CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Deadlock - Hugely pregnant Samantha Wildman still hasn't had her fucking baby but Neelix has her fix things for him even though she isn't an Engineer. She goes into labour and we get the woman giving birth shouting "YOU PUSH DAMN IT!" at the Doctor thing that I think every tv show ever has done? Janeway talks about how in a way this baby belongs to all of them. But oh shit, here comes twenty Vidiian ships. Janeway has Paris hide the ship in some plasma thing. The Doctor has to transport the Wildman baby out of Samantha after complications. Suddenly the engines (and lights) cut out. The ship is losing power and severely fucked up. The ship is being hit by "proton bursts" that are damaging it. B'Elanna and Torres try to seal a hull breach. The baby dies because the power keeps cutting out in Sickbay. Harry is sucked into space and dies(!) Kes disappears while running to help the injured Hogan. Chakotay finally magnetises the hull to bring some peace. The hull breach is getting even bigger and kind of seems like it might eat up the whole ship. Janeway feels pretty bad about all this! The ship starts shaking again and there's a hull breach in the Bridge. Then...we see the ship undamaged and Janeway watching a ghost of herself running off the Bridge. Harry's still alive (meh.) Little baby Wildman is alive too (aww.) There's two Keses, one from the Hell Voyager. Janeway realises that the ship was somehow duplicated after going through the plamsa thing. The healthy Voyager damaged the other one with the proton bursts so she has B'Elanna stop them. Both ships occupy the same space and don't ask me how that makes sense. But the antimatter in the warp drive couldn't be duplicated so both ships are taking power from the same source. (There's a lot of technobabble in Voyager.)
Hell Kes has horrible flashbacks to the baby dying as the live baby cries. Janeway and B'Elanna try to find a way to communicate with Hell Voyager. The two Janeways talk to each other by video. The Janeway with the good Voyager wants to merge the two ships (and crew) back together. Not sure how that would work, really! Would all their memories merge together? What about the dead Harry body floating through space? It all goes wrong and instead of merging they go further out of phase (yeah I don't know.) They're running out of antimatter. Healthy Janeway and Hell Kes cross over to Hell Voyager. The Janeways talk about nerd stuff together. Hell Janeway suggests she self destruct her Voyager so that the other one can survive as they'll both die otherwise. There's some nice Janeway self interaction. A Vidiian ship shows up. They attack but their shot only hits the healthy Voyager. They board healthy Voyager and start harvesting organs (Tuvok and Tom go down right away like chumps.) The Doctor hides with the Wildman baby. Healthy Janeway naturally decides to blow up her ship because everyone's about to die anyway and makes Hell Janeway promise to get her crew home. She orders Harry to go through the rift with the baby. The Vidiians really want the baby's organs but for some reason can't find it with their evil tricorders whle the Doctor hides behind a table. ACTION HARRY takes out two Vidiians (why coudn't Tuvok do that?) and takes the baby. Janeway calmly welcomes the Vidiians to the Bridge just as Voyager blows up in a badass moment. Hell Voyager almost instantly looks back to normal. Harry gives the baby to Samantha (wouldn't she be a bit weirded out that her actual baby died and this is a duplicate?) Janeway tells Harry that "weird is part of the job".
There's a lot of great stuff here. Voyager takes damage like never before. Things get grimey! A baby dies! Harry dies! Hair gets messier than ever! You kind of think the badly damaged Voyager will be the one to self destruct so it's a nice twist when the clean one blows up instead. But there's the ongoing probablem of the reset button. None of this damage to Voyager ends up meaning anything and I'm not even talking about how everything will be fine in the next episode: everything's fine even by the end of this episode! What happened to that massive hull breach? They just fix it offscreen I guess. Yes Harry remembers he's from a different Voyager but it's blown off by one line about "weird" from Janeway at the end and ultimately isn't a big deal. For all its fault, Discovery would have done this episode better because they would have at least explored the implications a bit (probably.) Anwayy this is still one of the strongest episodes of the season so don't take my complaining too seriously!
SCORE: 8.5/10
Innocence - Tuvok and a soon to be dead Ensign have crashed a shuttle on a planet. Tuvok then meets some children (their leader is a girl named Tressa) who apparently also crashed on the planet. He promises to look after them and they give him a cuddle. On Voyager Janeway and Chakotay make first contact with the adults of the same species. Their leader tells Janeway how their people turned their backs on technology and isolate themselves now so as not to be tempted by technology that would improve their quality of life. The kids accuse Tuvok of being mean for trying to make them eat rations. They warn that a monster will come and take them at night. Janeway explains the Doctor to the Prime Minister (she has some made up alien title that I'm not going to look up how to spell) and she says her people believe the flesh is just an illusion. She's called away on an emergency. Tuvok tells the children not to let their fears control them. He teaches them Vulcan mind techniques to deal with it. The kids annoy Tuvok by running around playing whle he's trying to work. He disciplines them in an adorable Vulcan way. The children ask Tuvok if he loves his own children. He says they are part of his identity and he is incomplete without them. That means yes. A ship is detected but the children want to hide because it's their own people and they say they were sent to the planet to die. Since the aliens have guns Tuvok hides the kids from them. The kids wonder if their energy will really be released when the monster kills them like the scrolls says and Tuvok tells them about the Vulcan Katra.
Janeway searches for Tuvok but the PM says the moon is sacred to them and it's a disgrace that the shuttle crashed there etc. The transporter doesn't work as usual (sereiously what's with Voyager's transporters never working?) The kids can't sleep and want Tuvok to tell them a story. He doesn't have his lute but does sing to them. Aww. In the morning Tressa wakes up to find the other two kids are gone. Tuvok goes into the cave to look for the missing kids, despite Tressa's fears that the monster will eat him. Tuvok finds the clothes of the missing kids. Sure looks like they've been eaten by a monster that doesn't like the taste of clothes! Tuvok manages to get a message to Janeway and tells her about the girl. The PM is still stuffy with Janeway and won't explain what's really going on. Janeway tells her she's taking a shuttle to the planet to pick up Tuvok anyway. Janeway and Paris are chased by the aliens as they fly down to the planet. Tuvok and Tressa managed to get his shuttle off the surface. She wants to stay with him. The PM contacts them and wants Tressa back. Again she won't just tell Tuvok what's really happening and shoots at him instead. They go back to the surface and meet with the aliens and Janway. The PM tells them Tressa is 96 years old. Their agining process is reversed, they somehow start as old people (how does one give birth to a fully grown adult?) and die as confused children. It's Tressa's time to die and there's no way to stop it, the energy in her body will be released soon (the monster isn't real.) Tressa is still a scared little girl but Tuvok tells her he can't protect her from the natural end of life. Janeway and the PM make friends. Tressa is suddenly able to talk rationally and tells Tuvok he reminds her of her grandson. He takes her to the cave to die.
Okay, so I'll just get the bad out of the way: a species that ages backwards doesn't make any real senes. Aging, by its very nature, must go forwards! I get that they had to do something weird and alien that Janeway and Tuvok wouldn't be able to guess, it still doesn't really make anyway sense. Tressa (and the other kids) never really acted like they were actually 90 year olds throughout the episode until the very end when Tressa suddenly mentions a grandson. And it's frustrating as usual that the alien leader doesn't just tell Janeway what's going on. But the episode still works thanks to a strong performance by Tim Russ. We haven't really learned much about Tuvok's personal life and he plays all the stuff about missing his own children perfectly. The ending, despite making no sesne as I keep saying, is still very touching because his relatioship with Tress was so believable. So yeah this is a silly plot but Star Trek often has sillly plots resulting in good character stuff.
SCORE: 7.5/10
Hell Kes has horrible flashbacks to the baby dying as the live baby cries. Janeway and B'Elanna try to find a way to communicate with Hell Voyager. The two Janeways talk to each other by video. The Janeway with the good Voyager wants to merge the two ships (and crew) back together. Not sure how that would work, really! Would all their memories merge together? What about the dead Harry body floating through space? It all goes wrong and instead of merging they go further out of phase (yeah I don't know.) They're running out of antimatter. Healthy Janeway and Hell Kes cross over to Hell Voyager. The Janeways talk about nerd stuff together. Hell Janeway suggests she self destruct her Voyager so that the other one can survive as they'll both die otherwise. There's some nice Janeway self interaction. A Vidiian ship shows up. They attack but their shot only hits the healthy Voyager. They board healthy Voyager and start harvesting organs (Tuvok and Tom go down right away like chumps.) The Doctor hides with the Wildman baby. Healthy Janeway naturally decides to blow up her ship because everyone's about to die anyway and makes Hell Janeway promise to get her crew home. She orders Harry to go through the rift with the baby. The Vidiians really want the baby's organs but for some reason can't find it with their evil tricorders whle the Doctor hides behind a table. ACTION HARRY takes out two Vidiians (why coudn't Tuvok do that?) and takes the baby. Janeway calmly welcomes the Vidiians to the Bridge just as Voyager blows up in a badass moment. Hell Voyager almost instantly looks back to normal. Harry gives the baby to Samantha (wouldn't she be a bit weirded out that her actual baby died and this is a duplicate?) Janeway tells Harry that "weird is part of the job".
There's a lot of great stuff here. Voyager takes damage like never before. Things get grimey! A baby dies! Harry dies! Hair gets messier than ever! You kind of think the badly damaged Voyager will be the one to self destruct so it's a nice twist when the clean one blows up instead. But there's the ongoing probablem of the reset button. None of this damage to Voyager ends up meaning anything and I'm not even talking about how everything will be fine in the next episode: everything's fine even by the end of this episode! What happened to that massive hull breach? They just fix it offscreen I guess. Yes Harry remembers he's from a different Voyager but it's blown off by one line about "weird" from Janeway at the end and ultimately isn't a big deal. For all its fault, Discovery would have done this episode better because they would have at least explored the implications a bit (probably.) Anwayy this is still one of the strongest episodes of the season so don't take my complaining too seriously!
SCORE: 8.5/10
Innocence - Tuvok and a soon to be dead Ensign have crashed a shuttle on a planet. Tuvok then meets some children (their leader is a girl named Tressa) who apparently also crashed on the planet. He promises to look after them and they give him a cuddle. On Voyager Janeway and Chakotay make first contact with the adults of the same species. Their leader tells Janeway how their people turned their backs on technology and isolate themselves now so as not to be tempted by technology that would improve their quality of life. The kids accuse Tuvok of being mean for trying to make them eat rations. They warn that a monster will come and take them at night. Janeway explains the Doctor to the Prime Minister (she has some made up alien title that I'm not going to look up how to spell) and she says her people believe the flesh is just an illusion. She's called away on an emergency. Tuvok tells the children not to let their fears control them. He teaches them Vulcan mind techniques to deal with it. The kids annoy Tuvok by running around playing whle he's trying to work. He disciplines them in an adorable Vulcan way. The children ask Tuvok if he loves his own children. He says they are part of his identity and he is incomplete without them. That means yes. A ship is detected but the children want to hide because it's their own people and they say they were sent to the planet to die. Since the aliens have guns Tuvok hides the kids from them. The kids wonder if their energy will really be released when the monster kills them like the scrolls says and Tuvok tells them about the Vulcan Katra.
Janeway searches for Tuvok but the PM says the moon is sacred to them and it's a disgrace that the shuttle crashed there etc. The transporter doesn't work as usual (sereiously what's with Voyager's transporters never working?) The kids can't sleep and want Tuvok to tell them a story. He doesn't have his lute but does sing to them. Aww. In the morning Tressa wakes up to find the other two kids are gone. Tuvok goes into the cave to look for the missing kids, despite Tressa's fears that the monster will eat him. Tuvok finds the clothes of the missing kids. Sure looks like they've been eaten by a monster that doesn't like the taste of clothes! Tuvok manages to get a message to Janeway and tells her about the girl. The PM is still stuffy with Janeway and won't explain what's really going on. Janeway tells her she's taking a shuttle to the planet to pick up Tuvok anyway. Janeway and Paris are chased by the aliens as they fly down to the planet. Tuvok and Tressa managed to get his shuttle off the surface. She wants to stay with him. The PM contacts them and wants Tressa back. Again she won't just tell Tuvok what's really happening and shoots at him instead. They go back to the surface and meet with the aliens and Janway. The PM tells them Tressa is 96 years old. Their agining process is reversed, they somehow start as old people (how does one give birth to a fully grown adult?) and die as confused children. It's Tressa's time to die and there's no way to stop it, the energy in her body will be released soon (the monster isn't real.) Tressa is still a scared little girl but Tuvok tells her he can't protect her from the natural end of life. Janeway and the PM make friends. Tressa is suddenly able to talk rationally and tells Tuvok he reminds her of her grandson. He takes her to the cave to die.
Okay, so I'll just get the bad out of the way: a species that ages backwards doesn't make any real senes. Aging, by its very nature, must go forwards! I get that they had to do something weird and alien that Janeway and Tuvok wouldn't be able to guess, it still doesn't really make anyway sense. Tressa (and the other kids) never really acted like they were actually 90 year olds throughout the episode until the very end when Tressa suddenly mentions a grandson. And it's frustrating as usual that the alien leader doesn't just tell Janeway what's going on. But the episode still works thanks to a strong performance by Tim Russ. We haven't really learned much about Tuvok's personal life and he plays all the stuff about missing his own children perfectly. The ending, despite making no sesne as I keep saying, is still very touching because his relatioship with Tress was so believable. So yeah this is a silly plot but Star Trek often has sillly plots resulting in good character stuff.
SCORE: 7.5/10
