Voyager finds a pretty pink nebula, and decides to fly right in so that Janeway can get the replicators working again and ditch that furry troll Neelix. Okay, I'm being snarky, I'll stop. In fairness, this episode is continuing the theme of limited resources, which is plenty of reason to go somewhere where they might get more fuel. And that somewhere is an interesting nebula that seems to have some order to the chaos inside it - but before we can find out more, the ship makes its exit, so it won't be destroyed. A reasonable move. Meanwhile, Neelix is ranting about how the crew is made of "idiots" and making out with Kes. We won't dwell on that.
What is kind of strange is the intermission in the middle of the episode. We get some good Tom-Harry time, which we haven't really since Caretaker. Paris is a little creepy with Kim at first, but Kim's okay with that, because he reveals he's a little strange too: "I remember being in my mother's womb." Sure, weird, but awkwardly likable, just like we expect of Kim. What's really odd is that, in the middle of an energy shortage, they fire up the holodeck without a second thought.
We also have Chakotay trying to help Janeway find her spirit guide (a lizard). It would have worked better if Janeway hadn't delivered all her lines as if she were given the direction to address a small child in as condescending a manner possible, but we get nice insight into what the Native Americans have been up to since heading into space to set up colonies in the demilitarized zone. Apparently now they use tech gizmos to reach the spirit plane, for which I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I was all ready for a fight to develop over whether or not Chakotay should be able to take his
As abruptly as it came, the intermission is over, and we're back to the nebula. It turns out, it's alive! Which is cool. The crew needs to fix a problem they caused, which is the right and good thing to do. Meanwhile, we have some insufferable Neelix-on-the-bridge-time cancels out some earlier, brilliant silent acting by the Doctor. He can make any scene work by just being a moving picture in the corner of the screen. They generate an interesting technobabble solution which makes enough sense (as far as these things go) to be believeable within the world of trek - but they end up not gaining the energy they'd hoped they would, instead they're down 20%. At this rate, they won't be able to turn on the lights in a week.
The episode ends with Janeway being invited to the holodeck by Kim in a nice enough gesture. She makes everyone a little uncomfortable, but we get a nice "aw-shucks" ending when she throws off her mantle of command for the evening to enjoy some time hustling her crew at pool. Though if it were Neelix who'd conjured up a holographic prostitute who came onto her, I have a feeling he'd be out the airlock by now.
Anyways, the whole senior staff is in the holodeck and no one seems bothered by the energy being wasted. This isn't continuity; it's one thing if they forget all about the energy shortage for the next episode, but this is like 5 minutes later! Maybe I'm reading this scene wrong though. The writers can't have missed the implications of holodeck energy usage. Maybe, with this scene, they're showing us a crew, used to the comforts of the Federation, unable to comprehend not using the holodeck. I could be giving the writers too much credit here, but I actually like this interpretation better. Instead of a smarmy ending, we have a "hollow victory" ending, where the crew is happy and deluded, postponing rude awakenings for later. Like business tycoons throwing an extravagant dinner gala a week after the 1929 stock market crash, thinking that surely this depression thing won't last. Yeah, haunting.
Watchability: 3/5
Bottom Line: While I didn't focus on it much in the review, I did like the Cloud/Nebula/Alien idea a fair bit, and that was really most of the episode. If you can get up and fix a snack during the Neelix scenes, this is quite a decent episode.
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