pol says they should leave, but Cpt. Quantum says they can't just leave fifteen dead people "over there." "Your reason for boarding that vessel was to provide assistance if assistance was required. Clearly, it no longer is," T'Pol lectures. Cpt. Quantum gets mad and slams his locker shut. "You're telling me we should just leave them there?" he asks. T'Pol and her dinners advance into Quantum's viewing range and ask what other choice he thinks they have. "Your intentions were honorable, Captain, but nothing can be done for that crew now, and if we remain here your crew could be put in jeopardy." Quantum looks around for a moment and finally calls up to the bridge, telling Mayweather to go to warp three and resume course, taking them out of there. Hoshi looks contemplative, but also glares at the captain for some reason. Enterprise warps off, leaving the dead ship.
Burp. A few delicious chorizos and guacamole from Boca Grande later…
Hoshi stands in sick bay, pouting and listening to Phlox regale her with tales of his mysterious home planet. "Not long after I became a physician, there was an explosion on a cargo ship orbiting my home world and I was part of the first medical team to arrive. There were seventeen bodies on the bridge alone. I'd never seen so many dead people in one place before. Very disturbing. You have nothing to be ashamed of," he says, turning to Hoshi. "I screamed like a twelve-year-old," Hoshi says. Yes, yes, you did. Phlox tells her they're all scared of unfamiliar things: "You should be grateful that your body of experience doesn't include rooms full of corpses." Hoshi comments that no one else screamed. Phlox shrugs and takes of the lid off of Sluggo's terrarium. Hoshi asks if her pet has been eating. "Not so far," Phlox comments. "She has been under a great deal of stress but I'm hoping this protein concentrate whets her appetite," he says, dripping a turkey baster full of white stuff onto the rock near Sluggo. Hoshi goes on that she's a translator (Hoshi, not the slug, but I can see where you'd get confused) and therefore not skilled in the dead-body discovery missions. "It goes without saying that you're going to encounter the unexpected," Phlox tells her. "Not corpses on hooks!" Hoshi says, for the benefit of those in the viewing audience desensitized to mentions of violent death. Phlox asks her if she'd be happier back at the university, because he taught for years and loved it. Somehow, I get the feeling there's precious little in the cosmos that Phlox doesn't love. Hoshi begins to pace. "I'm an exo-linguist," she tells him, "I graduated second in my class, I spent three years in Starfleet training -- I was Jonathan Archer's first choice for this mission." Then start living up to your overachiever reputation, O Squeamish One. Hoshi gazes intently at Phlox: "Every inhabited world we come to is going to be filled with language. Some will have hundreds of them. He needs me here." "If she doesn't take these nutrients, I'm afraid she won't survive," Phlox tells her. "Are you sure that's what she eats?" Hoshi asks, clasping her hands behind her back. "It's close enough," Phlox tells her. Hoshi muses for a bit and says, "I shouldn't have brought her on board." No, you shouldn't have, especially since she crawled into Ensign Daemon's ear two nights ago and burrowed into his brain. HOOOOSHI! What? Oh, wrong storyline. "Maybe I should ask the captain to try to find a planet with an argon-rich atmosphere," she says. Phlox comments that it might be easier to feed Sluggo to his bat. Hoshi sighs and glares. She does that a lot this episode. When she's not squealing, that is. "She needs to get back to an environment that is more suited to her," Hoshi says. "Hmm, perhaps someplace where she can teach," Phlox says pointedly. Wait, I'm confused now. Are they talking about Sluggo or Hoshi? It's far too complex for my alcohol-addled brain.
At Captain Stubing's table, Quantum, Trip, and T'Pol gather round to sup and gossip about Gopher's hair. It's clear that Trip is the most voluble of the trio. T'Peevish is just naturally so, but Quantum -- well, Quantum's conscience is twanging him a bit. "What kind of pasta is this? It's great," Trip asks. Are they going to hammer it home in each episode that all they eat is regular Earth food because they haven't encountered any other species? Just checking. Cpt. Quantum mutters that he doesn't remember. "Too spicy for ya?" Trip quips to T'Peevish. "It's fine," she tells him. Trip says that Reed wants to do another weapons test, "especially after what happened." Whatever -- Reed wants to do additional weapons tests whenever the wind blows in the right direction. Cpt. Quantum gazes to his right, lost in thought. Trip offers tea to T'Peevish, who declines. Anyone notice that the table shrunk for this episode? In "Broken Bow," they made a point of showing how looong the table was in order to wax metaphorical about the distance between the three of them. Now, the table's a tighter circle, more intimate. More anvilicious. Trip offers tea to Cpt. Quantum, who absently accepts. "I heard they were humanoid," Trip says, attempting to jump-start the lagging conversation. "Humanoid," Cpt. Quantum confirms. Trip asks if they looked anything "like us." "They were in uniform," Quantum says. Trip polishes his pliers, readies his syringe of Novocain, and goes for the molars: "But you didn't recognize the species?" The camera tightens on Quantum's face for the Dramatic Shot as he says, "They were crewmen, murdered on their own ship. Fifteen. Dead. Crewmen." Point. Taken. Trip nods. T'Peevish says she detected a "stellar nursery" somewhere along their present course, and Trip says he saw one once "through the big lens outside Anchorage." Right, that "big lens." I got it confused with the other "big lens."
T'Peevish offers that getting a closer look at such a cool object "might alleviate some of the crew's tension." Quantum turns on her. "Whattsa matter -- the tension bothering you?" he snarls. "Not in the least," T'Peevish says through tight, puffy lips. Cpt. Quantum muses that "it must be great. Not to let things -- bother you. No remorse, no guilt. What if they were Vulcans -- do you think you would have reacted the same way?" T'Peevish says they weren't Vulcans. "I said, what IF they were Vulcans?" Cpt. Quantum demands, pursuing a line of illogical thought. "Wouldja have just left them there -- hanging like slaughtered animals?" Trip looks nervous. "Don't you think maybe you would have taken them down? Tried to figure out who they were, made some effort to contact their families?" T'Peevish says they have no clue where they came from and ergo it would be difficult to contact their families. Again, just when I thought Blalock was doing an okay job, she screws it up by allowing disdain, distaste, and disgust into her voice. I've also noticed that when she goes into these concerted efforts of "Vulcan-ness," she doesn't blink. It's like she's been hypnotized by The Medium Of Bad Acting or something. Quantum says they didn't even try to contact the families, and then turns on Charlie "Jack the Tripper" Tucker. "Whaddabout you? What if they were humans? Would you have just tucked your tail between your legs and run? Leave them there to rot?" And we're done with the spicy pasta. Trip really doesn't know what to say to that. "Am I the only one really having a problem with this?" Quantum bellows. Trip points out that Quantum himself said the perps were probably coming back. "So we should avoid confrontation at any cost, is that what you're saying?" Quantum demands. Uh, yeah, you should, when your weapons can hit stuff only moderately well. Quantum turns on T'Peevish and demands, "Is that what you Vulcans do? Just bury your heads in the sand and then just fly on by?" Now he's mixing metaphors -- everyone knows ostriches can't fly! T'Peevish tells him, "Vulcans would have never gone on that ship in the first place." Quantum smiles mirthlessly and tells her she's got an answer for everything, and T'Peevish tells him they have a code of behavior, which they try to live by. The Strings Of Human Conscience play as Quantum stands up, announcing, "You may not believe this but humans have a code of behavior, too. It took a few thousand years but I think we're starting to get it right. I can't believe I almost ignored it." Quantum leaves, and Trip wonders if he's going to finish his pasta.
On the bridge, Mayweather tells Cpt. Quantum that they've reversed their course and will be back at the dead ship in five hours. Quantum paces around his lined-up crew. "You don't have a problem with the environmental suit?" he asks Phlox. "Not at all," Phlox promises. Cpt. Quantum tells Phlox he's needed in order to identify the species and attempt to determine what they're being flushed with and why. Phlox says he will do his best. Quantum turns to Trip and tells him he'll be needed to get the dead ship's com system running so they can contact the rest of the species through it. Trip aye-ayes him. Quantum moves on to Hoshi and tells her she needs to write a message and "hope it makes sense." Hoshi tries to demur, but Quantum overrules her. Reed volunteers to "bring a security detail," but he's shot down by Quantum's "there's no one over there who can hurt us." Yeah, not yet, Captain Machismo. Reed has to stay aboard and work on his targeting scanners. I think he's had more than "the better part of the day" to improve them by now. "Prepare to suit up at fourteen hundred hours," Quantum orders before dismissing them.
Again with the upside-down shuttlecraft. "How were they killed?" Quantum asks Phlox. "Different ways. This one was given a lethal dose of chloraxine, the first three back there were shot -- particle weapons, I believe. This fellow," Phlox says, moving on to a hanging body, "hasn't suffered as much cellular decay. He's our best candidate for a post-mortem -- care to assist?"
In another part of the dead ship, Trip examines the com system and fires it up. It babbles a bit. "Coona tuta, Solo?" Mathra garbles through his beer. Hoshi potters a bit and says, "Maybe it's a log -- what do you think?" Trip responds, "Beats me, could be a laundry list or instructions on how to conquer the universe." Hoshi says, "The grammar sounds bi-modal," and Trip says, "Their transceiver's intact," and neither of them understands what the hell the other just said. Trip hauls some cable and pokes some buttons, commenting, "Let's hope the time we make first contact, it isn't with a roomful of corpses." "Let's hope," Hoshi says, calibrating her translator. "Ship," she says, and, in case we didn't hear her the first time, she says it again: "Ship." Do you think she discovered the word for "ship"?
In the makeshift morgue, Phlox tells Cpt. Quantum that he discovered a zymuth gland that releases triglobulin into the blood. "That's what all these tubes and pumps are for," Phlox explains, gesturing, "Whoever did this is trying to collect triglobulin." Cpt. Quantum asks why. Phlox says that triglobulin has a number of uses: medicine, vaccines, aphrodisiacs. "Aphrodisiac?" Quantum exclaims. "It's quite a common practice, I'm surprised you're not familiar with it?" Phlox says, fixing him with a gimlet eye through his space helmet. Cpt. Quantum admits that humans used to collect black bear bile -- eww, really? -- powdered rhino horn, et cetera. "But not people!" he says. I'm not going to start a rant focusing on how humans use animals so heartlessly because they're "not people." I'm just not. However, my grandmother often said that she preferred animals to people, and sometimes I'm very inclined to agree with her. Phlox pokes at the dead alien and tells Quantum that triglobulin is "very similar to human lymphatic fluid."
Back in the com room, Hoshi asks Trip how long before he can have the transceiver online. "Just another minute or two," he tells her. There's a tingle, and we hear, "You've got mail!" Okay, there isn't. More alien language jibba-jabba. "I can't get enough of this," Trip says, "an alien spaceship sending off a message to who knows where." Hoshi's less than exuberant. "I wish I had an ear for languages," Trip continues. "The Cap'n's going to need a translator with him a lot more often than an engineer." "Distress," Hoshi says, calibrating her translator again. Hoshi tells him a story of visiting some Amazonian tributary, which had lots of icky creepy crawlies. She was less than thrilled about that little adventure. "If I don't like being around anacondas [My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns, hon!], you can imagine how I feel about Suliban or whoever butchered the crew of this ship." Yes, we know, you saw dead bodies. You screamed. You were traumatized. You can only sleep portside. Get a psychiatrist and get over it. "I'm going to ask the Captain to take me home," Hoshi says finally. Trip looks at her, concerned, and asks if she's serious. Hoshi tells him she shouldn't have left the university: "I'm not suited for this." But you are, you're wearing it, it's bronze and it's what makes you claustropho -- okay, never mind. "Give it a try; you'll be fine," Trip says in a totally unconvincing tone -- and with totally unconvincing dialogue, for that matter. Hoshi says she lost it when she saw the bodies; the Captain needs a translator made of sterner stuff. "That isn't me," she says. "You can't be sure of that," Trip says, again with a total lack of real feeling. Hoshi tells him, "Oh, yes I can. 'Distress'!" In case you were alarmed, that last part was more of her translating business. She makes the alien language repeat its word: kunatsila. "Distress," she says again, "I think I've got it -- 'Ship in distress.'" Oh, big whoop. Like that was such a big leap of the imagination. I mean, if it had been a conjugation of a few irregular verbs or the libretto of a light opera, now that would have been something. Hoshi smiles at Trip. Gee, do you think she's going to rethink her desire to go back to Earth?
T'Pol signals Quantum and tells him that there's a ship approaching their coordinates. "Its power signatures match the scans you took of those bio-pumps," she says, once more under the influence of The Hypnosis Of Non-Blinking Bad Acting. "It appears that whoever killed that crew has returned." Quantum tells Phlox it's go time. They pack up some cases, and Quantum fires his phase pistol at the triglobulin-sucking pumps and tells Hoshi and Trip they're to report to the shuttle schnell! schnell!. Sorry, didn't mean to channel Hoshi's translating brain waves. A kick-ass ship warps into view. It looks like a huge metallic tarantula or a crab with pincers, mandibles, everything.
Back aboard the Enterprise, Mayweather tells T'Pol that the tarantula ship is sixty thousand kilometers away. In other words, spitting distance. T'Pol intercoms Reed and tells him, "We have a potentially hostile vessel approaching. Are you prepared to defend the ship?" From the armory, Reed says it depends on how long it takes the ship to reach them. Mayweather tells him it's ten minutes away. "Then the answer is most likely no. The scanners are still out of alignment. Look, if you want me to hit a stationary dairy barn then I could accommodate you but not a moving vessel," Reed says. T'Pol tells him to do his best, but bring his British butt on deck in five minutes. From the shuttlecraft, Cpt. Quantum tells T'Pol to "deploy the docking arm." "Arm extended," T'Pol tells him. Quantum asks how far away the Tarantula is. "Eight thousand kilometers," she reports. "What kind of weapons?" Quantum asks. "Our sensors can't penetrate their shields," T'Pol tells him. Quantum asks if she's hailed them. Hail to the chief, 'cuz he's the one we hail to…she says she has, and there's been no answer. "Try again!" Quantum orders. The shuttlecraft -- which looks exactly like a little dinghy -- shudders as it raises itself to the docking arm. Mayweather reports that "the pod is on the arm." T'Pol twists out of the Porsche Captain's Chair and tells Quantum that the Tarantula is still not responding to their hails. The demon ship comes into view. "They're charging weapons," Reed reports, having taken his station on the bridge. A glo-green stream hits Enterprise. "They're targeting our engines," Reed reports. I just realized that they probably don't have a battle bridge distinct from their regular bridge. I wonder if that means that they won't have saucer-separating capabilities either. "We're almost in, stand by to jump to warp," Quantum reports from the pod, which is shaking from all the attacks. He speaks too soon, as a blast glances off the bridge and does serious damage to the warp nacelles. A few more, and finally, there's a hit that jogs the shuttlecraft from the docking arm. Hoshi rolls up her window in the shuttlecraft, and Phlox looks ill. Trip gets them on the docking arm again and it actually manages to dock this time. "Doors!" Quantum orders breathlessly. The hatch flips open, and the suspension staircase swings down to meet the away team. They scuttle out, and Cpt. Quantum intercoms with the bridge to ask why they haven't gone to warp. "Our port nacelle has been damaged," T'Pol reports calmly. Quantum orders T'Pol to instruct Reed to ready the torpedoes. Isn't the correct expression "man the torpedoes," or are we more P.C. about some things than others in the 22nd century?
The Tarantula moves closer to the fairly defenseless Enterprise, and the away team rushes onto the bridge. "Report!" Quantum says. Mayweather says, "We're dead in the water, sir." T'Pol tells him the ship's stopped firing for the nonce, but they're closing in on Enterprise's position. "Malcolm?" Cpt. Quantum prompts. "Both for'ard tubes loaded and ready, sir," Reed says. The camera tightens on Quantum for The Important Decision Close-Up as he says, "Fire." The torpedo is launched, and it hits, but it seems to have hit a shield as the space around it shudders and the torpedo explodes, hurting nothing. "Stand by port tube," Quantum says. "Ready," Reed reports. "Fire!" Quantum commands. The second torpedo is launched, but fired upon by the Tarantula before it can reach its destination. Cpt. Quantum looks accusingly at Reed, who shoots back a look that says, "Don't look at me, they have far superior weapon capabilities than we have, and besides, they're bigger and scarier-looking, plus you didn't flush the toilet the last time you used it." Quantum asks about the warp status from Trip, who tells him it's been "depolarized" and they aren't going anywhere in the near future. Suddenly there's a buzzing sound, and a white beam runs over all the bridge crew. Mayweather, who I've decided speaks for the audience, asks, "What was that?" "A sub-molecular bio-scan, Ensign," Phlox tells him, looking at his tricorder. "You've been probed. We've all been probed. They've no doubt discovered that your lymphatic system contains some useful compounds." The bridge crew looks uncomfortable that their privacy has been violated. BZZZ! Wha --? Oh, it's my beeper. "I-R-O-N-Y." Irony. Hmm, that's funny; I don't even own a beeper.
The Tarantula moves closer still. Quantum paces and orders Reed to get thee to an armory. "Start distributing hand weapons and post a security team at levels --" A beeping interrupts his instructions, and Mayweather reports another ship warping into view on an intercept course. Quantum orders it up on-screen. It's similar to the dead ship. "They're hailing us," Hoshi says and puts the alien on screen. Quantum laughs in relief. "Captain?" T'Pol prompts him. Quantum tells her he's the same species from the dead ship. "They must've picked up your distress call," he says to Hoshi. The alien speaks alien, and Cpt. Quantum tells Hoshi to set him straight on who killed whom. Hoshi predictably panics and says she tried, but she doubts the alien gets it. "What do you mean?" Quantum asks her. "This isn't exactly Spanish we're dealing with; I'd be lucky if I were getting half the vocabulary right," she says shakily. The Tarantula has heaved itself above Enterprise and aims a beam down, encasing the ship in its power. As their power starts to fail, Reed reports that they've been locked onto with "some sort of stabilizing beam." Cpt. Quantum tells Mayweather to "use the impulse engines" to "get [them] the hell outta there." Yeah, that'll work. They laugh in the face of impulse engines. Sure enough, Mayweather reports that all their propulsion systems have been corrupted by the Tarantula's beam. Meanwhile, the on-screen alien from the third ship is yelling away. Hoshi reports that he got their message: "It seems he got the part about killing the cargo crew but he believes we did it! At least, I think he does." T'Pol tells her to communicate the fact that they sent the distress call: "Why would we kill his people and then do that?" More jibba-jabba from the alien. "I think I understood this one, he says the distress call came from his ship, not ours." Cpt. Quantum says, "We needed their frequencies; going there was the only way to find them." Hoshi communicates this. Plus, is the alien ignoring the huge and menacing ship hovering above, clearly holding Enterprise in its thrall? Hoshi reports something about DNA scans and the alien wanting to know why they were there two years ago. "Two years ago?!" Quantum repeats incredulously. "He probably means two days, sir, the phonetic processor is still having trouble locking on." Alien does some more alien speak, and Hoshi reports that she doesn't think he's going to help them.
Reed reports that the Tarantula is fifty meters above them. Interestingly enough, closed-captioning has Reed saying "ten meters." Cpt. Quantum tells Hoshi to tell the aliens to run scans on the pumps aboard the vessel. "They'll see they're not our technology. Have them compare the power signatures to the ship that's about to land on our roof!" he says, panic rising in his voice. "Where are they, Malcolm?" Reed reports that they've stopped "about ten meters" above them. Some magnetic arms come down from the Tarantula and stick onto the Enterprise. Hoshi says, "I'm having trouble with the word 'pumps,' sir. I've got the translator searching for synonyms." Lifting weights, La Leche breast group, something sassy by Jimmy Choo with a strap? The alien barks at them, clearly not understanding anything that's going on. "I think he's running out of patience, sir," Hoshi trembles. "Then forget the translator, do it yourself!" Quantum orders. Hoshi's almost in tears as she says, "Do what myself? I've hardly learned their basic conjugations!" What's her hang-up on grammar? Just say "No. Kill. I!" and stop your doggone whining, already. Finally, T'Pol says, "Talk to him, Hoshi, it doesn't have to be perfect." "You don't understand, I don't even know how to say 'pump.' I'll get it all wrong -- it'll just make things worse." Overachievers -- never good in a tricky situation. Quantum tells her that "things can't get much worse." Hoshi protests with a weak-ass, "Sir." The arms from the Tarantula start spinning, and Reed reports that they're drilling into the hull. Quantum grabs Hoshi, forcing her to look at him, and tells her he needs her to "do this, [they] all do." Hoshi digests this plea for, oh, I don't know, an ETERNITY before acquiescing. She steps in front of the view screen and starts talking to the alien. It seems to go well. Pretty soon they're exchanging recipes for chicken potpie. Quantum finally asks what was said as the alien goes back to his panel. But in this case, words are not necessary, as the tiny alien ship fires above them, causing the Tarantula to release Enterprise, which impulses off. Reed says he's finally gotten his scanners aligned and asks permission to launch torpedoes. "Permission granted," Quantum says. Reed fires one backward, which appears to cause some damage. The only explanation I can think of is that the smallish alien ship fired enough to bring the Tarantula's shields offline, therefore leaving it vulnerable to Enterprise's weapons. The smallish alien ship fires a few more times and manages to blow up the humungous Tarantula. Oookay. Must be the David-Goliath syndrome. "Nice of them to wait till we got clear!" Quantum comments, and orders the engines to "all stop." Quantum walks over to Hoshi and tells her he thinks they just made a friend, thanks to her.
Quantum sits on his star log in order to tell us that they made friends with the Axanar and helped them recover their dead, and that they're an androgynous species who live for over four hundred years. "I look forward to meeting them again, under better circumstances," Quantum says, closing with, "Before we resume our course, I've agreed to make a brief detour." Phlox and Hoshi are on some planet that looks about as genuine as the one from "Skin of Evil." Phlox watches as Hoshi opens a clear Lucite purse -- which she totally got at Urban Outfitters -- and places Sluggo on a rock. Sluggo seems to have changed color; at the beginning of the episode she was reddish, and now she's greenish-yellow. "This isn't exactly like the place you came from but it's close enough. It's not that hard to adapt. You're going to do just fine here." You know, anvils are like suckers: there's one born every minute.
week, Enterprise goes camping and experiences a big storm. Also, Omar G the Magnificent will be guest-recapping for me, so play nice and keep it clean, people.