Damage

*** (3 stars out of 5)

"Damage" is (if you can believe it) an episode about damage. Everything and everyone on the ship is wrecked, shell-shocked, and out of righteous options.

Archer is sleepin' with the fishes! No, not dead, but gassed unconscious by the Aquatics and mailed back to the Enterprise postage due. Ship's casualties were high before the Xindi withdrew on Degra's whim. 14 dead, 3 missing, and also acting Captain T'Pol is going 'round the twist. The ship looks like a wheel of Swiss Cheese. And the missing aren't missing, I saw them fall out last episode. Not good news, I guess, but it's definitely 17 dead.

Asking some naive Expanse Tourists for a warp coil nicely fails. Archer puts on his Sisko hat (the one in the lovely shade of Morally Grey). They disable the neutral ship, steal the vital component, and leave the poor innocent saps stranded in hostile space three years from safety. The humans salve their consciences by leaving some extra burgers behind. As The Great Bird of The Galaxy intended. Heroism!

T'Pol dreams of eating Trip in the shower. And not in the good way. At last we learn what's wrong with her... she's actually been shooting up trellium-D for three months. Literally cooking up the little blue crack rocks that turn Vulcans into pain-maddened zombies. Yeah, it's killing her, but what's life without love? Love of drugs!

Speaking of insane women, we finally learn who the Xindi mean when they talk about HER. A trans-dimensional demon. Visually she's a Dominion Founder in a barbed Borg Queen corset. She gave the Xindi their "Kill All Humans" order. A Sphere-Builder, they call her. But that's a dumb name, so just call her a PG Cenobite.

Terra Nova

** (2 stars out of 5)

Out of contact for 70 years, the human colony on Terra Nova went full "Miri" with a touch of "Friendship One" when a radioactive meteor tricked them into thinking they had been attacked by Earth, killed all the adults, and forced the children to live like moles, digging in holes. Granted, that's a lot to put on a meteor, but they should be grateful it didn't just wipe them all out like meteors are probably more likely to do.

When the rescue investigation begins in the nick of time, seven decades later, Enterprise's crew are taken for hostiles and attacked.

"Your words are shale!" snarls Erick Avari, calling the outsiders slippery fibbers in the kooky local patter. Where's that universal translator, Hoshi? So confusing!

Phlox can cure lung cancer but not contaminated water, so the Earthers must talk the Earth-encrusted into moving into some better caves on a more upscale continent. Or even get them to go outside sometimes. But that might be pushing it.

Speaking of pushing it, the writers pushed my buttons when they made Terra Nova Earth's first extra-solar colony. Since the original series told us Zefram Cochrane was from Alpha Centauri, it makes a LOT more sense that humans would have settled THERE first, right? (It's closer.)

"Terra Nova" does feature stuff from Terra, but is it all that Nova? Prequels have the chance to steal back the sense of wonder by giving us people doing things for the first time. Of course, they also have the chance to do exactly what has already been done before.

Deja Q

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Enterprise is trying, much like an ant pushing a tricycle, to stop a moon from dropping out of the skies of Bre'el IV.

When who should suddenly appear but Q, nekkid as a jaybird.

Q claims the Continuum has convicted him as a spreader of chaos, and condemned him to powerless mortality. He reads to the tricorder as human, and to Troi's senses as terrified.

Q is desperate for sanctuary and, sickeningly, Picard is the closest thing he has to a friend. They still don't quite believe that he is merely mortal.

"What must I do to convince you?"

"Die," Worf declares, with Spockian logic.

"Oh, very clever Worf, eat any good books lately?" The ex-god of snark is tossed in the brig.

Data ends up as Q's chaperone as they attempt to integrate him into the crew. It doesn't go all that well: on their first stop Guinan stabs Q in the hand with a fork. To test his humanity, you understand.

The hostess is not especially ashamed of her action. "You're a pitiful excuse for a human and the only way you're going to survive is on the charity of others."

Almost immediately, something else comes after Q for revenge. A plasma people Guinan called the Calamarain attack him. Q thinks of them as humorless, at least when it comes to whatever joke (or torment) he put them to.

"It's hard to work in a group when you're omnipotent."

Data, trying to save Q from the Calamarain assault, nearly gets his noggin destroyed. Crusher and La Forge set to work restoring him.

Q realizes what Data risked for him, confesses that he is a miserable coward, and steals a shuttlecraft. Perhaps he was running away, perhaps he was committing suicide, but... just maybe...

Another Q (Corbin Bernson is a comedy god, by-the-by), something of a parole officer, claims this death is a little bit selfless. Eventually the Calamarain would've destroyed Enterprise and Q's sacrifice might have just saved them.

Re-frocked, Q the Incorrigible doles out fantasy women and cigars, and offers a particular reward to his 'Professor of the Humanities'.

"I would never curse you by making you human. Think of it as a going-away present."

The present for Data is a belly laugh worthy of Stan Laurel. "It was a wonderful... feeling."

Also, Q put the moon back to normal. Nice guy after all?

"Don't bet on it, Picard."

"Deja Q" is a brilliant comedy with some great stuff to say about who and what we are. Rage, fear and loneliness, justice and mercy, compassion and sacrifice. Things can look pretty bleak, (if, for instance, you're in caffeine withdrawl) but it might be all right in a universe where a droid and the god of chaos can find common ground.

Miri

** (2 stars out of 5)

Enterprise runs across the first of many "exact duplicates of Earth". "Not THE Earth. ANOTHER Earth."

Turns out they are ten for a penny, cheap like borscht. It even has THE SAME CONTINENTS. Why? Is that weird?

It's an Earth that died of plague in its 1960's. The landing party are attacked by a dying creature when they approach his only possession. "It's broke... somebody please fix." The plaintive cry of a centuries-old child crumbling to dust beside a rusty tricycle. My heart still catches in my throat a little at that scene.

Dear everybody- please don't make biological weapons. Thanks.

Love, Mike.

300 years ago, an engineered virus for life prolongation bestowed it: but only on children. The disease killed all the adults and caused the kids to age one month per every century since. Once they reach puberty, however, they grow blue splotches, go crazy, and die. Our adult explorers have one week to live.

I love the bit when Kirk tells McCoy and Spock to make a vaccine, and Dr. McCoy comes back, deadpan, with: "Is that all, Captain? We have 5 days, you know."

McCoy is awesome. And you know he's gonna prevail.

Still, they ARE easily bamboozled out of their communicators by Feral Boy, I mean Jahn. How hard is it to keep them on your belts, guys?

One of these 'Onlies' is called Miri, and she's nearly a grown-up, and she helps where she can 'cause she's gots a crush on da Captain. As ever. The man can't go anywhere without dames flipping for him.

At first, I find the chants and rhymes of the aged kids eerie, but it quickly gets VERY irritating. They jibber, they jabber, nyah nyah-nyah nyah nyah, Grups & Foolies, Olly olly oxen free, bonk bonk bonk bonk blah blah blah.

I echo Kirk "NO BLAH BLAH BLAH!" I get it. Post-apocalyptic dust bowl, edge of starvation. You've had it rough.

But you've had all this time, no distractions, no jobs, no sex drives... AND YOU DON'T READ. Not CAN'T. DON'T.

I guess they ARE exact duplicates of American children. Ba-zinga!