Wacky Reviews: Star Trek
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Starship Coyote
Original Gangster!
Apparently not. But then, my memory has a lot of gaps. There are entire events on this board I don't remember.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
If you think these episodes are hard to remember, wait until I get to Enterprise...
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Flesh and Blood: Part 1 & 2-
(NOTE: This aired as a feature lenght episode and appears that way on Netflix. I kind of wanted to review the two parts individually as each part has different writers and directors, but I think as this is always presented as one episode I should probaly review it that way, like I did for 'Way of the Warrior' (and maybe should have done for 'Dark Frontier' oh well too late now.))
Four Starfleet officers rise from a lake and shoot dead two Hirogen hunters. The Doctor wants time off to attend a conference, but Chakotay (he's back!) refuses. Voyager respond to a distress call from the Hirogen seen earlier. They find one survivor, then discover that the whole environment on the planet is one big Holodeck. Remember how Janeway gave the Hirogen Holodeck technology back in season four? Well now the holograms are hunting them!!!!! The suruviving Hirogen is really short and scared of holograms. He's a technician and reports that the holograms malfunctioned. Some more typical Hirogen (but they're just normal sized actors rather than tall guys) show up to call the technician a coward and stuff. The holograms escaped in a starship. Janeway agrees to team up with the Hirogen to hunt down the holograms and Chakotay and Tuvok are not happy about it. Janeway thinks Voyager is responsible for the killer holograms because they gave the Hirogen the technology. The holograms take out the Hirogen ship pretty fast anyway. The holograms steal the Doctor and fly off. Their leader is a holographic Bajoran (Iden) and he wants the Doc to fix some "wounded" holograms (including a Breen!)
Back on Voyager, B'Elanna learns that the holograms have been made super intelligence to make them better pray. Janeway confronts the Hirogen Alpha and tells him they have to take the holograms off-line rather than hunting them, because they're too strong to be hunted now. The Doc meets a Cardassian hologram with a Bajoran name (Kejal.) Doc learns that the Hirogen programmed the holograms to bleed and feel pain. He finds Iden praying to the Prophets for the soulds of the dead Hirogen. Iden tells him how he becomes more intelligent every time he dies and he now seen himself as a liberator on a quest to save all enslaved holograms (they reference the events of 'Body and Soul' here.) He suggests that the Doctor is a slave too because his life is restricted by the Voyager crew. He forces the Doc to experience what it's like to be prey by placing him in a simulation where he's hunted and killed by the Hirogen. Doc feels violated but starts to feel sympathy for Iden's cause and wants to know more of the holographic home world he wants to create. Doc tells them that B'Elanna could maybe help with that holographic planet. Iden's ship arrives at Voyager and the Doctor explains to Janeway what they need, but Janeway doesn't want to give away more technology because of how it turned out last time. The Hirogen technician wanrs that the holograms have been programmed to be as violent as the Hirogen and Janeway wonders if they can be reprogrammed, starting a "holographic rights" debate. The Hirogen onboard Voyager send a message to their allies to lead them to Iden's ship. Janeway wants to deactiate the holograms before the Hirogen arrive but Iden won't go along with it. The Doctor betrays Voyager and helps Iden's ship disable them. Iden abducts B'Elanna before they escape. I think this is where Part 1 would end but it's longer than a regular episode at this point.
The Doctor is angry at Idean for abducting B'Elanna and wonders if he's made a mistake by turning against Voyager. Too later now, traitor. Janeway learns of the Doc's betrayal on Voyager and thinks his matrix was reconfigured by Iden. Chakotay suggests that he's just a big traitor. Doc tries to convince B'Elanna to help Iden. She meets with all the holograms and they're all distrustful of her. (There's a Jem'Hadar hologram in ther but it's not a continuity error so don't even think about saying it is.) The Hirogen technician works with Voyager to help stop the holograms before the other Hirogen can kill them or they can kill anyone else (he feels guilty.) The other Hirogen are angry about this but they're always angry about something. Kejal is assigned to work with B'Elanna, but BLT isn't sure she's going to help yet. She wonders if the holograms will try to take over other planets once they have their own home, much like the Cardassians did. Kejal wins her round by being reasonable. Iden invites the Doctor to live on their holo planet with them. The holographic ship hides from the Hirogen in a nebula, but the Hirogen follow inside. Voyager sneaks into the nebula too. The Doctor likes the idea of becoming the new Minister of Culture on the holo planet. Iben doesn't want him teaching the people about organic culture. He's also creating his own religion. This is the point in the episopde where they just turn Iben into a crazy fanatic and it's disappointing.
B'Elanna is onboard with the holograhic home world idea, but the Doctor doesn't trust Iben anymore. Iben "liberates" three holograms from a ship then blows it up, killing the organic crew. Iben tells the Doc that all organics are the same and must die, blah blah blah, Doc wants to leave. B'Elanna tries to persuade Kejal to take Iben offline. The three rescued holograms are too simplistic to even talk as they were programmed with only limited routines. Voyager disabled the Hirogen ships with help from the technician. Iben has them beamed won to the planned holo planet (which isn't M-class) to hunt them because he's just a super villain now. The holo generator B'Elanna helped make is beamed down so the holograms can hunt, and Iben steals the Doc's holographic emitter because he's a dick. B'Elanna and Kejal reactivate the Doctor on the planet and Torres is finally rescued by the Delta Flyer. The Doc shoots Iben with a big holographic gun (yeah) to stop him killing the Hirogen Beta. Neelix (remember Neelix) talks the Beta into giving up the holograhic technology to Voyager. The Hirogen technician stays with Kejal on the hologram ship and they promise to repair the others so that they're not evil anymore (doesn't that go against their holographic rights?) Janeway tells the Doctor she can't punish him for being the person she helped him become. Err, but she locked up Paris for 30 days for far less that one time?
See, I wanted to rate this as two episodes because part 1 is a lot bettr than part 2. Part 1 is actually really good and at times reminds me of the best stuff from Westworld, like when Iben is talking about learning more with every time he dies. But, in typical Star Trek fashion, part 2 doesn't really live up to it. In part 1 Iben is a sympathetic character to some extent, we can see where he's coming from. We understand why the Doctor helps him. In part 2 he suddenly becomes a religious maniac who just wants to kill all organics rather than help holograms. It's silly and lazy. It gives the Doctor an easy excuse to go back to Voyager. And then there' the ending with Janeway not punishing him because...he's his own person now. Surely that's a reason why he SHOULD be punished? Part 1 is an easy 8.5/10, Part 2 is about 7/10 at best, so...
SCORE: 7.5/10
(NOTE: This aired as a feature lenght episode and appears that way on Netflix. I kind of wanted to review the two parts individually as each part has different writers and directors, but I think as this is always presented as one episode I should probaly review it that way, like I did for 'Way of the Warrior' (and maybe should have done for 'Dark Frontier' oh well too late now.))
Four Starfleet officers rise from a lake and shoot dead two Hirogen hunters. The Doctor wants time off to attend a conference, but Chakotay (he's back!) refuses. Voyager respond to a distress call from the Hirogen seen earlier. They find one survivor, then discover that the whole environment on the planet is one big Holodeck. Remember how Janeway gave the Hirogen Holodeck technology back in season four? Well now the holograms are hunting them!!!!! The suruviving Hirogen is really short and scared of holograms. He's a technician and reports that the holograms malfunctioned. Some more typical Hirogen (but they're just normal sized actors rather than tall guys) show up to call the technician a coward and stuff. The holograms escaped in a starship. Janeway agrees to team up with the Hirogen to hunt down the holograms and Chakotay and Tuvok are not happy about it. Janeway thinks Voyager is responsible for the killer holograms because they gave the Hirogen the technology. The holograms take out the Hirogen ship pretty fast anyway. The holograms steal the Doctor and fly off. Their leader is a holographic Bajoran (Iden) and he wants the Doc to fix some "wounded" holograms (including a Breen!)
Back on Voyager, B'Elanna learns that the holograms have been made super intelligence to make them better pray. Janeway confronts the Hirogen Alpha and tells him they have to take the holograms off-line rather than hunting them, because they're too strong to be hunted now. The Doc meets a Cardassian hologram with a Bajoran name (Kejal.) Doc learns that the Hirogen programmed the holograms to bleed and feel pain. He finds Iden praying to the Prophets for the soulds of the dead Hirogen. Iden tells him how he becomes more intelligent every time he dies and he now seen himself as a liberator on a quest to save all enslaved holograms (they reference the events of 'Body and Soul' here.) He suggests that the Doctor is a slave too because his life is restricted by the Voyager crew. He forces the Doc to experience what it's like to be prey by placing him in a simulation where he's hunted and killed by the Hirogen. Doc feels violated but starts to feel sympathy for Iden's cause and wants to know more of the holographic home world he wants to create. Doc tells them that B'Elanna could maybe help with that holographic planet. Iden's ship arrives at Voyager and the Doctor explains to Janeway what they need, but Janeway doesn't want to give away more technology because of how it turned out last time. The Hirogen technician wanrs that the holograms have been programmed to be as violent as the Hirogen and Janeway wonders if they can be reprogrammed, starting a "holographic rights" debate. The Hirogen onboard Voyager send a message to their allies to lead them to Iden's ship. Janeway wants to deactiate the holograms before the Hirogen arrive but Iden won't go along with it. The Doctor betrays Voyager and helps Iden's ship disable them. Iden abducts B'Elanna before they escape. I think this is where Part 1 would end but it's longer than a regular episode at this point.
The Doctor is angry at Idean for abducting B'Elanna and wonders if he's made a mistake by turning against Voyager. Too later now, traitor. Janeway learns of the Doc's betrayal on Voyager and thinks his matrix was reconfigured by Iden. Chakotay suggests that he's just a big traitor. Doc tries to convince B'Elanna to help Iden. She meets with all the holograms and they're all distrustful of her. (There's a Jem'Hadar hologram in ther but it's not a continuity error so don't even think about saying it is.) The Hirogen technician works with Voyager to help stop the holograms before the other Hirogen can kill them or they can kill anyone else (he feels guilty.) The other Hirogen are angry about this but they're always angry about something. Kejal is assigned to work with B'Elanna, but BLT isn't sure she's going to help yet. She wonders if the holograms will try to take over other planets once they have their own home, much like the Cardassians did. Kejal wins her round by being reasonable. Iden invites the Doctor to live on their holo planet with them. The holographic ship hides from the Hirogen in a nebula, but the Hirogen follow inside. Voyager sneaks into the nebula too. The Doctor likes the idea of becoming the new Minister of Culture on the holo planet. Iben doesn't want him teaching the people about organic culture. He's also creating his own religion. This is the point in the episopde where they just turn Iben into a crazy fanatic and it's disappointing.
B'Elanna is onboard with the holograhic home world idea, but the Doctor doesn't trust Iben anymore. Iben "liberates" three holograms from a ship then blows it up, killing the organic crew. Iben tells the Doc that all organics are the same and must die, blah blah blah, Doc wants to leave. B'Elanna tries to persuade Kejal to take Iben offline. The three rescued holograms are too simplistic to even talk as they were programmed with only limited routines. Voyager disabled the Hirogen ships with help from the technician. Iben has them beamed won to the planned holo planet (which isn't M-class) to hunt them because he's just a super villain now. The holo generator B'Elanna helped make is beamed down so the holograms can hunt, and Iben steals the Doc's holographic emitter because he's a dick. B'Elanna and Kejal reactivate the Doctor on the planet and Torres is finally rescued by the Delta Flyer. The Doc shoots Iben with a big holographic gun (yeah) to stop him killing the Hirogen Beta. Neelix (remember Neelix) talks the Beta into giving up the holograhic technology to Voyager. The Hirogen technician stays with Kejal on the hologram ship and they promise to repair the others so that they're not evil anymore (doesn't that go against their holographic rights?) Janeway tells the Doctor she can't punish him for being the person she helped him become. Err, but she locked up Paris for 30 days for far less that one time?
See, I wanted to rate this as two episodes because part 1 is a lot bettr than part 2. Part 1 is actually really good and at times reminds me of the best stuff from Westworld, like when Iben is talking about learning more with every time he dies. But, in typical Star Trek fashion, part 2 doesn't really live up to it. In part 1 Iben is a sympathetic character to some extent, we can see where he's coming from. We understand why the Doctor helps him. In part 2 he suddenly becomes a religious maniac who just wants to kill all organics rather than help holograms. It's silly and lazy. It gives the Doctor an easy excuse to go back to Voyager. And then there' the ending with Janeway not punishing him because...he's his own person now. Surely that's a reason why he SHOULD be punished? Part 1 is an easy 8.5/10, Part 2 is about 7/10 at best, so...
SCORE: 7.5/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Shattered - Icheb is hanging out with Naomi, because they got rid of all the other kids. Chakotay shows them some secret cider he's been hiding. He wants to drink it with Janeway but a weird spatial rift thing hits the ship. Chakotay is hit by weird energy when trying to fix the warp core. It's put his body is "temporal flux" but the Doctor fixes it with an anti-time travel serum (of course.) But wait, the Doc can't leave Sickbay! Chakoty's gone back in time! He heads to the Bridge but goes back in time again, this time to before Voyager has left the Alpha Quadrant (it's lucky this spatial thing moves him through space as well as time, isn't it!) He heads to Engineering and finds it controlled by Seska (I totally forgot she was in this one) and the Kazon. He heads through another portal and goes back to Sickbay. Every other of the ship is neatly existing in different time periods. It's convenient that the anomaly seems to respect the layout of the ship so much. He goes to the Bridge and tries to win Janeway's trust with his knowledge of her dog and love of music. Janeway reports one of her Ensigns vanished walking down the corridor, which makes me wonder where the Ensign is. If they jumped time periods too why hasn't Chakotay run into them? Chuckles injects Janeway against her will and tries to take her to Astrometrics. Janeway can't believe Harry Kim will one day be useful and Chakotay will be her trusted First Officer. I can't believe those things either. Astrometrics contains a grown-up Icheb and Naomi in Starfleet uniforms. It's been seventeen years since Janeway and Chakotay died. The ship has been split into different timezones all that time(?) I guess. And, most importantly, Naomi grew up hot. They head to the cargo bay to find Seven, but it's the time when she was still a Borg and the cargo bay is all Borged up. Borg Seevn is still helpful and quickly comes up with a way to fix things (with another fucking serum.) Janeway has the idea of injected the serum into the long forgotten bio-neural gel packs. Chakotay and Janeway keep having "deep" moments where she's impressed that a Maqus could read books and stuff. It's like they're showing that Janeway was one racist again the Maquis and she's changed so much in seven years, but that was never part of her character.
Janeway and Chakotay head around the ship injecting it with time juice. Janeway quizes him on how so many of her crew ended up dead. They get chased by the macro virus from that silly episode. They ended up in the Captain Proton Holodeck program and of course it's that time Holodeck controls are offline. Chaotica recognises Janeway as his Bride and wants to kill her. Janeway and Chakotay play along and get Chaotica to inject the gel pack. This isn't anywhere near as fun as 'Bride of Chaotica' was. They run into B'Elanna when she was still in the Maquis. Janeway discovers she stranded Voyager in the DQ. They end up in the present day and Tuvok dies holding Janeway's hand. I'm not sure what the point is, but Tuvok seems to have become Voyager's version of O'Brien in that they keep finding new ways to torture him. He can't handle being assimilated! He's been brainwashed by terrorists! He's dead! Janeway wants to change the timeline so that Voyager never gets trapped in the DQ (to Hell with the Temporal Prime Directive.) Chakotay makes a big speech about all the good Janeway has done in the DQ and changes her mind. This could have been touchin but it's season seven Robert Beltran. Chakotay seemingly manages to talk Seska into helping them solve the time crisis. Seska tells him how sexy he is (did Beltran write this) then tries to change history so that the Kazon win or whatever. Janeway saves the day with a time jumping Tom, Harry, Hot Naomi, Icheb and Maquis B'Elanna. Borg Seven finally shows up and beats up Seska (so hey at least we get a brief "Seven meets Seska" moment out of this.) Janeway asks Chakotay how close they get to each other and he says there's some barriers they never cross then adds "HAHA, FUCK YOU, SHIPPERS!" Chakotay fixes things and the episode doesn't happen, but he remembers it all (past Janeway doesn't.)
I haven't mentioned Chakotay much this season because he's had almost nothing to do. This feels like an attempt to keep Beltran happy by making him the hero of a story, and really I'd be fine with that if the episode was better than "kind of okay." It's not! For a start the time travel makes the least sense ever in Star Trek. Again that would be okay if the story was better, if it resulted in some gloriously fun story-telling like TNG's 'Parallels' or even Voyager's 'Relativitiy.' But nah, it's just Chakotay and Janeawy walking around the ship with him telling her "oh this is from that episode, this is from the one with ther macro virus" etc. It's not all that funny either. There's a completely pointless scene of Tuvok dying. Kate Mulgrew it good and I guess Beltran is fine since he's actually got someting to do, and maybe it's nice to remember "the one with the macro virus" and stuff but...there's not enough here. It doesn't come together to make a proper good episode.
(If the ship is split into different time zones and you can't leave the area you're in without jumping through time, does that mean Icheb and Naomi spent seventeen years together in Astrometrics?)
SCORE: 5/10
Lineage - B'Elanna has a wild mood swing in Engineering then nearly faints. Icheb and Seven scan her and find she's preggers. Tom and B'Elanna are surprised but happy. News spreads fast and Neelix asks to be Godfather (Tom says yes right away, fuck Harry.) Tom talks to Tuvok about fatherhood. Hey, they actually found a good use for Tuvok! He tells Tom that children can be illogical yet fulfilling. Tom makes a harmless remark about B'Elanna being a Klingon mother and she gets angry a bit. The Doctor tells them the baby (a girl) has a curvature in her spine but they can fix that with genetic modification. He projects an image of the baby and B'Elanna is upset when she notices it has Klingon forehead ridges. She has flashbacks to camping with her dad and cousins as a child. B'Elanna's cousin tries to get her to eat a worm because Klingons eat that shit. The baby's spine is fixed in a simple procedure. B'Elanna asks the computer to show her what her child would look like if she exctracted the genes responsible for Klingon traits. B'Elanna tells the Doctor she wants to remove all the Klingon genes, claiming it's for health reasons. The Doctor is dubious and certainly won't do anything without Tom agreeing too. Tom is completely against it and thinks it's because B'Elanna doesn't want the baby to be Klingon. B'Elanna says he doesn't understand because of his human privilege.
B'Elanna goes to Janeway saying she wants her to oder the Doctor to genetically modify her child, which is pretty fucked up. She says it's just the same as Janeway removing Seven's Borg implants. Janeway orders B'Elanna and Tom to get their shit together. Tom and B'Elanna continue to argue so he goes to talk to Harry. Tom wonders if their constant arguing will harm the baby. Flashback B'Elanna runs away in the woods after the worm incident. When she comes back her dad compares the racist bullying she suffers to him being made fun of for snoring and tells her to be less sensitive. Father of the year! Later at night her dad moans to his brother about B'Elanna being a handful and wonders if their mum was right telling him not to marry a Klingon. Tom and B'Elanna make up after a night spent on Harry's couch, but the Doc calls them in. He's changed his mind and now thinks the genetic modifications B'Elanna suggested are necessary. The baby needs most of its Klingon genes removed or it could grow up seriously ill. Hmm, this isn't suspcious at all! Tom runs the Doctor's finding by Seven and Icheb an they soon notice something is wrong: the Doc's been tampered with by B'Elanna. She locks everyone out of Sickbay so the Doc can carry out the procedure, but Tom and Tuvok get inside just in time to stop the surgery. Tom and B'Elanna have it out and she finally reveals the root of it all: how she and her father grew apart after the camping trip. A flashback shows B'Elanna accusing her dad of not liking Klingons. She told him to leave and he did and she's blamed herself ever since. Tom logically points out that her parents were having problems for a while and he obviously didn't leave just because of what she said. B'Elanna's real fear is that Tom will walk out on the family because two Klingons are too much. He promises that will never happen. B'Elanna apologises to the Doctor and asks him to be the godfather (haha, fuck Neelix.) She looks at a hologram of the baby again and smiles.
It's a really good episode! A thoughtful look at B'Elanna's well established Klingon issues and some interesting disucssion of the ethics of genetic modification. It's the best Tom's been for a while and Roxann Dawson is always excellent with this type of material. A rare bright spot in this mediocre season.
9/10
Janeway and Chakotay head around the ship injecting it with time juice. Janeway quizes him on how so many of her crew ended up dead. They get chased by the macro virus from that silly episode. They ended up in the Captain Proton Holodeck program and of course it's that time Holodeck controls are offline. Chaotica recognises Janeway as his Bride and wants to kill her. Janeway and Chakotay play along and get Chaotica to inject the gel pack. This isn't anywhere near as fun as 'Bride of Chaotica' was. They run into B'Elanna when she was still in the Maquis. Janeway discovers she stranded Voyager in the DQ. They end up in the present day and Tuvok dies holding Janeway's hand. I'm not sure what the point is, but Tuvok seems to have become Voyager's version of O'Brien in that they keep finding new ways to torture him. He can't handle being assimilated! He's been brainwashed by terrorists! He's dead! Janeway wants to change the timeline so that Voyager never gets trapped in the DQ (to Hell with the Temporal Prime Directive.) Chakotay makes a big speech about all the good Janeway has done in the DQ and changes her mind. This could have been touchin but it's season seven Robert Beltran. Chakotay seemingly manages to talk Seska into helping them solve the time crisis. Seska tells him how sexy he is (did Beltran write this) then tries to change history so that the Kazon win or whatever. Janeway saves the day with a time jumping Tom, Harry, Hot Naomi, Icheb and Maquis B'Elanna. Borg Seven finally shows up and beats up Seska (so hey at least we get a brief "Seven meets Seska" moment out of this.) Janeway asks Chakotay how close they get to each other and he says there's some barriers they never cross then adds "HAHA, FUCK YOU, SHIPPERS!" Chakotay fixes things and the episode doesn't happen, but he remembers it all (past Janeway doesn't.)
I haven't mentioned Chakotay much this season because he's had almost nothing to do. This feels like an attempt to keep Beltran happy by making him the hero of a story, and really I'd be fine with that if the episode was better than "kind of okay." It's not! For a start the time travel makes the least sense ever in Star Trek. Again that would be okay if the story was better, if it resulted in some gloriously fun story-telling like TNG's 'Parallels' or even Voyager's 'Relativitiy.' But nah, it's just Chakotay and Janeawy walking around the ship with him telling her "oh this is from that episode, this is from the one with ther macro virus" etc. It's not all that funny either. There's a completely pointless scene of Tuvok dying. Kate Mulgrew it good and I guess Beltran is fine since he's actually got someting to do, and maybe it's nice to remember "the one with the macro virus" and stuff but...there's not enough here. It doesn't come together to make a proper good episode.
(If the ship is split into different time zones and you can't leave the area you're in without jumping through time, does that mean Icheb and Naomi spent seventeen years together in Astrometrics?)
SCORE: 5/10
Lineage - B'Elanna has a wild mood swing in Engineering then nearly faints. Icheb and Seven scan her and find she's preggers. Tom and B'Elanna are surprised but happy. News spreads fast and Neelix asks to be Godfather (Tom says yes right away, fuck Harry.) Tom talks to Tuvok about fatherhood. Hey, they actually found a good use for Tuvok! He tells Tom that children can be illogical yet fulfilling. Tom makes a harmless remark about B'Elanna being a Klingon mother and she gets angry a bit. The Doctor tells them the baby (a girl) has a curvature in her spine but they can fix that with genetic modification. He projects an image of the baby and B'Elanna is upset when she notices it has Klingon forehead ridges. She has flashbacks to camping with her dad and cousins as a child. B'Elanna's cousin tries to get her to eat a worm because Klingons eat that shit. The baby's spine is fixed in a simple procedure. B'Elanna asks the computer to show her what her child would look like if she exctracted the genes responsible for Klingon traits. B'Elanna tells the Doctor she wants to remove all the Klingon genes, claiming it's for health reasons. The Doctor is dubious and certainly won't do anything without Tom agreeing too. Tom is completely against it and thinks it's because B'Elanna doesn't want the baby to be Klingon. B'Elanna says he doesn't understand because of his human privilege.
B'Elanna goes to Janeway saying she wants her to oder the Doctor to genetically modify her child, which is pretty fucked up. She says it's just the same as Janeway removing Seven's Borg implants. Janeway orders B'Elanna and Tom to get their shit together. Tom and B'Elanna continue to argue so he goes to talk to Harry. Tom wonders if their constant arguing will harm the baby. Flashback B'Elanna runs away in the woods after the worm incident. When she comes back her dad compares the racist bullying she suffers to him being made fun of for snoring and tells her to be less sensitive. Father of the year! Later at night her dad moans to his brother about B'Elanna being a handful and wonders if their mum was right telling him not to marry a Klingon. Tom and B'Elanna make up after a night spent on Harry's couch, but the Doc calls them in. He's changed his mind and now thinks the genetic modifications B'Elanna suggested are necessary. The baby needs most of its Klingon genes removed or it could grow up seriously ill. Hmm, this isn't suspcious at all! Tom runs the Doctor's finding by Seven and Icheb an they soon notice something is wrong: the Doc's been tampered with by B'Elanna. She locks everyone out of Sickbay so the Doc can carry out the procedure, but Tom and Tuvok get inside just in time to stop the surgery. Tom and B'Elanna have it out and she finally reveals the root of it all: how she and her father grew apart after the camping trip. A flashback shows B'Elanna accusing her dad of not liking Klingons. She told him to leave and he did and she's blamed herself ever since. Tom logically points out that her parents were having problems for a while and he obviously didn't leave just because of what she said. B'Elanna's real fear is that Tom will walk out on the family because two Klingons are too much. He promises that will never happen. B'Elanna apologises to the Doctor and asks him to be the godfather (haha, fuck Neelix.) She looks at a hologram of the baby again and smiles.
It's a really good episode! A thoughtful look at B'Elanna's well established Klingon issues and some interesting disucssion of the ethics of genetic modification. It's the best Tom's been for a while and Roxann Dawson is always excellent with this type of material. A rare bright spot in this mediocre season.
9/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Repentance - Voyager rescues criminals and prison guards from a prison ship. One of the prisoners is injured and hold a knife to Seven of Nine but she escapes and Tuvok stuns him. The Warden (Yediq) tells Janeway that all eight prisoners are due to be executed and Janeway and Chakotay feel a bit weird about helping now. Tuvok builds a little mini prison in the cargo bay, it's cute. Yediq isn't happy abut Neelix making them fancy food. The Doctor and Seven have a death penalty argument. Yediq has his guards beat up the prisoner (Iko) who threatened Seven after he mouths off. Janeway is disgusted and puts Tuvok in charge of guarding the prisoners. Doc needs Seven's magic nano probes to save Iko's life. Seven agrees but wonders what the point is when he's about to be executed. Another prisoner (Joleg) tries to make friends with Neelix, claiming he didn't commit the murder he was accused of and was a victim of racial profiling. Neelix does some research and finds that members of that species are ten times more likely to be executed for their crimes than others. Tom thinks Neelix is just a soft touch. The Doc finds Iko has become a model patient since his nano treatment and wants to give him more. Iko starts to experience a horrible pain and says he can't stop thinking of the man he killed. He's experiencing guilt for the first time and blames the nano probes. Seven and Iko start to bond over stars.
Joleg tells Neelix that in their system of law the family of his victim gets to decide his sentencing. He wants Neelix to send a letter to his brother. The Doc finds that the nanoprobes repaired a defective part of Iko's brain and he has a conscience now. Doc believes he is of no further danger to anyone. Janeway wants to help him appeal his death sentence. Iko tells Seven he deserves to die for his crimes. She tells him she carried out crimes as a Borg, but she's a different person now like he is. The family of Iko's victim refuse to look at his appeal. Seven wants to grant him asylum but Vediq isn't going to allow that. Janeway realises that Seven still feels guilty for her Borg crimes and wants Iko to be found not guilty because it'll mean she's not guilty too. Can't she just want to save him because it's the right thing to do, Voyager writers? An alien ship attacks Voyager. The prisoners break out of their cells, other than Iko who just stays behind. Jolet and another prisoner take Yediq hostage. Iko saves his life. Yediq has a change of heart and convinces the victim's family to hear Iko's appeal. He makes a speech to them on the view screen. Neelix finds that the letter to Joleg's brother is led the brother to track Voyager down and attack and Joleg is just a big fake. Iko's appeal is unsuccessful. He thanks Seven for all her help. After Iko is executed, Seven tells Janeeway that it's not fair he was executed while she got away with killing "thousands" as a drone (I seriously doubt she personally assimilated thousands of people?)
It's pretty good but in typical Voyager fashion it's not quite as good as it should be. There's some good death penalty discussion early on, and Iko's story is fairly good. I like that his appeal fails and he's executed. I don't really know why Borg nano probes would give someone a conscience, since surely a drone would be better off without one, but whatever, it's a decent sci fi idea. Linking it with Seven's guilt about being a Borg feels unecessary though, we've dealt with that enough before. The Joleg subplot is more problematic. It starts off trying to make a point about racial bias in the criminal justice system, but then...it turns out he really is evil. So we just kind of forget all the stuff about the racist justice system. The result is...a "good" episode on the Voyager scale.
SCORE: 7/10
Prophecy - An old Klingon ship decloaks and attacks Voyager, their Captain believing the Klingons and Federation are still at war. The Klingon Captain (Kohlar, who sounds a lot like Avery Brooks) is pretty easily talked around and is fascinated by B'Elanna's pregnancy. Kohlar talks too his crew about B'Elanna's baby fulfiling an ancient Klingon prophecy (sigh.) The Klingon ship randomly explodes and Janeway beams its whole crew of 200 onto Voyager. Janeway finds that Kohlar blew up his own ship and he "explains" that his people are part of a Klingon sect who followed the propehcy a hundred years ago to find a magic baby or something. He belives it to be B'Elanna's one quarter Klingon baby. So Voyager has two hundred Klingons on it now and we get the typical scenes of Klingons eating food (hi Gagh!) and getting into fights and being smelly. A Klingon lady declares Harry will make a worthy mate when he breaks up a fight. Neelix and Tuvok become comically mismatched roommates (AGAIN) when Neelix gives his room up to a Klingon family. B'Elanna gets annoyed by Klingons trying to look at her baby bump. Janeway tells her that ten of the Klingons have gone on a hunger strike to get a meeting with B'Elanna. Let them die. She meets them and some of the Klingons are angry about her being half human (and having a lame husband.) Kohlar admits to Janeway and B'Elanna that they've had a really shitty time for the last hundred years and he needs B'Elanna to pretend her baby is magic to give his people some hope (and guide them to a new planet to live on.) Janeway agrees to go along with his lies if it means getting rid of the fucking Klingons. Kohlar gives B'Elanna a crash course on how prophecies can be twisted to mean anything. He leads B'Elanna in a Klingon prayer and she kind of likes it I guess.
Harry goes to the Doctor for help with repelling the Klingon woman who wants to fuck him. He gives Harry the "permission to fuck an alien" thing he failed to get in 'The Disease' in a nice bit of continuity that nevertheless makes us think about Harry having sex. B'Elanna gets into the part of playing a Klingon lady and tries to impress the others with stories. One of the Klingons calls her a slut and challenges Tom to a fight to the death (sigh.) Why are Klingons like this. Janeway tries to get Tom out of the death battle and talks the sexist Klingon down to a non-lethal fight. Kohlar has to train Tom to fight because if Tom loses the baby isn't magical anymore. Neelix gets Harry out of sex with the Klingon lady by making Harry his bitch. The Klingon lady has sex with Neelix instead. What even is this episode. Tom wins the fight when the Klingon collapses from illness. Well, that was lucky. What was the plan if that hadn't happened? Kohlar explains that all of his people suffer from a virus that kills them at random. WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T HE MENTION THAT BEFORE NOW. The Doctor finds that B'Elanna and her baby now have it too. The bad Klingon plots to take over Voyager for some reason. They begin their mutiny by shooting Chakotay and Harry and try to beam all of Voyager's crew down to the planet that's supposed to be the new Klingon home. There's a boring phaser fight on the Bridge and the boring evil Klingon boringly asks Janeway to grant him a boring warrior's death. Evil Klingon wakes to find himself cured of the virus: the hybrid stem cells in B'Elanna's baby are a cure (at least it's not nano probes.) Neelix and the Klingon lady have violent sex in Tuvok's quarters, smashin the place up. The Klingons move to the planet because the baby healing them somehow fulfils the prophecy.
It's a total mess. It feels like the writers made it up as it they went along. "Okay, what if they run into some Klingons! And B'Elanna's baby is magic! But then Tom has to fight a Klingon for some reason! Then it turns out all the Klingons are dying! Then there's a Klingon mutiny! AND NEELIX GETS LAID!" Remember how we got a thoughtful, engrossing episode about B'Elanna's baby a few episodes ago? There's no depth at all here. It feels like a comedy episode at times, and I will admit that Neelix shagging a Klingon ended up being pretty funny. But the plot is really really bad, the Klingons are total cliches, nothing really makes sense and it's time for Voyager to end.
SCORE: 2.5/10
Joleg tells Neelix that in their system of law the family of his victim gets to decide his sentencing. He wants Neelix to send a letter to his brother. The Doc finds that the nanoprobes repaired a defective part of Iko's brain and he has a conscience now. Doc believes he is of no further danger to anyone. Janeway wants to help him appeal his death sentence. Iko tells Seven he deserves to die for his crimes. She tells him she carried out crimes as a Borg, but she's a different person now like he is. The family of Iko's victim refuse to look at his appeal. Seven wants to grant him asylum but Vediq isn't going to allow that. Janeway realises that Seven still feels guilty for her Borg crimes and wants Iko to be found not guilty because it'll mean she's not guilty too. Can't she just want to save him because it's the right thing to do, Voyager writers? An alien ship attacks Voyager. The prisoners break out of their cells, other than Iko who just stays behind. Jolet and another prisoner take Yediq hostage. Iko saves his life. Yediq has a change of heart and convinces the victim's family to hear Iko's appeal. He makes a speech to them on the view screen. Neelix finds that the letter to Joleg's brother is led the brother to track Voyager down and attack and Joleg is just a big fake. Iko's appeal is unsuccessful. He thanks Seven for all her help. After Iko is executed, Seven tells Janeeway that it's not fair he was executed while she got away with killing "thousands" as a drone (I seriously doubt she personally assimilated thousands of people?)
It's pretty good but in typical Voyager fashion it's not quite as good as it should be. There's some good death penalty discussion early on, and Iko's story is fairly good. I like that his appeal fails and he's executed. I don't really know why Borg nano probes would give someone a conscience, since surely a drone would be better off without one, but whatever, it's a decent sci fi idea. Linking it with Seven's guilt about being a Borg feels unecessary though, we've dealt with that enough before. The Joleg subplot is more problematic. It starts off trying to make a point about racial bias in the criminal justice system, but then...it turns out he really is evil. So we just kind of forget all the stuff about the racist justice system. The result is...a "good" episode on the Voyager scale.
SCORE: 7/10
Prophecy - An old Klingon ship decloaks and attacks Voyager, their Captain believing the Klingons and Federation are still at war. The Klingon Captain (Kohlar, who sounds a lot like Avery Brooks) is pretty easily talked around and is fascinated by B'Elanna's pregnancy. Kohlar talks too his crew about B'Elanna's baby fulfiling an ancient Klingon prophecy (sigh.) The Klingon ship randomly explodes and Janeway beams its whole crew of 200 onto Voyager. Janeway finds that Kohlar blew up his own ship and he "explains" that his people are part of a Klingon sect who followed the propehcy a hundred years ago to find a magic baby or something. He belives it to be B'Elanna's one quarter Klingon baby. So Voyager has two hundred Klingons on it now and we get the typical scenes of Klingons eating food (hi Gagh!) and getting into fights and being smelly. A Klingon lady declares Harry will make a worthy mate when he breaks up a fight. Neelix and Tuvok become comically mismatched roommates (AGAIN) when Neelix gives his room up to a Klingon family. B'Elanna gets annoyed by Klingons trying to look at her baby bump. Janeway tells her that ten of the Klingons have gone on a hunger strike to get a meeting with B'Elanna. Let them die. She meets them and some of the Klingons are angry about her being half human (and having a lame husband.) Kohlar admits to Janeway and B'Elanna that they've had a really shitty time for the last hundred years and he needs B'Elanna to pretend her baby is magic to give his people some hope (and guide them to a new planet to live on.) Janeway agrees to go along with his lies if it means getting rid of the fucking Klingons. Kohlar gives B'Elanna a crash course on how prophecies can be twisted to mean anything. He leads B'Elanna in a Klingon prayer and she kind of likes it I guess.
Harry goes to the Doctor for help with repelling the Klingon woman who wants to fuck him. He gives Harry the "permission to fuck an alien" thing he failed to get in 'The Disease' in a nice bit of continuity that nevertheless makes us think about Harry having sex. B'Elanna gets into the part of playing a Klingon lady and tries to impress the others with stories. One of the Klingons calls her a slut and challenges Tom to a fight to the death (sigh.) Why are Klingons like this. Janeway tries to get Tom out of the death battle and talks the sexist Klingon down to a non-lethal fight. Kohlar has to train Tom to fight because if Tom loses the baby isn't magical anymore. Neelix gets Harry out of sex with the Klingon lady by making Harry his bitch. The Klingon lady has sex with Neelix instead. What even is this episode. Tom wins the fight when the Klingon collapses from illness. Well, that was lucky. What was the plan if that hadn't happened? Kohlar explains that all of his people suffer from a virus that kills them at random. WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T HE MENTION THAT BEFORE NOW. The Doctor finds that B'Elanna and her baby now have it too. The bad Klingon plots to take over Voyager for some reason. They begin their mutiny by shooting Chakotay and Harry and try to beam all of Voyager's crew down to the planet that's supposed to be the new Klingon home. There's a boring phaser fight on the Bridge and the boring evil Klingon boringly asks Janeway to grant him a boring warrior's death. Evil Klingon wakes to find himself cured of the virus: the hybrid stem cells in B'Elanna's baby are a cure (at least it's not nano probes.) Neelix and the Klingon lady have violent sex in Tuvok's quarters, smashin the place up. The Klingons move to the planet because the baby healing them somehow fulfils the prophecy.
It's a total mess. It feels like the writers made it up as it they went along. "Okay, what if they run into some Klingons! And B'Elanna's baby is magic! But then Tom has to fight a Klingon for some reason! Then it turns out all the Klingons are dying! Then there's a Klingon mutiny! AND NEELIX GETS LAID!" Remember how we got a thoughtful, engrossing episode about B'Elanna's baby a few episodes ago? There's no depth at all here. It feels like a comedy episode at times, and I will admit that Neelix shagging a Klingon ended up being pretty funny. But the plot is really really bad, the Klingons are total cliches, nothing really makes sense and it's time for Voyager to end.
SCORE: 2.5/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
It's hilarious that they spent A HUNDRED YEARS on the ship looking for a new home world and then they meet B'Elanna and her pregnancy fits their prophecy in the vaguest way possible and they just say "okay we'll move to the nearest random planet!" Did they not meet any other pregnant ladies in the last century?
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
The Void - Seven makes dinner for the main characters, further proving the irrelevance of Neelix. The meal is interrupted by Voyager being sucked into an area of space with no stars (wait, didn't that already happen in season 5?) where some aliens attack them right away. Some other aliens show up and chase the first aliens away, then attack Voyager themselves and steal stuff. There's nothing in the weird area of space but other spaceships. A General Valen (Robin Sachs who played fun recurring character Ethan Rayne on Buffy!) welcomes Voyager to The Void. He's been there five years and thinks there's no way out. He warns to team up with Voyager to bully the other ships and warns Janeway that her morality won't get her very far. Voyager tries to escape the void through a "funnel" in space but it doesn't work and the warp core goes offline. Voyager scavenges parts from a wrecked ship. Seven and B'Elanna find a mute alien (played by Jonathan Del Arco of renewed Hugh Borg fame!) hiding in the parts. Seven donates food to him. Voyager finds that Valen was the one who wrecked the ship and stole Voyager's stuff from them. They have a chance to steal extra food from his ship but Janeway refuses and they just take back what's theirs. Chakotay and Tuvok wonder if they should have stole the food. Janeway goes to the Federation Charter for advice and wants to form a kind of mini Federation inside the void by forming an alliance with the others to escape. Chakotay and Tuvok doubt that the other aliens will agree to her "no killing, no stealing" rules but Janeway has faith in the Federation's principals. They ask some forehead aliens to join and give them some free food and medical supplies.
Seven questions Janeway's communism but she points out that Seven gave some of her food away earlier. The Doctor names the mute alien 'Fantome' and plays music for him. Seven works on communicating with him. A new ship (it's the potato people from the ECH episode) is pulled into the void. Valen attacks it with an ally and his ship holds up better against Voyager this time. Voyager takes a beating but the aliens Janeway met with earlier save them. Janeway welcomes them to the alliance. Voyager makes new allies between scenes. The Doc and Seven develop a kind of music based language to communicate with Fantome. Some alien jerk Janeway is meeting with calls Fantome vermin and says he should be exterminated. Janeway instead offers to take all of Fantome's species who are hiding on the jerk's ship onto Voyager instead in a clever way to talk him into joining the alliance. Janeway's allies work together to find a way through the funnel. Fantome teaches the rest of his species the music language. Janeway figures out that they're native to the void (again pretty sure this alread happened in season 5!) Janeway finds out that her new jerk ally has killed some other aliens to steal technology from them. She refuses to use the technology and kicks him out of her alliance. The potato people spy on jerk guy trying to form an alliance of his own with Valen. Fantome's people offer to help Janeay in a way that won't be revealed until later in the episode. Janeway's alliance launches their plan to escape as Valen and his evil alliance attack. Fantome's people beam over to the engine rooms of the evil ships to disable them. Voyager and friends escape through the funnel. Janeway says a nice goodbye to her allies as she's proven once again that the Federation is great.
It's that frustating thing where Voyager does the kind of story we wanted them to be doing all along, except instead of a multi episode arc it's all just done in one neat little episode with it's convenient little starless pocket of space. It also suffers from similarities to the season 5 episode 'Night', though I will say that I prefer the native species here (Jonathan Del Arco does a great job) to the one from that episode. That said, it's definitely a good episode. I like that the Federations ideals save the day, and as mentioned I like the native species and their music talk. It's just all a bit too late in the day.
SCORE: 7.5/10
Seven questions Janeway's communism but she points out that Seven gave some of her food away earlier. The Doctor names the mute alien 'Fantome' and plays music for him. Seven works on communicating with him. A new ship (it's the potato people from the ECH episode) is pulled into the void. Valen attacks it with an ally and his ship holds up better against Voyager this time. Voyager takes a beating but the aliens Janeway met with earlier save them. Janeway welcomes them to the alliance. Voyager makes new allies between scenes. The Doc and Seven develop a kind of music based language to communicate with Fantome. Some alien jerk Janeway is meeting with calls Fantome vermin and says he should be exterminated. Janeway instead offers to take all of Fantome's species who are hiding on the jerk's ship onto Voyager instead in a clever way to talk him into joining the alliance. Janeway's allies work together to find a way through the funnel. Fantome teaches the rest of his species the music language. Janeway figures out that they're native to the void (again pretty sure this alread happened in season 5!) Janeway finds out that her new jerk ally has killed some other aliens to steal technology from them. She refuses to use the technology and kicks him out of her alliance. The potato people spy on jerk guy trying to form an alliance of his own with Valen. Fantome's people offer to help Janeay in a way that won't be revealed until later in the episode. Janeway's alliance launches their plan to escape as Valen and his evil alliance attack. Fantome's people beam over to the engine rooms of the evil ships to disable them. Voyager and friends escape through the funnel. Janeway says a nice goodbye to her allies as she's proven once again that the Federation is great.
It's that frustating thing where Voyager does the kind of story we wanted them to be doing all along, except instead of a multi episode arc it's all just done in one neat little episode with it's convenient little starless pocket of space. It also suffers from similarities to the season 5 episode 'Night', though I will say that I prefer the native species here (Jonathan Del Arco does a great job) to the one from that episode. That said, it's definitely a good episode. I like that the Federations ideals save the day, and as mentioned I like the native species and their music talk. It's just all a bit too late in the day.
SCORE: 7.5/10
I used to like the federation when it helped people and then lorded it over them by acting like superior smug assholes.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Workforce: Part 1 - On INDUSTRIAL PLANET Janeway goes to work in a massive power plant, wearing a shiny alien jumpsuit. She reports to her supervisor and says working here will be much better than her last job. What's going on! She meets a man (Jafen) and the plant's new "Efficiency Monitor" Annika Hansen (that's Seven!) who tells them off. Tom Paris gets a job as a barman after being fired from the power plant. He's a bad boy. Tuvok drinks at the bar and laughs loudly at jokes. Jafen talks Janeway into having a drink with him. B'Elanna (still pregnant obviously) walks into the bar then walks out again. Janeway describes Earth as over-populated, polluted and a place where there's very little work. Whatev'ers going on here tt's quite efficient brainwashing. The mind-wiped workers are inoculated against radiation and Tuvok has a flashback to being injected against his will. Chakotay, Neelix and Harry (what a team!) head back to Voyager in a shuttle after the typical comedy off-screen trading mission. The Doctor, in his Emergency Command Hologram role, is the only crewmember still on Voyager and he's struggling to get the damaged ship up and running. Life support is down so Chakotay and Harry have to wear spacesuits when they beam over for the Doc to explain everything in flashback. Voyager hit some kind of mine, the whole crew were dosed with radiation, Janeway put the ECH in charge. The crew abandoned ship in escape pods so the ECH could vent the radiation, but some jerk aliens attacked Voyager. The Doc had to hide from all the jerks and doesn't know what happened to the crew. Tuvok has a flashback to arriving on Industrial World where the aliens promised to cure their radiatioin poisoning but ended up mind-wiping them. He remembers Janeway but she still can't remember him.
Paris tries to chat up B'Elanna in the bar but she isn't interested and uses her bump to scare him away. The four remaining crewmen work to get Voyager back online. The ECH gets bitchy with Chakotay when he's ordered to do something, because he thinks he should still be in command or something. I get that Chakotay sucks but surely the ECH would know the first officer is above him int the chain of command. Janeway and Jafen think of going out for dinner together but just have sex instead. Voyager reaches Industrial Planet but the Prime Minister or whoever (yes I always miss the person's title, it's my thing) tells them to leave his workers alone and to fuck off. Janeway is happy with Jafen. Tom tries to help B'Elanna with her baby because he's a nice guy really. She still doesn't want romance but he offers friendship. Chakotay and Neelix plan to go undercover as people looking for jobs in the power plant (Chakotay is surgically altered because the government official saw him and they can't just send Harry instead?) The Doc again gets angry that Harry's in command instead of him. I think they go a bit too far with Doc's ego sometimes. Seven orders Tuvok to stop skipping his inoculations. He mind melds her and she has a vision of her true self before he's dragged away. Chakotay gets a job and spots Janeway. He introduces himself to her but of course she doesn't know him. Evil guys inject Tuvok with green stuff (why is it always Tuvok who loses his mind?) Neelix and Chakotay meet in the bar. Jafen asks Kathryn to move in with him and she says yes. Creepy Neelix and Chakotay stalk pregnant B'Elanna. Neelix abducts her and Harry beams them up, but the jerk aliens attack before he can beam Chakotay. The evil medics prepare to drill into Tuvok's head. Chakotay hits a dead ended running from evil security.
It's a surprisingly strong episode at this point in the show! The story is well told and doesn't feel too padded like the first part of two parters often can. Kate Mulgrew does a good job playing a slightly different version of Janeway. The Tom/B'Elanna scenes are pretty cute and remind us that they actually are a believable couple. Even Beltran feels a bit more engaged than usual. The downside would be the Doctor being just a bit too annoying with taking the ECH stuff so seriously. It works in comedy episodes but here you just want him to shut up.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Workforce: Part 2 - Chakotay escapes security using Indian magic (he shoots them.) The Doctor uses his tactical database to help Voyager get away. Chuckles returns to the plant and is sad for Janeway when he learns she's moving in with Jafen. Security try to track down Chakotay and Neelix with Tom angry to learn and they've abducted B'Elanna. Voyager hides in an asteroid or something as the Doc says it will take a long time to cure B'Elanna. The evil doctors continue to plan to cut Tuvok's brain open, despite a younger doctor's misgivings. Seven starts to stick her nose into things. Janeway packs to move in with Jafen. She's collected a lot of junk in her short time on the planet. She finds a bloody Chakotay holding a gun to her in the bedroom. She looks after his injured arm. Neelix shows B'Elanna around her and Tom's quarters and she starts to get her memories back (Tom watches cartoons!) Seven catches Janeway stealing medical supplies for Chakotay. Seven starts looking into all the workers in the plant who are really Voyager crewmembers. Voyager gets in touch with Chakotay. He's told Janeway the truth but she's still suspicious and gets angry when he calls her Captain. He proves that he and Janeway are the same race by making his fake forehead disappear. Jafen asks Janeway why she's risking their life together for Chakotay and calls the cops who bring him in (well, I assume Jafen did it.) Most of the cops think Chakotay's a crazy man but one guy listens to him.
B'Elanna eats pancakes and gets more memories back. She wonders if Tom will ever remember her. The Doctor tells Harry that he wants to stay as a command officer and wants Harry to help him create a new medical hologram. The evil power plant people get Chakotay back thanks to a bent copper and make him send a fake message to Voyager to lure it back. The younger doctor wonders why so many workers are coming down with brain problems. Seven brings evidence to the One Good Cop. He's been relieved of duty and says he can't help. Seven decides to go undercover at the evil hospital as someone with a broken brain. She steals some secret files and walks out. The good doctor at the evil hospital figures out that his boss is evil, but makes the classic mistake of telling his boss everything he knows. The power plant pays him to brainwash people into becoming workers. The bad guys are hunting for Seven now and Tom hides her in the bar. They meet Janeway, Jafen and One Good Cop there. They come up with a plan and start capturing the evil people and launch an attempt to shut down the power grid so Voyager can save everyone. Jafen and Janeway get into a phaser fight with the evil security people. Seven saves Chakotay and Good Doctor from being brainwiped. Voyager is ambushed when it returns to the planet (remember the fake Chakotay message) and it's Harry who comes up with a clever tactical move this time to turn the tables on the Doc. Everyone is beamed back to Voyager and of course the Doc can restore their memories more easily after treating B'Elanna. The Prime Minister or whoever is pleased that the power plant conspiracy has been uncovered. Tom watches cartoons. Janeway and Jafen say a sad goodbye to each other. His memories weren't tampered with and he has a good job and promotion to go back to (since so many of the evil higher ups have been fired.)
It's a good conclusion. A tad below part one, but still one of the better episodes of the season. I like how the whole planet isn't evil and there's a good cop brining the evil power plant to justice. Often in Trek they'll just have a whole evil society where everyone's fine with brainwashing. Having said that, the character of the good doctor felt kind of pointless and, unlike with part one, some scenes (mainly with him) felt like padding. I get that he was just there so the evil doctor could explain the plot to him but I think we all understood it by then anyway. The whole "Doctor wanting to be a real commander" story doesn't really have a conclusion either? But yeah, it's good! One other thing though: where was Naomi? Did they have child labour in the power plant?
SCORE: 8/10
Paris tries to chat up B'Elanna in the bar but she isn't interested and uses her bump to scare him away. The four remaining crewmen work to get Voyager back online. The ECH gets bitchy with Chakotay when he's ordered to do something, because he thinks he should still be in command or something. I get that Chakotay sucks but surely the ECH would know the first officer is above him int the chain of command. Janeway and Jafen think of going out for dinner together but just have sex instead. Voyager reaches Industrial Planet but the Prime Minister or whoever (yes I always miss the person's title, it's my thing) tells them to leave his workers alone and to fuck off. Janeway is happy with Jafen. Tom tries to help B'Elanna with her baby because he's a nice guy really. She still doesn't want romance but he offers friendship. Chakotay and Neelix plan to go undercover as people looking for jobs in the power plant (Chakotay is surgically altered because the government official saw him and they can't just send Harry instead?) The Doc again gets angry that Harry's in command instead of him. I think they go a bit too far with Doc's ego sometimes. Seven orders Tuvok to stop skipping his inoculations. He mind melds her and she has a vision of her true self before he's dragged away. Chakotay gets a job and spots Janeway. He introduces himself to her but of course she doesn't know him. Evil guys inject Tuvok with green stuff (why is it always Tuvok who loses his mind?) Neelix and Chakotay meet in the bar. Jafen asks Kathryn to move in with him and she says yes. Creepy Neelix and Chakotay stalk pregnant B'Elanna. Neelix abducts her and Harry beams them up, but the jerk aliens attack before he can beam Chakotay. The evil medics prepare to drill into Tuvok's head. Chakotay hits a dead ended running from evil security.
It's a surprisingly strong episode at this point in the show! The story is well told and doesn't feel too padded like the first part of two parters often can. Kate Mulgrew does a good job playing a slightly different version of Janeway. The Tom/B'Elanna scenes are pretty cute and remind us that they actually are a believable couple. Even Beltran feels a bit more engaged than usual. The downside would be the Doctor being just a bit too annoying with taking the ECH stuff so seriously. It works in comedy episodes but here you just want him to shut up.
SCORE: 8.5/10
Workforce: Part 2 - Chakotay escapes security using Indian magic (he shoots them.) The Doctor uses his tactical database to help Voyager get away. Chuckles returns to the plant and is sad for Janeway when he learns she's moving in with Jafen. Security try to track down Chakotay and Neelix with Tom angry to learn and they've abducted B'Elanna. Voyager hides in an asteroid or something as the Doc says it will take a long time to cure B'Elanna. The evil doctors continue to plan to cut Tuvok's brain open, despite a younger doctor's misgivings. Seven starts to stick her nose into things. Janeway packs to move in with Jafen. She's collected a lot of junk in her short time on the planet. She finds a bloody Chakotay holding a gun to her in the bedroom. She looks after his injured arm. Neelix shows B'Elanna around her and Tom's quarters and she starts to get her memories back (Tom watches cartoons!) Seven catches Janeway stealing medical supplies for Chakotay. Seven starts looking into all the workers in the plant who are really Voyager crewmembers. Voyager gets in touch with Chakotay. He's told Janeway the truth but she's still suspicious and gets angry when he calls her Captain. He proves that he and Janeway are the same race by making his fake forehead disappear. Jafen asks Janeway why she's risking their life together for Chakotay and calls the cops who bring him in (well, I assume Jafen did it.) Most of the cops think Chakotay's a crazy man but one guy listens to him.
B'Elanna eats pancakes and gets more memories back. She wonders if Tom will ever remember her. The Doctor tells Harry that he wants to stay as a command officer and wants Harry to help him create a new medical hologram. The evil power plant people get Chakotay back thanks to a bent copper and make him send a fake message to Voyager to lure it back. The younger doctor wonders why so many workers are coming down with brain problems. Seven brings evidence to the One Good Cop. He's been relieved of duty and says he can't help. Seven decides to go undercover at the evil hospital as someone with a broken brain. She steals some secret files and walks out. The good doctor at the evil hospital figures out that his boss is evil, but makes the classic mistake of telling his boss everything he knows. The power plant pays him to brainwash people into becoming workers. The bad guys are hunting for Seven now and Tom hides her in the bar. They meet Janeway, Jafen and One Good Cop there. They come up with a plan and start capturing the evil people and launch an attempt to shut down the power grid so Voyager can save everyone. Jafen and Janeway get into a phaser fight with the evil security people. Seven saves Chakotay and Good Doctor from being brainwiped. Voyager is ambushed when it returns to the planet (remember the fake Chakotay message) and it's Harry who comes up with a clever tactical move this time to turn the tables on the Doc. Everyone is beamed back to Voyager and of course the Doc can restore their memories more easily after treating B'Elanna. The Prime Minister or whoever is pleased that the power plant conspiracy has been uncovered. Tom watches cartoons. Janeway and Jafen say a sad goodbye to each other. His memories weren't tampered with and he has a good job and promotion to go back to (since so many of the evil higher ups have been fired.)
It's a good conclusion. A tad below part one, but still one of the better episodes of the season. I like how the whole planet isn't evil and there's a good cop brining the evil power plant to justice. Often in Trek they'll just have a whole evil society where everyone's fine with brainwashing. Having said that, the character of the good doctor felt kind of pointless and, unlike with part one, some scenes (mainly with him) felt like padding. I get that he was just there so the evil doctor could explain the plot to him but I think we all understood it by then anyway. The whole "Doctor wanting to be a real commander" story doesn't really have a conclusion either? But yeah, it's good! One other thing though: where was Naomi? Did they have child labour in the power plant?
SCORE: 8/10
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Human Error - Seven of Nine (with no Borg implants!) plays the piano. She attends a baby shower wearing normal people clothes (she still looks like Jeri Ryan, nerds) and requests a uniform. She thanks Janeway for all her help in becoming human and makes a nice toast to the baby. But then she called away by the real Janeway because lol of course this isn't real, they're not going to have character development on Voyager! In the Holodeck, Holo Neelix helps Human Seven decorate her new room. Holo Chakotay drops by with a dreamcatcher and holo flirts with her. She invites him to dinner. It turns out Seven was dodging the real baby shower to do her Holodeck thing. The Doctor finds out she's been missing regeneration time. There's an "unexploded aliens weapons attacking the ship" of the week subplot which is so routine that I'm not mentioning it agian. Seven brings B'Elanna a late baby shower present and asks her how she got such pretty hair. Seven, in a red dress that is burned into my memory for some reason, goes on her date with Holo Chakotay. She sucks his finger (it has food on it but still.) She helps Chakotay chop a carrot and it gets a bit steamy. They kiss until one of her implatns beeps. She has a weird dream then the real Chakotay calls her, waking her up in bed with Holo Chakotay. Isn't that a violation like what Barclay did?
Seven keeps making trips to the Holodeck and plays sexy piano with Chakotay. He turns off her metronome and tells her to put more heart into her playing. She doesn't like the imperfections it brings but he tells her the metronome is holding her back by giving her a sense of Borg-like order. Seven is called back to duty when the boring subplot kicks in again and Janeway wonders why she wasn't at her post. Janeway tells her off and asks her what's up but Seven doesn't tell her about the Holodeck stuff. She apologises to Icheb for nearly getting everyone killed then runs off to the Holodeck again. She tries to break up with Holo Chakotay and says their relationship is interefering with her duties. He accuses her of not wanting to face her newfound humanity. Her implants malfunction again and she has to call the Doctor. She wakes up in Sickbay and the Doc gets her to tell him what she was doing in the Holodeck. He's jealous of Chakotay, of course, but thinks Seven should keep up trying to be more human. Seven comes up with a way to stop the ancient weapons and it's so tacked on who cares. The Doc reveals to Seven that her cortical node has a never before discovered failsafe designed to shut down any drones who feels emotions. So why didn't it shut down all the drones in Unimatrix Zero? Why did it never kick in any of the other times Seven felt emotions? The real Chakotay, oblivious to Seven's dirty thoughts, invites her to the Mess Hall but she turns him down.
I don't know what they were trying to do here, really. It starts off pretty good. Jeri Ryan does a great job playing a more relaxed version of Seven in the Holodeck. Chakotay is dull but the metronome scene was very good and served as a fine metaphor for what was happening with Seven. It seems like the conflict is going to be whether or not Seven will be brave enough to start being more human outside of the Holodeck...then it turns out there's a stupid technobabble reason why that isn't possible. So there's no more conlfict for Seven, she doesn't have a choice but to go on being her Borg-y self. Why? It's the seventeenth episode of the final season! Surely we coud actually develop her character? What harm would it do now? But no, it's against the law for anyone to ever change on Voyager so the episode ends up being nearly pointless despite a strong performance from Ryan and some good individual scenes. Stupid Voyager.
SCORE: 5/10
Q2 - Icheb reads a report about Captain Kirk to Janeway, who is bored. Some annoying kid shows up in the Ready Room, then Q (who has gotten fat in the four years since we last saw him) shows up and reveals the kid is his son. And of course it's John de Lancie's real life son Keegan playing the part! Q wants Janeway to be his godmother and I'm already sick of this. Junior turns Engineering into a disco with sexy dancing ladies. He tries to get B'Elanna to dance with him and makes a nonplussed Seven's clothes appear. Why would a member of an omnioptent race be sexually attracted to human women? Junior calls Neelix "Kitchen Rat" which would have been funny if the delivery was better. He starts a war between two species for his own amusement and fuses Neelix's mouth shut. He has the Borg attack Voyager, as if that doesn't happen every week anyway. Q shouts "DON'T PROVOKE THE BORG" at him and now I have to ask why the Q would be scared of the Borg? Janeway wants the brat gone, but Q begs her to let him stay to straighten the kid out (he says Junior is the first baby Q ever born AS IF AMANDA ROGERS IS NOTHING.) Lady Q walked out on them so we don't even get a Suzie Plakson appearance. Janeway tells Q to give the kid some fatherly attention but he appears in her bath a minute later and says it didn't work. Q makes an agreement with the continuum that Junior shape up within a week or he be turned into an amoeba. And he takes Junior's powers away so that nothing fun can happen. The kid has to learn from each of the Voyager crew. Chakotay runs a boring diplomacy scenario in the Holodeck. Junior solves the scenario and gets a holo Cardassian to apologise to a Holo Bajoran for the Occupation, which is the first part of the episdoe that actually amused me.
Junior catches Q trying to plagarise an essay from Icheb and reveals she know he just reprogrammed the Holodeck. Junior whines about not being able to live up to the Continuum's high expections and promises to try harder. A few days later Junior is a good, hard-working kid and even writing his own essays. Icheb invites Junior to come with him and Tom on Icheb's driving lesson. Q drops in to check on his son with Janeway. She makes the kid read his essay in front of him. Q finds it boring and is disappointed his son is a nerd now. He's upset that Janeway taught him boring Starfleet values. What the fuck did he expect? Janeway tells the kid she'll let him stay on Voyager as a human if the Continuum don't let him go back. I think I'd rather be an amoeba. The kid wants to be a great Q like his father. He goes to "Itchy" (Icheb) and convinces him to let him help fix the Delta Flyer, but instead he steals the Flyer and flies off with Itchy for a wacky adventure. He opens a space portal and some aliens accuse them of trespassing. Icheb is injured so Junior goes back to Voyager. He asks his dad to save Icheb but Q says he has to die to teach the kid a lesson. Janeway is fine with this, I guess! Janeway tells him to and apologise to the aliens for what he did. Junior admits Icheb is the only friend he's ever had (wow) and he'll do anything for him. They go back to the alien but it says Janeway must be punished. Q says he'll take the punishment to save his friend. Is this a fucking after school special. Hey, guess what, it was all set up by Q. He was the alien all along and it was just a test. Junior passed. The Continuum are impressed for some reason and Icheb is fine. A bunch of Q judges appear dressed in the robes from TNG (which I find a bit annoying because they were supposed to be robes worn by 21st century Earth judges but whatever) and rule that the kid has to stay as a human because he's so lame. It looks like he'll stay on Voyager, but this is instantly reversed by Q threatening to leave the Continuum. Q gives Janeway a new star chart or something that takes a few years off their journey, as he doesn't want to do all the work for her.
They saved the worst Q episode for last. I just don't care about Keegan de Lancie's character at all. He starts out like a bratty teenager (but in a pretty boring, run of the mill way) then just does a complete 180 to a boring nerd halfway through. And since he spends most of the episode without his powers he can't even do anything fun. His acting isn't terrible but it's not strong enough to carry an episode. And John de Lancie is shockingly dull as Q here and I don't think it's just because he's gotten fat. He has none of the spark or energy of early Q or even his previous Voyager appearances. It feels like an episode for kids but I think kids would find it boring as shit.
SCORE: 2.5/10
Seven keeps making trips to the Holodeck and plays sexy piano with Chakotay. He turns off her metronome and tells her to put more heart into her playing. She doesn't like the imperfections it brings but he tells her the metronome is holding her back by giving her a sense of Borg-like order. Seven is called back to duty when the boring subplot kicks in again and Janeway wonders why she wasn't at her post. Janeway tells her off and asks her what's up but Seven doesn't tell her about the Holodeck stuff. She apologises to Icheb for nearly getting everyone killed then runs off to the Holodeck again. She tries to break up with Holo Chakotay and says their relationship is interefering with her duties. He accuses her of not wanting to face her newfound humanity. Her implants malfunction again and she has to call the Doctor. She wakes up in Sickbay and the Doc gets her to tell him what she was doing in the Holodeck. He's jealous of Chakotay, of course, but thinks Seven should keep up trying to be more human. Seven comes up with a way to stop the ancient weapons and it's so tacked on who cares. The Doc reveals to Seven that her cortical node has a never before discovered failsafe designed to shut down any drones who feels emotions. So why didn't it shut down all the drones in Unimatrix Zero? Why did it never kick in any of the other times Seven felt emotions? The real Chakotay, oblivious to Seven's dirty thoughts, invites her to the Mess Hall but she turns him down.
I don't know what they were trying to do here, really. It starts off pretty good. Jeri Ryan does a great job playing a more relaxed version of Seven in the Holodeck. Chakotay is dull but the metronome scene was very good and served as a fine metaphor for what was happening with Seven. It seems like the conflict is going to be whether or not Seven will be brave enough to start being more human outside of the Holodeck...then it turns out there's a stupid technobabble reason why that isn't possible. So there's no more conlfict for Seven, she doesn't have a choice but to go on being her Borg-y self. Why? It's the seventeenth episode of the final season! Surely we coud actually develop her character? What harm would it do now? But no, it's against the law for anyone to ever change on Voyager so the episode ends up being nearly pointless despite a strong performance from Ryan and some good individual scenes. Stupid Voyager.
SCORE: 5/10
Q2 - Icheb reads a report about Captain Kirk to Janeway, who is bored. Some annoying kid shows up in the Ready Room, then Q (who has gotten fat in the four years since we last saw him) shows up and reveals the kid is his son. And of course it's John de Lancie's real life son Keegan playing the part! Q wants Janeway to be his godmother and I'm already sick of this. Junior turns Engineering into a disco with sexy dancing ladies. He tries to get B'Elanna to dance with him and makes a nonplussed Seven's clothes appear. Why would a member of an omnioptent race be sexually attracted to human women? Junior calls Neelix "Kitchen Rat" which would have been funny if the delivery was better. He starts a war between two species for his own amusement and fuses Neelix's mouth shut. He has the Borg attack Voyager, as if that doesn't happen every week anyway. Q shouts "DON'T PROVOKE THE BORG" at him and now I have to ask why the Q would be scared of the Borg? Janeway wants the brat gone, but Q begs her to let him stay to straighten the kid out (he says Junior is the first baby Q ever born AS IF AMANDA ROGERS IS NOTHING.) Lady Q walked out on them so we don't even get a Suzie Plakson appearance. Janeway tells Q to give the kid some fatherly attention but he appears in her bath a minute later and says it didn't work. Q makes an agreement with the continuum that Junior shape up within a week or he be turned into an amoeba. And he takes Junior's powers away so that nothing fun can happen. The kid has to learn from each of the Voyager crew. Chakotay runs a boring diplomacy scenario in the Holodeck. Junior solves the scenario and gets a holo Cardassian to apologise to a Holo Bajoran for the Occupation, which is the first part of the episdoe that actually amused me.
Junior catches Q trying to plagarise an essay from Icheb and reveals she know he just reprogrammed the Holodeck. Junior whines about not being able to live up to the Continuum's high expections and promises to try harder. A few days later Junior is a good, hard-working kid and even writing his own essays. Icheb invites Junior to come with him and Tom on Icheb's driving lesson. Q drops in to check on his son with Janeway. She makes the kid read his essay in front of him. Q finds it boring and is disappointed his son is a nerd now. He's upset that Janeway taught him boring Starfleet values. What the fuck did he expect? Janeway tells the kid she'll let him stay on Voyager as a human if the Continuum don't let him go back. I think I'd rather be an amoeba. The kid wants to be a great Q like his father. He goes to "Itchy" (Icheb) and convinces him to let him help fix the Delta Flyer, but instead he steals the Flyer and flies off with Itchy for a wacky adventure. He opens a space portal and some aliens accuse them of trespassing. Icheb is injured so Junior goes back to Voyager. He asks his dad to save Icheb but Q says he has to die to teach the kid a lesson. Janeway is fine with this, I guess! Janeway tells him to and apologise to the aliens for what he did. Junior admits Icheb is the only friend he's ever had (wow) and he'll do anything for him. They go back to the alien but it says Janeway must be punished. Q says he'll take the punishment to save his friend. Is this a fucking after school special. Hey, guess what, it was all set up by Q. He was the alien all along and it was just a test. Junior passed. The Continuum are impressed for some reason and Icheb is fine. A bunch of Q judges appear dressed in the robes from TNG (which I find a bit annoying because they were supposed to be robes worn by 21st century Earth judges but whatever) and rule that the kid has to stay as a human because he's so lame. It looks like he'll stay on Voyager, but this is instantly reversed by Q threatening to leave the Continuum. Q gives Janeway a new star chart or something that takes a few years off their journey, as he doesn't want to do all the work for her.
They saved the worst Q episode for last. I just don't care about Keegan de Lancie's character at all. He starts out like a bratty teenager (but in a pretty boring, run of the mill way) then just does a complete 180 to a boring nerd halfway through. And since he spends most of the episode without his powers he can't even do anything fun. His acting isn't terrible but it's not strong enough to carry an episode. And John de Lancie is shockingly dull as Q here and I don't think it's just because he's gotten fat. He has none of the spark or energy of early Q or even his previous Voyager appearances. It feels like an episode for kids but I think kids would find it boring as shit.
SCORE: 2.5/10
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
Q2 was Keegan de Lancie's final screen role.
I wonder if he's been purged this year like so many others.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
I don't think it was a great loss to the acting world (he was fine in the episode though.)
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
The funny part is that he only had a half dozen acting roles, looks like only 2 of them were speaking parts (including Voyager) lol.
I don't think he was too broken up about it either.
I don't think he was too broken up about it either.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Oh, a stupid thing I forgot to metnion: so Q is angry when Janeway teaches his son to be all Starfleet and nice and says it won't impress the Continuum. Q then plots to win over the Continuum...by teaching his son to take responsibility when Icheb is injured. Which is exactly the kind of nice, bland Starfleet moral lesson that her earlier said was boring and woudln't impress the Continuum.