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Wacky Reviews: Star Trek

Faces - B'Elanna (I need to learn to spell that) wakes up as a full Klingon. Neelix makes Vulcan soup for Tuvok and annoyingly watches him eat it up close (his cooking is predictably bad.) Torres, Paris and Durst (guess he will die) have gone missing underground where some tunnels have moved. Chakotay, Tuvok and Kim go looking for them with transponders left as "breadcrumbs." A Vidiian named Sulan reveals that he made B'Elanna a full Klingon in an attempt to cure the Phage and has infected her with it. Paris and Durst are locked up with a crazy Talaxian who reveals they'll be used for slave labour until their organs are harvested. Torres can endure the pain of the Phage due to being Kling but...talks...really...slowly...now (to be fair this could because of the pain.) Sulan creeps on her. In a big twist, a fully human version of Torres shows up in prison with Paris. She gives Tom some backstory about how she always felt different as a child being half Klingon and used to cover her forehead up out of shame. She thinks her dad left because she looked Klingon so she tried to look human (Paris somewhat insensitively says "looks like you got what you wanted!") Chakotay, Tuvok and Kim realise it's the Vidiians and their cloaked tunnels they're dealing with and beam out as soon as they see one like cowards. Klingon Torres flirts with Sulan to try to get him to let her out (she's talking more normally now.) Sulan is turned on but doesn't fall for it. He does stroke her face though! (I should note that Klingon B'Elanna has bigger breasts.)

Durst is taken away for "questioning." Human Torres finds she can't stop crying from being scared. Sulan grafts Durst's face onto his own in a hideously sick attempt to impress Klingon B'Elanna. She chokes him and escapes (he probably got a hard on.) Chakotay is altered to look Vidiian. Human Torres struggles with the slave labour and tells Paris she's never been this scared before. She thinks removing the Klingon DNA has made her a coward. Klingon Torres saves Human Torres from some nasty Vidiians. The Klingon is not impressed by the weakness of the human and the human doesn't want to eat some rodent she found. Human blames Klingon for them getting kicked out of the Academy then laughs because she's fighting with herself. They clash over what the best thing to do is, but the human makes peace and tells the Klingon she needs her help to escape. Chakotay finds Paris. Sulan finds the B'Elannas trying to escape and threatens to kill the human one (he can't kill the Klingon because she could cure the Phage.) Klingon jumps in front of Sulan's phaser blast to save the others. Klingon Torres dies on the ship and tells human Torres she was impressed by her bravery. Torres, of course, has to have her Klingon DNA restored to retain the status quo/save her life. She tells Chakotay she's learned to respect her Klingon half.

It's classic Star Trek! Using a science fiction concept to tell a story about a character coming to terms with different aspects of their personality. Okay, it's kind of similar in concept to the TOS episode with evil Kirk, but far less campy thanks to Roxanne Dawson's great acting. Yes she talks really slow at first as a Klingon but that's just because of the Phage! There is actually some good camp here too from Sulan, a great creepy villian who tries to impress a girl by grafting a human face on. The Vidiians continue to be great villians and the only thing I wonder about is why Voyager didn't try to rescue the crazy Talaxian and the other slaves (but I guess they had a hard time even getting Torres and Paris out.)

SCORE: 9/10
 
The Viidians were one of the rare cases where Voyager did an original alien species that didn't feel derivative. We didn't see much of them after this though!
 
Jetrel - Tuvok fails to make a tricky pool shot. An alien ship hails Voyager, asking for Neelix by name. It's a member of a species named the Haakonians who conquered the Talaxian homeworld fifteen years ago (haha), named Jetrel (the always great James Sloyan) and Neelix shakes with rage when he hears his name. Neelix reveals that Jetrel created a weapon of mass destructive that wiped out a Talaxian colony and Neelix's entire family. Jetrel beams over and tells Janeway that Neelix needs a full medical scan as he may have developed a deadly blood disease from being exposed to the weapon's radiation of whatever. Jetrel is trying to cure the condition. Kes asks why Neelix never told her about the war. Janeway tells Neelix what Jetrel said and Neelix is suspicious and doesn't want Jetrel looking at his blood. Janeway and Kes convince him to hear Jetrel out. It doesn't go well as Neelix just wants to know how Jetrel can live with himself having caused 300,000 deaths. Jetrel points out he just created the weapon and didn't give the order to use it. Jetrel asks how many Neelix killed in the war (I want a flashback to Neelix gunning people down.) Jetrel and the EMH do scans on Neelix while he tells Kes a story that's an obvious metaphor for Jetrel's weapon. Jetrel finds that Neelix has the blood disease. Neelix keeps trying to be positive and tells Kes that he doesn't have to be lonely when she dies in eight years because he'll die first. That's...a weird thing to say to her. Jetrel tells Janeway that he can use Voyager's transporters to pick up a sample of the radiation cloud around the colony and develop a cure. Jetrel appears to bill too but tells Janeway it's nothing.

Neelix wonders why the Haakonians didn't choose a military target. Jetrel says if he hadn't discovered the weapon someone else would have. He tells how his wife left him with their children because she thought he was a monster. Neelix says that's sad but not as bad as Neelix witnessing the victims of Jetrel's weapon dying in agony (he tells the story about a girl who lived for weeks before dying.) Jetrel admits he'll be dead in days from radiation poisoning. We get a weirdly acted dream scene with Neelix and Jetrel playing pool together and Kes all burned up. It's a bit likethe "Quark, why did you kill my baby!" dream in that one DS9. They arrive at the colony and Neelx has a monologue about watching the weapon go off from the homeworld. Jetrel gets his sampe of the cloud. Kes finds Neelix hiding in the kitchen. He admits to her that he actually went AWOL from the Talaxian defence forces and was hiding from them when the colony was blown up. He thought the war was unjust and didn't want to fight (or is he a big fat coward.) Kes says there was nothing wrong with what Neelix did and wonders if he's really angry with Jetrel...OR WITH HIMSELF. I don't know, Jetrel did create a weapon that killed 300,000 people so it kind of would be fine for Neelix to be angry with him? Kes says Neelix has to stop hating himself to stop hating Jetrel. Jetrel deactivates the EMH and Neelix catches him doing something dodgy. Jetrel knocks him out. Janeway and Tuvok catch Jetrel in the transporter room. He claims he can use the transporter to bring the victims of his weapon back to life. Neelix's thinks he's nuts but Janeway says the science kind of checks out. Jetrel uses genetic records of the victims, gathered from their relatives, to identify and reanimate the victims. No one really thinks it's possible and Jetrel reveals his planet cut off his funding because of that and he went rogue. Neelix doesn't really have the disease, he just needed Voyager's transporters. Janeway lets him do a test and they nearly put one Talaxian back together but he breaks up again (imagine being that Talaxian.) Jetrel falls seriously ill. Neelix visits him in Sickbay and tells him he forgives him.

This is the first time Neelix has been required to do some serious, dramatic acting and Ethan Phillips does a very good job in some scenes, but feels a bit over the top in others. Sloyan is great as always. Their interactions and debates between them are the best part of the episode. This tries to be Voyager's version of 'Duet' but falls a bit short. In addition to Neelix still being a bit annoying (and man is his relationship with Kes ever creepy when we're reminded that she's two years old while he's old enough to have fought in a war fifteen years ago) the ending feels a bit silly. It's fine that Jetrel is trying to redeem himself but actually trying to put people who died back together? I don't really buy it. Especially since he claims he was working on it for fifteen years but had never seena transporter before he came on Voyager. Anyway this is still very good but just falls short in some areas!

SCORE: 8/10
 
Learning Curve - Janeway returns to her Holodeck of Shit, complete with super creepy children this time (yes that's Thomas Dekker unimpressed by her Latin.) Thankfully the kids disappear as part of the Mystery of the Week. Tuvok encounters a former Maquis crewmember named Dalby trying to fix a gel pack (remember how those were a big deal in the pilot and this is the first time they've been mentioned since) and gives him into trouble for breaking protocol. Janeway thinks some of the Maquis need a crash course in Starfleet regulations and Tuvok is just the man to take them on. There's Dalby, a girl with a headband, a moody Bajoran boy and a fat Bolian named Chell (who Tuvok makes run laps for talking too much. It's pretty childish.) Dalby tells Tuvok the whole thing is insulting and leads the others in walking out. Dalby tells Chakotay he wants to do things the Maquis way so Chakotay punches him because that's the Maquis way too (I don't remember Ro ever getting punched) and promises he'll do it every day until Dalby goes back to Tuvok's classes. Tuvok inspects their uniforms and orders the kid to take his Bajoran earring off. B'Elanna thinks Dalby is scared of failing. Another gel pack fails and they only have a limited number. The Doctor treats the gel pack and makes some funniest. The gel pack is infected. Tuvok has his class run and climb about the ship wearing heavy backpacks. They struggle to complete the run and Tuvok reveals it's because he imcreased the gravity on the ship. He makes Chell scrub the transporter pads or something too. Tuvok's a dick.

Tuvok runs a wargames scenario on the Bridge with his cadets. They fight two Romulan Warbirds while trying to help some Ferengi and choose to go down fighting against the Romulans rather than retreating, much to Tuvok's disapproval. Dalby is disgusted at the idea of running from a fight. Neelix sees Tuvok being moody and decides to lend a hand as Morale Officer. Neelix points out that the Maquis aren't Starfleet cadets (you'd think Tuvok would have noticed that) and Tuvok needs to be more flexible. Tuvok realises that the cheese Neelix is making has caused the bacteria that infected the gel packs. Torres utters the immortal line "get the cheese to Sickbay." Tuvok plays pool with the Maquis to get to know them as people. Dalby tells him how the woman he loved was raped and murdered by Cardassians so he joined the Maquis for revenge. The whole pool idea didn't go well. The ship malfunctions thanks to Neelix fuckng up the gel packs and Tuvok and his cadets are stuck in a cargo bay together. The Doctor discovers that the way to heal the gel packs is to heal them all and Janeway has Torres do this with a "warp burst" or something. The ship gets hot. There's a gas leak in the cargo bay and the Bajoran is trapped inside. Dalby wants to go back for him but Tuvok kicks him out and goes back himself. Everyone passes out from the heat but the plant works and the infections are wiped out. Dalby and the others are impressed that Tuvok broke the rules by going back for the Bajoran and think they can learn to follow the rules if Tuvok will break them. It's lucky there was a crisis so Tuvok could win them over!

It's the season one final and it feels like a really light episode to end the seaosn on. The reason being that they actually flimed another four episodes and held them back for season two (for reasons Memory Alpha won't tell me) and this wasn't originally going to be the finale. It is a good idea to do an episode on the integration of the Maquis crewmembers into Starfleet, but it's really very routine. Tuvok is a harsh teacher at first then impresses them by saving one of their lives. That solves all the problems. Dalby seems like he's kind of a leader amongst the Maquis faction but we'll never see him again. The gel pack/cheese plot is stupid but kind of fun. I don't know. It's an okay episode but that's it.

SCORE: 6/10
 
The 37's - Wait, is that apostrophe right? Voyager finds an old-timey Earth car/truck thing (I don't know cars) floating in space. Paris knows all about antique cars and gets it started (seems unlikely after 400 years in space?) and picks up an SOS on its radio. They follow it to a planet which, for technobabble reasons, they can't beam down to and land the ship instead. I'm sure this was a HUGE DEAL at the time but it only seems to be in there to show off their special effects. They find the SOS call was coming from an ancient aircraft, which is now running on some kind of alien power source. They then find a load of people frozen in tubes including none other than famous missing pilot Amelia Earhart. Turns out she was abducted by aliens in the 1930s along with a bunch of other humans. Janeway orders everyone in the tubes to wake up. The 20th century people are confused by the universal translator and Earhart's navigator Fred promises to go to the press. Fred holds a gun to Janeway and takes the crew hostage. Janeway tries to reason with Earhart as she's the most famous of the humans and therefore the most easy to reason with. Janeway tells her how Earhart inspired generations of women pilots and tells her of all the conspiracy theories surrounding her disappearance.

Earthart convinces Fred to let Janeway show them her ship (oh I guess that's why Voyager landed. Plot reasons.) They're attacked by aliens when they go outside and Fred is shot. After a fire fight it turns out the aliens are actually humans in rubber gimp masks. Why didn't the gimp humans recognise Janeway and the others as fellow humans? Fred is treated in Sickbay and he and Earhart both believe he's going to die. Fred tells Earhart he loves her then it's comically revealed that the Doctor has healed him using technology. John, the leader of the gimp humans, wants to know why Janeway took "the 37(')s". John (who is a bad actor) and his people are the descendants of people aliens abducted 400 years ago and kept as slaves (why did the aliens go so far to get slaves?) They thought the 37s were dead all along and kept them as a monument to the past or something. John tells them that life on the planet is good and they have three beautiful cities. Janeway reveals in her log that the cities really were beautiful but we, the viewer, don't get to see them. Not even a matte painting. Must have blown all the money on landing Voyager. Janeway is disturbed because the cities were so much like Earth and John has offered to let any of the crew stay behind. Janeway debates with Chakotay over whether they should give the crew the choice to stay behind because if too many of them stay Voyager might not be able to run. She decides to give them the choice anyway. Neelix makes 20th century food for the 37s. Earhart isn't sure about staying behind on the planet. Kim and Torres talk about how a lot of people are thinking of staying and admit they're tempted. Earhart tells Janeway she's staying on the planet. Janeway and Chakoay go to the cargo bay where everyone who wants to stay is supposed to be. They talk about people who they think might stay (all no names we've never seen before, so it's hard to care.) They go in and find the cargo bay empty. It's a nice moment but kind of unbelievable? Surely some random Maquis with no family would want to stay.

It's a weird episode, really. Right, first of all, why was there a truck floating in space? Why did Earhart's plane have a weird alien battery? We get both these mysteries early on and never find out the answer. And, really, why is Earhart in this episode? I can see why someone would think "let's do an Amelia Earthart episode!" but maybe have her be relevant to the plot? She's mostly just there to calm down Fred and decide to stay on the planet. Most of the episode is background and set-up to get to the plot: how many of the crew will stay behind? It turns out nobody does, and while it is a nice moment when Janeway and Chakotay enter the cargo bay, it's not like we know any of the characters other than the main cast. If we'd seen some lower decks type people debating staying behind it would have been believable that some of them would have. But nobody thinks Torres or Kim would stay and really the whole thing, while a pleasant watch, feels oddly pointless?

SCORE: 6.5/10
 
Initiations - Chakotay is off on a shuttle performing an Indian ritual they made up for the show when he is attacked by Kar (Aron "Nog" Eisenberg) a young Kazon trying to earn his name. Chakotay beats him with some nifty shuttle flying and beams the lad over just before his fighter blows up. Neelix annoys Janeway by asking to do more stuff back on Voyager before they go looking for Chakotay. Chakotay tries to hand Kar back over to the Kazon (which is kind of dumb) but the Kazon just take his shuttle captive. Kat wants Chakotay to kill him because what the Kazon will do to him is worse. The two of them are locked up together and Kar explains how Kazon earn their name by killing their enemies but he'll never earn his name thanks to Chakotay. Razik, the leader of Kar's sect, tells him how disappointed he is in him (and kisses him, the pervert.) Razik tells Chakotay he's a loser for not killing a child. Razik has some children brought to look at Chakotay and they all volunteer to kill him despite Chakotay telling them he's a gentle man. Razik gives Chakotay a phaser to kill Kar with as an example to the children and win his freedom. The Kazon are pretty fucked up. Chakotay of course just uses the shuttle to escape and Kar comes with him in Chakotay's shuttle. Chakotay continues to refuse to kill anyone and their shuttle is destroyed (they beam to a moon.) I think this is the first shuttle destruction in Voyager but that's another thing I'm not keeping track of (just watch the youtube video.)

It's a Vasquez Rocks moon! Kar again yells at Chakotay for not wanting to kill anyone or die in battle and Chakotay tells him to shut up. It's a Kazon training moon and Kar saves him from a landmine. The Voyager crew continue to hunt down Chakotay and track him to the moon. Chakotay and Kar continue to debate their ways of life in a cave. Kar thinks Chakotay's name means nothing because he didn't earn it in battle but Chakotay says his name is a gift from his tribe and he cherishes it just like his Federation unifrom (umm remember when he quit to join the Maquis?) Kar considers murdering Chakotay in his sleep and stealing his tricorder but he can't do it. Paris takes command of Voyager while Janeway looks for the Chakotay and the Kazon claim they've killed Chakotay. Neelix sees through their bullshit (yep, Neelix does something useful!) and realises the Kazon are trying to keep their training moon secret from the other sects. This was actually a good scene for Neelix. Chakotay and Kar have another circular conversation. Janeway, Tuvok and Kes meet Razik and his men on the moon and Razik offers them assistance in take them to their missing people. Kar tells Chakotay of The Trabe and how the Kazon overthrew them 26 years ago (long-term planning!) Chakotay comes up with a plan to let Kar kill him so he can be revived back on Voyager and Kar can earn his name. The Kazon trap Janeway and friends behind a forcefield. They break out seconds later. Kar kills Razik instead of Chakotay and returns to his people. Kar warns Chakotay he'll kill him if he ever sees him here again but in a kind of warm way. Chakotay prays for Kar back on Voyager (he if he'd done this ritual on Voyager in the first place instead of doing a shuttle he could have avoided this whole thing!)

Yeah it's a Kazon episode AND a Chakotay episode...but it's quite good!? I mean the Kazon are still not that interesting, but the guy playing Razik does a good job making them menacing. It's a bir jarring at first having Aron Eisenberg playing Kar as he has a very distinct voice, but he's a great actor and by the end you completely forget about Nog. Chakotay is used well here too: it's a bit weird that he's arguing for how great Starfleet is when he's Maquis but I guess he only left Starfleet to fight the Cardies and not because he's turned his back on Federation ideals. Neelix even get a good scene! So honestly this is a perfectly good episode of Star Trek.

SCORE: 8/10


Projections - The Doctor activates in Sickbay and finds the ship badly damages and completely empty. The computer lets him know that all the ship's escape pods have been launched. The Doctor prepares to terminate his program because he's useless now but suddenly Torres breaks into Sickbay. She reports that the Kazon attacked the ship and she needs to send the Doctor to the Bridge to take control back using the new holo emiters that have been set up all over the ship. The Doctor revives the injured Janeway on the Bridge. The Doctor's next trip is to the Mess Hall where Neelix is fighting a Kazon (by throwing fruit and vegetables at him.) The Doctor does some stealth crawling to attack the Kazon with a whisk before Neelix knocks the attacker out with a frying pan. This is a very funny fight scene from one of Trek's best director's Jonathan Frakes! The Doctor is shocked to find that he's bleeding and can feel pain. He scans himself and finds a heartbeat! He asks the computer who the Chief Medical Officer is and the computer replies that it's Lewis Zimmerman. The Doctor realises he IS Zimmerman. He scans Janeway and the others and finds no lifesigns. Janeway orders the computer to shut down all holgraphic programs...and she, Neelix and Torres disappear. Then REG FUCKING BARCLAY shows up and tells the Doctor that the Doc really is Zimmerman, running a program designed to study the psychological impact of isolation in space. Voyager and all its crew are part of that program and a radiation surge has made Zimmer go mad and believe Voyager is real (Reg is projecting a hologram of himself from outside.) Reg slaps him to prove the Doc is real but the Doctor points out he could have been programmed to feel pain. And now he feels hungry. Reg tells him the ony way to get out is to play the program to its conclusion: either Voyager gets home or it's destroyed. And destroying it would be a lot quicker.

The Doctor refuses to destroy the ship as he's not sure Barclay isn't just an alien trying to trick him into killing everyone. To prove none of this is real, Barclay runs the program back to 'Caretaker' when the Doctor was activated for the first time. Paris and Kim are confused by the Doctor knowing things that haven't happened yet. He has fun deleting Paris and Kim. The Doctor goes to Engineering, no longer requiring holo-projectors to get around. The Doc finds he can't delete Janeway and Barclay thinks the program is malfunctioning further and maybe the safeties are off (aren't they always.) Janeway and the rest of the crew are beamed away by the Careaker anyway. The Doctor blows up Voyager's holographic imaging systems to completely prove that he's a real person (he's initially confused that Voyager doesn't disappear but that's because he destroyed the holographic systems within a hologram.) The Doctor is finally convinced to phaser the warp core when Chakotay suddenly appears in Engineering. Chakotay gives an alternative explanation: the Doctor was taking a break on Voyager's Holodeck when something went wrong. Everything that's happened since then, including Barclay, has been a holograpic simulation running on the malfunctioning Holodeck. Barclay argues that Zimmerman is a real person and he has to destroy the simulation to escape. Chakotay explains that for technobabble reasons the Doctor's program will be wiped out if he destroys the simulation. The Doctor has no idea what's real. Kes then appears claiming to be Zimmerman's wife and tells him to believe in himself and believe that he's real. Chakotay tells the Doctor that it doesn't matter that he's not a real person, he's still their friend and they want him back. The Doctor wakes up in Sickbay, telling Kes that he always wanted to tell her she's beautiful. Kes, Kim and Tuvok tell him he's out the Holodeck now. They explain that Barclay was responsible for programming the Doctor's human interactions (so that's why he's so bad at them!) But then Kes starts to get sad that the Doctor doesn't really love him and their marriage is over. Yep it's the "they're still in the Holodeck!" bit and Barclay shows up again to tempt him too. Things go nuts for a while before the Doctor appears back in the Holodeck with Janeway and Chuckles. The Doctor wonders with Kes why it was he experienced a delusion based around a dilemma about his true nature. The Doctor tries to stick his hand out the door but it disappears.

As an episode on its on it's a lot of fun. Robert Picardo is always great to watch and has a lot more material to work with here than in the decent 'Heroes and Demons'. Teaming him up with Dwight Schultz for part of the episode is a smart move too as they are predictably delightful together. And I like the angle at the end where the Doctor realies the whole thing was some kind of existential crisis as his program has evolved beyond its original parameters. BUT the problem is that the episdoe is all so familiar if you've watched TNG's classics '"Future Imperfect' and 'Frame of Mind'. (Did its similarity to those two lead them to pick Frakes as the director?) The whole set-up is just a combination of the two and, while it does make more thematic sense for the Doctor's character to question his own existence than Riker's, I don't think the episode is as good as those two. The ending drags out a bit long: Chakotay's speech is strong but the "they're still in the holodeck!" bit is tacked on and the actual explanation behind the whole thing (the holodeck malfunctioned! Again!) is nowhere near as good as the weird alien kid reveal in 'Future Imperfect'. So I don't know it's very good but I found it annoying how often I was thinking "oh that's the bit in that other episode where that thing happens..."

SCORE: 8.5/10
 
Elogium - Chakotay catches two crewmembers making out in the Turbolift. Neelix is jealous at Kes for talking to Tom again and yells at her for leaving a beetle in some space cabbage. Janeway and Chakotay talk about how the crew will begin to pair off over the course of their journey. Chakotay asks if Janeway will find a partner herself (FORESHADOWING.) Janeway says she wants to get them home before Mark leaves her. Right after that the ship stops to study some space-faring lifeforms. Yeah, that's really going to help them get home quicker. Then Kes eats some beetles. Ensign Samantah Wildman makes her first appearance on the Bridge. Neelix brings flowers to Kes to apologise for being a dick and she wipes bugs off her mouth. She also eats dirt mixed with mashed potatoes so Neelix carries her to Sickbay as she goes nuts. This is bad. The space creatures somehow pull Voyager into their swarm. Neelix follows the Doctor around being annoying as the Doctor tries to find out what's wrong with Kes. The Doctor kicks Neelix out in a good moment. Neelix goes running to Janeway to complain. The Doctor tells Janeway that the swam is what's making Kes act weird and they need to leave it. Kes has a weird growth on her back and has gone all sweaty. She tells Janeway the growth is where her "child" would grow. Janeway compares it to going through puberty which makes Neelix's relationship with Kes EVERN MORE disturbing than it was before. Kes says the process only happens once and if she's to ever have "a child" it has to happen now. As has been pointed out many times over the year this makes no fucking sense because it would mean the Ocampa population would half with every generation. Janeway and Chakotay talk about how it could be necessary for the crew to have children to take over when the originals start dying out. Janeway wonders what it would be like for a child growing up on Voyager. Kes and Neelix talk about the possibility of having a child together. Kes is more into it than Neelix, which is weird since it would mean she'd need to have sex with him. How could anyone be into that? Kes's hands are sticky like Spider-Man's and she wants to stick her hands to Neelix so they can bond for "six days." This is fucking sick.

Neelix asks Tuvok for advice on being a father. Tuvok has four children. Tuvok says he believes only the most commited people should be parents, but also tells Neelix that having children provides rewards that can't be imagined (even though he experiences neither sorrow or joy. Vulcans are confusing.) Neelix is scared when he learns Kes could have a daughter rather than a son (did he not know that was possible before?) Tuvok is pretty good in this scene anyway. Space creatures latch onto Voyager's nacelles. A big creature arrives and shoots Voyager. Torres wants to shoot it back. Chakotay eventually figures out that the creatures are trying to mate with Voyager. I'm fucking sick of all the "space whale/energery being mistakes the ship for something else!" plots. Neelix tells sweaty Kes that he's ready to shag her now. Her feet neex to be massaged by the Doctor until her tongue swells first. Okay. Kes asks the Doctor for advice as she's having second thoughts on becoming a parent. The Doctor talks about other species being driven by the biological urge to have children. Kes says people are more than there biology and she has to ask questions and blah blah blah I know how the episode ends so this is all pointless. The space creatures are damaging Voyager by humping it too hard (actually what really happens is a jealous male shows up and attacks Voyager but I just wanted to type the humping thing.) Tuvok and Torres both want to kill them but Janeway is determined not to hurt them since the creatures are just behaving naturally. Paris does a barrel roll and that somehow solves everything who cares. Tuvok says "it appears we've lost our sex appeal!" and bless him for trying to save this crap. Kes decided not to conceive and has gone back to normal. Neelix is sad because he was actually excited about having a kid. Kes reveals that the Doctor thinks the Elogium was false and she could be able to have a child one day. HOW CONVENIENT AND SHIT. Neelix wants to have a daughter who looks "just like Kes" holy shit he's a monster. Janeway still wonders if it's right to have children on the ship but Wildman comes to her and reveals she's just found out she's pregnant. What? She's just found out? Aren't they like eight months into their journey by now?

Yeah the Kes plot is really bad. And pointless. I've liked Kes up until now, so let's have her go crazy and eat bugs and try to have Spider-Man sex with Neelix! Neelix is really annoying for a lot of the episode. There's a few things that kind of ssave it, like Tuvok in his scene with Neelix. And Janeway and Chakotay talking about turning Voyager into a generational ship is interesting (and will never really be followed up on.) But the plot with the space creatures trying to hump Voyager is terrible too and overall it's a bad episode of badness.

SCORE: 2.5/10
 
Non Sequitur - Harry Kim wakes up in bed with a hot girl back on Earth. It's his girlfriend Libby and Harry tries to figure out what's going on. Is it a Holodeck or something? He soon finds from Libby that Voyager was lost but Harry's friend Danny was on it instead of him. He walks around San Fransisco and meets a coffee shop owner who's known him for the last eight months (that means it's eight months since Voyager left which makes Wildman not knowing she was pregnant until last week even more ridiculous!) Harry's dragged to a meeting at Starfleet HQ by a co-worker where they're presenting plans for a new type of Runabout. Harry of course makes a mess of his presentation as he doesn't know what he's talking about and claims to be ill. Harry goes home and reads Voyager's wikipedia entry. Harry just continues to be confused and Libby isn't much help (or much of an actress.) They have sex. Harry does some research and finds that he's not the only crewman who didn't make it to Voyager in this reality: Tom didn't either. Harry tries to explain things to Libby but she just thinks he's trying to get out of their engagement or that he's gone mad. He heads to France to see Paris (PUN INTENDED) in the real version of the Holodeck bar. Tom gets drunk and plays pool all day in this reality (so he doesn't have it too bad!) He got into a fight with Quark and was locked up by Odo here, and Harry tries to explain about the changed timeline. He wants Tom to come to Starfleet HQ with him but Tom thinks it's just a trick so they can't arrest him or something. Harry says Tom's a drunk loser in this reality and easily blocks a drunken punch.

Back home, Libby's grassed Harry up to Starfleet and they dragged him down to HQ for questioning. Admiral Someone wants to know how Harry has Voyager's security codes. He tells them the truth but they think he's mad or an alien pretending to be Harry (this is the same season as DS9's Homefront/Paradise Lost and I wish they could have worked that in.) Harry is let go at last and the Coffee Shop Owner finds him and admits he's an alien who was sent to watch Harry. Harry crashed his shuttle into one of their timey-wimey things and altered reality somehow. They don't know how Harry caused the accident and don't want him to try to recreate the accident because something might go wrong and he might end up in another reality where everyone's a rapist or something. He wants Harry to just chill out because he's got a nice life here. Harry points out that his friend Danny doesn't have it so good being trapped on Voyager and neither does Tom being trapped in a bar. Coffee Shop Guy gives up really fast and gives Harry a map to their time thing. Libby is sad Harry's trying to change the timeline and does some terrible acting whining about him trying to get away from her. Harry goes on the run as Starfleet Security chase him (Libby closes a window to help him.) He's nearly caught but Tom appears at the right moment to save him (Tom hurts his fist punching the security guy.) Harry beams them into Starfleet HQ with a dodgy transporter. They steal the new runabout and Starfleet chases them as they fly to the timestream. The runabout is badly damaged. Harry does a plasma venting trick to get away from the attacking ship (we never see the other ship.) Harry recreates the conditions of his accident. Tom has to pilot the runabout in a suicide run but is fine because he believes Harry will change the timeline. Harry ends up transported back to Voyager (yep, conveniently he ended up back exactly where he was even though Coffee Shop Guy thought it was too risky.) Harry thanks a confused Paris back on Voyager.

It's one of Braga's weaker scripts at this point (don't worry, he'll write a lot weaker in the years to come!) but it still could have been elevated to the level of a good episode by the performances. Imagine if this was a DS9 episode and it was Colm Meaney in the lead role, or a TNG episode with Levar Burton in the same part...that would be good! Not a classic, but good, possibly very good. Unfortunately Garrett Wang is no Meaney or Burton. He's passable for most of the episode, but it's not a strong performance at all. He didn't really make me feel for Harry. And the actress playing Libby is far worse, making their scenes together quite painful. Thankfully Robert Duncan McNeil is very good as the drunken Tom here and it's actually the best use of Paris since 'Caretaker'. They should have kept him like this for longer. And I do like seeing 24th century Earth again. The story is perfunctory but has some enjoyable alternate timeline stuff. But it's only "okay" rather than ever reaching actually good.

SCORE: 6/10
 
I didn't mind that episode much until I tried to watch it for the third time, and realized how boring it is.
 
Paris was supposed to be this wild Han Solo type, shagging his way through the decks, but with his voyager money he was able to marry his real life girlfreind much earlier than he originally thought, and she demanded he stop kissing other actresses, so that was the end of that.
 
Twisted - It's Kes's second birthday. Neelix says she doesn't look a day over one (...) The Doctor is even there as the bartender in Tom's bar. Harry wants to get out of school early to go to the party, but a weird space thing shows up. Neelix is jealous Tom buys Kes an expensive (in replicator rations currency) locket. Tuvok calls Janeway from the Bridge but his voice goes all weird. The weird space thing cuts the engines and Tuvok sends Harry to find Janeway. Meanwhile the Captain, Chakotay and Paris can't seem to get to the Bridge as the Turbolift brings them to the wrong deck. Neelix acts like an abusive boyfriend by passive agressively questioning Kes. Everyone gets lost trying to get where they're going. This is literally the whole plot of the episode. A Holodeck floozy forces herself on the Doctor. Neelix gaslights Kes when she can't find her quarters and wonders how she remembers where all the male crewmembers live. FUCK OFF NEELIX. Everyone goes back to the Holodeck to figure out what's going on. It's fifteen minutes in and nothing has happened. Harry and Torres think the "distortion ring" is changing the layout of the ship somehow (if it's a ring why don't they just fly above or below it?) Torres and Paris manage to get to Engineering. There's a guy in his pants there. Neelix asks Chakotay for advice on keeping Kes in line.

Tuvok's lost too and finds Chakotay and Neelix. They have the same "I got lost!" conversation that every set of characters have when they meet up. WILL ANYTHING EVER HAPPEN. There's a weird bit where Janeway starts telling Kim how proud she is of him, completely out of nowhere. Janeway sticks her arm in a distortion and it makes her acting bad. She goes blind or something. Chakotay and Tuvok have a mild clash over the best way to proceed and split up. They then walk into each other again because the ship's going crazy. Paris and Torres try to beam to the Bridge but end up in the fucking Holodeck again. Lots of the crew have gone missing, including Neelix (YESSSSSSS.) Deck 6 is going to explode soon, so that should be fun. B'Elanna starts freaking out, Tuvok tries to be logical, Chakotay yells at him. Kim and Torres try to do something but it doesn't work. Janeway says something about a dog because her speech centres are damages. The distortion ring shows up in the Holodeck to kill everyone. Tuvok suggests doing nothing and letting it crush them because there's nothing else to do. Torres and Chakotay are mad at him but Chakotay decides to go with it. He tells Tuvok he finds him arrogant and irritation but he's a Hell of an officer! This episode acts like there's been some Chakotay/Tuvok rivalry from the start but there really hasn't. It still takes forever for the fucking distortion ring to hit them. Chakotay tries to contact his fucking spirit guide. Fuck. The distortion FINALLY passes through them and everyone's fine. Janeway's brain is fixed. Neelix comes back (NOOOOOOOO.) The distortion ring left FORTY SQILLION GIGASQUIDS of information in the ship's database that'll never be mentioned again. Janeway thinks the distortion did all this in an attempt to communicate. Is it over yet.

There's probably been worse episodes of Star Trek (that racist TNG!) but I can't think of one that's been more boring. Literally the whole episode is people walking around the ship getting lost. It's painful. It's pointless. It's bad.

SCORE: 1/10


Parturition - Paris is giving Kes shuttle flying insructions. Neelix is standing outside and looks jealous(!) when they come out laughing. Voyager heads to a planet they've nicknamed "Planet Hell" because it's so horrible but has something they need (I wasn't paying attention.) Harry plays the clarinet for Tom. Paris admits that he's falling for Kes and is sad she isn't available. Harry tries to cheer him up with the clarinet and it's kind of cute! The Doctor admits and he eavesdrops on the crew sometimes to see if he can of help. Torres reports they can't beam down to Planet Hell because of intereference. Why does this always happen on Voyager? Neelix serves up "hair pasta" to Tom and Harry. He angrily stirs pasta as he watches Tom and Kes ignore each other then gets into a fight with Tom where they throw pasta at each other. This is actually pretty funny, especially since Janeway calls them to her Ready Room right after without time to clean themselves up. She wants them to take a shuttle to Planet Hell together. The Doctor tells Kes she should consider it a compliment that two men had a physical fight over her. Kes claims she didn't know Paris was attracted to her but the Doctor noticed the signs. Neelix says the word "technobabble" on screen as he and Paris fly to the planet, still arguing (I'm guessing fans already used the word before this episode...actually, didn't Q say it once?) The shuttle crashes on the planet, because of course it does. Paris and Neelix have to leave the shuttle and head for caves.

Kes cries to Harry because she's said that Neelix and Paris might be dead but also angry at both of them for fighting over her. Paris and Neelix camp out in the cave. They start arguing about Kes again. An alien vessel shows up at the planet and won't talk to Voyager or let them look for the shuttle. Paris and Neelix detect lifesigns and find some alien eggs. A baby lizard alien puppet hatches out of one and it's cheap looking but kind of endearing in its badness. Paris wants to leave the puppet before its mother comes back, but Neelix is worried they blocked the cave when they came inside and the mother might not be able to get back in. They agree to look after the baby together. Neelix wraps it up because it's shivering. Voyager detects a weakness in the ship's shields and manages to disable their weapons. The baby is sick and Neelix and Paris struggle to make it eat. The alien ship beats Voyager to the planet. Neelix wants to give the baby drugs. Paris drips them into its mouth from a hypospray. Neelix apologises to Paris for hitting him with pasta. Paris admits he does have the hots for Kes but he's not the badboy he was back home anymore and would never make a move on her while she's with Neelix. Janeway is ready to beam them up but Neelix and Paris don't want to leave the baby alone in case the mother rejects it. They hide behind some rocks and watch the mother pick up the baby before being beamed back home. Kes is pleasantly surprised to see that Paris and Neelix are friends now.

It's an episode that sounds terrible when you read the description but isn't actually bad. I mean it's not good either but it's watchabled. We really didn't need a whole episode to resolve the stupid love triangle, and it doesn't solve the problem of the Kex/Neelix relationship being creepy, but for what it is the episode is fairly decent. I mean I laughed a couple of times in the first half and the baby puppet, while super lame, is weirdly cute. I think the mild praise I'm giving the episode has to go to director Jonathan Frakes, because he manages to make the Paris/Neelix arguments kind of work rather than just making me want to kill myself like they have before. But again this episode really has no reason to exist, I'm just saying that it's nowhere near as bad as it could have been and is actually fairly watchable at times. OKAY.

SCORE: 5.5/10
 
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