In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close. Actually, all in all, it really wasn't that bad. The whole cast got used, which was good for most -- bad for Mayweather's bicuspids, as scenery mastication was evident -- Quantum and Trip got their mouths sealed shut for a blissful twenty-five minutes, and a newish take on linguistical translation was utilized. However, there was still some clunky metaphorizing going on, what with Quantum's "rah, team, rah!" allegory and T'Pol's "go to the head of the class, my talented acolyte" with Hoshi -- all of which could have been etched with the Subtle Sepia crayon rather than the Anvil Aquamarine one. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
So, there I was, watching a rerun of Buffy on FX last week, when lo and behold, there was our Malcolm! He got sired by Jeff "And I know you'll miss the way they serve Bacardi" Kober, who was already completely vamped out. It was one of the more awesome episodes -- one I hadn't seen before -- where Buffy tricked Mr. Bacardi into taking his Zoloft with holy water and he sizzled to dustitude from the inside out. Wicked. Anyway, it was funny to see Malcolm as a vampire alongside the guy who guest-starred in "Shadows of P'Jem." And that's just my first digression of the night as I attempt to escape from the phlegm tendrils of this episode.
Enterprise flits through space with a large Sonic Care toothbrush docked on its side. Oh, my mistake, it's supposed to be a ship. Quantum's log-rolling tells us that they're meeting with some aliens called the Kreetassans, and it's not going smoothly. Imagine that. Three Kreetassans, who look a bit like Nausicaans and a smidge like Cardassians, storm down the corridor, yelling in alienese. Hoshi's having a hard time translating, but what she can figure out is the word "insult." T'Pol wants to know whether they're being insulted, or if it's the Kreetassans that feel they've been insulted. Hoshi doesn't know, and tries to find out what they could've done wrong. All she can translate from their response is, "You eat like you mate." Trip wants to know if her UT is working right. I want to know if his head is working right. Can't he take a lesson from "Broken Bow," when they thought the UT wasn't working because she translated the Klingon's ire as manifesting in colorful metaphors like "eating the afterlife" and "your wife's grown ugly"? I mean, what about our "you are what you eat" expression? Isn't that a bit odd as well? Try to expand your mind just a teensy bit to realize that other cultures, races, or aliens do have other ways of expressing themselves that are not necessarily in line with human, English-speaking conventions. Keckler, her face black, her eyes red! Trip, his head empty, his sense unfurled. Standing at the door to the airlock, it becomes apparent to everyone, even Trip, that the Kreetassans want to leave. Quantum stiffly apologizes for whatever they did to offend them, and reluctantly lets them go. "Well, this is wun fer the books: briefest first contact," Trip says as the airlock door slides shut behind the Kreetassans. I think you're forgetting about the Praying Mantis aliens, brainless.
Outside, the Kreetassan Sonic Care ship slides away, and a webby, translucent, amoeba-like thing slips aboard Enterprise just as the second airlock door closes.
Did you know you can't hear the song if you bang your head against the wall really hard? Bonus side effect: You can scare away all the spiders in your house that way, too.
Bridge. Hoshi sulks over her linguistic failure, but brightens up when she thinks she hears something. May-Wah-Wah thinks it's static, but Hoshi tells him it's "frequency distortions" blended in with the static and coming from the comm system. T'Pol asks if she's run a diagnostic. "Twice," Hoshi says. "I guess it's just not my day." This prompts May-Wound-Salt to ask how her translation is coming along. Hoshi tells him "slowly," and informs everyone who cares that the slightest inflection on a syllable can change a word from "eat" to "mate." Mayweather says he can understand how that might be a tricky thing at the dinner table. Hoshi shakes her head at herself and says, "Context is critical in every language, but Kreetassan has the most subtle variations I've ever seen. The same word can have a dozen different meanings." T'Pol tells Hoshi it's her job to learn all the meanings, and Hoshi takes this as a personal attack, asking the Vulcan if she's saying that the Kreetassan debacle was her fault. T'Pol tells her she didn't say that, but Hoshi tells her it was "implied." "I simply noted that linguistic matters fall within your responsibility," T'Pol states blandly. "For all we know," she continues, "It could have been Mr. Tucker's table manners that offended them." Oh, shout-out! How many times have I ranted about how Trip talks with his mouth full? Hoshi continues to look for implied criticism, and T'Pol tells her to simmer down. "Learn from failure, it could help your first contact be more successful," she tells the pouty communications officer. Trip steps on the bridge, and Hoshi tells him about the scrabbling in the walls she's hearing. Trip leans over and asks if it's a problem. "Mostly just irritating," Hoshi says. Like you, Trip. Trip says he'll "track it down" later, and asks T'Pol if "he's in there." T'Pol says, "Yes." We can assume they're talking about Quantum, since Trip asks, "How's his mood?" "Now might not be the best time," T'Pol says. Trip says he'll take his chances and rings Quantum's bell.
"It better be important," Quantum thunders. Man, everyone's so sulky tonight! Is he still sore about the botched tea party with the Kreetassans? Trip walks in and tells him there's prime rib on the menu with "real horseradish." So, the beef's not real, but the horseradish is? Quantum decides to cop the attitude of some well-born English lady who's having a fit of pique and decides to take all of her meals on a tray instead of mingling with her weekend country houseguests. He tells Trip he'll have his fake beef and real horseradish sent to his quarters, and continues staring at his laptop screen. He points out a "brown dwarf" system that looks interesting. Trip says he can hardly wait, and asks the captain to "shoot a little nine-ball." Trip gets no joy from Quantum, so he brings in the big guns, reaching into his pocket and saying, "I wuz gonna save this for a rainy day, but…" He pulls out a clear, plastic square. "Stanford versus Texas," Trip says. Quantum boggles at the plastic square. "The finals?" he asks. "Fresh outta the subspace mailbag," Trip confirms. "Yew've been threatenin' to teach me the finer points of the game." He flips the disk to Quantum, who catches it. "Unless yer too busy with your brown dwarves," Trip teases. Heh. Image of brown garden gnomes, smegging around space. Quantum finally smiles and moves to switch off his computer. I guess we've established that Quantum went to Stanford. Depressing to hear the university's admissions standards have relaxed so much in the twenty-second century.
Meanwhile, in the Captain's quarters, Porthos is lying on his bed, devising a way to stage a teen rebellion to get his father's attention. His cute ears hear something scuffling in the ducts above him, so he jumps on the bed and barks. Clever puppy. Up in the vents, the phlegmy web thing creeps along squishily. Wow, that's almost e.e. cummings.
Mess Hall. Reed, Mayweather, and Hoshi eat together. They try to figure out what went wrong with the Kreetassans. Mayweather suggests that they didn't like being touched, because they looked weird when Quantum shook their hands. Reed negates that theory, saying the aliens looked that way the whole time and really didn't go ballistic until they arrived in the Mess Hall. Hoshi doesn't say anything, so Mayweather changes the subject by asking Reed if he's going to watch the movie that night. Reed asks what's playing, and Mayweather tells him, "Wages of Fear -- classic French film." Oh, subtle Enterprise and their bald-faced references to movies. Reed mulls this over and starts to shake his head. "No, you'll like it," Mayweather promises. "Things blow up!" Hee hee. Reed brightens at this and tries to tempt Hoshi with French subtitles, but she bags out, saying she's had enough tongue problems for the day, and leaves. Presumably to mimic Porthos by moping about her quarters. In the corridor, Hoshi hears a noise and presses her ear against the bulkhead. A view inside shows the Globlin squidging along. Hoshi shakes off her suspicions and retires.
Engineering. Two random Red Stripes -- because they're really not Red Shirts now that everyone's in blue with a thin stripe of color to denote their rank or department -- flirt about going to the movie together. Standing at Trip's usual position at the warp engine, Red Stripe Gal says she has to stay and finish work first, but Red Stripe Guy is antsy to get good seats and not miss the beginning. Red Stripe Gal reminds him the movie's stored in the computer and he can watch it whenever he wants. "It's not the same. I don't want to go back and watch the first part after you know how it ends," Red Stripe Guy whines. Something beeps, and Red Stripe Gal says the power has gone out on D-Deck, Cargo Bay Two. She looks at the computer and tells Red Stripe Boy that the lighting grid is down. "It's probably just a blown relay, leave it for the night shift," Red Stripe Guy says. "If it's just a blown relay, it will take you ten minutes to fix," Red Stripe Gal says, tossing him a flashlight. Then she tosses him a communicator, saying, "Here, the comm's out, too," and grins at him. Oh, and Red Stripe -- isn't that a Jamaican lager? Mmm, lager.
Movie theatre. Reed gripes about the movie being two and a half hours. Mayweather corrects him by saying it's actually two hours and twenty-four minutes. "That seems awfully long for a movie about four men in a truck," Reed comments Britishly. Mayweather promises he'll be on the edge of his seat the entire time. Like I am. Every week. "You promised me explosions," Reed reminds him. Okay, just by virtue of TPTB feeling the need to get more water out of that sponge, the horse is not just dead; the flies have left for dessert and coffee elsewhere. The lights go out, and Reed grabs a handful of popcorn from Mayweather's lap. The screen fuzzes for a while. Mayweather gives Reed an annoyed look. The screen clears a bit to show Phlox in Sick Bay, then switches to a view of the bridge. Pointing out the obvious, Reed says, "This is all wrong," and authoritatively gets up. He comms the bridge: "We're trying to watch a movie down here but instead we're being treated to a view of you. So unless you're planning on giving us a little song and dance, maybe you could see what's gone wrong."
Captain's Private Dining Room. Quantum and Trip watch a water polo game…match…thing. Quantum explains the "finer points of the game" to Trip as they eat beer and pretzels. All that's missing is some belching and a sport where you don't wear those weird leotards. "Think of it as one part basketball, one part swimming, and one part wrasslin'!" Quantum tells Trip, as two players try to strangle each other. "Huh, and I thought it was jest a bunch of guys screwing around in a pool," Trip says. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I…agree with Trip! I think I better get a glass of Pimm's to make sure Hell's not experiencing an early frost.
Red Stripe Guy goes into Cargo Hold Two, discovers that the bulkhead has a runny nose, and tries to comm Red Stripe Gal just as something phlegms around his leg. Red Stripe Gal gets the comm but hears nothing. "Michael, is that you?" she says playfully. Radio silence. "Hello?" she asks.
More scenes of men screwing around in the water. Trip shows an affinity for the game as Quantum does some embarrassingly dorkish celebration twists when a goal is scored. "I told you, best sport in the world!" Quantum announces. Trip says he'd still take "a great off-tackle run out of the backfield," but he can see how this might be exciting too. Trip, Trip, Trip, to have come so far and yet…sigh. They clink glasses, and Quantum thanks his little buddy for "thinking of it." Trip don't-mention-its and tells Quantum to sit back and watch "while Texas trounces your sorry California butts." Quantum pauses, mid-swig, and asks Trip, "You haven't watched the end of this, have you?" Trip says, "Of course not!" but Quantum looks unconvinced. Isn't Trip from Florida? Why does he care about Texas? Just because they're southern doesn't mean he has to find affinity with them.
Cargo Hold Two. Red Shirt Gal waves a flashlight around and calls out, "Hello?"
Trip and Quantum argue about a foul call, and Quantum wonders how practical it would be to put a pool on the ship. Just who would you play against, Quantum? You'd be in there bouncing your ball and treading water alone. Trip says he wouldn't want to be taking a swim when the "gravity plating went off-line." Quantum thinks about that for a bit and says, "No!" and they laugh companionably. Yeah, and judging by Quantum's gratuitous shower scene in "Unexpected," the only thing that would transpire is lots of bubbles. Scary. Someone frantically comms in: "Kelly to the Captain!" Quantum tells her to go ahead, and Kelly (the crewman formerly known as Red Stripe Gal) tells him that there's some sort of life-form in the cargo hold. "Life-form?" Quantum repeats. Kelly explains that the life-form snagged Rostov: "He's still conscious, but he can't --" There's some squealchy noises and then radio silence. Quantum and Trip rush out.
Trip and Quantum rush to meet Reed and a random security guy at the cargo hold in question. Quantum orders them all to set their pistols on "stun," and Reed goes in first. The four of them creep around in the dark for awhile, until Trip finds what they're looking for. The other three join him in looking in horror at the Globlin, and we get a view of an unconscious Crewman Kelly wrapped in the Globlin's slimy embrace. Note that her head is conveniently non-slimed. As they watch, the slime tightens around her. "The light!" Quantum says, and Trip immediately lowers his flashlight. The slime hug relaxes around Kelly. Reed pulls out a tri-corder and determines that Kelly is alive. Well, considering that she groaned a bit when the Globlin slime-hugged her, I came to that conclusion as well. Without a tri-corder. Rostov weakly calls out to them and tells them to leave. His head is also conveniently non-slimed. The other four start to back away from the Globlin, but Quantum is finally grabbed around the ankle and dragged across the floor by a few really fake-looking CGI tentacles. Trip catches Quantum's wrists and is dragged along as well. Reed and Random Security Guy fire at one of the tentacles. The Globlin emits a high-pitched shriek and jerks the wounded tentacle away, but the other two tentacles jerk Quantum through the air. A few tentacles wrap themselves around Trip's chest and tug him backward. Trip fights to maintain his ground, but loses. Four slimed, two to go. What a mucus web we weave when first we practice to be dumb. Trip yells at Reed and Random Security Guy to get out of there. RSG looks down to see a tentacle snaking its way toward his foot. He turns and starts to clamber up a ladder, but the tentacle follows him and tugs. There's a classic Jaws moment when we see RSG's face as he grips the ladder handrails, before he's jerked down and out of sight, arms flailing. Reed looks around, terrified, and sees several tentacles meandering in his direction. He half-turns and stumble-falls backwards out of the cargo hold, slamming the door on a few stray tentacles and snapping a piece of one off before he manages to get the door securely closed. Reed backs down the corridor, phaser pointed at the sliming, wriggling Globlin segment.
Situation Room. Reed stands in front of a infrared view of the cargo hold, which shows the Globlin webbed against one corner of the hold, and announces that "this thing appears to be growing. There's no telling if it will get out of the cargo bay." Kelly identified it as a "cargo hold" and now Reed's calling it a "cargo bay." Isn't there a difference between "bay" and "hold"? Reed suggests that they evacuate the entire deck. Hoshi wonders how the Globlin got aboard, and Maywhodunit points out that the last time the airlock was open was when they were docked with the Kreetassans. "You think they left us a little souvenir," Reed states. T'Pol says that, although their meeting with the aliens didn't go swimmingly, they didn't give the Kreetassans any reason to attack them. Maybe they were more disgusted by Trip's foot odor than the crew realized. T'Pol goes on to say that they can't even be certain the Globlin has hostile intentions. "You didn't see that thing go after the Captain! It seemed hostile enough to me!" Reed blusters. Maywheeze suggests scanning for the Kreetassan's warp trail, since they might know something about the Globlin. T'Pol agrees, and tells Hoshi they'll need to be better at chewing the fat with them than they were the last time. Hoshi tightly tells T'Pol, "I'll do my best."
T'Pol comms Phlox to ask what he's up to. Phlox tells her he's "preparing to examine the specimen," and asks if they'd care to observe. Heh heh, "specimen." Never mind. Bathroom-humor Keckler family joke. T'Pol puts an overhead view of Phlox and his slimy segment on the Situation Room wall computer. I'm glad to note that Phlox is suitably attired in a full environmental suit for this procedure. Phlox points out that, although severed from the Globlin mass, the segment survives independently. Huh. Much like the earthworm, as taught by dissection classes everywhere. "Not unlike the common earthworm or the Neethian cradlefish," the good doctor says. From my mouth to Phlox's Denobulan ears. Incidentally, not only is Phlox's name reminiscent of horticulture, but his race is as well, when you think of Dendrobian orchids. I've been reading a little Nero Wolfe lately. And watching a lot of it on A&E. Phlox starts to apply some pincers to the segment, and Reed asks if it's wise to do that. Phlox says, "Possibly not, but I'm going to need a tissue sample if I hope to learn more about its physiology." The Globlin segment reaches up and puts its end on Phlox's forearm. Aw, that's kind of cute. Poppadum does the same thing with her paw when I'm typing and she's tired of not being admired. Phlox removes the inquiring segment with a "That'll be quite enough!" Awww, even cuter! Phlox scans the segment with a blue-light thing and says, a trifle ominously, "This is no earthworm." Without waiting for the "dun-dun-DUN!" music, Phlox explains that the synaptic activity, which the rest of the crew can see on the side of their computer screen, proves that the creature has a very sophisticated nervous system and might be capable of higher mental facilities. Hoshi suggests they might be able to communicate with it, saying, "The frequency distortions? They look a lot like the phonetic patterns in certain Andorian dialects." Excuse me? I'm not a linguist or anything, but how do synaptic readings bear any similarity to a spoken language?
Reed gets impatient and tells her they're not dealing with nouns and verbs, so it could take Hoshi days to learn the Globlin's language. Hoshi asks him what other choice they have and turns to T'Pol to say, "Give me a chance." T'Pol says, "I'm sorry, Ensign, there isn't enough time." Before Hoshi can protest further, T'Pol turns to Reed and says they need to neutralize the Globlin. "You said phase pistols had no effect," T'Pol says. "None that I could tell," Reed confirms. Well, in that case, it seems as though my twenty-twenty vision is failing, because it certainly looked to me as if the tentacles reacted to the phaser blasts. Phlox interrupts them saying that the Globlin exhibits signs of being photosensitive: "A sustained burst of EM radiation might be enough to stun the creature." T'Pol turns to Reed and tells him to assemble a few EM emitters. Now, couldn't Hoshi be working on the Globlin's language in the meantime, since they've not given her anything else to do?
Cargo Bay -- or "Hold," depending on your rank, apparently -- where Trip and Quantum groan and gasp from their snot cocoons. Trip wants to know why the Globlin doesn't finish them off. "Take it easy," Quantum counsels, "I'm sure T'Pol and Malcolm are doing everything they can to get us out of here." Quantum asks if either them can see Crewman Kelly. Rostov confirms that she still appears to be breathing. Trip cranes around and tells Quantum, "Zabel's still unconscious." Rostov has something preying on his mind, and Quantum urges him to unburden himself. "I imagine in a situation like this they'd cancel the movie," Rostov says. No, actually, they're still watching it, and every time you enter a room, they're going to snigger behind their hands at you because you missed it. "I imagine so," Quantum smiles. Rostov says, "I really wanted to see it." And this is where we see that the Globlin first starts to affect their brains because Rostov cops an 'Allo, 'Allo French accent and says, "Yves Montand, driving exploseeves through the montons." Quantum says that he'll order them to reschedule it for the following week. After this trip down memory lane with amniotic fluid, he has to wait a whole week to see it? Sad. Through the ooze, we see Reed enter cautiously with two other Random Security Guys. At Reed's nod, they all fire their EM emitters at the Globlin, which shrieks. In the Situation Room, Phlox looks at some readings and reports that it's working. However, in the cargo hold, Trip, Rostov, and Quantum start to scream in pain. Reed comms the bridge that something's wrong. T'Pol looks at Phlox, who looks at some more readings and then orders Reed (twice) to shut off the emitters. Reed and the security detail stop emitting and Quantum, Rostov, and Trip stop writhing and wailing. In the situation room, T'Pol asks Phlox what happened; Phlox reports that the humans' nervous systems are now fused with the Globlin's. "They're sharing autonomic functions, neural impulses, if we continue firing we could end up killing our own people," Phlox says. T'Pol orders Reed to withdraw his security detail. Over a warm table of electronic data and graphics, Phlox explains that the rate of symbiosis is increasing, and very soon the humans will become one with the Globlin and Phlox will be unable to separate them. T'Pol turns to Hoshi: "You wanted a chance to communicate? I suggest you begin." Hoshi looks nervous. Maybe she needs to practice her Zen Vulcan Downward Dog pose before she gets started.
Sick Bay. T'Pol, in a weirdly whisky-ish voice, asks Phlox how much time the cocooned crew has; Phlox reports they have only a few hours as their metabolic rates are dropping dangerously. Reed delivers the quintessential line of all dramas when he says, "There must be some way to cut them out of there." Why "must" there always be "some way"? Sometimes you just gotta shrug it off and deal with the fact that, every once in awhile, bad things happen to good people. Like famine, earthquakes, or the return of the peasant look and spiral perms. ["Spiral perms are back? Crap. Well, thanks for the warning, anyway." -- Sars] Phlox says, "I'm not sure if you appreciate how alien this creature is -- it's not attacking our crewmen, it's trying to integrate them into itself." "Resistance is futile. You will be assliminated," Mathra drones, jerking his arms around and bumping into things. "Get it? A-SLIME-inated instead of assimilated?" Yeah, we get it, honey; now go lie down before you hurt yourself. Reed whines that the end result is the same, and Phlox says, "At some point there won't be six life forms in that cargo bay, there will be only one." "There can be only one!" Mathra MacLeod hisses, creeping around the doorframe to poke at an invisible Immortal with our broom. God, I hate thesis-writing time.
Corridor. Reed points out the blooming obvious when he says, "If that thing continues to grow we're going to have to find a way to contain it." T'Pol welcomes any suggestions he might have. "Starfleet's been working on creating a stable EM barrier for the last five years," Reed explains. "A force-field?" T'Pol asks. "Right," Reed goes on, "They just haven't found a way to control the particle density. All the specs are in the database. I've been trying to jerry-rig a prototype of my own." "And?" T'Pol prompts him. Reed says that he's perfected it enough to absorb a phaser blast sixty percent of the time, but the thinks he can improve on that. T'Pol tells him to hop to it.
Bridge. May-Willie-Winkie tells T'Pol he thinks he located the Kreetassans. T'Pol dances around the bridge in a fit of Vulcan glee. Okay, she probably doesn't, but all this lack of actual action is making me a bit delusional. As is that mickey I slipped into my own drink when I was looking the other way. She instructs Mayweather to lay in a course for the Kreetassans, but he's two steps ahead of her -- not only has he already done that, he's started sending out hails even though they're still out of comm range. Some might say that's a waste of electricity and email, but I won't. T'Pol tells him to alert her when they return his call. Mayweather looks studious. Elsewhere on the bridge, Hoshi is grabbing at her head as she looks at frequency distortions. T'Pol asks if she's getting anywhere. "Believe me, you'd be the first to know," Hoshi gripes. Can someone remind Whiny McWhinerson here that she begged her Sub-Commander for this assignment? Hoshi apologizes for her grumpitude and admits that she's frustrated by her spectacular lack of luck. "The situation requires expertise, not luck," T'Pol tells her. "Then maybe I don't have the expertise," Hoshi says. "If you don't, no one else aboard Enterprise does," T'Pol says, a bit sharply. Hoshi tells her she's doing her best, and T'Pol reminds her it was Hoshi's own flapping gums that got her roped into this particular task, so if she doesn't think it's possible to communicate with the Globlin, they'll have to think of something else. Hoshi says, "I've made a little progress but our translation matrix isn't designed for this. Look at it -- it's more like a calculus equation than a language." "Mathematics is sometimes considered a form of language," T'Pol points out. I wait. I listen for signs of stirring from the other room at "calculus" and T'Pol's follow-up line. Shh. Nothing? Okay, good. Hoshi finally tells T'Pol that she needs help from someone with a background in higher mathematics. Well, let's see, Mathra's not doing anything other than wrestling with automorphic forms and L-functions, maybe he -- T'Pol says, "Perhaps I can assist you," and leans over the console. Damn, missed his chance!
Cargo Hold of Mucus Web. "The Texas goalie can't block to his right because he keeps his hands too deep," Trip gasps out. Quantum wants to know how Trip knows that. From below, Rostov says tearfully, "Captain, I know it too and I don't understand anything about water polo!" Heh. Quantum decides the Globlin must be linking them together "somehow." Trip gets stir-crazy, grunting, "We gotta get out," while seeming to flex and push at his bonds of snot. He's stealing Quantum's constipated act. Quantum tells Trip to calm down while the strands tighten around Rostov. "This thing's gotten inside our heads!" Trip bawls. Quantum asks urgently if Trip knows what he's thinking about. "Now's not the time to be thinking about the regionals!" Trip squeals. Quantum says, "Trip!" and shakes his head at him. Trip tries to concentrate and says, "Senior year…North American regionals against Princeton, we -- I mean you, were down by two goals…under a minute left." "And what was I thinking?" Quantum orders. Trip gasps, and Quantum repeats his question. "You thought you could win every game. You always thought you could win, no matter how far behind you were," Trip and I groan. "And we did," Quantum says, managing to sound smug through all that slime. "We went on to the finals that year. As soon as you give up, the game's lost." Trip nods and gasps and nods again at Rostov, who nods back, and then Quantum nods. They're all a bunch of nods. Mathra? Do you think you could come in here and wipe up this Anvil Snot Bomb? It's making the cats puff up.
Sick Bay. Reed joins Phlox in front of the slime segment's incubation tank and asks how old Slime's doing. Phlox reports that Slimy has entered a dormant state, probably as a result from being severed from the bigger Globlin. "But it's alive?" Reed asks. "Very much so," Phlox confirms. Reed tells Phlox he wants to use Slimy for some unethical tests, in order to see how strong his new force-field has to be to stun the Globlin in the cargo bay without killing it or the humans it is assliminating. Sir Phlox McCartney will not put up with this sort of behavior from the weapons expert, and gives him what-for. Reed doesn't understand Phlox's reason for being a card-carrying member of PETA (Phlox for the Ethical Treatment of Aliens), so Phlox explains the fine print: "This is more than just a severed limb. It exhibits all the signs of an intelligent being." "Intelligent being or not, its big brother is in the cargo bay, strangling the captain and four other crewmen. If we don't do something to contain it now, it could pose a threat to everyone on board!" Reed shouts. Phlox suggests other, more humane methods Reed could use. Reed demands to know how long they would take. "Less than an hour," Phlox tells him. "In less than an hour, that thing could spread across half a deck!" Reed stutters. "I am willing to help you, Mr. Reed, but not if it means torturing this organism. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't our mission to try to better understand unique forms of life?" Phlox says, raising his voice a shade. "Not if they're trying to kill the captain!" Reed says. Well, I guess they'll never better understand me, then. Phlox tells Reed that they don't know anything about the Globlin's intentions.
"I admire your interspecies ethics, but until Hoshi tells me she's found a way to communicate with it, I have assume its intentions are hostile!" Reed shouts, stepping in front of the incubator and calibrating something on his PDA. "Now, if you don't mind," he says. Phlox puts his hand over the incubator and says, "If you want information to help you construct your force-field, you'll acquire it under my supervision." Reed feels the need to remind Phlox that he can pull rank. "Not in my sick bay," Phlox says firmly. "Unless the Captain says otherwise." Reed shouts that Quantum is in no condition to give his opinion. "Precisely," Phlox says. Reed looks at him for a minute, then backs down: "Fine. Your rules, but we better get to it!" Yeah, think of all that time you lost arguing. And if I was them I wouldn't want to cross Dr. Phlox, ever. They really don't know enough about Denobulans yet to railroad their ethical standards with rank pips. Remember that smile in "Broken Bow"? Just imagine what else they might be capable of.
Mess Hall. The best place for studying. "What if we used a bilateral algorithm?" T'Pol asks. "Poppycock! No such thing exists!" Mathra shouts from the study. Whether they exist or not, Hoshi says she already tried it, so T'Pol asks if she compensated for frequency drift. "I wouldn't be much of a comm officer if I didn't," Hoshi snits. T'Pol says, "Allowing your emotions to control you won't help solve this problem, Ensign." "Neither will questioning everything I do," Hoshi says. Okay, I'm confused. Didn't Hoshi ask for T'Pol's help in this matter? Would it not, then, be a natural course of investigation for T'Pol to go over all of Hoshi's data in case any little thing got missed? Am I asking too many questions? Can I stop now? T'Pol picks up where I went amok and reminds Hoshi that she asked for her help. "I didn't ask for you to keep count of every time I make a mistake or to second-guess all of my decisions," Hoshi says. What is she talking about? T'Pol tells her it's her duty as a commanding officer to supervise her. Hoshi says, "This goes beyond duty, Sub-Commander, you've been looking over my shoulder ever since you came on board. Double-checking my log entries, my translations --" T'Pol interrupts her with, "It's my job." Hoshi asks if that's all they're talking about. Well, don't ask me; I thought they were talking about the Globlin language but suddenly now we've got projection going on. "You don't think I belong on Enterprise, do you?" Hoshi says. T'Pol turns to look at her: "On the contrary. It would be a great loss to Starfleet if you were not a part of this crew. If you think I've been unfair to you, I apologize. But I hold you to a high standard, Ensign, because I know you're capable of achieving it." The violas of self-realization and buck-up-little-camperness play, and Hoshi finally shuts up her self-esteem. T'Pol asks if they "shall" continue, and Hoshi agrees. She hands over her PDA and technobabbles her conclusion, but all she can see are numbers and codes. "Any code can be broken," T'Pol says. Lady, you are no Simon Singh. Can I get a show of hands -- is there anyone on this ship getting to their tasks at hand without feeling the need to get into an argument first?
Bridge and Mayweather. I'm sorry I asked. There's a breep-breep, signifying a response to Mayweather's hails. He looks around, wondering if anyone's going to answer that. Breep-Breep. Answer it, dummy! Mayweather clicks a button, and Kreetassan appears. "You hailed us?" the Kreetassan asks. "You speak English!?" Mayweather bumbles. "We studied your database. It wasn't difficult!" the Kreetassan snarks. Heh. Good thing Hoshi wasn't wasting all that valuable time trying to figure out their language. But what would they have done if the Kreetassans hadn't taken it upon themselves to learn English, and Mayweather was the only one there to answer their calls? Mayweather tells Kreetassan that they have a problem. "Yes?" Kreetassan says, with a touch of asperity. Mayweather tells him they have an alien organism on the ship, which came aboard around the same time they had that disaster of an un-birthday party, and they were hoping the Kreetassans might know something about it. Kreetassan tells Mayweather to describe the organism. "Well, it's big," Mayweather says, getting out of his chair so he can wave his arms around and dance back and forth on the bridge instead of actually acting. He goes on to say that the organism has lots of tendrils, like a big web. Kreetassan is interested by the word "tendrils," but Mayweather is too caught up in his overuse of italics to notice. "But it moves AND grows," he says. Kreetassan interrupts Mayflower's emphasizing to tell him that they have seen this organism on its home planet. "Perhaps it attached itself to our ship -- it wasn't our fault," Kreetassan states. Mayweather asks if he can tell him where the planet is. Kreetassan steps close to the screen. "Apologize," he says. Oh, here it comes -- the giggles, they're back. I got this way when I first watched this episode, because all I could think of was that scene in A Fish Called Wanda when Kevin Kline is making John Cleese apologize to him. He keeps saying "Apologize," to Cleese in the same tone of voice the Kreetassan uses. Look, it's really funny, okay? And if you don't have a clue what I'm talking about because you haven't actually seen that movie, well, then I don't want to know you anymore. Mayweather is kerflummoxed by Kreetassan's demand. "We will send you the coordinates, but first you must apologize for your offense!" Kreetassan repeats. Mayweather steps back and says, "That's the thing, we don't know what we did to offend you." I'm expecting the Kreetassan to snit, "Well, if you don't know, then I'm certainly not going to tell you!" and burst into tears, but instead he says, "On your ship, you…put…food…in your mouths!" Mayweather says, "You mean eat?" Kreetassan tells him that's what offended them. To stop this Look At The New Species And Their Hee-Hee Ways of Doing Things farce from going any painfully further, I'll explain that for Kreetassans, eating and mating are much the same thing and they do all that kind of stuff in private. Mayweather clasps his hands and delivers a drawn-out and excruciatingly heartfelt apology. The Kreetassan accepts his apology and faxes over the coordinates, while Mayweather goes to floss big chunks of scenery out of his teeth. Instead of asking for the coordinates, shouldn't Mayweather have just found out how to communicate with the Globlin, or at least how to extricate his fellow crewmen without damaging their parts? That's what comes of letting Mayweather have the run of the bridge.
Cargo Bay. Sad violin music plays as we see that Rostov is asleep. Trip calls out to Quantum, saying he "feels [him] drifting away over there." Quantum returns the sentiment and calls out to Rostov. Trip, who appears to have changed slimed positions since we last saw him -- before he was facing the ceiling, and now he's facing the ground -- tells Quantum that Rostov's out of the game, down for the count, in the penalty box. Quantum chokes and sputters. "When Zephram Cochran talked about new life and new civilization, do you think this is what he meant?" Trip asks sleepily. Quantum sputters and chokes.
Mess Hall. Hoshi shows T'Pol a breakthrough in their code-breaking slash language studies. "Just a few more and the UT can start building a syntax," she says. Phlox comms in to report that crewman Kelly's metabolic rate has dropped into a serious danger zone and suggests they put whatever plan they have into effect soon.
Armory. Reed and a random security officer painstakingly test and adjust the technobabbles of the slapped together force-field. T'Pol comms Reed that they've had a breakthrough in Communications With Boogers 101, but need the protection of his portable force-field in the cargo bay. Reed reports that he's doing his final calibrations, and T'Pol repeats Phlox's report that their slimed officers don't have very much time left.
Cargo Bay. Having had their heads free this entire episode, Trip and Quantum are finally getting the slime facials their pores are in such desperate need of. Trip calls out to Quantum but gets no response. The camera pans up the mucus trail to show all the bodies encased in the Globlin's web. Reed and Random Security Guy enter the cargo hold and slap some EM around on various bulkheads. A tendril starts to snake toward them, so Reed quickly activates the force-field in time to block it. A red pattern of static flicks up between Reed and the Globlin. Reed tells Random Security Guard to adjust something, and the pattern of static now turns blue as the Globlin tendrils test it.
Outside in the corridor, T'Pol, Hoshi, and Phlox prepare for the move. Reed comes out to tell them that the force-field is up and running, but he doesn't know how long it will hold out. They all enter the cargo hold and get an eyeful of the Globlin with its assliminated ones. Hoshi looks repulsed and looks at T'Pol, who nods to her to begin talking. Hoshi pushes a button on her UT, and a high tone emits. "That just sounds like a constant tone," Reed comments. "I'm going to create distortions in the tone, hopefully the organism will understand what I'm trying to do," Hoshi tells him. Reed looks unconvinced. A tendril comes right at Hoshi's face and bumps against the force-field. She jumps. She sends out the tone again, this time accompanied by three bops. Nothing. She repeats this. Phlox looks down at his medical PDA, which shows the status of the five humans. He pulls a face. Hoshi tries some more distorted tones. This time the creature repeats them. It sounds like what happens when you take a helium-filled balloon and stretch the opening to slowly let the air out. Also reminds me of what dolphin communications are supposed to be -- not whale songs, but dolphins, which are much higher and squeakier. Hoshi looks at the data downloading onto her UT and says, "Come on, just a little more!" Finally, she says she's "got enough to try something simple." T'Pol tells her to ask what it wants. More dolphin-song-balloon-squealing. Hoshi announces that the Globlin is talking to them, giving them coordinates. "Its home world?" Reed asks. T'Pol says, "The Kreetassans already gave them to us." Hoshi shouts above the constant squeaking to say, "These look more like the latitude and longitude -- I think it's trying to give us an exact location on the planet." T'Pol instructs her to tell the Globlin that they're taking it home. More noise. Phlox looks down at his medical device and says, "Commander Tucker's heart rate is increasing." Reed asks if that's a good thing or not. "It's good! Crewman Kelly's bio-signs are stabilizing as well," Phlox sings out. Hoshi keeps punching at her UT, and suddenly the Globlin stops talking. They all look around, and there's a collective sound of ooze as the Globlin wetly releases the humans. T'Pol orders the force-field lowered. Reed pauses. "Lieutenant!" T'Pol commands. Reed lowers it. T'Pol and Hoshi walk cautiously forward, and Phlox orders his medical team to the cargo bay. Trip is deposited on the ground; Hoshi kneels to him. A little further away, T'Pol reaches out to wipe Quantum's face, who struggles up to look at her and chuckle a bit. T'Pol and Hoshi exchange looks. Weird looks. T'Pol looks blank, and Hoshi still looks sulky.
Enterprise drops out of warp near a planet and releases a shuttlepod. On the surface, Hoshi, Phlox, T'Pol, and Reed carry a packing case under a canopy of an enormous Globlin. T'Pol looks at her tri-corder and says, "Here." They open the case and watch as the much-shrunken Enterprise Globlin slithers out to join its family, who pulls it up into the collective Globlin. "Look at all of them," Hoshi says. "Not them," T'Pol corrects her. "It. This is all one organism." Just like the killer flying fried eggs in TOS "Operation: Annihilate!", I do believe. Reed asks why the segment attacked their crewmen. "Hard to say," Phlox says. "When it got separated from itself, perhaps it needed a physical connection with any life-form it could find." Phlox opens up his sand-filled incubator and lets Slimy The Severed Segment flop out. The collective reaches out to integrate their missing pinky toe. The shuttlecraft takes off to show a view of the planet's surface, completely webbed over by Globlin. Really incredible CGI effects here.
Moral of this week's episode: When you're covered in snot, just think, "Beat Princeton. Beat Princeton," and you'll persevere. week, we have two hours of explosions, white-haired Vulcans, chases, escapes, revenge, and some Afghanistani-looking planet.