TV Dinner (Bouteina episode)

TV Dinner is the twenty-second episode of the third season.

Tagline
After winning her eights-of-final game, Catherine wins an automatic spot for the semifinals. She tirelessly trains herself for that game, which is a crucial step to rescue Lyran prisoners trapped on a planet after a warp core failure.

Act One
The victor from the eights-of-final game has emerged after an hour-long game. Catherine, a provisional riov, has six days off before she is scheduled to play again on the field of battle. The other people rooted her and encouraged her to continue, with ready to delay Christmas celebrations in order to have the Lyran prisoners celebrate with them if they are freed. Also, Brianna Reiss prepared the cargo cutter by doing the pre-flight checks and ate TV dinners en route for their next assignment in the Synton system. They found that their TV dinners contained breaded fish.

Act Two
In the meantime, Catherine Giltia kept eating her TV dinners as she trained for her semifinal game, knowing that the lives of the Lyrans hung on the balance. Taev Radaik asked her how Romulans fared in this game, and Ferengi are found to be better. She won 47 games in a row before showtime arrived. All semifinalists state their intentions towards the Lyran prisoners, and the pressure is on her to win a spot in the final, especially among Romulans. She begins the game out in force, but a roll of the dice helped her do it. Also, during the cargo flight, Brianna kept hollering "Catherine! Catherine!" to encourage her.

Act Three
Meanwhile, the commanding officer of Starbase 148 hailed her cargo ship when the cargo ship began to be used. Brianna transmitted her report and she learns that the Lyrans did not forget about the prisoners on the planet. Also, the Monopoly players are getting roughed up by Catherine's aggressive play and they were unlucky. They witnessed Catherine winning by a $75 margin, thus qualifying for the two-hour final game the day after. The game show producers on the set witness Grizmallt's bad sportsmanship and get the final game reduced to a single hour of play. Catherine lost her two-hour practice game by $3.

Act Four
Pazzo tries to force Catherine to break training but Catherine protests, saying that her heyday will arrive shortly. She foresees her life being forever changed if she won the tournament and she will become a professional Monopoly player. The game show host praised the quality of the Monopoly playing that all rounds of playing have provided. However, being second overall after the semifinals, Catherine loses a precious edge in playing. 35 minutes into the game, a player files bankruptcy and there was another player coming very close to bankruptcy during the last turn. And Catherine has the impression to have played her best game.

Act Five
After that tense moment, Catherine was declared the winner of the tournament and thus given 45 seconds for her acceptance speech. The Lyrans are freed and Catherine leads dazed and confused Lyrans out of the television studios, prompting M'Rex to activate the transporter to take them out of the world. Before the Christmas celebrations could begin on the ship, Catherine gets promoted to enarrain so her years of service would be rewarded. Because of Catherine's pivotal role in saving the Lyran prisoners, the Lyran Starfleet awards her the Starfleet Medal of Commendation. The freed prisoners resumed their duties.