Pout, Trip, pout!

[khaosworks]

Thoughts recorded as I watched...



Thoughts as I watch...

Why is Malcolm still so awkward with Quantum after a year? I mean, he's spent most of that time on the bridge, so why's he so nervous? Formal I can understand, but he was acting like a kid on a first date... ohhhh, okay. HoYay! What, he doesn't follow football? Blasphemer! He's no Englishman!

Holy crap, that was a big hole. Hoshi! They hurt Hoshi! You bastards! Maywho: "Something hit our hull." No shit, Sherlock.

Tricobalt? Cool! (Re: TOS: "A Taste of Armageddon", Enterprise declared destroyed by tricobalt satellite explosion during wargames) Hey, they still have the future-tech quantum beacons! Isn't that like, cheating, or contaminating the timeline or something?

T'Pol: "I'm detecting something in the gamma spectrum..." Hell-o, sailor! Dat's a spicy minefield! How come Enterprise lucked out and only got one stuck to her hull and only struck one? And why did the other detonate and not stick, since they apparently were designed to be magnetic? But wait! The gods hear my query and the episode answers! Malcolm: "Proximity sensors are off-line. Apparently the mine doesn't think it's hit anything." Thank you!

Man, Trip looks completely whacked, like he spent time in the Carbon Creek mineshaft. Oooooh, pretty Bird of Prey! Nice design. Suitably reminiscent of the first BoP we saw in "Balance of Terror".

Okay, so the Roms have cloaks. So why were Kirk & Co. so surprised a hundred or so years from now? There goes another retcon. T'Pol also doesn't seem to understand the Romulan, so I guess it's been long enough since the two races parted company that the languages have become completely different? I'm a bit skeptical about that - you'd think at least some semblance of original dialect would survive, but I'm no linguist.

Hoshi: "Tell them I'm on my way." Yay! Hoshi to the rescue. Competent and dedicated women just turn me on. No, don't stop her! Let her kick ass!

God, another joystick? I guess they've sold the video game rights. The trip through the minefield is exactly like an arcade game. ("Greetings, Starfighter! You have been recruited by the Star League to help defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada...")

OW! Spike through the thigh! Thank god for self-sealing space suits. So much for detaching the hull, I guess. Aw! Trip wants to go rescue his boyfriend but mean Quantum wants to cut in on his action. Pout, Trip, pout!

Malcolm: "Disarming mines ain't like dusting crops, farmboy." Well, he could have said that. Right now, with him pumped with anesthetic, I'm fearing that he'll start talking about "bums".

Hoshi is so sexy when she looks disheveled. Okay, Linda Park looks good in any way. Yes, I have a crush, wanna make something out of it? And T'Pol's heard of the Roms after all. Well, minimally at least.

Two circuits offline, three to go? I thought there were only four circuits? Flashbacks to the Holy Grail, with Quantum as King Arthur... "One... Two... Five!"

Quantum: "Now, where were we?" Jeez, keep it in your pants, Archer, now's not the time to start hitting on him. Story time! Y'know, the moment Malcolm mentioned his grand-uncle who faced his fear I knew he was going to die from drowning.

Okay, Malcolm's insistence at self-martyrdom is getting on my nerves. He needs a good slapping around. And damn it, attempted suicide should be a court-martial offence - it's a waste of good material.

T'Pol: "I assume there's no point in my questioning your plan." You've come a long way, baby. And I agree with you - I think it's a stupid plan.

Yes, actually, the physics of them turning around and facing the explosion is possible. That's not a real biggie. Aaaaaand.... the nick of time escape.

And Trip, coming upon Quantum and Malcolm in a "You're not gonna kiss me, are you?" clinch. Poor Trip.

Not bad at all, despite a few predictable elements. And while I'm glad they didn't use the transporter to get out of it, I'd have liked it if they'd explained why - after all, most of my plot concerns were addressed. The things that did get on my nerves are reducing Malcolm to what is almost getting to be a stereotype. T'Pol's developed - so has Hoshi. Why not Malcolm?

And speaking of which... mmmm. Hoshi. Disheveled.

I give it a B+.

Comments

[jost.livejournal.com]

Amazingly enough I've thought that the last two episodes were both pretty well done. Both of them had me very skeptical from the previews so I even went in expecting them to trash both respective cultures but found only minimal continuity problem. You've addressed both of mine from this past episode with the cloak and the Romulan/Vulcan language differences. Would it really have been that difficult to have the Romulans able to partially cloak mines (that would still be detectable using simple science; one thing I've yet to see T'Pol do with her seemingly vast scientific knowledge) and then warp in with their non-cloaking BOP when one was triggered? And the language problem was just plain wrong. Even accounting for the time between separation of the culture I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Hoshi would have picked up at least one or two words that were the same. How many times does a culture split off and change every single detail including things like the verb "to be"?

All things considered, I did wind up liking the episode last night better than I liked Carbon Creek. I doubt I would have said the same thing had they just ended with T'Pol leaving the Captain's Mess instead of having that craptastic ending with the purse.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

God, another joystick? I guess they've sold the video game rights. The trip through the minefield is exactly like an arcade game. ("Greetings, Starfighter! You have been recruited by the Star League to help defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada...")

I just started calling him Tommy Laredo, at that point.

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

The episode had a very old Trek feel, as in, "the old Trek episodes that I can actually stand." Tension, action, and the cap'n getting all Shatty on us by taking matters into his own hands.

A good one.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Malcolm's character was one of the things that made the *most* sense to me in this ep, actually. He's extremely repressed, very private, kind of depressive, and at times suicidal. He always has been. It's just that the captain is finally trying to DRAW HIM THE FUCK OUT, since the captain has noticed it's BEEN a whole year and Malcolm still has no friends on the crew and still insists on being closed and private and personal.

Starfleet doesn't have Ship's Counselor's yet, after all. :-> I envision some (offscreen?) further attention to Malcolm's mental state, now that it's been made clear it affects his job performance.

And julienne fries

[surrdave.livejournal.com]

Which suggests the possibility of him temporarily losing it and becoming a double agent, only to reveal at the end of the episode that it was a plan all along...

[xanthe42.livejournal.com]

my poor malcom! why does archer have to get all touchy-feely with him? just leave him alone and let him blow things up! (crush, me?? never!) when archer gave him that hypo i too was worried that malcom would get started on the whole bum thing again...*shudder*