First off, a big Vulcan hand signal to Keckler, who has been tackling Enterprise like a particularly burly alien tacklebeast. Thanks for the hand-off.
The episode begins with a bowl of soup. No, seriously. We're in the strangely dim and not-at-all inviting dining lounge, where an ensign is spooning up what looks exactly like Campbell's chicken noodle soup, minus the chicken or the noodles. She's reading what looks like a bastard crossbreeding of an astrology and a biology textbook. Oh, let me guess. "Astrobiology." Brilliant. Another anonymous ensign sits down to her and asks, "How can you eat that stuff?" She tells him that her soup is healthier than what he's eating. Wait, you mean it's way in the future and we're still having to worry about cholesterol and low-fat foods? Forget it. Just kill me now. Ensign Junk Food says that at least what he's eating tastes like something. Man, I hope there are still Funyuns in the distant future. The Soup Lady, who looks like a mix of Renée Zellweger and Maura Tierney, says it takes a delicate palate to enjoy Vulcan cuisine. Vulcans have Campbell's Soup, too? We'll call the Zellweger/Tierney hybrid "Ensign Scrunchieface." Scrunchieface tells Junk Food, "Did you know there are over 5,000 sub-species of termite on Loracus Prime?" This is about the time that any sensible man would realize that not only is he going to not have the opportunity to sleep with Ensign Scrunchieface, but that maybe it's for the best. Suddenly, The String Music Of Deep Space Discovery plays. Ensign Junk Food rises from his gaseous, nitrate-stinking seat All the diners rise and go to a convenient window to see what's outside. Scrunchieface and Junk Food look at a planet that looks an awful lot like Earth. It's huge, right in front of them. Nobody noticed it before? "Anybody hear about this?" Scrunchieface asks. "Not a word," somebody tells her, then goes back to a career as a one-line-per-episode extra on every other UPN show that'll have him. Junk Food speculates that there's a lot of plant life, and maybe the planet has an oxygen atmosphere. "What do you think? First contact?" Scrunchieface asks, smiling. The effort of unscrunching her face to smile almost pops out her eyes. The diners take turns wondering if anybody lives on the planet, or if they might live in caves or underwater. "Is that snow?" Scrunchieface asks. A hard freeze makes face-scrunching a little less labor-intensive. "You'd think the captain would make an announcement or something," Junk Food says. "Well, call him," Scrunchieface says. Okay, I now know why they're not primary crew members.
On the bridge, finally. We're watching over Cpt. Quantum's shoulder as he's looking at the same bluish planet. "T'Pol," he says. "Seventeen percent oxygen. Eighty-one percent nitrogen," she says, turning around from a periscope-like viewing device. We see her at first from behind, which just seems wrong, and then she turns around, revealing her special guest stars. "Sounds like home," says Trip, who has wisely gotten out of the way, but is still just standing there, looking stupefied. "Any people?" Cpt. Quantum asks. T'Pol tells him that the planet has a diverse ecology, but no humanoid life. "Still. Someone may have a claim on it. We don't want to go waltzing into their backyard," Quantum says. Oh, what, they have a planetary deed from Alpha Centauri Realty? The Captain asks for a scan of buoys, beacons, satellites, the Spice Channel, anything. Reed says there are none in range. "Looks like no one's planted a flag just yet," he says, and the way it comes out, it sounds like he's talking about Britpop. Cpt. Quantum tells Trip to prep a shuttle pod. "I like the looks of the northern continent," he tells Mayweather. "See if you can find a good place to set down." Mayweather smiles like somebody just offered him some non-reconstituted cotton candy. "Yes, sir," he says. T'Party Pooper busts in about how there are protocols you follow when setting foot on a new planet. Oh yeah, like that idea is ever going to last. I've seen Kirk. I know the deal. "Protocols…" Cpt. Quantum says, rising up from his half-lean and spitting out the word as if somebody just offered to give him an alien anal T'Probe. T'Pol says that protocol suggests you first send down automated probes to determine if the planet is "Minshara-Class" (I took that in college) and then conduct a geological survey from the ship. Trip and Hoshi look on, waiting for T'Pol to get the red-ass beatdown from Cpt. Short Fuse. Mayweather asks what "Minshara-Class" means. Right. Because he traveled the galaxy his whole life, hopping from planet to planet, as we kept hearing about in the last two episodes. Hoshi, who should by all reason know less about interstellar travel than Mayweather, explains that it means "suitable for human life." Cpt. Quantum asks how long all this busywork will take. T'Pol estimates about seven days. "You expect us to sit up here for a week while probes have all the fun?" Trip asks. Probes usually do. Cpt. Quantum sets his voice phaser to "condescend" and explains to the poor, misguided Vulcan that they didn't come all the way out there to tiptoe around planets and be safe and protect their crew and stuff. They came out here to be cowboys, and he'll be damned if he's going to let some Vulcan piss on his campfire. Or words to that effect. He asks T'Pol to put together a survey team. "I assume that's not a violation of protocol," he says, as if that's supposed to be some kind of slam. T'Pol tilts her chin and slices through a metal wall with it.
Okay, bear with me here: I have Dish Network, and at the exact moment the last scene ended, it somehow recorded an audio feed VH-1's Tribute to Mid-'80s Crap Hair Rock Power Ballads. It's funny because even though this is a bad, Def Leppard wannabe-sounding band I hear, I'm still getting the video feed from the Enterprise opening credits. What's up with that? So I can't tell you what the theme song sounds like. Diane Warren wrote it, though, so it must be really good.
Oh, and by the way: There's a commercial for the PlayStation2 game "Onimusha" and they say it's a "must-play game." First of all, it wasn't a must-play game when it came out, like six months ago. And age hasn't improved it any. Sorry. Thus ends this Ultra Geek Moment.
Shot of the outside of the ship, and then we're inside, in some dank, dark area with stairs. Don't we have light in the future? T'Pol is fiddling with some instrument, and down below on the stairs, Ensign Scrunchieface is trying to engage her in conversation by saying that she tried some yum-yum Vulcan plomeek broth that morning and that Vulcan food is "interesting." Don't try to suck up to T'Pol. It's an affront to her all-encompassing lips. T'Pol ignores the soup chatter and tells Scrunchieface to sterilize some sample containers. I keep expecting Scrunchieface to say something cute and British, just like that adorable Bridget Jones. Scrunchieface sucks up further by thanking T'Pol for choosing her for the mission. T'Pol and her high beams will have none of that. She says Ensign Scrunchieface was chosen because Scrunchieface's specialty is entomology and the planet has a lot of bugs. I wonder if they still have Far Side desk calendars in the distant future. Scrunchieface looks dejected. She swings her big scrunchie head to the side, and a wormhole almost opens up. Ensign Junk Food is there to comfort her. He tells her she'd have better luck making friends with a housefly. They still have houseflies in the future? This Star Trek universe just gets more and more disappointing with each new revelation.
Shuttle craft away! Inside the small shuttle vessel, Trip, Mayweather, and Quantum are checking out the planet. Quantum and Mayweather are wearing baseball caps. Whose idea was that? What kind of alien life forms are you hoping to impress with that? A team of extraterrestrial shortstops? Trip says, "Wow." Scrunchieface throws in a line about how it was worth every light year. I think I need a beer. The shuttle curves and lands on a patch of grass and woods that look like a suburban development. The hatch opens, and Porthos jumps out. Oh yeah. Trees. Cpt. Quantum, in his Old Navy-looking fleece blues, smiles at his pride and joy. Porthos immediately finds a big tree trunk. "Where no dog has gone before," Trip says sardonically, and it's the single funniest line from here on out. Consider that a warning. Cpt. Quantum remarks on how he'd forgotten what fresh air smelled like. T'Pol starts spouting off atmospheric elements with her Palm Pilot before Quantum tells her to "Put that thing away!" He fails to mention that it's a line he usually hears on shore leave. A lot. Quantum tells T'Pol that they're there to enjoy themselves. T'Pol looks like she wants to hit somebody as Quantum asks if the skies are ever this blue on Vulcan. "Occasionally," T'Pol says. The Cpt. asks if she's at all impressed to be standing on a brand spanking new planet. She says it's not much different than the other thirty-six Minshara-Class planets she's visited. Oh, and she backpacked across Europe as a teenager, so that makes her cooler than the rest of the crew. Out of nowhere, Trip whips out what looks like a cheap digital camera and tells everybody to pose. Glad to see photography has not advanced one bit in almost two hundred years. At least take a hologram or something. Quantum starts to put his arm around T'Pol and then stops himself. He tells her to smile. She does not. Trip snaps (The picture. He snaps for real later), and Quantum says to send a copy of the photo to Vulcan high command. T'Pol is so far from amused that it takes the light from amused one million years to reach her. T'Pol gets her dig in by telling the crew to rendezvous back at 1700 hours unless the Captain wants to take more pictures. He whistles for his dog and shakes his head. No pictures is fine. That Bakula. Man, that boy can act.
Montage of Back To Nature shots. Scrunchieface is examining a pond where fish are swimming. She sees her face in the water and realizes her scrunch is four degrees off. The rest of the crew walks around and looks up at the two moons. Porthos ambles by, too. Ensign Fast Food has forsaken his greasy ways and picks a pretty yellow flower. He inhales of it. A scene of nature goodness looks like a lame outtake from What Dreams May Come.
Cpt. Quantum and Trip are walking down the woods like the good ol' boys they are. Quantum is overtaken by the planet's beauty, and Trip is ready to build a cabin with his own manly hands. Mayweather says he couldn't call a place home unless it had "warp nacelles." Cpt. Quantum and Trip fight back the urge to put Mayweather through an elaborate and painful nature hazing ritual. "Boomers…" Trip says, by way of a slur.
Cpt. Quantum gets a call on his communicator. It's T'Pol, asking if anything's wrong. No, why? "Because we were supposed to rendezvous fifteen minutes ago," she says. Nag, nag, nag. Can't a man be manly on a big manly uninhabited man planet? Sadly, no. Trip and Quantum exchange a Lite Beer Look. "Sorry. We lost track of time. We'll be right there," Cpt. Quantum says. He better bring back some flowers, too.
By way of a greeting, T'Pol says they've identified several nocturnal marsupials. How did they do that in the middle of the day? She suggests that Ensigns Junk Food and Scrunchieface stay with her to keep studying overnight, being that they're expendable cast members and all. Cpt. Quantum, glad to be rid of the ol' ball and chain (memo to Trekkies: Sexism and Lite Beer Moments are not cool), says he'll pick her up in the morning. Trip speaks up and says he and Mayweather would like to stay. Mayweather is all, "What?" like some bad sitcom on, well, UPN. Trip asks Mayweather when the last time he slept under the stars was. It's all very romantic, but T'Pol interjects that this isn't shore leave. "Why can't it be both?" Cpt. Quantum says. Well, maybe because they're two different things. Didn't they teach you to think inside the box at the academy? Instead of keeping her eyes open freakily, T'Pol closes her eyes for a few seconds, as if she's Carrie and is going to set all the humans askew on kitchen utensils. Trip tells T'Pol not to worry -- that they'll stay out of her hair.
Campfire. Echoes of Star Trek: The Bloated Generation movies. Mayweather is telling a spoooooky space ghost story involving a distress signal and a ship and a freighter and it's just long and annoying. It involves a vessel that floated in space for sixty-three years and how a crew tore into the ship and they found some crazy, belligerent crewmember who took off on a lifepod. I know this is supposed to be Mayweather's big acting moment, but, yawn. It ends with "But Webb's still out there, drifting. When the subspace noise is real low, some com officers say they can still hear the echo of the distress call. Beep…Beep…Beep." They all laugh nervously. T'Pol deflates their campfire buzz by saying that it's highly doubtful a distress signal would last that long. Man, she really is going to piss on the campfire. Trip guesses there are no ghost stories on Vulcan. Scrunchieface opens her eyes and points out our sun, which is just a speck in the sky. Trip talks about how he imagined when he was a kid what the sun would look like from that far away. Ensign Fast Food gets up suddenly and says he has a headache and would like to lie down. He asks permission, which T'Pol grants. There's no ominous music here, so I'll insert it: Dum Dum DUMMMM! Trip asks if anybody's heard about the haunted space comet. Yeah. Shut up now. It's late. Ensign Scrunchieface notices that the fireflies that were there earlier are now gone. Then she's suddenly blasted by a gust of wind. Oh goody. Storm. "A front is approaching from the southwest!" T'Pol says. She's suddenly on The Weather Channel?
thing we know we're in Trip and Mayweather's, um, tent, where the weather outside is frightful. Trip says that "it ain't nuthin' compared to a hurricane comin' through the Florida Keys!" Mayweather counters with the ineffectual "Try flying though an ion storm at Warp 2!" Pansy.
In another tent with less homoerotic tension, Scrunchieface is trying to sleep, and Junk Food is all, "Somebody's out there!" "It's the wind," she says, and rolls back over in her sleeping bag. Their tents look like they were purchased at Target. T'Pol is shown briefly struggling with her tent, and that's good for a chuckle.
Trip suddenly jumps up. "Son of a bitch!" he exclaims. "There's something in my bag!" Mayweather plays it off like it wasn't his hand in there, but then they see that there's some funky gold scorpion in there, too. "Gimme yer boot!" Trip yells. "Why?" Mayweather asks. "So's I kin squarsh it!" Trip responds. So much for a peaceful mission. Mayweather is squeamish about killing. T'Pol looks on from her own tent with something like unfunny amusement. Trip has decided he's going to shoot the bug, but he'll set his phaser on stun. T'Pol calls to ask if they're okay. Trip says they're fine except for the eight-inch scorpion that was creeping around his sleeping bag. Uh, Trip? That wasn't the scorpion. As they're arguing, the tents start to get unpegged, and Mayweather asks if T'Pol had seen a cave earlier. T'Pol says yes, but neglects to mention that it's a spooky, creepy cave, just like the one from the previews. "We're going to need it!" Mayweather yells in the storm. It's not the perfect storm. It's not even the "below average and dropped out of middle school" storm.
You know what this show needs right about now? Some commercials.
Reed is walking down a hall and comes to the Captain's quarters. He beeps and is told to come in. As he does, Cpt. Quantum throws him a bright yellow volleyball. Um, volleyball? I thought you were a manly man. "Nice catch," the Captain says, as he gets up in his gray-blue T-shirt. "You'd make a good two-meter man." Damn, these academy guys have some high dating standards. The upshot is I've now got Missy Elliot's "One Minute Man" stuck in my head, which sure beats the opening theme. "Too bad we don't have a pool onboard," Cpt. Quantum concludes. Wait, water polo? What is this, the pansy brigade? To boldly go where no lacrosse team has gone before? Again, for the record: Bakula? Not so manly. To his credit, the Brit is somehow more macho. Reed says, "A shame," with just a Tabasco sauce flow of sarcasm. Reed gives Cpt. Quantum a heads-up on the bad weather on the planet and suggests they go get their away team.
Quantum reaches out and touches T'Pol via communicator and asks what their status is. She says, as flashlights wave around in a dank cave, that they've relocated to a cavern. "We'll keep an eye on the storm," Quantum says, and now he sounds like the Weather Channel anchor. Cpt. Quantum tells T'Pol to call if she needs anything, and then tells Reed to keep the shuttle on standby. Quantum is still holding the yellow volleyball. Surely that must mean something.
Cave. Trip asks who has the food packs. Nobody brought them. Mayweather offers to go out into the Badweather and retrieve them. Haven't these people heard of the Buddy System? Why are they letting him go alone? Ominous music plays as Ensign Junk Food points his flashlight at the wall and looks worried.
Outside, Mayweather is wondering why he volunteered for this shit-ass errand. He stumbled and falls over a rock. He looks up and sees what appears to be another crew member in the brush. "Trip!" he calls out. Wishful thinking, fella. There is no answer, and whoever it was seems to have disappeared.
Back in the cave, there are more flashlights than an average X-Files episode. Mayweather comes in and throws his food pack at Trip and says, "There's someone else out there." "I think we've had enough ghost stories for one night," Trip says, with no trace of his southern drawl. T'Pol points out that, except for stray life forms that may be gestating in her lips, the planet is uninhabited. "I saw three people," Mayweather says. Three? When did that happen? T'Pol is skeptical and suggests that maybe he imagined the whole thing. Mayweather says they looked real to him. Just then, Ensign Junk Food hears something behind him. It's all growly, like my stomach before a meal at Macaroni Grill. "There's someone back there! I heard voices!" Junk Food yells to T'Pol. An argument ensues about how safe the cave might be and whether they should leave. Oh yeah, I remember this. I liked it better when it was called Pitch Black. "Where do you propose we go? Back into the storm?" T'Pol practically purrs. "It's better than being stuck in here!" Junk Food yells back. Trip holds the guy up, but completely fails to restrain him, because Junk Food just takes off. Trip goes into their pack and grabs a phaser. He goes after Junk Food. The guy, not the actual food. T'Pol follows suit. She grabs a gun and heads into the cavern, looking for a moment just like Lara Croft. "If there's someone back there, I intend to find them," she says before taking off. Ensign Scrunchieface is left to defend herself with a puny phaser. But instead of looking like an asskicker, she just looks like Renée Zellweger holding a gun. Deeper inside the cave, T'Pol hunts around for wayward aliens.
Outside, Mayweather and Trip are calling out for Junk Food. The guy, not takeout. There's still bad weather, and as they're walking along, Trip sees a creature materialize in a big rock. It's a Monster of Rock, if you will. Trip freaks out and yells, "I saw one!" Mayweather comes by to look at Trip's rock-hard creature, but it's gone. Trip says it was part of the rock. "That would explain why it didn't show up on our scanners!" Mayweather yells over the wind. Rock creatures. Right. Instead of examining the rock or taking a sample, they just keep walking, as if rock creatures ain't nuthin' but a thang or a chicken wang.
Inside the cave, Scrunchieface is looking for some stage business, but there's nothing here but stalactites and stalagmites.
Back outside, Trip almost trips and falls over a cliff, just like Mayweather. They both stop just in time. We intercut between them and Scrunchieface, who is now hearing voices coming out of the walls. Sadly, she left her copy of Dark Side of the Moon back on the ship. Scrunchieface finds T'Pol and asks who "they" were, the ones she was talking to. "Excuse me?" T'Pol says. "Talking to? There's no one here." Scrunchieface looks scared.
Trip reaches up and touches the Captain with his communicator. He tells Quantum the situation. Cpt. Quantum asks if they can get back to the cave. He has his concerned "dammit, those are my crewmembers!" look on. Trip and Mayweather head back into the cave, happy that the Captain is going to pick them up in his big space station wagon.
T'Pol informs Trip that the rocks are made of limestone and cormalite. "Nothing more." Ensign Scrunchieface busts in with, "She's lying. I saw her talking to them. In there." Oh no she di'in't! "She's mistaken," T'Pol says. Scrunchieface says she's not, suddenly growing a spine somewhere in that blue away-team suit. The flashlight becomes an interrogation beam on T'Pol's shiny lips.
Shuttle craft. Reed and Cpt. Quantum are in a shaky vessel. They contact Ensign Junk Food, who's out in the wind, crouching on the ground, going nuts like he's Anne Heche. Except in this case, there really is a spaceship coming to get him. "Go to Hell!" Junk Food yells at the Captain. Oh my God. He's having a Big Mac Attack! Reed looks stunned. Just stunned.
Back in the cave, T'Pol is still deny, deny, deny. Everybody else is skeptical of her motives, being that they've all seen strange creatures. Where's Vin Diesel when you need him? "I assure you I didn't speak to anyone," T'Pol says calmly. Trip becomes Ego Trip, taking command and saying, "I'd like to believe you. But you don't exactly have a spotless track record when it comes to being honest with us." Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark. "Your point?" T'Pol asks. I thought he just made it. Trip suggests that she may be keeping something from the rest of the crew. Trip gets a call from Cpt. Quantum ordering him to meet Ziggy outside for his leap. Oh, wait, wrong show. They're going to meet at a clearing. Trip and T'Pol stare each other down. No jelly involved this time.
On the ship, Quantum and Reed are homing in. Outside, the crew is standing in hokey, fake, studio-storm weather. I don't even see any rain. On the ship, Quantum is dealing with a shaky camera and a shaky ship. He's having lots of trouble. We cut between the shaky ship in the sky and the crew waiting for that shaky ship. On the shuttle, Reed and Quantum are freaking out because they're about to crash into something. Oops, there it is. A big rock. They clip a wing on it and decide they might do better to just go away. "We're almost there," Quantum growls. But three seconds later, he's turning the shuttle back around to abandon his crew on what is now revealed to be a less than fantastic planet. "Aren'tcha fergettin' sumthin'?" Trip calls out. Cpt. Quantum says they'll be back later for their corpses, er, for the crew when the weather dies down. "Try to manage 'til then," Quantum says. Then he tells Trip to try to make contact with the aliens if he sees any more of them. Yeah, make some contact. Just make sure we've got a beneficiary on file.
It occurs to me that if Cpt. Quantum were down in the cave with that crew, I could just call him Captain Caveman. But the fates did not work in my favor this week. In said cave, the crew sits around, wheezing. Trip goes after T'Pol, asking her what she's going to tell the Captain about her "friends." Geez, man, she just started developing at an early age and -- oh, the aliens. Trip gets in her face, summing up the situation. Crewman outside in the wilderness. Rock people. T'Pol starts to say that she's just as concerned about Ensign Junk Food, but is interrupted by Trip laying into her for not caring about any of them. "That'd require some of those useless human emotions." Grrr! Must this be a restated point in every episode? She needs to lay some smackdown so everyone will leave her alone about that. T'Pol tells Trip that he's a victim of his own emotions and is becoming irrational. This prompts the single worst line in the episode. "You've never seen me irrational," Trip says, spitting the words at her face. If you're going to invest in a line like that, it's at least gotta be a good line. Mayweather interrupts by pointing out that they're running out of water. Why, did somebody say they were thirsty? Where did that come from? T'Pol says she detected water sixty meters away. With her divining tricorder. Trip lays on the paranoia. "How do we know you're not going in there to talk to your friends?" Trip says. Again with the friends. T'Pol invites him to come along. Oh, maybe there will be a jelly scene after all. Ensign Scrunchieface ruins the fun. She says it may be a trap. A sexy trap. T'Pol inches over to Trip. "I can survive without water for several days. Can you?" I try to imagine T'Pol all shriveled and dehydrated. The best mental image I can come up with is Teri Hatcher. "Sit down," Trip says, whipping out his phaser. We get one of many useless camera angles, this time top-down on the gun being drawn. Trip takes T'Pol's phaser. "You heard me," he tells her. She sits down.
On the bridge, Cpt. Quantum asks Hoshi how Ensign Junk Food is doing. Besides the clogged arteries, I mean. Hoshi says his vital signs are weak. When did she become the medical officer? We go to a shot of Junk Food. He's sitting down, screaming and crying.
ENSIGN JUNK FOOD: So, what's my motivation here?
RICK BERMAN: You're tripping. You're crazy. You're a crazy hallucinating man, but you're still honor-bound. Like that one guy…
ENSIGN JUNK FOOD: Aaron Sorkin?
RICK BERMAN: I was thinking something from Apocalypse Now but I like yours better. So just scream.
ENSIGN JUNK FOOD: Scream?
RICK BERMAN: This'll help: We're going to be on…The UPN Network.
ENSIGN JUNK FOOD: Wha --? AAAAGHHHH! NOOOOO!!!
RICK BERMAN: Let's roll film.
Captain Quantum asks Reed if he can get a lock on Junk Food. Reed starts to say that he knows this great burger joint in the Gamma Quadrant, but then he realizes he's supposed to be transporting the Ensign. He does so, bringing the screaming man onto the transporter pad. Ooh, pretty. Oh man, except for what happens . Reed can't separate contaminants in the air from Ensign Junk Food. When Junk Food finally materializes, he's got weird spore-looking growths on his skin. Reed calls a medical emergency and goes to examine the poor bastard. We'll miss you, blue-shirted ensign.
Cave dwellers. Trip asks T'Pol what she's doing. She says she's working, using her little Palm Pilot. I bet it's Tetris. He must be jealous, because he doesn't believe she's doing real work. T'Pol says their mission was a waste of time. Trip counters by explaining that that's just what she wants them to believe. Then he takes away her Palm Pilot. She complains that it's in Vulcan and he won't understand, but Trip bets that Hoshi will back on the ship. He now believes he's uncovered evidence. Of a Tetris game. Evidence "of what?" T'Pol purrs. Trip says it's a conspiracy. T'Pol uses this as an opportunity to reveal what she's learned about humans on this little excursion. Mostly that we're volatile. Wow, what a revelation. She says humans are more dangerous than she'd believed. "Your people have been telling us this crap fer the last hundred years!" he says, raising his voice. Mayweather is like, "What? Sir?" Trip lays on a conspiracy theory that would make Matt Drudge cry bullshit. He thinks T'Pol lured them into the cave so they'd be killed and the Enterprise mission would be called off. Now, come on. Mayweather chimes in that, yeah, T'Pol did make them stay overnight and found this cave. T'Pol points out that she didn't ask Mayweather and his boyfriend to play camp-out with her. Trip starts yelling at the walls, just like at an LSD party, asking the rock creatures to show themselves. T'Pol, who looks a little nervous herself, tells Trip that there's nothing there. Trip spins and says, "Did ya see that?" Now here's where T'Pol stops being a Vulcan and starts being a former Maxim model who thinks she's within reach of an Emmy. "All I see is a delusional engineer!" T'Pol says, her voice full of, what is that now, emotion? Jiminy Christmas. "Sounds like you're getting' a little volatile yerself, Sub-Commander! I thought you had your emotions all locked up!" Trip yells. T'Pol swivels her head like it's a toy. This is like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but without the writing, directing or acting talent. Mayweather thinks he sees something and cries, "Commander, there!" Trip fires his phaser at the ceiling. I down a beer. Trip yells some more and in one funny moment says, "I'll blow this whole cave apart if I have to!" Yeah, and then he's gonna turn this car right around and head back to Earth. "I know YOU HEAR ME!" Trip yells. His Emmy is even further away than T'Pol's.
Sick bay. Our favorite alien doctor marvels at Ensign Junk Food's skin and how it heals so resiliently. Captain Quantum, who doesn't seem to share the same skin fixation, asks if he can speak to Junk Food. Dr. Phlox says yes, but that Junk Food won't make much sense. Especially right before dinner. The Doc asks Cpt. Quantum if he's ever heard of tropolisine. Cpt. Quantum says, "I think I dated his sister at the academy." But, no. It's actually a psychotropic compound with hallucinogenic effects. No wonder folks are so determined to get into the space program. Phlox says their sensor might not have picked it up because it was in a flower. Reed is in the scene, it turns out, and he stands there with his prissy little arms over his prissy little chest. "Perhaps it wasn't there until that damn wind started," Reed says, and Cpt. Quantum signals to him that he's got a little prissy on his shoulder and he should brush it off. Phlox says Ensign Junk Food should be okay in three or four hours. "Will this tropo --" Quantum begins, but of course he can't pronounce the word. Phlox corrects him. "Will it affect T'Pol as well?" Quantum asks. Phlox says maybe more, maybe less. Ooh, I'm thinking wild Vulcan woman!
Quantum doesn't look as intrigued as I do, but he calls T'Pol anyway on the sick bay wall phone. He tells her they've got Ensign Junk Food. "And I have a phase pistol pointed at my head," she answers. "What?" Quantum says. This is his week to be dim. Trip starts to explain his delicious conspiracy theory, but Quantum, who is speaking into what looks like an apartment front-door buzzer, doesn't know what to make of this turn of events. Quantum explains that they've all been exposed to some really good shit, but that they don't have time to enjoy it. He explains that it comes from a flower. Like honeysuckle. Trip's not buying it. Quantum tells Trip to get as far into the cave as possible to get away from the fungus (or whatever it is) among us. Trip still isn't biting. Quantum reminds Trip that he went through this kind of scenario in Starfleet training. But, just like trigonometry, he didn't think he'd even need that knowledge. Quantum says he'll get the crew when the winds let up. "Put your weapon down, Trip. That's an order." Trip puts it down, reluctantly. T'Pol confirms that the phase pistol has been put away. She admits that she's been affected, but only slightly. Quantum signs off with T'Pol and sends Reed to get a weather report. Reed rushes out in a trail of prissy urgency.
Back on the planet. Random shot of outside weather. In the cave, Trip tries to rouse Mayweather from sleep. We get a shot from Mayweather's point of view of Trip looking all elongated and, well, Trippy. It's like Oliver Stone is directing the episode now. Trip says they have stay up in case the rock people come back. Mayweather is breathing deep, freaking out. He's useless. No help there. Instead of standing guard, Trip starts to lay into T'Pol again, saying that she's sneaky and shadowy, just like the mysterious Rock People. T'Pol hisses out, "Par shinsarat," which means "I'm dating Edward Furlong" in Vulcan. Trip says he doesn't think what she's saying is very nice. It wasn't. Trip starts talking to the walls again, saying that the walls can't trust T'Pol because she'll stab them in the back first chance she gets. What back is he talking about? Trip then starts reasoning with the walls. When that doesn't work, he shoots again, blasting just past T'Pol, who doesn't even flinch. Trip then does see something in the wall and begins talking to it. T'Pol gets up and starts sneaking around. She grabs a phase pistol and points it Trip. Mexican standoff time! She says, silkily, "Mura Fisarh," which means "I am the breakout star of the show. You are my bitch." That, or it's Vulcan for "Mena Suvari." Trip has no smart-ass response for that.
On the Enterprise, Reed has got the Doppler radar going and explains that the weather is still too frightful to send a rescue vessel. It looks like one of those old countertop Pac-Man games they had at Pizza Hut. Reed says it'll be about nine hours before they can get through. Phlox calls Quantum on the wall phone and, in a deep voice totally unlike what he sounds like in person, asks the Captain to come to sick bay immediately. Quantum does a little look 'n' lean and then takes off in a hurry.
In sick bay, poor Phlox is sad for once. Turns out Ensign Junk Food is about to shuffle off this mortal coil. Phlox looks like he's about to cry. A stray neutron, it seems, broke down in Junk Food's bloodstream and released a toxin. Hey, Phlox, cheer up. He would have died of heart disease in a few months anyway. Phlox says he tried to inject Junk food with something, but "I fear it might be too late." This is the worst part of being a doctor. All of them say so. Phlox starts second guessing himself, saying what he should have done. "I can't tell you how sorry I am, Captain," he says, unable to look Quantum in the eye. Cpt. Quantum asks about the others. Before Phlox can get an answer out, Quantum is yelling that he wants to know if they're going to be dead when he arrives. Phlox looks like Daddy just hit him. Quantum walks out. It's okay, Phlox. Don't cry out loud. Just keep it inside. And learn how to hide your feelings.
Iron Monkey. Worst name for a movie I actually wouldn't mind seeing.
Back in the cave, the standoff continues. Trip is yelling at Mayweather to stay awake. Mayweather tries. Ensign Scrunchieface can't even stay upright. T'Pol answers her communicator. The Captain asks what's up. T'Pol gives a curt status report. "He's irrational, sir," she says. Quantum tells them about Ensign Junk Food's complete lack of health. The Captain says he plans to beam down some inoculations so they can heal themselves as soon as possible. "Takin' an injection iddn't gonna change a damn thing!" Trip yells. T'Pol and Hoshi exchange some words in Vulcan. Mostly gossip. Oh, and that Trip's going to kill T'Pol. Hoshi relays this to the Captain, and I'm amazed she doesn't go into hysterics over the news, given her behavior in the last two episodes. "One more word of that gibberish and I'm gonna split you in two!" Trip yells at T'Pol. Vertical or horizontal halves? Captain Quantum tries to use reason, explaining that T'Pol is reverting to her language because of the spore. Trip goes delusional again, saying that he wants to save the Enterprise. Quantum then goes into a long, boring, drawn-out story about how Trip's EV pack once froze up on Titan. And how Trip had to trust Quantum when Trip tried to take off his helmet and was delirious. "I'm asking you to trust me now," Quantum says. "Then we'll deal with these…rock people." He even says it with a straight face. Trip doesn't buy it. He goes crazy again. Captain Quantum takes another tack. He begins lying. He tells Trip he's going to tell him the real story of what's going on.
Quantum gives Phlox and Reed some orders, and they fiddle around with the transporter. Ooh, a secret plan!
On the bridge, Quantum begins to tell a big fat lie. He talks about a top-secret mission, a "silicon-based life form," and other total bunk. It's all just a story to get Trip to calm down. Trip asks why they didn't know about this before. "The mission is classified top secret, I don't ask why," Quantum says. Liar, liar! Hoshi contributes a suggestion to the lie, and Quantum tells Trip that the rock people wanted to meet with T'Pol and are now threatening to destroy Enterprise. Blah blah blah conspiracy-cakes. Dramatic music swells for no good reason. Quantum says Hoshi's going to repeat the whole story in Vulcan to T'Pol. Hoshi starts talking Vulcan. T'Pol acknowledges it. She's very sweaty. Hoshi repeats what T'Pol says: That playacting isn't a Vulcan tradition, but that she'll do her best.
T'Pol starts spreading out her arms and talking in Vulcan to the walls as an equally sweaty Trip looks on, nervously. T'Pol speaks into her communicator. "I hope she knows the difference between stun and kill," Quantum says grimly. He orders Trip to lower his weapon and act friendly. As soon as Trip does, POW! T'Pol shoots him, but good. He falls. Yay! The end is in sight! T'Pol picks up the transported medical supplies and inoculates them all with the neck gun. She pokes herself last and leans against the cavern wall. She's spent.
day. Gorgeous weather outside. In the cave, Trip gets up and takes a canteen of water from T'Pol. "You didn't shoot me last night, did you?" he asks T'Pol. Just another morning-after in the William S. Burroughs home. "I'm afraid I did," T'Pol says, but in a weird, sexy tone, like, "Want me to do it again?" Mayweather says he was hoping it was all a bad dream. I wish he were a bad dream. "Are they gone?" Trip asks, of the rock creatures. "They were never here," T'Pol says. "What?" Scrunchieface asks. T'Pol explains, for those that didn't catch the simplistic plot, that she was playing along with the yelling at creatures and whatnot on the Captain's suggestion. She explains it for so long that I nearly nap. She ends with restating Trip's threat of splitting her in two. Again, it's very inappropriately seductive-sounding. Trip, who looks hungover, compliments her performance. Then he tries to apologize. "You were under the influence of the pollen. We all were," T'Pol says. Oldest morning-after excuse in the book. "Challenge your preconceptions or they will challenge you," Trip tells her, repeating what a Vulcan professor, Mr. Velik, once told him in school. Trip explains that he'd never seen a Vulcan before and the guy scared him. "Perhaps it's not too late to follow his advice," T'Pol says.
Mayweather whines that he twisted his neck. He asks about Ensign Junk Food. T'Pol tells him the Captain told her that Junk Food will be fine. Well, don't that just beat all? I get the feeling we're not going to see any traditional ensign deaths on this show for a long time. The sound of the shuttle pod approaching gets the crew up. At the mouth of the cave, Ensign Scrunchieface scrunches her face against the morning sun. The shuttle flies by. Outside, over triumphant music (they triumphed over what now?), the four of them walk toward the landed shuttle. I dry heave a little.
week, Trip lets his wild loins free on some poor alien babe and then he gets pregnant! Make sure to rent The Rabbit Test before week so you can anticipate the hilarity!