Nightingale

** (2 stars out of 5)

Harry Kim comes to the aid of a ship of Kraylor medics under fire from their foes, the Annari. The Ship's Shepherd, Book, wants to make Harry the Captain. He even has a Brown Coat ready and waiting. Take me out to the black, tell 'em I ain't comin' back...!

Sorry, this just isn't Firefly. Harry DOES deserve to be a lieutenant or lieutenant commander by now, though. He just needs a better story for that.

Harry names the medical transport for Florence Nightingale. This meant nothing to the alien doctors, and even less because they are lying about being doctors. They are actually cloaking device scientists. They still need Kim, but for the military objective of getting their prototype to their besieged world.

Over in the B-story, Torres strips! ... the warp engines for an overhaul. And Icheb crushes on the newly-married Klingon engineer.  Can you blame the boy? He may have been a Borg, but he still has EYES!

"Nightingale" features Harry's first command, and who would have thought it would be on a very familiar Federation fighter, glimpsed often in the Maquis conflict and throughout the Dominion War. The only question, really, is HOW DID IT GET ALL THE WAY OUT HERE? And why does Shepherd Book have scalloped earlobes? Burning questions and we'll never hear the answers.

Warhead

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Taking the late shift is a good way to get command experience, at least that's the way Harry Kim sees it. Of course (and I can't stress this enough) away missions really, really, REALLY should have experienced people making the decisions.

I mean, when the Doctor finds a talking metal tube that thinks it's a person, is there anyone who DOESN'T think to themselves: "Hey, that might be a bomb."? Especially anyone who's seen Dark Star?

But, no, it's afraid and we're very compassionate people who have never come across dangerous sentient metal things before and, whelp: "seek out new life" as they always say... so they bring the bomb on board and it turns out to be a bomb. Everyone is shocked. Especially when Cray-Cray Kablooie there hacks the EMH program and holds them all hostage, demanding a ride to the planet Salina and an order of fries. Sorry, that's fried planet Salina.

While the Druodans who prematurely fired off Rex Plode the talking bomb would've been giddy about all this a few years ago... there was that pesky armistice and all. Tensions mount as Robert Picardo does acting. Can our heroes talk the "Warhead" down before it drones over and ruins some civilian wedding? And I don't mean ruins it with the Doctor's singing voice.

Say... weren't we going to put some firewalls around the Doctor's brains the LAST time he went crazy? I guess we know how THAT turned out. It turned out FAIL.