ST:TNG Season One, Episode Eleven "Hide and Q"

ST:TNG Season One, Episode Eleven "Hide and Q"
Production Order: 11
Air Order: 10
Stardate: 41590.5
Original Air Date: November 23, 1987

Are those med-kits actually painted Caboodles?

Picard's Log 41590.5: "We dropped off Troi somewhere, and we got this medical emergency call from nearby."

Sick bay is in an uproar, prepping for the emergency that they're flying toward. Crusher gets paged by Picard while in the corridor, but for some reason, she doesn't pick it up on her comm badge, going to a wall panel instead to answer him.
I feel like I've seen this a few times, so it's possible that in these earlier episodes, using a comm badge to communicate directly with someone might have been designated for away missions only.
Anyway, he tells her that the number of injured people involved in some kind of explosion is more than 500, and she says they can handle it. That makes me wonder how many medical crew they have on that ship. Data and Geordi report that they're a little over three hours away from the accident site when a forcefield goes up in front of them.
Dammit, is this some kind of Tholian web bullshit?
No, it's fucking Q again.
They recognize it immediately, because in a smart Budget move, footage of the ship and forcefield has been recycled from "Encounter at Farpoint."

Picard is pissed. He has shit to do.
This sparkly bubble-thing appears, sporting three cobras that I'm pretty sure were colored red in post-production.

Maybe the spitting cobra of Africa wasn't red enough?

Anyway, the bubbles and sparkles are weird here. If the cobras were smiling, and there were maybe some hearts thrown in, this could be a Lisa Frank poster.
So Yar and Worf get all bad-ass and hop the railing with their phasers drawn, but Picard waves them off like, "No, put that away. It's just Q being his usual douchey self."
"Look, we don't have time for your crap, Q," says Picard reasonably. "We're in the middle of something."
"Naw, bro," says the snake-bubble in Q's voice. "You're not doing that anymore. My shit is more important. We've been checking you out in the Q Continuum, and we're prepared to swipe right with humans. We can make all your dreams come true. Here's a dick pic."
And he switches forms back to human... in an admiral uniform.
Dramatic music...for some reason! Commercial break!

Unsolicited dick pic

Picard's Log, supplemental: "Recap, in case you were in the john."

Riker makes a joke about Q.
Q responds, "Ah, Riker, whom I noticed before."
Dude: harsh.
Worf steps forward again to move against Q, and again, Picard stops him. Q calls "macro head... with a micro brain."
Worf is pissed, and so am I: that joke was terrible. If Q is going to be funny instead of douchey, at least make him clever. Dude is omnipotent - he can't come up with something better than that?

Picard decides to reason with Q.
"Okay, look. I'll agree to hear you out, right after we finish out rescue mission."
"No, fuck that," says Q, who is acting like Veruca Salt. He mocks Picard. "Why don't you find me trustworthy?"
Dude, you got 92 minutes? Cuz that's how long the last episode was that you were in.
Q asks Riker what he thinks, and Riker replies that he doesn't have time for Q's games. Poor choice of words, Riker.

"A deadly game!"

And you groan inwardly, because you know that this now means that people will be hunting people, because like all good little teenagers, you sat through at least one English class where a teacher made you read this short story from 1924, and then you were forced to write some kind of paper on it, dissecting it, and hoping that your paper didn't sound like the millions of other papers on The Most Dangerous Game, because then you could get tagged for plagiarism. I love English class, you guys, but that's where good literature goes to die. 

So then all of the bridge crew disappears, leaving Picard on his own. They reappear on some planet with a mint-green sky.

The crew looks around and try to determine where they might be. They could be anywhere... if that planet even exists.
Meanwhile, Picard is standing by his lonesome in the middle of the bridge, trying to raise... anyone. Security is not responding, Engineering is not responding. He tries the conn, which does not work. He attempts to leave, but none of the doors open. Q Disabled the Ship, you guys!

Can we just pause to appreciate how sexy this bridge is? It's hella sexy. Sploosh.

Back on that unknown planet, our bridge crew has been beckoned over by Q, who is now dressed as a French marshal (because that outranks admiral, of course), and who invites Riker into his field tent. Between his love of costumes and the human past, this Q is starting to remind me of Squire Trelane. Riker sits and drinks from the glass he is offered (wtf, Riker?). Then he smiles and says he was just thinking about an old-fashioned lemonade, and it became that.

"What about my people?"
"Whatever they'd like," Q responds.
Glasses appear in each person's hand. Yar and Geordi take sips. Data simply wonders what the hell they'd offer an android to drink. Worf is having none of Q's shit.

Q lays out the game, even though he's completely vague about everything. He still says that the Q is interested in them, but he tosses in a few more insults for good measure. The rewards will be awesome, but if they lose, they're going to lose big-time. Yar gets angry and yells at Q, who makes her disappear.

"Where'd she go?" demands Riker.

"Penalty box," replies Q. "There can only be one person in the penalty box at a time, so if any one of you knuckle-draggers fucks up all of the shit, you'll have to take her place."

"And where does she go?" Data asks.

"Nothingness," replies Q.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

I don't know if it's the original make-up they put on her, or if it's something that
went sideways during re-mastering, but when Yar shifts, her face looks grey in
some places and pink in others. It's really distracting.

Turns out, the penalty box is located on the bridge of the E, but I guess Picard doesn't count because he isn't playing? Yar re-materializes with the full knowledge that she's in the penalty box, and that if someone else ends up there, she'll revert to non-existence. She's frustrated and angry, and she starts to cry. I know that feel well - the feel of bursting into tears because you'd like to punch someone - but it reads oddly on the security chief. Picard comforts her. Perv Q shows up and teases Picard about consorting with lower-ranking crew members. But then he lifts the penalty, so what was the point of even sending Yar back? Now there isn't a reason to keep the others playing his game.
Picard is pissed that Q is dressed as a marshal. Q, sitting in the command chair, flips the log recorder on and makes an entry.

Q's Log, stardate Right the Fuck Now: "We decided that Picard is too Starfleet for us, so we're testing to see if Riker has what it takes."

"Ha!" says Picard. "You're taking on Riker? You're going down, suckuh!"
"Wanna bet?" asks Q. "Fine. Your command versus..."
"You leaving us the hell alone forever," says Picard.
And the wager is made.
Dramatic music! You know the drill!

Sassy Geordi Moment:
Riker: Geordi, can you see Worf?
Geordi: I'd see the freckles on his nose if he had them, sir. He's down at the third ridge.

Aw, sad. Now I want to see a freckled Klingon.

Anyway, it appears that Geordi's VISOR provides him with information at a crazy distance, and Worf has gone exploring, so he's watching our intrepid crewman walk around in the desert.

"Uh-oh... good, he sees them."
"Sees what?" asks Riker.
Why, a whole contingent of these nightmare-inducing monstrosities, of course.

They look enough like Tellarites that I shudder, but they keep referring to them as "monsters" and "beasts" and "animal-things," so I guess they aren't. Close enough, I say. 

These soldiers are all dressed in period clothing and carrying period weapons, but it's Q, so you know that's not how things are going to go down.

Worf runs back to tell the others.

The next scene between Q and Picard is pretty good. Q is lounging in Picard's chair in the ready room, flipping through the pages of some huge tome about Shakespeare. Picard comes in, because I guess when Q lifted the penalty, he made it so the doors would respond.

"Okay, seriously, what is your deal? You can't just talk to us?" demands Picard. "You have to play these games and tell us stuff in the most round-about way possible?"

"It's not what you play, but how you play it," responds Q. "All the galaxy's a stage -"

"It's world, you philistine. Not galaxy."

They have a Shakespeare-off, quoting some of my favorite lines by the Bard, and it kind of ends like one of my favorite Tumblr posts:

It basically ends with Picard saying that he thinks the human race will one day, millenia away, become something akin to the Q.

In response, Q literally throws the book at Picard and vanishes. Sooooo, yes then?

Back on the planet, Data discusses weaponry with Riker and Geordi. Riker decides to test his phaser out on a rock, and finds that it works just fine. Unfortunately, Worf is near enough that the phaser blast makes him jump like my cat does when the alarm goes off in the morning, and he springs forward, yelling and brandishing his weapon. He apologizes and tells them about the soldiers, which are actually coming up around that last ridge.
Riker asks Data for suggestions.
Data turns around.

Oh my fuck, that's disturbing.

The soldiers are carrying something akin to phaser cannons that look like muskets. Riker vaporizes two of them as they open fire. Data-Q tells Riker that his only way to save his friends is to send them back to the ship via Q-powers, which he has given Riker. He vanishes. Data reappears as Data. More soldiers appear on the horizon.
Despite the fact that Riker just proved that he could vaporize those soldiers in half a second each, thus saving his friends in another way and keeping him from having to choose between death for his crew or using Q powers -
Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Riker lifts his hand and sends his friends back to the ship.

The forcefield vanishes. Back on the E, Tasha is sitting on the bridge by herself when all of the panels light back up. Picard exists the ready room, sees that things are working, and calls Engineering to ask if everything is back online.

"Um, they were never off?" replies Engineering.

Tasha, at the conn, says that no time has passed. They're still on the same heading at warp 9.1.

Geordi, Data, and Worf reappear on the bridge.

Information is exchanged: Q is interested in Riker and is playing this game with him to see how Riker responds. The bridge crew were attacked by animal-things. Geordi falters for the right description to give to Picard, and when he asks for Data's help, the android pauses and delivers a Sassy Data Moment:

"You may find them aesthetically displeasing, sir. I'll just file a report."

Down on the planet, Riker has lost his damn mind. 

"What's so funny?" asks Q, reappearing.

"You," says Riker. "You want something from us, real bad, and instead of saying what you want, you pretend you're better than us and play these dumb games. Why don't you just spit it out?"

Q paces like a petulant child who is angry at getting caught, but then realizes that being an a-hole isn't getting him what he wants, so he lays it out on the line:

So it seems the Q and their immense powers have figured out that the human race will one day evolve past them, while the Q Continuum will stagnate, and it's all because humans have a yearning to be more, a curiosity to explore. The Q don't have this, so they want Riker to join them so that he can teach them how to get it too.

Riker balks at this idea.

Mmm. salty!

Q tries to brush off the butthurt with a smile and a jaunty, "You're gonna miss me!" before disappearing.
The bridge crew reappear on the planet, this time with Picard and Wes in tow.
Sassy Geordi Moment:
"Come on, not again!"
Picard and Wes are baffled. Then everyone realizes that they are no longer armed.
The soldiers advanced. Tired of waiting, Worf rushes forward to take some out with his bare hands, but these aliens have bayonets, and Worf gets stabbed. Foolishly, Wes rushes forward to tend to him, and an alien runs him through from behind.

Riker, instantly angry, throws up a Q forcefield between his friends and the rest of the aliens.
"What the hell?" demands Picard.
Riker waves his hand again, and everyone appears back on the ship, healthy and whole. Except for Riker, who is now a smug-looking mofo.
"Only the Q have those kinds of powers," says Picard.
Quiet, cautious music... commercial break.

Picard's Log 41591.4: "Dammit, we're about to help some people. but now Riker is a fucking Q. I did not need this shit today. I have to get my Gilligan back."

Picard has a frank discussion with Riker in the ready room. This time Riker seems more concerned about it than smug.
"This is weird. I don't know what to do. Nobody ever offered me godhood before."
"I have to use the Prime Directive against us," says Picard. "You can't use their powers to benefit us. It would fuck up our development. if you're going to turn him down, then you need to not use these powers."
"I can do it," shrugs Riker.
"You know it not's gonna be that simple," replies Picard. "Q plays mind games. He'll get you to do it."
"No, I'm cool," Riker insists. "No using the powers."
"I know what your word is worth," says Picard, satisfied.
Data broadcasts that they are in orbit of the disaster planet and ready to beam peeps down.

Riker beams down with Geordi (makes sense), Data (makes sense), Crusher and two Blues (makes sense) - why did it take Star Trek so long to figure out who should accompany an away team?
Anyway, when Riker can't pry a door open, he has Data do it rather than bust out Q Powers.
Behind the door is a larger room with equipment half-buried under rock, and about a half-dozen people who say that everyone else is "gone."
Geordi sees that someone is buried under a rockpile, and Data gets to work unearthing the person.
It's a little girl, but she's already dead. Data asks Riker if he will fix it.
"Surely, you can't bring her back to life?" asks Crusher.
"I promised I wouldn't," replies Riker.
Data and Crusher give him the side-eye.

Riker goes back to the bridge later, and boy is he pissed.

"This is bullshit. I could have saved that kid. Before, I saved the bridge crew's lives, but because I promised I wouldn't use those powers, that little girl died."

Technically, not true. That kid died before they got there. Riker sans powers could have done nothing, and would have felt bad because she had already died. Now, if Q had shown up and admitted that he had made it so that the kid died before they got there, to see if Riker would use those powers, then his inaction would have caused her death. But if he did, Q never admits to that happening, so we can guess that this girl died naturally.

"It's best that you didn't use those powers," starts Picard.

"When we're done with this mission, I want a meeting with you and your bridge crew," Riker demands.

Catch that? Not "you and the bridge crew," "you and your bridge crew."

Picard starts to agree, but Riker interrupts to turn and stomp petulantly into the lift.

Ouch.

Later, Riker exists the lift onto the bridge. Yar was walking up the ramp to her station, but slows way down and stares at Riker at she passes.

"I've called the entire staff," announces Riker.

"Nooo," says Picard. "I've allowed you to call this meeting."

Riker gives him the customer service smile. "Of course, Jean-Luc."

Shit, dude.

And oooh, Picard has a trick up his sleeve. The lift opens, and Crusher and Wes step out.

"Go away, Wes. This meeting isn't for you," says Riker.

"Why not?" asks Wes. "You helped make me a bridge officer."

Riker reluctantly agrees to let him stay. They all settle in, and he stands in front of the viewscreen like he's going to give a TEDTalk.

"I have powers now, but I'm still the same Will you've always known."

They clearly don't buy it.

"I saved the bridge crew," he tries again.

"From a threat that Q made up," Picard points out.

"The Q think we're animals, monkeys to dance for their amusement," adds Yar.

"No way, they think we're awesome," Riker defends. "We have qualities they admire."

"Or fear," puts in Geordi.

FUCKING THANK YOU. WHY HAS THIS NOT OCCURRED TO YOU, RIKER?

Riker falters.

"Are these really your friends, brother?" asks Q, reappearing in the same place he always does.

Oh, fuck this guy. Sideways. With a katana.

He's probably one of those monks that destroyed Mezo-America.

"What the hell is up with the costumes?" demands Picard. "Don't you have your own identity?"

No, not really. Like, how would you describe Q? "An omnipotent douchebag with a large wardrobe."

Q brandishes a cross on a rosary at Picard and accuses him of jealousy, and Picard starts laughing.

"Really?" he asks Riker. "You wanna be like this dude? He's a flimflam man!"

"Nooo, I have omnipotent powers," Q tells Riker soothingly. "And if you become part of the Continuum, you will, too."

Okay, so we're not set in stone yet.

"You should give your friends gifts with your new powers," Q suggests, and Riker asks Picard if this is okay.

"Fine by me," shrugs Picard. "But they might not want what you have to offer."

"Don't be frightened," starts out Riker, in a friendly sort of "nothing up my sleeve" tone.

Crusher begs Wes to leave, but Riker wishes to "bestow" his first gift on Wes.

EWW. Ewwwwwww. They couldn't find someone who looked like Wes? This guy looks like he came from that planet with the mostly-naked people. He looks like your average guy-in-the-future that TNG populates all of it's M-class planets with... like a living 80's era Ken doll. But notice what hasn't changed? Wes is now a 25-year-old acting ensign. That's a pretty lousy gift, Riker.

Riker turns to Data, but the android stops Riker in his tracks. Riker protests that Data has always wanted to be human, but Data gives the best answer ever:

""To thine own self be true"," Data quotes.

So Riker smiles at Geordi, and Geordi kind of squirms. "I know what you want." Ugh, why does that sound so rapey?

He waves his hand in front of Geordi's face like some kind of faith healer, then removes his VISOR. It's been so long since I watched Reading Rainbow that I've forgotten what LeVar Burton's eyes look like. He gets a good look at all of his friends, and says "You're more beautiful than I imagined. And more." I can't tell if he was talking to them in general, or Yar specifically, because he was looking at her when he said that. But then he tells Riker that the price is too high, "and I don't like who I'd have to thank." Damn. Riker waves his hand again, and the white contacts reappear, as well as the little blinking red lights on his temples that indicate where the VISOR plugs in.

He gives Worf a chick. There's no other way to say that: he just straight-up creates a woman for Worf. And what the hell is up with her costume? Crocheted top, leotard, fishnets, all under some kind of armor. This is the first Klingon female we see on TNG, and this is what we got:

Remember Valkris, our first female Klingon of the films? They did weird things to her hair, but at least she was clothed in a semi-normal way. 

So why does this female look like she's on her way to compete on the Klingon version of American Gladiators?

This woman never talks. She and Worf growl at each other - seductively, as the captions indicate. And she attacks Tasha when she catches the security chief staring at her open-mouthed (because who wouldn't, trying to figure out who the fuck designed that costume?). Worf knocks her the hell down the ramp, and they growl some more.
Geordi tries to shame Worf about what kind of boot-knocking he likes.
"This woman is from a world I no longer belong to," barks Worf. "Get rid of her!"
The Older Wes steps forward and says he'd like to "get there on his own", and to please change him back. I can't tell if they've hired a guy who has a voice that sounds like Wes, if they re-dubbed it in Wil Wheaton's voice, or if the remastered version combined the two voices to make it sound like an older version of Wes.
Riker smiles at Picard. "Man, how did you know? I feel like a douchebag."
"Good. You should. You are," says Picard.
He turns to Q. "Get the fuck off my ship, and pay up on your half of the wager."
"I recall no wager," sniffs Q.
Hit rewind, motherfucker. You made a bet to never hassle humankind again.
"Yeah, see, you might not remember, but I bet your people will, and also that you tried to seduce a human into becoming one of you, and straight-up failed. Go away."
Q looks to the ceiling and tried to appeal to a higher power in his monk robes as scary music plays.
Oh, damn. You in trouble now.

Q disappears, as does the Klingon female. Wes returns to normal, and everyone, including Riker, reappears in their own station.
Geordi reports that it appears that they just beamed back up from the planet surface again, like all of time and space had stopped for a chat with Q.
"How is it," asks Data, "that the Q can handle time and space so well, and us so badly?"
"Perhaps some day we will discover that space and time are simpler than the human equation," Picard answers.
Dude, nobody knows that better than Data.

Riker gives coordinates to Geordi, and they warp out of there to some new adventure.

So, did any of us really think that Riker was gonna take the bait? Like, seriously? Sure, he went from good guy to douchecanoe rather quickly, but the fact of the matter is, no matter how hard he tries, Riker cannot bring himself to become a complete douchebag. He has too many morals. And while I've read that a lot of female fans claimed that Riker, with his occasional wont to seduce a female guest star, was kind of a philandering a-hole and hark back to that good ol' boy of the 1970's, the fact of the matter is that even if he was having a bunch of one-night stands, you know he'd suit up not only for his protection, but for hers, too. Riker cannot rise to the level of assholishness required to be an omnipotent god-figure like the Q. Riker is too lawful good for that. Sure, he bends the rules at times, but Picard does as well. There's an interesting article from Gawker a few years back that caught my eye, concerning what kinds of insults work for white males (http://gawker.com/douchebag-the-white-racial-slur-we-ve-all-been-waiti-1647954231). It includes this specific example:

"Sam Spade is not a douchebag but John Wayne certainly was. Captain Kirk is a douchebag, but Spock, Picard, and Riker are not (though Riker sometimes wants to be). Peter Parker is not a douchebag, neither is Clark Kent. But Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark sure are. Cyclops is a douchebag whereas Magneto is not. Hal Jordan is a douchebag, but Captain America (perhaps surprisingly) is not."


And this is generally how I see Riker: not a douchebag per se, but a tower of that line, certainly. (A fun game I sometimes like to play now includes Who Gets Sorted into Douchebag House. Q is Head Boy of this house, as are several Klingons, and fuck-ton of Cardassians. I feel like Bones hits the same spot as Riker - he acts like a d-bag, but isn't really a true d-bag.)
While I'll grow to like Q eventually, he still has some clout with the Continuum, and to that end, he is still just a fly in the space ointment. Later, he'll develop a self-deprecating sense of humor that I like very much on him, making him not only more tolerable, but more sympathetic as well. I like my villains to be unapologetic assholes, yes, but they're not as enjoyable unless they have a sense of humor.
So this episode, like so many, was okay. Those animal soldier things didn't seem to pose much of a threat, because they were either imaginary, or easily defeated by Q skillz. There also wasn't much of a danger to the injured people waiting for treatment, because, as we learn, Q conveniently stops time and space for his games. (Hmmm, erase one tick mark from his Douche-count. That was rather charitable of him.) What is interesting about this episode is that it sets up more possible episodes involving the Q, which we now know are watching mankind. And yes, we can claim that Q made a wager that he'd never bother them again, but we all know what Q's word is worth. We're gonna see that a-hole again. This episode also reinforces the idea that man has come up to explain why being a god is a shitty job: omnipotence doesn't make you happy, nor does it make your friends happy. Being immortal kind of just sucks, because everyone you love will die slowly around you, and you have to carry their memories around forever.
In the end, Riker's gifts actually serve to reinforce what he discussed with Q: that humans have a need and want to learn and achieve things on their own. Wes requests that Riker make him a teenager again, so that he can do his own growing up, and earn his privileges as they come with time. Data's life would almost certainly fail to have a point if Riker made Pinocchio a real boy with the snap of his fingers. Geordi wants to see, yes, but not because of some creepy Q magic. And while we know little of Worf now, his remarks that the female was of a world to which he no longer belonged are rather telling.
So while it doesn't do too terribly much on it's own, this episode sets up what could be some good stuff in the future.

Fun Facts:

- A later script indicated that Troi was supposed to be in this episode, but that something changed last-minute, and Marina Sirtis became unavailable, leading to the odd addition in Picard's opening log, and the redistribution of her lines, mostly to Yar.
- This is the first time we see an admiral's uniform in TNG (Bones was not wearing a Starfleet uniform in the pilot). However, this is also the only time we see one of that design, as it will change the next time we see it.
- This is also the only time we see Q wearing a uniform of a lower rank than captain, when he wears both Data's uniform (lieutenant commander in gold) and a commander's rank when talking to Riker. Guess he wanted to appear as a buddy, rather than a CO there.
- "Hide and Q" marks the first time we see Geordi's eyes without the VISOR and white-out contacts. We'll see that twice more over the course of TNG.
- The Shakespeare plays that Picard and Q quote at each other are from Hamlet, As You Like It, and The Scottish Play. The Tumblr quote that I put up is from the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet. Data quotes Hamlet to Riker when requesting that Riker give him no gift.

*******

So my hacking cough returned after a multi-week hiatus (yay?), and I'm back to gargling with honey because nothing stops the cough for long.

"You should try this tea," says Roomie.

It was given to her by a guy friend who shares her same gender-neutral name, and OtherRoomie'sName has been pretty accurate in his choices. (He describes me as being "frowny and patient." Have you ever been described by someone and not realized that that description has fit you all along, and you've never known it? Yep. I trust this guy's opinion.)

I pick up the box. "Tastes like licorice." (hork)

I open the individual packet. Smells like licorice. (hork, hork)

I brew a cup and take a sip. Tastes like freaking licorice! (VOM)

But... it worked. By sip two, my throat no longer felt raw. Did it last forever? No. Thirty minutes or so post-cuppa, my cough returned. But it wasn't as deep or scary, and I no longer sounded like I was calling my elephant seal boyfriend.

Adding honey helped with the licorice taste. Like, it didn't give rid of it, but took the tang away and replaced it with something more akin to oatmeal (but just a tiny bit).

tl;dr: tastes like death, but worth it. Will be drinking more.

http://www.traditionalmedicinals.com/products/throat-coat/

Blind feral Keller now lets humans pet her. <3

Season 3, Episode 69 "That Which Survives"

"That Which Survives"
Production Order: 69
Air Order: 72
Stardate: Unknown
Original Air Date: January 24, 1969

We start out this week with a planet that our boys cannot classify: it's about the size of Earth's moon, but with a class M atmosphere, and an age of only a few thousand years. The plant life is far too advanced to have evolved over that short a time. Spock is hovering somewhere between stumped and fascinated.
Kirk decides to investigate, and takes Sulu, Bones, and a geologist named D'Amato, and leaves Spock in charge. Frankly, I feel like Kirk should have swapped himself out for Spock, as Spock sciences and Kirk does not, but I can't explain half of this guy's decisions, so I guess it's moot.
Our boys meet D'Amato in the transporter, and everyone is stoked because something "that even Spock can't explain" is pretty cool. They hop on the transporter pad and are in the process of being beamed down when there's a boi-oi-oing sound, and some chick appears.
She shouts, "No, you must not go!" and then turns and gives the Red running the transporter a Vulcan pinch or something. He drops like a sack of potatoes, but it's too late, and even though the away team has seen it happen, they are too far gone to not transport.

When they hit the surface, Kirk tries to call the E to enquire about Wyatt, the Red in the transporter room. But there isn't time, as the ground starts to shake. It... involves more that just the actors stumbling and the camera shaking. The rocks and ground they are standing on are moving like the giant foam props that they are. I want to be nice, because I know the special effects guys are trying, but good Lord is it ever cheesy-looking. The lights are also flashing, and you can see the shadows from the rocks bouncing off "the sky."

Upstairs, the E is shaking as well. Everyone falls out of their chairs. The woman who took Sulu's spot, Rahda, shouts that the planet is gone.
On the surface, the away team has whipped out their scanners. D'Amato says he has a huge power flux registered that has nothing to do with the earthquake, but now it's gone. Sulu reports that the E is missing.
"Well, shit," says Kirk. "We're stranded."
Dramatic music! Commercial break!

When we return, Sulu offers a cheerful suggestion that maybe the E blew up, and it rocked the planet. Kirk shoots it down based on lack of radiation in the area. Bones suggests a meteor strike, and Sulu says it's possible, because there was something similar that happened in Siberia. Kirk interrupts him to snarkily say that if he wanted a Russian history lesson, he'd have chosen Chekov to beam down instead. Dude was just offering possibilities, Kirk. I don't hear you giving up any ideas. He assigns Sulu and D'Amato to look for food and water, which I guess is productive.
Back on the bridge, Spock is assessing the damages, which are minimal. Uhura reports that sick bay called in with a casualty, Lt Wyatt from the transporter room. Suspicious, Spock calls sick bay. You guys - look! It's Dr M'benge from "A Private Little War" !

M'benga says it's too soon to have info about Wyatt, because Dr Sanchez is still conducting the autopsy. We never see Dr Sanchez, but who cares? Latino doctor, y'all! "Dear POC kids, Study hard so you can become space doctors. Love, Star Trek."
Spock says to keep him updated, then asks Scotty to check out the transporter. Rahda says the stars are wrong, and guesstimates that they've been pushed 1000 light years away from the planet where they had beamed down. The Vulcan corrects her by saying that it's actually 990.7 light years. Spock and Scotty argue about what might have pushed them so far away. An exploding star is brought up, but dismissed because an explosion like that would have wiped them out. Scotty is excited because this means that they actually have been pushed that far out, and the away team is most likely still alive. Spock tells him to control himself. M'benga calls to say that Sanchez has found that Wyatt died from "cellular disruption," or "his cells exploded from the inside-out." Spock surmises to Scotty that someone must have entered the transporter room after the away team beamed down. He asks Scotty to give him warp eight in returning to the planet. Scotty promises to sit on the engines and nurse them himself, which is a gross mental image. Spock doesn't get the joke, so he replies that such a thing would be undignified.

Planet-side, the boys have reported back. Sulu says that all of the vegetation is poisonous. Bones says that the closest this planet comes to having life outside of that crappy vegetation is some kind of parasite. D'Amato says there is no water. There's a long, drawn-out conversation about there being no water, and how they need to find it. Really? Are you sure? Cuz those sure as shit look like oceans to me, Star Trek.

So Kirk sends them out to look for water again on this supposedly dry planet. Sulu is out and about scanning when he calls Kirk to report an energy spike that went away quickly, "like a door opening and then closing again." We switch over to D'Amto, who is scanning and minding his own beeswax when that girl shows up. He's startled to see her, because she freaking snuck up on him, and she tells him not to be afraid.
"I'm not afraid of geological anomalies," he says cheekily. Everyone is so sassy this week!

She confirms that he is Lt D'Amato, senior geologist of the starship Enterprise, and then she says that she is "for him." She reaches out for him as spooky music plays. Which switch it back to Bones, who calls Kirk to talk about an energy spike in D'Amato's area, and they use that door analogy again. Kirk tries calling D'Amato, and when no one answers, he pages Bones and Sulu over to D'Amato's section. They go running, and stumble upon D'Amato's body.
Nice! A Red and a Blue! This is shaping up to be a decent episode. Oh, wait. We're supposed to be sad because a character we just met and know nothing about has died mysteriously just before the commercial break.
Dramatic music! Kirk looking apprehensively into the distance with his phaser out!

We return to find Kirk prepping his phaser to blast a grave in the ground. Sulu remarks that it's a terrible way to die, even though we have no idea how D'Amato died. Kirk replies that there are no good ways to die. Sooo, quietly, in your sleep, of old age, surrounded by loved ones? No? Gotta go somehow. Oh, wait. I forgot that James T Kirk is immortal.
Anyway, he blasts a portion of the ground away only to find that the whole planet seems to be covered in some kind of super-dense rock under a few inches of topsoil. No way to bury a guy. He has Sulu take over D'Amato's geological scan and he and Bones decide to pile on rocks on the geologist instead.
Back on the bridge, Rahda tells Spock they will arrive at the planet in eleven and a half hours. He replies back that it's 11.33 hours, and says he wishes she would be more precise. Spock is super-bitchy this episode. Maybe he's going through Pon Farr again. Scotty calls to say that all of the instruments on the E are set correctly, but the ship "feels" wrong. Spock is then bitchy to him as well. He picks up and fiddles with some little blue box that he'll keep on hand throughout the rest of this episode, and which doesn't seem to have any purpose.

The boys on the remaining away team finish the rock pile grave and discuss what might have killed D'Amato and how they could protect themselves. Once again, Sulu makes a suggestion that is shot down. Dude is not allowed to bounce ideas off of anyone, apparently.

Back in engineering, Scotty is still weirded out that the ship feels "off." He asks a Red to check that some part isn't overheating, even though the read-outs say that all is well. The Red protests at first, then does as he's told. I hope you weren't attached to him, because here comes Polly Purple-Pants. She asks how the ship runs, then rattles off his full name and rank. Rather than ask what the hell she's doing in engineering, he gives her a bullshit answer that sounds good. She sees right through it, and correctly tells him what that machine does. Then she's all "I'm for you, Mr Watkins..." and she does that reach thing. He manages to yell to Scotty that there's some woman in engineering who knows all about the ship, but by the time Scotty shows up, Watkins is dead. The chick has hidden herself behind some piping, and then she disappears like old-fashioned video games quit: first, her form squeezes into one vertical black line. Then the line shrinks into a dash and vanishes.

Scotty calls Spock to report that a weird woman just killed Watkins. Spock posts a security alert to all decks to be on the look-out for an intruder.

Planet-side, Kirk, Bones and Sulu are discussing what they've found: the planet only seems to be a few thousand years old, man-made, has no magnetic poles and no life except for plants that didn't have time to evolve. They decide to sleep some and take up again in the morning. Sulu volunteers to take first watch. He sets D'Amato's tricorder to broadcast a distress signal.

Upstairs, M'benga has finished the autopsy on Watkins. "It's the same thing that killed Wyatt - the cellular disruption - but as to what caused it, I can only guess."

"Bitch, I need answers, not guesses," barks Spock.

M'benga quietly writes out a script for Spock for some Vidol.

Spock thinks it was the intruder.

Scotty pretty much writes a summary of this episode with his exposition: "You mean whoever threw the Enterprise a thousand light years away stowed away on the ship from the planet, and has been killing our crewmembers?"

There you go, friends. We could have skipped the first half of this episode and just asked Scotty what was going on.

Downstairs, Polly Purple-Pants turns off the distress signal and approaches Sulu. After she tells him his name and rank, he's smart enough to start asking questions. She admits that she's from the planet, and the she wants to touch him. He recognizes her as being the chick in the transporter room, and he warns her to keep away from him, even going so far as to shoot the ground at her feet.

"Stay back! I don't want to have to shoot a woman!"

Sooo, men okay? Pre-pubescent children of either gender?  Intersex humans? Non-binary aliens? Star Trek, why is it constantly "one step forward, two steps back"? Here, lemme fix that sentence for you: "Stay back! I don't want to have to shoot you!"

But she doesn't stay back, and he shoots her, anyway. It bounces off her chest.

You have no idea how many times I had to watch this scene to
get that animation. Animation is a total bitch to screencapture.

Sulu, backing up, trips over a rock, and her hand brushes his shoulder. He goes down hard, but his calls roust Kirk and Bones who come running.

"What the hell?" Kirk asks Polly as Bones gives Sulu a hypo.

"I need to touch him," she answers. She blinks and shakes her head a little, like a dog coming out of anesthesia.

Kirk steps in front of her, and she puts her hand on his shoulder. There's some dramatic music leading up to it, but then her hand just rests there, and the music drops.

"How come you can touch me without my getting hurt?" he demands. You know somewhere in his mind, Kirk is thinking, "Hot damn! I'm immortal!"

She tells Kirk that she doesn't want to hurt him, that she needs to touch Sulu.

"Are there men on this planet?" Kirk asks.

Dude, do you mean people in general? Why can't you just say "people"? Why do you have to phrase it in such a way that I have to ask if you're being sexist or not?

She says again that she only wants Sulu, then she backs up and disappears in that video-game way.

Kirk muses that maybe this is a ghost planet. Bones says that Sulu is lucky that she didn't get a grip on him, because the place on his shoulder where she brushed him is injured badly. They all agree that Polly is evil, but beautiful.

On the bridge, Spock cancels red alert, as they can't find the alien intruder on the ship.

Uhura wonders how she got off the E.

"Probably the same way that she got on, doi," answers Spock.

"Do you think the chances are that the captain and the others are alive?" she asks.

"That's guessing," barks Spock. "Why the hell is everyone guessing today?"

Rahda reports that they have suddenly increased their warp speed. She tries to fix it, to no avail. Spock calls Scotty, who reports that Polly has fused something or other in the engine, and they have no way to undo it. The engines will blow in fifteen minutes.

"Fourteen point eight-seven," corrects Spock.

"Bitch, why do you care?" Scotty demands. "We're gonna die either way."

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Spock goes down to engineering. Scotty confirms sabotage. They discuss how to un-Disable the Ship. There's some crawl-way that they could use to access some thing with a magnetic do-hickey to fix the situation. Scotty complains that it will kill whoever does it. Spock volunteers, saying that they're dead men, anyway.

"I guess," says Scotty. "But I'll do it, because I know the ship better than you. And sorry for getting all emotional earlier, saying the ship felt wrong."

"Don't apologize," says Spock. "You were fucking right about that."

Back on the surface, our boys discuss the fact that Kirk was able to get between Polly and Sulu and keep her from killing him. Kirk surmises that each time she shows up looking for one of them specifically, the others can protect that person. Wait, what's that noise? Phaser on overload. Kirk chucks the thing behind some rocks, and they all hit the deck.

"Dude," says Kirk. "She has the power to fuck with weapons, too?"

Scotty climbs into the crawl-way with some tools. This is so cool. I love it when they make these little workspaces. The angles they use to get the shoot are awesome. In this case, they built the crawl-way, filmed it head-on and facing Scotty, and then added blue lightning animation over the top so that it looks vaguely electrified.

Scotty leaves his comm open so he can talk to Spock while he works. Apparently, the crawl-way is something that can be jettisoned in case things blow up. Scotty only has so much time before things go, so Spock has Rahda prep for jettison just in case. I guess it's similar to the pod jettison situation discussed in "Court-Martial".

 Scotty is trying his best, but he only has eight minutes left, and they are currently doing warp twelve.

Planet-side, Polly has come back, this time for Kirk. Dramatic music! Commercial break!

When we return, Kirk is hiding behind a human shield of Bones and Sulu, and he's holding her off by asking more questions. She's Losira (not Polly, keep up), and she's commander of this "station." She doesn't want to kill anyone, because it's wrong, but they invaded the station, and she has to protect it. Scans by Bones come back without life signs, and she doesn't register as an android, either. Kirk asks if there are others, but she says they're "no more." Losira seems confused, and she stumbles backward into the video game disappear.

More scanning reveals more energy spikes, and they use that door opening and closing metaphor again to cleverly announce... that they found a door. A bigger than big rock slides out of place, and there's a door in the side of another, larger rock.

"All of our answers are in there," says Kirk. No, to use Spock's wording, you're guessing, dude. You're just assuming that the answers are in there. Finding a hidden cave with a door won't necessarily reveal anything to you. Ask any archaeologist.

"Also, food and water," he adds. No, I'm not kidding. He actually thinks there will be food and water in the mysterious cave for them. Didn't that happen a few weeks ago on "Spock's Brain"? A cave full of food and tools was used to attract neanderthal-like males?

It sure was, Admiral. It sure wa

Despite the fact that that cave could contain any number of things which are not food or water, Bones and Sulu shrug and follow him, because why the fuck not? There is no food or water out here either, so they might as well accompany Kirk.

We switch back to the Enterprise, and they go through a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo to build up anticipation and kill time. Scotty is sweating bullets as he tries to affect repairs on the ship, hoping that he doesn't blow them sky-high or get jettisoned into space. It is finally fixed, and the ship starts backing down from warp fourteen.

"Dude, are you gonna thank me?" Scotty asks Spock.

"Why should I?" Spock reasons, and he continues to yammer on about the logical course of things.

Scotty, glad to be alive and not floating in space somewhere, just kind of laughs to himself about how Spock always seems to get extra-bitchy when his boyfriend is missing.

Kirk, Bones and Sulu walk further into the cave and into a room with a floating, glowing cube. Losira is there, but guess what isn't there? Kirk asks who she is after, and when she doesn't reply, he has them form a circle around her, staying just out of reach. Finally, she says that she is there for him.

He dives behind his human shield, but here come two more Losiras, each one focused in a different guy. Our boys do a sort of human Three Card Monte, switching positions to confuse the Losiras, but how long can that last? Each one is programmed for that dude's cells alone, and she's bound to touch the right guy sooner or later. What's more, each Losira is identical to the others, so you may be dodging one only to find that the one next to her is the one you are trying to avoid, and you've just walked right into her lethal hands.

But what's this? It's First Officer Mary Sue, and a Red, beaming directly into the chamber!
"Shoot the cube!" yells Kirk, and the Red takes out the computer. The Losiras disappear.
"Yay, you saved us, Spock!" says Kirk, ignoring the Red who did the actual shooting and saving.
"We just arrived in the nick of time," says Spock. "We managed to avoid being blown up, and coincidentally showed up right as you were about to die."
"How wonderful and random," exclaims Kirk.
A projection of Losira appears on the wall. She addresses them as "my fellow Kalandans" and says that when they created the outpost they are standing on now, that their technology accidentally created a deadly organism which killed them all. Losira, the last one alive, created the projection to greet her people, as she feels she will be dead by the time they arrive with supplies and resources. She set the defense systems to guard against all lifeforms that were not their own, and she wishes them well for when they arrive and take over. Then she closes her eyes, and the projection stops.

Bones guesses that the illness probably spread throughout their people on other ships, and that she died waiting for a supply ship that was not coming. Then, with nothing else to go on, the computer's defense system used the only image that it had - her recording - as an interactive way to kill intruders. Kirk says the computer used too much of Losira and added in her dislike of killing.
So, once again, Kirk saves the day by convincing the omnipotent computer system that it is wrong in its purpose. or not, Kirk. You didn't do jack shit this time.
They all briefly talk about how cool the culture probably was, and about how Losira was beautiful, then Kirk calls Scotty for a beam-up. The end.

It took me freaking forever to figure out where I had seen Losira, probably because of her ridiculous hair and make-up. I was watching this in a place with no wi-fi, and wasn't able to cheat by looking up her IMDB entry. So I sat wondering throughout the remainder of the episode. The credits rolled. "Losira - Lee Meriwether." Now my brain couldn't recall what else that name was attached to. Fortunately, I was saved by a Sheldon Cooper quote that drifted up out of the back of my mind:
"That makes Halle Berry my fifth favorite Catwoman. There's Julie Newmar, Michelle Pfiffer, Eartha Kitt, Lee Meriwether..."

Catwoman. Star Trek is collecting Catwomen like Pokemon. You know, I don't care for Pokemon, but imagine Ash yelling, "I choose you, Catwoman!" and he throws the Pokeball, and out leaps Julie Newmar. I would watch that shit. Your charmander is going down, sucka.

Anyway, Losira's look:
She's got palazzo pants that are kind of connected in the back to a leash-collar kind of thing. I bet Lee couldn't sit down in that. She'd totally choke to death. The pants come up in the front as well. Then there's this crop-top thing that doesn't connect in the back at all. I bet it's held on with toupee tape or something. The whole thing looks like something worn by ice skaters, only skaters would get the luxury of having their outfits augmented with skin-colored nylon material. This doesn't have that. However - I like the aubergine color of the outfit, as well as the silver accents. 6/10 on outfit.

Hair and make-up are terrifying. We have a Flock of Seagulls up-do that obliterates her ears, and which falls down her neck. Spock eyebrows, two garish shades of eyeshadow that go with nothing she is wearing, outlined in black, cat-eye, and false lashes. Hair and make-up: 3/10. Ugh.

Death Toll:

Red deaths this episode: 2
Red deaths this season: 6
Gold deaths this episode: 0
Gold deaths this season: 0
Blue deaths this episode: 1
Blue deaths this season: 1
Total crew deaths this season: 7
Total crew deaths thus far: 49

This episode was shockingly similar to: "The Man Trap" from season one. In both cases, we have an alien female who stalks the Enterprise crew both on and off the ship, each one hunting them down and using her hands to kill them. Though it isn't specified in either episode whether she'd hunt females or not, the victims are all men. The difference here of course, is that the creature from The Man Trap was hunting for sustenance issues, while Losira was simply protecting her station. The creature from The Man Trap, the last of it's kind, was then killed by the Enterprise crew (jerks that they are), while Losira had been dead for quite some time.
This episode is also similar to the computer-run planet episodes, which are starting to become too numerous to list.
Despite its similarities to other episodes, I kind of liked the plot behind this one. The idea of a planet's defense system being left on after the inhabitants have died is also later explored (a littler differently) in a first season TNG episode. I like the kind of sad finality that the long-dead Losira guards the station because the computer could not figure out how to best visualize the defense system for others. I'm also okay with leaving the Kalandans as as an arcane, extinct species rather than receiving a larger explanation. If I had to rate this one, I'd give it seven or eight out of ten. There's some story overlap, but it's good enough to stand on its own.

*******

So I asked for tea for Christmas, and I wasn't disappointed. I received a sampler set from Adagio Teas, one of their fandom blends. As near as I can tell, you suggest blends to Adagio based on a theme. In this case, a fan suggested flavors for Doctor Eleven, and Adagio put it together. You can get it in small amounts or large, or samplers like this one, which includes two more Doctor blends and three companion blends. Each sample comes in a cool Altoids-like tin with fanart on it, usually made by the person who suggested the blend in the first place. They're awesome to keep afterward and store like things like office or sewing supplies, or any other little tiny thing.

So Eleven: it has an assam black tea base, which I had never heard of before (it's Indian), then they threw in coconut, vanilla, and apple pieces. It's good, but it had a bitter aftertaste that didn't disappear with sugar application. I went online later to find more info about it, and what do all of the reviews warn you of? Overbrewing. It causes bitterness. Good job, Lady Archon. You effed up the tea. Fortunately, I seem to have enough left in the sample to make another small cuppa, so I'll set a timer next time.

http://www.adagio.com/signature_blend/blend.html?blend=29451