Episode Report Card Keckler: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mucus of Borg
By Keckler | Season 1 | Episode 22 | Aired on 04.30.2002
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 next 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.