I thought it was extremely cheesy. I could have done without it.
Yes, I saw at least one comment that suggested it was part of the general laziness that pervaded the episode.
I agree about SI. At least, even if it didn't explore any of them, this episode raised a lot of interesting issues which can be explored by fans later. And there was at least an interesting action scene. By comparison, SI did practically nothing with the concept.
At another post, someone said that MBV and this ep were swapped to get MBV in during February. Unfortunately, past experience shows they won't fix that on the DVDs, leaving these permanently out of order.