Episode Review - Shuttlepod One
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
Trip and Reed have completed a mission to test the targeting scanners of their shuttlepod, and return to their rendezvous point early – during their mission they experienced malfunctions to the sensor array and communication systems. They had travelled over 20,000 kilometres away from Enterprise’s original position, though when they finally return, the two are shocked to see the remains of a ship on an asteroid’s surface. They soon discover the wreckage bears the name ‘Enterprise,’ leaving the two officers to fear the worst.

In actuality, the Enterprise is transporting some Tesnians back to their homeworld – this group of aliens provided an unfortunate encounter when their ship was destroyed in the asteroid field the Enterprise was originally mapping. The Tesnian ship went out of control, damaging part of the Enterprise’s hull just before it crashed into an asteroid. Luckily, the Tesnian crew managed to escape and Archer still hopes that the survivors can be delivered back to their home with enough time for the Enterprise to reach its rendezvous with Trip and Reed on time. T’Pol surmises that the damage done to the Tesnians was caused by a micro-singularity – something Archer considers a Vulcan myth.

Trip and Reed obviously are not clued into the real series of events – they believe that they have the wreckage of the Enterprise in front of them, and with communications offline they have no proof to allow them to believe anything other than the worst. The two worry about the fact that they only have 10 days of air left, so Trip orders a course be set for Echo Three (the subspace amplifier closest to them, which the Enterprise had set up previously). Reed argues that the shuttlepod’s non-warp capabilities will ensure that they get nowhere during their time left, but Trip argues optimistically. His optimism continues during the shuttlepod’s journey as he tries desperately to get the damaged systems online. The much more pessimistic Reed, however, is devoting his last days to writing letters to his loved ones. It doesn’t take long before the two attitudes strongly clash, though with only nine more days of oxygen left Trip suggests that they get some rest.

Oddly, Reed finds himself awaking in sickbay, surrounded by T’Pol, Phlox and Archer, who is insisting that Reed has done some sort of good job with something. As he and Phlox leave the room, however, T’Pol, quite seductively, congratulates Reed on his heroics. The odd reality is soon crushed, however, when Reed is woken up by the noise of the transceiver that Trip has now been able to repair. Just then though, the shuttlepod jerks with the same kind of problem that put their sensor array out of operation earlier, leading to the leaking of air into space. The two are able to use nitrogen gas to determine where the small leaks are, and are able to seal them with some of Trip’s left over mashed potato. With the immediate crisis over, the two find that whatever hit them went right through their shuttlepod. It managed to rupture one of the two oxygen cylinders onboard, now leaving them with just two days worth of air to survive.

After mulling over the possibilities of how something so small could penetrate the shuttlepod’s hull, Trip realises that another half day’s worth of air could be bought by diverting power from the temperature regulator to the atmosphere recyclers. They opt to live an extra few hours in the cold rather than spending less time alive at room temperature.

Meanwhile on Enterprise, T’Pol shows Archer that the Tesnian ship was definitely hit by a micro-singularity. Archer remains sceptical of the idea, but decides that if the singularities were to exist, it would be dangerous for the shuttlepod to re-enter the asteroid field when it rendezvous’ with Enterprise. He orders T’Pol to hail Trip and Reed to organise a new meeting place.

Back on the shuttlepod, Trip and Reed are able to temporarily overcome their grief and coldness with a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. Amongst their drunken rambles though, they hear something crackling on the receiver that sounds an awful lot like Sato. When they discover that this is the case, they are delighted that the Enterprise is all right and that they have made a huge mistake. However, when they receive new rendezvous coordinates, they find that the Enterprise is still two days away from them whilst they only have one day’s worth of air left. With the transmitter still broken, they are unable to signal Sato to ensure the Enterprise’s early arrival.

The two officers try desperately to figure out a different way of extending their air supply, but they realise that time is just not on their side – they need to attract the attention of the Enterprise somehow that will make them want to come to them at warp. Reed suggests that Trip jettison the shuttlepod’s impulse engine whilst rigging it to self-destruct. This would cause an explosion that they hope will show up on T’Pol’s viewer. They are able to do this, but as a result they are left adrift and go hours without knowing the outcome of their actions. After finishing off the bourbon and with just ten hours of air left, Trip decides that the odds of survival for one of them could be doubled – he climbs into the airlock in order to seal himself off, which would give Reed more hours of air. Reed though is angered, and tries to argue him down before pointing a phase-pistol at him – he’d rather have the Enterprise find both of the officers dead rather than just the one of them. He is finally hopeful that things will work out - just like Trip was. He relents and comes down, and the two men wait and see what their future brings them as they continue to freeze.

Reed opens his eyes and finds himself in sickbay once more, again with Archer, T’Pol and Phlox. He is informed that he is suffering from hypothermia, but was rescued with two or three hours of air left to spare. Reed is then left thinking – he expects T’Pol to comment on his ‘heroics’ once more, but when she does not it is clear that he is not dreaming this time. He turns to his side where he sees an unconscious Trip, and is happy to acknowledge him as a friend.

Summary
Aah, the good old-fashioned way of a couple of guys bonding – getting bladdered along the way. Of course, a lot of the time when guys chat they don’t normally face death or micro-singularities, but in the case of our own Trip and Reed, they had to overcome their own pet peeves of each other as well jumping to the massive conclusion that all their friends are dead (and that they were probably next) as well as fighting off singularity-of-the-week with mashed potatoes. And what great fun it was too – whilst this may not be a classic Star Trek episode, it certainly offers some good character development that makes the Enterprise characters even more entertaining to watch.

Perhaps a couple of things bugged me with this episode – for one I think it was far too coincidental for the most identifiable part of the Enterprise to get left behind on an asteroid for all to see and interpret as the worst. You’d also have thought that the Enterprise would have contacted the shuttlepod to alert them of the micro-singularities, or even just gone and picked them up to avert any misunderstandings. Of course though, that’s just being awkward and it would have stopped Reed and Trip getting paranoid in the first place.

Whilst the main theme of this episode was just two guys getting along and facing ‘death’ together (allowing powerful drama – or is that humour? I loved Trip’s continued annoyance at Reed for continually writing to everyone he ever knew), there was of course the battle of optimism (good ol’ Trip, looking for every possibility to get out of a tough situation) against pessimism (as mentioned, Reed and his love letters before he’s even tried to resolve the situation.) In fact, me saying that the episode isn’t classic Star Trek is not entirely true. One could always interpret the optimism as Star Trek’s (generally) more optimistic view of the future, though of course that could be stretching it considering that the episode was mainly just a character building exercise.

I think the choices of who was to be the pessimistic character and who was to be optimistic were definitely the right choices. Looking at Reed as a security officer, he is someone who could accept death as part of his job (ensuring the well being of the Enterprise and its crew) as poor Tasha Yar did back on TNG’s first season. Of course, you could also assume that Reed’s odd parents from ‘Silent Enemy’’ would be enough to push him to suicide anyway… Trip on the other hand is the engineer – the guy who always finds a solution to get everyone out of trouble (well, traditionally on Star Trek – technobabble anyone?) Therefore his optimism makes sense. I could always complain that they should have thrown in Mayweather who never gets any scenes, which would have ensured more character development for him (after seeing ‘Fortunate Son’ I would go as far as saying his character is compelling, just underdeveloped), but then saying that, I think that Trip and Reed seem like the best people for this kind of episode.

It was an interesting choice for the writers not to show us the Tesnians – I think we’re OK for another alien-of-the-week, and word of mouth alone managed to set up what had happened ‘before’ the episode, without detracting from any of the arguments happening on shuttlepod one.

It is actually quite difficult for me to say anything else about this episode – I liked it a lot, as well as several other people on the Internet it seems. Perhaps this was just a good character-building episode that you just had to sit down and follow wherever it went, appreciating it along the way without much room for comment. An episode like TNG’s ‘Data’s Day,’ albeit without the masses of trivia (then again who knows – the Tesnians could be a founder member of the Federation…) For now I’ll leave it at that and say that I hope more character driven episodes pop up – as long as we get some real Star Trek stories along the way too.

Final Opinion
Two men and a bottle of bourbon makes great entertainment.

8.5/10