Wacky Reviews: Star Trek
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Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
RIP Jeremy Kemp. Although I was surprised to learn he was still alive all this time. He looked older than he was.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Yeah I would have thought he was about 70 in TNG but maybe that's because I was younger when I first saw it and anyone over 40 looked 70 to me then.
Fuddlemiff
Is this real life?
Fuuuuuuck. Hair makes a lotta difference.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
And remember Picard the character was supposed to be 80 or something crazy like that in TNG. Which would make him over 100 in the Picard show...
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Mortal Coil - Neelix is helping everyone. Seven thinks his food is smelly. Ensign Wildman returns and needs Neelix's help getting her daughter Naomi to sleep (this is the first time Seven has learned Naomi exists, which seems odd.) Neelix tells Naomi about the "Great Forest" where all Talaxians go when they die. Seven mentions that the Borg once refused to assimilate the Kazon because they were so terrible. That's great. Neelix goes off in a shuttle with Chakotay and Tom (this is a really long teaser) to collect some protomatter but is struck by space lightning...AND DIES. OPENING CREDITS. Tom can't revive him and neither can the Doctor when the shuttle eventually gets picked up by Voyager. Seven says that Neelix can be "reactivated" even though he's been dead for eighteen hours. He function within the crew is "diverse" she says. Janeway is worried he'll be brain damaged but who would be able to tell the difference really. Seven's magical nanoprobes revive Neelix, much to the Doc's amazement. The Doctor tells Neelix's he's set the "world record" for being dead and makes sure to tell him he was really, completely dead and not just unconscious or anything. Neelix seems normal at first but then asks his sister why she wasn't there when he died. Seven tells Tuvok that the Borg are immortal because their memories live on in the Collective. Chakotay creates a simulation of the accidet in the Holodeck to see what went wrong. Neelix joins him and witnesses a recreation of his own death. He tells Chakotay there was nothing when he died, no Great Forest. Chakotay tells him not to throw his faith away but Neelix is now sure there's nothing when you die. There just happens to be a Talaxian holiday being celebrated on Voyager at the time. Tuvok does the boring opening speech. Paris toasts Neelix for being still alive. Janeway tells Seven to make small talk so Seven tells Ensign Wildman how the Borg assimilate children. Wildman talks Neelix into going to see Naomi as he hasn't seen her for days.
Naomi wants Neelix to tell her about the Great Forest again and he's obviously upset. Seven runs a check on Neelix's nanoprobes and he says he doesn't feel like himself anymore. He yells at Seven for bringing him back to life then his body starts to reject the nanoprobes and he nearly dies again. Neelix asks to speak to Chakotay in Sickbay. He wants to use Chakotay's people's technology to go on a vision quest inside himself to look for answers. He does the Indian stuff with Chakotay and begins his vision in the Mess Hall. He sees his dead sister but she disappears. He follows her into the Great Forest. She tells him that it's all a lie and he's wasted his life believing in it. She mocks him talking in Naomi's voice then turns to ash. It's pretty spooky! All of Neelix's friends tell him life is pontless and he knows what he has to do before he wakes up again. Neelix goes and apologises to Seven for being a dick. He claims his vision quest has helped him understand a few things. He tells Seven that Voyager "was" a great home for him and will be for her. Chakotay tells Neelix he has to discuss his vision quest with him because it's not something to take lightly. But Neelix just goes and writers a suicide letter instead. Neelix tries to beam himself into the nebula. Harry manages to stop him long enough for Chakotay to get to the transporter room. Neelix tells him he died n the nebula and he's going back there. Chakotay tells him there's other ways to interpret the vision quest, but Neelix reminds him that he saw his famiily murdered and his faith was the only thing that kept him going and he can't live without it. Wildman just happens to call him at that moment. Chakotay tells him about Seven saying his function is diverse. Wildman comes in and tells him Naomi's seen another monster and only Neelix can help. Neelix is finally swayed. He tucks Naomi into bed again and says he's better now. She has a dream about the Great Forest.
It's really good! Bryan Fuller's best Star Trek script, I'd say. I like how Neelix's faith is never really restored. He just goes on with life because he's needed by the crew, but he doesn't magically start believing in the Great Forest again. The episode does a good job showing that Neelix actually is useful and has very good character stuff for Chakotay and Seven too. I also like the darkness of it. I mean there can't be many Trek episodes where a character just straight up tries to kill themself. I find this a much more compelling look at issues of faith than that episode where Janeway was locked in a room with old people.
SCORE: 9/10
Waking Moments - Seven kisses Harry! Tom loses control of his shuttle. Janeway finds the crew dead in the Mess Hall. Tuvok shows up on the Bridge naked(!) A pervy alien stares at all of them. They're all just having nightmares (except Harry? Unless kissing Seven is his nightmare?) B'Elanna is now wearing an Engineering jacket (because the actress is pregnant) and asks Tom why he didn't show up for breakfast. The whole crew tell each other about their nightmares and how they all saw the sameCheeseman alien. There's a funny bit where Janeway makes Tuvok describe his dream before they find Harry in a dream coma. Janeway thinks it's some kind of attack. Chakotay suggests using lucid dreaming to communicate with the alien (another use for the vision quest technology!) He explains that he'll use Earth's moon to know that he's dreaming and tell him when to wake up. Chakotay's dream of course takes place on the standing Voyager sets. He has a spear and can see Earth's moon out the window. The alien tries to choke him but Chakotay puts him in a hammerlock. The alien says the "waking species" have hunted them in the dreams and tried to kill them for generations. Or something. He wants Voyager to leave their space and then they'll let them wake up. Why not just ask in the first place, you alien jerk? Chakotay "wakes up" but I've watched enough Star Trek to know where this is going. Chakotay wonders how a race of aliens who never wake up could have possibly evolved but Janeway just shrugs basically. Harry is woken up in Sickbay and claims to have had "nightmares" (Seven then walks in.)
There's more stuff with the crew talking about their dreams and Tuvok won't tell them about his naked dream. Aliens attack Voyager and the ship loses power. It's the dreaming bastards, apparently in the waking world now. Chakotay thinks it was all a trap so the aliens could capture Voyager. The crew are all taken to Seven's cargo bay and Seven "creates a diversioin" by beating up Harry (good plan!) Chuckles sees the moon again and realises he's still asleep. He wakes up again but wonders if it's real this time and searches Sickbay for the moon. The Doctor explains that the rest of the crew are asleep now. They were having a collective dream about the aliens capturing the ship. Chakotay tells the Doc they need to find the aliens in the waking world. The Doc scans for their dreaming brain signals. The crew's dream continues and B'Elanna tells the others that Chakotay told her he was still dreaming. They figure out that they're all dreaming too. Seven calls it a "collective unconsicoussness". It's kind of a waste of time to watch the crew figure out something the viewer already knows? Janeway and B'Elanna try to retake the ship by ejecting the core but this is all a dream so what are they even doing. Janeway walks into Engineering during a warp core breach and says "we're still dreaming!" HAVEN'T WE ALREADY ESTABLISHED THAT? The crew all wake up but Chakotay sees Earth's moon instead of the alien planet. The Doctor sedates him but Chakotay wakes up becasue this was another dream (blah blah blah.) Janeway has another action movie line where she says "we turn this dreamworld INTO A NIGHTMARE!" Chakotay arrives in the cave where all the aliens are sleeping while Janeway fights them in dreamworld. The aliens can't shoot Janeway because she knows it's a dream. Chakotay realises he can use the simulants the Doctor was using on him to wake up one of the aliens. Chakotay puts himself back to sleep and tells the lead alien that the Doctor will blow up their sleepy cave if he doesn't wake the crew up. Everyone struggles to sleep.
It's pretty weird and pretty boring. If you're going to do a dream episode at least have some wild dreams. All we get here is Tuvok naked and then it's just Chakotay running around the ship sometimes seeing the moon. There's far too many "maybe we're still asleep!" moments and TNG did it far, far better with the "we're still in the Holodeck!" episodes. The aliens themselves are pretty terrible villains because they make no sense (how do they eat?) and their motivation is just some stupid "hahaha waking people were jerks to us once!" thing. They don't want Voyager entering their space, I guess, but Voyager never would have known about them if they hadn't entered Voyager's dreams in the first place? It's the kind of episode I can see finding fun the first time you watch it because it is a bit different from the normal but more tolerance for this type of pointlessness is much lower than it used to be.
SCORE: 5.5/10
Naomi wants Neelix to tell her about the Great Forest again and he's obviously upset. Seven runs a check on Neelix's nanoprobes and he says he doesn't feel like himself anymore. He yells at Seven for bringing him back to life then his body starts to reject the nanoprobes and he nearly dies again. Neelix asks to speak to Chakotay in Sickbay. He wants to use Chakotay's people's technology to go on a vision quest inside himself to look for answers. He does the Indian stuff with Chakotay and begins his vision in the Mess Hall. He sees his dead sister but she disappears. He follows her into the Great Forest. She tells him that it's all a lie and he's wasted his life believing in it. She mocks him talking in Naomi's voice then turns to ash. It's pretty spooky! All of Neelix's friends tell him life is pontless and he knows what he has to do before he wakes up again. Neelix goes and apologises to Seven for being a dick. He claims his vision quest has helped him understand a few things. He tells Seven that Voyager "was" a great home for him and will be for her. Chakotay tells Neelix he has to discuss his vision quest with him because it's not something to take lightly. But Neelix just goes and writers a suicide letter instead. Neelix tries to beam himself into the nebula. Harry manages to stop him long enough for Chakotay to get to the transporter room. Neelix tells him he died n the nebula and he's going back there. Chakotay tells him there's other ways to interpret the vision quest, but Neelix reminds him that he saw his famiily murdered and his faith was the only thing that kept him going and he can't live without it. Wildman just happens to call him at that moment. Chakotay tells him about Seven saying his function is diverse. Wildman comes in and tells him Naomi's seen another monster and only Neelix can help. Neelix is finally swayed. He tucks Naomi into bed again and says he's better now. She has a dream about the Great Forest.
It's really good! Bryan Fuller's best Star Trek script, I'd say. I like how Neelix's faith is never really restored. He just goes on with life because he's needed by the crew, but he doesn't magically start believing in the Great Forest again. The episode does a good job showing that Neelix actually is useful and has very good character stuff for Chakotay and Seven too. I also like the darkness of it. I mean there can't be many Trek episodes where a character just straight up tries to kill themself. I find this a much more compelling look at issues of faith than that episode where Janeway was locked in a room with old people.
SCORE: 9/10
Waking Moments - Seven kisses Harry! Tom loses control of his shuttle. Janeway finds the crew dead in the Mess Hall. Tuvok shows up on the Bridge naked(!) A pervy alien stares at all of them. They're all just having nightmares (except Harry? Unless kissing Seven is his nightmare?) B'Elanna is now wearing an Engineering jacket (because the actress is pregnant) and asks Tom why he didn't show up for breakfast. The whole crew tell each other about their nightmares and how they all saw the same
There's more stuff with the crew talking about their dreams and Tuvok won't tell them about his naked dream. Aliens attack Voyager and the ship loses power. It's the dreaming bastards, apparently in the waking world now. Chakotay thinks it was all a trap so the aliens could capture Voyager. The crew are all taken to Seven's cargo bay and Seven "creates a diversioin" by beating up Harry (good plan!) Chuckles sees the moon again and realises he's still asleep. He wakes up again but wonders if it's real this time and searches Sickbay for the moon. The Doctor explains that the rest of the crew are asleep now. They were having a collective dream about the aliens capturing the ship. Chakotay tells the Doc they need to find the aliens in the waking world. The Doc scans for their dreaming brain signals. The crew's dream continues and B'Elanna tells the others that Chakotay told her he was still dreaming. They figure out that they're all dreaming too. Seven calls it a "collective unconsicoussness". It's kind of a waste of time to watch the crew figure out something the viewer already knows? Janeway and B'Elanna try to retake the ship by ejecting the core but this is all a dream so what are they even doing. Janeway walks into Engineering during a warp core breach and says "we're still dreaming!" HAVEN'T WE ALREADY ESTABLISHED THAT? The crew all wake up but Chakotay sees Earth's moon instead of the alien planet. The Doctor sedates him but Chakotay wakes up becasue this was another dream (blah blah blah.) Janeway has another action movie line where she says "we turn this dreamworld INTO A NIGHTMARE!" Chakotay arrives in the cave where all the aliens are sleeping while Janeway fights them in dreamworld. The aliens can't shoot Janeway because she knows it's a dream. Chakotay realises he can use the simulants the Doctor was using on him to wake up one of the aliens. Chakotay puts himself back to sleep and tells the lead alien that the Doctor will blow up their sleepy cave if he doesn't wake the crew up. Everyone struggles to sleep.
It's pretty weird and pretty boring. If you're going to do a dream episode at least have some wild dreams. All we get here is Tuvok naked and then it's just Chakotay running around the ship sometimes seeing the moon. There's far too many "maybe we're still asleep!" moments and TNG did it far, far better with the "we're still in the Holodeck!" episodes. The aliens themselves are pretty terrible villains because they make no sense (how do they eat?) and their motivation is just some stupid "hahaha waking people were jerks to us once!" thing. They don't want Voyager entering their space, I guess, but Voyager never would have known about them if they hadn't entered Voyager's dreams in the first place? It's the kind of episode I can see finding fun the first time you watch it because it is a bit different from the normal but more tolerance for this type of pointlessness is much lower than it used to be.
SCORE: 5.5/10
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
Thank you.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Message in a Bottle - B'Elanna tells Chakotay about the probelms she has with Seven. Maybe Seven is jealous of her new jacket. Seven calls Janeway and Chakoty to astrometrics with some big news: she's found a Starfleet ship. But it's in the Alpha Quadrant! She's use tapped into an alien communications array thing. Voyager sends a message but it just bounces back. The message degrades too fast so Tom suggests sending a stronger signal: a hologram, namely the Doctor. Uhh, I'm not sure if that makes any sense? Wouldn't his signal just degrade too and he'd lose his memories or ability to walk or something? Luckily it works the Doctor arrives on the FURURISTIC looking USS Prometheus. Sadly a dying crewmember tells him it's been taken over by asshole Romulans. The Prometheus's computer takes orders from the Romulan Commander for some reason and disables a chasing Starfleet vessel with its multi vector assault mode. Basically it breaks up into three smaller ships. The Doctor can't do much except activate the Prometheus's own EMH (played by Andy "the drug dealer" Dick.) Of course the two Doctors don't get along! The Andy Dick hologram is an unstable prototype and doesn't want to treat an injured Romulan. He isn't happy about the Doctor's plan to take the ship back either. There's some comedy regarding advances in medical science since the Doc has been in the DQ. Janeway and Chakotay admit that they've been writing letters to family. Paris treates crewmembers Neelix has given heartburn with his terrible cooking. The two Doctors plan to gas the Romulans. The Prometheus has holo-emitters all over it, but the Doctor boasts about his mobile-emitter and tells Andy Dick that he's totally had sex with women.
The Doctor goes to the Bridge and makes up a lie about the Romulan he treated suffering from the shits. The Romulan Commander plans to give the Prometheus to the Tal Shiar so I guess they got back on theif feet after the Dominion killed them all. The Doc is caught in his lie. Paris is already sick of being in Sickbay and tells Harry to design a new EMH. This is a really bizarre subplot considering the Doctor's only been away a few hours(?) at this point. B'Elanna tells Seven that she's rude. They get a message from an alien from a race known as the Hirogen who claims ownership of the communications array and severs Voyager's link to the Prometheus. The Romulans find out that the Doctor's program was transmitted to the Prometheus and think he's some kind of stealth hologram. The Doc is saved by Andy Doc who has managed to carry out the knockout gas plan by himself. The Prometheus is still flying towards Romulan space and the two Doctors has little piloting experience. The Doc tells Andy Doc to stop breathing down his neck, Andy Doc says "my breath is a simulation!" and the Doc says "so is my neck, stop doing it!" It's funny. They manage to stop the ship but the warp core nearly overloads. Then three Romulan Warbirds are heading towards them. Janeway tries to reason with the Hirogen but he's a typical Voyager asshole alien. Seven somehow sends and electric shock to his console and knocks him out, which probably doesn't make sense but is funny. B'Elanna is impressed so they're friends now! Tom and Harry's new EMH is crap and all it can do is recite medical text books. Well what did they expect. The Doctor does a Romulan voice when the Warbirds hail him, which is funny. Starfleet shps (two Defiant class ships among them!) show up and attack the Prometheus, thinking the Romulans still have control of it. Andy Doc fires a torpedo but hits one of the Defiants, which doesn't help. He accidentally starts the multi vector assault mode and they attack the Romulan ships, blowing up one of the Warbirds. Starfleet finally knows the Promtheus isn't an enemy. The Doctor gets home to Voyager and tells them he'd told Starfleet that Voyager is still alive and all their families will be contacted with the news.
It's a good comedy episode. I know Andy Dick is a horrible person but he works well with Robert Picardo here (and I'm guessing this was before he drug problems because he feels relatively normal?) There's lots of funny lines between the two. The Prometheus feels a bit fanwanky: it can go warp 9.9! It can split in too! It has Batmobile Armour (hmm)! But it is fun and this is a fun episode so I'm fine with it. The problem I guess is that maybe the episode is a bit too light considering it's the one where Voyager finally contacts Starfleet again. And there's no point at all to the subplot where Tom and Harry make a new EMH, it's just there to fill time. The Seven/B'Elanna plot is okay but doesn't really have a resolution beyond B'Elanna lauhging at Seven shocking the Hirogen. Anyway it's a good episode.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Hunters - Voyager's trying to pick up a message from Starfleet Command through the alien relays but the message gets stuck in one of the relay stations. Harry gets overly excited thinking maybe Starfleet has found a way to get them home. The Doctor wants to "monitor Seven's implants" and tells her off for not regenerating for long enough. The Doctor thinks he'll be treated as a hero when they get home. Voyager find a dead alien who has been completely gutted of all his internal organs and skeleton. They arrive at the alien array and find it's ancient and using a blackhole as a power source. Seven starts downloading the messages from Starfleet and Janeway realises they're letters from home. She has Neelix delivery them to the crew. Surely they could just be sent wirelessly around the ship? Seven says she doesn't care about getting a message from Earth but Janeway says she might have family there. Neelix excitedly (annoyingly, you could say) delivers a letter to Chakotay. Harry is sad he doesn't have a letter yet. Neelix brings Tuvok a letter but wants to stick around and watch him read it, and is shocked Tuvok wants to finish his work. JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE. Neelix has already read it and offers to read it to Tuvok while he works. Tuvok's a grandfather and Neelix is annoying about it. Janeway reads her letter and looks sad. Chakotay tells B'Elanna that he got a letter telling him that the Maquis have been completely wiped out by the Cardassians and their new ally from the Gamma Quadrant. It's weird that he doesn't just say "The Dominion" since first contact was made with them like a year before Voyager went missing? Tom doesn't care about the letters. Harry continues to be sad he hasn't gotten one. Harry keeps crying about his lack of a letter it's getting old.
Seven and Tuvok are sent to the alien array. Seven wonders if the Captain doesn't trust her and sent Tuvok for that reason. Their shuttle is captured by a Hirongen ship. Tom bothers B'Elanna while she's downloading letters. She just happens to be downloading a letter from Admiral Paris to his son at the time. Tom isn't sure he wants to read the letter but B'Elanna doesn't have much sympathy since she's just found out a lot of her friends are dead. They comfort each other. Janeway tells Chakotay she got a letter from her partner Mark, telling her he's married another woman. Seven and Tuvok wake up on the alien ship, all bound up and surrounded by creepy looking weapons and dead aliens. It's not looking good for them. A tell Hirogen yells at them for using his communcations array and says he took them in a fair hunt. Janeway tries to negoitiate with the Hirogne but he's all "rah rah I like to hunt people." There's a conflict between two Hirogen but it's tedious because they just shout a lot. They prepare to gut Tuvok. Voyager does a technobabble thing to make the blackhole pull the Hirogen ship in. They lose the signal from Starfleet and don't get all the mssages. The array collapses and starts to pull the Hirogen ship in. Harry manages to beam Tuvok and Seven out (yep Voyager's transporter worked for once!) just before they're sucked into the blackhole. B'Elanna personally delivers a letter from Harry's "folks" to him. She didn't get Tom's in time, which doesn't really make sense since Tom's was next in the queue the last time we checked. Janeway tells Chuckles she was using Mark as a safety net to stop herself being involved with anyone else. Chakotay says she doesn't have that excuse anymore. This might sound like he's hitting on her but it doesn't come across that way. I guess this confirms they didn't sleep together when they lived on that planet with the monkey?
It's an episode that should have been better than it was. The crew finally get letters from home, after nearly four years, and yeah, some of it's good. Janeway finding out Mark has moved on, Chakotay telling B'Elanna about the Maquis, they're good scenes. But you also have Neelix regressing to his ANNOYING AS FUCK persona and Harry acting like a little kid. The Hirogen are just big gruff evil guys here, though the Seven/Tuvok pairing is always good. It's a pretty good episode on the whole but could have been great with a bit more care in the writing.
SCORE: 7/10
The Doctor goes to the Bridge and makes up a lie about the Romulan he treated suffering from the shits. The Romulan Commander plans to give the Prometheus to the Tal Shiar so I guess they got back on theif feet after the Dominion killed them all. The Doc is caught in his lie. Paris is already sick of being in Sickbay and tells Harry to design a new EMH. This is a really bizarre subplot considering the Doctor's only been away a few hours(?) at this point. B'Elanna tells Seven that she's rude. They get a message from an alien from a race known as the Hirogen who claims ownership of the communications array and severs Voyager's link to the Prometheus. The Romulans find out that the Doctor's program was transmitted to the Prometheus and think he's some kind of stealth hologram. The Doc is saved by Andy Doc who has managed to carry out the knockout gas plan by himself. The Prometheus is still flying towards Romulan space and the two Doctors has little piloting experience. The Doc tells Andy Doc to stop breathing down his neck, Andy Doc says "my breath is a simulation!" and the Doc says "so is my neck, stop doing it!" It's funny. They manage to stop the ship but the warp core nearly overloads. Then three Romulan Warbirds are heading towards them. Janeway tries to reason with the Hirogen but he's a typical Voyager asshole alien. Seven somehow sends and electric shock to his console and knocks him out, which probably doesn't make sense but is funny. B'Elanna is impressed so they're friends now! Tom and Harry's new EMH is crap and all it can do is recite medical text books. Well what did they expect. The Doctor does a Romulan voice when the Warbirds hail him, which is funny. Starfleet shps (two Defiant class ships among them!) show up and attack the Prometheus, thinking the Romulans still have control of it. Andy Doc fires a torpedo but hits one of the Defiants, which doesn't help. He accidentally starts the multi vector assault mode and they attack the Romulan ships, blowing up one of the Warbirds. Starfleet finally knows the Promtheus isn't an enemy. The Doctor gets home to Voyager and tells them he'd told Starfleet that Voyager is still alive and all their families will be contacted with the news.
It's a good comedy episode. I know Andy Dick is a horrible person but he works well with Robert Picardo here (and I'm guessing this was before he drug problems because he feels relatively normal?) There's lots of funny lines between the two. The Prometheus feels a bit fanwanky: it can go warp 9.9! It can split in too! It has Batmobile Armour (hmm)! But it is fun and this is a fun episode so I'm fine with it. The problem I guess is that maybe the episode is a bit too light considering it's the one where Voyager finally contacts Starfleet again. And there's no point at all to the subplot where Tom and Harry make a new EMH, it's just there to fill time. The Seven/B'Elanna plot is okay but doesn't really have a resolution beyond B'Elanna lauhging at Seven shocking the Hirogen. Anyway it's a good episode.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Hunters - Voyager's trying to pick up a message from Starfleet Command through the alien relays but the message gets stuck in one of the relay stations. Harry gets overly excited thinking maybe Starfleet has found a way to get them home. The Doctor wants to "monitor Seven's implants" and tells her off for not regenerating for long enough. The Doctor thinks he'll be treated as a hero when they get home. Voyager find a dead alien who has been completely gutted of all his internal organs and skeleton. They arrive at the alien array and find it's ancient and using a blackhole as a power source. Seven starts downloading the messages from Starfleet and Janeway realises they're letters from home. She has Neelix delivery them to the crew. Surely they could just be sent wirelessly around the ship? Seven says she doesn't care about getting a message from Earth but Janeway says she might have family there. Neelix excitedly (annoyingly, you could say) delivers a letter to Chakotay. Harry is sad he doesn't have a letter yet. Neelix brings Tuvok a letter but wants to stick around and watch him read it, and is shocked Tuvok wants to finish his work. JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE. Neelix has already read it and offers to read it to Tuvok while he works. Tuvok's a grandfather and Neelix is annoying about it. Janeway reads her letter and looks sad. Chakotay tells B'Elanna that he got a letter telling him that the Maquis have been completely wiped out by the Cardassians and their new ally from the Gamma Quadrant. It's weird that he doesn't just say "The Dominion" since first contact was made with them like a year before Voyager went missing? Tom doesn't care about the letters. Harry continues to be sad he hasn't gotten one. Harry keeps crying about his lack of a letter it's getting old.
Seven and Tuvok are sent to the alien array. Seven wonders if the Captain doesn't trust her and sent Tuvok for that reason. Their shuttle is captured by a Hirongen ship. Tom bothers B'Elanna while she's downloading letters. She just happens to be downloading a letter from Admiral Paris to his son at the time. Tom isn't sure he wants to read the letter but B'Elanna doesn't have much sympathy since she's just found out a lot of her friends are dead. They comfort each other. Janeway tells Chakotay she got a letter from her partner Mark, telling her he's married another woman. Seven and Tuvok wake up on the alien ship, all bound up and surrounded by creepy looking weapons and dead aliens. It's not looking good for them. A tell Hirogen yells at them for using his communcations array and says he took them in a fair hunt. Janeway tries to negoitiate with the Hirogne but he's all "rah rah I like to hunt people." There's a conflict between two Hirogen but it's tedious because they just shout a lot. They prepare to gut Tuvok. Voyager does a technobabble thing to make the blackhole pull the Hirogen ship in. They lose the signal from Starfleet and don't get all the mssages. The array collapses and starts to pull the Hirogen ship in. Harry manages to beam Tuvok and Seven out (yep Voyager's transporter worked for once!) just before they're sucked into the blackhole. B'Elanna personally delivers a letter from Harry's "folks" to him. She didn't get Tom's in time, which doesn't really make sense since Tom's was next in the queue the last time we checked. Janeway tells Chuckles she was using Mark as a safety net to stop herself being involved with anyone else. Chakotay says she doesn't have that excuse anymore. This might sound like he's hitting on her but it doesn't come across that way. I guess this confirms they didn't sleep together when they lived on that planet with the monkey?
It's an episode that should have been better than it was. The crew finally get letters from home, after nearly four years, and yeah, some of it's good. Janeway finding out Mark has moved on, Chakotay telling B'Elanna about the Maquis, they're good scenes. But you also have Neelix regressing to his ANNOYING AS FUCK persona and Harry acting like a little kid. The Hirogen are just big gruff evil guys here, though the Seven/Tuvok pairing is always good. It's a pretty good episode on the whole but could have been great with a bit more care in the writing.
SCORE: 7/10
The Tomtrek
Love Wookiee
I liked how, in this episode, the Hirogen are really tall compared to the average human making them look that little bit more alien?
I hope they keep doing that when we see them again (they don't)!
I hope they keep doing that when we see them again (they don't)!
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Prey - A Hirogen played by TONY TODD (and another one) are a hunt. Tony Todd is a traditionalist who wants to hunt with his own eyes instead of fancy sensors. Their prey is a member of species 8472 and they shoot and kill it. The Doctor tries to teach Seven a good bedside manner, which is ironic! She is willing to learn. Voyager finds a Hirogen ship with an injured pilot. Seven warns against helping but obviously Janeway doesn't listen. Chakotay, Tom (why send Tom?) and Tuvok beam over and look at all the creepy stuff on the ship. Tom finds the non Tony Toddd Hirogen torn apart while Todd is beamed over to Sickbay for treatment. Seven admits Janeway was right to send the away team as they learned much about the Hirogen. But oh shit, there's an 8472 walking on the hull on the outside of the ship! The Hirogen is fairly cooperative and lets the Doctor treat him. The 8472 gets inside the ship and Voyager goes into "oh shit there's an 8472 on the ship" lockdown mode. The 8472 jumps off the warp core onto B'Elanna and fucks some redshirts up. Janewway questions the Hirogen. He says the 8472 is alone and wants to be let out to hunt it. Janeway wants to keep the 8472 alive so she can find out what it wants but Seven wants to kill it with deadly nanoprobes. Janeway reluctantly lets the Hirogen out to help with the hunt.
Chakotay, Tom, Seven and Tuvok get to wear the First Contact spacesuits because the 8472 has turned life support off. Magnetic boots make everything more tense. Seven gets jumpy and tries to shoot a floating PAD. She admits to Tuvok she is agitated because 8472 are the only species ever to resist the Borg. Chuckles, Tom and the Hirogen find the 8472 floating about. The Hirogen tries to kill it but Seven arrives in time to stop him. Tuvok recruits Neelix as a security officer (things are bad!) and gets a telepathic vision from the 8472. The creature tells Tuvok how it was left behind when the rest of its species went home (a bit like E.T.!) and it just wants to go back to fluidic space. Also it's dying. Janeway tells the Hirogen she's letting the 8472 go home. He says his people will hunt Voyager's crew if they don't let him kill it. Janeway needs Seven to open the portal to fluidic space but Seven thinks it's a bad idea. Janeway tells a story of her commanding officer ordering her to save a wounded Cardassian during the war. Seven isn't impressed and says the position is tactically unsound and a lesson in compassion means nothing if she dies. Janeway orders her to open the portal but Seven still refuses. It's another great Janeway/Seven scene! Three Hirogen ships chase and fire on Voyager, with three more on the way. The 8472 starts to regenerate as it senses the Hirogen attack. B'Elanna tries to open a portal without Seven but it's slow work. Tony Todd breaks out of Sickbay. The Hirogen ships take out Voyager's engines as Seven and Tony Todd break off. He tells her he knows she wants him to kill the 8472. The 8472 breaks out and attacks Todd. Seven beams them both onto one of the attacking ships and they leave Voyager alone. Janeway goes to see Seven in her cargo bay. She's through arguing with Seven and tells her she'll no longer allow Seven to have the same freedom as the rest of the crew and she's banned from using the ship's systems. Seven says it's interesting that Janeway turned her into an individual but now she she's asserting that individuality she's being punished. She thinks Janeway is punishing her because she isn't becomeing like her.
It's a great episode! Definitely the best use of the Hirogen and a strong return for 8472 being all scary and unstoppalbe. But it's the Seven/Janeway stuff that's the heart of it. They've been clashing all season (like some kind of story arc!) and it comes to a head here. Mulgrew and Ryan have great chemistry and it's the best thing about Voyager this season.
SCORE: 9.5/10
Retrospect - Janeway meets with a friendly arms dealer named Kovin who wants to sell her a big cannon. He strikes a hard bargain but they make a deal. Janeway assigns Seven to work with Kovin in installing the canon (she says Seven has been "behaving lately" so is willing to let her access the ship's systems and I guess that's the last we'll hear of that.) Kovin and Seven clash as he's a dick and she's Seven. He touches her to move her from a console and she punches him. Janeway sighs and tells Seven she doesn't know what to do with her. Seven promises to think before punching anyone again. The Doctor scans Seven and finds some weird readings. Seven has some weird memory flashes when in the scanning thing and freaks out. The doctor tells Janeway he wants to use his new psychiatric subroutine to reveal Seven's repressed memories. He basically hypnotises her and Seven has a memory of being restrained and Kovin extracting Borg technology from her body ("he violated me" she says just so you think of rape.) The Doctor encourages and guides her through memories of testing weapons with Kovin and Tom. She remembers Kovin taking her off to a lab and stunning her and he and another of his race taking nanoprobes from her. THe Doctor goes to Janeway and tells her there's no doubt Seven was the victim of a brutal assult and Kovin must pay. Janeway wants some evidence first. There's no physical evidence that Kovin did anything, but the Doctor thinks Kovin covered it up. Tuvok wonders if Seven's recovered memories are reliable.
Kovin gets angry and red-faced when Janeway asks him for his side of the story. She wonders if he considered the value of Borg technology as a weapon but he denies stealing anything. He refuses to let Janeway examine his lab until she threatens to call the space cops. Kovin continues to be shouty when Tuvok questions him. He says his people won't help him because even being accused of violating protocols is a serious offense. So his people actually are the asshole aliens of the week. The Doctor tells Seven she has to stop suppressing her emotions and encourages her to get angry at Kovin. Tuvok and the Doctor examine Kovin's lab and find it isn't exactly the same as Seven's memory. They do find Borg nanoprobes lying about the place but Kovin claims that's from where Seven was accidnetally shot. Kovin's space cop wants to take him into custody but Kovin freaks out and grabs a gun. He beams away. He goes on the run and Voyager chases with Chakotay say he obviously has something to hide. Tuvok recreates shooting Seven in the arm to see what it does to her nanoprobes (well he just uses a hypospray.) Seven keeps telling them she's ANGRY about what Kovin did. The nanoprobes act exactly the same way as they did in Kovin's lab. Janeway and Tuvok instantly decide this means that the memories the Doctor recovered are false. Seven thinks they're wrong but the Doctor's all "well maybe these were just false memories I put in your head lol." Seven still wants Kovin to be punished. Janeway hails Kovin and says she's sorry and they don't want his ass arrested now, but Kovin is totally freaking out and thinks it's a trap. He shoots at Voyager and just won't listen to reason. He ends up blowing up his own ship because he weapons overload it or something. Seven goes to the Doctor and they agree they both feel bad about Kovin's death. The Doctor goes to Janeway and tells her he wants to erase the part of his program that's responsible for making him want to expand his programming. He'll go back to just being a Doctor and there'll be no risk of him over-stepping his bounds again. Janeway points out the crew have benefitted from his improvements over the years and she won't take them away due to one mistake.
I'm not really sure about this episode. There's some very good stuff here, with the usual strong acting from Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan. The end scene with the Doctor wanting to erase part of his programming and Janeway refusing him is very strong. But Kovin himself is a bit of a problem. He's conveniently a panicky asshole who goes commpletely nuts and blows his own ship up (even know he's an arms dealer and should be able to fire gun without blowing his own ship up.) The episode wants a tragic ending but the way it gets there doesn't completely ring true. It also never really resolves where Seven's falses memories come from (it's just dismissed as "oh probably something the Borg did to her") and Seven feels a bit like a plot device at times when she's just doing whatever the Doctor tells her ("you have to get angry at Kolvin now!") But at least the Doctor stuff is good!
SCORE: 7/10
Chakotay, Tom, Seven and Tuvok get to wear the First Contact spacesuits because the 8472 has turned life support off. Magnetic boots make everything more tense. Seven gets jumpy and tries to shoot a floating PAD. She admits to Tuvok she is agitated because 8472 are the only species ever to resist the Borg. Chuckles, Tom and the Hirogen find the 8472 floating about. The Hirogen tries to kill it but Seven arrives in time to stop him. Tuvok recruits Neelix as a security officer (things are bad!) and gets a telepathic vision from the 8472. The creature tells Tuvok how it was left behind when the rest of its species went home (a bit like E.T.!) and it just wants to go back to fluidic space. Also it's dying. Janeway tells the Hirogen she's letting the 8472 go home. He says his people will hunt Voyager's crew if they don't let him kill it. Janeway needs Seven to open the portal to fluidic space but Seven thinks it's a bad idea. Janeway tells a story of her commanding officer ordering her to save a wounded Cardassian during the war. Seven isn't impressed and says the position is tactically unsound and a lesson in compassion means nothing if she dies. Janeway orders her to open the portal but Seven still refuses. It's another great Janeway/Seven scene! Three Hirogen ships chase and fire on Voyager, with three more on the way. The 8472 starts to regenerate as it senses the Hirogen attack. B'Elanna tries to open a portal without Seven but it's slow work. Tony Todd breaks out of Sickbay. The Hirogen ships take out Voyager's engines as Seven and Tony Todd break off. He tells her he knows she wants him to kill the 8472. The 8472 breaks out and attacks Todd. Seven beams them both onto one of the attacking ships and they leave Voyager alone. Janeway goes to see Seven in her cargo bay. She's through arguing with Seven and tells her she'll no longer allow Seven to have the same freedom as the rest of the crew and she's banned from using the ship's systems. Seven says it's interesting that Janeway turned her into an individual but now she she's asserting that individuality she's being punished. She thinks Janeway is punishing her because she isn't becomeing like her.
It's a great episode! Definitely the best use of the Hirogen and a strong return for 8472 being all scary and unstoppalbe. But it's the Seven/Janeway stuff that's the heart of it. They've been clashing all season (like some kind of story arc!) and it comes to a head here. Mulgrew and Ryan have great chemistry and it's the best thing about Voyager this season.
SCORE: 9.5/10
Retrospect - Janeway meets with a friendly arms dealer named Kovin who wants to sell her a big cannon. He strikes a hard bargain but they make a deal. Janeway assigns Seven to work with Kovin in installing the canon (she says Seven has been "behaving lately" so is willing to let her access the ship's systems and I guess that's the last we'll hear of that.) Kovin and Seven clash as he's a dick and she's Seven. He touches her to move her from a console and she punches him. Janeway sighs and tells Seven she doesn't know what to do with her. Seven promises to think before punching anyone again. The Doctor scans Seven and finds some weird readings. Seven has some weird memory flashes when in the scanning thing and freaks out. The doctor tells Janeway he wants to use his new psychiatric subroutine to reveal Seven's repressed memories. He basically hypnotises her and Seven has a memory of being restrained and Kovin extracting Borg technology from her body ("he violated me" she says just so you think of rape.) The Doctor encourages and guides her through memories of testing weapons with Kovin and Tom. She remembers Kovin taking her off to a lab and stunning her and he and another of his race taking nanoprobes from her. THe Doctor goes to Janeway and tells her there's no doubt Seven was the victim of a brutal assult and Kovin must pay. Janeway wants some evidence first. There's no physical evidence that Kovin did anything, but the Doctor thinks Kovin covered it up. Tuvok wonders if Seven's recovered memories are reliable.
Kovin gets angry and red-faced when Janeway asks him for his side of the story. She wonders if he considered the value of Borg technology as a weapon but he denies stealing anything. He refuses to let Janeway examine his lab until she threatens to call the space cops. Kovin continues to be shouty when Tuvok questions him. He says his people won't help him because even being accused of violating protocols is a serious offense. So his people actually are the asshole aliens of the week. The Doctor tells Seven she has to stop suppressing her emotions and encourages her to get angry at Kovin. Tuvok and the Doctor examine Kovin's lab and find it isn't exactly the same as Seven's memory. They do find Borg nanoprobes lying about the place but Kovin claims that's from where Seven was accidnetally shot. Kovin's space cop wants to take him into custody but Kovin freaks out and grabs a gun. He beams away. He goes on the run and Voyager chases with Chakotay say he obviously has something to hide. Tuvok recreates shooting Seven in the arm to see what it does to her nanoprobes (well he just uses a hypospray.) Seven keeps telling them she's ANGRY about what Kovin did. The nanoprobes act exactly the same way as they did in Kovin's lab. Janeway and Tuvok instantly decide this means that the memories the Doctor recovered are false. Seven thinks they're wrong but the Doctor's all "well maybe these were just false memories I put in your head lol." Seven still wants Kovin to be punished. Janeway hails Kovin and says she's sorry and they don't want his ass arrested now, but Kovin is totally freaking out and thinks it's a trap. He shoots at Voyager and just won't listen to reason. He ends up blowing up his own ship because he weapons overload it or something. Seven goes to the Doctor and they agree they both feel bad about Kovin's death. The Doctor goes to Janeway and tells her he wants to erase the part of his program that's responsible for making him want to expand his programming. He'll go back to just being a Doctor and there'll be no risk of him over-stepping his bounds again. Janeway points out the crew have benefitted from his improvements over the years and she won't take them away due to one mistake.
I'm not really sure about this episode. There's some very good stuff here, with the usual strong acting from Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan. The end scene with the Doctor wanting to erase part of his programming and Janeway refusing him is very strong. But Kovin himself is a bit of a problem. He's conveniently a panicky asshole who goes commpletely nuts and blows his own ship up (even know he's an arms dealer and should be able to fire gun without blowing his own ship up.) The episode wants a tragic ending but the way it gets there doesn't completely ring true. It also never really resolves where Seven's falses memories come from (it's just dismissed as "oh probably something the Borg did to her") and Seven feels a bit like a plot device at times when she's just doing whatever the Doctor tells her ("you have to get angry at Kolvin now!") But at least the Doctor stuff is good!
SCORE: 7/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
The Killing Game: Part 1 - Janeway is a Klingon(!?) fighting some other Klingons, then a Hirogen stabs her and calls Sickbay. Okay! We quickly find out that the Hirogen (who, yeah, are all just normal height now, lamely) have taken over the ship and put implants in Janeway and others to make them believe they are characters in whatever Holodeck program they have running. They next put the crew (well the main cast) in Nazi occupied France. Janeway is a member of the resistence running a club, Tuvok is the barman and Seven is a singer (in a dress!) They all still act like themselves despite believing their different people and Janeway and Seven clash over how to best fight the Nazis (some of which are Hirogen playing along.) Neelix rides a bike and is hassled by some Nazis before bringing coded messages to Janeway, Tuvok and B'Elanna (who plays a pregnant character in a clever way to work Dawson's pregnancy in.) B'Elanna goes undercover to Nazi headquarters to see the father of her baby (a Nazi, who just got told off by a Hirogen for underestimating his prey.) Some Hirogen wonder what the point of all this is (yeah, me too!) and just want to start the hunt. So they shoot Neelix (and Seven when she tries to help him.) The Doctor clashes with the Hirogen Doctor (played by Mark Metcalf! From Buffy!) over how the crew are being treated. The Hirogen commander tells him to keep them alive or else.
The Hirogen commander has Harry working tirelessly to expand the Holodeck all over the ship. Of course Harry is secretly working with the Doctor on an escape plan. The Hirogen Commander explains to his second in command (I guess? They don't have names) that he's trying to change the Hirogen way of life with his Holodeck experiment. They can't just spread about the galaxy hunting prey forever as its eroding their culture. He thinks the Holodecks can bring the Hirogen back together. It's a decent motivation. The Doctor disables the Hirogen implant in Seven's head so that she remembers who she is and gives her instructions on how to do the same for Janeway and the others. Seven sings again but then the implant cuts out and she forgets how. Janeway and Tuvok believe she's a Nazi operative. The Americans are arriving in France, including Chakotay and Paris (who previously had a relationship with B'Elanna and right away it's obvious he's the baby's father.) Janeway's squad heads out on a mission. Some Hirogen rough up Harry but he bluffs them successfully. Janeway catches Seven messing around with a console and thinks she's sending a message to the Nazis, but Janeway's implant is dsiabled just in time. Neelix is a Klingon on another Holodeck. The Hirogen realise Doc and Harry are working against them. The Americans arrive and start killing Nazis with Tuvok. Nazi headquarters are blown up and somehow it damages the ship because safeties are off. Holodeck characters escape the Holodeck. That's a cliffhanger since this episode is a two parter for some reason.
There's an attempt at depth in one scene where the Hirogen commander talks about using the Holodecks to save Hirogen society. It's a good scene, but it's just there as an excuse to stick the cast in World War 2 with alien Nazis. It exists to answer the question: what would it be like if the Voyager crew thought they were in World War 2? Some of it is entertaining, like Seven singing and Tuvok shooting Nazis. But, ultimately, it's completely hollow. And it's a two parter! Why!? It's getting boring by the end of part one, so what more could there possibly be to get out of this storyline? I don't know. It's watchable but dull.
SCORE: 6/10
The Killing Game: Part 2 - Janeway and Seven shoot Nazis in the corridors of Voyager. They plan to disable the implants in all. Harry wants to destroy all the Holodecks to end the battle but the Hirogen Commander won't let him. There's a scene with Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris and B'Elanna who still think they're in WW2 and I just don't care (okay we do find out the baby really is the Nazi's.) Janeway and Seven arrive back through Voyager tubes. The Hirogen doctor disables the EMH and orders the other to leave the humans to die. Neelix is still a Klingon. Harry meets Tom who doesn't know him but proves he's an ally by talking about Betty Grable's legs. Janeway takes Chakotay to meet the Klingons. Janeway reactivates the Doc who has to hang out with Klingon Neelix. There's more shooting. Seven uses Borg technology to enhance the guns (somehow?) Janeway BLOWS UP Sickbay with a holographic bomb. Seriously we see the whole place blow up. Voyager doesn't have a Sickbay anymore. The resistence are captured by Nazis and Hirogen. Everyone has their memories back thanks to Janeway. B'Elanna is disgusted to be carrying a holographic Nazi baby.
Neelix says "K'plah" and the Doc says "tally ho" in a mildly funny bit. The Hirogen Commander tells captured Janeway that this isn't a sick little game, it's about creating a better future for his people. Janeway tells him her peoplre recognise the need for change and she wants to help him. She'll give him Holodeck technology (BUT THE PRIME DIRECTIVE.) The Nazi tells the Hirogen second in command that the Commander has been acting weird and maybe they shoudln't follow his orders. The Hirogen tries to force Seven to sing but she tells him the Borg will assimilate him one day. He isn't happy when the Commander tells him there's a ceasefire. The Nazi goes on a rant about "the Jews" to convince the second in command to disobey orders. This knd of feels in poor taste. There's more shooting. Neelix convinces the Klingons to help with the fight against the Nazis. The bad Hirogen kills the good Hirogen. He won't kill Janeway unless she runs away first. Harry sets the holo emitter to explode on a nine minute countdown (why not just blow them up right away?) Seven modifies a grenade so it makes holograms disappear (yeah) but drops it and makes all the good guy weapons disappear. Janeway outsmarts the bad Hirogen and starts chasing him about with a gun. We finally get a few seconds of Klingons fighting Nazis (B'Elanna's baby daddy is killed by one, which isn't very satisfying.) Janeway shoots the Hirogen down several decks. Harry's nine minute countdown is FINALLY UP (seriously why did he set a nine minute countdown?) the emitters blow up...but only the Nazis disappear. Not the environment. THAT'S FUCKING DUMB. Janeway gives Holodeck technology to the few surviving Hirogen anyway.
Part 1 wasn't great but at least it had a bit of a plot. Part 2 has...the crew shooting stuff and the ship exploding. Again and again and again. And none of the damage to the ship will carry over to further episdoes so it's all pointless! Yeah it's good that the Hirogen Commander wants to change their backwards society, but he just gets shot like many other Hirogen and Nazis. It's exhauting and empty. There's a few fun action moments (Klingons! Nazis!) but it's still just Voyager action so it's not like it's great action. And again they could have easily told this whole story in one episode.
SCORE: 4/10
The Hirogen commander has Harry working tirelessly to expand the Holodeck all over the ship. Of course Harry is secretly working with the Doctor on an escape plan. The Hirogen Commander explains to his second in command (I guess? They don't have names) that he's trying to change the Hirogen way of life with his Holodeck experiment. They can't just spread about the galaxy hunting prey forever as its eroding their culture. He thinks the Holodecks can bring the Hirogen back together. It's a decent motivation. The Doctor disables the Hirogen implant in Seven's head so that she remembers who she is and gives her instructions on how to do the same for Janeway and the others. Seven sings again but then the implant cuts out and she forgets how. Janeway and Tuvok believe she's a Nazi operative. The Americans are arriving in France, including Chakotay and Paris (who previously had a relationship with B'Elanna and right away it's obvious he's the baby's father.) Janeway's squad heads out on a mission. Some Hirogen rough up Harry but he bluffs them successfully. Janeway catches Seven messing around with a console and thinks she's sending a message to the Nazis, but Janeway's implant is dsiabled just in time. Neelix is a Klingon on another Holodeck. The Hirogen realise Doc and Harry are working against them. The Americans arrive and start killing Nazis with Tuvok. Nazi headquarters are blown up and somehow it damages the ship because safeties are off. Holodeck characters escape the Holodeck. That's a cliffhanger since this episode is a two parter for some reason.
There's an attempt at depth in one scene where the Hirogen commander talks about using the Holodecks to save Hirogen society. It's a good scene, but it's just there as an excuse to stick the cast in World War 2 with alien Nazis. It exists to answer the question: what would it be like if the Voyager crew thought they were in World War 2? Some of it is entertaining, like Seven singing and Tuvok shooting Nazis. But, ultimately, it's completely hollow. And it's a two parter! Why!? It's getting boring by the end of part one, so what more could there possibly be to get out of this storyline? I don't know. It's watchable but dull.
SCORE: 6/10
The Killing Game: Part 2 - Janeway and Seven shoot Nazis in the corridors of Voyager. They plan to disable the implants in all. Harry wants to destroy all the Holodecks to end the battle but the Hirogen Commander won't let him. There's a scene with Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris and B'Elanna who still think they're in WW2 and I just don't care (okay we do find out the baby really is the Nazi's.) Janeway and Seven arrive back through Voyager tubes. The Hirogen doctor disables the EMH and orders the other to leave the humans to die. Neelix is still a Klingon. Harry meets Tom who doesn't know him but proves he's an ally by talking about Betty Grable's legs. Janeway takes Chakotay to meet the Klingons. Janeway reactivates the Doc who has to hang out with Klingon Neelix. There's more shooting. Seven uses Borg technology to enhance the guns (somehow?) Janeway BLOWS UP Sickbay with a holographic bomb. Seriously we see the whole place blow up. Voyager doesn't have a Sickbay anymore. The resistence are captured by Nazis and Hirogen. Everyone has their memories back thanks to Janeway. B'Elanna is disgusted to be carrying a holographic Nazi baby.
Neelix says "K'plah" and the Doc says "tally ho" in a mildly funny bit. The Hirogen Commander tells captured Janeway that this isn't a sick little game, it's about creating a better future for his people. Janeway tells him her peoplre recognise the need for change and she wants to help him. She'll give him Holodeck technology (BUT THE PRIME DIRECTIVE.) The Nazi tells the Hirogen second in command that the Commander has been acting weird and maybe they shoudln't follow his orders. The Hirogen tries to force Seven to sing but she tells him the Borg will assimilate him one day. He isn't happy when the Commander tells him there's a ceasefire. The Nazi goes on a rant about "the Jews" to convince the second in command to disobey orders. This knd of feels in poor taste. There's more shooting. Neelix convinces the Klingons to help with the fight against the Nazis. The bad Hirogen kills the good Hirogen. He won't kill Janeway unless she runs away first. Harry sets the holo emitter to explode on a nine minute countdown (why not just blow them up right away?) Seven modifies a grenade so it makes holograms disappear (yeah) but drops it and makes all the good guy weapons disappear. Janeway outsmarts the bad Hirogen and starts chasing him about with a gun. We finally get a few seconds of Klingons fighting Nazis (B'Elanna's baby daddy is killed by one, which isn't very satisfying.) Janeway shoots the Hirogen down several decks. Harry's nine minute countdown is FINALLY UP (seriously why did he set a nine minute countdown?) the emitters blow up...but only the Nazis disappear. Not the environment. THAT'S FUCKING DUMB. Janeway gives Holodeck technology to the few surviving Hirogen anyway.
Part 1 wasn't great but at least it had a bit of a plot. Part 2 has...the crew shooting stuff and the ship exploding. Again and again and again. And none of the damage to the ship will carry over to further episdoes so it's all pointless! Yeah it's good that the Hirogen Commander wants to change their backwards society, but he just gets shot like many other Hirogen and Nazis. It's exhauting and empty. There's a few fun action moments (Klingons! Nazis!) but it's still just Voyager action so it's not like it's great action. And again they could have easily told this whole story in one episode.
SCORE: 4/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Vis a Vis - The Doctor is angry at Tom for spending too much time working on old cars in the Holodeck (yes after having a hole THREE DECKS HIGH blown in it last week the Holodeck is fine again, as is the rest of the ship thanks for asking!) rather in Sickbay (also fine after being blown up, I assume.) It's time to randomly give Tom a character again! A ship with a fancy warp drive that folds space shows up nearly explodes. Tom does some nifty flying to save the ship and its pilot Steth (Dan Butler from Frasier.) Tom wants to help Steth fix his ship but Chakotay is concerned that Tom's been weird lately ("lately" being "the start of this episode.") Then he just lets Tom work with Steth anyway. Steth is a hotshot test pilot so he and Tom get on, even though Tom fails to notice Steth briefly shifting into a woman. Tom is late for dinner with B'Elanna. She's completely reasonable about this, but Tom flies off the handles and is "WHY ARE YOU QUESTIONING ME, WOMAN." Tom uses his car knowledge to fix Steth's ship. Tom admits he's restless on Voyager. Steth says he's lucky to be there and turns into a girl again. Seven nearly catches Steth downloading all information on Tom and he creeps on her. We finally get to the body swap part of the episode after Steth tells Tom he's examined his DNA (the pervert.) Steth as Tom heads to the Bridge and watches his ship leave with Tom as Steth still onboard. Steth manages to talk to Chakotay, Harry and the Doc without them noticing anything is wrong (even though Harry catches him looking at a map of the ship.)
He practices putting in B'Elanna's quarters. Steth smooth talks her and she's pretty easily won over. They kiss and presumably have sex (which is rape but it's not like the episode is going to deal with that in any way!) Tom wakes up on Steth's ship to aliens attacking him for stealing their ship. Another ship shows up and saves him. It's the girl Steth kept shifting into, and she is the original owner of the body Tom is currently in. Steth tries to get B'Elanna to ditch work with him but she won't and he gets aggressive. Seven catches him doing dodgy stuff again and he threatens her. She isn't impressed. Janeway tries to give Steth a talking to and he hits her. Tuvok stuns him. Steth isn't really doing very well at pretending to be Tom, is he! Tom and the alien woman arrive back at Voyager and he tells Janeway he's the real Tom. She's skeptical even though it's really obviously true. But there's a twist! Steth has now jumped into Janeway's body and stuns Seven to steal a shuttle (one Tom was working on to go faster.) Tom proves to Chakotay he's really himself and goes after the shuttle in Steth's ship. We get a few monents of Kate Mulgrew doing hammy villain complete with EVIL LAUGH and it's pretty great (but not at all like how Steth was acting before!) Tom catches Steth and everyone gets put back in the right body. Dan Butler vows to find the original owner of the body Steth is in and everyone elese he's ever swapped with. Tom lets B'Elanna visit his garage Holodeck for the first time and that solves all the problems between them.
It feels like they had a checklist of episode types Voyager hasn't done yet and "body swap" got ticked off last week. They (kind of) try to make it a character episode for Tom by having him be a bit of a dick at the start, but then Steth steals his body and goes round being a super dick, then Tom comes back and...everything's fine. He's not a dick or restless anymore. It's like it was just there to say "see, we can do character development!" when they really can't. There's nothing larger to the body swap plot, it just goes through the motions. Robert Duncan McNeil is good at being a dick and Dan Butler does a great job at playing Tom, but what's the point of it all?
SCORE: 5/10
The Omega Directive - Harry is playing Vulcan chess with Tuvok in a rare moment of continuity. Seven swoops in and ends the game so Harry will come to work. The symbol for omega appears all over the Bridge and Chakotay is locked out of the ship's systems. Only Janeway knows what's going on and she locks herself in her Ready Room. She sets the rest of the crew to work but it's all highly classified and they don't know what they're doing. Janeway tells the truth to Seven, who already knows about "omega" thanks to her Borg knowledge. Janeway's orders are to destroy the Omega molecule and Seven agrees to help despite the Borg believing Omega is "perfection." Seven wants to understand it. Seven detects hundreds of Omega molecules, which means they'll need the whole crew to destroy them. Harry tries to gossip with Tuvok about what's going on but Tuvok doesn't give a fuck. Janeway's going off with Seven in a shuttle and tells Chakotay that if they don't come back by a certain time he should fly away and never look back. He tells her not to take this all on alone, to Hell with her orders. Janeway finally tells the whole truth to the crew: Omega is the most powerful substance in the universe. A Starfleet scientist once created a single molecule and it blew him up real good. It also creates ruptures in subspace that can stop ships going to warp. Seven tells Janeway how the Borg learned of Omgea from assimilating 13 different species. Janeway thinks the Borg's belief that Omega is perfect resembles a religious belief.
Voyager arrives at the planet where Omega was detected and finds lots of stuff blown up and lots of injured aliens. Janeway and Tuvok beam down to the planet and find some Omega. In a command position on ship, Seven gives those under her command Borg designations (Harry is 6 of 10 and asks her to please stop calling him that. She bumps him down to 2 of 10. It's funny.) Seven questions a sick alien scientist (against the Doc's objections) and he tempts her with the possibility of saving the Omega molecules. Janeway is determined to destroy Omega despite how intriguing it is. Seven tells Chakotay she's found a way to store Omega. She pretty much begs him to let her keep working on it, even though it's not what she was ordered to do. She expresses her admiration of Omega and how she needs to understand its perfection. Some aliens show up wanting Omega back so Voyager beams it to Seven's storage compartment and goes on the run. Janeway and Seven clash over what the best thing to do is. Janeway won't risk the safety of the Quadrant (wait, the whole Quadrant's at risk now?) just to satisfy Seven's quest for perfection. The aliens attack as Janeway and Seven are working to destroy Omega. The Omega molecules start to spontaneously stabilise and Seven looks on them with religious awe for a moment before Janeway drags her away. Omega is destroyed. In da Vinci's workshop (a really odd choice for the season's Holodec hangout, by the way!) Seven tells Janeway she saw perfected for 3.2 seconds and maybe there is something to religion after all.
I like this episdoe because it's probably the cloest Voyager will ever get to doing a TOS episode. I can easily imagine the Omega symbol flashing up on the Bridge of the Enterprise and Kirk working to destroy this crazy super molecule, while Spock takes a logical fascination with it and so on. The problem is that Voyager is never gong to go as crazy or campy as TOS. It's a blander show, so all Omega does is...blow stuff up? Make warp drives not work? If this was TOS we'd get all kinds of crazy psychedelic effects from Omega. Voyager's version of Omega is just a bit dull. The episdoe doesn't do a good enough job explaing what's so amazing about it. Jeri Ryan, on the other hand, does a typically amazingly good job playing Seven's religious reverence of Omega. As usual it's her relationship with Janeway and the chemsistry between the two actors that make this work. So its a good episode, it just should have been bigger.
SCORE: 8/10
He practices putting in B'Elanna's quarters. Steth smooth talks her and she's pretty easily won over. They kiss and presumably have sex (which is rape but it's not like the episode is going to deal with that in any way!) Tom wakes up on Steth's ship to aliens attacking him for stealing their ship. Another ship shows up and saves him. It's the girl Steth kept shifting into, and she is the original owner of the body Tom is currently in. Steth tries to get B'Elanna to ditch work with him but she won't and he gets aggressive. Seven catches him doing dodgy stuff again and he threatens her. She isn't impressed. Janeway tries to give Steth a talking to and he hits her. Tuvok stuns him. Steth isn't really doing very well at pretending to be Tom, is he! Tom and the alien woman arrive back at Voyager and he tells Janeway he's the real Tom. She's skeptical even though it's really obviously true. But there's a twist! Steth has now jumped into Janeway's body and stuns Seven to steal a shuttle (one Tom was working on to go faster.) Tom proves to Chakotay he's really himself and goes after the shuttle in Steth's ship. We get a few monents of Kate Mulgrew doing hammy villain complete with EVIL LAUGH and it's pretty great (but not at all like how Steth was acting before!) Tom catches Steth and everyone gets put back in the right body. Dan Butler vows to find the original owner of the body Steth is in and everyone elese he's ever swapped with. Tom lets B'Elanna visit his garage Holodeck for the first time and that solves all the problems between them.
It feels like they had a checklist of episode types Voyager hasn't done yet and "body swap" got ticked off last week. They (kind of) try to make it a character episode for Tom by having him be a bit of a dick at the start, but then Steth steals his body and goes round being a super dick, then Tom comes back and...everything's fine. He's not a dick or restless anymore. It's like it was just there to say "see, we can do character development!" when they really can't. There's nothing larger to the body swap plot, it just goes through the motions. Robert Duncan McNeil is good at being a dick and Dan Butler does a great job at playing Tom, but what's the point of it all?
SCORE: 5/10
The Omega Directive - Harry is playing Vulcan chess with Tuvok in a rare moment of continuity. Seven swoops in and ends the game so Harry will come to work. The symbol for omega appears all over the Bridge and Chakotay is locked out of the ship's systems. Only Janeway knows what's going on and she locks herself in her Ready Room. She sets the rest of the crew to work but it's all highly classified and they don't know what they're doing. Janeway tells the truth to Seven, who already knows about "omega" thanks to her Borg knowledge. Janeway's orders are to destroy the Omega molecule and Seven agrees to help despite the Borg believing Omega is "perfection." Seven wants to understand it. Seven detects hundreds of Omega molecules, which means they'll need the whole crew to destroy them. Harry tries to gossip with Tuvok about what's going on but Tuvok doesn't give a fuck. Janeway's going off with Seven in a shuttle and tells Chakotay that if they don't come back by a certain time he should fly away and never look back. He tells her not to take this all on alone, to Hell with her orders. Janeway finally tells the whole truth to the crew: Omega is the most powerful substance in the universe. A Starfleet scientist once created a single molecule and it blew him up real good. It also creates ruptures in subspace that can stop ships going to warp. Seven tells Janeway how the Borg learned of Omgea from assimilating 13 different species. Janeway thinks the Borg's belief that Omega is perfect resembles a religious belief.
Voyager arrives at the planet where Omega was detected and finds lots of stuff blown up and lots of injured aliens. Janeway and Tuvok beam down to the planet and find some Omega. In a command position on ship, Seven gives those under her command Borg designations (Harry is 6 of 10 and asks her to please stop calling him that. She bumps him down to 2 of 10. It's funny.) Seven questions a sick alien scientist (against the Doc's objections) and he tempts her with the possibility of saving the Omega molecules. Janeway is determined to destroy Omega despite how intriguing it is. Seven tells Chakotay she's found a way to store Omega. She pretty much begs him to let her keep working on it, even though it's not what she was ordered to do. She expresses her admiration of Omega and how she needs to understand its perfection. Some aliens show up wanting Omega back so Voyager beams it to Seven's storage compartment and goes on the run. Janeway and Seven clash over what the best thing to do is. Janeway won't risk the safety of the Quadrant (wait, the whole Quadrant's at risk now?) just to satisfy Seven's quest for perfection. The aliens attack as Janeway and Seven are working to destroy Omega. The Omega molecules start to spontaneously stabilise and Seven looks on them with religious awe for a moment before Janeway drags her away. Omega is destroyed. In da Vinci's workshop (a really odd choice for the season's Holodec hangout, by the way!) Seven tells Janeway she saw perfected for 3.2 seconds and maybe there is something to religion after all.
I like this episdoe because it's probably the cloest Voyager will ever get to doing a TOS episode. I can easily imagine the Omega symbol flashing up on the Bridge of the Enterprise and Kirk working to destroy this crazy super molecule, while Spock takes a logical fascination with it and so on. The problem is that Voyager is never gong to go as crazy or campy as TOS. It's a blander show, so all Omega does is...blow stuff up? Make warp drives not work? If this was TOS we'd get all kinds of crazy psychedelic effects from Omega. Voyager's version of Omega is just a bit dull. The episdoe doesn't do a good enough job explaing what's so amazing about it. Jeri Ryan, on the other hand, does a typically amazingly good job playing Seven's religious reverence of Omega. As usual it's her relationship with Janeway and the chemsistry between the two actors that make this work. So its a good episode, it just should have been bigger.
SCORE: 8/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
The Omega Particle should have turned the crew into cats or something.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Unforgettable - A lady (Virginia Madsen) on a cloaked ship approaches Voyager and asks Chakotay for help. He doesn't know who she is, but her ship's about to explode so he beams over to save her. She looks human but has funny ears. The Doctor reports that when he scans her the readings won't stay in the database, which is weird! She asks Janeway for asylum. She explains to Chakotay that people her species meet can't remember them when they leave. They also can't be scanned and information on them disappears from computers and that's just weird. She tells him she and Chakotay worked closely for several weeks and she fell in love with Chakotay. That's even weirder! She's a bounty hunter and Voyager helped her hunt down an alien who previously ran from her people (wait what) but now she's on the run herself. The crew are skeptical of her claims but she seems to know things about them. And likes Neelix's cooking. We get a flashback to when she and Chakotay first met. She says she felt an attraction right away and I'm not buying it. The aliens tracers track her down and attack Voyager. Janeway fires back because Janeway fancies this girl (Kellin, I looked it up.) Chakotay goes to Neelix for advice because he doesn't have any real friends.
Kellin goes to see Chakotay and says if he feels nothing for her she'll just leave. He tells her not to go. She boringly describes their last night together and how proud they were of catching the last runaway together (she shows no remorse over this despite being a runaway herself now.) They kiss and I am not feeling the heat. Chuckles suggests to Tuvok that Kellin become a security officer. Seven asks Harry to explain courtship rituals to her. Might as well ask a table. Kellin thinks a tracer has got on Voyager. A tracer instantly appears and shoots her with a gun that makes her start to forget her time on Voyager (the fuck.) In Sickbay she begs Chakotay not to let her forget and if she does forget she wants him to help her remember their great love story. Chakotay confrons the tracer but he says no one must be allowed to leave their society because of vague reasons. Kellin has forgotten who Chakotay is so he tries to convince her they were in love in a really dull way. She just kind of shrugs and leaves with the tracer anyway. Chakotay writes down his memories of Kellin with a space pencil because that's the only way to keep a record
Yes it's the episode with the most ironic name in Star Trek history, as literally everyone forgets it exists until they watch it again. It's just so bloody boring. Chakotay's actually been okay this season but this is Robert Beltran in full wooden mode. Virginia Madsen is an Oscar nominated actress who also manages to be pretty boring here. To be fair to both of them, the script is pretty terrible and the direction dull. Neither do anything to convince us these two people are in love. And it's just a really stupid concept: aliens who have a natural ability to be forgotten (which somehow also erases them from computers) but also have a secret police who go around with "memory guns" shooting anyone who meets them. And why THE FUCK did Voyager previously help Kellin catch another runaway anyway? After the tracers show up it's pretty obvious Voyager's made a huge mistake by turning the previous runaway over to them but nobody feels bad about it. All this stupidness might have been tolerable if the love story had worked but lol it's the most boring love story in tv history.
SCORE: 1.5/10
Living Witness - Janeway is wearing evil black gloves and telling an alien that violence is the Starfleet way. He wants her to help him capture the leader of another alien race and in exchange he'll tell Voyager about a wormhole that'll take them home. Janewy suggest using biogenic weapons against the rival aliens. The Doctor's an evil robot. Voyager begins firing on the alien cities. But this is all just a simulation running some seven hundred years later in some kind of alien museum. A tour guide gives inaccurate answers to questions about Voyager. The simulation continues with Tuvok smiling evily and Janeway justifying genocide to her alien ally (who claims not to have wanted this.) There's a Kazon Ensign! Kim beats up a prisoner while Chakotay (with huge tattoo) hilariously talks about being a man of peace. They get the location of the alien leader their looking for, but members of that race (Kirians, and the other guys are Vaskans okay) beam onto Voyager. A fully Borgified Seven of Nine hunts them down with her army of Borg drones. The Kirian leader is captured and Janeway executes him as he makes a defiant speech. The Kirian tour guide explans how his people still suffer from what Voyager did. A Vaskan questions how he knows any of this is true and says the Kirians are trying to blame the Vaskans for all their problem. The tour guide reveals they've just found a data device that'll confirm everything he's always believed. The tour guide (he probably isn't just a tour guide) tries to access the newly discovered data on the simulatioin of Voyager. He finds it's a hologram...it's the Doctor! The tour guide is shocked he's a hologram and not a robot. He's actually an EMH back-up (SEE CONTINUITY NOTE BELOW) and is disturbed to learn that he's seven hundred years in the future. The tour guide says the Doctor may have to face trial for his war crimes as he created the biogeic weapons that killed millions. The Doc is outraged by how wrong he's got everything (he even thinks Voyager came from Mars, not Earth!)
The Doc watches the simulation (Paris calls Neelix a hedgehog) and is aghast at how wrong they got everything. Except about Tom being a pervert. The Doctor asks to be allowed to tell his version of events. He reveals that the Kirian leader actually attacked Voyager first and accuses the Kirians of revisionist history. The tour guide shuts him down in anger, but continues to stuyd the datafile. He admits that if he was mistaken about the Doctor being an android, maybe he could be wrong about other things. The tour guide reactivates the Doctor and asks him to show him the real truth. The Doctor creates his own simulation, which shows Janeway meeting with the Vaskan ambassador who was actually a nice chap. The Kirians attacked because they believed Voyager was working with the Vaskans. They killed three(!) redshirts and tried to steal technology from Voyager, as well as taking Seven hostage. The Vaskan ambassador killed the Kirian leader in a way that wasn't strictly necessarily, so it's not like the Vaskans were total angels. The Kirians have recovered the same tricorder the Doctor used to scan the Kirian leader and it can confirm he was killed the Vaskans, not Voyager. The Kirians and the Vaskans continue to argue over who's really to blame, but all the Doctor cares about is showing Voyager wasn't responsible. The arguement does a nice job showing her complicated the issue is as the Kirians really are still repressed by the Vaskans (the one Kirian on the ruling council or whatever it is claims only to be there as a "token Kirian.") The Doc mentions B'Elanna (who isn't in the episode I assume because of Dawson's pregnancy and it strikes me that they kind of missed the opportunity to cast another actress in the role in the Kirian simulation) and gets sad thinking about how all his friends are dead now and wonders if they ever got home. The tour guide (I should have just called him "The Curator" or something but I'm sticking with tour guide now!) admits he always wondered if Voyager got home too. His museum is attacking by rioting Kirians who start smashing up the exhibits. The museum is completely smashed up and the protests continue all over the place. The Doctor is upset to have caused a race riot while the tour guide searches for the tricorder (lost in the riot.) The Doctor asks for his program to be deleted rather than risk a war breaking out over him. The tour guide argues that the the truth is more important and must be told. The Kirians and the Vaskans have been blaming each other for seven hundred years and it has to end. The Doc helps him find the tricorder. THEN it's revealed that everything we just watched as itself a simulation! At some point in the future the Vaskans and the Kirians finally achieved peace. A Kirian woman explains that the Doctor eventually left the planet, on a course to the Alpha Quadrant as he had a longing for home and it shows a photo of the Doctor and wow it's a great ending.
CONTINUITY NOTE: Yes it was explicity said before that the Doctor doesn't have a back-up module. Even just this season we saw Tom and Harry trying to create a new Doctor, which would have been pointless if he had a back-up. 'The Swarm' never would have happened if he'd had a back-up. As a nerd I probably would have liked it if this episode had come up with some technobabble explanation like the Doctor's program being duplicated by a weird anomoly or something. Fortunately it doesn't matter because the episode is so good that you just don't care about nerd concerns.
So yeah this is the best episode of Voyager yet and possibly the best of all. It's so good. Robert Picardo gives his finiest performance yet and the guy playing the tour guide/curator is very good too. I like how it doesn't just paint one of the alien races as evil liars but rather shows the importance of historical truth. Only once the two races fully understand what happened in their history can they finally live together as equals. It just feels right! And the ending where it's revealed we're just watching another simulation, while it does feel like the kind of thing Futurama would do as a joke, is played so sincerely that it's one of the most emotioanl moments in the series. A classic.
SCORE: 10/10
Kellin goes to see Chakotay and says if he feels nothing for her she'll just leave. He tells her not to go. She boringly describes their last night together and how proud they were of catching the last runaway together (she shows no remorse over this despite being a runaway herself now.) They kiss and I am not feeling the heat. Chuckles suggests to Tuvok that Kellin become a security officer. Seven asks Harry to explain courtship rituals to her. Might as well ask a table. Kellin thinks a tracer has got on Voyager. A tracer instantly appears and shoots her with a gun that makes her start to forget her time on Voyager (the fuck.) In Sickbay she begs Chakotay not to let her forget and if she does forget she wants him to help her remember their great love story. Chakotay confrons the tracer but he says no one must be allowed to leave their society because of vague reasons. Kellin has forgotten who Chakotay is so he tries to convince her they were in love in a really dull way. She just kind of shrugs and leaves with the tracer anyway. Chakotay writes down his memories of Kellin with a space pencil because that's the only way to keep a record
Yes it's the episode with the most ironic name in Star Trek history, as literally everyone forgets it exists until they watch it again. It's just so bloody boring. Chakotay's actually been okay this season but this is Robert Beltran in full wooden mode. Virginia Madsen is an Oscar nominated actress who also manages to be pretty boring here. To be fair to both of them, the script is pretty terrible and the direction dull. Neither do anything to convince us these two people are in love. And it's just a really stupid concept: aliens who have a natural ability to be forgotten (which somehow also erases them from computers) but also have a secret police who go around with "memory guns" shooting anyone who meets them. And why THE FUCK did Voyager previously help Kellin catch another runaway anyway? After the tracers show up it's pretty obvious Voyager's made a huge mistake by turning the previous runaway over to them but nobody feels bad about it. All this stupidness might have been tolerable if the love story had worked but lol it's the most boring love story in tv history.
SCORE: 1.5/10
Living Witness - Janeway is wearing evil black gloves and telling an alien that violence is the Starfleet way. He wants her to help him capture the leader of another alien race and in exchange he'll tell Voyager about a wormhole that'll take them home. Janewy suggest using biogenic weapons against the rival aliens. The Doctor's an evil robot. Voyager begins firing on the alien cities. But this is all just a simulation running some seven hundred years later in some kind of alien museum. A tour guide gives inaccurate answers to questions about Voyager. The simulation continues with Tuvok smiling evily and Janeway justifying genocide to her alien ally (who claims not to have wanted this.) There's a Kazon Ensign! Kim beats up a prisoner while Chakotay (with huge tattoo) hilariously talks about being a man of peace. They get the location of the alien leader their looking for, but members of that race (Kirians, and the other guys are Vaskans okay) beam onto Voyager. A fully Borgified Seven of Nine hunts them down with her army of Borg drones. The Kirian leader is captured and Janeway executes him as he makes a defiant speech. The Kirian tour guide explans how his people still suffer from what Voyager did. A Vaskan questions how he knows any of this is true and says the Kirians are trying to blame the Vaskans for all their problem. The tour guide reveals they've just found a data device that'll confirm everything he's always believed. The tour guide (he probably isn't just a tour guide) tries to access the newly discovered data on the simulatioin of Voyager. He finds it's a hologram...it's the Doctor! The tour guide is shocked he's a hologram and not a robot. He's actually an EMH back-up (SEE CONTINUITY NOTE BELOW) and is disturbed to learn that he's seven hundred years in the future. The tour guide says the Doctor may have to face trial for his war crimes as he created the biogeic weapons that killed millions. The Doc is outraged by how wrong he's got everything (he even thinks Voyager came from Mars, not Earth!)
The Doc watches the simulation (Paris calls Neelix a hedgehog) and is aghast at how wrong they got everything. Except about Tom being a pervert. The Doctor asks to be allowed to tell his version of events. He reveals that the Kirian leader actually attacked Voyager first and accuses the Kirians of revisionist history. The tour guide shuts him down in anger, but continues to stuyd the datafile. He admits that if he was mistaken about the Doctor being an android, maybe he could be wrong about other things. The tour guide reactivates the Doctor and asks him to show him the real truth. The Doctor creates his own simulation, which shows Janeway meeting with the Vaskan ambassador who was actually a nice chap. The Kirians attacked because they believed Voyager was working with the Vaskans. They killed three(!) redshirts and tried to steal technology from Voyager, as well as taking Seven hostage. The Vaskan ambassador killed the Kirian leader in a way that wasn't strictly necessarily, so it's not like the Vaskans were total angels. The Kirians have recovered the same tricorder the Doctor used to scan the Kirian leader and it can confirm he was killed the Vaskans, not Voyager. The Kirians and the Vaskans continue to argue over who's really to blame, but all the Doctor cares about is showing Voyager wasn't responsible. The arguement does a nice job showing her complicated the issue is as the Kirians really are still repressed by the Vaskans (the one Kirian on the ruling council or whatever it is claims only to be there as a "token Kirian.") The Doc mentions B'Elanna (who isn't in the episode I assume because of Dawson's pregnancy and it strikes me that they kind of missed the opportunity to cast another actress in the role in the Kirian simulation) and gets sad thinking about how all his friends are dead now and wonders if they ever got home. The tour guide (I should have just called him "The Curator" or something but I'm sticking with tour guide now!) admits he always wondered if Voyager got home too. His museum is attacking by rioting Kirians who start smashing up the exhibits. The museum is completely smashed up and the protests continue all over the place. The Doctor is upset to have caused a race riot while the tour guide searches for the tricorder (lost in the riot.) The Doctor asks for his program to be deleted rather than risk a war breaking out over him. The tour guide argues that the the truth is more important and must be told. The Kirians and the Vaskans have been blaming each other for seven hundred years and it has to end. The Doc helps him find the tricorder. THEN it's revealed that everything we just watched as itself a simulation! At some point in the future the Vaskans and the Kirians finally achieved peace. A Kirian woman explains that the Doctor eventually left the planet, on a course to the Alpha Quadrant as he had a longing for home and it shows a photo of the Doctor and wow it's a great ending.
CONTINUITY NOTE: Yes it was explicity said before that the Doctor doesn't have a back-up module. Even just this season we saw Tom and Harry trying to create a new Doctor, which would have been pointless if he had a back-up. 'The Swarm' never would have happened if he'd had a back-up. As a nerd I probably would have liked it if this episode had come up with some technobabble explanation like the Doctor's program being duplicated by a weird anomoly or something. Fortunately it doesn't matter because the episode is so good that you just don't care about nerd concerns.
So yeah this is the best episode of Voyager yet and possibly the best of all. It's so good. Robert Picardo gives his finiest performance yet and the guy playing the tour guide/curator is very good too. I like how it doesn't just paint one of the alien races as evil liars but rather shows the importance of historical truth. Only once the two races fully understand what happened in their history can they finally live together as equals. It just feels right! And the ending where it's revealed we're just watching another simulation, while it does feel like the kind of thing Futurama would do as a joke, is played so sincerely that it's one of the most emotioanl moments in the series. A classic.
SCORE: 10/10
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
I'm going to stick up for the shitty "Unforgettable" episode. Yeah it's lower level, but I love Virginia Madsen so for me, using her with her qualities made the character and the premise more interesting. Also, a similar idea was the basis for TNG's Clues, except that it was the Enterprise that had to erase its own records or die.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Her acting was fine but her character was completey bland and had no personality beyond "is in love with Chakotay for some reason." The TNG episode was eight million times better.