Smoked, March 20, 1996

As Reviewed by Rosepetal

As Reviewed by Shirley

By Rosepetal

This episode starts with Harm and Lt. Krennick in his apartment.  Harm is cooking and we see Krennick hitting on Harm. 

A Tomcat is down in Cuba after being damaged by lighting.  Harm, Meg and Lt. Krennick are sent to Cuba with Undersecretary of State Blair to help negotiate the return of the Pilot and the Tomcat.  They are just about to go into Cuban airspace when they are told they are not allowed to enter.  Harm takes the helm of the plane and says they have a medical emergency and that they must be allowed to enter.  Just as Cuban pilots go in the air armed to shoot the plane down, they land in Cuba. 

The Cuban pilot meets them in a hanger and wants to know who was flying the American plane.  Harm says I was.  The Cuban says don't try that again or you will be shot down.  He offers them to come for a siesta before the negotiations but Krennick wants to start negotiating now.  He says in Cuba things go at a much slower place and they will have a siesta.

At the place for the siesta, a boy offers Meg a Cuban cigar and Harm offers to take it off her hands cause he can much more appreciate the cigar.  The boys grandfather offers one to Harm too.  He kinda offers to help Harm and Meg if they ever have a need for him cause he doesn't like Castro.   The pilot who is being held prisoner is brought to the Siesta and Harm finally realizes it is Keeter his long time friend from his flying days. 

The Cuban's are trying to download the top secret information off the plane's computer so that they may reproduce the plane.  Harm is able to sabotage the plane so it can't be run anymore so the Cuban's can't get any more information off of it.  Once again, in typical Harm fashion, he is able to save the day and get Keeter and the plane home safely.

By Shirley

The teaser for this episode was rather mundane. But Act One opened with a bang, in Harm's apartment. The music is Beethoven's Fifth, and our favourite sailor is cooking! In comes Cmdr. Krennick. I LIKE her. Andrea Thompson is a tremendously gifted actress. In Defensive Action she managed to play essentially the 'bad guy' role without alienating me, the viewer. Now she has my full attention as I watched, my mouth hanging open, shaking with laughter, as she propositioned Harm. Wowee! This is funny! I hope she becomes a regular. Her character has added immeasurably to the richness of the series in these episodes. Now I suppose if the positions were reversed and it was Harm chasing Krennick (or Meg), it would be sexual harassment. It certainly bordered on that. But I think that not only is Harm more than up to the task of fencing with Krennick, he actually enjoys it. Just watch the challenging yet teasing look on his face as he responded to her question of whether he had been in Meg's room with a smug "Well ..."

This episode featured a number of humorous characters such as Under Secretary Baird, and Raoul, and Capitan Fuentes (obviously named for a production team member), and Harm's girlfriend, she of the many names.

I have several favourite lines in this episode, but I guess my very favourite is Krennick's use of Beatrice's line from Much Ado About Nothing "I'll eat his liver!"

With this episode, JAG has arrived. This is good.

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