Battle cruiser Tango Bravo 1 — wait, that’s really the name? — has just reached orbit around planet N184.  Did they just run out of names for stuff in the future?  They are there to drop off an undisclosed payload.  As the crew speculates about what it is, they are blasted by laser fire which causes a couple of crew-members to drop their own payloads.  When they return fire, the planet zaps them with a ray which knocks them out.  They awaken in space jail sponging off alien taxpayers, with crystals embedded in their hands.

A voice demands to know who they are.  Captain Kimbro identifies himself and says they are from the Starship Archipelago, so I guess it does have a name.  The others introduce themselves per the Captain’s orders.  Deadeye Dumar — played by the always arrogant and obnoxious Steven Bauer ^[1] — feels compelled to represent humanity by adding, “Bite me.”  His witty ripost earns him a sizzling shock to the hand which could render him celibate for weeks.

The aliens tell them to take an hour to pick a spokesman, which seems pretty generous “or else you will meet the same fate as the last unfortunate creatures to trespass in this sector.”  The warning picture they show is too confusing to be effective.  There is a stereotypical alien, but what is that other thing?  Is it his entrails being pulled out?  Is it a chestburster?  Is it a baby?  An alien bagpipe?  Is it significant that one tendril is touching the alien’s noggin?  This is an alien, after all — how do we now this isn’t just what they look like?  One crew-member objects and his mouth is fused shut; sadly it is not Steven Bauer.

The aliens are at least punctual and a voice asks the prisoners if they have selected a spokesman.  Sadly, they are too dimwitted to say, “Yeah, we chose Lt. Valentine, but you sealed his mouth shut!”  Maybe they would have unsealed his mouth.  Worth a try.  To Bauer’s credit, he offers to talk to the aliens in case they get rough.  Captain Kimbro pulls rank, though, and exits to the conference/torture room.

The aliens torture Kimbro, accusing him of bringing a bomb to their planet.  He claims it is “a tool of scientific research.”  They say he better “tell us the truth by the time our second sun rises or you will watch your crew die.”  This would be more effective if he knew the local time, when sunset was, and how long a day was here.

He stumbles back into the cell.  He tells them the aliens want to know what the device is.  He says he told them “the truth.  I don’t even know what the damn thing is.”  Well, that’s not exactly true — he told them it was a research tool, not a bomb.  Anyhoo.

The aliens send water bottles to the cell.  Bauer asks what they will do about Valentine who still has no mouth.  Dr. Chomsky says, “We’ll just have to hydrate him through his skin.”  She then begins rubbing water on his cheeks.  What?  A medical doctor thinks you can hydrate through the skin?  Is she confusing it with moisturizing?

They next summon Valentine for questioning.  Being smarter than the crew, the aliens re-open his Tang-hole.  They then make Valentine see his smarter, braver, deader, and more handsome heroic brother who died saving his platoon.  His brother tells him he can save the lives of the crew by talking.

Back in the cell, Major Neguchi finds the alien’s surveillance equipment.  When he touches it, the aliens fuse his eyes shut.  The aliens then send down some food and just to taunt Neguchi, some porn.  Kimbro finally admits the aliens made him see an old friend who might have died from his negligence.

It comes out that Neguchi also guilt-ridden about the deaths of some pilots under his command at an air show.  His cockiness led them to try a dangerous loop that killed two of his pilots . . . and four people were injured on the ground . . . including a six year old girl . . . who was blinded.  We all love a good story about kids being blinded, but the lack of a similar irony for Valentine’s sealed mouth makes this a little clunky.

Out of nowhere, Bauer decides the only civilian in the crew, Kristin O’Keefe is not telling all she knows.  Turns out he is correct, though.  She says the device is indeed a bomb that could blow a hold 5 miles wide through the planet.

The aliens take Dr. Chomski and accuse her of experimenting on children.  She screams, “They were terminally ill!”  They make her see some of the dead kids who say, “Why did you hurt us?” and “We didn’t want to die.”  The voice tells the crew-members in the cell that Dr. Chomski will not be returning because “her body expired.”

Again, this is a little clunky.  It is not clear that Kimbro and Valentine are bad guys.  Neguchi was just misguided (he mis-guided his pilots right into the ground).  But Chomsky really is evil.  I thought maybe she was offering new medicine and procedures that had not been FDA approved to kids with no other hope.  But those kids did not seem grateful at all.  And her reaction to them was horror, not pain at not being able to help them.  Even her death is ambiguous.  The aliens say they tried to revive her.  Did she have a heart attack?  Did they torture her extree-hard because she really was evil?

They next summon Neguchi to the torture chamber.  They restore his eyes just so he can see Dr. Chomski’s dead body floating in some kind of solution.  She seems to have the same damage as the alien in the warning.  Although, the shot is so quick, it is still impossible to see just what that damage is.  And, BTW, the alien in the warning was naked.  Just sayin’, Showtime.

Finally Bauer is called into the chamber.  After being tortured, Mr. tough-guy rats out O’Keefe as having the codes to disarm the device.

I’ll stop there.  In spite of a couple of of good performances, and because of a few terrible ones, this was a bit of a chore to watch.  However, the ending took this episode from a 2.5 to a 4.5, and at such speed I literally got a chill.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] At least based on the episode of Breaking Bad I coincidentally saw him in today.
• I don’t want to get spoilery with the ending, but does no one care that Chomski was Dr. Mengele?  All is forgiven?
• The summary on IMDb manages to be both incorrect and a complete spoiler.
• The aliens were Ebonites.  Not very woke.