Episode Report Card Keckler: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Cap'n Don't Preach
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.16.2001
Back on Enterprise, T'Pol asks Trip if the injector cells and the primary coil are aligned. "Aligned and locked," Trip confirms, adding, "You're not going to believe this -- they've got grass growing on the floor. Real grass." What is it about this series and drugs? Trip asks T'Pol if Vulcan grass is green, but T'Pol ignores him and asks, "Have you tested the ion matrix, Commander?" as Cpt. Quantum steps onto the bridge. Trip goes on, "The grass releases some kind of vapor, helps them metabolize their food." Just like cats. Except cats are a little messier with the metabolizing bit. "Smells just like a freshly mowed lawn," Trip babbles. "The ion matrix, Commander," T'Pol reminds him. Trip and another silver-suited-Nivea-needing alien technobabble a bit, and Trip tells Enterprise that it won't be long before their plasma coils come back online. "Sounds like Trip's feeling better," Cpt. Quantum says. "Before you know it, he'll have that engine room running like a well-oiled machine," Mayweather says. And before you know it, your entire screen time will consist solely of hackneyed speeches. Trip tells Cpt. Quantum that they'll be able to bring the aliens' warp reactor online in a few hours. "Just think, yesterday you would've done anything to get out of there," Cpt. Quantum tells him, banally. Trip signs off and grins at his Femalien, who tells them since they've got a few hours to kill, there's something she wants him to see. Yeah, in her bed.
She leads him to a sparkly psychedelic room with veins running through the silver walls like butterfly wings, and I start looking around for Deney Terrio. Femalien pulls a remote control from the wall and says, "Watch this." The Dance Fever walls disappear, and they're standing on the landscape of some planet. "That's Thera," she explains. "It's where I come from." Trip comments that the depth perception is boffo and asks, "What is it? A 3-D simulator of some kind?" Femalien tells him that it's holographic. Trip says it's nothing like any hologram he's seen. Anyone remember Jem and the Holograms? They were truly outrageous. Femalien reaches down, scoops up some sand, and drizzles it in his hand. "Seems real, doesn't it?" she asks. "How do you -- ?" Trip's speechless. "Resequenced photons," Femalien tells him. They start to walk, and Trip marvels that the perspective is changing. "We could walk all the way to the city and you'd never know we're still in this room," Femalien tells him, and clicks the remote again. Their surroundings change, and Trip nearly loses his balance as he finds the two of them standing up in a boat in the middle of a body of water. Never stand in a boat. Femalien steadies Trip and tells him to sit down. They sit. "We're still in the same room and this isn't a boat," Trip states. "It's a boat," Femalien tells him, "it's just resequenced --" "Resequenced photons," Trip finishes. "Exactly," Femalien says. "If we had one of these on Enterprise, I'd never ask for shore leave," Trip marvels, looking around him. "You don't have any dermal plating," Femalien says, apropos of nothing, "how do you interpret other people's moods?" Trip answers, "We don't -- well, actually we do, but we do it by observing behavior. Getting to know someone." Femalien comments that Trip's follicles have grown. Ew, really? Oh, she means his beard. "Do they serve a purpose?" she asks. They make him sassy. Trip tells her not to his very limited knowledge, and that normally he'd shave them off with a razor but he hasn't gotten around to it yet. "Do you mind?" Femalien asks. Of course he doesn't, the cheeky monkey, so she reaches out a scaly hand and brushes it along his face, creating those anvilly sparks yet again. "Does that hurt?" she asks, her face suddenly very close to his. "Not in the least," Trip grins, signaling the band to strike up the bamp-chicka-bamp-bamp music. Femalien reaches for the remote again and holographs up a few condoms. But the resequencing photons don't understand her request and give her a dish full of white granules instead. "More water?" Trip asks. "No," Femalien tells him, "this is a game we play." It's Alien Spin The Bottle. Femalien sticks one hand into the granules, which start to glow violet at her touch. She invites Trip to stick his hand in as well. He tentatively sticks his fingers partway in, then goes All The Way. More violet glowing, and Trip looks at her in wonderment. Femalien sticks her other hand in. "Are there any rules to this game?" Trip asks. Yes, whoever has the first orgasm wins. "It takes four hands to work," Femalien tells him, so Trip sticks his other hand in. More purple glow. "Your favorite food is catfish," Femalien tells him. "How the hell didja know that?" Trip asks. Uh, your accent? Femalien asks him, "What's mine?" "Your what? Your favorite food?" Trip asks. You'd think she'd know that herself. "Yes," Femalien says, "Concentrate. What's my favorite food?" Trip concentrates for a bit, then says, "Dutara root! How'd I know that?" Delighted, Femalien says she didn't know if the granules would work with his species. She looks up at him. "Captain Archer saved your life once. About four years ago," she tells Trip, who says, "This is one helluva game." It's like a Vulcan mind-meld, but without all the face gripping and pain. "You find me…attractive," Trip says, grinning. Guess the granules aren't working for me. "You like having people find you attractive," Femalien tells him. "Sometimes," Ego Trip says, grinning wider. And when, exactly, would be a time he doesn't like people to find him attractive? A voice comes through their foreplay and tells them the warp coils are back online. "Understood," Femalien calls back, and they reluctantly take their hands out of the granules. Femalien stands up and takes the remote out again. "You'd better stand up," she tells Trip. The water scene and boat vanish, and they're back in the Dance Fever room again.
Mayweather helps Trip onto the shuttlecraft. "Decompression any easier coming back?" Mayweather asks. "Three hours is three hours," Trip tells him. "You can't imagine what it was like over there, Travis. Food growin' on the walls, teraphasic warp coils, boxes full of pebbles that make you telepathic." "What were the Xyrillians like?" Mayweather asks. Because what he's really after is the breast-to-alien ratio. Trip tells him that the Xyrillians are shorter, with scales on their faces, "but otherwise, pretty much like you and me. It sure was something. Reminded me why I signed on, but it is good to be home." Back aboard Enterprise, Trena'l tells Cpt. Quantum that he hopes their mission hasn't been delayed too much. "Getting to meet other species is our mission," Cpt. Quantum tells him. And if you can get a few crewmembers high or impregnated along the way, well, that's just an added benefit. Trip steps on the bridge and notes that the visual's working again. Trena'l tells Trip that he appreciates his help all the more since he knows how difficult it must've been adapting to their environment. "Well, it was worth every minute," Trip says feelingly, which gets a quizzical look from Cpt. Quantum. Guess they'll be discussing that in the locker room. Trip tells the Xyrillians that as long as their coils stay charged, they should have no problem with their warp field. He then turns his attention to Femalien and thanks her for looking after him when he wasn't feeling so good. "It was worth every minute," Femalien tells him, which leads the whole bridge to wonder if Trip got his coil charged. "Nice work, Commander," Cpt. Quantum says. "I appreciate the opportunity, Cap'n," Trip says. Are we still talking about the Xyrillian engines? Just checking. T'Prim and Proper says, "I, for one, won't miss the malfunctions their proximity was causing." You don't miss anything -- for the last time, YOU'RE A VULCAN! Ech, I need a case of Post Road Pumpkin Ale.