MONDO EXTRAS

Meanwhile, a helicopter flies over what I'm guessing is San Francisco Bay. Flying the craft is Sulu, looking thrilled to be back in the movie. He presses a button and activates the windshield wipers. Sulu makes an "oops!" face and stops them. Hmm. I wonder how many times he's done that on the Enterprise. Also, um, would it be inappropriate for me to point out that the last time we saw Sulu, he was buddying up with a helicopter pilot, and now it's the next morning and he's got the helicopter? And would I be incorrect in making some dirty assumptions about what Sulu may have had to do to get the helicopter? I would? Okay then.

Annie drives up to the park and exits her truck. Then she starts jumping around and screaming for Kirk. Ugh. She then notices Sulu's helicopter dropping its cargo into the invisible Klingon ship. She screams and runs around, eventually running right into the side of the invisible ship and bouncing off of it. I used to derive so much pleasure out of that moment, but ever since last week when I walked into a closed glass door and left a nice Sara-M-face-shaped smear on the glass, rubbing my tender nose while a bar full of people laughed at me, I've only felt sadness when watching this scene. ["Aw, and we specifically engineered it just so you could recap that scene!" -- Keckler]

Annie does some miming of the nonexistent side of the ship and screams some more until she is so loud and piercing that Scotty, who's standing underneath a running helicopter, can hear her. He calls down to Kirk that they have a problem. Even inside the ship, which is made of material that can withstand phaser fire and the pressure of flying at warp speed, we can still hear Annie's voice as she shrieks and shrieks for Kirk. The Instruments of Whimsy that often end episodes of the Star Trek television show play as Kirk moves to beam Annie on board the ship. And sure, that's a major no-no according to the Temporal Prime Directive or whatever, but I'm sure the Temporal Prime Directive Council will understand once Kirk explains that it was either beam Annie aboard, or have to listen to her scream for who knows how long. "AAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAA-AAAAAAA-AAAAAA-AAAAAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAAA-AAAAAA-AAAAAAAAA-AAAHHHHHH-HHHH-HHH!" Annie screams as she is beamed onto the Klingon ship. God, that was unpleasant. By the way, my Special Edition DVD labels this chapter "Unwelcome Visitor," because even it knows how much Annie sucks.